A NEW AND IMPROVED VERSION
Ryan Fordman has lived next door to Steve Harrington her entire life. Her entire life, he'd always been a window away, occasionally shouting across the space between their houses. They were inseparable... at least, they we...
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Ryan sat in the waiting room, slowly falling asleep on Steve's shoulder. After everything she had been through in the past couple days, she hadn't gotten any sleep whatsoever. She wasn't sure she could stand up if she was paid to at this point. She was exhausted.
Hopper sat on her other side, watching the two with a small smile on his face. He had given Steve a hard time over the past few months when he would run into him somewhere, but he knew that he cared about Ryan, that he always would. Looking at the two of them together again, he almost couldn't tell that they had been apart for months.
There was a loud chattering from outside the waiting room as reporters made their way to the front desk, asking for any information about Will's resurgence into the world of the living. Hopper sighed, getting up to throw them out, startling Ryan awake.
"Hey, hey get some rest Sunshine." Steve muttered into her hair. "You can fight off reporters tomorrow, okay?"
Nancy took the now empty seat beside Ryan, smiling softly, "You haven't slept in days, Ry. We'll wake you when there's news."
Ryan nodded, too tired to argue, immediately falling asleep on Steve's shoulder. Steve laid his head on top of Ryan's looking over at the kids asleep across from them, a mirror image of Ryan's exhaustion.
The kids meant a lot to her, something that started back when she had first started hanging out with Jonathan Byers in sophomore year. Steve remembered walking into her house one day to find Will with Dustin on her couch as she and Jonathan went over some pictures he had taken for the yearbook. Not to mention the time Lucas had spilled that boiling hot tea on his lap.
"Sunshine?" Nancy whispered, looking up at him.
"Hmm?" Steve raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"You called Ryan Sunshine." She said, speaking quietly as to not wake the sleeping redhead in between them.
"Yeah, I've called her that since we were seven," Steve smiled, recalling the memory. "It was raining outside and we were stuck indoors. She was dancing through my house singing different songs and I just said 'Who needs sunshine when we have you?' It made her laugh."
Nancy smiled at the story, looking at how peaceful the memory made Steve. It was something she wasn't sure she had seen before, "Ryan told me about earlier today."
Steve glanced at Nancy, swallowing hard, "Nance—"
"No, it's fine." She shook her head, waving off whatever apology he was about to give her. "We weren't together, don't worry about it. I'm just wondering if there's something there."
Steve felt his heart start to speed up at the question, "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean." Nancy said, looking at Ryan asleep on his shoulder. Steve followed her eyes, seeing how peaceful Ryan was as she slept, her eyes fluttering as she dreamed.
