"Whisper" - Stranger Things, Harringrove (2023)

𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚛;

It had started as a whisper.

Between stations on the radio, beneath the static on the tv, the buzz before a lightbulb flickered into life, and the hum of a freshly switched-off car engine. Whispers, the quietest, softest 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙨.

Steve put it down to hazy memories and a bad case of PTSD. He put it down to head trauma from the Russians, nightmares from the Upside Down, the impossible, unending 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧 of losing the person he loved most in the 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙.

While the Mindflayer had plunged it's barbed tongue into Billy Hargrove's chest, Steve had watched helplessly from the balcony. Chucks pounding down blood-spattered stairs, the brunette truly believed he'd come out to a different scene - One where it'd missed, where it'd failed, where the whole thing never happened at all.

But instead, he was met with Billy's crumpled body, bleeding out on the glitter-flecked linoleum of the Starcourt Mall.

That night had haunted him ever since. The gaping hole in Hargrove's centre, the way black blood pooled in an impossible abyss beneath him, the screams of his friends as Steve had pulled Billy’s lifeless body into his arms. Not one person there had known about the two boys, but after watching Harrington collapse to his knees, the truth was damningly evident.

It's why he hadn't moved from his bedroom in nearly a month. It's why he'd skipped school, smoking weed with Eddie Munson instead, it's why he'd spent countless nights sat at Billy's grave, halfway deep into a bottle of his dad's expensive liquor.

But one night, on his way back from another midnight visit, the whispers spoke a little 𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘳. Spreading out around the crackling edges of Billy's favourite Dio song on the radio, timed perfectly with an uncharacteristic flare of Steve's Beemer headlights, Harrington heard a voice he thought he'd 𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧.

"𝘈𝘮 𝘐 𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘵𝘰𝘯?"

⁣

Originally written and shared as part of Verbuary 2023: https://tinyurl.com/4jxt8ztv