I Know The End ✸ Steve Harrington

i. ice cream and gossip

The teenage girl's face lightened up at the sight of her younger brother. "Hey! When'd you get home?" Josie brought the boy into an embrace, feeling slightly shocked at how tall he had gotten from only being away for a month.

"Yesterday." Dustin pulled away from the hug, allowing Steve to wrap an arm around her shoulder, "I have so much to tell you guys." He gave them both a grin.

"The usual?" Steve questioned Josie, already moving to make her usual order of plain vanilla ice cream (simple but delicious) which indicated they were in need of a catch up with the younger Henderson as he seemed eager to share. But before he could move around the counter, Robin Buckley was stood holding out two freshly made ice creams for the two siblings.

"You're the best, Rob." Josie sent her a warm smile, grabbing the two sundaes out of her hands and passing one to Dustin and not forgetting to leave a five dollar tip. The compliment caused Robin to the return the smile sheepishly, but she quickly turned around before they could catch onto her shy expression. Even in high school, Robin took a liking to Josie as they had quite a lot in common and having the occasional conversation in Mrs. Click's class. But with the girl making regular appearances at the ice cream parlor, the two became closer.

The three decided to sit in a booth, leaving the Buckley girl to work the rest of her shift as they sat to talk slightly away from the rest of the customers. The couple sat close to each other as usual with Steve's arm propped up on the chair behind Josie's head as her torso was snugly up against his, both paying attention towards Dustin.

To their surprise, the boy started off the conversation with retelling the story on how he met his new girlfriend, Suzie. "Girlfriend?" Josie almost spat her ice cream out at the words leaving his mouth.

"Yup." Dustin grinned, digging into his sundae, "Hotter than Phoebe Cates, I'm telling ya'."

Steve scoffed, "No. No way. Hotter than Phoebe Cates? No."

The boy nodded excitedly. "Brilliant, too. And she doesn't even care that my pearls are still coming in. She says kissing is better without teeth."

Josie and Steve both shared a glance, slightly grossed out but kept their faces neutral not to falter the boy's gushing about his relationship.

"Oh." Josie nodded, no other words leaving her mouth at the information she really didn't need to know, going back to eating her ice cream.

"Wow. Yeah, that's great." Steve blinked, "Proud of you, man. That's ro— That's kind of romantic."

Dustin hummed in delight. "So do you really just get to eat this as much as you want."

"Yeah. I mean, sure. It's not really good for me though. Y'know? I gotta keep in shape." Steve motioned to Josie, sending her a lopsided grin.

Dustin grimaced. "No one wants to see that. That's my sister, man."

"Yeah, no one else needs to see your bedroom eyes."

"Ignore her." Steve promptly grunted at Robin's intervening. Working alongside the Buckley girl, he had learned to brush her comments off to save himself from embarrassment.

"She seems cool." Dustin shrugged, not seeming to find the girl that bad.

"Right?" Josie agreed. "You should've met her when we were in high school."

"She's not." Steve dismissed her comment, wanting to change the subject away from high school — he wasn't exactly proud of who he was back then. "So, where are the other knuckleheads?"

Dustin's smile faltered, "They ditched me yesterday. My first day back. Can you believe that shit?" He scoffed. Being back from camp, he expected more of a better welcoming back from his friends, but he only received the opposite.

"Seriously?"

"What?" Josie faced scrunched in confusion and slight sadness, "They left you alone?" It was sad to say that she hadn't been babysitting The Party that often as they were now getting older which meant not seeing them as often. Especially now that Lucas and Mike both had girlfriends, prioritising their times on them more than their friends.

"Swear to God." Dustin then spoke with resilience, "They're gonna regret it, though, big time, when they don't get to share in my glory."

"Glory? What glory?"

The younger boy smugly moved closer to the couple, speaking lowly. "So, last night. We're trying to get in contact with Suzie...And, uh..." He looked around cautiously, watching everyone engaged in their own conversations, assuring him it was safe to speak. Josie and Steve stared at him confused as Dustin whispered something incoherently behind his hand.

"What?"

Dustin tried repeating his words but still not enough to translate. "Just speak louder." Steve told him.

"I intercepted a secret Russian communication." The younger Henderson had said too loudly as now the whole store was staring at the three.

"Oh, my God." Josie couldn't help but flush in embarrassment at the sudden attention.

"Jeez, shh. Yeah, that's what I thought you said." Steve moved in more so the three were huddled up, resting his hand on Josie's leg. "Wait— What does that mean?"

"It's means, Steve, we could all be heroes. True American heroes."

"Huh." Steve nodded along at the idea, a smirk on his face. "You hear that, babe? Your boyfriend's probably gonna be a hero pretty soon."

Josie let out a giggle, "What's the catch?" She couldn't help but wonder.

"No catch, I just need your help."

"With what?"

Dustin opened his bag, retrieving a Russian dictionary. "Translation."