Royal Pain || Stranger Things

three || big city

"Yeah, absolutely."

"Bring your swimsuit. We can swim for a while before we do a snack run."

"Awesome." Nancy lowered her voice, most likely checking around the corner to see if her mother was lingering. "I told my mom I was staying the night at your house in case the party runs late. Oh, and Steve's got a guy that's going to bring the kegs around seven."

| |

"You guys really call them 'swimming costumes' instead of swimsuits?"

Steve Harrington, lounging on a floating bed in the middle of the pool and keeping his glorious hair out of the water, was sipping on a cold beer with sunglasses pushed up his nose, glancing in the direction of the girls tanning on the deck.

Propped up on her elbows and doing her best to tan her paleness away, Tatum lowered her sunglasses slightly. "For the most part, yeah."

"But you said swimsuit on the phone with me earlier," Nancy countered, curls falling out of a messy bun as she laid out on her back.

"That's me trying to adapt to my surroundings so I can cause as little confusion as possible." Tatum sighed before clambering up from the ground and letting her hair down on her way over to the deep end.

"Do a flip," Steve called jokingly, pushing a foot off the wall so his pool floaty angled toward the diving board that Tatum was climbing.

Tatum only cracked a grin, bounding off the board and up into the air, executing a clean flip before diving into the water.

Steve sat up so quickly he nearly fell off the floaty, taking off his sunglasses with his free hand.

Nancy had done the same, no longer interested in tanning as her jaw dropped.

"Oh, my god, I was kidding," Steve said as Tatum surfaced. "I was totally kidding."

Tatum laughed, slicking back her hair as she swam to the edge of the pool and hauled herself out of the water. "I swim a lot."

"No kidding," Nancy said, setting her sunglasses on the lounge chair before climbing the stairs into the shallow end of the pool. "That was so cool."

"I'll be more impressed if you can do a backflip," Steve piped up, finishing off his beer.

"Steve," Nancy groaned.

"Hang on," Tatum countered as she stood, headed back for the diving board. "If I do a backflip, you put your hair in the water."

Steve's eyes narrowed. "Wait."

"Full on, I mean it. You jump off this board and get your fancy head of hair wet."

"But what about the party?" he replied in question. He waved a hand around the top of his head. "I need this to look like this for tonight. I'm not going to a party with flat hair."

"Good god, mate," Tatum said with a laugh. "I've never met someone take their hair so seriously. We've still got a few hours before the party. You can go restyle or whatever when Nancy and I make the snack run."

Steve folded his arms. "This better be a good backflip."

"I'll make it fancy for you, Harrington." Tatum shot a finger gun in his direction, bounding forward off the board.

"I said backflip!" he shouted, only to be quickly shut down.

Albeit going off the board like normal, as soon as she hit the air, she barreled her body backward, flipping just as clean as before and diving in.