Chapter Text
Saturday, March 24, 1984.
The Wheeler's red station wagon pulled up into the parking lot of Hawkins High. It was seven am on a Saturday, the sun barely peeked between the branches of the trees. Aside from their car, and a lone Ford in the front, the lot was empty.
Nancy didn’t make any effort to get out of the car. She turned in her seat, she still sort of believed she wouldn’t have to go in. "Mom, are you sure I have to go? I learned my lesson, I swear."
Karen Wheeler sighed, and Nancy understood that she didn't really have a chance. None of her debate team tactics had worked with her mother. "You do something wrong, you go to detention. It's that simple." Karen told her, again. “And honestly, Nancy, they’re letting you off easy.”
"But-"
"I'll pick you up at four. Get out of the car." Nancy reluctantly opened her door, and stepped out of the car, squinting against the sun. She slammed the door shut, and her mom drove off, leaving her alone at the school.
She didn't deserve to be here, she didn't do anything that bad. Kids did worse shit all the time, and none of them got nine hour detentions. She climbed up the steps to the school, and saw a Volkswagen pull up in the parking lot. Shit, detention was bad enough. Having to be here with some screw up or stoner? She didn't think she could handle it. Nancy pulled open the double doors of the school and braced herself for the next nine hours.
...
"Birdie, go on in." A gruff, middle aged man opened the door of the Volkswagen for his daughter. "It won't be too bad, just keep your mouth shut and do whatever it is they tell you to do."
Robin Buckley wasn't really paying attention, too busy fiddling with the threads of her flannel. Her dad sighs. "Just, don't talk too much. You've been working on that, right?"
Robin nodded. She'd been working with a speech therapist for the past year because apparently she couldn't shut up. Her parents had always told her that it was a flaw, her mother reminded her daily. She couldn't talk without all the words pouring out, once she started she couldn't stop, and that did nothing but annoy people. That's why she didn't have any friends her mother said, that's why she wasn't getting a boyfriend. Robin didn't necessarily want a boyfriend but she couldn't exactly tell her mother that.
Thomas Buckley sighed. "I can't pick you up, so just walk home whenever you're done." and Robin stepped out of the car with a nod. She grabbed her tote bag and shut the door to the car. Her dad drove away. Robin stood there for a minute, staring at the school, vaguely wondering who else would be there.
...
Eddie Munson shoved a piece of toast in his mouth, picking up his lunch box from the table. He gave his uncle's shoulder a squeeze. "See ya later, old man."
"Where are you off too?" Wayne asked, swallowing his bite of cereal. Eddie shrugged. "Detention again? Really?" He wasn't surprised. Eddie'd had a rough going. They didn't have much money, they didn't have much of anything. He knew the kid sold drugs, it wasn't much of a secret, and Wayne didn't like it, but the money helped. He hated that the money helped. Wayne wanted a better life for the kid, he really did, but this was all he could provide.
Eddie wound up in detention every other weekend, for one reason or another. He didn't mind, not really, he didn't have much to do either way. Just another weekend detention, he'd be home at five, heat up a microwave burrito, and wait for Wayne to get home from the garage. It was just routine, and it was fine. As long as they had each other, they were fine.
Eddie grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge, and with the creak of the door, he was off. It was just another Saturday at detention. Maybe if he got lucky he'd find a guy or two looking to buy.
...
Steve Harrington turned into the parking lot. This wasn't his first detention, but it was his first detention on a Saturday. God, he could still hear his dad's voice, yelling through the phone. "You're disappointing me, Steven. I give you so much and this is what you do with it!" His dad wasn't home, he was never home. But the school called Gabriel Harrington in Boston, or London, or wherever the hell his latest business conference had taken him, and he could find the time in his busy schedule to yell at his son. His dad never had the time to call him in April, on his birthday, but he had enough time to tell him off for screwing up.
With a sigh, Steve ran his hands through his hair, checking his reflection in the rear view mirror. It didn't matter what he looked like, if anyone else was there, it'd just be some other fuck up. He was a just a fuck up in the making, he knew that, everyone knew that. He'd peak in high school, and then maybe work for his dad. He'd never get out of this shit hole of a town. Which was fine, he didn't have the ambition to want anything else.
He shifted the car into park, turned off the engine, and got out. He kinda hoped someone else would be here. There wasn't much of a difference between an empty school and his empty house.
...
"I love you, okay?" Joyce Byers ruffled her son's hair. They're sitting in the front of Joyce's beat up old car in the high school parking lot. Jonathan pulled himself away from his mom's touch.
"Mom, cut it out!" She smiled affectionately at him, and he laughed.
She squeezed his knee. "Have a good time, alright? You'll be okay, detention isn't too bad, just a little boring. Just meet me at the store after, okay?" Jonathan nodded, and Joyce handed him his backpack. He opened the door to the car and stepped out. "Love you!"
"Love you too." Jonathan muttered, and she smiled.
Jonathan didn’t mind it too much, detention. It couldn't be too bad, just nine hours of sitting in silence, not too different from his school life. Today the timing was just slightly inconvenient. He had the opening shift at work this morning, four thirty to seven, and now he was a half an hour late to detention. Joyce would be late too now, to work, because she insisted on dropping him off, even though he said he could walk. That's just how she was.
Joyce waited for him to get in the school before driving away.
..
"You're late." Mr. Vernon announced, as Jonathan Byers walked into the room. There were four other people in the room, already sitting at their desks. Eddie Munson, in his signature Hellfire shirt had his feet kicked up, a Coke can resting precariously on the edge of his desk. In the seat in front of him, Nancy Wheeler was tapping her pen on her notebook, impatient. Steve Harrington's desk was beside Nancy's, and he had his head in his hands, looking down. Robin Buckley was sitting on a desk, not the chair, the desk itself, in the corner of the room, her legs crossed, eyes fixated on the clock. Jonathan ducked his head and mumbled out an apology as he slipped into a chair near the back of the room.
"You have exactly 9 hours to think about why you are here - to ponder the error of your ways. You will not talk… you will not move… from these seats." Mr. Vernon wagged his finger at Eddie. "And you… will not sleep."
"All right people, we’re going to try something a little different today." Vernon continued, clapping his hands together. "We are going to write… an essay… of not less than a thousand words… describing to me who you think you are. And when I say essay, I mean essay, not one word repeated a thousand times. Is that clear, Mr. Munson?"
"Crystal."
"Good. You might learn a thing or two about yourself. You might even decide whether or not you’d care to return." He looked around the room, trying to make it clear, this is a threat. "Your time starts now, it's seven thirty two. I will release you exactly nine hours from now."
"What? At four thirty?" Nancy protested, glaring daggers at their teacher. "We were told seven to four."
Mr. Vernon sardonically smiled down at her. "Well, you have your good friend Mr. Byers to thank for that. I'll be at my office, right down the hall. Let me tell you now, any monkey business - " He looks pointedly at Eddie " - will be ill advised." With that, he left the room.
Steve shook his head. ”Really, Byers?”
Jonathan looked down at his desk. He didn’t like any of these people very much, so he didn’t really care if being late messed up their schedules. He just didn’t want to be the focus of their attention.
“What is it to you, King Steve? Got somewhere important to be?” Eddie asked, mockingly, kicking his feet off his desk to lean in closer to the boy in question. “Are we lowly miscreants so unworthy of your precious time?”
Steve felt heat rise on his neck, Eddie was so close, he felt flustered. “Just… shut up, man.” Eddie sunk back into his chair, and Steve shook his head. What the hell was that?
“The King hath spoken!” Eddie declared dramatically, because of course he could never take anything seriously.
Nancy turned around in her chair to glare at them. “Both of you shut up or I will make you.”
Steve raised his hands, he didn’t see how he was in the wrong. “That’s what I said, I told him to shut up-“
”Oh if you insist, Lady Wheeler.” Nancy returned to scribbling furiously on her paper, and Eddie had no doubt that her essay would easily surpass the thousand word minimum. He wasn’t going to bother writing his, it didn’t matter. Instead he started scribbling down ideas for a new Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
The room fell silent for a bit, but not a good, comfortable, silence, an awkward, impatient, sort of silence that could only last so long before someone broke it. It was a little before eight when the silence was broken by the crack and fizz of Eddie opening his Coke.
“Fuck. “ Eddie muttered, as the coke sprayed over the sides of his can. He tried to lick it up, but it was futile, and the can sprayed everywhere.
”What the hell, man?” Steve demanded, as the coke sprayed his sweater. “Did you like, shake it up, or something?”
Eddie frowned at him. “I didn’t shake it up, or something. The soda probably just got shaken up when I biked here. Now this may sound strange to you, but not all of us have the luxury of driving around in Daddy’s newest Mustang.”
Robin snorted and Steve turned away from Eddie. “Whatever, man.”
The room slipped back into silence. Mostly. Eddie slurped loudly at his soda, and Robin tapped at the desk with her pencil, but other than that, it was quiet.
Steve got bored easily, at his big empty house with nothing to do. Usually he just left, found himself a date, saw a movie, or drove around aimlessly, listening to Tears for Fears. Here, he had nothing to do.
When he first started humming, you could barely hear it. Steve’s humming grew louder, and he started moving his head to the beat. From her corner of the room, Robin slowly joined in, humming along with Steve and tapping her pencil to the beat. Neither of them looked at each other, neither of them acknowledged it. Nancy joined in a bit later, humming lightly as she continued writing. Eddie joined in as they approached the chorus, drumming his fingers on the top of his Coke can. Once everyone else was humming, Jonathan joined in, so quietly that you’d barely notice. Eddie and Robin turned to look at him, and he ducked his head and looked away.
By the time they reached the chorus, Robin’s humming had turned into a mumbled singing, and Eddie took this in stride and joined her.
”It’s going to take a lot to drag me away from you,”
Steve joined in, enthusiastically off key, and it worried Eddie that he found it kind of adorable.
”There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do,”
Nancy was singing by now too, and her singing was softer, but it was there. Robin risked a glance at her, and she got a smile in return.
“I bless the rains down in Africa.”
They’d all forgotten about Vernon’s strict no talking rule. Or maybe they didn’t care. They didn’t necessarily like each other, but none of them really minded the company as much as they used to.
”It’s gonna take some time to do the things we never had.”
Jonathan was singing too, his lips moving almost imperceptibly in a quiet, whispered song.
Their “oooh” was cut short by footsteps. They all looked back down at their desks, as Richard Vernon stepped into the room.
“What the hell was that?” He demanded. No one answered, suddenly all of them were very focused on their papers. “Huh? Answer me!”
Eddie raised his hand, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. “Sir, how are we supposed to answer you if we can’t talk?”
“That’s it! I’ll be seeing you again next Saturday, Munson.” Eddie shrugged. He didn’t care.
”It’s a date.”
Vernons’ face went red. “And the Saturday after that. You want more? I can keep going. You could be stuck here with me, every weekend, for the rest of your life.” He leaned in closer to Eddie's desk, breathing heavily.
”Oh, we wouldn’t want that.”
”Tell you what, I’ll let you off, Munson, if you tell me what that goddamned racket I was hearing was.”
Eddie shrugged again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
”Will no one answer me? Byers?” Jonathan didn’t speak.
Steve looked up. "He doesn't talk, sir."
"I'll make him talk. Byers." Vernon clapped in Jonathan's face, and he flinched. "So you're not deaf, huh? Why don't you say anything?" He stalked away, and Jonathan breathed out a sigh of relief. Vernon scanned the room, looking pointedly at all of them. “I’ll send you all back here next week, don’t mess with me.”
Eddie looked up at their teacher, doe eyed, but devilish. ”Are you sure there was a racket, sir? I didn’t hear anything, did you, Harrington?”
“I didn't hear any sort of racket, Munson.”
Robin glanced up. "Could you define the racket for us, sir?"
Mr. Vernon was fuming. He kind of hummed the chorus of Africa, then cut himself off. "Forget it!"
”You must be hearing things, Mr. Vernon.” Nancy offered, tilting her head as a show of faux concern. "You should get that checked out."
Mr. Vernon surveyed the room, but their faces were all blank, innocent. “There better be no more monkey business. This is your last warning.”
Having made his threat clear, Vernon left, leaving the room silent once more. Steve glanced around the room, and Nancy had resumed her writing. Jonathan’s head had fallen into his hands, he might have been asleep. Robin was absently twisting her rings around her fingers, looking bored. Eddie - well Eddie caught his gaze and winked, he actually winked. Steve blushed and looked down at his desk. This was Eddie “the Freak” Munson. Why was he having this effect on him? His shameless personality, the slight flirting, Steve didn’t know why it was bothering him so much. Two can play at that game.
Steve looked back up, and Eddie was still looking at him. “Am I that pretty, Munson? Just can’t take your eyes off me, can you?” This time Eddie looked flustered, he mumbled something and turned his attention back to his paper. Victory.
Robin snorted, and held up her hand. Steve leaned over and slapped it. “You’re such a dingus.” she told him, but there was no malice behind her words. He just grinned at her.
Nothing happened for a couple minutes, until a paper airplane hit Steve on the forehead. What the hell? He turned around and Eddie wiggled his fingers in a wave. He had that same shit-eating grin on his face that Steve had already seen too many times today. Eddie made a gesture with his hands, and pointed at the paper airplane. Steve must have looked confused because Eddie started mouthing words to him. Unfold it, Eddie was telling him.
Steve picked up the paper airplane and pointed to it. This?, he mouthed. Eddie rolled his eyes and nodded. Steve slowly unfolded the paper, to see a heart with a note scrawled next to it in sloppy handwriting. Hey there, pretty boy. Steve felt himself blushing again, and fuck, what was Eddie Munson doing to him?
Robin was leaning over his shoulder to read the note. He looked up at her and she wiggled her eyebrows, suggestively. Just when he thought they were friends. Steve glared at her, but there was no real anger behind it, and he pulled the paper closer to his chest so she can’t see it. He wrote a note of his own, folded it up, and tossed it back at Eddie.
Eddie unfolded the paper airplane as it’s sent back to him, and reads what Steve had written. You know, you’re pretty, Munson. And, holy shit, Steve drew a fucking winky face. What the hell? He was flirting with Steve because he was bored, and Steve was straight at any rate, it was fun to see him get flustered. So why, oh, why the hell was Steve flirting back? Eddie tried to hide his blush as he started scrawling out a new note, then erasing it. He was trying to figure out what to say that would make Steve blush, but wasn't too forward that he'd end up getting socked in the face.
“Uh, is there an F?” Robin and Steve had moved on, and were now playing Hangman in Robin’s notebook. “Oh, I got it! Friday the Thirteenth!” Steve whispered, excitedly.
“Like, not even close.”
They laughed. “Sorry, I can’t spell for shit. Oh, oh, wait. It’s Fast Times!”.
Robin high fived him. “Nice!”
“I love that movie.”
“Me too.”
The paper airplane flew back, landing on Robin’s notebook. She started unfolding it, despite Steve’s protests. Not as pretty as you, babe. Steve felt his face heat up at the note and Robin smirked at him. “So, you’re flirting with Eddie Munson now?”
“It’s not.. it’s not like that.” Steve stammered, why was he so affected by this? “We’re just joking around.”
Robin shook her head, “Dingus, this looks an awful lot like flirting.” She waved the paper in his face. “Pretty boy? Babe?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Steve snatched the paper back. He flattened it out, scribbled out a reply and sent it flying back to Eddie.
“If you say so.”
Agree to disagree. Eddie shook his head. What was he doing? He’d always had a small crush on Steve Harrington, in the same way that people crushed on celebrities, he hadn’t expected anything to happen. Now here he was, tossing a paper airplane back and forth, and jokingly flirting with his straight crush. What the fuck was he doing? He was just getting his hopes up, for no reason. It’d just make it that much worse when Steve got his next girlfriend. Whatever. No one was stopping him from having fun, he figured, and even though it was a bad idea, he wrote out his reply.
"Um... Rocky Horror?" Robin guessed. "Wait, that's not right, nevermind."
Steve drew a leg on the stick figure. "I haven't seen that one actually, is it good?"
"I mean, yeah but it's not really your type of movie. I don't think you'd like it very much, it's like a musical? Kind of?" Robin was flustered by the question, trying to stop herself before she could scare Steve off with her rambling.
Steve blinked. "I like musicals."
Robin smiled, ruefully. "I don't think you'd like this one."
A paper airplane came flying between them, and that weird, unexplained tension dissolved. Steve unfolded the airplane, Robin still peering over his shoulder. Harrington, are you trying to seduce me? Robin snorted, and Steve's face was red, again. "That's a good movie too." she commented.
"Hm?"
"The Graduate." Robin clarified.
Steve shrugged. "Don't think I've seen it." He tapped his pencil on the paper, trying to come up with a reply.
Robin looked up at him, aghast. "You haven't seen the Graduate? It's a classic." Steve isn't really paying much attention to her. "Of course you're the type to just watch whatever's mainstream. You probably just watch movies if they have Molly Ringwald or Tom Cruise. Oh, it's Risky Business, isn't it?"
Steve looked up at her. "What?"
"The hangman. It's Risky Business." Robin repeated.
"Oh, uh, yeah." Steve nodded, clearly preoccupied.
Robin sighed. "You're such an uncultured dingus. You know what, I'm going to make you watch the Graduate. We'll have a movie night, we'll watch all the good movies your thick skull has missed out on."
Steve still wasn't paying her much attention, writing then erasing notes to Eddie. "Sure."
"Hey, Steve?" Robin asked, softly.
"Yeah?"
There's a beat. Robin didn't quite know how to ask. "We're friends, right?"
Steve looked up at her. "Yeah, for sure." He meant it, Robin thought, but there was still a little part of her that didn't believe him. Come Monday, he probably wouldn't spare her a second glance. He'd just go back to hanging out with his asshole basketball friends, as if none of this mattered. Robin knew this probably meant more to her than it did to him. He had friends. She didn't.
A carefully folded paper airplane flew back across the room, knocking over Eddie's Coke. The soda spilled over, drenching the plane and the notebook on the desk. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking shit." Eddie muttered, picking up the Coke can and tossing it in the trash.
Steve got up and went over to Eddie's desk. "Ah, shit dude, I'm sorry." Eddie walked over with a stack of paper towels, mopping up the mess.
"Nah, man. Don't worry about it." Eddie shrugged off his apology, and Steve took a few of the paper towels, trying to help out. Eddie picked up his notebook, his plans for his DnD campaign were completely soaked, so he tried to shake it off. Whatever, he'd rewrite them later. His hand brushed Steve's as they wiped the soda off the desk. Eddie tried not to blush as he jerked his hand away. Shit, why couldn't Steve just be an asshole? That would make things so much easier.
Together they managed to clean up most of the soda, but not before Steve apologized a few more times. He saw the notebook soaked through, and the barely legible words, Dungeons and Dragons. Wasn't that that nerd shit Henderson played? Steve made a mental note to ask about it later as he retreated back to his desk.
No one could exactly tell you when they all fell asleep. Steve drifted off at some point, his head resting in his elbow. Robin had her eyes closed, leaning against the wall, still sitting atop the desk. Nancy had fallen asleep on her notebook, pen in hand, despite having finished her essay. Eddie was stretched out between two chairs, and had his leather jacket rolled into a sort of pillow. Jonathan's hands were hiding his face, and he'd probably been sleeping the whole time.
"Wake up!" They jolted awake as one, blinking their eyes to adjust to the lights. "Who has to go to the lavatory?"
They all raised their hands.
It was ten fifteen when Steve leaned over his desk, whispering to Nancy. "Big party at Mark's after this. His parents are gone, in Europe or something. You should come."
Nancy rolled her eyes. "You're an idiot, Steve Harrington."
"What? You don't have to go, I was just offering."
With a light smile dancing on her lips, Nancy shook her head. "Steve, I'm grounded. I got detention, remember? There is no way my mom is letting me go anywhere tonight, as fun as it sounds to get drunk and watch your friends make out."
Steve shrugged. "You could sneak out, it's not like you haven't before."
"Steve." Nancy looked pointedly at him. Just drop it, already. "Remember what happened last time?"
Oh. Steve slapped his palm to his face. "Shit, I'm so stupid, sorry Nance. I completely forgot. No, of course you don't have to go, god, how insensitive was that?"
"Just a little." Nancy smiled, but she wasn't mad. Everything that happened that night affected her a lot worse than it affected him. She used to say it was that night that led to their break up, but she knew it wouldn't have worked out either way. They're better off as friends, they both knew that. "So you're not grounded, then?"
A sad smile flitted across Steve's face as he shook his head. "Nah, it's pretty hard for my dad to ground me when he's never home." He let out a laugh, but he didn't find it funny. "He called me to tell me off for getting detention, but that's about all I've heard from him in the past few months."
Nancy put her hand on Steve's arm, sympathetically. She shuddered. She knew how rough his home life was, and she'd only met his dad once but that was an experience she did not want to have again. "I don't think my dad has left his chair in weeks. They don't talk about it, but they're not even sleeping in the same bed anymore. I honestly think it'd be better for everyone if they just divorced, but that's not happening anytime soon. They're too caught up in having the perfect suburban family life they don't notice much else anymore."
Steve nodded. He kind of understood. His parents didn't really love each other much either. His mom used to stay back with him when his dad went on business trips. Then she got cheated on one too many times, so now she went with his dad. He didn't know why she didn't leave. Maybe she stayed for the money. Maybe it was to maintain the reputation. Or some mix of both. It sure as hell wasn't because of Steve. When it came to Steve, his parents never really gave a shit.
"Yeah, my parents couldn't care less when it comes to me, for the most part." Robin piped up, and Steve and Nancy turned to look at her. "Sorry, didn't mean to eavesdrop, it's just you're the only ones talking, so it was kind of hard not to?"
"It's fine, Rob." Steve reassured her.
Robin nodded, but she wasn't so sure it was. She was probably just annoying them. "My mom wants me to be someone else. She thinks I talk too much, because I go off on tangents and can't seem to stop. It's like a runaway train, I lose control and just keep talking and talking- " She cut herself short. "- and I'm doing it again. I've been seeing a speech therapist for a bit now, Mom thinks I annoy people too much, and it pushes them away. She says that's why I've never had any friends. Or a boyfriend, not that I want one, she just thinks I should have one. I'm sorry, am I annoying you?"
Steve and Nancy both shook their heads. "No, you're fine, Robin. You don't annoy me." Nancy smiled.
"Yeah, Rob, it's totally fine. Your mom's wrong, you know, about the rambling. I don't mind it." Steve offered, and she thought, hoped, he was being genuine.
Nancy nodded. "It's kind of endearing, actually." Endearing. Nancy Wheeler thought she was endearing. Robin's heart was trying to jump out of her chest, and give itself to Nancy, like here is all my love, it's yours if you want it. Robin shook her head, that was dumb, she barely knew her. Nancy offered her a small smile, and she was so pretty. Robin smiled back and looked down, away from Nancy, because she was worried if she stared any longer she might do something stupid.
"My dad left." They all turned to look at Jonathan, who had spoken for the first time since they got here. "He was kind of shitty, so it's okay, I guess. But we don't have much, y'know? My mom's making minimum wage, and I'm working too, but it's just not enough sometimes." Jonathan looked away from them. He wasn't exactly sure why he spoke, they didn't care.
Eddie let out a laugh. Jonathan looked at him, a little offended, but if he was being honest, not surprised. "I wouldn't expect you to understand." Jonathan mumbled, turning away.
With a shake of his head, Eddie laughed again. "Believe me, Byers. I understand." he scoffed. "My old man left me too, little after my ma passed. My uncle took me in when I was seven, we've been living in that shitty trailer park ever since. If anyone knows what it's like to survive off of microwaved burritos and canned vegetables, it's me."
Jonathan looked back up at Eddie, and smiled a little sadly. They didn't talk about it anymore.