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 stood with Steve and Dustin as they finally reached the junkyard, looking around at the bits of discarded metal and old tires scattered around the grass. It wasn't much at first glance, but by the time they were through with it, it was going to look like the perfect battle ground.
"Yeah, this will do. This will do just fine." Steve nodded as he walked away, dropping some meat on the ground as he went. "Good call dude."
Ryan smiled, wrapping an arm around Dustin's neck as he looked up at her with a proud grin, "Always the smarty pants aren't we?"
Dustin laughed, pushing her off of him. She walked past Steve to the broken down bus in the distance. The year before, the kids had used it to hide with Axel from the Hawkins Lab soldiers chasing after them. Before then, it was a place they came to chill out in, using the bus as a base when they played hide and seek. Before them, Ryan, Steve, and Axel had used it as a secret hideout. Just beneath the old lettering, their names were carved into the side. That bus held more memories than any bus that still ran.
Sighing, Ryan walked back to the boys just as they dropped the rest of the meat into a small pile in the center of the clearing. She crinkled her nose at the smell that rose from it. Raw meat did not smell great as it got warmer.
"I said medium rare!" A voice came from behind them.
Ryan whirled around, seeing Lucas waving over at them, Max getting off the back of the bike. She laughed, running over to them, "Holy shit, Max?"
Steve glanced over at Dustin, seeing his eyes on the smaller redhead, finally understanding who the girl was that he had talked about on the train tracks, "You have a thing for Max?"
"That's not important right now, Steve." Dustin muttered, dropping his bucket by a broken car. "We've got bigger problems."
Steve glanced over at Ryan, watching as she gave Max a hug, reaching over to tug at Lucas' bandanna. Lucas rolled his eyes, swatting her hand away, but he was grinning. She looked back at Max, saying something that made her laugh.
For a brief second, Steve could swear he was seeing his future. Ryan, laughing with the kids, one that actually looked just like her, all of them looking up at her with so much love and appreciation in their eyes- it was beautiful. That was the future he wanted. He wanted that future with her, now he just had to get it.
*•*•*
Ryan helped Max lift a large piece of cattle panel, something they were going to use to cover the windows of the bus. Behind her, Steve yelled at the boys to get busy. They had hidden behind one of the cars, Dustin demanding to talk to Lucas privately.
Max bounced off to get another sheet of metal as Ryan rolled another tire over to the side of the bus. They had already gotten a huge stack of them by then, but one more couldn't hurt.
