wires, steve harrington

thirty-two.

"yes." dustin sighed before he processed his words, making a face. "i never said that."

robin reorganized the tapes on the counter. "seriously, you guys, maybe on a monday you can play around in here like toddlers, but it's saturday. it's our busiest day."

"look, robin, i empathize, but this cannot wait." dustin replied, continuing his search on the computer.

meadow rolled her eyes as robin and steve continued to argue. "we think we may have solved the murder, okay?" she shouted, making them go silent. "as far as we know, eddie's the only eye witness, and we need to find him so we can figure out if it has something.. something to do with the upside down."

steve's brows furrowed. "wait, what are you talking about?"

"i saw the girl.. the one who died. she got into eddie's trailer, and when he left it he was.. really spooked. he drove away, but i think.. i think he was afraid because something else killed her."

"uh.. but what if he-"

"he didn't kill her, dustin already ruled that out." meadow cut steve off.

he raised a brow. "oh, so you trust eddie now, huh?"

"no, i trust dustin." she argued. "are we really having this conversation again?"

"i'm sorry, i'm sorry! i just.. guy allegedly flirts with you, next thing we know he's a murder suspect and you want to help him-"

"what i want is for you to stop for just one second, okay?" she replied, sighing in relief as he nodded. "okay, we think this is linked to the upside down. so we need to find eddie because he's the only person who knows for sure."

steve nodded again, crossing his hands over his chest. "okay. okay. yeah. yeah. i'm sorry."

meadow looked up at him. "yeah, it's fine."

"no, really, i was just jealous-"

"we know, steve!" dustin replied, trying to focus.

soon, they had a list of potential friends of eddie's. while dustin, robin, and max called them on the three phones, steve and meadow attempted to tend to the customers.

"hey, are you okay?" steve asked as the store cleared out temporarily. "i just.. i know this isn't your favorite thing, right, the upside down stuff."

she shrugged. "i mean it's routine at this point, right?" she laughed, but looked down at her feet as she nodded. "yeah, yeah. i guess i'm just hoping we'll have it all sorted out before i can actually think that it's real."

he frowned. "if it's.. if it bothers you, we can just call the cops, right? let them find eddie."

meadow shook her head. "steve, you know they won't do anything. now that hopper's gone, they're not.. the police don't know anything about any of this. they'd throw us in the looney bin before we could even finish a sentence."

"yeah.. yeah. you're right."

she thought for a moment. "you know, i actually.. i was thinking about that."

"thinking about what?"

"the police. cops."

"i.. i'm not following."