FIVE: PARTY PEOPLE

"I HATE THIS," Veronica yelled in Heather's ear over the pounding music. They were at Tina's Halloween party and it wasn't lackluster, but the two girls weren't really party people. Veronica was killing it in her Halloween costume as Daisy Duke, a costume Heather wished she was curvy or tall enough to pull off. Veronica was both, therefore the incredibly short high-waisted shorts, tied flannel top, and heels she wore made an amazingly easy costume. Despite looking amazing, Veronica had been complaining about how cold she was from the short period of time they got out of the car and into the house. Heather was wearing weirdly tight leather pants and an off-the-shoulder black top and her natural hair was packing a punch because of course, she had to be the madeover version of Sandy from Grease. Her and Veronica were quite the pair and Heather had noticed quite a few pairs of eyes stay on them for moments at a time. However, the one person that seemed to not be looking at her was the one person she wanted.

Heather was unashamedly looking for him, her dark eyes scanning the crowd before Veronica pointed him out. "Ugh, there he is. Dancing with her. I fucking hate this, why did we come again?"

"To make ourselves miserable, obviously," the dark-skinned girl sighed, walking towards the kitchen to pour herself a drink. Unfortunately, someone else got there at the same time as them.

"What's in this?" Nancy Wheeler asked the costumed guy chugging the spiked punch.

"Shit!" Veronica whisper-yelled before trying to back out of the kitchen.

Being a good friend, Heather grabbed her best friend's wrist and pulled her back into the kitchen. "You two are friends, act like it. Besides, you aren't the one who confessed your love for her, are you? I'm in deeper shit than you so stop complaining.

The kid Nancy asked screamed something unnecessarily loudly before crushing his cup against his head. Steve Harrington came in and tried to stop Nancy, which meant it was Heather's turn to duck out of the kitchen. Like Veronica, her attempts were foiled, but not because her best friend pulled her back in, but because she accidentally stepped backward into somebody.

"Shit, sorry," she turned around and apologized before she realized it was the mullet-wearing asshole from the parking lot earlier in the day.

The guy looked unphased, instead, he gave her a once-over and spoke in an annoyed tone, "Isn't Sandy supposed to be white?"

Heather would normally bite her tongue. This was Hawkins, Indiana, casual racism wasn't new, but she was watching the guy she loved dance with his girlfriend while at a shitty Halloween party so she wasn't exactly in the best mood. Stepping forward so she was almost chest to chest with the guy (despite being about half a foot shorter than him), she said, "And aren't boys supposed to be attractive? At least I'm wearing a costume instead of walking around shirtless like pretentious assfuck who thinks he owns the fucking world."

There was a beat of silence as the song was stopped and a new one was starting. She felt eyes on her, knowing at least one of them was Veronica, but she also noticed Steve and Nancy's arguing had gone silent even though she hadn't seen them leave the kitchen.

The boy had the nerve to smirk, "Aw, feisty. Girls like you usually are. Good for you, I like the exotic ones."

"Hey, Veronica," Heather turned around to her best friend, "Can you pour me a drink."

Veronica simply handed her the one she had in her hand. Heather took it gladly taking a step back while taking a small sip. It tasted like absolute garbage, but she was only doing it for dramatic flair.

"How's this for feisty?" she asked with a bite in her voice before throwing what was left of the drink onto the boy's face. "Welcome to Hawkins, douchebag."

She grabbed Veronica by the wrist, pushing past the boy whose name she still didn't know and leaving the kitchen. For final measure, she threw the cup at the back of the boy's head, who was probably a little stunned, and hitting her target perfectly. His head went to the back of that ugly ass mullet as if that plastic cup hitting him had actually hurt.

"I can't believe you're the most fucking iconic person I've ever met," was all Veronica said as her best friend pulled her onto the dance floor.

"Yeah, well, I fucking love this song so let's dance and forget about him, okay? Thanks," Heather said before the two girls started dancing to the David Bowie song playing over the stereo. Steve and Nancy, who had followed them out of the kitchen without saying anything were dancing, too, but a little ways away from them.

A couple of songs later, Heather noticed Steve and Nancy fighting by the punch bowl. The girl was obviously drunk and Steve was most likely trying to cut her off. She kept dancing as to not seem weird, but her eyes were glued to them. Everything seemed to come to a standstill when the dark red drink spilled all over Nancy's white sweater. Heather audibly gasped, mostly because that was a cute sweater and it had just been totally ruined. Everyone at the party stopped and watched as Nancy stormed off to the bathroom with Steve following closely behind.

"Trouble in paradise?" Veronica asked with a raised eyebrow. Heather would be lying if she said she felt sorry for them. It felt like a million years ago, but it seemed like Daniel would be right in the end. They just needed to wait for the pair to fall apart. It appeared as though that time was rapidly approaching. A few moments later, Steve stormed out of the bathroom looking upset. With a furrowed brow, Heather mumbled something about being right back before following the boy. He left out the front but went to the side of the house where it was miraculously empty of people. He sat down, slumping against the building.

"Hey buddy," Heather spoke, sitting down next to him. "What happened?"

With a sigh, Steve leaned his head on her shoulder and began speaking softly, "I finally settle down with a nice girl, a girl that I love, and after almost a year it turns out she doesn't even love me. She called me bullshit, all of it. Like I mean nothing to her. Can you believe that? I-I think it's over for us."

Heather's heart might have done a flip if she didn't feel so bad for the heartbroken boy next to her. "Well, she's stupid. Or maybe she's a lesbian, who knows? You never know with small-town girls."

Steve let out a small chuckle, but there was a sadness to it, "Yeah, maybe. At least then I'd know I wasn't the problem."

Heather wanted to cry when he said that. The fact that this beautiful, amazing boy could feel like nothing was utterly heartbreaking. "You aren't. Steve, there's something I've learned about relationships from my experience of one whole boyfriend from freshman year, okay? No matter how much you put in, how much you want to fix things, no matter how much you try to make the perfect relationship, it's a two-way street. It's never gonna work if the other person doesn't put in the same amount of effort. You did everything you could. You treated her right, well, rocky start but we'll ignore that, you helped her kill a ravenous monster, you left your asshole friends for her, what more is there to love? She just didn't wanna give more than she was taking and that's her own fault."

"You're really good at this, actually," Steve muttered, "Also, what you did to that Billy asshole pretty much made my night, which, at this point isn't saying much, but still."

The girl laughed, "Thanks, I try. And he deserved it!"

"He did!" Steve agreed, a smile breaking out onto his face which made him feel a million times better. There was a beat of silence before it faded again, "I mean, I'm not unloveable, am I? You love me, right? Or did I fuck that up, too?"

He had lifted his head off of her shoulder and was looking at her now. She turned her head and met his eyes, "Yeah, yeah, I do love you."

Then, something happened that Heather thought would never happen to her even in her wildest dreams. Steve Harrington kissed her. It was bittersweet as when she cupped his cheek she could feel one warm tear sliding down his face, but it was amazing. She was seeing stars and the place he held her at the waist had her skin burning. Having morals and such, she pushed him back (although she had indulged and kissed him back a little bit).

"Steve," she spoke seriously, staring at him while his eyes stayed on the ground, "You're heartbroken and you're tipsy. That's a terrible combination and I'm taking you home."

"No!" he argued, "I wanna feel loved, please. I'm not even that drunk."

Heather got up, dusting the dirt off of her pants before holding out a hand to help Steve up. "That doesn't matter because you're emotional and the last thing I wanna do is take advantage of you like this, okay? I'm gonna take you home, steal your sweats because these jeans are fucking tight, and we're gonna watch cheesy movies until the sunrise, all right?'

Steve sighed, crossing his arms over his torso, "Fine! I don't know where the hell Nancy went, but I drove here in my car, I'll give you my keys in a second." He fished said keys out of his pocket and dropped them into Heather's open hand.

"You wait here, I'm going to tell Veronica to stop drinking because I can't drive her home and I'm gonna give her my keys. Don't move," she instructed with a pointed finger as if a mother was commanding a child. He mumbled something that sounded like an agreement which satisfied her enough. Venturing back into the house, she spotted her best friend and explained the situation before handing over her keys. Luckily, her mom knew she was spending the night at Veronica's so it would make sense that she wouldn't be home that night. Thankfully, neither of the girls were drinkers so her friend was almost fully sober and she felt comfortable letting her drive as long as she solemnly swore not to drink anything that wasn't water or soda for the rest of the night. She felt a little bad, but her friend understood. Veronica always did.

"I think Jonathan is taking Nancy home," Veronica told her, "Which uh, fucking sucks. If he hurts her I swear to God he and I are gonna have words. You have fun, at least one of us is getting something out of their breakup so far."

"You'll get your chance, okay?" Heather spoke reassuringly, "I love you, have fun, don't get into too much trouble."

"Okay, mom," Veronica joked, a small smile on her face, "'Night Heather."

"I'll see ya tomorrow," she told her best friend before leaving the house. She found Steve right where she left him.

"All right, buddy, where are you parked?"

( note! )

okay so! i was gonna include the trick or treating scene but then this scene got really long and it would have been really choppy if i included both since they kind of overlay each other and if i just did the trick or treating scene with mike and will it would have been too short compared to the party scene and the unevenness would be unnecessary and annoying because it would feel just tacked onto the ending so i'll just have daniel relaying what happened with heather the next morning or something so you guys know what happened without me having to have this weird morph chapter, do you know what i mean? k cool also double update!! go me!!