CW: drug use
"BUT BRO..." Ringo drawled out the beginning of her sentence before pausing, taking in another inhale of the spliff delicately poised between her index and middle finger while she gazed absently into the distance. "It had to have been the chicken. Or else how would the egg have been laid? Who would have laid the egg?"
"I do not agree," Steve shook his head adamantly, laying sprawled out on the carpeted bedroom floor aside his girlfriend. "The chicken couldn't have come out of nowhere, it didn't just appear it had to have been born from an egg!"
"Well then where did that egg come from?!" She argued, arms flying upward with attitude. Jessica watched the exchange with uninterrupted giggles, the high having left her full of amusement as she leaned against the wall comfortably.
Sunny and Julia were out of the house that Sunday, and so the trio saw it a perfect time to hit up the local dealer and spend their afternoon baked out of their minds. Ringo was ecstatic with the plan, knowing it would temporarily distract both Steve and Jessica from whatever rift had become blatant between them and perhaps even give clues as to what had caused it in the first place.
"We all came from eggs! And those eggs came from someone who was an egg originally!" Steve profoundly spoke, running a hand through his hair as he made multiple attempts to sit up straight, stumbling backward several times before finally managing to get up and cross his legs underneath him as if he were at yoga.
"Jessica can you please involve yourself and settle this debate," Ringo pleaded toward her chuckling friend, who immediately shook her head as she had now refocused her attention on her own toes.
"Can y'all do this?" She questioned, ignoring the topic at hand as she spread her toes out until there was a freakishly large gap between all of them. Ringo and Steve shrieked in horror, scrambling forward to stare in wonder.
"How on earth is that possible?" Steve demanded, dragging his hands down his cheeks and dragging the skin with it. Ringo's mouth had fallen open in exaggerated shock.
"Your feet is like a demogorgan's... Steve- get the bat!"
"I can't beat up Jessica, Ringo," Steve stated with an eye roll. "That'd be considered a hate crime."
"You couldn't if you tried," Jessica replied confidently, "and my girlfriend would never be your friend again and let's be honest Harrington you're running low in that department."
Steve gasped at the words, his hand held over his chest with overdramatic hurt and a pouted lower lip. "So mean..."
"You know who would be your friend..." Ringo began, a mischievous look on her face. "A dog."
"Oh my god!" Steve whipped around, a grin splitting his face, "should we get a dog?"
"Yes!" Ringo nodded enthusiastically.
"Adopt don't shop," Jessica tiredly mumbled, rubbing her reddened eyes.
"Let's adopt a dog!" Ringo cheered with glee.
"What would we call him?!"
"How about Loke? Cos it's our thing?"
"How about Loki? Like that Norse God?" Jessica offered her input when Steve had scrunched his name up at the name suggestion.
The trio jumped in fright at the sudden sound of the house phone ringing. Groaning with the effort, Ringo rolled onto her knees and pushed herself into standing before proceeding to answer it, clearing her throat and trying her hardest to focus and not give away through her speech that they had been indulging in any illicit activities.
"Yello!" She answered cheerily.
"Ringo, it's your mom," Julia greeted from the other line, likely having called the home phone from the Wheeler residence where she had been visiting that day.
"Hiiiiiii mommy!" Ringo beamed, catching eyes with Jessica and Steve who were giving her a shake of their heads as a hint to tone down the happiness and not raise suspicion. "I mean-" she cleared her throat, "hello mother."
"I'm just calling to remind you that you told Uncle Tommy you were going to visit today."
Ringo's expression immediately fell. Uncle Tom.
Tom Wheeler was the great uncle of herself, Nancy and Mike and was - for lack of a better description, not exactly the most mundane man in Hawkins. The aged man had never married or had children, and instead had dedicated his life to apocalypse preparation. This meant he more or less lived in the bunker beneath his house, which was stacked with enough canned food and bottled water to last him four years into a supposed apocalyptic event. Despite this quirk, he had taken a great shining to his nieces and nephew and had been asking them to visit now for weeks. Ringo had agreed, offering to bring Steve to introduce the two.
"Shiiiiiiiit," she swore, clapping a hand over her mouth and desperately meeting Steve's curious gaze.
"Please tell me you didn't forget," Julia reprimanded, "Nancy is on her way there now. Will I tell her to pick you up on the way?"
Ringo pondered their current inebriation, and determined that they were absolutely in no fit state to drive. They were in no state to be seen either, but she would feel too guilty to abandon the plans altogether.
"Yeah tell her to pick us up, please."
When the call ended, she returned to the other two with a sheepish expression, only explaining when Steve raised his eyebrows for an explanation.
"So you'll finally get to meet Great Uncle Tommy!"
✵
"Nancy! Ringo!" Tommy greeted with glee, wearing a camouflaged jacket and shorts along with a beaming grin. "And this must be Steve?"
"Hey Uncle Tommy," Nancy smiled tightly in return, leaning in for a hug. She had spent the entire car journey ripping into her cousin and ex boyfriend for the state they were in and the group were still a little tense upon arrival.
"Tommy!" Ringo cheered when Nancy returned, leaning in for a hug of her own. She was biting the insides of her cheeks in an attempt to focus and could only hope it was paying off. However the second the uncle and niece had hugged, Tommy had taken one sniff of her jacket and gave her a knowing look.
"How ya' doin' man, you've raised two amazing girls right here," Steve spoke rapidly, shaking his hand desperately and for a moment longer than socially acceptable. Tommy quirked his brows at the mention of 'raising' his nieces, but ultimately said nothing except a greeting in return.
"Come on guys, I'll show you my latest stock," he ushered them inside, where Ringo and Nancy met eyes knowingly. Most of these visits were spent with Tommy showing them the latest additions to his nuclear shelter, but it ultimately made the elderly man happy and so they didn't mind listening to his conspiracies and indulging in his fantasies.
The next half hour was spent going through the various canned food items he had at his stead, from spaghetti to pineapple slices. Admittedly, Steve and Ringo had come down from their high in that time, although the thirty minutes spent was long and full of drug induced paranoia while listening to all the ways Tommy thought the world was going to end. Their hearts raced with anxiety upon hearing he thought the Russians would invade on March 20th specifically and ban all sugary foods and the English language. Down in the bunker, the girls had pointed out a new door and extension that had been installed, which Tommy was more than happy to introduce them to.
"Girls, may I present..." he rushed over, his hands wrapped around the handle as he flung the heavy door open and switched on the light. Immediately upon seeing the inside, the trio's mouths fell open in shock. "My weapons cache!"
"Tommy," Ringo inhaled sharply, "this could not be legal!"
"If you obey the law then you're nothing but a sheep, I've taught you girls better than that!" He defended, gesturing madly to approximately sixteen assault rifles he had ready to go. "Do you think the government are obeying the law while they kill off the lower class? Have I told you how AIDS came around?"
Deciding not to comment before he could continue with a new theory that was altogether likely not politically correct, Ringo's attention was drawn to a long rifle like object with an attached canister. It looked homemade, and incredibly dangerous.
"What's that, Uncle Tommy?" She asked, pointing towards the weapon.
"My flamethrower," he answered proudly while lifting it into his grip as if it were a trophy, causing the trios eyes to immediately widen in surprise. "I made it myself, it'll take out 10 suckers with a single burst."
"Like uncle like niece, huh?" Steve whispered to the blonde, referring to the makeshift flamethrower Ringo had created in the tunnels beneath Hawkins the prior Summer.
"Tommy, what could you possibly need a flamethrower for?" Nancy demanded, concern filling her being in such close proximity to the thing.
"Zombies," he stated deadpan, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.
✵
"Come on dude," Steve sighed exasperatedly, gesturing toward the explicit movie placed on the counter by the preteen before him, "you know I can't sell that to you."
"Why not?! I'm of legal age," the boy huffed, puffing out his chest as if it would somehow the change the boyishness of his facial structure and his lack of height.
"Legal age to what? Walk across the street without holding your mom's hand?" Steve rolled his eyes, ripping the movie out of the view of the kid's youthful eyes and stashing it underneath the counter. "Get outta here, kid."
"I bet you're taking that movie for yourself," the boy accused, "at least I can get bitches! You need that movie more than I do!"
"First of all, okay?" Steve began, placing his hands on his hips while narrowing his eyes at the accusation. "I get bitches. That's a fact. And second of all? They're not bitches. They're human beings."
"You're such a wuss man," the boy continued frustratedly, and Steve was all too glad to see his girlfriend racing across the Family Video parking lot. She was clearly excited about something, a thrilled smile stretched across her cheeks as she quite literally sprinted towards the entrance.
"Ringo!" Steve called out the second she arrived, beckoning her over frantically knowing that she would know exactly what to say to save him from this customer and force the little twerp to leave.
"Hey babe!" She called out, slightly out of breath from her jogging.
"Can you get rid of this little perv? He wants to buy porn and he's trying to convince me that he's old enough, I mean look at this kid!" Steve held his hands in the boy's direction with frustration. "I've got more hair in my nostrils than he does in his armpits!"
"Are you Sunny's big sister?" The boy questioned Ringo, completely disregarding Steve's insults as he stared wide-eyed upward at the taller girl.
"Yeah, why?" Ringo answered, furrowing her brows with confusion.
"Never mind!" The boy cried out, dashing for the exit before either of the older two could comment on the sudden shift in his demeanour, leaving them windswept and chuckling at the scene.
"What the hell was that about?" Steve laughed, coming out from behind the counter to greet his girlfriend with a kiss to the corner of her lips and an arm around her waist.
"Apparently Sunny is somewhat of a menace at school, the principal called to tell Mom that she had beaten the crap out of some kid that shouted something racist at her the other day," Ringo explained, wrapping her arms comfortably around his waist and leaning into his chest.
"Damn... what did your mom do?"
"She told her to hit him harder next time."
That elicited a laugh from Steve - it was an understatement to say that Julia wasn't the most conventional of mothers, but she didn't need to be to properly teach her daughters how to survive in this world.
"I just wanted to make sure you were here working first, I've got a surprise!" She suddenly exclaimed with glee, dragging herself from his grasp and heading back outside towards her car before Steve could question anything. It didn't take long to determine the nature of the surprise, as Ringo bounded back inside - this time with a rope in hand attached to an actual living animal.
"Heyyyy," Steve cooed, crouching down as his girlfriend and newfound pet entered the store. The dog was clearly elderly, a golden retriever with speckles of grey hairs throughout her golden fur. The animal was clearly too thin for its breed and size, and came across skittish and terrified as Steve approached.
"This is Fonzie," Ringo spoke softly, crouching down as well to wrap a comforting arm around the dog. "He already had a name, but he was rescued from this puppy farm. The shelter weren't even going to introduce me to him because he's older but I spotted him and knew he was gonna be ours!"
"Awwww the Fonz," Steve melted, gently petting the dog's head with pouted lips.
The move to get a dog they would call theirs was entirely domestic, and Steve thought it went along well with the plans he had laid out for the two of them in the immediate future. Ringo adopting the dog for the two of them was surely a positive sign.
"We basically have a kid, I guess," Steve commented as they returned to standing up straight, after giving Fonzie several minutes of much deserved affection and attention.
"Thank god he's adopted, or else he'd have your hair," Ringo teased, nodding towards the styled mop of hair atop his head.
"And your flat ass."
Ringo responded with a swift slap to his bicep.
"Hey," she began suddenly, "are dogs allowed in here?"
"No, why?"
Ringo grimaced as her eyes darted in a downward direction, Steve following her glance and immediately groaning upon seeing that 'Fonzie' had lifted his right leg and was currently urinating on the life size cardboard cut out of Tom Cruise set up to advertise his latest movie Top Gun.
"Ah shit..." Steve swore, expression twisting in distaste knowing he'd have to clean up the mess before his manager could spot it.
"The joys of fatherhood!" Ringo joked, pecking his cheek quickly before racing towards the exit before he could complain about the mess. "I guess he didn't like that movie!
"Hey, wait!" Steve called out, interrupting her dash to the door. "Are we still on for dinner tonight?"
"Yeah, of course!"
"Good, I'll pick you up at seven. I've got a surprise for you too," he ominously suggested, to which she waggled her eyebrows in return before leaving to take Fonzie home. She looked none the wiser to his plans, but Steve's heart raced at the thought of the surprise he had planned out for her.
✵
A bit of a filler chapter but it was needed for plot progression!