#world ending ritual: spitting some sick bars

[wastefulreverie]

hi im horror podcast trash and you are

[skullrock]

the partners, chapter six - Steve x Reader

chapter six - the headmaster ritual 

series summary: you and Steve are police apprentices at Hawkins Police Station in the fall of 1986. you get along famously, but there’s something Steve is hiding, and there is an unknown evil lurking in Hawkins. [friends to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, fluff]

chapter summary: Steve goes missing, and you enlist the gang’s help to save him. 

warnings: swearing, mentions of death 

word count: 3.5k

a/n: here’s the Spotify playlist that goes with the series, and you can catch up here. it’s really starting to kick off fellas! hope you enjoy!

===

The song fades out.

You reach down to your Walkman beside you and rewind, then play again.

Oh... I know I'm unloveable You don't have to tell me I don't have much in my life But take it - it's yours I don't have much in my life But take it - it's yours Oh...

The bed under you is littered with tissues and your eyes just started to dry. It’s 10 in the morning and you hadn’t slept a wink. You’ve been listening to the Smiths for the past 8 hours and there’s no end in sight. The sun shines brightly into your room and you wonder what Steve is doing. You wonder if he’s sorry. You wonder if he meant it. You wonder if you’ll ever get your friendship back.

I know I'm unloveable You don't have to tell me Oh, message received Loud and clear Loud and clear I don't have much in my life But take it - it's yours

Through your headphones, you hear the phone ring. You don’t flinch, however, choosing to let it go until it stops. But it starts back up again, and for whatever reason, it seems louder and more urgent. You sigh and rip your headphones off, heading downstairs to the receiver on the wall. You clear your throat and roll your shoulders back, expecting it to be Steve, calling to be an asshole again.

“Hello?”

“Y/N?”

It’s Veronica.

“Veronica, hey,” you say, uncertain. “Are you alright?”

“It’s Steve,” she says tearfully into the phone. Your heart drops to your toes and you lean against the wall. You hear her sniffle before she continues. “He’s gone.”

“What do you mean, he’s gone?” you breathe.

“We got a wellness check this morning to go to his house, his front door was open all night.”

Your heart lurches up now, right into your throat, and you feel sick. Did you leave the door open? No way, you remember closing it purposefully. You locked it, too.

“Chief sent Callahan to check it out, and he’s saying it doesn’t look so good.” Veronica is openly crying now. “He said – he said it looks like there was a struggle.”

“Wait – Chief sent Callahan?!” Anger flares in you; Steve was your partner. You should have been called, not Callahan. And Callahan was virtually incompetent. It all left a bad taste in your mouth.

“Yeah, he sent Callahan,” she says, confusion lacing her voice. “He said he didn’t want anyone else to go except Callahan, Powell, and some of the other guys. Y/N, you gotta get over there, for my sake. I’m freaking out over here.”

“Chief doesn’t want me to go?”

“Doesn’t seem like it.”

Your eyes narrow as you stare at the wallpaper of your house, trying to swallow your rage. “I’ll head right over there, Veronica, stand by.”

You slam the phone down and run to get dressed. You don’t even bother brushing your hair or your teeth, you just take off, anxiety clutching you. You are relieved that he lives so close, so it’s only a five-minute drive to get there, if that. The place is swarming with cop cars, sealed off with yellow tape. The neighbors are standing on their porches, watching with worry. It pisses you off, but you don’t have time for that. You duck under the tape and head towards the door.

The door had obviously been kicked in – you can see the wood splintered. When you walk inside, it’s chaos. There are multiple policemen there, and some of the men in black suits who were at Brimborn when the body was found. You nearly collapse. You grab onto the wall as you survey the room. You see a photographer photographing the weapons Steve had dropped last night, and you laugh weakly. You push yourself off the wall and walk over.

“Those are Steve’s,” you say. “He had those last night.”

Callahan, who was standing nearby, turns to look at you. “You look like hell, Y/N. Have you slept?”

“Why didn’t anyone call me?” you hiss. “Steve is my partner. I only found out from Veronica.”

“Chief didn’t want a new person on this case,” he says, shrugging.

You scoff and gesture to the room, filled with people who had never been on a case before. Callahan shrugs again. “Maybe Chief is a misogynist.”

You want to punch him right in the face but stop yourself. With a heavy sigh, you start to tell him about last night.

“Steve and I – we hung out last night,” you recall. “He uh – he showed me these weapons, and he just – he put them down, here. And then he was going to bed, and I left, and I know I locked the door, and I know that I shut it.”

Callahan nods. “What time did you leave?”

“Maybe two?”

“Call came in around seven,” he explains. “Neighbor saw his door was wide open but that his car was still in the drive.”

You shake your head in disbelief. “I don’t understand –“

But then it hits you.

They probably followed you from the bar. They probably waited until you left to go grab him.

And his bat was in your car, his weapons on the living room floor. He had no protection.

It was your fault.

Feeling sick, you grab onto Callahan, who slowly sits you on the floor. His face is contorted in confusion, and a few other police, including Powell, surround you, brows furrowed.

“You don’t look too good, Y/N,” Powell says, concerned. “You should head home.”

“No,” you say, dragging yourself up. “I’m going to the station.”

===

You whip the main door open, flying past Veronica, who gets up to trail after you. You hold your hand up to her and she relents, heading back to her desk and sniffling. You burst into Chief’s office, and he’s simply sitting there, smoking a cigar. The rage comes up hot and quick, and you can’t help yourself when you fly off the handle.

“What the hell is your problem?!”

Chief sighs, sitting his cigar down. You slam the door shut. “He was my partner, Chief. My partner. And you – you call Callahan to investigate? Are you joking? Do you think this is some sick fucking joke?”

He is silent, still, letting you continue your tirade.

“Even if he wasn’t my partner, you know he was my best friend. My best friend is missing, and you don’t even have the – the thought to call me? I have to wait for Veronica to call me, crying, because you sent the most incompetent person to investigate? I was with Steve last night, I know he -“

“You were with him last night?”

Your cheeks burn. “Yes. I saw him last night.”

Chief leans back in his chair. He analyzes you, and you hate it. You feel like a bug under a magnifying glass.

“How do I know it wasn’t you who did something?”

“Are you joking?” you ask, offended.

“What did you do last night?”

You take in a sharp breath, calculating if you should tell him. Steve thinks Chief is behind it all, and maybe he is – but what else are you supposed to do? It might be important that you were at that bar last night. Maybe it did have something to do with his disappearance.

You swallow hard. “Last night, we went to that bar on the edge of town.”

Chief’s face is unwavering.

“And I think – I think someone might have… followed us from there.”

“So, you two, underaged, went to a bar last night.”

You nod once.

“Why?”

You don’t know how to tell him without outright saying hey, we think you are in kahoots with bad people and are trying to destroy the town. So you go with, “We think people at the bar might have had something to do with the body.”

“You two were doing your own investigations.”

You nod once, again.

“Behind my back.”

Your cheeks burn once more. “You know that Steve thought it wasn’t a –“

“Steve has been through a lot,” Chief says. “Steve doesn’t know –“

“You never even gave him a chance!” you cry. “You brushed him off and now he’s missing, and you can’t even bother with an actual investigation –“

“You will not talk to me like that!” he roars, standing up.

His anger only fuels you, though. “You’re a real asshole, you know that? You know everyone wishes it was still Hopper, don’t you?”

“You’re too emotional, you know that?” he asks, glaring. “Don’t think I didn’t hear about what you did to Tommy Hagan.”

The color drains from your face and your heart lurches. After a moment you ask, “What are you talking about?”

“Carol Perkins came in the night it happened,” Chief spits. “Told me that you used your submission techniques on a civilian, all because he insulted your boyfriend.”

You scoff, but it’s a bitter feeling to be reminded that he isn’t yours. “Steve is not my –“

“And now you’re here, yelling at me, your boss, your mentor, because you think I’m incompetent?”

You can only stare at him in silence.

“You’re too emotional, Y/N,” he repeats, sitting back down. “I tried. I tried to make this work. I wasn’t going to say anything about what you did to Hagan. I thought it was a one-time thing. But emotional people don’t make good cops. Y/N. Your emotional outbursts aren’t very becoming of a competent investigator.”

Your stomach drops, and you know what’s coming.

“You’re fired.”

It’s silent. You feel like you left your body. You can hardly breathe or think.

“You can come pack up your things tomorrow.”

Your eyes look to the floor. You push back tears and press your tongue to the roof of your mouth. You turn on your heel quickly and walk out, slamming the door shut behind you again. It feels like your world is flipped. You lost your best friend and your chances at a future all in the span of an hour. Now you couldn’t even help the investigation, because you were too emotional. Chief was right.

But you weren’t going to stand back and let Steve be hurt or killed, wherever he was. You were going to find him, with or without the station’s help.

You pull the door open and step outside, but Veronica catches you. You look back at her. She has tears in her eyes, and they are bloodshot. Her hair is a mess. It strikes you that she probably looks like a mirror image of you. Another girl who loves and cares about Steve, wants him safe and sound, wants him found.

She suddenly shoves something into your hand. “Take this.”

Your brows furrow and you look down. It’s a plastic bag with a napkin in it. The napkin.

Your eyes shoot back up to hers. “What – how –“

“It was in Chief’s desk,” she says, voice thick with anxiety. Her eyes dart around as if she’s scared to be caught – and she is. “Found it this morning before he came in. I figured – if Steve thought it was so important – so I looked for it –“

Your head spins. Chief did take this napkin out of the evidence room. He hid it. Steve was right. Holy shit, Steve was right.

“Veronica,” you say, grabbing her shoulders. Your eyes are hardened, determined. “I promise I’m going to find him.”

She nods and gives you a quick, tight hug, before heading back inside. You shove the plastic bag into your pocket and rip out of the parking lot, heading towards your house. You know you need to find out what happened last year. You need to figure out what Steve was hinting at all those nights you spent patrolling.

You run to your phone, and it rings right on time.

“Hello?” you ask, breathless.

“Where have you been? We’ve been calling you for the past hour.” It’s Robin, and she’s pissed, but her voice as an anxious edge to it. “It’s all over the news – what happened? What’s going on? Do you know anything?”

“Robin,” you choke out. “I need you to tell me what happened last year.”

She pauses for a long time. “Meet at Mike’s house tonight. Five o’clock.”

===

Everyone gathers into the basement. Whether you had information or not, you planned on going back to the bar to figure out what the hell goes on behind closed doors. You had changed into another outfit, leaving your uniform in a heap on the floor of your bedroom. You tucked your knife back into your garter, the same as you did the night before. You remember the feeling of Steve’s fingers on your bare skin and swallow the feeling of rejection that sits in your throat.

Truth be told, you were about to lose it. The emotions of everything that happened were just sitting within you, waiting to be given just enough attention to activate the waterworks. You were exhausted, too, coming up on 36 hours being awake, but you couldn’t rest. Not until you found Steve.

You clap once to get everyone’s attention and start. “They put Callahan on the case, and they fired me. Steve’s house was a mess, so there were signs of struggle, but that’s all I know in regard to the investigation.”

“You got fired?” Robin asks.

“Doesn’t matter,” you sigh. “You all know we’ve been patrolling, right?”

They nod.

You reach into your jacket pocket and pull out the plastic bag Veronica had given you. “We followed Edwards to a bar on the edge of town a while back, and last night we went to it. Steve pointed out this private lounge, and there’s a side entrance that Edwards went through the other night. I assume it’s for the lounge.” You sigh. “I don’t know what happens inside. But I do know that Edwards tried to hide this piece of evidence that was on the body – it’s a napkin with the bar’s logo on it.” You pause. “I think Chief and this bar are up to something. I think whoever runs this bar took Steve.”

Everyone is silent.

“But Steve hasn’t given me a lot of information. I know he was involved in the fire at Starcourt, but he keeps insisting the same “bad people” who did that are behind all of this. And I don’t know what he means.”

A murmur falls over the room, and you clap again. “I need you guys to tell me what the hell happened last year, because that’s the only way I’m going to be able to get to the bottom of this. Steve was right about some things, so I – he’s probably right about this, too.”

It’s silent for a moment, and then a cacophony of voices start, mixing together, making your head hurt. You hear “Russians”, “mall”, “Will”, “mindflayer”, “Billy” – all kinds of words that made no sense together.

“Hey, hey!” you say, clapping your hands together. “One at a time, please!”

“Last year, the mall didn’t burn down,” Dustin says. “The Russians had a base underneath it –“

“And Steve, Dustin, Lucas’ sister and I stumbled on it –“

Max cuts Robin off. “And the Russians opened the Gate – it’s a portal to the Upside Down –“

“Which is where intergalactic monsters reside,” Lucas explains. “And they were going to use the Upside Down for warfare, I guess, but –“

“My mom and Hopper called this guy, Doc Owens, and he came with the military and shut it down,” Will finishes.

You stare, mouth open. Finally, you say, “So – what? What does Dungeons and Dragons monsters and – places – have to do with this?”

“That’s just what we call them,” Mike says impatiently. “Keep up.”

“So there’s an intergalactic portal in Hawkins,” you say slowly. “that the Russians opened. And they were going to use its powers for… warfare?”

El nods silently.

You nod slowly, trying to keep up, as Mike said. “Steve said that the same company that built Starcourt built this bar, and Mayor Kline signed off on it. So Steve must have thought that the Russians are also running this bar that the Chief frequents.”

Everyone nods in agreement.

You curse under your breath. “Ch- Edwards must have known about Steve being onto him and wanted him gone. So… we all can agree the Russians probably have him, and Edwards is probably working with them?”

Everyone nods again.

“Phenomenal, that’s just great,” you mutter, running your hand down your face. You can’t believe god damn Russians are in your town, you can't believe Steve dealt with them before, and you can’t believe they kidnapped him - or killed him - because he was actually onto them. But it all makes sense now; Steve’s apprehension on letting people in. They’d probably been watching him for a while, and he was trying to protect you from being in trouble with them. Steve’s anxiety, Steve’s inability to believe everything is fine. Why he wanted to be a cop in the first place. It all suddenly adds up. 

Everyone is silent for a moment before Max pipes up. “That was a classic Steve move. You know, you and Steve really would go well together.”

It stings.

“Yeah,” Lucas adds. “Why aren’t you together?”

It hurts.

“That, um… that ship sailed last night, actually,” you confess, throat dry. “I tried to... but it didn’t work out.”

Dustin gasps softly. “You told him you liked him?”

“Can we please get back to the rescue mission?” you groan, imagining Robin telling you told you so.

“What’s the plan?” El asks quietly.

“I’m going to go back to the bar and try to get into their private lounge,” you say, starting to pace again. “Then I can figure out what happens there, at least. And I can knock it off the list of places to look.” You sigh. “That’s my only lead right now.”

“What do we do?” Dustin asks.

You turn and look at him, brows furrowed. “You stay here.”

“No way,” Robin says, pushing off the wall she was leaning on. “We’re not going to sit here while you go for him. We are helping.”

Everyone agrees, and you huff, irritated.

“Look, if you want to help, you stay here and help me,” you say. “Will, could you get Owen’s number?”

“I mean, I can ask my mom –“

“Great. Does anyone have a walkie I can borrow?”

Lucas hands you his and you nod in thanks. “We communicate through these.”

“No way!” Robin says. “We aren’t going to sit here –“

“Robin –“

“No!”

You have an intense stare down with her. You try to use your eyes to convey they severity of the situation. But the truth is that you have no idea what they’ve seen, the terrors they lived through. You only know a third of the story, if that.

“You’re not the only one who loves him,” Robin says quietly. “We love him, too. He’s our friend. Friends have each other’s backs.”

You stare at her for another long moment before sighing. You bite your cheek and think for a moment. “Alright, here’s how it’s going to go.”

You lay out the plan. Dustin and Robin will come with you to the bar. You wait until nighttime to move. They’re going to distract the bouncers at the private entrance, allowing you to slip inside. When Robin and Dustin lose the attention of the bouncers, they go back to the car. All parties have a walkie to communicate with. Will is to get Owen’s call number and have it on standby at the Wheeler’s house with the rest of the gang. If there is something bad happening, he calls and alerts them. But he waits either for your signal or for half an hour to pass with no contact. The others are irritated that they can’t come – like, ridiculously irritated – but El says that it’s “halfway happy.”

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Mike asks. “Can you do this on your own?”

“I’ve been wrong before,” you say with a bitter smile. “But I’ve got the training.”

You go over the plan a few more times before having Robin and Dustin come out with you to your car. They seem content with their close involvement, and you hope they don’t try to manipulate you into letting them do more. Dustin opens the back door and gasps.

“The bat,” he says softly, then looks at you. “What’s it doing in here?”

“He left it in here last night,” you whisper, guilt running through you again. You squeeze your eyes shut. “Maybe if he had it, if I ran it in to him….”

“Hey,” Robin says softly, gripping your arm. Her gaze his warm and comforting, and for the first time in the past day, you smile.

“You didn’t know,” she says. “You didn’t know. It’s alright. We’re going to help him now.”

You take the bat out and place it in the trunk. “I really hope he’s where I think he is.”

“One step at a time,” Robin says gently.

You shut the trunk and straighten, looking at your new partners. They’re ready and willing to help; smart and cunning, quick and trusty. You sigh and hold your hand out.

“Let’s do this,” you say, and they pile their hands on yours, Dustin smiling toothily and Robin smiling gently.

You hope you don’t screw this up.

===

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[thelastofgala]

Giving this a prompt shot as well - your other stories are incredible and so painfully *real*. After they’ve arrived and settled a bit in Jackson, Ellie tells Joel about Riley and what was between them. Tentatively, she then asks what exactly was the nature of the relationship between him and Tess, and to her surprise, he actually opens up a bit (for Joel standards, anyway)

Taking a stab at this like two years later. Sorry for the epic wait! I had an idea for it last night while replaying the game during these odd and trying times. Thank you for the prompt ^_^

You can read this and more of my little fictions for The Last of Us at AO3.

Grand Junction Wine

After David, Joel was able to get it together enough to hot-wire an old Silverado that Ellie had found in a garage near the resort. It was five hundred miles to Salt Lake City and freezing cold, so they left the horses watered and fed and set them free on the range. There was no clear path on state highways anymore. If they had taken US-Route 40, they risked facing a road obstructed by debris, plus fewer cars from which to syphon fuel for the ride. They took the I-70 instead, veering south around three or four national forests, which had become rife, fantastical territories full of hostile communities and clickers in the thousands. It was a scary place to be alive.

Ellie drove most of the way. They stopped at a winery in Grand Junction, about a halfway point, some ways off the interstate. The cellar was stocked with dusty old bottles, and while Joel started a fire with kindling he’d gathered upstairs, Ellie wandered around the rows and picked out a couple reds through the cobwebs. She had no idea what she was doing. She’d never tried wine before, but she knew that Riley had, and she thought it seemed interesting and grown-up.

When she brought the bottles back up, she found Joel, leaning against the big, tall bar with his eyes closed. He was looking haggard and exhausted, wearing a wool coat he had stole off one of the dead back at the resort. Though he was healing and he hid his pain with expertise, Ellie knew that he was still physically wrecked. The fact he had let her drive was enough to worry her that he might somehow get bad again. She had stolen a bunch of those cipro injections off David and his cannibal army before they left, so at least there was that.

She went outside into the snow with her improving archery skills. She killed one rabbit, shot it right through the eyeball. Inside, she skinned it and cleaned it and stuck it on a makeshift spit and let it cook. Joel was quiet. It was just easier not to make a fuss, she figured.

“Hey,” she said after a while. She was sharpening her knife against a whetstone, watching the rabbit.

“Hmm,” said Joel, with his eyes closed.

“You, uh. You feeling okay?”

He sighed heavily. “Ellie.“

“Okay, okay,” she said. “Jesus.”

His eyes fell open, and he looked at her. It was an enormous comfort. “Why don’t you just start talking,” he said. “I’ll listen. Talking makes you feel better.”

“Are you saying I babble?”

“Yes,” he said. “I am.”

She took a deep breath. She wanted to talk, it was true. Ever since the mall, she had been planted with a kind of sudden-feeling sadness that had taken root from the ordeal with David, and the sadness was not without origin, though it had felt so for a long time. All the driving and the quiet and the wandering of the cellar had helped her locate its exact origin.

“I guess…” she said. She set down her knife, warmed her hands in the fire. “I don’t know. Can I ask you something personal?”

“Sure,” said Joel. His eyes were closed again. He looked serene.

“Did you love Tess?” she said, hesitant. “I mean, was that…love?”

His breath seemed to catch, sort of. Or, that’s what she thought. His eyes were papery, sunken. He opened them and looked down at his hands as if they were, themselves, the source of all the hell he had lived. “I don’t know, Ellie.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to answer.”

“What’s going on with you?”

“I was just wondering,” she said. “I mean, before I met you, I had this friend. Her name was Riley. And she died. She got bitten, the same time as me. We had a…thing. I mean, we kissed, okay? It probably seems stupid to you, but it wasn’t to me. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

When she looked up, he had not looked away or closed his eyes. He just nodded in recognition. “It ain’t stupid at all. Go on.”

She leaned back on her palms. She gazed up at the ceiling. It was vaulted with these heavy wooden planks that were half rotted to the pulp. The whole place was overgrown with dormant grapevines that had infiltrated from the earth. “I was just wondering. How do you know? Like, if you love someone. I mean, she’s gone. I just, how will I ever know?”

Joel was looking at her now, crushed by the weight of his many historic tragedies. He didn’t move, because moving took energy, and he needed to save his energy. He just breathed. The fire crackled vibrantly, filling the room with the smell of meat and smoke. “Love is different for everybody, kiddo,” he said. “What it means for me might not be the same as what it means for you.”

“Well, what does it mean for you? Give me a point of reference.” She sat so expectantly beside him. She had moved closer at some point. She was extremely resilient, but he knew that impending before her were many years in which she would have to bring herself to accept all that had been taken, and in due time, she would establish a new code based entirely around how to protect the few good things that remained. He knew this all too well, and it made his heart feel sick.

“Okay,” he said, humoring her. “There are only a handful of people in my life who have ever really known me, Ellie.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. He was looking at the fire again, and all of its spirit. “Tommy. Sarah.” The rabbit was nearly done, he could see. “You.” He looked at Ellie. “And Tess.”

Ellie stayed quiet. She was listening very close wither her knees pulled up, and her hands behind her, getting dirty from the floor.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is, if there is somebody in your life with whom you are able to let your guard down, even if only for a second, it could be something like love. But that’s just me.” He closed his eyes again, and the conversation ended.

She was satisfied.

A little time went by. Ellie yanked the rabbit off the spit and carved it up for the two of them. They ate side-by-side, with their fingers, drinking sugary wine out of the bottle. Ellie thought it tasted mostly gross, but she enjoyed the ritual feel. Joel told her to take it easy, but he didn't seem to mind much. What's a little cashed wine at the end of the world?

After a couple minutes, Ellie said, “So, you love me, huh?”

Joel grumbled, took a long pull from the bottle, giving her the side-eye. “Eat your damn food,” he said next. “We’re leaving in the morning. I need you fed.”

“Aye aye, cap’n.” She saluted.

Later on as Joel slept, the moon rose outside. Ellie kept watch on him until she couldn’t stay awake anymore, just to make sure he kept breathing.