Chapter Text
Thursday, April 24, 1986
Home Base
It was a quiet morning. Birds were chirping, the sunrise was streaming in through the windows. It was peaceful.
Or it was until Stella burst into the kitchen where Steve was drinking some water, causing him to choke and spit it out.
“Steve! We have a problem!” she whisper-yelled. The two rushed upstairs, hearing moaning, coughing, vomiting, or even all three coming from each of the rooms. “What happened?” Stella asked.
“Oh no. It’s the last full week of April, right?” Steve asked. Stella nodded, and then she flinched as a crash was heard from one of the rooms. “Well, you know how there’s cold and flu season? In Hawkins, the end of April through early May is Super Flu season.”
Stella cocked her head in confusion, urging Steve to explain further. “Super flu is basically influenza with more…more everything . More contagious, more nausea, more congestion, et cetera,” he explained. Another crash was heard from the room Eleven, Kali, Mick, and Dottie shared. “That can’t be good.”
Steve and Stella rushed in, noticing shattered glass all over the floor. “Sorry,” El whispered hoarsely. She started coughing, causing the shards of glass to float in the air. Then, she let out a big sneeze, which fired the glass at Stella and Steve’s faces. Stella grabbed the boy by his shoulder and pulled him down to the floor. The shards of glass were now sticking out of the wall.
“When you said Super flu, you were serious,” the 19 year old quipped. Steve rolled his eyes. “This is crazy! Almost everyone is down with this. Well, except us, Max, and Joyce. But this is bad…experiments with the Super flu equals our powers going out of whack!” Stella panicked.
“Hey. Stella, breathe. I’m sure there’s some cold and flu meds around here somewhere,” Steve said calmly.
“I already checked. You’re fresh out. All I found was this weird stick thingy.” Stella held up a thermometer, apparently not knowing its purpose.
“That’s a thermometer. You use it to check sick people’s temperatures. Didn’t the Fosters do that when you got sick?” Steve asked. Stella’s eyes saddened. Steve immediately knew he was in uncharted territory. Stella rarely talked about the Fosters or her mother. It brought back painful memories that she made Steve promise he would never tell a living soul.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked,” he backtracked.
“No. It’s okay. They didn’t have a thermometer, but they liked to do this.” Stella placed a hand on Steve’s forehead, causing him to laugh softly.
“Yeah, that works too,” he chuckled. Stella smiled and gave him a small kiss on the cheek. Then Max and Joyce came out of another bedroom.
“Hop’s down, too. What are we going to do? Melvald’s is crawling with bats,” Joyce recalled, shuddering.
“There’s a department store not far from here. There has to be medicine in there somewhere. Only problem is that it’s demodog territory,” Stella commented. “The real question is who should go there and who should stay here and make sure the house stays standing.”
“I can get the supplies,” Steve volunteered.
“No way. Your wrist hasn’t healed yet,” Stella countered. Steve looked down at his right hand, his wrist wrapped with a splint and some bandages they found lying around. “Besides, you’re the babysitter. You have the most experience taking care of sick people. Other than Joyce. You should stay here.”
“I wanna stay too. Sorry, but I just got my sight back and I’d rather not have my eyes possibly clawed out by demodogs,” Max quipped.
“Alright, so me and Stella will go on a supply run,” Joyce concluded. “We’ll be back as soon as possible.”
The group put their hands together and cheered “Go team!”
Stella and Joyce were quickly on a bike and skateboard, embarking on the journey to the department store. Today, Joyce had a mission. Ever since learning about her relationship with Steve, she wanted to become closer with the spunky girl. However, Stella was a pretty closed book.
“So Stella! How does it feel to finally get out of the house?” Joyce asked with an upbeat tone. Stella just widened her eyes, sighed, and skated further ahead. Joyce sighed as well.
This is going to be harder than I thought.
Meanwhile, Max was helping Steve make a list of things they needed to do. The reason Max was helping was because Steve’s dominant hand was the one he broke.
They’d moved everyone into the living room, so if anything happened they would be able to protect everyone at once.
While Max and Steve were preparing breakfast crackers and 7 Up, Gia let out wet, deep coughs that started a whirlwind that swirled in the living room and made its way into the kitchen, knocking the open sodas and cracker plate crashing to the ground, the soda and crumbs spilling everywhere.
Steve and Max looked at each other, then the mess, then each other, then the mess while they spoke in unison.
“This is going to be harder than we thought.”