Steve Harrington is a (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} stealthyninja) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} somerealityrpg,@ 2020-06-19 14:56:00 |
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| Entry tags: | active: steve harrington, active: tandy bowen |
Tandy
Steve
What: Early Morning Run in
Where: utside the Villas
When: Saturday Morning
Warnings: Nah
Status: Closed, Complete
The weekend was here and Tandy had been looking forward to sleeping in; sadly, her mind had said otherwise, and instead she had headed out to grab some breakfast. Now back at the villa, she had opted against going inside and had instead just sat on the steps in front, off to one side so she wouldn’t be seen or tripped over, with a to-go cup of coffee beside her and a bag on her lap. As she reached into it to pull out a danish, Tandy’s other hand casually scrolled through the music playlists on her phone until she finally picked one and tapped on it.
A moment later, she was sitting with her head against the wall, nibbling on a cheese danish as she listened to the song that came up, her dark brown eyes staring idly out at the street without really paying a lot of attention. It was early enough to still be a little quiet out, and Tandy found herself hoping that something exciting might actually happen this weekend - though not on the level of excitement of Roman coliseums or mazes full of bad guys, of course.
Steve hadn’t been sleeping well. How could he? He was in a strange place. Fake New York, or whatever it was. He didn’t even know what to think about that. He’d barely been out of Hawkins, only for an occasional family vacation when he was kid.
He forced himself to stay in bed until daylight, but once the sun came up, he gave up all hope of going back to sleep. He headed out, needing the fresh air or a change of scenery or something. He stopped short when he saw Tandy sitting on the steps leading out of the villa.
“Are you always up this early?” he asked her, moving to stand a few steps below her so he wasn’t completely towering over her.
Blinking out of her reverie, Tandy swallowed the bite in her mouth before looking over at the voice. When she spotted Steve, she gave him a faint smile while inwardly wondering how anyone’s hair could be that perfect this early in the morning.
“Not even close. I just happened to wake up early and decided to grab something to eat before they sold out.” Holding up the danish, she lifted one eyebrow questioningly.
“Want a piece?”
“Sure. If you don’t mind.” Steve sat down beside her, because why not? Standing while she was sitting and they were sharing food seemed utterly ridiculous. So he sat, moving a step lower, and moving in a bit so he was out of the main area of the steps. Even though it was early, people would still be coming and going.
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” he told her. He wasn’t looking for any kind of pity. He wasn’t that kind of guy. It was more an explanation as to why he was out and about. “And I just needed to get out of the apartment. Thanks for this, by the way,” he said, taking a bit of the danish. “Oh my god. It’s really good.”
“Still trying to adjust to this place, or missing people?” She asked it curiously as he took the bite, then grinned and reached out to grab her pastry before he could eat too much of it. “Coffee shop a couple blocks away. They usually only have them for the first couple hours, and I just managed to snag one today. And you’re welcome.”
Tandy could understand not sleeping well there and needing to get out and about. After all, she herself often spent hours out of the villas herself most nights. “You mentioned Hawkins is a lot quieter than New York.”
Hawkins was, on average, quieter than New York. As longas Demigorgons and Mindflayers weren’t prowling around town. The worst had been the invasion of the Demidogs, but Steve didn’t like to think about that. Or the kids. The kids that he missed more than he cared to admit.
“It is. When weird shit isn’t happening.” He licked the sweetness off his fingers, then leaned his head back. “I miss my friends, yeah. But.” He shrugged. “I just. I don’t know. I don’t belong here. I should be back in Hawkins. Especially since Hopper’s gone, El and Will left town. There’s not many left to protect the people there.”
Tandy took another bite of her breakfast and washed it down with a sip of coffee while tilting her head. She’d known Steve a little when he’d been in Goodland almost a year earlier, but she hadn’t had the chance to talk to him very much - not like now, anyway.
“Protect them from what? What kind of weird shit did you have there?” What little bit he had told her about his hometown, she wondered what could possibly be going on there.
“You’ll think I’m insane,” Steve sighed. He knew the things that happened in Hawkins didn’t happen in other places. He knew it would sound crazy to someone who hadn’t been there, and hadn’t been hunted by those terrible things that came out of that lab in from the Upside Down.
“The Russians had a secret lab under the local mall,” he decided to start there. That might sound absurd, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that would make the plot of a cult classic sci fi film. Not until you realised the Russians were trying to open a doorway to another world.
“Try me,” Tandy said in reply as she studied his profile. Honestly, she was pretty curious, and it wasn’t like either of them had anything else to do.
“....Huh.” Okay, that wasn’t quite what she’d expected. After one more bite off the pastry herself, she offered him the rest, then leaned back with one elbow on a step as she picked up her coffee again. “You’ve definitely got my interest. Go on.”
Steve took the last bite without comment. She offered, he didn’t want to seem uninterested. So he took it and swallowed it. It was a really good danish. Damn, he wished he had a coffee.
“Somehow, I ended up down there with Robin, Dustin, and Erica. The Russians caught me and Robin, but the kids got away. The drugged us and tortured us for information, but we didn’t know anything. We were just...stupid kids who ended up putting our nose where it didn’t belong. The Russians were trying to open a doorway to The Upside Down.”
Tandy assumed those were his friends, but then decided it didn’t really matter as he went on. Her brow furrowed when he talked about being drugged and tortured, because she’d been in that situation herself, and got it. “How are you doing now? With all that?”
Frowning as she finished off her coffee and dropped the cup into the now empty bag, the blonde studied his face. “And what the hell is the Upside Down?”
“It’s…” Steve sighed. He knew he was going to sound like a raving lunatic. Tandy would probably be making calls to get him committed by the time he finished. He ran a hand through his perfect hair, deciding to forge ahead.
“It’s an alternate reality. It exists alongside our own, but things are...different there. The door had been open before, and...nothing good ever came out of it.”
Quite possibly to his great surprise, Tandy’s face didn’t change, still remaining fairly expectant as she studied him. “An alternate reality...I’m guessing it’s not like this, right? How Goodland looks like New York?” She had her own experiences with different dimensions or whatever, and wondered if it was something like that dark other place where Ty sent people with his power.
Steve shook his head. “No. It’s nothing like this. Everything is dark and foreboding and...evil.” That was really the only way to describe it. Pure, unfiltered evil. And the door had been open in Hawkin, a quiet little midwestern town where nothing significant ever happened. Not until that first Demigorgon got out and Will Byers went missing, presumed dead.
There was a lot about it that Steve didn’t even know, and didn’t want to know. He knew too much, as it was. He’d seen too much. Thinking about it made him want his spiked baseball bat. Maybe he’d get a bat and some nails and make one to keep here. Just in case.
“Sorry to unload that on you. I know it’s a lot.”
“No, it’s okay. I get it - some weird things happened in my world too, and here, so it’s not a huge shocker or anything. If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.” Tandy was the last person to force someone into discussing scary or traumatizing experiences, probably because she didn’t really like doing that herself.
Still, he had opened up a little, and it was only fair that she did the soon. “I get the being kidnapped and drugged and tortured, too. That happened to me. There was this guy...he was kidnapping girls off the street and drugging them to make them compliant, and would force them into this sex trafficking ring he had. He tried to do the same thing to me,” she said quietly before looking over at him. “He wanted to get rid of our hopes and happiness so he could feed off of our despair.”
“That’s horrible. You got away?” He hated to think of anyone going through that, but she’d said tried which implied it hadn’t happened. He hoped not. No one deserved to be put through that, and the thought that there were people who kidnapped innocent girls for that purpose made him angry. People like that deserved to be on the receiving end of his bat.
“Yeah. Fought back, got me and the other girls out.” He’d still tried to come after her after, and Ty, but they’d managed to defeat him - and that was what mattered. Still, it was part of a larger story that was a lot to go into right now.
“He’s not going to be hurting anyone else ever again,” she added to reassure Steve since he seemed a little worried. “But still. I know what it’s like to have trouble sleeping.”
Steve nodded. It sounded terrible, no way around that. It also sounded like there was more to the story. There was more to what he’d told her too. A lot of details were left out. That’s just how it was. There was no way to tell and share everything. The highlights were bad enough, without going into all the other bits and bobs of information.
“It sucks because I’m so damn tired. But. I can’t sleep.” He would eventually crash, and sleep for a few hours. But once he woke, the cycle would start all over again. He looked at her, really looked, and wondered if she had the same problem.
“It’s hard, especially when you first get here.” She’d had a lot of trouble for the first couple of weeks herself, and that was before a lot of the weird stuff started happening. Straightening from the step, Tandy rolled her head to stretch it, then gave Steve a half-smile.
“Well, considering the time I doubt either of us are going to try and go back in to sleep now. So what do you want to do today? We could find some way to wear you out so maybe you just pass out for twelve hours tonight?” There was definitely a suggestive edge to her words and her smile, though she kept her face as innocent as possible.
“Don’t make me exercise,” Steve said with a roll of his eyes. He wasn’t against exercise, he actually made an effort to stay in shape. A good work out might help him relax a little, but he didn’t really think that was what he needed to help him sleep. Problem was, he didn’t know what he needed. And the subtle suggestion Tandy offered, at least for the moment, went completely over his head.
He followed her lead, though, and stood up, stretching. He took the trash from her to take it over to a nearby trash can to get rid of it. “I don’t want to keep you from whatever plans you have for today.”
“A walk around town doesn’t have to be exercise,” she pointed out with a laugh as she stood while he threw away the trash. Giving a grin of thanks, Tandy stretched the rest of her body, then joined him on the sidewalk.
“No plans here, actually. There’s that carnival stuff that Peter and Tony planned, if you want to check it out. It’s because as far as we know, people first started showing up a year ago. They were a couple of the first to get here.”
“Yeah, that would be good.” He was glad he wasn’t keeping her from plans she had already. Even if she’d planned to go to the carnival, well. Something like that was more fun wit friends, right? Steve was pretty sure they were friends.
He hoped they were. He liked Tandy. He didn’t know her very well, but they’d only just met. And they’d already shared some pretty heavy stuff with each other. He didn’t generally lead with ‘I was kidnapped, drugged, and tortured by Russians’ even if he thought it sounded pretty cool. He was pretty sure she didn’t lead with the whole kidnapped for a sex ring thing, either.
“Cool, let’s go check it out.” Tandy started down the street with Steve, her hands tucked into the pockets of her jeans as they walked. The sun was already pretty bright, so after a minute she tugged her sunglasses down before glancing at Steve beside her.
“So what do you think of this place?”
“It’s...interesting.” Steve shrugged. He slipped his sunglasses on too. He had a pair that came right out of the 1980s because they’d come with him when he’d been brought to Goodland. “Part of me still thinks this can’t possibly be real, but here we are.”
It was crazy. But no more so than Demigorgons and Mindflayers attacking the city back home. Crazy was the new norm for Steve. And he’d take Goodland’s version of crazy over Hawins kind of crazy any day.
“Just wait until the really weird stuff starts happening,” she advised with a faint grin, looking away to watch where she was going. Of course, the sunglasses helped her to still watch him from the corner of her eye, and admire him, because he was definitely nice to look at.
“Got any friends from back home you’re hoping will show up?”
“There’s people I wouldn’t mind seeing,” Steve said. He rolled his shoulders, and ran a hand through his literally perfect hair. It was, he knew, his best feature. He took a lot of pride in his hair, and cared for it well to keep it fluffy and soft, and well, perfect.
“But no one special, if that’s what you’re asking.” He liked Robin, sure. But she was just a friend She wasn’t at all interested in dating him, which was kind of refreshing, honestly. It had been a let down, but he got over it. And decided he’d rather have her as a friend, than nothing at all. Then there was Dustin, who he forged an unlikely friendship with. The kid really grew on him, and Steve wouldn’t mind so much if he showed up. Except Steve would probably end up having to take on more responsibility than Steve wanted to take on, so maybe it was best if Dustin stayed in Hawkins.
“Just curious,” she replied easily as they walked. “There’s a couple people I wouldn’t mind seeing either.” Like Tyrone. He’d been in town for such a short time, but she still missed him. Aside from the very few friends she had in Goodland, he’d been her best friend back home. It was weird to know that soon she’d be coming up on a year since she’d seen him.
“Wanna grab some coffee on the way?” She asked after another couple minutes.Tandy wouldn’t mind a second, and she had a feeling that Steve might want one now.
“Absolutely.” Steve was definitely interested in getting coffee. The shared pastry had left a taste in his mouth. Not unpleasant, but coffee would be good for washing it down. “My treat,” he told her. He didn’t have much money, but he could spare a couple dollars for coffee.
A moment later, she was sitting with her head against the wall, nibbling on a cheese danish as she listened to the song that came up, her dark brown eyes staring idly out at the street without really paying a lot of attention. It was early enough to still be a little quiet out, and Tandy found herself hoping that something exciting might actually happen this weekend - though not on the level of excitement of Roman coliseums or mazes full of bad guys, of course.
Steve hadn’t been sleeping well. How could he? He was in a strange place. Fake New York, or whatever it was. He didn’t even know what to think about that. He’d barely been out of Hawkins, only for an occasional family vacation when he was kid.
He forced himself to stay in bed until daylight, but once the sun came up, he gave up all hope of going back to sleep. He headed out, needing the fresh air or a change of scenery or something. He stopped short when he saw Tandy sitting on the steps leading out of the villa.
“Are you always up this early?” he asked her, moving to stand a few steps below her so he wasn’t completely towering over her.
Blinking out of her reverie, Tandy swallowed the bite in her mouth before looking over at the voice. When she spotted Steve, she gave him a faint smile while inwardly wondering how anyone’s hair could be that perfect this early in the morning.
“Not even close. I just happened to wake up early and decided to grab something to eat before they sold out.” Holding up the danish, she lifted one eyebrow questioningly.
“Want a piece?”
“Sure. If you don’t mind.” Steve sat down beside her, because why not? Standing while she was sitting and they were sharing food seemed utterly ridiculous. So he sat, moving a step lower, and moving in a bit so he was out of the main area of the steps. Even though it was early, people would still be coming and going.
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” he told her. He wasn’t looking for any kind of pity. He wasn’t that kind of guy. It was more an explanation as to why he was out and about. “And I just needed to get out of the apartment. Thanks for this, by the way,” he said, taking a bit of the danish. “Oh my god. It’s really good.”
“Still trying to adjust to this place, or missing people?” She asked it curiously as he took the bite, then grinned and reached out to grab her pastry before he could eat too much of it. “Coffee shop a couple blocks away. They usually only have them for the first couple hours, and I just managed to snag one today. And you’re welcome.”
Tandy could understand not sleeping well there and needing to get out and about. After all, she herself often spent hours out of the villas herself most nights. “You mentioned Hawkins is a lot quieter than New York.”
Hawkins was, on average, quieter than New York. As longas Demigorgons and Mindflayers weren’t prowling around town. The worst had been the invasion of the Demidogs, but Steve didn’t like to think about that. Or the kids. The kids that he missed more than he cared to admit.
“It is. When weird shit isn’t happening.” He licked the sweetness off his fingers, then leaned his head back. “I miss my friends, yeah. But.” He shrugged. “I just. I don’t know. I don’t belong here. I should be back in Hawkins. Especially since Hopper’s gone, El and Will left town. There’s not many left to protect the people there.”
Tandy took another bite of her breakfast and washed it down with a sip of coffee while tilting her head. She’d known Steve a little when he’d been in Goodland almost a year earlier, but she hadn’t had the chance to talk to him very much - not like now, anyway.
“Protect them from what? What kind of weird shit did you have there?” What little bit he had told her about his hometown, she wondered what could possibly be going on there.
“You’ll think I’m insane,” Steve sighed. He knew the things that happened in Hawkins didn’t happen in other places. He knew it would sound crazy to someone who hadn’t been there, and hadn’t been hunted by those terrible things that came out of that lab in from the Upside Down.
“The Russians had a secret lab under the local mall,” he decided to start there. That might sound absurd, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that would make the plot of a cult classic sci fi film. Not until you realised the Russians were trying to open a doorway to another world.
“Try me,” Tandy said in reply as she studied his profile. Honestly, she was pretty curious, and it wasn’t like either of them had anything else to do.
“....Huh.” Okay, that wasn’t quite what she’d expected. After one more bite off the pastry herself, she offered him the rest, then leaned back with one elbow on a step as she picked up her coffee again. “You’ve definitely got my interest. Go on.”
Steve took the last bite without comment. She offered, he didn’t want to seem uninterested. So he took it and swallowed it. It was a really good danish. Damn, he wished he had a coffee.
“Somehow, I ended up down there with Robin, Dustin, and Erica. The Russians caught me and Robin, but the kids got away. The drugged us and tortured us for information, but we didn’t know anything. We were just...stupid kids who ended up putting our nose where it didn’t belong. The Russians were trying to open a doorway to The Upside Down.”
Tandy assumed those were his friends, but then decided it didn’t really matter as he went on. Her brow furrowed when he talked about being drugged and tortured, because she’d been in that situation herself, and got it. “How are you doing now? With all that?”
Frowning as she finished off her coffee and dropped the cup into the now empty bag, the blonde studied his face. “And what the hell is the Upside Down?”
“It’s…” Steve sighed. He knew he was going to sound like a raving lunatic. Tandy would probably be making calls to get him committed by the time he finished. He ran a hand through his perfect hair, deciding to forge ahead.
“It’s an alternate reality. It exists alongside our own, but things are...different there. The door had been open before, and...nothing good ever came out of it.”
Quite possibly to his great surprise, Tandy’s face didn’t change, still remaining fairly expectant as she studied him. “An alternate reality...I’m guessing it’s not like this, right? How Goodland looks like New York?” She had her own experiences with different dimensions or whatever, and wondered if it was something like that dark other place where Ty sent people with his power.
Steve shook his head. “No. It’s nothing like this. Everything is dark and foreboding and...evil.” That was really the only way to describe it. Pure, unfiltered evil. And the door had been open in Hawkin, a quiet little midwestern town where nothing significant ever happened. Not until that first Demigorgon got out and Will Byers went missing, presumed dead.
There was a lot about it that Steve didn’t even know, and didn’t want to know. He knew too much, as it was. He’d seen too much. Thinking about it made him want his spiked baseball bat. Maybe he’d get a bat and some nails and make one to keep here. Just in case.
“Sorry to unload that on you. I know it’s a lot.”
“No, it’s okay. I get it - some weird things happened in my world too, and here, so it’s not a huge shocker or anything. If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.” Tandy was the last person to force someone into discussing scary or traumatizing experiences, probably because she didn’t really like doing that herself.
Still, he had opened up a little, and it was only fair that she did the soon. “I get the being kidnapped and drugged and tortured, too. That happened to me. There was this guy...he was kidnapping girls off the street and drugging them to make them compliant, and would force them into this sex trafficking ring he had. He tried to do the same thing to me,” she said quietly before looking over at him. “He wanted to get rid of our hopes and happiness so he could feed off of our despair.”
“That’s horrible. You got away?” He hated to think of anyone going through that, but she’d said tried which implied it hadn’t happened. He hoped not. No one deserved to be put through that, and the thought that there were people who kidnapped innocent girls for that purpose made him angry. People like that deserved to be on the receiving end of his bat.
“Yeah. Fought back, got me and the other girls out.” He’d still tried to come after her after, and Ty, but they’d managed to defeat him - and that was what mattered. Still, it was part of a larger story that was a lot to go into right now.
“He’s not going to be hurting anyone else ever again,” she added to reassure Steve since he seemed a little worried. “But still. I know what it’s like to have trouble sleeping.”
Steve nodded. It sounded terrible, no way around that. It also sounded like there was more to the story. There was more to what he’d told her too. A lot of details were left out. That’s just how it was. There was no way to tell and share everything. The highlights were bad enough, without going into all the other bits and bobs of information.
“It sucks because I’m so damn tired. But. I can’t sleep.” He would eventually crash, and sleep for a few hours. But once he woke, the cycle would start all over again. He looked at her, really looked, and wondered if she had the same problem.
“It’s hard, especially when you first get here.” She’d had a lot of trouble for the first couple of weeks herself, and that was before a lot of the weird stuff started happening. Straightening from the step, Tandy rolled her head to stretch it, then gave Steve a half-smile.
“Well, considering the time I doubt either of us are going to try and go back in to sleep now. So what do you want to do today? We could find some way to wear you out so maybe you just pass out for twelve hours tonight?” There was definitely a suggestive edge to her words and her smile, though she kept her face as innocent as possible.
“Don’t make me exercise,” Steve said with a roll of his eyes. He wasn’t against exercise, he actually made an effort to stay in shape. A good work out might help him relax a little, but he didn’t really think that was what he needed to help him sleep. Problem was, he didn’t know what he needed. And the subtle suggestion Tandy offered, at least for the moment, went completely over his head.
He followed her lead, though, and stood up, stretching. He took the trash from her to take it over to a nearby trash can to get rid of it. “I don’t want to keep you from whatever plans you have for today.”
“A walk around town doesn’t have to be exercise,” she pointed out with a laugh as she stood while he threw away the trash. Giving a grin of thanks, Tandy stretched the rest of her body, then joined him on the sidewalk.
“No plans here, actually. There’s that carnival stuff that Peter and Tony planned, if you want to check it out. It’s because as far as we know, people first started showing up a year ago. They were a couple of the first to get here.”
“Yeah, that would be good.” He was glad he wasn’t keeping her from plans she had already. Even if she’d planned to go to the carnival, well. Something like that was more fun wit friends, right? Steve was pretty sure they were friends.
He hoped they were. He liked Tandy. He didn’t know her very well, but they’d only just met. And they’d already shared some pretty heavy stuff with each other. He didn’t generally lead with ‘I was kidnapped, drugged, and tortured by Russians’ even if he thought it sounded pretty cool. He was pretty sure she didn’t lead with the whole kidnapped for a sex ring thing, either.
“Cool, let’s go check it out.” Tandy started down the street with Steve, her hands tucked into the pockets of her jeans as they walked. The sun was already pretty bright, so after a minute she tugged her sunglasses down before glancing at Steve beside her.
“So what do you think of this place?”
“It’s...interesting.” Steve shrugged. He slipped his sunglasses on too. He had a pair that came right out of the 1980s because they’d come with him when he’d been brought to Goodland. “Part of me still thinks this can’t possibly be real, but here we are.”
It was crazy. But no more so than Demigorgons and Mindflayers attacking the city back home. Crazy was the new norm for Steve. And he’d take Goodland’s version of crazy over Hawins kind of crazy any day.
“Just wait until the really weird stuff starts happening,” she advised with a faint grin, looking away to watch where she was going. Of course, the sunglasses helped her to still watch him from the corner of her eye, and admire him, because he was definitely nice to look at.
“Got any friends from back home you’re hoping will show up?”
“There’s people I wouldn’t mind seeing,” Steve said. He rolled his shoulders, and ran a hand through his literally perfect hair. It was, he knew, his best feature. He took a lot of pride in his hair, and cared for it well to keep it fluffy and soft, and well, perfect.
“But no one special, if that’s what you’re asking.” He liked Robin, sure. But she was just a friend She wasn’t at all interested in dating him, which was kind of refreshing, honestly. It had been a let down, but he got over it. And decided he’d rather have her as a friend, than nothing at all. Then there was Dustin, who he forged an unlikely friendship with. The kid really grew on him, and Steve wouldn’t mind so much if he showed up. Except Steve would probably end up having to take on more responsibility than Steve wanted to take on, so maybe it was best if Dustin stayed in Hawkins.
“Just curious,” she replied easily as they walked. “There’s a couple people I wouldn’t mind seeing either.” Like Tyrone. He’d been in town for such a short time, but she still missed him. Aside from the very few friends she had in Goodland, he’d been her best friend back home. It was weird to know that soon she’d be coming up on a year since she’d seen him.
“Wanna grab some coffee on the way?” She asked after another couple minutes.Tandy wouldn’t mind a second, and she had a feeling that Steve might want one now.
“Absolutely.” Steve was definitely interested in getting coffee. The shared pastry had left a taste in his mouth. Not unpleasant, but coffee would be good for washing it down. “My treat,” he told her. He didn’t have much money, but he could spare a couple dollars for coffee.