![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torino10154 posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
firewhiskeyficTitle: kick the devil in the dark
Author:purpleyin
I am of legal drinking age in my region: yes
Pairing(s)/Characters/Fandom: implied Nancy Wheeler,/Steve Harrington,/Jonathan Byers, Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers, Robin Buckley (Stranger Things)
Challenge/Prompts used:Jack-o'-lantern, Graveyard, Harvest Party
Summary: A trip out of town to investigate weirdness turns out dark
Rating/Warnings:Teen - creepiness, minor injury, heavyish? angst, non-main character deaths, mention of Satanic Panic and assumptions about witches, underage drinking
Word count: 2295
Author's Notes (if any): I feel like this is a smidgeon of an actual casefic for these guys but this is what I felt compelled to write and I hope it is good and spooky enough.
“Are we sure this is the right places?” Steve asks, leaning against the car, surveying the fields of pristine pumpkins as far as he can see.
“Yep,” Robin says, punctuating the p hard with a pop, sounding slightly annoyed to Nancy. But then, she doesn't really get the teasing those two engage in half the time. Jonathan had suggested they were like siblings, but it wasn't the kind of sibling dynmaic she understood. Her and Mike mostly annoy edeach other, with only occasional fondness that had started to happen more now they had saving the world in common.
“This is definitely the right place,” Nancy says, spotting the twee handpainted sign that says 'Welcome to Purdue's Pumpkins Patch, Best in Illinois'. In the background she can hear the click of Jonathan's camera, already taking photos. There's not much to record as evidence, mostly it just looks cute, if strangely empty of people. It's only the start of October but it looks like the kind of family friendly place she'd expect some business even this early.
“Time to take a look around. I'll try the cabin for the owner. Robin, you and Jonathan can check out the pumpkins. You've got your evidence collection bags, right?”
“Sure, I'll collect away. Though I'm still not sure what we can possibly tell without some kind of government backing and proper scientists.” By which she means not Dustin and friends cobbling together what they can with the help of the middle school science teacher who still doesn't know the full story and is bound to ask one of these days when they go over the weird threshold.
“I thought we agreed we can't trust the government with this? If there's anything to find, we can't let them cover it up again. And we can't wait for them.” She feels Jonathan's hand on her arm then and knows she's getting too worked up again. It's not Robin's fault that it keeps falling to them.
“Fine, yeah, whatever,” Robin says, clearly not wanting to get into that argument again. She strides off towards the open gate and Jonathan has to jog to catch up with her.
“Steve?” Nancy asks, quietly, catching his attention away from Robin's retreating form. “How about you come with me, I think there's a maize maze I can see behind the cabin, you could check that while I talk to the owner.”
“You realize you just suggested splitting up? At a spooky location with no other people in sight.,” he says nodding his head towards the vista that's empty except for the other two who are getting smaller and smaller in the distance. “I'm not complaning but I mean, there's a reason we're here, and Dustin would probably kill me for not following 'the rules' if whatever is here doesn't.”
“Actually,” she says with an masued tilt of her head, “I think you are. Complaning, that is. But if you feel so strongly about it, we'll go together.”
They walk together to the cabin, an eerie silence resting over the area. Only the rustling of leaves and the occasional tapping of decorations against the windows for company. Nancy knows something is wrong here but it looks idyllic, it looks exactly like anyone would suspect. Which just means they're going to have to look deeper.
The door is closed, even though the place shows as open otherwise. She knows on the door once loudly, waits a second, looking back to Steve, who is studying the porch intently.
“do these decorations look a bit weird to you?” he asks, peering at them, blinking a lot as he takes in everything with the wind tunnelled across where they are standing. Nancy glances up. They look handmade and natural, no plastics; leaf garlands, gourds, little wooden brooms, corn dolls, dried cross cut apple slices in a string. She's seen them all before, but usually not all at once. It's a very specific aesthetic that does surprise her a litt.e.
Nancy tries the handle and finds it unlocked. She's confident as she turns it and pushes it open, but even so, she waits a second before kicking it open wider, not wanting to walk into something without getting a good idea first. Not much light filters through into the room but it's enough to see it's apparently empty, unless something ntoward is hiding behind the counter. Nancy steps in before Steve and he hurries after her, trying yet again to put himself between whatever might be and her. It's sweet but unecessary. She wastes no time climbing up onto the counter to peer down behind it and then swings her legs round to rifle through the drawes. As she finds a log book for takings Steve finds his voice again, “Nance, are you sure you want to do that. What if they come back and catch you going through their records.”
“Then they catch me and I'll blff my way out of it. Don't you want to know what's going on here? Where are thet? Where are all the customers? This isn't normal.”
Steve starts to go around the room, checking out the curious and merchandise a like, mostly crafted items and food. “If we get arrested, I'm blaming you, just so you know. My parents already think you're a bad influence because I stopped hanging out with Tommy and Carol. And I'd rather they don't think both my partners are trouble. At least I could visit you at Jonathan's without getting hassle if they get a bug up their butt about you.”
“If we get arrested, I will personally pay your bail.”
“Um, don't you have to pay cash? How are you going to do that from jail.”
“I'm sure Mike would only be too happy to help for a cut,” Nancy says with a forced smile and a glance at Steve over the couner. At least this line of conversation seems to be helping relax him, he seems less tense now he has something to focus on, which she definitely gets. Having a goal helps. And jail is a lot easier to cope with than whatever unknown might await them somewhere around here.
“Wait,”Nancy says, “This says the last taking were on the 23rd of September. That's 8 days ago.”
“so, business might be slow?” Steve says with a shrug and flippant move of his hand. “It's not like it's peak season et. Maybe they did cash in hand, for “tax” purposes.”
“No, it doesn't add up.”
“Ha. Literally.” Steve says standing up straight and looking at her approvingly for the pun. She's a little too syched up to care about that right now.
“i don't think we're gonna find the rest of the answers in here though.”
She exits at speed, intent to find the answers somewhere else, and Steve trails after her.
“Nancy, can we take a sec, please? Think about this, make a plan - you like a plan!”
She pivots on her heel and finds herself so incredibly close to Steve.
“8 days, Steve. If people aremisising it's been 8 days. Every second matters.”
with that she stalks off in a direction which he soon realizes is cornering around the cabin to the aofrementioned maze.
When they get around the back, it's really small compared to the massive pumpkin patches. But sizeable enough, not to mention tall enough, to present a challenge. It's planted thick enough they'd have trouble forcing their way through it, briskly enough to cause irritating injuries.
“you take left, I'll take right. I'll double back if I don't find anything.”
“Wait, no,”Steve says as she sets off in her direction. “Splitting up bad? I can't believe I have to tell you that. Forget Dustin, I wouldn't fogive myself if you disappear too, so, no. No splitting up.”
She rolls her eyes at him but gives a wry smile. “Would it make you feel better if we held hands?”
“actually, yes,” he replies, hands posed on his hips.
“Then come with me,” shesays, taking his hand and dragging him to the first dead end. There's nothing. And they wind around the maze in good time, finding absolutely nothing. Until they come to the centre, a large circle cut out of the corner. On the ground are several discard glasses and candles at odd angles. The ground is blackened around them, making an unnactural efect like scorched earth. In the centre is a large scaregrow with a jack o' lantern for a head, already decomp9osing, hanging at an strange almost jhaunty angle that makes it feel like it is watching them. Like it's winking at them finding this secretscene that she';s sure wasn't emeant for them.
Below it there is a mass of food, all rotting too, but by the looks of it, it would have made for quite the corncopia. Then the decoration make more sense. They'd heard report of this town being haunted, heard claims the Hellfire Club had infiltrated into the nex t state too. Thereports didn't agree but it was enough to check out. But now she understands. The panic. A harvest festival, as harvest festivals used to be a thousand years aho perhaps.
She takes in more details of the items scattered outside the circle; a cardigan left folded neatly, a horn discarded on its side, car keys and more car keys fruther around, a wine bottle rested against a thatch of maize with cap off as if they meant to come back to it. Because they had meant to.
“What are we looking at?”Stve asks and Nancy can't help the answer that rises out of her with horror creping into her voice, and anger mixed with anguisth.
“a graveyard,” she says as she falls to her knees beisde one of the glasses. In amongst the scorched black earth she sees the ashed white sticking out at intervals. The pinpoints of something else, something that explpains. She digs with her nails in a hurry, exposing more bit by bit, her nails bleeding as she cries at the futility.
“fuck! Is that, is that a hand?” Steve practically shouts. Nancy sobs in frustration, but she's glad to know he sees it too. The bony white digits now further exposed to prove it.
This is what she feated. That what started at Hawkisn, what infected not only the town but the gorund beaneath them, would never stop there. The government triedto contain, was foolish enough to think they could but it was in the very ground, the water carrying it far and wide. And more people had died, sucked dry as they celebrated a bountfil harvest. The night, the darkness coming of a perpetual winter coming on hardand forver. Nancy backs off then, wipes her hands on her jeabsn, suddenly scared of contamination eventhough she has lived in the hear tof it. Drops of blood smear too, and drip still onto the earth until Steve cradles her hands and then pulls her close. She can't tell she's shaking until he does that and stops it.
Robin and Jonathsn appear then,. Probably alerted by Steve's shout. Thet stare at the scene, and then to Nancy and Steve huddled together.
“Nance, let's get you cleaned up.” Robin says gently, taking over from Steve and not so subtly steering her around towards where they casme from. ”I've got a first aid kit in the car. Just in case, which is jyst as well really. Although I really thought it would be Steve being the dumbass getting injured. Not that you're dumb, but...maybe you just need to be more careful, alright? Anyway, let's go, huh.”
Robin cleanses her hands wit h a preciousion that makes Nancy feel a bit better. But she stil feels the bile raise up in her throat at the thought of what happened to those in the maze. Swal;lowed whole by something otherworldy, something that wasn't on their side like they expected. Worshipping gods who didbn't come to their recue. It's not like god in generla has come to the escue of Hawkins either. They're all foraken, anyone touched by the Upside Down beyond help.
For once, Nancy doesn't make the plan. She sits on the hood of th car sippting water from a bottle and watches the others hushed whispers as they decide how to handle it. She watches them hail the shovels and hose s around and smells the tang of gas with a quiet satisfaction. It's nighttime when the'yre done. She sits on her hapazard metal hthrone among the chaos and watches it go yp in flame. She chugs the wine Steve salvaged from the cabinnm, still corke, untouched (they hople). She drinks with abandon, a dark party to mirror their unfinished business. She is grateful to live to see it burn. Down to ashs like it sdeserves. But even then she's not fooled, bor foolish. She rings the tipline from a phone on the highway and tells it like it, like Joyce told her to. Make them pay, make it right, she'd said. There's nothing else they agree on more, because she knows Jopyce has that same fire in her. To save who she can. But Nancy drikns to regret those she couldn't/, that never had a true chance. Despite how drunk she is, she insists on makin the call. And she concentrates as hard as she can, to say each word with the force it needs, say it right and true no matter how much she's had. She won't ever get to speak the truth in the papers, to the families, but this one time she does.
Author:
purpleyinI am of legal drinking age in my region: yes
Pairing(s)/Characters/Fandom: implied Nancy Wheeler,/Steve Harrington,/Jonathan Byers, Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers, Robin Buckley (Stranger Things)
Challenge/Prompts used:Jack-o'-lantern, Graveyard, Harvest Party
Summary: A trip out of town to investigate weirdness turns out dark
Rating/Warnings:Teen - creepiness, minor injury, heavyish? angst, non-main character deaths, mention of Satanic Panic and assumptions about witches, underage drinking
Word count: 2295
Author's Notes (if any): I feel like this is a smidgeon of an actual casefic for these guys but this is what I felt compelled to write and I hope it is good and spooky enough.
“Are we sure this is the right places?” Steve asks, leaning against the car, surveying the fields of pristine pumpkins as far as he can see.
“Yep,” Robin says, punctuating the p hard with a pop, sounding slightly annoyed to Nancy. But then, she doesn't really get the teasing those two engage in half the time. Jonathan had suggested they were like siblings, but it wasn't the kind of sibling dynmaic she understood. Her and Mike mostly annoy edeach other, with only occasional fondness that had started to happen more now they had saving the world in common.
“This is definitely the right place,” Nancy says, spotting the twee handpainted sign that says 'Welcome to Purdue's Pumpkins Patch, Best in Illinois'. In the background she can hear the click of Jonathan's camera, already taking photos. There's not much to record as evidence, mostly it just looks cute, if strangely empty of people. It's only the start of October but it looks like the kind of family friendly place she'd expect some business even this early.
“Time to take a look around. I'll try the cabin for the owner. Robin, you and Jonathan can check out the pumpkins. You've got your evidence collection bags, right?”
“Sure, I'll collect away. Though I'm still not sure what we can possibly tell without some kind of government backing and proper scientists.” By which she means not Dustin and friends cobbling together what they can with the help of the middle school science teacher who still doesn't know the full story and is bound to ask one of these days when they go over the weird threshold.
“I thought we agreed we can't trust the government with this? If there's anything to find, we can't let them cover it up again. And we can't wait for them.” She feels Jonathan's hand on her arm then and knows she's getting too worked up again. It's not Robin's fault that it keeps falling to them.
“Fine, yeah, whatever,” Robin says, clearly not wanting to get into that argument again. She strides off towards the open gate and Jonathan has to jog to catch up with her.
“Steve?” Nancy asks, quietly, catching his attention away from Robin's retreating form. “How about you come with me, I think there's a maize maze I can see behind the cabin, you could check that while I talk to the owner.”
“You realize you just suggested splitting up? At a spooky location with no other people in sight.,” he says nodding his head towards the vista that's empty except for the other two who are getting smaller and smaller in the distance. “I'm not complaning but I mean, there's a reason we're here, and Dustin would probably kill me for not following 'the rules' if whatever is here doesn't.”
“Actually,” she says with an masued tilt of her head, “I think you are. Complaning, that is. But if you feel so strongly about it, we'll go together.”
They walk together to the cabin, an eerie silence resting over the area. Only the rustling of leaves and the occasional tapping of decorations against the windows for company. Nancy knows something is wrong here but it looks idyllic, it looks exactly like anyone would suspect. Which just means they're going to have to look deeper.
The door is closed, even though the place shows as open otherwise. She knows on the door once loudly, waits a second, looking back to Steve, who is studying the porch intently.
“do these decorations look a bit weird to you?” he asks, peering at them, blinking a lot as he takes in everything with the wind tunnelled across where they are standing. Nancy glances up. They look handmade and natural, no plastics; leaf garlands, gourds, little wooden brooms, corn dolls, dried cross cut apple slices in a string. She's seen them all before, but usually not all at once. It's a very specific aesthetic that does surprise her a litt.e.
Nancy tries the handle and finds it unlocked. She's confident as she turns it and pushes it open, but even so, she waits a second before kicking it open wider, not wanting to walk into something without getting a good idea first. Not much light filters through into the room but it's enough to see it's apparently empty, unless something ntoward is hiding behind the counter. Nancy steps in before Steve and he hurries after her, trying yet again to put himself between whatever might be and her. It's sweet but unecessary. She wastes no time climbing up onto the counter to peer down behind it and then swings her legs round to rifle through the drawes. As she finds a log book for takings Steve finds his voice again, “Nance, are you sure you want to do that. What if they come back and catch you going through their records.”
“Then they catch me and I'll blff my way out of it. Don't you want to know what's going on here? Where are thet? Where are all the customers? This isn't normal.”
Steve starts to go around the room, checking out the curious and merchandise a like, mostly crafted items and food. “If we get arrested, I'm blaming you, just so you know. My parents already think you're a bad influence because I stopped hanging out with Tommy and Carol. And I'd rather they don't think both my partners are trouble. At least I could visit you at Jonathan's without getting hassle if they get a bug up their butt about you.”
“If we get arrested, I will personally pay your bail.”
“Um, don't you have to pay cash? How are you going to do that from jail.”
“I'm sure Mike would only be too happy to help for a cut,” Nancy says with a forced smile and a glance at Steve over the couner. At least this line of conversation seems to be helping relax him, he seems less tense now he has something to focus on, which she definitely gets. Having a goal helps. And jail is a lot easier to cope with than whatever unknown might await them somewhere around here.
“Wait,”Nancy says, “This says the last taking were on the 23rd of September. That's 8 days ago.”
“so, business might be slow?” Steve says with a shrug and flippant move of his hand. “It's not like it's peak season et. Maybe they did cash in hand, for “tax” purposes.”
“No, it doesn't add up.”
“Ha. Literally.” Steve says standing up straight and looking at her approvingly for the pun. She's a little too syched up to care about that right now.
“i don't think we're gonna find the rest of the answers in here though.”
She exits at speed, intent to find the answers somewhere else, and Steve trails after her.
“Nancy, can we take a sec, please? Think about this, make a plan - you like a plan!”
She pivots on her heel and finds herself so incredibly close to Steve.
“8 days, Steve. If people aremisising it's been 8 days. Every second matters.”
with that she stalks off in a direction which he soon realizes is cornering around the cabin to the aofrementioned maze.
When they get around the back, it's really small compared to the massive pumpkin patches. But sizeable enough, not to mention tall enough, to present a challenge. It's planted thick enough they'd have trouble forcing their way through it, briskly enough to cause irritating injuries.
“you take left, I'll take right. I'll double back if I don't find anything.”
“Wait, no,”Steve says as she sets off in her direction. “Splitting up bad? I can't believe I have to tell you that. Forget Dustin, I wouldn't fogive myself if you disappear too, so, no. No splitting up.”
She rolls her eyes at him but gives a wry smile. “Would it make you feel better if we held hands?”
“actually, yes,” he replies, hands posed on his hips.
“Then come with me,” shesays, taking his hand and dragging him to the first dead end. There's nothing. And they wind around the maze in good time, finding absolutely nothing. Until they come to the centre, a large circle cut out of the corner. On the ground are several discard glasses and candles at odd angles. The ground is blackened around them, making an unnactural efect like scorched earth. In the centre is a large scaregrow with a jack o' lantern for a head, already decomp9osing, hanging at an strange almost jhaunty angle that makes it feel like it is watching them. Like it's winking at them finding this secretscene that she';s sure wasn't emeant for them.
Below it there is a mass of food, all rotting too, but by the looks of it, it would have made for quite the corncopia. Then the decoration make more sense. They'd heard report of this town being haunted, heard claims the Hellfire Club had infiltrated into the nex t state too. Thereports didn't agree but it was enough to check out. But now she understands. The panic. A harvest festival, as harvest festivals used to be a thousand years aho perhaps.
She takes in more details of the items scattered outside the circle; a cardigan left folded neatly, a horn discarded on its side, car keys and more car keys fruther around, a wine bottle rested against a thatch of maize with cap off as if they meant to come back to it. Because they had meant to.
“What are we looking at?”Stve asks and Nancy can't help the answer that rises out of her with horror creping into her voice, and anger mixed with anguisth.
“a graveyard,” she says as she falls to her knees beisde one of the glasses. In amongst the scorched black earth she sees the ashed white sticking out at intervals. The pinpoints of something else, something that explpains. She digs with her nails in a hurry, exposing more bit by bit, her nails bleeding as she cries at the futility.
“fuck! Is that, is that a hand?” Steve practically shouts. Nancy sobs in frustration, but she's glad to know he sees it too. The bony white digits now further exposed to prove it.
This is what she feated. That what started at Hawkisn, what infected not only the town but the gorund beaneath them, would never stop there. The government triedto contain, was foolish enough to think they could but it was in the very ground, the water carrying it far and wide. And more people had died, sucked dry as they celebrated a bountfil harvest. The night, the darkness coming of a perpetual winter coming on hardand forver. Nancy backs off then, wipes her hands on her jeabsn, suddenly scared of contamination eventhough she has lived in the hear tof it. Drops of blood smear too, and drip still onto the earth until Steve cradles her hands and then pulls her close. She can't tell she's shaking until he does that and stops it.
Robin and Jonathsn appear then,. Probably alerted by Steve's shout. Thet stare at the scene, and then to Nancy and Steve huddled together.
“Nance, let's get you cleaned up.” Robin says gently, taking over from Steve and not so subtly steering her around towards where they casme from. ”I've got a first aid kit in the car. Just in case, which is jyst as well really. Although I really thought it would be Steve being the dumbass getting injured. Not that you're dumb, but...maybe you just need to be more careful, alright? Anyway, let's go, huh.”
Robin cleanses her hands wit h a preciousion that makes Nancy feel a bit better. But she stil feels the bile raise up in her throat at the thought of what happened to those in the maze. Swal;lowed whole by something otherworldy, something that wasn't on their side like they expected. Worshipping gods who didbn't come to their recue. It's not like god in generla has come to the escue of Hawkins either. They're all foraken, anyone touched by the Upside Down beyond help.
For once, Nancy doesn't make the plan. She sits on the hood of th car sippting water from a bottle and watches the others hushed whispers as they decide how to handle it. She watches them hail the shovels and hose s around and smells the tang of gas with a quiet satisfaction. It's nighttime when the'yre done. She sits on her hapazard metal hthrone among the chaos and watches it go yp in flame. She chugs the wine Steve salvaged from the cabinnm, still corke, untouched (they hople). She drinks with abandon, a dark party to mirror their unfinished business. She is grateful to live to see it burn. Down to ashs like it sdeserves. But even then she's not fooled, bor foolish. She rings the tipline from a phone on the highway and tells it like it, like Joyce told her to. Make them pay, make it right, she'd said. There's nothing else they agree on more, because she knows Jopyce has that same fire in her. To save who she can. But Nancy drikns to regret those she couldn't/, that never had a true chance. Despite how drunk she is, she insists on makin the call. And she concentrates as hard as she can, to say each word with the force it needs, say it right and true no matter how much she's had. She won't ever get to speak the truth in the papers, to the families, but this one time she does.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-04 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-04 07:15 pm (UTC)♥
Date: 2022-10-05 06:39 am (UTC)“Yep,” Robin says, punctuating the p hard with a pop, sounding slightly annoyed to Nancy.
I love this little detail right at the start.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-05 04:41 pm (UTC)a perpetual winter coming on hardand forver
I also love how planning seems to be a central element, starting from Steve's complaning :)
no subject
Date: 2022-10-05 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-06 12:16 pm (UTC)Very atmospheric and cool!!!
no subject
Date: 2022-10-08 05:54 am (UTC)