"I SWEAR YOU'VE PLAYED IT SO MANY TIMES I THINK I'M GETTING HYPNOTISED," Ringo ranted, flopping her head down onto the metal table from her seat next to Dustin. It took all of her inner strength not to grab the tape player and smash it into smithereens.
"Wait," Steve paused, halfway through chewing a bite of a banana, "what if it is hypnotising us to assassinate the president, or something?"
"Yes," Ringo responded in a dry tone, "because something about a radio presenter, an ice-cream server and a goddamn kid screams the next 'Lee Harvey Oswald'."
"Hey! I'm not a kid any more, because if I was that would make Suzie a pedophile," Dustin interjected, sighing in frustration as he reached for the player to rewind one again.
"Dustin," Ringo started after throwing a cautionary glance towards her boyfriend, "Suzie is someone that was at the actual camp, right? Not like... a supervisor, or anything - right?"
"Yes, that's gross!" He recoiled in disgust, giving her an incredulous glance. "Besides, our supervisor was toothless but I don't exactly think she had Cleidocranial Dysplasia. There was a rumour she kissed so many of the previous campers that her teeth fell out from all the shared spit."
"Wait, that can happen?" Steve demanded, eyes widened as he thought of his current record of previous kisses.
"Oh for god's sake, put the Russian back on that was at least somewhat understandable," the blonde ranted, leaning back in her seat and releasing a tired exhale as the droning voice started up again. Admittedly, her brain tuned out the latest run through - thoughts shifting from a threat to their homeland security to wondering if Jessica and Robin would ever happen, what her mother would cook for dinner and how good Steve hair looks the longer he had been letting it grow. Even eating a banana, in a manner that was entirely messy and unattractive no less, her eyes fixated on him and a smirk fell on her lips as she admired the man she called her own.
Feeling eyes on him, Steve turned to meet her gaze with a quizzical expression at her staring - before opening his mouth wide to expose the chewed up pieces of banana smeared across his tongue. And just like that, the moment was ruined.
"The music at the end sounded familiar," he voiced, snapping her out of her daze and reminding Ringo where they were.
"Why are you listening to the music? We're supposed to be translating Russian!" Dustin yelled, pointing his hand angrily at the table. In fairness to the older duo in the room, Dustin should have known better than to come to Steve and Ringo for such a monumental task. They shared approximately one brain cell between them, or so Mike had speculated previously.
"I'm trying to listen to the Russian but there's mu-" Steve's defense was abruptly cut off by the door slamming open and an irritated Robin suddenly entering the room, Jessica close behind with a more amused expression.
"Alright babysitting time is over you need to get in there!" She greeted, pointing her scooper accusedly at Steve.
"I just thought I heard a manly voice speaking, and I thought - well that's not Steve, so I must investigate," Jessica shrugged playfully, eyeing the contents splayed across the table and the strange letters written across the small whiteboard.
"What could be more important than the two o'clock rush, Harrington? If I have to give Erica Sinclair one more free sample, it'll be swapped with rat poison," Robin huffed, eyeing the group suspiciously.
"I guarantee what we're doing is way more important than two o'clock rush," Dustin defended, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Yeah? And how do you know these Russians are up to no good anyways?" She demanded, leaving the two boys open-mouthed and horrified that their plan had already been discovered by an outsider.
"How does she know about the Russians?" Dustin panicked, looking between Steve and Ringo with accusatory eyes.
"I don't know!" Steve muffled, mouth full of the remainder of his fruit.
"One of you told her!"
"Yeah, I told her," Ringo admitted non-nonchalantly. On cue, both pair of eyes darted towards her, filled with annoyance.
"You what?!" Steve and Dustin said, scarily simultaneously.
"It was when I left to get chips," Ringo frowned, as if confused by their frustrations. "She asked what was going on, so I said and I quote, 'evil Russians are invading, but don't worry because I've read Captain America and I've got this shit down."
"Hydra were Nazis, not Russians," Robin smirked smartly.
"So," Jessica intervened, carelessly lifting the dictionary and dropping it again, "you think you have evil Russians plotting against our country on tape and you're trying to translate but you didn't figure out a single word because you didn't realise they use an entirely different alphabet than we do."
"Sound about right?" Robin added, snickering at how the honey-skinned girl didn't pause for a breath once throughout her explanation. "So let us hear it, maybe I can help. I'm fluent in four languages, you know."
"If one of them is barking loudly at dogs and getting excited when they bark back, I've been told that doesn't count," Ringo commented with a dejected smile just as Dustin asked 'Russian?'
In response, Robin let out a string of words in a foreign language completely unknown to their ears, leaving the trio excitedly cheering in thinking they had located a translator.
"That was Pig Latin, dingus," she revealed, reveling in the newfound disappointment across their faces.
"Atthay asway oodgay," Jessica sounded out, confusing them even more but leaving Robin beaming at whatever she had said.
"Anyway," she continued after darting her eyes away from Jessica's and leaving Ringo and Steve smirking at the obvious chemistry between them, "I can speak Spanish, and French and Italian and I've been in band for twelve years."
"No offence, but I don't think a flute is gonna save America," Ringo furrowed her eyebrows, failing to draw the connection.
"What I mean," Robin emphasised, "is that my ears are little geniuses. It's your turn to sling ice-cream, my turn to translate. I don't even want credit I'm just bored."
"Ugh, fine," Steve groaned, ripping the scooper out of her hand and replacing it with the recorder. "But if I have to be out there, so do you, Ringo."
"What?" She whined, throwing her hands up in dismay as Steve dragged her chair backwards and gestured for her to rise.
"Up and at 'em, I'll even fetch you a hat."
"Put that hat on my head and I'll remove yours from your neck," Ringo grumbled in threat, trailing after her boyfriend and leaving the translation up to Robin, Jessica and Dustin. She never thought that she'd actually miss the drole voice of the Russian speaker, until she was getting yelled at for giving someone's daughter a blue spoon and not a pink one.
✵
"But you asked for Rocky Road," Ringo narrowed her eyes at a teenager over the counter, who had returned to the till with the complaint that their tub of ice-cream had marshmallows mixed in. "Rocky Road has marshmallows."
"Okay, well I didn't realise that," the brunette shrugged, "and I'm allergic to marshmallows. So I want it exchanged for strawberry."
"So you weren't allergic when you looked through the display and saw marshmallows on top of it?" Her voice became increasingly strained, two hours of working in the ice-cream parlour had reduced her to an angry, angry person who saw red everywhere she looked. Something about the mall had been sending customers cuckoo, for she had never dealt with such rudeness back in the corner store.
"I didn't see them clearly, that's a real health hazard actually," the girl - who Ringo had known from school to be named Rebecca, continued with a sneer.
"So you weren't allergic to all the other marshmallows when you ate that entire tub before coming up to try and get a free refill?"
"Are you going to change it or not?"
"No! Now get out before I come around to the other side of this counter!" Ringo snapped, her patience having worn thin enough to break. Offended, Rebecca scoffed before storming out of the store with footsteps heavy enough to break iron. Only having overheard the final exchange, Steve snapped his head towards his girlfriend with widened eyes.
"Jesus, Ringo! This is my job, you're gonna get me fired!"
"I'd be doing you a favour," she ranted in return, the mini-argument cutting off by the window to the kitchen opening from behind and Robin's face appearing in the new space.
"We got our first sentence!" She exclaimed happily, distracting them from their bitter moods almost immediately. "'The week is long.'"
"Well that's thrilling," Steve deadpanned.
"Seriously? No 'let's get these pie-eating fuckers, Yuri'?" Ringo asked, feeling a wash of disappointment at the translation.
"That is way too many stereotypes rolled into one sentence," Jessica scoffed.
"I know, but it's progress!" Robin grinned excitedly, closing the window again and leaving the couple to return to the much more mundane task of feeding the populace of Hawkins with dairy badness. The mood was positively dire, until two new customers waltzed through the entrance that left Ringo beaming with relief.
"Max! Sunny! Jane!" She held her arms out wide in greeting. "You have come to rescue me!"
"We've actually come to remind El here that men aren't shit," Max winked, hooking her elbow around the other girl's nearest one.
"True that," Ringo nodded, snickering when Steve dramatically flung himself backward as if the words had shot him like a bullet.
"I've never even had a boyfriend, but all day I've been pretending I dated a guy in a foster home before so I can fit in," Sunny voiced, shrugging carelessly while her companions looked over in shock.
"Wait, so Vinny never existed? And you never keyed his car because he cheated on you?" El adorably gasped in question, having fully believed the tale all day.
"No," the dark haired girl revealed, "but it definitely happened to somebody else on TV."
As Steve fetched their orders, the girls took the time to catch Ringo up on what had been happening in El's love life. Never did she think that she would be taking the side of her cousin's girlfriend, but the blonde had to admit that Mike was being incredibly rude to the girl - who was too emotionally immature to handle being toyed with. The next family dinner would surely be awkward after the grilling she could already envision happening.
"Wait a second," Steve paused after handing the girls their cones of choice, "are you even allowed to be here?" The thought had never crossed Ringo's mind that Hopper would never have knowingly let his supernatural daughter run rampant through Starcourt Mall, much less without him, but judging by her excited giggling and constant smile - she decided it couldn't have been a bad thing.
The image of them sprinting back through the entrance to escape only solidified the notion they were definitely breaking some rules.
"Did you really mean 'men are trash'?" Steve pouted from beside her, now that the rush of customers had calmed down and they could find a moment to talk.
"Steve, I told you I was sick and you kissed me so you could get sick too and then we'd die of a runny nose together," Ringo blushed at the thought, as cringy as it was it truly was one of the highlights of their relationship laying in his bed for a week - surrounded by a mound of tissues and watching re-runs of Starsky and Hutch, "I obviously didn't mean you."
✵
When the time finally came for the store to close, Ringo had a newfound sympathy for Steve and Robin. Sure, her ex-manager had given her hell. But working with customers that ordered food was seemingly never-ending turmoil, at least her boss had occasionally taken a break.
"Tonight's my last night in the late slot, thank God," Ringo sighed, leaning her forehead against Steve's chest as he wrapped his arms around her. Their public displays of affection weren't all so public with the shutters closed, but the trio in the back room had chosen that moment to make a reappearance.
"Hey," Jessica called out through the opening window, "we think we've got most of it down. Care to join us or do you need to do your daily 'staring romantically into each other's eyes' ritual?"
"We're coming," Ringo announced with an eye roll, much to Steve's chagrin as he was dragged along behind her.
"If we had five minutes alone we wouldn't be doing that, that's for damn sure," he chuckled in a whisper into her ear, leaving the hair on her neck standing and her cheeks gaining a tinge of red.
To give credit where it was due, Robin and Jessica truly has outdone themselves in managing to translate the script in a few hours - in a language neither of them were familiar with. The translated sentences were written nearly across the board - Jessica's hand, without doubt. Although despite the achievement, Ringo couldn't help but feel a little deflated at the lack of entertainment the sentences provided. For a moment, she had felt the mildest rush of adrenaline much akin to how she felt the previous Halloween. It had all amounted to nothing more than gibberish.
"The week is long, the silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the West," she read aloud, pouting her lips afterward and meeting Steve's eye. He was just as disappointed, she could tell.
"It has to be a code for something," Jessica speculated, defensive of the work they had done in translating when the validity of the sentences had come into question.
"It just can't be right! Codes come in like... those dots and shit," Steve ranted as he closed down the shutters, the last store open in the entire mall.
"It's right," Robin called back.
"I, personally, this this is great news," Dustin intervened, not at all phased by the dead end they had travelled down to.
"How is this great news?! So much for American heroes, it's total nonsense."
"It's not nonsense it's a super secret spy code, obviously."
"That's ridiculous."
"There are stranger things that have happened in this town than a Russian invasion," Jessica shrugged, freezing mid-step when she felt eyes burning into the side of her face - more specifically those of Dustin Henderson's.
"Like what?" Robin scoffed, although her eyes narrowed in suspicion at Jessica's sudden nervousness.
"Just like- I-I mean..."
"She means-" Ringo interrupted, in a desperate attempt to save her friend and to keep the events of last year and the year before a secret. "She just means... that another lesbian walks among us! We really did think Jessica was a lone wolf!"
Judging by the redness of Robin's face and the clenching of Jessica's fists - explaining the parallel universe and the monsters that had slipped from it would have been easier.
"Anyway," Robin coughed to clear her throat, "if it's a secret Russian transmission it would have to be obscure, what did you think they'd say 'fire the warhead at noon?' Why would anyone chat like that unless they were trying to hide the true meaning of their message? And why hide it unless it was somehow sensitive?"
"Exactly!" Dustin piped in. "Evil Russians."
"I can't believe I'm about to agree with this strange child, but yeah Evil Russians."
While Jessica, Robin and Dustin began to speculate on what the sentences could be hiding, Ringo had lingered behind when she noticed her boyfriend had stopped at a nearby lone carnival horse ride.
"You got a quarter?" He held out his hand in demand, while the blonde dissolved into giggles.
"You're a little old aren't you?" She cocked an eyebrow, but handed the money over nonetheless as he quickly slid the coin into the slot with practically maniacal eyes.
"I don't think boys can go on that after their balls drop," Jessica called out as their group turned and rejoined them.
"Need help getting up, little Stevie?" Robin continued the teasing.
"Just shut up a minute!"
"Holy shit," Dustin gasped, seemingly catching onto what Steve was insinuating as he grappled for the recorder again in his backpack. "The music!"
"Maybe they have horses like this in Russia?"
"The Indiana Flyer? I don't think so," Steve shook his head, looking like he was in the full throes of an epiphany. "This recording didn't come from Russia, it came from here."
Standing up straight and grabbing for the tape player from Dustin's hands, the group listened intently to make sure their ears were not deceiving them - it truly was the same tune once they were played alongside each other. A tense moment followed, where Steve met eyes with each of the group to gauge if their reaction was as shocked as his own. It was then that he noticed Ringo was no longer beside him.
Whirling around with narrowed eyes, Steve could only sigh at the sight of his girlfriend, sitting on top of the horse and rocking on it as if she were half her current age.
"Really, Ringo?" He deadpanned, placing his hands on his hips. Her feet touched the ground the entire time, but it didn't stop the blonde.
"I spent a quarter on this damn thing, I'm at least going to get my money's worth," she ranted back at him, stubbornly sitting on the painted horse for the remainder of the minute.
✵
"... and that was She's a Rainbow by the Rolling Stones, have you noticed I've been playing calmer songs as the night rages on to send you burnouts to sleep?" Ringo chuckled into the microphone, catching Ben's eye as he tiredly lolled his head against the back of the couch. "The next song will be the last played tonight, and the last played in the original Radio Ringo hours. Folks, it's been a pleasure talking crap every night for all the insomniacs out there, but I'm freakin' tired and Radio Ringo will now officially air from the respectable hour of 6pm to 7pm. As much as it physically pains me to do it, I've finally decided to listen to the people. Here is... ugh, here's Come Together by the Beatles."
"I can't believe they finally got you to play the Beatles," Ben barked a laugh as she removed her headphones and slid the switch to cut off her microphone feed. "I bet your mom thought she was doing you a favour naming you Ringo."
"I don't even like their music that much," she sighed, rolling her eyes at the familiar look of incredulity she was thrown after once again admitting her pet peeve. Nights at the radio station had always gone so much quicker when someone was by her side, and Ben had wanted to try the graveyard shift out now that he didn't have a job to get some sleep for.
"You're an abomination, seriously," he deadpanned, before breaking his blank expression into a smile, secretly worrying his words would offend her and she wouldn't catch the joke. Not only had Ben not had enough friends through his life to be able to pick up on social cues - he was well aware he was painfully awkward - but he certainly didn't have friends that were girls.
"At least I'll finally be able to be a fully-rested abomination," she mumbled as her fingers rubbed the exhaustion from her eyes, then proceeding to switch off all the equipment and lights as Ben accompanied her to the parking lot. Another reason she was happy to have someone during her shows? Being outside at 3am was deathly terrifying, especially in a town as eerie as Hawkins.
Ben had offered to walk her over to her car, even though his was parked on the far side of the building and completely out of sight of her own - but stubbornness prevailed, and the blonde insisted she would be okay to walk to her Beetle. He had done enough for her over the span of a week, the least she could do was let him go home sooner.
"Are you going to be okay traveling home?" He inquired politely, rustling into his jean pockets for the keys. Ringo suspected that Ben was no stranger to financial struggles as she was, and tended to fret lately that his abrupt resignation from Charlie's Corner Store would spell trouble for him.
"Of course, I am! Are you? If you're too tired I can drive you."
"Nah, I've heard rumours about your driving - no offence!" He grimaced, leaving her to roll her eyes but smirk in amusement nonetheless as they parted ways toward their respective vehicles. A spooky fog had settled through the night air, and it was much colder than a Summer night should have been. Ringo had seen enough horror movies to know there was a 99% chance a masked serial killer was about to make her the first victim. Shame, it was always the blondes that died first.
Breathing an exhale of relief once she was safely behind the wheel, Ringo made sure to cast her head back to look in the backseat - one could never be too sure when it came to the likes of Jason Voorhees. Thankfully, the coast was clear for Ringo - but across the parking lot, paranoia had reached her friend also.
Where Ringo had been thinking of Friday the 13th, Ben had considered Halloween a more likely scenario and practically jogged across the emptied lot to get to his car. Much like his blonde companion, he too had exhaled in relief when he had made it inside the cold car - immediately slipping the key in to turn on the heater.
"What the hell?" He muttered to himself as the sound of an engine sputtering followed the turn of his key. Multiple times he had tried to start the engine, and all had failed until eventually the engine didn't make any sound at all when he tried it. Darting his head up to check if Ringo had already left, an audible gasp slipped from his lips at the sight of a figure standing a few meters in front of the car.
Ben recognised him. Of course he did - everyone knew who Billy Hargrove was. The boy had made wavelengths at school since arriving the previous year. Ben had managed to stay out of his way until now, knowing him to be a loose canon that would lash out if tested. Billy was a bully, but he had never had a problem with Ben - until now, seemingly.
Swallowing thickly, Ben kept his eyes staring forward, waiting for something to happen. Perhaps he was unjustly nervous, maybe Hargrove only wanted to help with his car. But upon closer inspection, it wouldn't be far-fetched to say he was drunk, or high - or even both. A thick sheen of sweat left a shine on Billy's skin that could be seen even through the darkness, his normally unkempt hair even more matted and damp than usual. More than his physical appearance, the sheer look of pure and utter hatred upon his face would have sent birds fleeing, mice scampering and babies wailing.
To his horror, the older teenager began to tread heavy footsteps towards Ben's car, meaning in his step and a terrifying set to his shoulders. With shaking fingers, Ben reached for the locks on his doors and violently shoved them down - choking in fright when the lock rose right back up again, as if someone had slipped the keys into his lock and turned them up once again.
The closer Billy stepped, the more frantic Ben grew - desperately searching for anything that could stop what would surely be some form of a confrontation, every hair on his neck told him so.
As if sent by God, the screech of wheels against asphalt interrupted the deathly silence of the parking lot - originating from a yellow Volkswagen that stopped mere centimetres from Billy's right leg. Ben had never been so glad to see Ringo Wheeler in his life.
Gritting her teeth as she stared at the boy in front of the hood of her car, images swirled in Ringo's mind of the previous Halloween - when she had lifted a lamp and knocked Billy out cold. Much like then, he held the same violent glint in his eye, the same blood thirst on the set of his lips.
And as she waved towards her friend without breaking eyes from Billy for Ben to join her in her own fully functional vehicle, Ringo couldn't help but wonder if one day she wouldn't press down on the brakes.
✵
Ended this on a dark note but I just wanna say I have set my own standards for relationships so high after writing Steve and Ringo I'm gonna be sinGLE FOREVER.
PS. Is anyone good at doing edits, it can be pictures or videos?? I would make my own but I'm as talented as a can of tuna
PPS. I keep forgetting to mention!! @-sspideyparker has started a Spanish translation of Slow Ride and the first few chapters are already done, go check it out if you'd feel more comfortable reading it in Spanish!