CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MOTHMAN IS A VERY DANGEROUS INDIVIDUAL

        Abby Foster is set for life—she's not so much of a hard-ass anymore, she's learned that there's more to life than just endlessly fixating on the future and that time is a precious thing.  By the end of her senior year at Hawkins High school, with a giddy sort of excitement, she had opened several crisp manila acceptance letters.  She's one step closer to college, one step closer to seeing once and for all what lays in wait for her just beyond the borders of Hawkins, Indiana (of course, she still needs to actually choose a college to attend, but the decision has been so overwhelming; there are too many factors, too many unformed ideas of what she wants to study.  So she's elected to ignore it).  The excitement that rushes through her veins day and night will keep her fueled through a monotonous summer full of slinging ice cream with one of her best friends and her snarky co-worker, but all the same, daydreaming isn't enough.

"Hey, I never did ask you what happened to your forehead," Robin Buckley muses as she leans back against the counter behind the wide-open Scoops Ahoy windows.  A whiteboard leans against the wall, divided into two sections, there are six tally marks under the side labeled YOU SUCK while the side that is labeled YOU RULE remains bare.  Robin bounces the dry-erase Expo marker on her knee as she awaits Steve Harrington's poor attempts to flirt with the customers.

Abby raises a hand to where the gash in her forehead had been stitched together.  Sometimes, when she thinks about it too much, she can still feel where Billy Hargrove had slammed her head against the Byers' counter.  She remembers the white-hot pain that had seared through her head and the torturous journey through the tunnels that had burrowed deep underneath the surface of Hawkins.  She had been condemned to bed rest to allow her concussed brain to heal, those days had been lackadaisical and torturous, and she had only wished vehemently for them to end.

"Oh, I was attacked by Mothman," Abby answers offhandedly as she peers around the divider to gaze out into the mall. 

The interior of Starcourt Mall glows. It's a wonderland of bright neon-flashing lights and loud upbeat music that reverberates and clashes with the other music blasting from the storefronts. One can get lost in the maze of Starcourt Mall for hours on end, spending much more money than they had initially anticipated they would. There's always something new to be admired in Starcourt Mall, some new eye-catching product displayed in the storefronts, or a new clothing line at the Gap. Abby's grown used to the clamor and the excessive amount of people that always swarm the sleek tiled floors of the mall.

Robin scoffs.  "Mothman, really?  That's what you're going with?"

"Mothman is a very dangerous individual, Robin," Abby replies with wide eyes.  "Do not underestimate him."

"Mothman isn't even in Ind—" Robin cuts herself off and holds a finger to her lips.  Steve's time has come.

"Yeah, you know, I considered it, Purdue, but then I was like, you know what?  I really think I need some real-life experience, you know before I hit college.  See what it feels like, kinda like, I dunno, a working man's wage." Steve is telling the two girls who stand in front of the counter.  Abby and Robin both know that this is a lie, but it's not their place to speak up.  Steve has always had a rocky relationship with his father, who had from a young age placed the pressure of becoming the perfect son upon his shoulders.  He had been forced into working at Scoops Ahoy by his father after he failing to receive the proper grades to get into college.  His rambling is interrupted by the loud, shrill beeping of the cash register in front of him.  "Oh, I'm sorry.  I think that's like, really important."

"Yeah, totally," one of the girls replies with a skeptical smile.  The other looks as if she's trying to suppress laughter.

"Yeah, anyways, this was like so fun," Steve continues with a nervous laugh.  Abby can't help but cringe.  "We should kinda like, you know, I don't know, maybe hang out this weekend or—" the change clatters to the ground as he attempts to hand it to the girls, "—sorry about that.  Uh ... I don't know, maybe next weekend, or—"

"Yeah, I'm busy," the same girl replies with an awkward smile as she glances away from Steve.  The girl beside her nods in agreement, the same awkward smile is plastered on her face.

Abby rests her forehead in her palm and massages her temples.  "I have never felt so much second-hand embarrassment in my life."

Robin lets out a small snicker.  "Tell me about it."

"Oh, that's cool, I—I'm working here next weekend so ... the following weekend's better for me," Steve informs the two girls.

"No, I'm sorry, I can't," the girl replies with a chuckle.  Both girls turn on their heels giggling to themselves as they leave the ice cream parlor.

"I ... this is ... my first day here," Steve calls after the girls.  He lets out a defeated sigh as they depart without so much as a glance back at them.

Robin slides out and into view with the whiteboard in front of her.  "And another one bites the dust," she voices as she adds one more tally mark to the YOU SUCK side of the whiteboard.  One tally mark on the YOU RULE side for any girl who shows remotely any interest for Steve, and one tally mark on the YOU SUCK side for every girl that shoots him down.  Abby emerges from the back and leans on the counter, resting her chin on her palms as Steve turns around to face the two girls.  "You are oh-for-six, Popeye."

Steve crosses his arms as he leans back against the counter and rolls his eyes.  "Yeah, yeah, I can count."

Robin glances down at the board and back up at Steve.  "You know that means you suck."

"Yup, I can read too," responds an exasperated Steve.

Robin raises her eyebrows.  "Since when?"

"Hey, Abby, help a friend out here," Steve begs.

Abby takes a sharp intake of breath and shakes her head.  "Sorry, buddy, but if the board says you suck ..."

"It's this stupid hat!" Steve exclaims as he ambles over to the counter.  "I'm telling you, it's blowing my best feature!"

"Yeah, and those poor girls are getting a face full of your worst," Abby lets out a dramatic sigh and shakes her head sadly.  Robin snorts from beside her.

"Company policy is a real drag," Robin sighs as she leans across the counter.  "You know, it's a crazy idea, but have you considered telling the truth?"

"Oh, you mean that I couldn't even get into Tech and that my doucebag dad's trying to teach me a lesson, I make three bucks an hour, and I have no future.  That truth?" Steve responds sarcastically.

"You know what they say, honesty is the best policy," Abby reminds Steve.  She gives him a sympathetic smile and reaches out a comforting hand.  "People dig that.  And if they really cared about you, they wouldn't care that you're slinging ice cream in a mall instead of going to college."

Before Steve can respond, Robin's eyes land on something—or rather, some people—just behind Steve.  "Hey, twelve o'clock," she says, discreetly pointing at the girls that are entering the parlor.

Steve glances over his shoulder and his eyes widen.  "Oh, shit.  Oh, shit.  Okay ... uh ... I'm going in, okay?  And you know what—" he takes off the white sailor's hate with Ahoy! embroidered in navy blue across the front and throws it back behind the counter, "—screw company policy."

"Oh my god, you're a whole new man," Robin gushes sarcastically.

"Right?" Steve affirms, turning to Abby.

"I've never wanted you more," she deadpans with a small chuckle. 

Steve gives her a sort of half-smile as they hold each other's gaze for just a few moments too long.  This doesn't go unnoticed by Robin, who has started to see those moments; the smiles held a little too long, the way they kept their hands there when they accidentally brushed together for a few moments, the way the looks in their eyes could say way more than words ever could.  And yet they managed to remain aggravatingly oblivious to one another.

Steve turns around to face the group of girls that have entered the parlor as Robin and Abby once again slip out of sight.  Steve whirls around exclaiming rather enthusiastically, as the girls let out small gasps of surprise. "Ahoy ladies!  Didn't see you there!  Would you like to set sail on this ocean of flavor with me?  I'll be your captain.  I'm Steve Harrington."

"Oh god," the red-headed girl that leads the group murmurs as she chews her gum as her friends burst into a fit of giggles.

"I think you can go ahead and add another tally mark," Abby whispers to Robin as she watches the interactions with a sense of curiosity. 

"Can I get you guys a little taste of the Cherries Jubilee?  No?  Anybody?  Banana boat?  Four people, four spoons?"  Steve continues.  Robin crinkles her nose and lets out a sigh as she adds another tally mark to the YOU SUCK side of the board.  "Share it in a booth?  Anybody?  It's hot out there."

After a few painstaking moments where orders are taken and money is exchanged for ice cream cones, the group of girls departs and Abby appears once again behind the window.  She leans across the countertop with her elbows.  "Your resilience is astounding," she comments.  "Really, how do you get rejected so many times and still think that 'oh hey, this time won't bomb like the last five-hundred times'?"

"Well, you know what they say, 'if at first, you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried'," Steve answers.

"That's not how it—whatever," Abby shakes her head and lets out a sigh.  "Just ... maybe let Robin and I handle the next customers before you scare them all away, yeah?"

✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.☆.*｡･ﾟ✫*

"You look stupid," Isla Castro tells Steve from across the counter.  "Like what's with those outfits anyway?  They probably only increase sales because people want to see how stupid they are up close."

Steve lets out a groan and calls over his shoulder, "Abby, your annoying friend is here!"

"Hey, uh, I'm your annoying friend too," Isla reminds Steve.

Abby emerges from the backroom and lightly punches Steve on the arm.  "Hey, be nice.  I'm taking my fifteen." 

She takes her hat off and rests it on the back counter before skipping around the ice cream counter and linking arms with Isla, regardless of what seems to have come between them.  They don't seem as close as they used to be, there's something that has grown between them.  There's a small rift in their relationship, and Abby knows what has caused this.  It's difficult to keep secrets from one of the people that knows her the best, but she knows that it's for Isla's safety that she remains blissfully ignorant to the events of that night.

"Hey, hey, wait, you're not going to order anything?" Steve calls as the two girls skip out of the cold parlor with the reed-pipe music that broadcasted throughout the parlor.

"The customer service here sucks!" Isla calls over her shoulder.

They find themselves sitting across from each other at the only open table at the food court.  Conversations echo around them, the air is filled with excited chatter as friends and families dine over the exquisite meals that the Starcourt Mall provides (or at least, that's how they treat the food.  Abby is very skeptical about a lot of the food served at the mall).  She tears apart a still-warm pretzel and chews thoughtfully.

"How's the post?" She asks. 

She knows that Isla's been waiting to tell her about the job that Nancy Wheeler had managed to secure for her.  It's been Isla's life-long dream to become a journalist, ideally, she had said that she wanted to study the paranormal and be able to do pieces on strange happenings in small towns just like Hawkins.  For now, though, any type of experience would suffice for her.  Abby envies Isla for this, she's always known what she wanted to do.  Even if she jumped from one interest to another, Isla has always wanted to work at the post, but Abby doesn't know what she wants to do.  She's focused on college for so long that she's forgotten to think about what she wants to do in the long run.

"Well, the guys are complete misogynistic assholes—except for Jonathan, but we know that he's cool," Isla answers.  "But, Abby, I am working alongside Nancy Wheeler.  You know, the Nancy Wheeler who we used to sit and admire from afar.  And she helped me to get this job."

"Hey, that's great, Isla," Abby tells her with a smile.  "Really, I'm happy for you, but can we back it up to when you said they guys are misogynistic assholes?"

"Oh, it's nothing," Isla dismisses.

"Isla ..."

"Look, I just have to give it time," Isla tells her.  "Let them know that I'm not going anywhere no matter how big of assholes they are.  And yeah, it sucks—it really does, but this could very well be the start of my career.  There are always going to be people like them in the world, why fight it?"

"Okay, just ... if you ever feel unsafe, please get out of there.  I don't care if it's the start of your career, you shouldn't have to go into work feeling unsafe, okay?" Abby asks. 

Isla nods.  "Yeah, yeah, I know."  A few moments of silence pass between them before Isla speaks up again.  "Hey, we should probably head back to Scoops before your fifteen's up."

"Yeah, we should," Abby agrees.  "I'll hook you up with some free ice cream too."

And with that, they link arms once more make their way back to Scoops.  But that doesn't alleviate the bitter taste that Isla's report has left in her mouth.

author's note: abby and robin brotp?  hell yes.  also i feel really bad because isla's like supposed to be abby's best friend but barely ever appears, though she does get caught up in nancy and jonathan's plot so i'm hoping for season four i can write more interactions between them.