What About Us

Series Metadata

Listing Series

• They Always Shoot The Birds That Cannot Sing by Stringsofstars

  Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)  

  • Explicit
  • Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
  • F/M, Gen, M/M
  • Work in Progress

  07 Sep 2026

  Tags

  • Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
  • Holly Wheeler & Karen Wheeler & Mike Wheeler & Nancy Wheeler & Ted Wheeler
  • Jonathan Byers & Nancy Wheeler
  • Jonathan Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper
  • Steve Harrington
  • Will Byers
  • Jim "Chief" Hopper
  • Eleven | Jane Hopper
  • Nancy Wheeler
  • Jonathan Byers
  • The Party (Stranger Things)
  • Barbara "Barb" Holland
  • Arthur Holloway (OC)
  • Becky Ives
  • Karen Wheeler
  • Ted Wheeler (Stranger Things)
  • actually was not expecting it to be so hard to tag relationships
  • they're all interacting with each other
  • Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
  • more like
  • canon inspired
  • but apparently that's not a tag
  • Past Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper
  • Past Child Abuse
  • looking at you lonnie
  • Angst
  • I'm back in my home territory of making people really sad sorry
  • Eventual Happy Ending
  • I don't know if this deserves the Explicit rating but better safe than sorry
  • Steve Harrington in the Upside Down
  • Steve gets taken by the demogorgon
  • eventual stonathan
  • which I would not tag except apparently Jonathan is already obsessed with Steve so
  • Past Steve Harrington/Original Character(s)
  • Brief Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler - Freeform
  • but not for long
  • Gay Steve Harrington
  • arguably everyone is someone flavour of queer but it's not my fault I swear
  • Minor Character Death
  • Period Typical Attitudes
  • except I don't think I can actually comprehend how bad racism and homophobia were in 1980s america
  • so mostly period typical attitudes I guess
  • I don't think I'm tagging this very well but it turns out it's really hard
  • I actually haven't written anything particularly violent but it's probably coming
  • Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
  • in that some dodgy stuff happened in the past that I may want to allude to
  • and also the mind flayer/hivemind in general is quite violating
  • Suicidal Thoughts
  • I may add more tags if I think of them
  • also I'm not American and I've never been to Indiana so I apologise for inaccuracies
  • also was not alive in the 80s
  • Slow Burn
  • And by slow burn I mean don't expect anything to happen for the next few fics at least
  • Internalized Homophobia

  Summary

  When Nancy tries to get around her Mom's worrying to go to Steve's party, she instead sparks a family trip to Will's vigil. Left alone, Steve Harrington is the second person in Hawkins to mysteriously disappear - witnessed only by Jonathan Byers.

  There's something wrong about Hawkins, something hovering just under the surface, and all anyone can say for sure is that it must somehow be connected to the strange, secretive lab on the outskirts of town...

  Series

  • Part 1 of What About Us

  Language:

  English

  Words:

  26,924

  Chapters:

  11/18

  Comments:

  20

  Kudos:

  47

  Bookmarks:

  8

  Hits:

  862