Chapter Text
March 7th, 2021
Hawkins, Indiana
The sun has set over the woods of Indiana. Not a single star to be seen across the sky, the clouds preventing them from shining. The only light provided blue and red and bright. Blinding, as it rips through the darkness.
It’s seven cars in total. Five of them black and white, shining with an intensity that hurts. Bulletproof and packed to the brim. Except for the last one of them. The backseat is free, secluded from the front by a fence like set of bars. Thin, but effective. It’s not meant to stay empty though. In fact, it’s a reserved seat. And it’s gonna be taken tonight.
The sixth car is a truck. Plain black underneath a thick coat of dirt splattered across the varnish. It’s steered by the roughest of them all. And yet, the only one with a doubt on his mind. The only one that is still going to flinch when they’ll arrive.
The one who’s felt goosebumps along his forearms as the alarm had rung through the radio. As they had been called to their horrible duty. His big hat’s fallen to the floor of the passenger seat. In all the hurry, the status of power doesn’t take priority. At least not to him. The other’s, those below him, will look at him funny. They’ll look him up and down and smirk because he looks disheveled without it. But they won’t dare to point it out.
Because he can be scary.
But right now, he’s scared.
And maybe that is something to be worried about.
The description over the radio had been brief but brutal. Had painted a picture over all their lids, whenever they closed their eyes. The reality would shock them even more. If only they had known before, they’d have chosen to stay away.
The seventh car is a hearse.
+++
February 18th, 2023
South Lawndale, Chicago, Illinois
Steve is staring at the empty plastic cup for a second. He thinks about how much he hates it here. Everything about the place. Green apron, too sweet smell that gives him a headache, bitchy people. And hell, he is bitchy himself, ask Robin. She’d know. But those people? Not a chance.
He composes himself, snaps the cap off the marker and scribbles down betty onto the cup. Spelled correctly. Try make a funny post on whatever social media of that, bitch.
The joys in working fulltime at a mildly undercrowded Starbucks are…modest. At best. And Steve has been stuck here for over a year now. He remembers telling his parents that he would be moving out to the big city, that he was going to make change, and something out of himself. Good thing they don’t care about him enough to visit.
Robin always tells him that he tends to be overly dramatic. But there is no other way to survive the horrors of being an underpaid barista in Chicago.
It takes exactly seventeen minutes and four seconds until his next customer enters. He knows because he counted. After gritting his teeth through yet another “look alive” he goes on his break. Life is slow in here and it doesn’t go any faster outside. It’s cold. No snow, but it feels like there should be.
The cigarette is close to freezing to his fingertips and yes, Robin has told him to pack gloves and above that, she’s told him to quit the damn habit but destroying his lungs really is the only thing that keeps him grounded. It’s already getting dark and it’s not even four. God, how he hates the winter. It’s depressing.
“If I were you, I would literally just burn that whole pack in stay inside”, Nancy says from the inside. “Seriously, wouldn’t now be the perfect time to quit?”
“You spend too much time with Robin”, he mumbles and takes another, extra-long drag. It feels good. Too good and damn, he knows, alright? He knows what that sounds like. He knows that he’s no better than any addict out there.
“You spend too much time whining”, Nancy counters. He gives her the look. It’s patented and she knows. So she leaves him alone.
When he gets home that night, he doesn’t make it to the bed. He flops onto the couch and tries to turn on the TV but – right, it broke a few days ago. He sighs and takes out his phone instead. He swipes his way through several dating apps until he hears the keys turning. He knows that he is too picky, he rarely swipes right. And he swears it’s not because the people of Chicago are ugly. But he is. They don’t deserve having to deal with the mess that he is right now. And he would never openly admit it, not even to Robin, but he’s never felt worse in his life.
Speaking of –
“Evening, good sir” She bows in front of him, then shoves him slightly, to get into her spot next to him.
The apartment isn’t exactly the nicest but it’s affordable. And it’s so full of them. The blankets, that Robin’s crocheted over months. The pictures of them back in high school plastered over the walls. The DVD collection that they can never agree over. And of course, the gigantic plastic ice cone that they stole from the display of their first mutual job.
It's nice sharing a place with your best friend. But only until she starts living and you…you kind of stop for a while.
“How was work?”, she asks, nudging his shoulder.
“Miserable, how was class?”
“Fine, with a capital F. No more, no less.”
He huffs. “Lucky you.”
She cocks her eyebrow. “Hey, what’s going on with you again?”
“Don’t ask.”
“But it’s kind of my business if I gotta keep up with this all night”, she teases. Steve feels like he’s going to cry. He’s aware that she’s joking. He is. But he doesn’t even wanna keep up with himself tonight. Why would she have to. He swallows and presses out a grin.
“I’m hungry, I’m cold and I gotta pee.”
“Well, I’ve got a solution for two of those things.” She gets up. “I brought Indian, hope that’s okay. I know Saturday is Taco night but they’re renovating the place.”
God, he loves her.
“Come on, go take a piss, I’ll reheat the shit.”
Later they lay in her bed, listening to the classical radio station, and Robin tells him about her day. He’s asked so he doesn’t have to talk about his own. It’s silly, it wasn’t even that bad, but he feels like he’s going to break if he revisits it.
“You know – “, Robin starts, interrupting her prior sentence. “Nancy says she’s worried about you.”
Steve lifts his head. “What?”
“Should I be too?”, she asks.
“No?”
“I mean this in the nicest way, but you stink.”
“I just showered, fuck off”, he mutters.
“Of smoke, dingus! You were so close to quitting, what is going on? Did something happen?”
He considers his options. Then he rolls onto his back and stares at the fluorescent stars that Robin’s glued to the ceiling, no mind paid to their security deposit.
“Didn’t swipe right once today”, he mumbles. She quickly turns her head to him like a broken robot and he would’ve laughed about it if he wasn’t so desperately fighting back his tears. He is pathetic. And most of these days he doesn’t even know why she keeps dealing with him.
“So?”
He shrugs. “They’re all so much better than me, Robs”, he whispers, watching her eyes widen.
“Are you kidding me, Steve?” He shrugs again. “Who the fuck is better than you, who said that? I want names!”
“I did.”
“Well, you’re wrong. Why would you think that?”
“They’re just prettier. They have real jobs. Passions. Friends.”
“You have friends.”
He sits up abruptly. “No! I don’t. You are the only thing I have here. And you have all your college friends and the guys from the record store and Taco Toby and like every restaurant owner and homeless guy in the area and I’m always just like your baggage that you drag behind and I’m too heavy for you, I’m annoying to have around, I know that. But I can’t make friends at that stupid coffee shop, who am I gonna grow close with? Huh?”
“Your colleagues?”
“They all suck, and you know it.”
She looks at him with this look that is trying to hide the pity but is failing miserably. “You know that you don’t have to keep working there, right? No one forces you, what holds you back there?”
“Rent, Robs, rent.”
“You can pay rent by working somewhere else. Come on, tell me what you wanna do.”
He throws his hands up in the air. “That’s the thing. I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. I work and I come here and I swipe and I stare into the Tv until I fall asleep and then I eat, I talk to you to not go insane and then I think a little bit about how I am a lonely fuck and a burden to be around cause I’m walking on the line between regular displeasure and depression and I can’t keep doing that forever and I don’t want to but I don’t know how to change it. That’s what’s going on.”
He gets off the bed and grabs his jacket.
“What, where are you going?”
“For a smoke. And then I’m going to bed. Good night.”
+++
He calls out of work the next morning. For the first time in all the thirteen months he’s been living in Chicago.
It’s Robin’s day off as well. She should’ve worked on one of her five final projects. But she doesn’t. Instead, she walks up to him and pulls off his blankets. The room is freezing around him, like the sudden hug of a snow man. He curls in on himself. “Leave me alone”, he says.
Robin huffs. “Get out.”
“What?”
“Get up, get dressed, get out of this room, meet me on the couch.” She leaves. Steve can hear her rummaging in the kitchen. He sighs, then rolls off the mattress onto the floor with an uncomfortable thump. He pulls over a yellow sweatshirt and a pair of stained blue jeans. He doesn’t bother to look in mirror. Robin has seen him in a stripey sailor suit. Nothing is gonna top that. Not even flat and greasy hair.
When he enters the living room, Robin isn’t there yet. Like reflexive he reaches for the remote, being yet again remembered that the Tv is broken. He slumps over the back of the couch and sighs, closing his eyes and only opening them again, when a shadow casts itself over him.
Robin takes a seat and holds out her laptop. That’s weird. Usually that thing is like a sacred relict, and nobody is allowed to even go near it. Not even Steve. Sometimes he wonders if she’s storing illegal porn on it. Maybe black-marketing rifles to support him financially. But what’s shown the display right now is even weirder.
“I’ve thought about this for a while now…Well, the whole night at least. And if you think nobody deserves you because you’re such a burden and so horrible to be around – fine, go work with that then. It does break my heart and if you really feel that way, we’ll need a bottle of white wine and our balcony soon, but for now I thought that this could maybe be a solution for you to be less lonely.” She dares a shaky smile and Steve squints his eyes to decipher the blurry words on the screen.
Text and inmate, make a friend.
“What is this?”, he asks.
Robin has the audacity to shrug. “It’s a program that’s supposed to re - socialize prison inmates and give them the possibility to keep contact to people outside of the fences. Could be interesting, no?”
“What the fuck, I’m not gonna write love letters to a fucking prisoner.”
“You say that everyone is too perfect for you”, Robin huffs and crosses her arms in front of her stomach. “These guys are anything but perfect, they’ve made mistakes that led them to court and locked them away for good.” She smirks. “If you’d still feel inferior to whoever you’d be texting, that would be on you. But I think the risk of that is pretty low, don’t you think?”
“I don’t want to text a criminal, Robs!” Steve shakes his head and seemingly can’t stop. “That could be dangerous.”
“What? How? You don’t know how long they’re gonna be in there. Might as well enlighten their days a little. I know you can be charming.” She pokes him in the side. He slaps her hand away, rolling his eyes.
“Ever thought that they might be in there for a reason? Murderers? Robbers? Ugh, rapists? I swear to God, I cannot write to a rapist!”
“You can make requests, Steve, relax. Just read the article on the website, please?” She pushes the laptop into his hands. He opens it further and increases the screen brightness.
The White Flag, it reads in bold letters. He scrolls a little further. A peace offering, a second chance. Sign up today and write your first letter.
Steve’s eyes follow the big blue arrow that points to a link. “I don’t know, Robin”, he sighs. “This is, like, super weird, don’t you think?”
“Think about it”, she says. “Please?” She gives him the biggest possible eyes she can muster. “And also give me back my laptop, it’s been long enough. I’ll send you the link.”