Chapter Text
HAWKINS, INDIANA. MARCH 16, 1986 — SUNDAY.
Working at Family Video isn’t the worst fate Steve Harrington could have imagined for himself, but as he screens yet another caller asking if they have Top Gun in yet, he can’t help but feel like the cards have really not fallen in his favor.
“Ma’am it’s not even playing at the movies for another couple months—no, we don’t have advance copies. No I can’t call Tom Cruise and ask, that’s not how it—look, leave your number and we can let you know when it gets in. Yeah. Yeah.”
He pretends to take down her number and hangs up the phone without bothering to spout the store’s slogan. A quick glance at the clock tells him he’s only been here for two hours. Motherfucker. He lets his head fall onto the counter with a heavy thunk.
“I swear to God, Rob,” he mumbles, “in a better timeline I got that modeling gig and actually got to leave this retail shit behind me.”
From somewhere in the shelves Robin gives a loud snort. “That woman was definitely not an agent. She was a cougar who wanted to feel some joy by telling lies.”
Steve frowns. “She said I had European cheekbones.”
“She also said you could pass for twenty-five, and let’s face it Steve. You’re going to be baby faced forever.”
“I could grow a beard if I wanted to!”
Another snort from the stacks. “Well if she calls you, I’ll be the first one to come see your show. I gotta see what type of competition those cheekbones are up against.”
Steve lets her have her laugh. Rob’s stuck on reshelving duty this morning, and he’d way rather screen Top Gun calls than have to sing the alphabet in his head a million times. Robin always says it’s not that hard, but Steve definitely caught her trying to remember whether T came before or after R last week.
The store’s quiet, as it always is on a Sunday morning. The bible-thumpers and their kids—a decent portion of the Hawkins population—are off at church, and the rest of the town are still sleeping off their Saturday night. They’ve had like two customers actually come in, and one guy just browsed for half an hour before leaving. Dude didn’t even rent anything, just picked up two dozen movies and put them back wrong.
Robin’s voice interrupts his mental grumbling. “Steve, can you check about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?”
Steve unsticks his cheek from the vinyl and squints over at the computer. “How do you spell that?”
“F-E-R-R-I-S. This copy doesn’t have the right sticker.”
He types the letters into the system and taps absently on the countertop as it loads a list of results. “Nah, nothing for that.”
“As in, it’s meant to be checked out?”
“As in it’s not in the system.”
Robin’s head pokes out from the Family section, her eyebrows furrowed in that You-Do-Not-Amuse-Me-Steve-Harrington way. “It’s got a sticker, Steve, it’s gotta be in the system. Are you sure you spelled it right?”
Steve flings his hands up. He was a solid C English student, not illiterate. “Come check it yourself then.”
Robin groans dramatically and huffs her way over. Her vest is sticking out weirdly at the back, but just for the modeling crack he’s not going to tell her that. She types the movie name into the computer, then frowns. “It’s not here.”
“Told ya.”
Robin scowls at him. “It has a—”
“Sticker, I get it,” Steve finishes for her. He picks up the video. It’s got a picture of a guy wearing sunglasses on the front and a paper Family Video slip tucked into the clear plastic cover. Everything looks normal, but Robin’s right—they usually use red slips to mark overnight-only rentals, and yellow for weekly and fortnightly. This one is blue.
“I don’t know what blue means.” He admits, flipping the video over to check the back. It definitely has the right sticker, with a barcode and everything. He tries running the scanner over it, but the system just lets out a little beep and an error message appears on the computer screen.
“I didn’t think we used blue,” Robin says with annoyance. “Unless Keith decided we needed a color rebrand and neglected to tell us.”
“Look, the code’s obviously busted in some way and neither of us knows what the tag means." He tosses the tape back to her. "Just put it in the sorting pile and we’ll ask Keith when he’s here next.”
Robin shrugs her agreement and takes the Ferris video to the back room. Steve can hear her puttering around in there, probably retrieving a candy bar from her secret stash. Sure enough, a moment later she steps out munching on some chocolate-peanut monstrosity, winking at Steve when he notices him watching. He checks the front entrance—still a deserted wasteland—and lets his forehead fall back down onto the counter with a thud. Fuck Sundays.
***
MARCH 17, 1986. MONDAY.
“Code red! This is Dustin calling in a code red, does anyone copy?!”
Steve flinches half out of his skin, lurching towards his bedside table so violently that he nearly falls out of the bed. His sheets, tangled to all hell around his legs, barely keep him from tipping over the edge.
With one hand he reaches to stabilize himself on the bed, and with the other he fumbles for the walkie that lives in the top drawer of his bedside table. It sticks for a second, then creaks open. The walkie signal is even louder with the drawer open, and Steve mashes the buttons as he tries to find the Let-Me-Talk one.
“-ode red! This is Dustin—”
“Dustin,” Steve barks into the receiver, “What’s up? Who’s hurt?”
“Steve, thank god! Someone stole my lucky baseball.”
There’s a long moment of silence. On Steve’s end, at least. Dustin is still talking, rambling on about something.
Steve tilts his head to look at his alarm clock. It’s nearly seven in the morning. Early enough that he wants to go back to sleep, late enough that his body probably won’t let him. He scrunches his eyes shut and breathes deeply through his nose.
“—and then it was gone! And I know that it wouldn’t just roll away, it—”
“Dustin,” Steve interrupts, trying to keep his voice even. “You called in a code red because you can’t find a baseball?”
“Affirmative. But it’s not just ‘a baseball’, it’s the one I found underneath—”
Steve turns the walkie off more aggressively than the piece of plastic probably deserves and rolls back onto his pillow. He hopes some of his frustration filters through the airwaves and gives the little nerd a headache.
***
MARCH 18, 1986. TUESDAY.
Tuesday afternoons aren’t quite as bad as Sundays. Steve can admit that. He’s rostered on through to closing, and he has to work with Keith until Robin starts at 4, but at least there are, like, actual customers. It helps break up the hours, plus there’s always at least one cute girl who comes in looking for a movie night flick. Steve’s not ashamed to say that being on shift with Keith is actually pretty helpful in the babe department. Between Keith and Steve, girls tend to choose the less judgy and sarcastic employee to ask for recommendations.
Once Robin comes in, Tuesdays can actually upgrade to 'pretty fun'. They don’t keep a Scoops-style scoreboard here, but that doesn’t mean they can’t compete. Robin keeps track of all the times Steve strikes out with girls, and Steve keeps track of how many hapless guys try and fail to get Robin to agree to a date. Right now, he’s mentally preparing to add another strike to that list.
“I’m not saying that Jedi was a cop-out, but they pretty clearly established Vader’s character in New Hope and Empire. Like, it makes sense for Luke to forgive his dad, but having Vader kill the Emperor and sacrifice himself is just, like, predictable, y’know?”
The guy’s whip-thin, around 5’8 with scruffy blond hair and owlish glasses. He looks at least 26, but that’s not stopping him from holding the clearly-teenaged cashier hostage. Robin nods again, eyes glazed over as she stares right past the guy at the cute brunette browsing through the horror section. Star Wars guy hasn’t noticed yet... Or he doesn’t care. It’s kind of hard to tell.
“It’s clear that the series is going to become a huge touchstone for popular cinema,” he continues, “and they’re obviously going for a counter-culture approach, so they should commit to, like, not choosing the basic predictable resolution, right?”
“Uh-huh. Totally,” Robin says, eyes still on horror girl. Steve knows for a fact she hasn’t seen the last Star Wars movie, because she tried to get a girl from school to go see it with her when it first came out, got stood up, and now refuses to watch it out of spite.
The guy smiles like Robin’s half-hearted agreement was an eyelash-fluttering swoon. “Exactly. Luke is a rebel leader who helped overthrow his dad. He’s like an icon for those of us who wanna fight the system.”
Robin and Steve both do a double take when the guy suddenly lifts the hem of his shirt, because—wow. For an old nerd who can’t take a hint, he’s actually got some muscle to him. Steve wonders if he’s a swimmer, then blinks when he clocks exactly why the guy lifted his shirt up.
On his left hip is a tattoo of… well it looks like the Star Wars guy in the car from that time travel movie, holding an American flag out the car window. The words ‘legalize canabis’ are inked in cursive along the bottom edge. Steve’s been to enough parties that he knows that’s not spelled quite right.
“Pretty sweet, huh?” The guy says with a smile. Robin nods, wide-eyed.
“Uh, yeah. Wow. That’s…pretty unique.”
“Sure is. I got it last week but it’s healing up pretty good. Have you ever seen Back to the Future? It’s an instant classic, too.” He glances at the shelves and drops his shirt, running a hand through his hair. “If you like we could…watch it together some time?”
There it is. Steve smiles to himself. After putting so much time into his pitch, he almost feels bad for the guy.
“It’s pretty complicated, but I could explain stuff to you if you get confused.”
Ah. The ‘because you’re a girl’ part goes unspoken, but Steve’s sure he and Robin both hear it loud and clear. Strike.
“Oh, sorry,” Robin says, not sounding sorry at all, “I’ve actually got plans. Steve might be free, though. He could definitely use someone to explain the plot to him.”
The guy leaves pretty quickly after that.
***
MARCH 19, 1986. WEDNESDAY
Weirdly enough, if there’s one thing Steve misses about high school, it’s the structure. It’s funny—when he was there, he just wanted out, just wanted people to stop telling him what to do and who to be. Now he’s working and he lives alone, but he’s never quite sure what to do with himself outside of business hours. He used to fill his time hanging with Tommy (obviously not a real option any more), then with Nancy (not a bearable option unless they’re in a group), and during summer he spent most of his time with Robin or the kids.
Now that school’s back, Steve’s come to realize how shitty it is to be an adult with zero adult friends. Zip. Zilch. He goes on dates to fill the time, but that’s really all he gets out of it. The sex is fine—even bad sex is still sex, obviously—but it’s not, like. Meaningful.
Robin laughs at him whenever he brings this up, but she doesn’t get it. She’s in extracurriculars, she sees Steve at work several times a week, and she regularly hangs out with Nancy to study. Her life is, if anything, too full. Steve’s feels…hollow. Like he’s missing the next step, just floating around waiting for something interesting to happen.
So all that being said, the sound he lets out when he gets the message that a strange body’s been found isn’t exactly respectful, but it’s also pretty understandable.
“I fucking knew it, I knew something was gonna happen! Fill me in, Henderson.”
Over the walkie line, Dustin makes an exasperated sound. “Okay dude, first off you sound way too excited about this. Second, I literally just said we gotta wait for everyone else to join the frequency. I refuse to repeat myself a million times.”
Steve groans into the receiver and slumps back against the couch. The TV’s still playing some variety show on the same low volume as always—he tends to keep it on in the background these days—and he shuts his eyes against the garish colors. “Henderson, you’re the most impatient brat I know. Spill the details before I tell Max you’re the one who spilled juice on her Rodney Mullen shirt.”
“You wouldn’t!” Dustin squawks, followed by a crash and some static. Steve lets him panic, because with that good of a threat it's only a matter of time before he breaks. Sure enough, a moment later there’s a clatter and Dustin’s voice clicks onto the line again.
“Augh, fine! Just wait like ten seconds for Lucas and Mike to—”
“We’re here Dustin.”
“What? How long—”
“Long enough,” comes Mayfield’s voice, and she sounds pissed. She home-made that shirt especially, and there had nearly been a full-scale riot to find the culprit behind The Juice Incident.
“If it’s any consolation I think Rodney would have really appreciated the grape scent,” Robin says, joining the frequency with an audible grin in her voice.
Dustin wails, and Steve can almost picture him frantically checking his windows for murderous teen girls. “Shit, shit, shit! I’m gonna kill you, Steve!” He whines.
“Not before I get to you,” Max grits out. There’s the brief sound of a scuffle, followed by Mike's voice, brisk. “Guys, can we get back to the actual dead body?”
“Please!” Lucas begs, sounding both longsuffering and also sort of out of breath. Steve thinks he must be the one trying to stop Max from immediately leaving to take revenge on Dustin.
Dustin makes another little nonverbal noise and then clears his throat. “Right, dead guy. So I was taking a shortcut through Parkside when I noticed the ambulance lights. I snuck over to look, and there’s cops taking pictures of a dead guy!”
“And what about him was suspicious, exactly?” Robin asks.
“It was only half a dead guy.” Dustin says with gravity.
“What?”
“Half?”
“Upper or lower?” Steve asks.
“Lower,” Dustin says, “I think. I was gonna get closer to confirm but Powell noticed and made me leave because the scene wasn’t ‘suitable for young eyes’.” He clicks his tongue. “No one lets kids appreciate a good dead body these days.”
“So someone got…cut in half?” Max asks skeptically.
“Or eaten in half,” Robin cuts in. “You said there were monsters other than the—the mindflayer, right? Big chompy-faced things. What if one of those came back?”
There’s a long silence. Steve thinks back to the demodogs and how viciously they’d tried to rip everyone to shreds. Those hadn’t been impossible to kill, but…his blurry memories of the demogorgon he’d seen at the Byers house, his first introduction to all the shit going down in Hawkins. If one of those fuckers is somehow back topside, that’s a massive problem. El’s not around any more—and even if she was, she’s been fully out of juice since the shitshow at StarCourt.
“Last time, the demogorgon took people.” That’s Nancy’s voice crackling through the frequency. Steve didn’t realize she’d joined the call. “It didn’t leave anything behind.” Steve doesn’t have to be looking at her to know that she’s thinking of Barb, and everything they went through with her family.
“It’d also be messier,” Mike says. “It’s built for brute force and mauling, not biting people in half.”
“Well whatever it is,” Dustin says after a pause, “it didn’t seem like a freak accident. There wasn’t a car or bike or anything sharp. Not even a lot of blood. From what I could see it was just, like, half a guy lying on the side of the road.”
“That does seem suspicious,” Robin concedes. “But how do we investigate it? Not like we can waltz up to the morgue and go ‘hey, got any bodies missing their top parts lately?’”
“I might be able to do some digging,” Nancy says. She’s got that edge to her voice that Steve recognises as her Journalism Instinct kicking in. Whatever plan she’s coming up with, she’ll probably make it work through sheer force of will.
“I’ll see what I can find out tomorrow after school,” she continues, “no promises, though.”
There’s a faint click as she disconnects her walkie. Definitely on the intellectual warpath. Robin makes a considering noise. “Wanna bet she’s literally gonna walk into the morgue and ask to see the body?”
Mike groans. “She’d better not. She’s already so insufferable about the ‘standards of privacy in Hawkins’ and shit. If that works she won’t shut up about it, ever.”
Steve snorts. “If it doesn’t work it’ll be worse. She ever spoken to you about freedom of the press?”
The answering pained sound and click of the walkie disconnecting is confirmation enough.
***
MARCH 20, 1986. THURSDAY.
“Scootch over, Rob,” Steve hisses, trying to settle the popcorn and two massive drinks on his lap. Robin doesn’t move an inch. Instead, she just grabs one of the drinks and begins slurping it loudly, stretching her legs over the seat in front. Steve rolls his eyes and wiggles himself into his chair as best he can. The Hawk really needs to upgrade its seating—as the oldest theater in town it’s automatically the coolest, but it means the chairs are vinyl-foam monstrosities that are worn to the wood and so fucking uncomfortable.
He tries to shuffle again, but Robin slaps his arm. “The previews are starting, shut up.”
Steve shuts up, but he also moves the popcorn box over to the far side of his lap so she can’t reach it. Robin loves eating all the popcorn before the opening credits get a chance to start, and even the Extra Grande serving doesn’t stand much of a chance if he doesn’t keep it away from her.
It’s a pretty quiet afternoon, even with the discounted seats to try and boost the afternoon crowds. Steve figures things will probably pick up in the evening.
On the huge screen in front of them, the Top Gun trailer music starts. Tom Cruise makes some quips, and then Kelly McGillis appears, blonde and gorgeous and giving as good as she gets.
He nudges Robin and waggles an eyebrow at her. She grins at him, reaching to grab a handful of popcorn. “I’d fly with her any day.”
He snorts a laugh and nods. The aerial stunts on screen are…well, as much as Steve hates people calling in about the movie, he’s gotta admit it looks pretty freaking cool. He’s never been on a plane, except for one time his parents dragged him on a business trip to New York when the nanny couldn’t take care of him. Flying one of those jets, soaring between clouds at breakneck speeds, definitely has an appeal to it.
He and Robin tussle over the popcorn as the screen darkens, and he manages to spill like half a million kernels down the front of his shirt. He’s not really listening when the next voiceover starts, too busy trying to shimmy all the crumbs off. But he pauses when Robin goes stock still next to him. She's staring at the screen, eyes wide.
Steve follows her gaze to the current trailer. Some kid is singing in the shower, then more kids are saying some stuff as classical music plays in the background. Nothing that would explain why Robin looks like she’s seen a ghost.
He gives her a tap. “What’s up?”
She just shushes him and hisses, “Watch!”
So he watches. It’s got Jennifer Grey in it, which is pretty cool. When the trailer ends and the title card fades out, he turns to Robin again. “So what’s up?”
She gives him an incredulous look. “It’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
“Okay, and?” Again, he can read.
“It’s the tape from the store—the busted one!”
Someone in the row behind shushes them, and Robin turns to flip them off—it's an empty theatre, they could sit literally anywhere else. Steve frowns. He remembers the tape, but: “Why would they be showing a trailer for it?”
“That’s exactly it, Steve! Why would they be showing a trailer for it?”
The person behind shushes her again, and she growls a string of curses before grabbing Steve by the arm and standing abruptly. “C’mon, let’s talk outside.”
“But Robin, Ghost Warrior!”
“Not important!”
She drags him all the way out of the theater, Steve trailing popcorn as he tries not to trip over his own feet. Once they make it outside, she immediately grabs her walkie out from her backpack and clicks it on. Steve tosses the now-empty container in the trash level and puts his hands on his hips.
“Care to explain literally anything that’s going on in that head of yours, Buckley?”
She just shushes him and messes with the frequencies. “Dustin? Dustin, this is Robin, do you copy?”
A moment passes, then Dustin’s voice crackles over the line. “Yeah I copy, what’s up?”
“You’re a movie nerd. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, when did it come out?”
On the other end, Dustin scoffs. “Rich coming from someone who literally works in a video store. I don’t know that movie, but Mike or Lucas might.”
Robin nods, deep in thought. “Yeah, ask them then get back to me. Over and out.”
Steve stares at her. “Okay, now can you explain?”
She rolls her eyes. “We had that tape in the store, right?”
Steve nods.
“But the trailer said ‘coming this August’.”
“Did it?”
“Yes! Pay attention, dingus! Now come on, we gotta swing by Family Video.”
They walk over to the store and breeze past Keith, who glares at them. “Aren’t you two off today?”
Robin ignores him, beelining for the back room. Steve tries to look like he has a clue what’s going on. After a moment, Robin emerges brandishing the tape, still marked with its blue slip. “Keith, I’m borrowing this. I’ll register it tomorrow.”
Keith seems to consider this for a second, but then shrugs. “On your head be it, Buckley. If you don’t I’ll just fire Steve.”
“Hey—!”
Steve’s protest is cut short by Robin grabbing him again and dragging him out of the store.
“So it’s an advance release! Big deal!”
“It’s an advance release—which Family Video does not stock—with a Family Video slip inside? Really, Steve?”
Steve flings his hands in the air. “I don’t know! But I also don’t see how it could possibly be something worth freaking over!”
“Everything can be a clue, Steve! This is a mystery, and every single mystery I’ve been involved in so far has led to my nearly being murdered by either Russians or a massive evil human-soup spider!”
“Okay, point. I still don’t really get it, but whatever. I trust your hunches.”
Robin pats him on the shoulder. “You know just what to say to a girl.”
They’re driving towards Steve’s place when Nancy’s voice bursts out of Robin’s backpack. She passes Steve the Ferris tape and fumbles with the zipper, grabbing the walkie. “Nancy?”
“Robin, I have some news on the you-know-what. Is Steve with you?”
“He is. What’s the news?”
“Come to mine, I’ll explain properly when you get here.”
“Got it. We’ll be there in ten.” She mutes the walkie and gestures to Steve, “C’mon, casa de Wheeler, tout suite!”
Steve sighs, but he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter. Dutifully he flicks the blinkers on and pulls a u-turn. “Coming right up.”
Dustin, Lucas and Max are already there when they pull up, waiting in the driveway and looking antsy. Steve hops out of the car and ruffles Dustin’s hair. “Okay, what’s the news.”
“Inside, we ordered pizza,” Max says, already turning to walk into the house. Steve’s not about to fight her on that, so he locks up the car and follows her.
Nancy is in the hall, finishing up a phone conversation from the sound of it. “Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Love you.” Ah, must be Jonathan. That faint Nancy-pang in his chest flares up, but he pushes it down. She’s clearly happy with him, and she’s not happy with Steve. Not complicated, in the end.
She looks up and notices Steve. “Oh good, you’re here. C’mon, downstairs.”
She ushers them all down to the basement where they take a few minutes to arrange themselves on the floor, on chairs or on the squishy sofa. Finally Nancy stands up, looking like she’s about to give a national address.
“So I went to the morgue today—”
“Ha!” Robin crows. “Pay up, dweebs!”
Nancy frowns, crossing her arms. “They let me see the body, but if no one’s interested in that…”
Robin smiles sheepishly up at her. “Sorry, Nance. Keep talking, I promise we’re interested.”
With only a mild narrowing of her eyes, Nancy nods. “Well, I told Patty I was doing a piece on civilian postmortem rights, and she convinced Gary that we should be allowing female journalists to take on more daring scoops. I even,” she says with a glint in her eye, “managed to snap a picture.”
With a flourish she pulls a print photo from a folder on the table. Everyone crowds in to look at it, quickly followed by a collective recoiling.
“Ew.”
“Yikes.”
“Oh ouch, poor dude.”
Steve blinks. It is clearly a dude lying on the morgue table, even with a sheet covering his junk. Well, it’s half a dude. The line of his body stops just below where the ribcage should be, but the split is…clean. Steve’s seen more than his share of dead and dismembered bodies, and most of them looked pretty gnarly; torn or bitten or just wrecked. Here there’s no tearing or ragged edges, to the point where it looks nearly like a machine did it. He’s just…half missing.
“What the hell,” Lucas breathes, “could have done that?”
“No demo-creature, that’s for sure,” Mike says seriously. “This is some new shit.”
Steve looks lower, trying to make out if there are any signs of damage elsewhere. It’s hard to tell against all the ink—the guy has tattoos all over his sides and legs. Some look like band logos, others are intricate floral arrangements. Steve squints. That’s definitely a pot leaf on his right hip, and on his left...
“What the fuck.” He pulls the photo towards himself, ignoring the complaints from the rest of the group. “No way.”
“What?” Nancy asks.
Steve points at the photo, holding it out to Robin. “Tell me what that’s a tattoo of.”
Robin raises an eyebrow, but looks at the picture. “It’s a guy in a car holding—holy shit. No fucking way is that what I think it is.”
Dustin grabs the photo away and frowns at it. “Luke Skywalker in the Delorean with an American flag. Cool, I guess?”
Max says something about it being an atrocity, but Steve is too busy staring at Robin. She’s staring right back, jaw slack.
“I mean. Surely someone else—”
“No way,” Steve interrupts. “I refuse to believe anyone else in the whole world has that tat. Plus, look underneath.”
“Legalize canabis,” Dustin reads. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how that’s spelled.”
“Exactly,” Steve says, ponting at the cursive letters, “that’s way too specific to be a coincidence.”
From the couch, Max takes a sip of her energy drink. “So some guy you know is dead. What does that prove, exactly?”
“He didn’t have all those tattoos when we saw him earlier this week, just the Star Wars one. No way he got that many in three days.”
“But these all look way healed over,” Dustin says consideringly. “Like at least a couple of years.”
Next to him, Mike nods. “Yeah, Eddie got a new tattoo back at the beginning of the year, and it took a few weeks to totally heal up from the scabbing.”
Ugh. Eddie. Steve had forgotten how nice it was not to have to hear about glorious Dragon Master Munson all day. But now Dustin’s all riled up too and he peers at the photo, pointing out a few tattoos here and there. “You’re right, these all look like his bats, and they’re like a couple years old.”
Next to Steve, Robin slaps her thighs. “More time shit!”
Before Steve can try to convince her that actually this cannot possibly be related to the stupid Ferris tape, the sound of the doorbell comes from upstairs.
“Pizza,” Mike says, then levels a smug look at his sister. “I got it last time, Nance.”
Nancy heaves a sigh and rolls her eyes. “Fine, but remember who actually paid for them. With her job money.” Still, she marches upstairs, work dress fluttering prettily behind her.
“Time shit?” Lucas asks once she’s gone. He raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Y’all didn’t get high and watch Back to the Future again, did you?”
“We were drugged!” Steve says at the same time Robin yells, “It was one time!”
“Shut up,” Max snaps, rapping the table loudly with her knuckles. “Explain.”
Steve raises his hands in surrender. “Robin has this theory that a tape she found is connected to the dead guy.”
Robin grabs the tape and holds it out. “It’s not that crazy, Steve, shut up. The movie isn’t supposed to come out for another couple months, but this was in the store on Sunday. How the hell is that possible? And now this guy who showed us his fresh tattoo three days ago suddenly shows up dead covered in years-old ink? I declare it to be time shit.”
She sits back and folds her arms as if to say ‘so there’.
Mike opens his mouth to say something, but the creak of the stairs interrupts. Steve calls up, “Nance, you need a hand with the pizza?” She doesn’t respond. Instead, she walks in silence and reaches the bottom of the stairs looking pale and slightly shell-shocked.
“Did someone say time shit?” She asks faintly.
“...Yes,” Robin says slowly. “Why?”
Then there’s a second set of creaky footsteps descending, and a tall man comes to a stop next to Nancy. He’s maybe in his late 20s, with waves of brown hair, a slightly crooked nose, and a familiar slant to his mouth. Steve opens his mouth, only to find that all his words have dried up and died. Everyone else stares at the stranger in stunned silence, too.
It’s Dustin who speaks first, his voice cracking shrilly.
“Steve?”