Even Stranger Things

"Oh my God, so!"

Chrissy had immediately pulled Sirianna outside from the gym during their seventh hour, telling their teacher that she wanted to practice their routines and work ups privately to ‘get Sirianna up to speed'. Sirianna planned on doing just that, and they were - kind of. But Chrissy apparently had days worth of information she wanted to share with her.

Sirianna kept going over and over the steps Chrissy showed her, occasionally twisting or turning when Chrissy fixed her position, while Chrissy talked.

"Here's the thing, I like totally had suspicions because - you were a smoke show when I did your makeup and Steve didn't even look at you? No, what? So I asked Jason if he thought you were hot, like maybe I'm biased because we're friends? Jason tried to say ‘oh, he didn't look' which is total bullshit. I told him I wouldn't be mad or anything because I thought you looked banging, and he finally said ‘yeah, Sirianna is hot'."

Sirianna brightened at that. Jason was tall, cute, so sweet with Chrissy. If he said that she was hot then it probably wasn't a lie.

Unless he said it to be nice to Chrissy who put all the work into Sirianna's makeover that day… Thankfully, Sirianna had to focus on not missing a step and listening to Chrissy so she really didn't have the ability to also wonder about pity compliments.

"Which, duh," Chrissy said. She clicked her tongue and stepped up beside Sirianna, turning her body the same angle Sirianna was, and showed her the move Sirianna thought she had been doing. "No, like this, see how my arms are bent at the elbow? Your left one was straight. So good though. Anyway, so I told Jason that Steve didn't even look twice at you, which is super strange but what was even more strange was that he was looking at Harry!"

"That's not strange," Sirianna said, working hard to not make that sound bitter. "Everyone pays attention to Harry."

Zero-Seven

Zero-Seven-B

"First off? You're so wrong." Chrissy nodded then and paused her gushing to walk Sirianna through the next part of the routine, only talking again once Sirianna was practicing the movements on her own.

"And secondly, I'm saying that Steve was looking at Harry like Billy looks at you. And now everyone is saying that Steve is gay."

Sirianna fumbled a step in her moment of concern. "What's that? Is he going to be okay?"

Was it their fault? Sirianna and Harry's? Did they expose him to too much magic? Sirianna had seen him in class and at lunch and he seemed okay, kind of sad, but Sirianna got the impression people were being unkind to him. Sirianna had thought about sitting with him at lunch, he just looked so pitiful by himself, but Billy had refused to move and she didn't want to cause a fight to break out between them.

"No, Siri," Chrissy laughed for a second at what had been real questions. "Gay? Like… like when two boys like each other? Or two girls like each other?"

That… there was a name for that? Did that make Sirianna and Chrissy gay? Or Harry and Jonathan? Sirianna thought it was being friends.

Chrissy sort of huffed and her cheeks turned pink when Sirianna's said just that, she even rolled her eyes though Sirianna didn't get the feeling that she was truly annoyed.

"No, like… I think Steve has a crush on Harry, he thinks he's attractive or whatever and wants to kiss him. Gay, like two people in a relationship that are the same gender."

Sirianna stopped moving so she could look at Chrissy to try and —

Oooh, gay. Sirianna did know what that was, Merlin. Aunt Petunia had been particularly nasty to a man dancing on the telly once and called him a ‘poof'. Sirianna remembered pausing her chores to ask what poof meant, she thought it was a magic reference and wanted to see if Uncle Vernon would put Aunt Petunia in the cupboard for it, but Uncle Vernon rather crudely told her it meant ‘being a faggot'.

Sirianna had forgotten that, but… but… she heard that word quite a bit, all day long. It hadn't been pointed toward her or Harry, so she didn't care at the time, but her stomach sort of did a backflip when it clicked together for her.

"They were talking about Steve, all day," Sirianna said. She swallowed hard and kicked the ground when Chrissy nodded with her own unhappy look. "That's horrible. Why would they do that? Steve's been so kind. You should have seen him last night, Chrissy, when he looked ready to cry over Jonathan's brother. It was - WAIT!"

Sirianna must have been particularly dim, or distracted by the many things happening in her life if she felt like being kind to herself about it, because it suddenly all fell in place what Chrissy had said.

"Steve likes Harry?" Sirianna asked, a smile slowly creeping up on her face. That was lovely, really. Steve had been an absolute shit hole before Benny died, but he seemed like such a good friend since that awful day.

That would be - would be brilliant, actually! Harry and Steve could go on dates and Sirianna and Billy could go on dates and maybe they could all go on big group dates when Billy and Steve stopped fighting so much! If Harry liked him, which maybe he did! Harry was the one who told Steve they'd ride in his car and go in his house and Steve was who Harry ran to when he found El!

Maybe Harry and Steve liked each other!!

"Yes!!" Chrissy squealed, smiling just as Sirianna was. "Which I told Jason and he said I'm crazy."

"Is that why people are being cruel to Steve?" Sirianna asked. "Because Jason told them that Steve is gay?"

Sirianna couldn't remember if she heard Jason making any nasty comments to Steve, but she really hadn't been paying that much attention. But if Jason was being cruel to Steve then Sirianna was going to tell Chrissy that she should find someone else to date. Steve and Harry would be so cute, she knew it the second she thought of it. Harry liked him, Sirianna was certain of it.

"Jason didn't tell anyone, he said he forgot I even told him," Chrissy rolled her eyes again. "Which, like, okay but that was just the other day, so what the hell? Tammy told Lisa, who told Carol, who told Kate, who told me at lunch that Billy was the one who started calling Steve ‘Queen Steve' and now everyone's calling him ‘queer Steve' and it's so rude, right?"

"That is so rude," Sirianna agreed. It was cruel, nasty. It was just like when the other students made horrible comments about Sirianna and Harry being inappropriately close to each other. Those still stung when Sirianna heard someone say it in the corridors or whispered in class.

They had cut down drastically after Sirianna punched Carol though. So - so maybe Steve should punch Billy. And if he didn't, Sirianna would. Honestly, what an awful thing to do… probably…

"Why is ‘Queen Steve' an insult, exactly?" Sirianna asked. Sirianna didn't think she understood the insults the other students used or their swears. She thought she had learned quite a few, but she couldn't think why it would be insulting to be compared to Queen Elizabeth.

The Queen was a beautiful woman, classy, graceful, intelligent, kind. Sirianna wished that she had been called Queen Sirianna when the students at Hawkins had been taunting her.

‘Queer Steve' was quite clearly an insult.

"I mean it's not like clever," Chrissy said, shrugging both of her shoulders up in some bemusement. "I guess because queens are women? So it's like a slang thing? Like a queen could be royalty or a gay guy?"

Sirianna was sure that Billy had probably not been comparing Steve to the Queen, which meant that he had insulted Steve and started the cruel comments and hurtful jokes.

"Oh." Sirianna couldn't describe the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was a cold swoop, a sick feeling. It was… she was —

"I know." Chrissy squeezed Sirianna's shoulder in a moment of solitude. "I was so disappointed too. I thought that maybe Billy wouldn't be such an ass with you two being official, you know? But Steve has been completely miserable today."

A very tiny, veryyyy tiny, part of Sirianna thought that Steve deserved to be a bit miserable. Steve hadn't been kind to Sirianna or Harry on their first day at Hawkins, he had been a part of the group of students who were especially nasty.

Except nobody deserved to be treated so awfully, especially over something that couldn't be helped. Sirianna didn't ask to have butterflies when she saw Billy and Sirianna liked the idea of Steve and Harry holding hands and doing sweet things together. Harry liked Steve, Sirianna loved her brother, which meant it was up to Sirianna again to make the idiots at Hawkins High shut their stupid mouths.

"I see," Sirianna said, stopping her routine to stare at the back of the school and to think. Punching Billy in the mouth didn't sound especially appealing, Billy was hurt enough in his life, but it had been effective for Carol… but Billy already had a bruise and cut on his face…

No, Sirianna wouldn't put her hands on him, she couldn't. Billy was an outrageous arse and Sirianna was horribly disappointed in him, but hitting Billy was never going to be an option.

"So I was thinking… maybe you could tell Billy to knock it off?" Chrissy suggested. "It could be sort of like a test, right? You tell him it's not okay to be so freaking mean to Steve and if he doesn't listen then you obviously deserve better."

"You're right." Sirianna dropped her pom-poms on the ground and straightened her shoulders up. "I'm going to tell him exactly that."

Sirianna began striding toward the school, for the door that would let her back in the gym. Billy wasn't in the same gym as her, but they were connected so he wouldn't be hard to find.

"Sirianna! Wait!" Chrissy hurried to catch up with her and tried to block Sirianna's path to the door. "You can't do it in front of everyone! Steve will be humiliated!!"

"He's already being humiliated," Sirianna pointed out, stepping around Chrissy. "Maybe he'd like someone to stand up for him."

"He won't! Then they'll just laugh about him needing a girl to fight his battles!"

Sirianna slowed her march with that argument. That - that might be embarrassing for him, Sirianna had heard boys giggle about her fighting Harry's battles for him at Hogwarts.

"Ugh. Why are boys the worst?" Sirianna cried, throwing herself on the ground since she couldn't go yelling at Billy in the middle of class. Sirianna didn't want to make anything worse, she just wanted Steve to not feel as horrible as she had felt.

"Because God used all the good stuff and brains on us?" Chrissy also threw herself on the ground and Sirianna almost grinned when Chrissy plopped her head on Sirianna's thigh. It was so nice, having a friend again. Harry was great, but Harry didn't want to talk about clothes or boys or anything really.

"You're so right," Sirianna said, silently amending Chrissy's words to include Harry. Harry was terrifyingly smart, he always had been. The way that he seemed to solve Will Byers' disappearance all on his own? Sirianna couldn't have done that.

Sirianna went quiet for a few minutes, thinking about the Billy problem to replace the White Coats problem. Why would he be so unkind to Steve? And it wasn't the first time either, they were constantly fighting.

It was time for those two to get along, honestly. Sirianna didn't want to stop… doing whatever it was that she was doing with Billy (were they dating?), but there were double dates with her brother on the line.

"Project Make the Boys be Friends…" Sirianna murmured, a ghost of a humorless smile flitting across her face. That especially wasn't funny, but also it was.

"That's going to be a big project," Chrissy said. "I think you'll need to blackmail Billy, really. I think he really likes you… So use it against him. It's like a carrot and stick, right? You're the tasty carrot, being single and alone is the stick."

Sirianna didn't think she understood what Chrissy meant with carrots and sticks, but she did know that people could be threatened into compliance. Sirianna had been - "Do it or we'll hurt your brother" - so she knew it worked.

Chrissy decided to help her and they made a quick plan while they got back to actual practice. Chrissy had a lot of good ideas, though they both kind of hesitated when Sirianna pointed out that if their plan went wrong, she and Harry wouldn't have a ride back to Chief Hopper's.

"You can ride with me," Chrissy decided. "Jason won't mind, I'm sure."

"Does he have a car?" Sirianna asked. She didn't think Jason was old enough to drive.

"It's his moms, but she lets him use it anytime he wants," Chrissy explained. "So she gets these migraines, right?"

They spent the rest of the time talking about Jason's family, then Chrissy talked more about her own - Sirianna liked how much Chrissy loved being an older sister, it was just another thing they had in common. Chrissy's brother was much younger, he was adorable when Sirianna met him on Sunday, but Chrissy talked about him with so much love and sweetness. It was truly brilliant, having someone to talk with about so many different things.

It also made Sirianna think of Ron. There weren't a lot of similarities between Chrissy and Ron aside from their red hair, but Sirianna thought about him all the same.

They went inside before class officially ended, so Chrissy could fix Sirianna up for ‘maximum effort'.

"Oooh," Chrissy peeked inside the red makeup bag that Sirianna bought to use and she started pulling out Sirianna's most cherished possessions. "CoverGirl? You did so good, this is like the best brand."

Sirianna bit her cheek and nodded shortly. It hadn't been her that purchased the makeup itself. It was Benny, Benny who had bought Sirianna her very own makeup set and put it in a gift bag for her. Sirianna couldn't think about it - couldn't imagine Benny in all of his massive size standing in a cosmetic store and picking out things he thought Sirianna might like - because she would cry. And she had already cried about it too many times.

Sirianna was sick of crying. It felt much better to be in action, to do something to fix anything.

Chrissy gave Sirianna a quick lesson on mascara and eyeliner after they hurried through quick showers. The other girls joined them when the bell rang, but there weren't any hateful comments sent toward Sirianna anymore. Actually, a couple of the girls were perfectly nice to her.

Which meant that surely Sirianna could fix things for Steve as well. Girls were more complicated, Sirianna had befriended Ron Weasley in one conversation and it took her a whole week to become Lavender Brown's friend.

Project Make the Boys be Friends would work, it had to.

It started with Jason, who Chrissy snatched from the corridor the instant he walked out of the locker room.

"Come stand outside with us and be nice to Steve," Chrissy ordered him. Jason opened his mouth and Sirianna thought he was going to argue, but Chrissy put her foot down.

"I mean it, Jason Michael! You said that Steve threw a fit for you to be on the varsity team, the least you can do is be freaking nice."

Jason huffed, but Sirianna could sense that he would do exactly what Chrissy told him to.

"I made varsity because I'm awesome," he bragged.

Chrissy smiled sweetly then and stood up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to Jason's lips.

"I know you are," she said. "Now be even more awesome and not a total asshole, for me."

"Fine, whatever."

Oooh, carrot and stick. Sirianna understood.

Sirianna, Chrissy, and Jason waited in the parking lot for Harry, Steve, and Billy. Jason, quite dutiful really, told Chrissy that ‘the guys' had been ‘teasing' Steve during gym. Sirianna wanted to ask if anyone had been ‘teasing' Harry, but… but she was a bit afraid to ask.

Because if they didn't know, if they didn't realize what took Sirianna much too long to notice, then Sirianna would be the one pointing it out for them. And Harry had enough on his shoulders, Sirianna didn't want a fresh wave of hatefulness to be added.

The doors of the gym opened and Sirianna leaned against Jason's car while she searched for her brother. There were a lot of stupid grins on boys's faces, stupid grins considering that as far as they knew - a boy had been found dead the night before. Somehow, Steve maybe (hopefully) wanting to snog boys had become more important to everyone than the death of Jonathan's brother.

Sirianna really didn't care for most of her classmates.

Steve was the first one that Sirianna spotted, though her brother was only a step behind him. She had to go on her tiptoes to see, but - but Harry was talking. To Steve.

Why it took Sirianna so long to think that Harry liked Steve was beyond her, really. It was so obvious. She had been rather distracted with Benny's murder, El's arrival, Will's disappearance, and Billy though so maybe it wasn't entirely unforgivable.

Steve didn't seem like he was talking much, he looked really down, actually. It was sad, the curl of his shoulders and how his usually nice hair was laying across his forehead in wet clumps.

"Steve! Harry!" Chrissy waved at the boys and smiled brightly. "Over here!"

Harry had no issue changing his direction when he saw Sirianna standing with Chrissy, but Steve sent a glance toward Jason before Sirianna could see him mouthing something quietly to Harry. Steve didn't change direction and Chrissy actually stomped on Jason's foot with a pointed glare before he sighed and stopped Steve from leaving.

"Yo, Harrington." Jason calling out to Steve actually stopped quite a few students in their tracks. Sirianna scowled at their quick attention and the excitement they had. It was as if they wanted a fight to break out.

Steve took two hesitant steps toward Jason, his body tensed as he too seemed to think it was going to be a fight.

"Yeah?"

"Practice tomorrow, right?" Jason asked him.

Steve's eyebrows twitched in what looked like disbelief. "Tomorrow's Thursday, so yeah," he hedged. "Every Thursday and Friday."

"Will it bother your practice if I bring a boombox to our practice?" Chrissy asked, jumping in with her same sunny smile. "Sirianna has never even heard of Wham! and I just feel like the girls get more in the groove with music, you know?"

Harry stopped beside Steve and looked toward Sirianna with the tiniest little head tilt. Sirianna flicked her fingers at her side for him, she would tell him later. Maybe. The other students were already starting to walk away, resuming their conversations with only a few glances and grins over their shoulders at Steve.

"I don't care." Steve relaxed and hiked his bag up on his shoulder after he shrugged. "We probably won't hear it unless it's crazy loud."

"Great!" Chrissy beamed. "Thanks, Steve, you're like the best, you know."

Sirianna saw Billy when he appeared at the end of the line of students leaving the school. It was so hard to think of what an absolute arse he could be when Sirianna could also think of how sweet he was, and how horrible it had been yesterday when he had been bruised and broken and sobbing.

Sirianna hated Billy's father, but she didn't like a bully either.

Billy saw her and Sirianna saw him glance to her side, glance at who she was talking to. So, of course, Sirianna made it a point to throw herself in the conversation with Steve to - to prove a point, or something.

"Do you guys practice with music?" Sirianna asked. "I think it would be distracting, right? Chrissy swears it won't be though." They had never talked about it before, but Sirianna was sure that Chrissy would nod in agreement. "What do you think?"

"I mean… maybe?" Steve shrugged again. "They play music during our games sometimes, I don't think anyone gets too distracted?"

"Nah, remember when Tommy kept singing last year?" Jason laughed and Sirianna didn't think it was actually forced at all. "The entire student section at the game was booing him so much we were nearly kicked out of the gym."

Steve cracked a smile and it made Sirianna beam as hard as Chrissy was.

"That's because he's a terrible singer," Steve said. "One time he told me he gets better when he drinks, but I think he just gets like deaf and can't hear himself at all."

When Jason and Chrissy laughed, Sirianna did too. Their laughter must have been contagious because even Harry had a small grin just before Billy walked up. Billy went around Steve, dramatically - as if he wanted to prove his own point, and tried to slide up beside Sirianna. Steve stopped grinning the moment he saw Billy and Sirianna did as well.

It was hard, because Sirianna liked Billy so much, but he couldn't be an arse. It was - it was no better than Draco Malfoy, tormenting Harry because of his blood. Who cared if Steve liked boys (if he liked Harry, hopefully)? It didn't give Billy the right to be cruel.

"Hey," Billy said, casually nodding to Jason over top of Sirianna's head. He looked down at her and Sirianna felt a twinge of guilt when his eyes were so soft and so blue, still bruised too. "You ready?" he asked.

Sirianna told herself it was for the best, for the future of double dates and group dates and normal teenager things that she could include her brother on, before she made her voice go as cold as it could.

"Actually, I'm riding home with Steve," she said, mentally crossing her fingers that Steve would let her. Chrissy said Jason would drive her and Harry home if not, but it would be better if Steve would go with it.

Billy frowned, just for a second, before he carefully smoothed it away and leaned against the car parked beside Jason's with a smirk.

"Yeah?" he asked, an edge that hadn't been there before appearing in his tone. He glanced at the denim jacket laying behind Sirianna questioningly. "Since when does Queen Steve drive you home?"

"Since you called him Queen Steve," Sirianna snapped. She didn't look at Steve, she knew he was still standing by Harry and she really hoped she wasn't making things worse for him. Sirianna didn't want to fight with Billy, she didn't want people to see them arguing - because people were watching, nosy brats. "I don't want to ride with someone who - who's mean."

That was rather clear and Sirianna could practically feel her heart thumping in her throat. Billy could laugh, make a snide comment and walk away. Billy was handsome, sweet when he wanted to be, he wouldn't be ‘single and alone' for long. Sirianna didn't want him to walk away, she wanted him to drive her home and to share cigarettes and stories with her. It would probably make her cry if he walked off, but it would make her cry if she ever heard him call Harry ‘Queen Harry' too.

Billy stared at her silently, his eyes searching hers like he was trying to decide if she was serious or not, which she absolutely was.

"Harrington can handle himself," he finally said. His eyes flicked to where Sirianna knew Harry and Steve were still standing before settling back on her. He lowered his voice and Sirianna knew that he was wishing, like she was, that they didn't have an audience. "Is this really a big fuckin deal?"

Did it matter that much to Sirianna? Did it matter to her that someone she spent her time around wasn't a bully? It did. Sirianna hated bullies, she had probably ever since Dudley had turned into one and Sirianna saw how unhappy he could make Harry.

"It is." Sirianna crossed her arms, mirroring Billy's own stubborn stance back at him. "To me, it is," she corrected herself. "And if it's not to you, then, fine. I can ride home with Steve and you shouldn't bother coming over tomorrow."

Please, matter to him. Please, let Sirianna matter just enough that he would leave Steve alone.

Nobody else said anything while Sirianna and Billy stared each other down. If Billy thought Sirianna would cave, then he had no idea how truly stubborn she could be. Professor McGonagall told her that she got it from her mother, which meant it was stubbornness clear down to her DNA.

"Whatever." Billy sighed and ran a quick hand through his curls. His little smirk slipped back on his face, though it didn't reach his eyes - his eyes were… they were nervous, maybe? Like maybe he was a little worried that Sirianna would walk away?

Like maybe Sirianna mattered at least a little bit to him?

"If it's this big of a deal." Billy turned just enough to roll his eyes toward Steve. "I am very sorry that I hurt your feelings, Harrington."

It was probably the most sarcastic apology that Sirianna had ever heard in her life, but she didn't need Chrissy's nudge to notice that he said ‘Harrington' and not ‘Queen Steve'.

Project Make the Boys be Friends probably couldn't be accomplished in a day. As long as Billy wasn't tormenting Steve then it was a start.

"Thank you." Sirianna grabbed Billy's jacket from where she had pointedly laid it on the hood of the car and pulled it on. Billy hadn't asked for it back yet and Sirianna liked wearing it. "Bye, guys, I'll see you tomorrow," she told Chrissy and Jason, quite grateful for their help. Jason nodded and Chrissy grabbed Sirianna for a quick hug and quiet whisper -

"Now carrot," she breathed. "Go get him!"

Sirianna was not going to kiss Billy in front of her friend and her brother. She did let Billy put his arm over her shoulders when she grabbed her bag and told him that she would ride home with him after all. Billy mumbled something, something about ‘manipulative' under his breath; Sirianna didn't pay him any attention as she looked for Harry over her shoulder.

"Harry? Are you coming?" she asked. Steve wouldn't look at her and Sirianna hoped he wasn't upset. Sirianna wanted to fix things, not make it worse for him.

"Er… I'll be there soon," Harry said. "Steve said I could ride with him."

Sirianna blinked. She blinked again.

Then she smiled a true smile and nodded quickly.

"Sure, okay, I'll see you soon," she said. "Have fun!"

Project Double Dates was soo going to happen.