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roanofarcc · 3 months ago

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PROJECT SUNSHINE CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE → BUT SHE’S A CHEERLEADER!

summary: steve harrington x oc

when another product of Hawkins National Laboratory escaped a long-survived nightmare alongside her sister, she crashed into one unsuspecting teenage boy and dragged him deeper into the dark mysteries that made up their hometown.

word count. 3.7k || masterlist

warnings: cannon typical violence, child abuse, horror, gore, and depictions of mental illness. parts of this story were written pre-season 4 release. cannon divergence.

previous chapter ← → next chapter

Tagged: @sattlersquarry, @leptitlu, @two-sides-samecoin, @adaydreamaway30

Steve hauled another stack of VHS tapes into his arms as Robin paced back and forth, not helping him reshelve the movies but instead ranting about her latest date with Tamera.

“All I’m saying is, this one felt different! It was less ‘we’re just hooking up’ and more ‘this could be an actual relationship,” she said. Steve listened intently as he slotted a collection of horror movies back onto the shelf. He didn’t understand why anyone would willingly watch those kinds of movies, but he supposed most people in Hawkins hadn’t lived their own real-life version of a horror movie like he had. Maybe they needed the thrill; Steve did not.

He turned around to grab more tapes but stopped at the look twisted up on Robin’s face, something mixed between unsure and worried. “Isn’t that a good thing? You guys could date for real instead of whatever weird back and forth thing you’ve got going on.”

Steve knew it was more complicated for Robin and Tamera, especially in Hawkins but they could at least admit their feelings for each other. Robin clearly liked Tamera and wanted something more real than whatever causal situation they found themselves in. Granted, Robin had never been in a relationship before and she had confided in Steve that the idea of dating someone was nerve wracking to her. But she deserved to be happy, and Tamera clearly made her happy. Steve wished she just went for it, all in.

“Yeah,” Robin said with a sigh, stopping her pacing and resorting to picking at the nail polish Steve had just painted on her nails two days ago. “But even if we do date for real, it’s not like I can take her to the prom without being a headline in the Hawkins Post. If any asshole caught a whiff of us being together, they’d start a witch hunt or some shit.” There was a shield of humor in her voice, but Steve knew Robin well enough to hear the fear that sat behind it. It pissed him off.

He knew that Hawkins was riddled with assholes of every kind, but the thought of someone coming after his best friend just because she wanted to date happily made him furious. Monsters and evil scientists once inhabited Hawkins but people wanted to draw pitchforks at two girls holding hands.

“That’s not happening on my watch, Buckley,” he said with a cheeky smile, bumping his shoulder against hers as he collected another arm full of tapes.

Robin cracked a small smile before parting her lips like she was going to say something, but something behind Steve caught her eye. She squinted and stepped around him, rushing toward the front counter.

“What’re you doing?” Steve asked.

Robin turned the volume up on the TV, causing a familiar Hawkins newscaster’s voice to fill the quiet Family Video store.

“No names of possible suspects are being released at this time. Chief Powell is yet to make an official statement, but as said he will address the town later this afternoon once he knows more. All we know at this time is that it seems to be an isolated incident.” The scene on the TV shifted away from the newscaster and onto a gurney being wheeled down a dirt and gravel road swarmed by officers and paramedics. There weren’t many places in Hawkins that were unfamiliar to Steve. It only took a moment to recognize where the scene took place as trailer homes appeared in the background of the gurney being lifted in the back of an ambulance.

“Someone died?” Robin questioned with furrowed brows.

“The name of the victim will also not be released at this time, but it has been confirmed to be a Hawkins High student. We…” the reporter’s voice droned on, but it became fuzzy on Steve’s ears.

A Hawkins High student. The trailer park. Steve knew it wasn’t rational to jump to the worst possible case scenario. There were a handful of students who lived in the trailer park, but he only knew one for certain. Max. Out of everyone in Hawkins, the worst things tended to happen to their little group. And maybe it was simply unreasonable paranoia, but he couldn’t help that his mind fell there first.

Panic swelled in his chest as he turned to Robin. “Max,” he muttered, ready to run right out the door and make sure the redhead he somewhat begrudgingly saw as a little sister was okay. Robin sensed his worry, her own face suddenly as pale as her white knuckles that gripped the remote.

Steve reached for his keys he left in a space under the counter, but as he did so, the bell on the door chimed and Robin let out a loud breath as she grasped his shoulder and pointed to the people who had just entered.

Dustin and Max rushed toward the counter, both looking a little winded but otherwise fine. Steve let out his own sigh of relief, running a hand through his hair. How he didn’t have gray hairs already was a mystery to him. It felt like the universe was determined to see how much it could stress him out.

“How many phones do you have?” Dustin asked.

Unbelievable, Steve thought. “Someone was murdered-” he started to say, but Dustin, in his usual Dustin fashion, cut him off and repeated the question louder than he had the first time. Steve answered, “Two.”

“Technically three, if you count Keith’s,” Robin added.

Max glanced at Dustin, nodding her head almost frantically as she said, “Three works.”

Without another word, Dustin threw his backpack at Steve a bit too forcefully. He then jumped up on the counter ungracefully, knocking over everything setup to the floor as he slid to the other side and hopped down. Steve threw the kid’s backpack to the ground with a huff and Robin started picking up the scattered papers, tapes, and other items Dustin had sent toppling.

Max, like a normal person, walked around the counter to get behind it and rolled her eyes.

“What are you doing?” Steve groaned in a familiar frustration.

“Setting up a base of operations.” He moved in front of the computer and began clicking around.

Listen, Steve disliked his job, but he didn’t want to get fired. The pay wasn’t great, but he got to work with Robin. Keith was a grade-A asshole, but he spent most of his time either not in the store or tucked away in the backroom playing video games brought from home. If Steve wanted to save enough money to escape Hawkins, he needed to keep his job, but the kids liked to make that a lot harder than it should have been.

“Get off,” Steve snapped. “You guys aren’t even allowed to be back here.” He didn’t know why he tried; it wasn’t like they were going to listen to him.

Dustin replied, “I need it!”

“For what?” Robin asked, shuffling the fallen papers back into a neat pile.

“Eddie’s friends’ numbers.”

If it was possible to roll your eyes so hard they fall out, Steve would have done just that. The mere mention of Eddie pricked his skin, no matter how stupid he knew he was being. “Oh, you mean your new best friend who you think is cooler than me because he plays your nerdy game?”

Dustin dramatically swung his head to look in Steve’s direction and threw his hands up. “I never said that!” He definitely did, Steve was almost positive.

“Seriously, guys? Maybe on Monday you can play around here but it’s Saturday. It’s our busiest day,” Robin said. The Family Video store was set to get busy in an hour or two as the weekend rush filled in, looking for movies to watch for date night, sleepovers, and to cure loneliness.

Dustin returned his attention to the computer, scrolling through a list of customers that had rented from the store before. “I empathize with you, Robin,” he said. “But this can’t wait.”

“Oh my god,” Steve muttered. What he needed was Sunshine to come home and make the kids actually listen. They only seemed to care about what she had to say or told them to do, but she was still in Indy, much to his disappointment. And now there was a murderer in Hawkins, which made him feel even better.

“Calling Eddie’s friends is an emergency?” Robin questioned.

“Correct.”

Steve moved beside Robin and helped her reorganize the tapes into their correct piles. He asked her, “Do you want me to strangle him, or do you want to?”

“We could take turns?”

With an annoyed huff, Dustin asked Max, “Can you fill them in while I do this?”

Steve and Robin exchanged a confused look before the latter said, “Fill us in on what?”

→←

The car ride back to Hawkins was tense and quiet, nothing the radio softly playing as the world whirled by. Sunshine fingers had played with the neckline of her shirt, where her necklace should have been, so much that the stitching started to come loose.

She, Kali, and Calum had changed clothes at some lonely gas station just outside of Indy. Their bloodstained clothes were tossed in a dumpster and forgotten.

As they rolled past the ‘Welcome to Hawkins’ sign, a headache bloomed behind Sunshine’s eyes. She winced and grasped her head, pressing her fingers into the skin in an attempt to ease the pain just slightly by applying pressure.

“Where are we going now?” Kali asked, looking for directions as she eyed the road with a hard-set gaze. Her knuckles were white as she held onto the steering wheel.

Checking the time on her watch, Sunshine knew where Steve and Robin would be for certain.

She should have arrived home sooner, but it took them more time to escape Indy than she thought. They had to stop once to change their clothes, a second time to eat something, and a third because no one could keep their eyes open long enough to drive safely. After a quick nap, they hit the road in the morning, but Kali avoided the interstate and opted for backroads just in case someone was on their tail. By that time, Sunshine was more than ready to be home.

“Steve and Robin will be at work. We’ll stop there first before we try to tack down Nancy,” she answered. “Stay on this road until you hit the next stop sign, then make a right.”

Kali nodded and continued on through her clear discomfort for being back in Hawkins.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, Sunshine saw Calum, who hadn’t uttered a word since their confrontation in the alley. He sat with his head turned and eyes fixed out the window, lost somewhere inside his head. There was a lot they needed to figure out, both in the grand scheme of things and between the three of them. Sunshine sure the best place to do that was in Hawkins.

For the longest time, she had felt the need to carry everything on her own shoulders, but since relearning what a normal life was, she had learned to lean on others inside of drowning. They only solved things together, not alone. They defeated monsters together, not by themselves. As long as everyone worked together, she was sure they could put a final end to the Lab and everything else that had occurred as a result of it.

Sunshine took a deep breath before she turned around and spoke to Calum. “Are you coming with us?” Her voice was careful but not too kind.

He didn’t look away from the window as he said, “If we find my dad, can I at least talk to him?” His voice, on the other hand, sounded of a hurt child, abandoned and spirit broken.

Sunshine glanced at Kali, who sighed in response before saying, “I can’t make any promises.” Calum’s figure slumped. “But I won’t say no.”

It wasn’t much, but in Sunshine knew anything about Calum, if you gave him an inch, he’d try to take a mile. “Okay,” he said, flatly, in agreement to tag along.

The car fell back into silence, aside from Sunshine’s directions. The sky was bright blue, the kind of color that brought hope after a long and gray winter. Maybe it was a warm welcome home. Her heart was happy to be back with those who she shared it with, but her head arched uncomfortably. She blamed it on a lack of restful sleep and her bout of angry emotions clouding her being.

“Um, guys?” Calum piped up, leaning between the two front seats with an odd sense of urgency and he squinted out the windshield. He pointed ahead at a helicopter that appeared overhead, a blemish in the pretty sky. The helicopter hovered for a moment, not too far away, just beyond a cluster of trees. They watched for a moment before it started to descend. “That’s a military copter.”

“How do you know that?” Kali asked.

“They’re not exactly subtle.”

Sunshine furrowed her brows. She had only seen a military helicopter once, after Starcourt. Owens and his “backup” had arrived in helicopters. After relocating the Byers-Hopper clan, Owens fell off the map. If he was back in Hawkins, Sunshine felt like she would know about it. Or she had missed something major in the twenty-four hours she had been gone. And with Hawkins' track recorded, that wasn’t impossible.

Still, she asked the question all three of them were thinking, “Why would the military be in Hawkins?”

Calum shook his head. “Because this place fucking sucks.”

Sunshine all but sprinted through the doors of the Family Video store. The bell dinged, signaling a customer's arrival. The usual monotone drone of Steve or Robin’s greeting before they realized it was her and not a regular customer didn’t sound. Instead, a collection of voices filled her ears, and she was welcomed by the sight of Max, Robin, and Dustin all talking on phones.

It was Max who noticed her first, as she hung up her phone. “Oh, thank God,” the redhead said.

Steve’s head popped up from behind one of the shelves he seemed to be restocking, and a grin filled his face before he made his way over to Sunshine. Without a word, she hugged him tightly, relief flooding her veins after her troublesome twenty-four hours. He was warm and smelled like a mix of candy, dust, and cologne. Though it had only been a day, she realized how intertwined he and the rest of the group had come in her day-to-day life.

A low chuckle sounded from Steve before he pressed his lips to the crown of her head. “Miss me that much, Sunshine?”

She really didn’t want to let go of him, and she wanted to pretend that two people weren’t dead and it was more or less partly her fault. The more she had thought about it, they were probably followed, leading whoever was killing the people from Lab right to the two men. They were playing the same game of revenge as Kali, but Sunshine hadn’t agreed to play. She just wanted answers and to understand the memories she had somehow forgotten. Was it another kid from the Lab like Kali? Was it someone who had worked at the Lab themselves? There were so many unanswered questions it made Sunshine dizzy.

Leaning back just slightly from her boyfriend, he caught sight of the frown on her lips, which gave her away almost instantly.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

A lot of things, she wanted to answer, but she refrained as Robin hung up her phone with a loud ‘clang’ and said, “Calum?”

The boy stood awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, leaving a good distance between himself and Kali. “Hey…”

“Guys! We need to focus!” Dustin shouted. He shot a small smile at Sunshine. “We’re glad you're back, but we’ve got a problem on your hands that we gotta take care of.”

Sunshine tried to shake off her own issues for a moment, turning her focus on what Dustin had just said. “Problem? What problem?” A pit had been stuck in her stomach since yesterday, but she hoped it would lessen once she arrived home, not get worse. But any issue in Hawkins was almost never small.

Slinging an arm around Sunshine’s shoulder, pulling her into his side. Between him and Robin, they explained how there had been a murder that morning and Max was almost certain the victim was Chrissy Cunningham, a polite cheerleader who Sunshine had passed by in the halls of Hawkins High. The last person the cheerleader had been seen with, according to Max, was Eddie Munson. Despite that, Dustin was certain Eddie didn’t kill Chrissy.

“Yeah, there’s no way,” Calum added. “I’ve been in the Hellfire Club with Eddie since freshman year. He’s not a murderer. An asshole sometimes, sure, but not a murderer.”

Max piped up and said, “But we don’t know that for sure. Which is why we’re trying to find him and figure out exactly what happened last night.”

Kali, who had been quiet, looked at Sunshine. “So, there’s a murderer on the loose?”

Of course there was. She begged Kali to come to a place that held the worst years of her life with a promise that it was safer now, only to drag her back into a possibly dangerous situation. She wanted to curse the universe for its awful timing.

“Not exactly…” Dustin looked hesitant, like he didn’t want to say whatever he was about it.

“Then what, exactly?” Kali asked.

He looked between her and Sunshine. “I’m sorry, who is she?”

“Oh, right,” Sunshine said with a shake of her head. “Everyone meet Kali. Kali, meet everyone.” It was a less than enthusiastic introduction given the circumstances.

“Kali? Like the Kali who Luke and Leia used to live with?” Max asked, eyes wide. Sunshine nodded in response.

“Is she up to speed?” asked Dustin.

It was Sunshine’s turn to be confused. “On what?”

“We think, maybe, it wasn’t someone who killed Chrissy,” Max started to explain. “We think it might have been…something…”

Max’s words were heavy, hitting Sunshine with an unknown force she hadn’t been expecting. The headache behind her eyes pulsed, as if it had a heartbeat. Steve’s arm around her shoulder shifted as he said, “Hey.” He brought his hand up to her face, running his thumb under his nose with a face full of pinched concern. When he pulled it away, blood stained the pad of his finger. “Your nose is bleeding?”

Muttering under her breath, she broke away from Steve and reached for a tissue on the counter. Eyes fell onto her, but none more than Max, who stared at Sunshine with her wide blue eyes almost uncomfortably intense.

Sunshine tried to shake off any concern. “It was a long night,” she said, blaming her less than ideal trip to Indy as the reason for her nosebleed. They started happening randomly after Starcourt, following the overuse of her abilities. Dr. Owens had blamed it on stress, and Sunshine didn’t have any reason to think otherwise.

The blood stopped flowing after a moment and she returned her attention to the group. Level headed. She needed to stay level headed. She couldn’t lose it when one of her peers was head and the kids were already ready to get involved. She had promised Kali that Hawkins was different now, and she foolishly tricked herself into believing the same, that maybe that time, the monsters were really gone for good.

“We shouldn’t jump to conclusions yet,” Sunshine said, looking between Max and Dustin.

The latter countered. “We don’t exactly have a great track record of something weird not being…you know, almost the end of the world. Something could still be happening here.”

Robin shook her head. “Even with the gate-thingy closed?”

Dustin shrugged his shoulders. “The rules we play by are D&D rules, right? But we don’t really know the rules the Upside Down plays by.”

The mere mention of the Upside Down made her sick to her stomach. Her muscles constricted, remembering the pain of what she felt last summer, holding off the Mind Flayer.

“I still think we could be jumping the gun here,” Steve said. “We don’t know anything yet.”

“That’s why we need to find Eddie,” said Max.

“I know where he probably is,” Calum sighed. “Trust me, there’s only one place he could be.”

Everyone rushed to gather their belongings to set out in their search for Eddie. Sunshine shoved a handful of tissues in her pocket as Kali approached her.

“I’m sorry,” were the first words out of Sunshine’s mouth. Her shoulders slumped with tiredness and defeat. “I didn’t know this is what we’d come back to. If you want to leave, I get it.”

Kali still looked indifferent with her arms crossed over her chest and her black makeup smudged under her dark eyes. “I will never understand your and Jane’s loyalty to this place,” she started. “The Lab is responsible for the messes here. The monsters Jane had told me about, the Upside Down. Yet, you’re still here, cleaning up after them. Why waste your time?”

Sunshine looked past Kali, looking at Dustin and Max who shouldered their backpacks with steeled determination fixed on their young faces that had seen too much. She looked at Steve, who smiled when he realized she caught him looking at her. And she looked at Robin, who mumbled to herself as she quickly worked to close down the store so they all could leave and look for Eddie, risking her employment for the second time in less than a year to help them out.

“We’re not loyal to Hawkins,” Sunshine said. “It’s about the people. Our friends. Our family. And because…” she trailed off with a sigh, wearing a sad smile. “Because no one else will.”

The group all headed for the door, ready to go. Kali shifted in her boots, thinking. “Your friends are leaving,” she said. “We should get going.”

Sunshine blinked, confused. “You’re coming with us?”

“For now.”

That was good enough for Sunshine.

#stranger things #steve harrington #steve harrington x oc #steve harrington x original character #max mayfield #dustin henderson #robin buckley #kali prasad #chrissy cunningham #eddie munson #steve harrington slow burn #stranger things fanfiction #st fic #st4 #stranger things 4

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roanofarcc · 6 months ago

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PROJECT SUNSHINE CHAPTER SIXTY TWO → A MOTLEY CREW

summary: steve harrington x oc || read on Ao3

word count. 5k || masterlist || ocs moodboard

warnings: cannon typical violence, child abuse, horror, gore, and depictions of mental illness. parts of this story were written pre-season 4 release. cannon divergence.

a/n. calum miller, my greatest enemy, and dearest boy...a moron of my own creation <3

previous chapter ← → next chapter

tagged. @sattlersquarry, @leptitlu, @two-sides-samecoin

The diner Sunshine was instructed to meet Kali at was quiet despite it being mid-morning. There were only a couple of people who lingered at the bar, nursing coffee and eating whatever the day's specials were. Sunshine occupied herself by twisting the sun pendant between her fingers and gazing out the large window beside her, keeping an eye out for Kali. She sipped on a mug of coffee, but the caffeine only made her jitters worse.

At exactly nine-thirty on the dot, the bell above the front door rang, and in walked Kali. She looked just like how the twins and El described her. She had black hair fit with streaks of purple along the ends and that was shaved on one side of her head. Everything was dark on her, from the lines drawn around her eyes to the clothing she wore. She looked to be an inch or two shorter than Sunshine, but her presence felt bigger.

Sunshine scrambled out of the booth, catching Kali's attention as she made her way over. "Hi," Sunshine greeted, smiling at her estranged sister. The last time she had seen Kali was inside the Rainbow Room the night before she and the twins escaped. Back then, Eight was a little girl just like Sunshine, dressed in a hospital gown and a buzzcut.

Kali studied her for a moment, from head to toe. Sunshine looked almost opposed to Kali with her white hair, bright yellow sweater, and long skirt she had stolen from Nancy.

"Hey," she said after a beat. She took a seat and Sunshine followed suit.

"I didn't know if you liked coffee, but I got you a cup anyway," Sunshine said, gesturing to the piping hot mug in front of Kali.

With a light hum, Kali picked it up and drank it black. Sunshine glanced down at her cup, the light brown color staring back at her. Steve often teased her by saying she enjoyed a little coffee with her cream and sugar, which was fair.

"How are you?" Sunshine asked, trying to wade through the awkwardness she felt. It wasn't like she was meeting Kali for the first time, but in a way she was. Eight and Kali were different people, just as Seven and Sunshine were.

"I didn't know if you'd actually show up," Kali said, not answering Sunshine's question.

She almost didn't. After Sunshine called her two nights ago, she laid awake wondering if it was the right move. She wanted answers and knew it was well past time she reached out to her. When the twins first returned, Sunshine wanted to contact Kali, but they said she would still be upset for a while over the fact that they left. They worried Sunshine reaching out would make her feel worse.

"I figured it was about time we reconnected."

"You said you needed answers to your memories."

Sunshine sighed. "Yes, but I also wanted to see how you were." Because it had been a long time, lifetimes it felt like.

"I'm fine," she answered with a slight edge in her voice that Sunshine remembered from when they were kids. "But I don't know if I'll have the answers you're looking for. I try not to think about my time in that place." It was hard not to, though, Sunshine thought. There were things they'd never forget, even if they wanted to. The twins and El had also told Sunshine about Kali's mission to track down every person who had hurt them inside the Lab, which meant she had to think about it.

"But you do sometimes, enough to remember the people who worked there." Kali furrowed her brows. "Luke, Leia, and El told me."

Crossing her arms, Kali leaned against the back of the booth and looked at her intently as if she was searching for something about Sunshine. Maybe she was looking for Seven or trying to figure out who exactly she had become.

"I didn't invite you here for a lecture on righteousness," Kali said. "Whatever they told you, know I'm doing it for us." It sounded like she had a similar conversation before, probably with Luke if Sunshine had to guess. The way he spoke about Kali was different than Leia. She often defended Kali's actions while Luke scoffed at them.

"I didn't come to lecture you," Sunshine stressed. "I just want to understand. I need someone to fill in the missing pieces of my memories." She left out the second reason for her coming, to try to get Kali to come back to Hawkins with her to live a life not built around revenge.

"Why?"

Sunshine explained her recent influx of memories that assaulted her brain. She told Kali how she had been more and more of her memories as of late, and maybe it was some kind of sign that she needed to talk to her.

Kali tapped her black fingernails against the side of her mug, thoughtfully. "And what do you think the truth will get you?"

Sunshine shrugged. "Closure, maybe?" Peace of mind, perhaps. Sunshine wasn't sure but she didn't like not knowing things. She wanted all of the facts set straight inside her head.

A light scoff sounded from Kali. "There's only one way to get closure, and that's to get back at everyone who hurt us inside that place. When they're gone, then we get closure, not while they're still out there living their lives without consequences."

Sunshine disagreed. She believed those people deserved consequences for what they did, but she didn't think she was the one meant to serve those consequences. If Dr. Brenner and Miller were still alive somewhere out there, she wished the worst on them, but as long as they never stepped foot back into her life, she wasn't going to spend her time tracking them down. Sunshine believed that her living, being back with her parents, and finding a home was her revenge on them. She got out and got her life back, but she knew things were different for Kali. Kali hadn't found her family yet.

"Is that really what you believe?" Sunshine asked, looking for a sign from Kali that she wasn't fully convinced of that, but she found nothing.

"Yes."

"Then I'm not here to stop you." It wasn't Sunshine's place. "I just want to know what you remember."

"Then ask away."

Sunshine explained her most recent memory to her, the one about the little girl breaking the little boy's arm seemingly out of the blue. In the memory, Kali had said that they'd all break eventually, especially if they stayed inside the Lab. They had a different skill set to hurt people and they'd been taught from a young age exactly how to use it. That reflex was still inside of her, an instinct to hurt first and ask questions second, and that scared her. She felt it last fall when Billy threatened Lucas and nearly killed Steve. All of the fighting she'd done since she left the Lab had been to save her friends, but every time she did it, something deep down inside of her was satisfied. She didn't like hurting people, but a piece of her formed inside the Lab did. The more she mulled over that conversation with Kali from her memory, the more she thought of other instances from the Lab where she was praised for being violent. Was there still something inside of her that could snap?

"Probably," Kali answered. That was the last thing Sunshine wanted to hear. "How could anyone blame us? I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. Hurting people is what we do best."

Sunshine shook her head, almost frantically. "That's not true. I don't want to hurt anyone."

"But you have, and I'm willing to bet you'd do it again if you had to." Sunshine felt shame wash over her, hot and terrible. She'd do anything to save her friends and family, that she knew for certain. But that didn't mean she wanted to. It came from necessity. Their lives had come riddled with monsters and bad men around every corner; it was hard to escape.

Kali continued, "It's what they made us for. If we never ended up in that place, that thought probably wouldn't have crossed our minds. Or, at least, it wouldn't always be our first instinct when we're in danger. They made us like that, and they don't get to get away with that. That's why I'm here." She lowered her voice even more, even though no one in the diner seemed to be paying attention to them. Everyone was too far away from their booth in the back corner. "There's a man who used to work there living in the city. I tracked him down and supposedly he knows where Dr. Brenner has been hiding out since he was run out of Hawkins."

Sunshine couldn't help the curiosity that pricked her skin. That wasn't why she was there. She had convinced herself, a long time ago, that he was dead. The boys believed he had died that night at the middle school, but after the twins and El returned from their stay with Kali, they weren't so sure that was the truth. Sunshine wanted it to be, but men like that were hard to get rid of, she supposed.

"You don't think he's dead?" she asked.

Kali shook her head. "I've talked to a lot of people who used to work with him. If they don't believe it, neither do I."

Sunshine did not want to care. She had taken back all of what she could that was stolen from her. Even if Dr. Brenner and Miller were alive, they couldn't take anything away from her anymore. But the look on Kali's face told her otherwise; her anger was contagious.

"I'm going to see what the man knows," Kali said, finishing the sip of her coffee. "He lives just a block from here."

"Do you think he'll talk to you?"

Kali's eyes narrowed similarly to how they often did when she looked at the guards and doctors inside the Lab. "I'm not going to give him a choice."

She should have let Kali go and abandoned her mission altogether. She should have headed back to Hawkins, but she became swept up in Kali's air of determination. Sunshine didn't know what she'd do with any information they got from the man if he did know where Dr. Brenner was. Sunshine didn't care, or, she thought she didn't. If she hadn't cared at all, she wouldn't have followed Kali to the man's apartment complex.

The place was small and a little unkept, but it had a seventies charm about it. Sunshine toyed with her necklace as they approached the man's door. Kali knocked a few times before the door swung open to reveal an older man, probably in his early sixties. His hair was gray and balding on top, and wrinkles set in along his pale skin. But his bright green eyes almost made him look youthful.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

Kali had kept her hands in the pockets of her long coat since they left the diner. Something inside of the right pocket poked against the fabric oddly and Sunshine had a bad feeling about what was inside.

"We'd like to speak with you, James."

Several emotions flashed across the man's face before he cleared his throat in an attempt to collect himself, trying to play off his very obvious panic. "I'm sorry, you have the wrong place. I don't know a James." He started to close the door in their faces, but Kali stuck her foot in between the frame with her heavy black boots to stop it. She then shoved the door open hard with her shoulder, forcing the man back as she stepped inside, finally pulling out what she hid inside her pocket.

"Are you sure?" Kali asked, cocking her head to the side as she pointed a handgun at the man's stomach.

He paled, stumbling backwards as Kali followed him deeper into the apartment. She didn't take her eyes off of him, but she gestured with her free hand for Sunshine follow quickly.

Sunshine did not travel to commit a crime; all she had wanted to do was speak to her sister. Yet, she stepped inside the apartment anyway and closed the door.

"Who...Who the hell are you guys? What do you want? Money? I-I don't have any!"

"Shut up," Kali hissed. "We don't want your money, James."

The man's gaze flickered between the two girls, confused. "How do you know that name? I don't go by that anymore."

"Some advice, try moving a couple more towns over from the one you used to work in. You were pretty easy to find," Kali said. James was sweaty, eyes full of panic. "Sit," she instructed, and he didn't argue as he slowly sat on the couch. "You worked at Hawkins National Laboratory for ten years, is that right?"

James's shaking hands clutched the couch cushions at his sides as he stared at the gun Kali continued to point at him. He swallowed thickly before answering, "Yes. I-I did. But that was a long time ago. I don't-" Kali cut him off before he could finish his sentence.

"You don't recognize us then?" He looked between them again. Sunshine didn't recognize him, but there had been so many people who passed in and out of the Lab, working there. It was hard to remember all of them. They never told the kids their names or shared any personal information that would've made it easier to remember them. There was only one person who worked there, aside from Dr. Brenner and Miller who had genuinely spoken with her as if she was a child and not an experiment in his eyes. She didn't recall his name, but she was sure he had given it at one point. All she remembered was his blonde hair and lanky figure. He liked playing chess and checkers with her when Ivy wasn't around to be her partner. He was a guard of some kind, always dressed in white with his hands folded behind his back. Aside from him, every other adult pretended the kids were nothing more than Lab rats.

After a moment, James said, "No. I'm sorry. I don't."

Kali didn't seem to like that answer; it was written sharply across her face. With a hum, she switched the gun into her other hand and rolled up her sleeve, exposing her tattooed number eight. James let out a gasp, eyes so wide they looked ready to bug out of his head. He looked to Sunshine at the same time Kali did, expectantly. She hesitated for a moment before she too showed her tattoo to the man.

"Does this jog your memory?" Kali asked.

Maybe Sunshine had become too soft in some parts because as she looked at James and the emotion that glinted behind his eyes, he looked remorseful. He looked sorry as he sank against his couch and hung his head, muttering, "Jesus," under his breath. "How...?"

"How are we here? How did we survive?" Kali raised her voice slightly, her emotions seeping out from underneath her stoic exterior. "It was certainly no thanks to you or anyone else inside that place." Her words were venomous but laced with hurt. Sunshine wanted to reach out to her like how she'd often do to El or the twins and hold her hand in an attempt to take away some of that coiled-up hurt. Kali was all sharp edges, but Sunshine wanted to smooth her out.

"Why are you here?" James asked.

Kali neared him with her gun still in hand, but she gestured with it now, not pointing it directly at him. She handled it differently than Nancy would have. Nancy was always locked in when she used a gun, but it was probably because she only ever threatened monsters with it and not people. "You've been in contact with Martin Brenner, haven't you?"

"No," James answered quickly. "No. I don't even remember the last time I spoke with him, honestly. After I quit, I moved here and cut off all contact with him and Hawkins."

"That's not what your friend Rudy said."

"Rudy?" James repeated, brows furrowed. "You spoke to Rudy?" Kali nodded as her grasp around the gun tightened. She resumed pointing it at him again, causing him to flinch and shield his face with his hands. "Hey! S-Stop! Okay? Just put the gun down and we can talk. W-We can talk!"

Kali switched off the safety with a loud 'click.' "Talk."

Quickly stepping beside Kali, Sunshine's stomach twisted in every awful way. "Kali," she pleaded but was ignored.

"I said, talk."

"Fine!" James cried. "Martin Brenner reached out to me, but I didn't contact him back, okay? He reached out to Rudy too, about some...some project. I don't know anything more than that. I ignored it because I don't do that anymore."

Kali scoffed dangerously. "Ten years of torturing children was enough for you?"

"I...I thought what we were doing was for good."

Another wave of anger flared up inside of Kali and Sunshine felt it roll off of her in hot waves, invading her body too. How could have anyone thought the things occurring inside the Lab were good? Even those who weren't fully clued in on what exactly Dr. Brenner and Miller were doing had to have known something was deeply wrong there. Children's screams often echoed through the floors and their blood was impossible to ignore. People like James were cowards; he ran away and never spoke up about it. He changed his name and pretended like nothing had happened.

Sunshine felt sick with both anger and sadness. She had none of her lifelines around her, no one she trusted without a second thought to calm her down. All she had was Kali with a gun and a man who only knew them because of the numbers on their wrist.

"Good? You thought you were doing something good?" Kali spat, stepping closer to James and pointing the gun at his temple.

He was crying now, shaking too. "I-I didn't know the whole story! They didn't tell us everything. I regret it, okay? I regret it every day. That's why I didn't respond to his letter. I couldn't work for him again."

A chill crept down Sunshine's spine as she stepped closer to him as well. "Wait, he wanted you to work for him like you had at the Lab? Why?"

James shook his head, pitifully. "I don't know. I can only guess for something similar. Another Lab? Another...another something. But I don't know. I didn't ask."

"So he is alive," Kali said to herself more than anyone.

Another Lab. Was Dr. Brenner going to try it again? Experiment on more innocent children? That couldn't be. He had to be on someone's radar. Dr. Owens at the very least. He couldn't get away with it a second time. Sunshine wanted to call her sisters and brother to warn them, just to be safe. What if they came back after them?

"Men like you are pathetic," Kali said as Sunshine tuned back into the conversation. It took a moment for her to realize Kali's finger was on the trigger, threatening to pull it. Sunshine didn't come to Indy to be a part of a crime scene.

"Stop," she yelled, grabbing Kali's arm tightly. "Let's go. You got what you wanted, and I still have questions you need to answer."

Kali roughly shook her off, clenching her jaw tightly as she stared down James. "They don't deserve to live the rest of their life in peace after screwing up ours."

"Kali, please," she pleaded. "This is not going to make you feel better. Maybe for a second, it will, but eventually it was catch up to you." She knew that too well. Every person she had hurt or killed lingered in the back of her mind, forever acting as a reminder of what she had done. That wasn't something you shook off easily. Outside of the Lab, Sunshine had only ever done it in self-defense, but it still weighed on her. "Please, don't do this."

Kali's face twitched and her frown deepened. "I guess I know where Jane got it from," she muttered through gritted teeth. "Her self-righteousness, like all of us aren't fucked up."

With a sigh, Sunshine tried a different angle. "It's the middle of the day. If you run out of here after killing him, they'll catch you. Then you'll never get to Brenner."

That time, Kali's finger moved off of the trigger in agreement. She was quiet for a long moment, painfully long for both Sunshine and probably the man facing down the gun and a woman who had every right to hurt him as bad as she had been hurt.

Finally, she said, "Fine," and dropped the gun back into her pocket. "I'll come back for him later, then." James's fearful eyes closed briefly. "We're not done," Kali told them, but they were. If she stayed in Indy for another day, she'd be caught because the second they left the apartment he'd probably call the cops. Kali knew that; she was smart. You can't threaten someone with a gun and expect them to not try to seek help after the face. But she had stuck fear into him, made him feel even worse about what he had been a part of. It wasn't much, but it was something. Maybe, deep down, that's all Kali really wanted: to be feared just as she and every other kid inside the Lab had been fearful.

"Let's go," Sunshine said, tugging Kali toward the door and leaving the shaking man on his couch. They had to hurry. Sunshine could not get arrested on her very first trip out of Hawkins alone.

They hurried out into the hall and started toward the stairs with Sunshine leading. She reached for the door to pull it open, but it swung back at her unexpectedly. Sunshine jumped, paranoid the man had already alerted the cops. But out of the stairwell stepped the last person she expected to see, despite his recent move to the city.

"Calum?" she breathed out, confused. He looked just as startled to see her, so much so that he almost dropped the bag he was carrying.

"What the shit?" he gasped. Calum looked different, but Sunshine couldn't put her finger on it right away. His appearance was the same, but something about the way he held himself seemed off. Then she remembered how different Tamera looked for a while after not being connected at the hip with Calum. Without Tamera at his side, he was different. "Danielle?"

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

He held up his hand to flash his set of keys hooked around his finger. "I live here. What are you doing here?"

"We, uh, we were just leaving, actually." He had more questions, but he stopped himself from asking when a door down the hall opened and drew his attention.

Calum raised his free hand in a small wave. "Hey, Dave," he said. When Sunshine looked behind her to see who he was talking to, she felt her heart drop into her stomach. Out of his apartment walked James, sweaty and disheveled. She felt herself falling deeper down into a pit of panic, clawing at the sides trying to stop herself from hitting the bottom and freaking out. Kali shoved her hand back into her pocket, but Sunshine grabbed her arm before she could pull out the gun.

James stumbled toward them in a hurry, ignoring Calum's greeting. As he neared, Kali stiffed and tried to tear her arm out of Sunshine's grasp, but she held on tight. "Here." James held out a piece of paper. He looked awful, and Sunshine had a feeling that wasn't all because he was just held at gunpoint. She saw his face when Kali showed him her tattoo. He wasn't Dr. Brenner - a monster. He wasn't a good man either, but he did look sorry and that was more than Brenner had ever offered them. "Rudy and I weren't the only people who Brenner sent letters to. There's another guy in Indy. This is his name and address. He might know more than me; he was higher up than I was."

Sunshine pocketed the piece of paper while Kali scoffed, "And why should we trust you?"

James shook his head. "You shouldn't. But I am sorry."

"Sorry doesn't take back what happened to us."

He opened his mouth to say something else, maybe some deeper explanation of why he did what he did for Brenner. But he never got the chance to. From somewhere down the long hall behind them, there was the smallest 'pop' almost silent. Sunshine didn't have a chance to even think about the figure looming at the end of the hall before blood was splattered across her upper half, wet and sticky. She reached up, touching her face only to pull her hand back to see it glittering freckles of crimson.

Calum tried to scream, but Kali grabbed him and covered his mouth. Sunshine saw Kali's hand tremble as James's body dropped to the floor. No one was in the hall when Sunshine looked up from the dead body. It was only them.

"We have to go, now," Kali hissed but her voice was a distant hum in Sunshine's ears. A man's blood on her face, in her white hair, and stained her sweater. There was a dead man at her feet, bleeding out against the carpet. Kali tugged harshly on Sunshine's arm and shoved her and Calum into the stairwell.

Death and gore weren't new concepts for Sunshine, but she wasn't immune to it. She felt dizzy and cold. Kali seemed to be the only one with a clear head as she led them out the side door of the complex and far enough away to not get caught at the scene of the crime.

James was dead. They weren't going to kill him. Sunshine wasn't going to let Kali kill him because he was just a man, a coward, and a pathetic one, but still just a man and not a monster. But someone else had killed him.

Once they stopped, Sunshine doubled over, heaving on the dirty gravel. She tasted blood in her mouth, making her gag.

Calum let out a strangled cry, but he looked to be in shock, similar to how he looked after he saw the Mindflayer in the woods before he ended up Starcourt. "W-What the fuck? What the fuck!"

"Do you have the paper he gave you?" Kali asked Sunshine, ignoring Calum. She peered down at Sunshine with blood splattered against her too. Sunshine wiped her face with the sleeve of her sweater, leaving behind more deep red stains that looked terribly incriminating. Without a word, she handed off the slip of paper to Kali.

Was she cursed? Did everything she got involved with have to end up becoming too much? It was as if Sunshine was destined to always end up way over her head.

"Why does this keep happening?" Calum moaned, holding his head in his hands as Sunshine offered him a look of guilt. That time wasn't his fault for sticking his nose where it didn't belong. That time he was just unlucky. Out of all of the places he happened to live in the same apartment, on the same floor as a man who worked in the same Lab his father had. Some coincidences were sick.

Kali read over what James had written down before she looked between the two. "I'm going to talk to this man. Are you coming with me or not?" Her calmness rattled Sunshine. She seemed unphased, wiping the man's blood from her dark skin until it disappeared into the dark fabric of her clothing.

"T-That dude just fucking died?! We have to go to the police-"

"No," Kali cut Calum off swiftly. "Trust me, we don't want to get involved with whoever killed him."

"Do you know who did it?" Sunshine asked, standing upright.

"No, but they've been beating me to some of these people I'm trying to find. Killing them before I can."

Great, Sunshine thought. That's just what she wanted to hear.

"What?" Calum cried. "Dave was a good guy! He-"

"That's not his real name," Kali said, cutting him off again.

Calum looked to Sunshine, his wide blue eyes glassy and confused. She sighed, sick to her stomach. "She's right. He..." She didn't want him involved, again, but he had seen the man die just as he and Tamera had been hunted by Russians. Whatever Sunshine wanted, she wasn't going to get. "He worked at the Lab."

He stilled as an array of emotions flickered across his face quickly. "No way," he whispered. "How is that even possible?" How did he end up living to close a man who probably knew his father, and he had no idea?

Sunshine had mixed feelings about Calum; she felt bad for him. His father was a bad man who Calum wanted to understand. Despite her feelings for Dr. Miller, she did think his son deserved closure and some kind of explanation for why his father did what he did, ruining his family.

"Wait," Kali said. "What does he know about that place?"

Calum had the same question and they both looked at Sunshine for answers.

"Kali, this is Calum. He got involved in some stuff that happened in Hawkins last year and we told him about the Lab." She wasn't going to tell Kali who Calum's father was. As much as she wanted to gain her sister's trust, she felt slightly responsible for Calum and his involvement with everything, despite him being the one who dug around where he shouldn't have. "And Calum, this is Kali. She was in the Lab with me and my other siblings who you met last summer."

Calum gasped, "You have superpowers too?" Kali glared at him, hard and his expression shifted before Sunshine could catch it. "Wait, you were there too. Do you know-"

"Calum," Sunshine raised her voice, praying he got the hint to stop talking before he said something he'd regret.

He didn't.

"Do you know my dad?"

Kali furrowed her brows. "Who is your dad?"

Calum replied, "Doctor Ryan Miller."

#stranger things #steve harrington #steve harrington x oc #steve harrington x original character #stranger things fanfiction #steve harrington fanfic #stranger things 4 #kali prasad #project sunshine

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