wires, steve harrington

forty-six.

immediately after parking the camper in an abandoned field, the group began to start building both their weapons and their plans. meadow was sitting with steve and robin outside of the camper, looking out at max and nancy, who were cutting the barrel off of nancy's gun. her gaze then shifted to eddie and dustin, who were closer to her, and were hammering nails into trash can lids.

eddie lifted the lid up into the air like a shield, testing the durability of it. meadow could see dustin start laughing as eddie dramatically started speaking, putting his foot up on a crate. judging by body language, she could see dustin make a horrible joke that eddie didn't laugh at. she was out to walk over to join them when she saw eddie lower himself and, with a growl, grab dustin's chest and start play fighting with him.

"you son of a bitch!" she heard dustin yell as he ran to tackle eddie, making them both yell. they tousled for a bit before dustin started screaming. "no wedgies! no wedgies!"

eddie's head threw back with a laugh before he stood upright, putting his hands around dustin's neck. "never change, dustin henderson." he said. "promise me?"

dustin shook his head. "i wasn't planning on it."

the older boy smiled. "good."

meadow tilted her chin their direction. "you boys about to kiss or something?" she joked, watching as they pulled away from each other.

"it just doesn't make sense." steve said on the other side of her.

"what, eddie and dustin as a couple? i agree. too big of an age gap." robin agreed.

"no." steve shook his head, still thinking about when they saw vickie at the store. "that was dan shelter. he graduated, like, two years ago."

robin didn't react, helping him pour gasoline into the funnel in his hands. "so?"

"so he's in college, which means he was visiting on spring break. fast times was returned, like, i don't know, a week ago, right? unless she's got some horndog brother we don't know about. which is possible. or she's just like.. really into judge reinhold?"

"steve!" robin interrupted him, shaking her head. "i don't care. and i don't understand why you do either with everything that's going on. honestly, this feels like a perfect time for that little pull of the rug because.. in the face of the world ending, the stakes of my love life feel spectacularly low."

he nodded. "i guess you're right. but.. robin, come on. you gotta have a little hope."

robin shrugged. "not everyone can have as perfect of a relationship as you, steve."

he chuckled before looking over at meadow, who had temporarily joined dustin and eddie in their play fight before walking back over to him and robin. "what's going on, guys?" she asked, shielding her eyes from the sun with a hand.

"steve's still on about dan shelter." robin said, watching as meadow nodded.

"i see. and what do you have to say about it?" she asked, sitting on the floor to help hold the bottles as they poured gasoline into them.

robin sighed. "i.. i guess it doesn't matter. not in the scheme of things, you know?" she looked between meadow and steve. "i just.. i have this terrible, gnawing feeling that.. it might not work out for us this time."

steve looked over at her. "you think we shouldn't be doing this?"

she smiled. "i think we're mad fools, the lot of us, but.. but if we don't stop him, who will?"

meadow looked out at dustin and eddie, who were still pretending to fight each other with their nail shields. she then nodded. "we have to try, right?"