the bathtub: ❛ CARDIGAN ❜
↷ stranger things
❝ I haven't been a kid in a long time, chief ❞

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Steve Harrington was a fucking asshole. His ex-girlfriends knew it, Jonathan Byers knew it and, hell, even he knew it. The only people who didn't see what a terrible person he was were his two closest friends who, frankly, were almost worse than him.

They encouraged his behavior and fed his ego with words and cheers of encouragement. And it felt 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 good to be wanted even if it meant that he was going to be the guy who peaked in high school. He only stuck with people who were bad for him despite the fact that he was never going to talk to them again after graduating high school.

Clary Byers was not like that. If he didn't take advantage of her best friend after Tommy dared him to, he would still have her. He fucked everything up and then tried to cling to at least some hope. That hope turned out to be Nancy who ended up being "more trouble than she was worth". He really thought if he couldn't have Clary that he could settle for her former best friend.

Steve might have expected Clary to swoop in and try to steal him from Nancy but he definitely did not predict her swooping in to steal 𝘕𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘺 from 𝘩𝘪𝘮.

He shook away all thoughts of Nancy and Clary when Tommy and Carol walked out of the store with a soda and an aspirin.

"Don't worry, that slut will need more than aspirin when we're done with her." Tommy said while Steve held the can of soda to his bloody eye.

"Yeah, if she ever gets out." Carol muttered, her tone still sour from the comment Clary made about her boyfriend sleeping with her. Despite Tommy assuring her that she was a liar, a part of her did not trust him. "The cops should just lock her up forever. Did you see the look on her brother's face?"

Steve groaned and toned out the sound of them mocking the Byers siblings.

"He probably had that same look whenever he killed his brother, right?" Tommy patting him on the shoulder made Steve's frown deepen.

"Oh, God, I just got an image of him making that face while he and Nancy are screwing." Carol giggled.

"Carol, for once in your life, shut your damn mouth!" Steve finally snapped.

Carol's smile dropped. "What?"

"Hey, what's your problem, man?"

Steve glared at them and bluntly said, "You're both assholes. That's my problem."

The fact that Tommy slept with the only girl that Steve actually loved only proved to him how much of a bad friend he was.

"Are you serious right now, man?" Tommy gaped when Steve pushed him while brushing past him.

"Yeah, I'm serious. You shouldn't have done that."

"Done what?"

"You know what!" Steve yelled. He was trying to make himself feel better. He thought that he could blame anyone but himself and then get a free pass just because he felt guilty.

"You mean call her out for what she really is?" Tommy got in his face. "Oh, that's funny, because I don't remember you asking me to stop."

"I should've put that spray paint right down your throat." Steve almost growled in anger.

"What the hell, Steve?" Carol looked between the two in absolute confusion.

"You know, neither of you ever cared about Clary. You never even liked her,
because she's not miserable like you two." Steve ranted, his eyes flickering between the couple. "Even when we were dating, you were both assholes. That's why you gave me the dare to kiss Nancy and then slept with her the second that she was single. She actually cares about other people and is trying to grieve her brother but you guys are just making it worse."

Carol scoffed with an unimpressed look on her face. "The slut with a heart of gold!"

"I told you to watch your mouth!" Steve yelled, only to gave Tommy push him back toward his car.

He blocked Carol in a protective manner and glared at his best friend. "Hey! I don't know what's gotten into you, man, but you don't talk to her that way."

Steve pushed him away and spat ouf, "Get out of my face."

"Or what?" Tommy pushed him again but grabbed him by the collar of his shirt to pull their faces closer together. "Or what? Are you gonna fight me now, too? Huh? Are you gonna fight me now, too? Because you couldn't take Clary 'The Slut' Byers so I wouldn't recommend that."

Steve managed to get out of his surprisingly strong hold and got into his car as fast as he could.

"That's right, Harrington, run away! Run away!" Were the words yelled after him while he drove away with a bloody eye, wounded pride, and a heavy heart.

-

Clary really thought that they ran away before the police could catch them. But they were proven wrong two seconds after they got into the car. So, once again, she was stuck in the back of a police car. This time, she was with the girl she could never imagine being there with; Nancy Wheeler.

Waiting for Joyce to arrive at the police station were the longest thirty minutes of Clary's life.

"Hey." Her mother exclaimed as she entered the station with Hopper hot on her heels. "Clary? Jesus, what─ what happened?" Clary opened her mouth from her spot between Jonathan and Nancy, ready to explain when Joyce cut her off. "Why is she wearing handcuffs?"

"Well, your girl assaulted someone and vandalized the movie theater. That's why." The officer explained, but Joyce never faltered.

"Take them off!"

"I am afraid I cannot do that."

Clary glared at the side of his face, her anger rising at his ignorance. "How many times do I have to tell you that I never vandalized shit. At least not today. You don't have any proof either."

"Take them off!" Joyce repeated loudly.

Hopper stood behind her and gave the police officer a glare. "You heard her. Take 'em off."

"Chief, I get that everyone's emotional here, but there's something you need to see." Another officer said and Clary sunk into her seat, letting out a long sigh in the process.

-

Hopper dropped the box from their car onto the table with a clenched jaw and a glare on his face. Clary really wished that the earth would swallow her whole.

Joyce looked through the bear traps and gave her children a look of disbelief. "What is this?"

"Why don't you ask your kids? We found it in their car." Hopper shot back.

"What?" Joyce gaped at him.

Jonathan glared up at the Chief, his following words making Clary close her eyes in frustration, "Why are you going through our car?"

"Is that really the question you should be asking right now?" Hopper raised an eyebrow and leaned against the table to get in his face. He looked at his sister then back at him, before saying, "I wanna see you in my office."

"You won't believe us."

Jonathan's words made Hopper pause. He hesitated for a moment and then said, "Why don't you give me a try?"

Clary shared a look with Nancy. They silently debated on what the right to do was. They could tell Hopper and he could either tell them that they are crazy and let them go with a warning or he could actually help them. Or they could lie to his face and risk him not letting them leave.

Hesitantly, Nancy nodded.

-

So, they told them everything. From the day that Clary and Jonathan first went into the woods until Nancy fell through that portal. They showed them pictures and explained their theory about the monster being drawn by human blood. Then, they said that they think Barb and Will's disappearances are connected. Shockingly, Hopper and Joyce seemed more shocked than anything. They did not even look like they didn't believe them.

"You say blood draws this thing?" Hopper eventually spoke up.

Clary met his eyes and shrugged, "It's just a theory."

Joyce stood up, making Jonathan and Clary sit up straighter and look at her curiously. She cleared her throat and nodded towards the doors, "Excuse us for a minute."

The siblings shared a look and then followed their mother into the hall. She closed the door and Jonathan immediately sighed, "I'm sorry, Mom."

Joyce looked at him as if he was insane. "What, you're sorry? You're─ you're sorry? That is not good enough, Jonathan."

"I know." Jonathan muttered while his sister crossed her hands over her chest and stared at the floor with a blank look on her face.

She could not believe that her mother was the one who was giving them a lecture.

"That's not even close. That's not even in the─ in the ballpark."

"No." Clary cut her off sharply before she could continue with her lecture. Joyce was surprised by the anger on her daughter's face and watched her rant with wide eyes. "Why the fuck should we apologize? You left. You left us to plan Will's funeral all on our own. I'm seventeen, mom. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 are the parent. That should not be my responsibility. The two of us were barely home all week and you didn't even notice. We were trying to figure out what the hell happened to our brother and we are supposed to apologize for that?"

Joyce swallowed, tears gathering in her eyes. She let out a shaky breath and weakly said, "What if this thing took you, too? You risked your life, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 Nancy's."

"We thought we could save Will." Jonathan stated. "We still can."

"This is not yours to fix alone." Joyce said sharply, her eyes flickering between her two eldest children. "You act like you're all alone out there in the world, but you're not. You're not alone."

"Sometimes it feels like it." Clary admitted, her voice lacking the anger that was lacing it a couple of moments prior.

Joyce sighed and cupped her cheek. "God damn it, Clary."

She pulled her into a hug with her left hand and pulled Jonathan in with her right one. Clary melted into it for the first time in what felt like forever and let her mother's warm and comforting smell fill her senses.

"I want an apology!" Someone yelled from down the hell and the three of them pulled away almost immediately. They shared a look and a moment later, Hopper walked out of his office.

"Stay here." He told them before he brushed past them to see who was causing that scene.

-

The fucking government being involved in all of that was the last thing they needed. They were currently raiding the Wheeler house and hunting down Mike, Lucas, and Dustin who were running around and trying to hide a girl who was practically an experiment. Joyce said that the girl had some sort of powers and ran away from a lab but Clary did not know how much of that she believed. But then again, if monsters existed why not mutants, right?

Hopper managed to keep Nancy from running into her house but now they had to figure out where the kids were hiding.

"Look, we need to find them before they do." Hopper turned towards the three teenagers who were sitting in the backseat. "Do you have any idea where he might have gone?"

"No, I don't." Nancy shook her head.

"I need you to think." Hopper pushed.

"I don't know. We haven't talked a lot.
I mean, lately..." Nancy trailed off and sighed in frustration, a look of regret in her eyes.

"Look, is there any place that your parents don't know about that he might go?" Joyce spoke up, her voice less harsh than Hopper's.

"I might." Clary chimed in, her eyes widening in realization. "I don't know exactly where it is but they go there all the time. It's their secret spot or whatever. We can ask them over the radio."

-

"Mike, are you there? Mike?" Nancy spoke into the radio after they arrived at the Byers' house and found Will's radio. "Mike, it's me, Nancy. Mike, are you there? Answer. Mike, we need you to answer." Nancy huffed in frustration when they received no response. "This is an emergency, Mike. Do you copy? Mike, do you copy?"

"These kids, I swear to god." Clary groaned in frustration.

"We need to know that you're there, Mike." Nancy said before Hopper snatched the radio from her hand and said.

"Listen, kid, this is the chief. If you're there, pick up. We know you're in trouble and we know about the girl. We can protect you, we can help you, but you gotta pick up. Are you there? Do you copy? Over."

Nothing.

He sighed in defeat and looked back at the teenagers. "Anybody got any other ideas?"

"𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘩, 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺."

Clary jumped when Mike's voice was heard on the radio. "𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘔𝘪𝘬𝘦. 𝘐'𝘮 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦. 𝘞𝘦'𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦."

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬. Clary let her head fall into the palms of her hands while she sighed in relief.

-

Clary, Nancy, Jonathan, and Joyce immediately bolted out of the door when Hopper's call pulled up in front of the Byers' house.

"Mike. Oh, my God. Mike!" Nancy exclaimed and ran toward her little brother. She pulled him into a hug. "I was so worried about you."

Clary would be lying if she would say that she did not feel envious of the scene in front of her. She would do literally anything to be able to hug Will anytime in the near future. But there was no way of them knowing if he was even alive.

"Yeah, uh... me, too." Mike blinked up at Nancy, a dumbfounded look on his face.

Nancy squinted at the girl behind him and titled her head, "Is that my dress?"

Clary finally allowed herself to look at the girl who was the cause of all that was happening. She was almost bald and she was wearing a pale pink dress that could easily be Nancy's. Her eyes were wide, innocent and there was fear in them as she stared at all the new faces in front of her. Clary's face softened a little when their eyes met and she forced a small smile on her face in order to try and ease her nerves. For a split second, she could see her shoulders relax.

"Okay, so, in this example, we're the acrobat." Mike spoke as he showed them a really bad drawing when they got into the house. "Will and Barbara, and that monster, they're this flea. And this is the Upside Down, where Will is hiding. Mr. Clarke said the only way to get there is through a rip of time and space."

"A gate." Dustin added.

Lucas, Clary's favorite, said, "That we tracked to Hawkins Lab."

"With our compasses." Dustin cleared up. Clary gave him a blank stare. He rolled his eyes and explained, "Okay, so the gate has a really strong electromagnetic field, and that can change the directions of a compass needle."

"Is this gate underground?" Hopper asked.

"Yes." The girl answered, her quiet voice surprising Clary.

Hopper squinted. "Near a large water tank?"

"Yes."

"How do you know all that?" Dustin stuttered while looking up at the Chief.

He didn't say a word but he didn't have to because Mike knew the answer. "He's seen it."

"Is there any way that you could...that you could reach Will?" Joyce asked the girl, "That you could talk to him in this-"

"The Upside Down." She finished for her.

"Down." Joyce muttered with wide eyes. "Yeah."

The girl nodded.

"And my friend Barbara?" Nancy spoke up hesitantly, "Can you find her, too?"

She did not receive a clear reply because the girl only stared back at her with a blank look on her face. Nancy tensed and Clary was quick to put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

-

Mike told them to call the girl Eleven. Clary thought that it was an odd name but chose not to comment on it. They had much more important things to worry about.

Eleven sat down on the table with the radio in front of her. She closed her eyes and they all had to be quiet the only thing filling her ears would be the sound of static.

Lights started flickering and then, out of the blue, they turned off. Eleven's eyes opened and her eyes were full of guilt and sadness when she looked at Joyce.

"I'm sorry."

"What?" The woman stuttered. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Eleven's eyes filled with years and she weakly said, "I can't find them."

The lights turned back on but Clary was not paying attention to that. Her breath was caught in her throat and she felt like she was about to throw up.

"Whenever she uses her powers, she gets weak." Mike explained when Eleven left to use the bathroom.

"The more energy she uses, the more tired she gets." Dustin said.

"Like, she flipped the van earlier."

Clary raised an impressed eyebrow at Lucas' words.

"It was awesome."

"But she's drained."

"Like a bad battery."

"Well, how do we make her better?" Joyce asked the boys.

"We don't." Mike shrugged, "We just have to wait and try again."

"Well, how long?" Nancy asked.

"I don't know."

Clary let out a frustrated sigh that was followed by Eleven quietly speaking up from the doorway.

"The bath."

"The bath?" Clary repeated with furrowed eyebrows.

"I can find them." She said, "In the bath."

-

Clary was terrible at science, biology, or anything that was a little too complicated. She wasn't dumb she just kind of logged off whenever something related to science came up. So, she had no idea how exactly they were going to pull off their plan. She just knew that they needed a lot of salt.

That was why they made their way to Hawkins Middle School.

She was helping Hopper take out as many bags of salt as possible while the others were preparing a "bath" in the gym.

"Even if Will gets home safe, how are we going to get rid of the monster?" Clary asked him after placing a bag on the ground.

"𝘞𝘦 are not doing anything." Hopper glared at her, already knowing where she was going with this. "I don't want you anywhere near this, all right? Your mom has been through enough."

"He's my little brother, Chief." Clary scoffed in disbelief. "You can't expect me to sit around and do nothing."

Hopper placed a rough hand on her shoulder and gave her a serious look. "Listen to me, kid. I'm gonna find him, all right? You have to trust me on this. I am going to find him."

"I trust you. That's not the problem." Clary argued quietly. "You and I have the same chances of getting hurt. We both know how to use a gun despite you being better at it. But I don't think a gun is going to stop that thing." She let out a soft sigh and admitted. "I don't want you or my mom to die either. I'm not letting you two go through this alone."

Hopper softened at that. "Clarissa, you are seventeen years old. You are still just a kid."

"I haven't been a kid in a long time, Chief." Clary shrugged and lifted another bag of salt.

-

They got the bath ready. It was full of salt and Eleven hesitantly sat inside. She put the goggles over her eyes and Clary inched closer to the tub.

Lights started flickering a couple of seconds later and Nancy gave Clary a wide-eyed look. "What's going on?"

"I don't know." Mike said, equally confused.

"Is Barb okay?" Nancy asked the young girl, her eyes full of worry and fear, "Is she okay?"

"Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone!"

Clary's heart sank and Nancy's hand flew to her mouth as she gasped in shock. A sob escaped her and Clary was quick to wrap an arm around her while Eleven kept chanting the word 'gone'. Joyce was trying to comfort Eleven who was gasping in the water.

Clary paid no mind to them and focused on the girl silently crying into her shoulders.

"Castle Byers."

Eleven's words made Clary's blood run cold.

"Will." She croaked out a couple of seconds later.

"You tell him──" Joyce stuttered, "tell him I'm coming. Mom is coming."

"𝘏𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘺." The mere sound of Will's voice coming from the radio brought tears to Clary's eyes.

"Okay, listen. You tell him to─ to stay where he is. We're coming, okay? We're coming, honey." Joyce said desperately.

"What the fuck?" Clary whispered in horror when Eleven's cries were heard from the radio, along with the sound of her calling Will's name.

Thankfully, she woke up and sat up a couple of seconds later. Joyce hugged her from behind, both of them shaking for different reasons.

"I got you, honey."

-

Joyce and Hopper were going on a suicide mission and Clary was not having it. There was no way that she was going to babysit the kids while her mother was looking for her brother.

She separated herself from the kids to go look for Jonathan and Nancy so they could get out of the school. When she entered one of the hallways near the gym, she definitely didn't expect to see them sitting on the floor next to each other, kissing.

"Oh." Clary involuntary said, her eyes only widening further when Jonathan and Nancy looked at her. "I'm going to come back─"

"No." Nancy was quick to say. With tears in her eyes and got up to her feet, unable to look her in the eye. "You came here so we can finish what we started? Well, let's go."

Jonathan gave his sister an awkward look while she stared at the back of Nancy's head with furrowed eyebrows.

a/n: season 1 mike has my heart
the wheelers 🤝 internalized homophobia