In the quaint, oddly supernatural town of Hawkins, Indiana, where the extraordinary had become the Tuesday norm, Jonathan Byers and Steve Harrington struck an unlikely friendship that skewed towards the absurd, especially after Steve uncovered Jonathan's bizarre and deeply kept fantasy. One lazy summer afternoon found the two in the Byers' family home where the walls were thin and the secrets even thinner. With Joyce out and Will entrenched in his latest D&D campaign, Steve lounged in one of the distinctly uncomfortable chairs the Byers seemed to favor, nonchalantly flipping through a stack of Jonathan's art. "Dude, what the hell is this?" Steve asked, stifling a chuckle as he flourished a peculiar piece of art. Jonathan's face flushed with the distinctive hue of peak teenage embarrassment. "Uh, it's... you know, just messing around with some ideas. Abstract stuff." Abstract, indeed. The drawing depicted a caricature of Steve, cavorting in the buff in a pond, causing a dramatic fish die-off with emissions from his backside, after which he'd apparently cook them over a fire, the delighted grin on his face suggesting satisfaction with the most organic fish cooking method imaginable. "You find this funny?" Steve queried, the corners of his mouth betraying his amusement. Jonathan swallowed hard. "Sorry, I... I didn't think you'd see that. It's this weird fantasy I have where--" "--I'm the Fish Fart Charmer?" Steve finished for him, his eyebrows performing an expressive dance. "Yeah, that," Jonathan mumbled, hoping the ground would swallow him up. Steve just shrugged, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Hey, you've got your unique take on art. I've got my hair. We've all got something." That could have been the end of it, but fantasy and reality decided to tango that day in the steamed confines of the Byers' bathroom. The objective was simple: to rinse off after an impromptu water balloon fight with Dustin and the other kids. The circumstance, however, was anything but ordinary. As Jonathan stepped into the shower, the misted glass obscured the figures within, and the white noise of cascading water muffled their words. "You know," Steve said as they both stood under the showerhead, Jonathan awkwardly trying to not stare too hard at Steve's hairy chest and even hairier butt, "if I had a dollar for every time someone wanted me to strategically fart, I'd be broke." Jonathan chuckled, nervously scrubbing his arm. "Right. I mean, who'd even want that?" The shower steam carried with it a sense of growing boldness, of the absurd becoming momentarily normative--a Stranger Thing solidarity. "It's just... your art man, it's full of feeling." Steve spun, turning his back to Jonathan, which was certainly not devoid of feeling as Jonathan found his gaze magnetically pulled to Steve's posterior. Jonathan, fumbling with a bottle of shampoo, tried to compose a response. "It's just an... artistic expression." "Artistic, huh?" Steve teased before he suddenly glanced over his shoulder, expression a mixture of mischief and something unreadably wicked. "Hold that thought." With a wry smile, and in a dramatic parody of Jonathan's fantasy, Steve clenched, and then, with the comedic timing of a seasoned performer, let out a fart that rocked the foundations of decency, leaving Jonathan half-stunned and half-amused. The reverberating sound mingled with the shower's patter, an audacious symphony to the absurd. "Voila!" Steve declared with the flourish of an entertainer, shamelessly pleased with himself. Jonathan snorted, unable to suppress his laughter. "You're disgusting, you know that?" "But," Steve retorted with mock solemnity, still facing away from Jonathan, "if there were any fish in here, they'd be cooked and ready for dinner." Their laughter echoed off the bathroom tiles, an intimate moment of joyous stupidity washing over them, as cleansing as the water that streamed down. And for Jonathan Byers, artist and misfit dreamer, and Steve Harrington, king of cool turned Fish Fart Charmer extraordinaire, the shower shared in that peculiar household was a testament to the friendships that survived the strangest things--even if, sometimes, they veered towards the comedic and the uncomfortably revealing.