Title: The Far-fetched Fart Fantasia of Jonathan Byers It was a peculiarly warm day in Hawkins, Indiana, and Jonathan Byers was feeling decidedly mischievous. After his spate of spine-tingling escapades in the Upside Down, he yearned for something a little lighter, a little less Lovecraftian and a little more... ludicrous. Steve Harrington, who recently had a bit of a revelation regarding Jonathan's unconventional crush and imaginative fantasies, found himself embroiled in another odd chapter courtesy of his somewhat shy friend. The pair lounged languidly at the edge of a murky pond, the soporific buzz of summer insects harmonizing with Jonathan's restless sighs. "Steve," Jonathan blurted out, biting his lip in a mix of giddy embarrassment and earnest intrigue, "I've got to confess something kinda weird." With a wink and a smirk, Steve leaned in, his voice a mellifluous drawl. "Jonny, after fighting demodogs, getting possessed, and living a real-life horror show, 'weird' is my middle name." Taking a deep breath, Jonathan spilled the oddball fantasy that occupied too many of his daydreams: of Steve, the beau of Hawkins High, au naturel in a pond, and with a single mighty fart, exterminating an entire school of fish before cooking up a piscatorial feast. He flushed crimson as the words left his mouth. Steve erupted in a riot of laughter, clapping Jonathan on the back, "Dude, you're sick! But hey, I like it! Imaginative and, um, eco-friendly?" "I know, I know, it's silly," Jonathan muttered, rubbing the back of his neck uneasily. Later, as the decrepit sun sagged in the sky like a spent balloon, they found themselves at Jonathan's house with the conspicuous absence of parental supervision. A summer of fighting eldritch horrors does tend to leave one grimy, after all. "I could use a shower," Steve casually mentioned. "Uh, yeah, me too," Jonathan stuttered, his heartbeat accelerating like a panicked drummer. So, there they were, crammed into the Byers family's modest shower, water cascading over them in a hot rush as they tried to maintain a casual conversation. Jonathan couldn't help but keep sneaking peeks at Steve, every rogue droplet on Steve's skin igniting his fantasies. "So, uhm, how would you do it?" Jonathan asked tentatively, eyes darting away as he broached the topic he couldn't shove out of his mind. "Hmm?" Steve played coy, feigning ignorance. "The, uh, the fish. With the fart," Jonathan mumbled, his voice nearly drowned out by the shower streams. "Oh, that," Steve chuckled. "Well, Jonny-boy, first I'd be relaxing in the pond, minding my own business, when suddenly I'd feel the rumble in the jungle, right?" Steve teased, plucking up the story thread with an extravagant waggle of his eyebrows. Jonathan nodded, a hapless fish caught on Steve's hook. "I'd let it build, the tension rising until--" At that moment, Steve executed a flawless pivot, presenting his backside to Jonathan, and unleashed a thunderous fart that reverberated against the shower tiles. The expression on his face read pure relief, and the water did nothing to dampen the spectacle. Jonathan gaped, a part horrified and yet partly fulfilled as reality mirrored his bizarre fantasy a little too accurately. Steve, with the panache of a Shakespearean actor delivering a monologue, continued, "--BAM! A blindside blast that would shock the water into surrender, sending those fishes belly-up. Of course, I'd be peacefully ignorant to the marine massacre ensuing behind me." A heady mixture of humor and mortification flushed Jonathan's features, his heart doing acrobatics. Would he ever live down the reality that his silly, private musings had now somehow entered the realm of the real? Yet, there was a strange camaraderie in sharing something so absurd, so private. It wove a thread between them that was inexplicably stronger for its strangeness. "Steve, you're nuts," Jonathan finally managed, shaking his head with disbelief and a reluctant grin. "But thanks for making one of my weirdest dreams come alive." Steve only winked a soap-streaked eye, before resuming their less-than-normal shower. As they continued to talk and laugh, it was crystal clear that Hawkins was packed with stranger things than the monsters--like the uncanny ability of two friends to share a laugh in the face of the strangest of strange crushes the world had ever smelt... I mean, seen.