Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mother I tried please believe me,
I'm doing the best that I can,
I'm ashamed of the things I've been put through
I'm ashamed of the person I am.

-- Joy Division, "Isolation"

The neon glow of the Palace Arcade sign buzzed overhead, spilling light into the drizzly October night. Greasy pizza, soda-slick floors, and thirty machines screaming INSERT COIN put the light right back into Will’s eyes. The hollow ghost that haunted him daily dissipated here, and for a couple of hours, he got to just be a kid.  That alone made the arcade Kat’s favorite spot in Hawkins.

Will bounced in the passenger seat, sneakers tapping in an anxious rhythm against the floor mat, eyes flicking from the arcade to Kat like he might combust if she didn’t let him go.
His eyes were a little more sunken these days, but his excitement was as palpable as ever.

“Okay, bye, Kat!”

“Not so fast, Goonie,” she said, snagging the back of his jacket and reeling him back in. “You know I’ve gotta go over Mom’s rules.”

“Ughhhh,” Will groaned, flopping back in the seat. “I know the rules. She tells me every single time I leave the house.”

“I’m just the messenger, Kid.”

He crossed his arms, but gave her his full attention.

“Mom said home by 9:30. That means I’m picking you up at nine sharp. No, ‘I’m having the sickest Dig Dug run of my life and I’m going to finally beat Dustin’s score’, no ‘just one more quarter, Kat, I swear,’ she rattled off, ticking the rules on her finger. “And if anything happens or you need me–?”

“Call Eddie’s. I’ve got the number in my wallet.”

“Great. Last thing, Mom’s golden rule.”

“Absolutely no walking or biking home. I got it, I got it,” he said, voice sharp with impatience.  “Can I please go now?”

“Only if you take these with you,” she said, reaching into the middle console and handing him a drawstring dice bag.

“What is it?”

He arched an eyebrow.  God, he looked just like Jonathan when he did that.

“Open it.”

Will yanked the strings apart and gasped as quarters spilled into his palm. His eyes went wide.

“That should keep you and the Nerd Brigade busy for a while.”

“Thanks, Kat!”

He gave her the fastest hug known to mankind and bolted out of the car. His feet slid on the wet pavement before he reached the arcade doors, where Mike, Lucas, and Dustin were waiting. Kat watched him go, heart thumping with something warm and achey. Will yanked open the dice bag, proudly flashing the quarters inside like he’d discovered sacred buried treasure. She could practically hear them drooling over all the times they’d get to fight over Dig Dug’s high score.

God, he deserved to be happy. More than anyone. The last year had been hell, and each of them carried it differently.


Will came back, but he wasn't the same. Alive, but not untouched. Whatever happened to him in the Upside Down, whatever he went through there, he carried it quietly. Like a shadow pressed into his skin that he couldn't shake. He'd died. Everyone danced around it, softened the truth, but he'd been gone. Breathless. He put on a good show for the rest of them, typical damn Byers kid. But Kat wasn't fooled. She saw the cracks. The way his shoulders slumped the morning after nightmares, the haunted glaze of his eyes when he thought no one was looking. And she was just as guilty as the rest, because she never brought it up. Never asked him to talk about. She just tried to make the hard days more special. 

Jonathan brooded, which only got worse the longer Nancy and Steve stayed attached at the hip. Kat was pretty sure those two couldn’t breathe without the other. She loved The Cure as much as anyone with two ear drums and good taste, but if he played “Pictures of You” one more time, she was going to record over every last one of his mixes with Debbie Gibson’s greatest hits.

Joyce was still in full hover-mom mode. Not that Kat blamed her. Will died in the Upside Down. Kat nearly died. And they all carried the trauma of a family nearly ripped apart. But Will deserved to live a little. Bikes. D&D. Arcade Marathons. Star Wars on VHS until the sun came up. He deserved to be a kid. Instead, Joyce checked on him around the clock, like her presence alone could banish the nightmares. Kat ran interference when she could. Will didn’t seem to mind the hovering so much when it came from her.

Lucky for him, Joyce picked up a new distraction over the summer–Bob Newby. Some guy she’d gone to high school with, but Kat always called him Mr. Radioshack…which her mom hated. Jonathan didn't like him much. Thought he was too corny. Kat kind of liked him, though. He really made their mom happy. Luckily, he soaked up just enough of their Mom’s attention to give them a little breathing room.

And Kat?

Well.

She was fine.

Same shit, different day. School sucked. Life just felt like a vacuum most days, pulling everything out of her until there was nothing left but noise. Two hours a week at Eddie Munson’s D&D table was the only peace she got.  Even that was slipping through her fingers, because she was officially late, and Eddie hated late–at least when dice were involved. School was another story. 

Kat jabbed the radio, and Isolation by Joy Division flooded the car in a glorious, chaotic wail. One more stop, then she could be in Munson’s living room, turning her rage into sneak attacks and delivering a verbal coup de grace to whatever poor bastard crossed her party.

“You’re late, Byers,” Eddie said from the porch, leaning against the closed trailer door like an outlaw at high noon. 

Kat bounded up the steps, batting back the flash-image of being pinned to that very door a year ago. Eddie’s hand behind her head, lips on her neck, everything spiraling too fast.

Nope. Hard pass. Never thinking about that again. Pizza now. Repressed trauma later.

“Yeah, well, I brought the pizza,” she said, wagging the box under his nose. “That should buy me a little grace.”

“Pepperoni?” he asked, dead serious.

“Yep.”

“Extra parm?”

“As if I’d forget.”

“Breadsticks?”

“What am I, made of money?”

Eddie stared at her with that look, the one that said ‘you’re so full of shit it's a miracle you haven’t exploded.’ Kat shoved the boxes against his chest with a glare.

“With extra garlic sauce. You’re welcome.”

He took off an imaginary hat, held it at his waist, and bowed.

“After you, m’lady.”

Kat rolled her eyes, but couldn’t keep the grin off her face. Eddie threw the door open, and they stepped into the temple of chaos. A folding card table took up the entire living room, strewn with battle maps, rainbow dice, crumpled Doritos bags, and four impatient Hellfire nerds all staring daggers. 

“Well, well, look who finally showed up,” Gareth said, leaning back dramatically in his chair.

“Do you even know what time it is?” Jeff asked, checking his Casio like he had a meeting with the Queen.

“You’re lucky Sable just leveled up,” David said dramatically, waving a d20. “We were two seconds from rolling without you, but Eddie said we’d all die without your sneak attack.”

“Fight the Mindflayer without me?” Kat scoffed. “Your cleric would fold the second he had to make an intelligence save.”

“Put your dice back in your purse, David,” Eddie said, dropping the boxes on the counter. “She brought pizza.” 

“Then all is forgiven,” Jeff said, snatching a slice.

“I take back what I said about feeding Sable to a gelatinous cube,” Gareth added through a mouth full of pepperoni.

“Great. Now let’s kill something,” Kat said, dropping into her usual spot on the couch.

She let her backpack hit the floor with a heavy thump, eliciting a couple of stares from the group. With one smooth yank of the zipper, she reached inside and pulled out her arsenal: a fistful of pencils, a beat-up composition notebook packed with notes from every single session from the last six months, a velvet dice bag full to the brim, and finally the holy grail-Sable’s character sheet. Slightly wrinkled. Heavily annotated.

Her eyes caught on the corner of a familiar spiral notebook poking out from behind Eddie’s DM screen.

Kat’s Compendium of Bullshit, Volume II:

Entry #133: The Thank You Incident

Byers said thank you today. Just that. No insult. No sarcasm. Just a real, actual, terrifyingly sincere thank you.
Theory: She's not a person, but an ancient chaos entity wearing Converse and a Kate Bush tee.
Current Hypothesis: This is a test. The smile was bait. The thank you? A trap. The sincere tone? Weaponized.
Countermeasures:
Option A: Fake a Nosebleed.
Option B: Distract with Twix. (Tested. Effective.)
Option C: Insult the boots. She loves those boots. The betrayal will distract her.

Addendum: DO NOT INSULT THE BOOTS. I REPEAT. DO NOT INSULT THE BOOTS.

Kat snorted, her laugh spilling out before she could stop it. Bastard caught her off guard again. His favorite pastime.

Eddie slid into the seat beside her, adjusting his screen like nothing happened. Like he didn’t just emotionally tackle her with a paragraph.

“You didn’t know I could kick that hard,” she said, smug as hell.

“I do now,” Eddie said, rubbing his shin. “You’re freakishly strong.”

“And I’ll do it again.”

Her foot stretched out under the table, slow and threatening. Eddie flinched, hands lifted in mock surrender.

“Are we rolling?” Robbie cut in, dropping beside her and handing over a slice of pizza. “Or is this your mom’s Sunday Afternoon Tea? I’ve got a Mindflayer to stab in the tentacles.”

Eddie didn’t waste another second. He leaned low over the table and launched into narration, voice dropping into that deep, dramatic DM tone he loved so much.

“You descend into the ruins of the Pale Sanctum. The air is cold. The stone is wet. And from the end of the corridor you hear it, a sound that raises the hair on your neck.”

The boys grinned, hyping each other up for whatever fresh hell Eddie cooked in that metal-head brain of his. Kat rolled her shoulders slow and deliberate, like a predator stretching before the hunt. One long swig of soda and she was locked in.

Game on.

They barely made it ten minutes before everything went to hell. A mindflayer dropped into the corridor in a surprise round, feral for brains. Within seconds, Jeff’s sorcerer took a near-lethal blow, knocking him prone and incapacitated. He was down to rolling death saves, but if that thing went for his brain, it wouldn’t matter. That was an express VIP pass to Pelor’s Afterparty in the sky.

Knocked down. Weapon out of reach. Killer closing in.  Kat knew that territory all too well. Her pulse spiked, a heavy weight pressing into her ribs. Nearly a year had passed since her injuries, but the ache rushed back like the Demogorgon cracked her bones only yesterday.

One round. That was all they had to drag Jeff clear, or the Mindflayer would split his skull like a bag of chips and dig straight for the brain. And you can’t resurrect something without a brain.

“David, for the love of Pelor, you’re a goddamn Death Cleric. Where are those undead summons?” Kat asked, flipping through her notes.

“They're going down as fast as I can get them up,” he shot back, voice frantic.

“Kat, you’re up,” Eddie said, eyes narrowing over the screen. “What’s Sable got up her sleeve?”

She didn’t answer. Her eyes stayed locked on the map, on the mini that marked Jeff’s fallen sorcerer. Party member down, helpless, inches from death.

The rest of the table murmured strategy, throwing out options, but they blurred into static. Her mind had already gone somewhere else. The ache in her chest sharpened, crawling up to her collarbone where she’d taken the deepest slash from the Demogorgon’s claws. She rubbed at it absently, fingers dragging toward her shoulder as if pressure alone could hold the memory down.

Eddie probably expected her to distract the Mindflayer from a distance. Maybe pop a shot from her crossbow, choose not to hide at the end of her turn to draw some heat.  Standard rogue shit.  Close range with a Mindflayer was practically suicide.

But with a party member on Pelor’s doorstep? Rules didn’t matter. Neither did expectations.

Fuck it.

She picked up Sable’s mini, a half-elf brandishing twin poison-soaked daggers, and dropped it directly between Jeff’s sorcerer and the Mindflayer.

“You sure that’s the move?” Eddie asked, brow creasing.

“I roll to strike,” she said, shaking her dice in her fist.

“That’s if you survive the three attacks of opportunity that move triggers.”

“Roll ‘em,” she dared, staring into his brown eyes without a shred of fear.

“What, are you trying to die?” Gareth muttered. “If you go down here, we’re toast.”

“If these all hit even half damage, Sable is down,” Eddie repeated, voice slow and even.

“I said roll ‘em, Munson.”

The table went quiet as Eddie’s dice clattered across the board.

She used to think through a dozen angles before making her move, turning Eddie’s traps inside out until she found some brilliant, chaotic loophole. He once told her she was the sole reason his planning sessions took so damn long, and she'd been especially proud of it. But not anymore. It took too much time, and time costs lives.

Fire first, consequences later. Better to take the heat than leave a party member in peril.

“Proceed,” Eddie said, watching her carefully.

“Jeff, let’s save that brain of yours, yeah?”

“I don’t know if this is the move,” Jeff muttered, shaking his head.

Kat tossed the d20. Everyone held their breath as it bounced in slow motion across the map. At the last second, it flipped to a twenty.

Groans and shouts exploded across the table. Robbie clapped her on the shoulder. Gareth swore. Jeff leaned back in relief.

Eddie didn’t move. His eyes remained locked on her face. She stared right back.

“On a Nat 20,” she said, voice laced with victory. “That’s double damage, Munson. Plus full sneak attack. ”

It was the kind of turn that should’ve ended in blood and death saving throws, but ended in victory and securing the last slice of pizza.

“That was reckless, but effective,” Jeff said.

“That was epic,” Gareth countered. 

“High risk, lucky reward,” Eddie said, low and meant only for her.

She didn’t look up. She just rolled her damage dice and shrugged. She could already picture his next compendium entry: Reckless Little Shit Gets Lucky Again.

“Worked, though, didn’t it?” she said, finally glancing up with an eyebrow raised.

Eddie didn’t answer. Instead, he rolled his wrist and tipped two fingers toward her in that quiet hats-off gesture he saved for moments that were ridiculous, brilliant, and just risky enough to work.

But she caught it. The flick of his fingers might’ve said well played, but his eyes said I see you.

He’d clocked the pattern. The one that had crept in since November of last year. Kat had always been full of fire and fury, but now it was volatile. Like she’d doused herself in gasoline, every protective instinct nothing but a match begging to be struck. One spark and she’d go up in flames.

It twisted into something more. Reckless abandon, maybe, but desperation felt closer to the truth. The second anyone was in danger, Kat was there. No hesitation, no plan, no concern for her own safety, just heat and instinct.

Sable wore the proof with more battle scars in the past year than all the other boys combined. Stabbed, slashed, Eldritch-blasted, poisoned, nearly swallowed by a mimic, burned by acid…the list went on.

All in the name of protection.

Because losing once nearly cost her everything. And she sure as hell wasn’t letting that happen again. If something had to break, if someone had to go, it would be her.

No questions.
End of story.

Eddie leaned back in his chair, still watching her.

“One of these days, Byers,” he said quietly, “your luck’s gonna end. Careful, you don’t flame out.”

Chapter Text

“And now I know how Joan of Arc felt
As the flames rose to her Roman nose
And her Walkman started to melt.”
– The Smiths, “Bigmouth Strikes Again”

Kat squinted against the golden stream of sunlight slipping through the black curtains, catching on the dust suspended midair. Each fleck drifted lazily, like tiny snow flurries trapped in limbo. Goosebumps prickled across her skin as those tiny little specks dragged her back to the only night Will ever talked about the Upside Down. The only night he’d ever let something slip in a single offhand comment Kat had never forgotten.

She stretched, dragging herself out of bed with a yawn. Grabbing the Cure sweatshirt off the floor, her gaze caught on the application for Northwestern crumpled underneath. She ignored the sinking pit in her stomach and pushed toward the door.

She snuck through the hallway, trying like hell to pass every stealth check. Everyone in this family was haunted enough without her ripping them from the precious little sleep they could get. Her eyes flicked to the Christmas Tree in the corner. Two weeks into January, and it was still up, lights blinking in the dark. Memories of that night clawed at the dam she’d built, leaking through one trickle at a time.

A slash.
Rip of flesh.
Trail of blood.
Suffocation.
Fingers grazing Excalibat.
A white shoe with a Nike check.
A homerun crack.
Air rushing home.

“Kat?”

She gasped, whirling around to find Will stuck behind her at the end of the hallway.

“Are you okay?”

“Peachy,” she said, sleepily rubbing her eyes to cover the tears that pooled there. “What are you doing up, Bug?”

Will flicked his gaze to the tree and back, seeing right through her facade.

“Can’t sleep.”

“Me either,” she paused, the chittering of the Demogorgon still resonating somewhere in the back of her mind. “Guess that means midnight snacks.”

She grabbed his shoulder, guiding him towards the kitchen and ushering him to a seat at the table.

“Welcome to the Midnight Munchery, where we don’t have sleep, but we do have Grandma Kathleen’s famous peanut butter cookies.”

Will looked at the stack of cookies piled under tinfoil on the counter, hesitant.

“I made them. Not Mom. They’re safe.”

Will grinned, and Kat let out a small laugh. Their mom was amazing at so many things, but cooking was not one of them. 

“Sir, do you prefer your milk served warm or cold this evening?” she asked, holding a fake pen and order book.

“Warm, please,” Will answered almost before she’d even finished the sentence.

She pretended to write his order.

“Good choice, sir. Coming right up.”

Kat grabbed a small pot drying on a towel by the sink and put it on the stove. She snagged the milk from the fridge, pouring just enough for two glasses.

“So what’s keeping you up?”

Will sighed, his eyes dropping to the table. It was such a heavy sound for a kid, the kind that belonged to someone with sixty years of hard life behind it. Her chest pinched. She knew he had nightmares about the Upside Down, and every time she imagined what he lived through, her stomach churned.

He shrugged, and Kat didn’t push. He’d talk when he was ready, or he wouldn’t. That was his choice.

“Well. I had a nightmare,” Kat said, stirring the milk. “Mom tried to make that weird chicken casserole again. The one with peas and spaghetti? Blegh.”

Will wrinkled his nose and stuck out his tongue.

The milk frothed slowly as it warmed. She sprinkled a dash of cinnamon, gave it one last stir, and poured it into two mugs.  Sliding one across the table, the ceramic clinked against the wood as Kat sank into the chair across from him.

Neither said anything for a while. They sat with hands around their mugs, letting the heat seep into their palms. A small thing that somehow warmed the soul.  When they finally blew on the rims at the exact same moment, it made her chest ache. Mom would have laughed and said two peas, one pod.

Will didn’t look up from his drink when he finally spoke. 

“When I got up earlier, I saw snow flurries outside.”

Kat nodded. Daniel Wexler, WCPK’s “Dan the Weatherman,” forecasted snow for the next three days. God, she hoped it happened. January in Hawkins was such a drag. Everything was brown unless there was snow. Then, like the flip side of a coin, everything turned soft and white. For a day or two, everything was magic. They deserved some magic.

“It looked like that stuff that floats around in the air…in…the other place,” he said, flat almost casual.

Like it wasn't the first time he’d said those words out loud. Like it wasn’t the first time he’d acknowledged it even happened.

Kat went still, but she gripped the mug like a vice. What was she supposed to say to that? Snow flurries. Such an innocent, beautiful thing. Stolen from him like his childhood. Her heart sank, eyes stinging, but she didn’t let it show.

“You know, Dan the Weatherman said we could get over a foot of snow.”

“A whole foot?” Will’s eyes lit up.

“At least.”

“Should we clean the sleds?”

“I dug ‘em out before dinner.”

Will grinned, the darkness retreating…at least for now. Kat wished she could take it all from him, every last flurry.

“Jonathan is gonna pretend he’s too cool to sled,” Will said, sitting up straighter. “But you know he’ll be the first one up the hill.”

“Maybe we can finally pry him away from his sad boy mixtape for five minutes.”

Will snorted.

“Finish your milk,” she said softly once the laughter died. “We’ll need all the sleep we can fake for our big sled race. We can even give Jonathan the bad sled.”

“Okay,” Will agreed, “But only if he makes us listen to that Cure song again. I’m starting to hear it in my sleep.”

Kat laughed. God, even Will noticed Jonathan's pining. Boy had it bad for Nancy. Whatever happened between them, he refused to talk about it. Ran in the family, she supposed.

Will yawned, dropping their mugs in the sink. Then he turned and wrapped both arms around her.

“Thanks, Kat. You always know how to make things better.”

Kat pulled him into the classic Byers soul-smooshing hug, pressing her cheek against his hair. For the second time that night, the dam cracked. Tears slipped free before she could stop them. Whatever it cost her to be there for Will, she would pay it double. Triple.

The Christmas tree lights blurred, soft and blinking in her peripheral. That chittering noise sounded again somewhere in distant memory.  Tomorrow, that damn tree was going back to the shed. 

The knock hit like a gunshot, thudding straight through her chest.

“Kat, get moving. I can’t be late today. Big test,” Jonathan said through the door. A few footsteps later, she heard another wrap. “You too, Will. Rise and shine, buddy.”

Kat groaned and rolled off the edge of the bed, feet slipping on a pile of Northwestern pamphlets and info for early application. She kicked it all under the bed.

By the time she shuffled into the hallway, Will was already pulling on his sneakers, hair sticking up in three directions. Jonathan passed them both, cramming folders into his bag. The kitchen was a flurry of motion. A burned piece of toast smoldered in the sink. The coffee pot sat mid-brew, half-forgotten. Joyce was at the counter, frantically wrapping a sandwich in foil. 

Kat ducked past the chaos, yanked open a cabinet, and grabbed the emergency breakfast stash. Three cherry Pop-Tarts and a questionable granola bar. She snagged a bag of Cheetos and tossed it into Will’s sack lunch just as Joyce sealed it shut.

“Here,” Kat said, tossing the Pop-Tarts to each of her siblings. “Breakfast to-go.”

Jonathan caught one mid-air. Will fumbled his, but managed to secure it before it hit the ground.

“Thanks!”

Joyce stopped by Will, expertly licking her thumb and smoothing down the wildest of his bedhead before he could duck away.

“Mooooom,” he groaned.

“I’m not sending you to school looking like you were raised by wolves,” she said, still patting his crown.

“But he was raised by wolves,” Kat said, looking at Will and biting back a grin. “Where do you think all those manners came from?”

Joyce shot her a look, but her lips twitched.

She handed Kat her book bag, hand lingering just a second too long. Like she’d seen the hollow creases under Kat’s eyes. Like she’d noticed the mugs in the sink after all those sleepless nights. But she didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask. Just gave her a gentle squeeze and let go.

Kat swallowed hard.

“Will, I’ll pick you up at lunch for your appointment today.”

Shit.

She forgot.

Appointment days always hit Will hard. Her eyes flicked to Jonahtan, who gave a quiet nod, already understanding. They had a system. Movie nights, favorite snacks, little gifts, even board games. Anything to distract Will from what waited at Hawkins Lab.

Joyce threw her a look. She hated taking Will to those appointments as much as he hated going.

Kat gave the smallest nod.
I’ve got him.

She already had a list of movies in mind, and she’d noticed Will eyeing a new set of dice at Hobby Haven last week. They would make the day the best they could.

Jonathan and Will rushed out the door. Joyce caught Kat’s arm as she passed, planting a kiss on her cheek.

“Thanks, honey.”

Kat nodded, swallowing whatever stung at her eyes. No time for it anyway. She threw her bag over her shoulder and followed them out.

Will was climbing into the passenger side of the Ford. He looked at Kat as she passed, his face saying everything without a word. She grabbed the handle of the back door and climbed in,  “Pictures of You” wailing from the stereo.

“Jonathan,” Kat said, voice low and sharp. “I swear to Pelor, change the station right now or Will and I are filling your bed with shaving cream.”

Jonathan smirked and put the car in reverse, unfazed by their threats.

“How are you complaining about the Cure?”

“Jon-”

Will cut her off, his tone serious, if a little timid.

“She’s right, Jonathan. We’ll do it, too. And we’ll add Legos. The tiny ones.”

Jonathan whipped his head toward the passenger seat, betrayal written all over his face. Kat held her hand up to Will for a high-five. Honestly, she didn’t know he had it in him. Usually, he tried to keep the peace between the two of them.

“Et tu, Brute?”

Will turned to her.

“What does that mean?”

“That you are diabolical and clearly take after me,” she said, grinning. “I’ve never been more proud.”

Jonathan swung into his usual spot, “Pictures of You” playing for the fourth time in a row, testing the last shreds of Kat’s sanity.

The second the car slowed, Will flung the door open and made a beeline for the middle school across the lot, backpack bouncing as he ran. No goodbye, just a wave over his shoulder.

Kat smiled. She couldn’t blame him. It was frog dissection day in Mr. Clarke’s class, and the Adorable Dweeb Brigade had been buzzing about it all week.

Jonathan climbed out, slinging his bag over one shoulder.

“I’m out. We’ll grab stuff for Will after school.”

“Good luck on the test,” Kat called after him, but he was already halfway across the lot.

And then it was quiet. Just Kat, leaning against the trunk with her bag slouching on top like it was just as exhausted. She dug through it recklessly, not caring what got bent or crumpled.

The lighter was in there for once. Small miracle.
But the cigarettes must have been blessed by Will. Hiding somewhere in plain sight.

God, after this morning, she just needed a drag. Maybe two.

Her fingers finally closed around the flimsy plastic box, wedged between her Walkman and a pack of crushed gum.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

She brought one to her lips, lit it, and took a long, slow puff. Relief flooded her lungs. She held the cigarette low at her side, half-hidden behind her thigh. Never knew when any of the Hawkin’s high disciplinary squad would patrol the parking lot. Principal Higgins had way too much time on his hands and a special vendetta for freaks and slackers. 

Her eyes drifted across the parking lot, locking on a burgundy BMW parked two rows over. Nancy and Steve were in the front seat, heads tilted toward each other, talking.

She wasn’t exaggerating. They really had been attached at the hip since Christmas. She’d tried her best to reconnect with Nancy, but it had been hard. Steve was always around, and she still hadn’t figured that out. And didn’t really care to, if she was being honest. She didn’t owe him anything.

Except your life.

She swatted the thought away like a fly. That was a debt she’d never be able to repay, which left them uneven. Something about being around Harrington made her feel in a deficit, like she owed him something, but nothing seemed right. So she’d stopped trying.

If Steve and Nancy were together, Kat went the other way. If she was talking to Nancy and Steve showed up, she bailed. Forgot her homework. Had to pick up Will. Plans with Eddie. Jonathan needed the car. The excuses went on and on.

She could count on one hand the number of words she’d said to Steve since last Christmas at the Wheelers. Silence didn’t demand a response or put her on the spot. It let her disappear, and she wore it like a Paladin’s Aura of Protection.

She flicked ash off the end of the cigarette, squinting into the distance as a loud engine snarled into the lot.

A Camaro cut across the gravel road and whipped into a parking spot, the Scorpions' “Rock you Like a Hurricane”  blaring from the window. The guy behind the wheel stepped out first, tall, smug, and wearing the tightest jeans she’d ever seen in her life. His hair was longer than Nancy’s, preened in all the right places.

And the walk?

Please.

She didn’t need a psychic hotline to know this guy was an asshole. She clocked it from the way he strutted, chin tilted like the world owed him something, like he thought he was God’s gift to small-town girls.

The passenger door slammed, and a smaller figure jumped out. Bright red curls whipped in the breeze as she yanked a skateboard from the backseat and zipped across the lot toward the middle school.

But nobody was looking at her.  All eyes were on the David Coverdale wannabe.

Half the girls on the sidewalk craned their necks to watch him walk. One elbowed her friend. Another pulled out lip gloss like she was prepping for battle. Even some of the guys stared, hating him and wanting to be him at the same time.

Kat rolled her eyes so hard it almost hurt. She took one last drag, let the smoke curl out of her nose, and ground the cigarette under her boot heel. 

What a poser.

She slung the backpack across her shoulder and started for the entrance when a voice called out.

“Kat!”

Shit. Nancy.

She turned on instinct, already bracing for chaos. Nancy stood by the BMW, hugging her books and waving her over.

And next to her stood Steve, looking straight out of Risky Business or a JCPenney ad for the teen back-to-school section.

Fan-freaking-tastic.

Kat slowed her pace, smoothing her expression into something resembling polite interest. Internally, she was already doing damage control.  Maybe she could keep walking and fake deafness. Or, the Corroded Coffin show blew her eardrum. Jeff and that damn bass guitar just shred a little too hard. That was believable, right? Or maybe she could say she had a test. Shit, no. Steve was in her first period class. He’d instantly know she was lying.

Pelor.

She wasn’t getting out of this.

“Did you see that guy?” Nancy asked, nodding toward the idiot with the Camaro and a rockstar complex.

Kat frowned.

“Yeah. Looks like Whitesnake got lost on the way to L.A.”

Nancy laughed. Even Steve cracked a smile, but Kat refused to look at him directly. Too risky. Like staring into the sun. Or her worst nightmare. Or both.

“Oh shoot, I’ve got that physics test this morning,” Nancy said, pivoting effortlessly from gossip to academia. Then, without warning, she leaned in and kissed Steve on the lips.

Not a cute little couple peck, but an actual lingering kiss. A Sixteen Candles moment. Right in front of her.

Kat blinked, eyes scanning the parking lot for anything else to latch onto. Heat flared in her cheeks, and for one awful second the pavement felt like it might tilt from under her feet.

“Bye Kat!” Nancy said, peeling away from Steve’s arms and heading for the school.

Kat stood there like a ghost. Maybe if she didn’t move, she’d just evaporate from existence.

Steve lingered. He wasn’t even looking at the school or watching Nancy go.  He was looking at her. With that weird, unreadable expression he’d been wearing since Christmas, like she was a puzzle he couldn’t solve.

Like she hadn’t nearly bled out in front of him and made things weird forever.

“First period?” he said finally. “I’ll walk with you.”

Kat opened her mouth to object. A lie. A joke. Anything.

Death would be good, too. She could accept her fate. Anything to avoid the next four minutes of her life.

Pelor, is this about the orphanage again? Sable built a new one. A bigger one. With a statue.
You saw the statue, right?

Static buzzed, and a half-cooked noise fell out of her mouth. It must have resembled something close to agreement, because Steve fell into step beside her.

They walked in silence. Not the good kind. This was the thick kind that seeped into your bones and gnawed at your ribs. The kind filled with everything and nothing all at once.

It clung like fog. Heavy with all the things they refused to acknowledge and bursting at the seams with all the things they couldn’t say.

“So…” she said, because the silence was actually suffocating her. She pressed that onyx ring into her finger until her knuckle cracked.

“So…” he echoed, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“How’s your arm? Nancy said you got wrecked at the game the other night.”

“Wrecked?” he asked, offense creeping into his voice. “Hardly. It’s fine. Just a minor sprain.”

He glanced over at her, eyes dragging across her face. She fought the urge to flinch. 

“What about you?” he asked. “All healed up?”

“Huh?”

He gestured to his own ribs, tapping the spot where hers had cracked under the Demogorgon’s weight.

Kat stiffened.

“Uh, yep. That was almost a year ago.”

Her lips fell into a tight line as heat rushed up her neck. She couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze.

“Yeah, yeah…right," he said, so low she almost missed it.

By the time they reached the doors, Kat was strongly considering stepping into the path of one of the school buses still crawling through the drop-off lane. Not to die. Just to end the conversation with dignity.

She reached for the handle, only to hit warm skin instead of cool metal.

Soft. Familiar. His.

“Sorry–”

They said it at the same time, words colliding in the air between them.

Kat blinked.
Steve blinked.
And Pelor, eternal and vengeful, drove the knife right between her ribs as both of them turned bright red.

Kat yanked her hand back like she’d touched a live wire. Her cheeks were on fire, while her soul perished straight into the Shadowfell.

She turned her head sharply, focusing on anything that wasn’t him. The tile. A gum wrapper. That stupid Don’t Do Drugs banner peeling off the wall.

There’d been a lot of bad days in her life. The Demogorgon fight ranked high. So did the night they told her Will was dead. But this?

This was new.

This was humiliation as an Olympic sport. This was the seventh circle of hell, front row seat to her own nightmare, in violation of the Geneva Convention level of suffering.

And the worst part?

He still hadn’t stopped looking at her, like she was the open pass he didn’t see until after the play.

Kat yanked the door open a little too hard and stalked into the hallway. Her boots hit the tile in an angry rhythm. She closed her eyes for half a second, just long enough to feel her heart sink when she heard the squeak of Nike soles behind her as he caught up.

The hallway buzzed with life, lockers slamming, a distant echo of a whistle from the gym, but Kat only heard one sound: whispers.

Faint. Just under the surface, but she caught them. The glances. The elbow nudges. The flicks of overly mascaraed lashes in her direction.

Is that Steve Harrington? With her?
Didn’t she, like, get beat up in a bar fight?
I heard she broke all her ribs.
I thought he was still with Nancy?
Do you think that’s how she got that scar?

Kat rolled her eyes so hard she nearly dislocated something. She could practically feel the rumors assembling themselves like a gossip-fueled Voltron.

And there was Steve. Strolling beside her like this was normal. Like they hadn’t just blushed at each other like Molly Ringwald and Michael Schoeffling. Her cheeks threatened to betray her all over again.

He didn’t seem to notice the attention. Or care. Which somehow made it worse.

“Looks like King of Hawkins and Queen of the Freaks fraternizing in the hallway is more exciting than the new kid.”

“Ignore them," he said, raking a hand through his hair. 

Easy breezy. Like he was above it all. He didn’t even sound annoyed, but every whisper grazed Kat’s skin like psychic damage. 

It wasn’t just the gossip, though.
It was him.

The way he moved beside her. Calm. Easy. Shoulders loose, like he hadn’t just stepped into a minefield. Like they weren’t being dissected by fifty pairs of judgmental eyes and twice as many opinions.

His nonchalance pissed her off. 

Kat’s chest tightened as embers sparked behind her ribs.

The life of Hawkins royalty. That he could just be in the midst of it all. Stroll through the wreckage and come out golden. She’d been clawing her way back to normal for a year and hadn’t even breached the surface.

And he was just…fine.

Tiffany Brown whispered something behind her hand. Her gaze flicked from Kat’s scar down to her boots, then she giggled.  God, it was always brown. The color, the shade, the name…it didn’t matter. It all sucked.

Heat surged up Kat’s neck. Her fist curled into a ball, nails digging into her palm. She bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted metal.

And then Steve looked at her.

Too long. Too soft.

Like he could see every ugly, cracked piece of her she’d spent the last year trying to glue back together.

That was it.

She could still feel the echo of that kiss Nancy gave him. Polished. Effortless. Like they were straight out of a Teen Beat magazine.

She looked ridiculous next to him. Her, in scuffed boots and a band tee that vaguely smelled like last night’s weed and those clove cigarettes she loved. Him, with a jawline carved by divine intention and hair that definitely had its own blow-dry routine. Every other day, she’d walked these halls and not given a fuck what people thought of her. But today? Next to him?

She felt like a punchline.

“God, it must be exhausting to be you. Pretending to be above all the people who pretend to give a shit about you.”

Steve stopped and blinked, like he didn’t hear her right. Then his whole face changed. His eyebrows pulled together, mouth going flat, that soft haze in his eyes hardening into something unreadable.

His jaw clenched once. Then again, like he was grinding down whatever he wanted to say. The silence between them stretched, brittle and sharp.  

Kat didn’t wait for his response. She stalked into Mrs. Click’s class, boots echoing with every pissed-off step. The second Steve stepped in behind her, the entire temperature of the room shifted.

Every girl turned to look at him. Except one.

Kat locked eyes with her. She was slouched halfway down in her seat, pen spinning between her fingers, deadpan expression plastered across her face.

Kat didn’t know her well. She was in the band. Quiet until she wasn’t. Talked fast and landed a lot of one-liners. Made English class a hell of a lot more fun, though.

The girl’s gaze flicked to Kat, and one brow rose the tiniest inch. Her head tilted. Lips flattened into a line so dry it could have started a drought.

Kat barely suppressed a snort as Tammy Thompson bombarded Steve with some bubbly nonsense about the game tomorrow. Sliding into the seat behind the girl, she leaned in and murmured under her breath.

“Robin, you might wanna move. If he takes that jacket off, Tammy’s gonna combust on the spot.”