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Chapter Text

​​William Byers

Dustin Henderson

Jane Hopper

Maxine Mayfield

Lucas Sinclair

Michael Wheeler

Chapter Text

​​Thursday, November 1, 1984

El had never argued with Hopper before. There had been scuffles between the two, especially recently due to her insistence on seeing Mike. El had just wanted to see him, even if it meant breaking the rules. She had made sure to wear generic clothing, none of the flowery shit that Hopper had bought at a thrift store a couple of months ago. 

Of course, when she found him in the middle school gym he was hanging out with another girl. She had been so thrown off guard by the girl with fiery red hair rolling around Mike, she had become frozen, standing near the door without moving a single inch. The only thing she could think to do was throw the girl off of the piece of wood she was riding on– a skateboard, some sort of revenge for stealing Mike away from her. When she flew off her board, the corners of El’s lips turned upwards, watching the girl hit the floor harshly.

When Mike reached down to help her, the smile quickly turned into a frown, and El’s stomach dropped to her feet. Before Mike could have a chance to see her, she had darted out of the gymnasium and back toward the cabin, her lungs trying to force their way out of her chest, dread filling her veins as the sun began to set.

By the time she had made it back to the cabin, the sky was nearly pitch black. The only light source was inside the cabin, covered by the blackout curtains Hopper had bought. Standing on the front porch was nobody other than Hopper, his hands on his hips, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Get in. Now,” Hopper ordered, El slid into the cabin– no, a prison– taking off her coat and putting it on the coat rack while Hopper locked the door.

“‘Friends don’t lie,’ isn’t that your bullshit saying,” Hopper began, El trying her best to ignore him and hide in her room, the picture of that red-headed girl fresh in her mind. “Hey, hey, hey! Don’t walk away from me!”

El paused, Hopper continuing to talk, the volume of his voice gradually rising. The heartbreak in her heart had turned into fear. Hopper never yelled unless he was furious. El gritted her teeth and bared it. She had broken the rules, after all. For a moment, regret for breaking the rules pierced her mind, only for El to shoo it away. She had just gone to see Mike. Was it a crime to miss him?

“Where’d you go on your little field trip, huh? Where?” Hopper pressed, the intensity of his voice making El’s heart pound. “Did you go see Mike?”

“He didn’t see me,” El muttered, gritting her teeth as they entered the bedroom, replaying the entire one-sided interaction. He hadn’t even made eye contact.

“Yeah, well, that mother and her daughter did and they called the cops.”

El remembered the short interaction the three of them had. She had been jealous of the little girl on the swing set. In another universe, that was her, being pushed by whoever her mother was. Instead, she was stuck in a cabin with a police officer hiding from the government.

“Now, did anyone else see you? Anyone at all?” Hopper asked, pacing the length of the living room, his boots stomping against the wooden floor. “Come on, I need you to think.”

“Nobody saw me!”

“You put us in danger. You realize that, right?”

El’s eyes filled with tears. Hopper wasn’t understanding. The limited words she had were failing her as she tried desperately to defend herself, the fear of being locked in a room for days creeping into the back of her mind. “You promised… I go! And I never leave! Nothing ever happens!”

“Yeah! Nothing happens and you stay safe!” Hopper boomed, El taking a step back instinctively.

“You lie!”

“I don’t lie! I protect and I feed and I teach! And all I ask of you is to follow three simple rules. Three rules. And you know what? You can’t even do that!”

Hopper stormed out of the room, El slamming the dresser with her palms impulsively. Her chest felt hot and heated tears welled up in her eyes.

“You’re grounded,” Hopper called out. “You know what that means? It means no Eggos… and no TV for a week.”

El froze when she heard, “No TV.” The television was her only way to contact Mike, the static channel giving her the noise she needed to teleport into the Void. She couldn’t lose Mike, not when he was with another girl. Stepping forward, she held the TV down with her powers, concentrating on sticking the TV to the floor.

Hopper shook the television, glancing back at El. “All right, knock it off. Let go.”

El stayed put, shaking her head. Hopper’s words went one ear and out of the other. She needed to see Mike. Hopper grunted as he failed to lift the TV. “Okay. Two weeks. 

Another failed attempt. “Let go!”

El shook her head again, eyes cast through her eyebrows staring daggers into Hopper.

“A month.”

“No!”

Hopper took a hefty breath, his demeanor so frightening that El contemplated letting him win the argument. Her instincts told her to run, waiting for Hopper to make any sudden movement. “Well, congratulations. You just graduated from no TV for a month to no TV at all!”

Pulling the plug on the television, the sitcom that quietly played on the television fizzled out into nothing. El’s eyes widened, charging toward the television in a feverish attempt to fix it. “No! No. No! No!”

“You have got to learn there are consequences for your actions.”

El marched up to Hopper who had retreated into the kitchen. The memories of Papa’s cruelness crept into her mind when he would berate her, punish her, and lock her up. Before she could even think of what she was saying, words spilled out of her mouth. “You are like Papa!”

“Really? I’m like that psychotic son of a bitch? Wow! All right. You wanna go back to the lab? One phone call and I can make that happen.”

El sniffled. “I hate you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not so crazy about you, either. You know why? ‘Cause you’re a brat. You know what that word means? How about that be your word of the day, huh? Brat.”

Hopper moved over to the bookshelf, picking up the yellow dictionary. El stood there, flushed and enraged as Hopper thumbed through the book, tossing the book to El. “Why don’t we look it up? B-R-A-T. Brat.”

As quickly as she could, she flung the book back onto Hopper’s chest, the dictionary landing with a satisfying thud. “Hey! What the hell is wrong with you?”

Hopper tried to move, but El was too scared to let him come any closer. She shoved the couch toward him, wedging him between the wall and the couch. El walked back to her room as Hopper continued to call out. “Hey! Hey! Hey!”

El wedged herself between the dresser and the wall, sliding down the wall as tears flowed out of her eyes. The adrenaline was weaning, regret filling her chest. Hopper knocked on the door furiously, El keeping it shut with her mind.

“Open this door! Open the damn door! You wanna go out in the world? You better grow up. Grow the hell up!

____________________

Tuesday, September 3, 1985

“Smile!” Joyce exclaimed, pressing the button on the top of the camera with a satisfying click. While El smiled for the picture, the smile barely noticeable for the camera, Will rolled his eyes instead.

“Mom, we’re going to be late,” he groaned, running a hand through his hair.

“Yeah, well, we’re going to be late if you don’t smile for the picture. Jonathan and Hop are waiting.”

Holding the camera to her eye again, El saw Will force out a smile, one that showed his teeth unnaturally. Joyce frowned but held the camera to her side, embracing Will and El in the same hug. “Oh, my sweet babies, all grown up.”

Joyce seemed to hug El a little longer as if she were trying to make up for the twelve years of captivity in one embrace. El let herself enjoy the hug for a few moments, allowing herself a few moments of peace, before sneaking away, tucking her shoulder to the ground until Joyce reluctantly gave up. She tugged on the straps of her backpack… her backpack … a denim Jansport Hopper had taken her out to get when she had passed her high school entrance exams.

“You two have a good day of school!” Joyce called out as El and Will made their way to Hopper’s chief car, the tan exterior leading to a mildly comfortable black interior, the leather seats picking up the comforting smell of Hopper’s cigarettes.

Jonathan and Hopper were listening to Jim Croce, Hopper’s favorite artist. El noticed Will grimacing at the song. She remembered vividly how Hopper had put his album on while they cleaned the now-destroyed cabin up, turning the dusty shed into a home. Her heart still hurt knowing it was destroyed. Living at the Byers’ wasn’t horrible, though, while they fixed up the cabin, Hopper taking the opportunity to do some re-no-vations .

“Are you guys excited? First day of high school, pretty exciting,” Hopper asked as he reversed up the long driveway, the car bumping into the curb as they exited out onto the road.

“Not really. It’s just another day of school. You must be excited, El. You couldn’t stop talking about passing in the spring,” Will said as he leaned back onto the headrest, El twiddling her thumbs as she looked at the Midwestern landscape.

“I am… op-to-mis-tic,” El muttered, her voice barely audible over the air conditioner.

Hopper wasn’t particularly talkative, everybody in their thoughts as he drove to the school. El was anxious, gripping her schedule and her map in her hand. This was her first day of what Hopper called the “new beginning.” This was going to be her chance to prove to herself that she was capable of being a normal person. She was going to be able to find out who she truly was. To find out if all of the people who died because of her were worth it… To find out if she was a monster…

Hawkins High School was much bigger than Hawkins Middle School. Will told her that another middle school fed into the high school– Jefferson Middle School– meaning that it was even more crowded than middle school. It was green and orange themed, reminding El of St. Patrick’s Day. They had tigers all around the building. Jonathan said it was their mas-cot . He said that in pep rallies , someone dressed up as a tiger and acted goofy. Approaching the entrance, El noticed the other four in the Party waiting. They looked excited except for Max. She was lost in her head like always after Billy…

“You guys have a good day at school,” Hopper called out as Will and Jonathan opened the side doors. El started shuffling out, but Hopper laid a hand on her shoulder, making her flinch. “El, you have a good day too, all right?”

El paused. “All right.”

She shut the heavy metal door behind her and Mike quickly made her way toward her. “Hey! Happy first day of school!”

El blushed, looking at the concrete momentarily. Mike kissed her hair… her long hair that she had grown out for two years … and grabbed her hand, dragging her to be with the rest of the group. Walking into the school, El was immediately hit with the loud chatter of children. It was overwhelming, her grip on Mike’s hand tightly as they walked. El noticed Max was much more hesitant to take Lucas’ hand.

“How did your cross-country tryouts go yesterday, Lucas?” Mike asked, Mike leading her to the right just like her map said.

“I made JV. My first meet is on Sunday. I’m running the 3 mile,” Lucas announced.

Lucas told her that cross-country was running a long distance. She had thought about joining. She was good at running… especially after what Papa did to her … but Hopper said to take it easy. There was always next year for her.

Art class was the first class on her schedule with Mike, Lucas, and Will. On her schedule, it read, “Art I: Defining the Artistic Process.” The teacher’s name was Ms. Morningstar. It reminded El of the book Hopper had read her when she first arrived at the cabin– Goodnight Moon. Will said her name was me-lo-dic .

El was taken aback by the amount of kids in her class. The most kids she had ever seen in one room were her friends. Some of the kids looked older, some looked younger. Some had full beards like Hopper while one had baby teeth growing in. Tensing up, she took a breath and found a seat in between Mike and Lucas at a large brown table. Sitting on a gray stool, she played with the blue hair tie on her wrist… Sara’s hair tie… Hopper’s real daughter… and caught a glimpse of the tattoo it covered up. She stared at it for a little too long, startled by the bell ringing.

Art class was mentally taxing for El. Ms. Morningstar was eclectic, to say the least. She wore thick brown glasses with rims that jutted out to meet the ends of her eyebrows. She wore a brown and black animal print top, a thin blue belt around her waist, and a maxi black skirt. The shirt was so long El thought it was better off as a short dress. She wore an elephant head necklace with a chain that went down to the belt. Her hair was in a messy bun, her dirty blonde curls jutting out in every direction. She spoke in what seemed like riddles to El.

“Take out your drawing journal,” she ordered when she meant to say “sketchbook.”

“Take out your graphite,” she said when she meant to say, “pencil.”

As best as El tried to decode the hidden meanings behind each word, she often copied what Will– the most artistic one of the group– did. A burden, always having to have someone hold her hand… in the end, she had produced something mediocre, a bunch of meaningless lines flowing on a page in her sketchbook.

Toward the end of the period, she noticed kids beginning to get chattier and stand up from their seats. Mike turned toward El as El began to pack her backpack for her next class. He reached for her hand, interlacing their fingers. 

“Are you going to be okay without me?” he asked. “Because if you’re not, I can just drop down to on-level English to be with you. It’s not a big deal.”

She smiled. You don’t deserve him… “I’ll be fine, Mike.”

____________________

By the time El had hit lunch, she was next to asleep. English had been nothing short of a nightmare… 

“You’ll be reading five books this year– Frankenstein, Night, Of Mice and Men, To Kill A Mockingbird, and The Taming of the Shrew starting with the beloved Frankenstein. Jane, can you tell me anything you know about Mary Shelley?”

She had frozen in her seat, her eyes staring at Mr. Bailey as if she were a deer in the headlights. Mr. Bailey was an impatient man, his dress shoes tapping against the tile feverishly. “We don’t have all day, Ms. Hopper.”

The class snickered, mortification running through El’s veins. She managed to stumble out a response, one as weak as her voice had been. Will was in the row ahead of her, biting his lip and avoiding eye contact with her. “She was a book writer.”

“An author, you mean?”

That time the class laughed at her. You don’t belong. You will never fit in with them, you monster… Thankfully, the entire Party had lunch at the same time, and all of their science classes aligned to be in the same 4A block. The cafeteria was loud and full of cliq-ues as Mike called them. Guys were wearing green, guys were wearing leather, girls were wearing skirts next to guys who wore thin tank tops to show off their muscles. Mike had dragged her to a small table in the back, the six of them sitting around one of the few circle tables in the cafeteria.

“How has the first day of school been, El?” Dustin asked, biting a string cheese from the top, garnering some scowls from his friends.

Friends don’t lie… Mike said friends don’t lie… “Fine.”

Dustin frowned, El unzipping her lunch box to see Joyce’s packed lunch. A bologna sandwich– crust cut off because El hated the crust– baby carrots, Cool Ranch Doritos, and a pudding cup. Begging for sustenance to power her through the rest of her day, her hands shook as she bit into the bologna sandwich.

Dustin was quick to keep talking. “In my engineering class, there was some douchey jock named Jason, right? This man threw a football over the teacher’s head, put his feet on the desk, and didn’t receive a detention because he has a game on Friday. Meanwhile, this guy, Samuel Wyngczeski, got detention for asking to use the bathroom out-of-turn.”

“It’s bullshit. We can’t control when we have to use the bathroom,” Max scoffed, taking a bite out of the school-issued square pizza, barely a pizza with no crust.

“You’re one to talk!” Lucas exclaimed. “I had to use the bathroom when we went to the movie theater and you told me to hold it.”

Max rolled her eyes. “That’s because you were going to miss the best part of the movie. Believe me, I was doing it for your good. You would have been so lost if you missed the scene.”

El felt like she was lost, too, but it was constant instead of just when she went to the bathroom during the movie.

“That reminds me. How did English go?”

El froze mid-chew, her mouth shut by the glutinous white bread. “We don’t have all day, Ms. Hopper.” “It went okay. We’re reading Frankenstein .”

“We read that last year in English, though,” Lucas pointed out.

Will raised his head to speak, El noticing the graphite stains still on the side of his hands from art. “Jefferson Middle School didn’t read it, I don’t think.”

“Why would they have two different curriculums in the same county, though? It doesn’t make sense?”

Will shrugged. “Reagan must be messing with the system a little too much.”

El glanced up. “Who’s Reagan?”

“Ronald Reagan, our president. He wants the government to focus on fixing schools. It’s all bullshit. You’ll learn all about it next year in government,” Dustin explained, glancing over to all of the guys wearing leather jackets. “Hey, who do you think those guys are?”

El looked at the guys. They all had long hair with tight coils. The most talkative one swayed a lot and punched his friends whenever he cracked a joke. He was so loud El swore she could hear every word he said. She swallowed a bite of her bologna sandwich, closing herself in a little more.

“Nancy told me that’s Eddie Munson. It’s his third year of being a senior. He keeps getting held back, though,” Mike explained. “He also runs the Dungeons and Dragons club. I think it’s called Hellfire or something.”

Dustin and Will shared a glance, a toothy grin on Dustin’s face. “We should join.”

El noticed Lucas clenching his jaw. “I don’t know, guys. Aren’t we kind of over D&D?”

“Lucas, what are you talking about?” Mike asked, Will glancing over at Mike.

“I’m just saying, we’re in high school now. I mean, Dungeons and Dragons was cool in middle school, but don’t you… I don’t know… want to grow up a little?”

Mike scoffed. “Are you kidding me, Lucas? Max, what about you?”

“You know I don’t do that bullshit. If you want to do it, go ahead,” Max said in between bites of what El thought was a sad excuse for pizza.

“I’m doing it. Will, Dustin, what about you?” Mike asked.

Will nodded. “Definitely.”

Dustin smiled. “Hell yeah.”

“El?”

El glanced up at Mike.

“Will you join Hellfire?”

El didn’t like Dungeons and Dragons. The boys had tried to teach her once but had given up almost immediately after realizing she couldn’t read the character sheets. But Mike looked so hopeful, an expectant look on his face. “I guess.”

Mike smiled, leaning in for an unexpected kiss. El was quick to respond, pushing gently against him. Normally, it felt nice to kiss Mike, but the atmosphere with so many people made it awkward. His soft lips tasted like the sloppy Joe, the barbeque sauce making El gag. She pulled away as quickly as she could, returning to her lunch. El could tell Mike was hurt by the way he pursed his lips.

Max rolled her eyes. “You two need to get a room.”

Mike was quick to flip the middle finger on her. El looked down at her lunchbox, grabbing the next thing she could. The chatter around her began to dissolve as she focused on eating her carrots, the limited time to eat her lunch foreign. As much as El enjoyed the sarcastic banter the Party often had with each other it often confused her. One time, they meant one thing, and the next time they said the other. You will never understand them because you don’t belong here…

“El? El?” Mike suddenly exclaimed, El popping her head up.

“What?”

“We were just asking if you wanted to head to Steve’s house after school to do homework. Dustin said that his shift ends at three and he can pick us up. Lucas isn’t coming, though.”

El glanced over at Lucas. “Why?”

“Cross-country practice, remember? We’re going to his meet on Saturday.”
A wave of embarrassment went over El and she nodded quietly. Why couldn’t she remember simple details about her friend? She wished she was able to be a good friend, the friend the Party deserved, not the mass killer– the monster– that she was.

Steve had always been kind to her. Dustin had taken them to his house many times after Starcourt in an attempt to escape the aftermath. He was always warm and welcoming, almost like a big brother figure for the Party. He was always contradicting himself in a joking way, like when he claimed they were eating him out of house and home but making sure to order extra cheese on pizza despite the extra charge. He always had the Party’s favorite movies on hand and the largest television El had ever seen, which meant movies were always more exciting and vibrant at his house.

El leaned into Mike’s shoulder, closing her eyes for a moment. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her in closer and kissing her on the temple. She shuddered at the feeling of his lips, a disgusting chill racking through her body. The chill only made Mike hold her tighter, his arm locking onto the side of her ribcage. She fought the urge to snake out of his grasp, knowing how much the contact meant to him after a year forced apart. She grabbed her bag of Doritos, put it in a Ziploc bag instead of its normal blue container, and chomped down on one of the zesty chips.

You don’t deserve him…

____________________

El’s cabin had always been a safe place for her, so it wasn’t surprising that she had decided to go there to do homework after she had reluctantly gone to Steve’s. Steve had been somewhat helpful with her homework, but Dustin was quick to remind El that Steve had nearly flunked out of classes, now working at Family Video after Starcourt. Looking at the dark green vest hanging on the barren coat rack, pins lacing the entire fabric, she felt an impending sense of guilt rack through her. You’re the reason this all happened… she had left after she had finished her science homework– a worksheet about life in space that took her triple the time it took Will.

The tripwire had remained intact outside, El instinctively stepped over the thin piece of wire. Looking out onto the front porch, the windows boarded up with slats of wood Hopper had used with nails sticking out at odd angles, El remembered the night she had gone on her field trip to see Mike. He had looked so mad… just like everybody should be at you now …

El didn’t even need to unlock the door to get in, the locks being destroyed by the Mind Flayer attack. Stepping into the cabin, for the first moment all El could see was herself being dragged by the Mind Flayer, hanging mid-air by its tendril. Taking a shuddery breath, she glanced around, playing with the ends of her hair that had gotten all of the way down to her shoulders. There were holes Hopper had failed to patch, ones that “didn’t have enough salvageable wood to stick the nails to.” Everything was in disarray, from the kitchen cabinet doors lying on the ground, covered in sawdust from exploding to the couch with a rip in it from the ax they had used to fend off the Mind Flayer. So much for re-no-vations…

Hopper had promised they would fix it but he was becoming so smitten with Joyce, barely returning to Joyce’s house in time to watch Miami Vice half of the time. Last week, they hadn’t come home at all, opting to stay in a motel. Jonathan had watched Miami Vice with her even though he didn’t like the show in the slightest, but it hadn’t been the same.

Nothing would be the same…

El glanced over to the old Morse Code station, a thin layer of dust collecting on the controllers. There was a little table on the side with his record player, one thing Hopper hadn’t moved to Joyce’s house yet. The records were in a cardboard box under the table, colorful squares sticking out. The record player had been turned in for a cassette as of recently… El missed the gravelly texture the record player emitted whenever they played a song on the record player…

Her room was the only room that had stayed practically the same. All of her trinkets and posters were still there. The green paint Lucas and Dustin had insisted be on the walls was only slightly peeling on parts around the head of the bed, little scratch marks indented into the slats of wood. The dressers were empty in her drawer, Will having cleared out some of his drawers to house her clothes. Plopping her backpack on the bed– the bare mattress without as much as a fitted sheet– she dragged one of the red dining chairs to the dresser. Grabbing her English homework, her dictionary, a spare piece of paper, and a pencil, she shoved her yellow radio to the side and put down the worksheet on the dresser. Kneeling on the chair, she signed her name at the top… Jane Hopper…

The worksheet was what Will called a pre-reading assignment. Before they started the book, they had to answer questions with their own opinions. Max had helped her with one to start with at Steve’s, but she had insisted she would do the rest on her own at home. This isn’t your home anymore…

She shook her head, gripping the pencil tightly as she decoded the second question: “The most important thing in life is achieving greatness or public recognition.” 

Underlining the words she didn’t know, she grabbed her dictionary, writing down the definitions on the spare piece of paper: “The most important thing in life is [to succeed at reaching or accomplishing (a goal, result, etc.), especially through effort] or public [the action of [to acknowledge formally: such as]]”

Her immediate thought was to say, “Yes, achieving greatness or public recognition is the most important thing in life because it shows how hard you work.” Then she remembered Dr. Brenner… Papa… the way she pushed her past overexertion, the way she was abused and punished if she didn’t “achieve greatness.” She worked like an ox day and night until she didn’t know what time it was– she never knew what day it was anyway, only knew that it was a week-end if the nurses weren’t there– and was limp and near the brink of comatose from exhaustion… Papa was terrified of the word “coma” around her. It had become a word she could use to get out of anything without punishment…

She wasn’t working on gathering the courage to scrunch up an empty soda can for the gratification of a psychopath… her father… She was staring at an English assignment that was due by the beginning of the second period at the high school she attended. Shaking her head again, her attention turned to the loose skin around her fingernails, the white flimsy specks of skin on the verge of death around her cuticle. She scraped one off with her nubby fingernail as she scanned the other questions, trying to find one easy to answer. Her mind froze with each one of them, her eyes glued to the fourth question on the worksheet. She dropped her pencil, her breath catching in her throat as she read and reread the question presented to her:

“Everybody has a little bit of a monster in them.”

Chapter Text

Sunday, July 11, 1982

Summers were always the best time of year in Lucas’ opinion. He loved the feeling of the warm sun on his skin and the way the trees blossomed under the buzzing heat. The smell of summer cookouts were always in the air, yeasty beers shoved into ice in blue coolers and charred burgers sizzling on the grill. Fireworks went off weeks before and after Independence Day, red and blue sparkles bursting into the sky and satisfyingly dissolving into the dark abyss.

The house always seemed lighter in the summer. His mother switched out the dark burgundy curtains for antique white ones, the sun filtering onto the white carpet and wooden walls in an almost ethereal manner. His father often took days off to either take Lucas fishing in the local pond or hunting in the woods. Erica was often out playing with her friends in the park, a much-needed serenity wafting throughout the home.

Haircuts were given to the men, shaved down to crew cuts. His mother always claimed that the humidity of Indiana would ruin their longer hair and they didn’t have enough cocoa butter and conditioner in the world to maintain it. Lucas never minded it much, partly because he enjoyed the summer breeze on his scalp, partly because he enjoyed wearing the same hairstyle as his father.

The best part about summer, however, was the endless amount of time Lucas and his friends could spend in the woods. The Party would meet in Dustin’s backyard, dumping their bikes by his rickety storm cellar and sprinting into the endless amount of trees at their disposal. The only things they needed in the woods were their walkie talkies and their imaginations.

The games they would play in the woods were endless. Cops and robbers, hide and seek, Star Wars– they played it all.  Most often they played Star Wars, Lucas always pretending to be Lando in their little skits. He always felt like it was an honor to play the same character that Billy Dee Williams played. He always imagined himself with the mustache that Billy Dee Williams– Lando Calrissian– had. He pretended to be wearing his iconic baby blue cape, tied together with the rustic braided belt on either side and the tan garb that he often mimicked with his Cub Scout uniform.

This time, however, Mike decided to forgo choosing a game and instead griped about his baby sister for what seemed like the umpteenth time. “I mean, Holly was cute when she was little but now she’s two and all she wants to do is fight me. And I’m not talking about the little shit fights babies get into, I’m talking like she nearly took me down to the ground when I couldn’t play with her. I just wanted to finish my work!”

Dustin let out a chortle. “You’re telling us you nearly got beat up by your baby sister?”

“Shut up,” Mike sighed, punching his shoulder.

The punch then led Dustin to grip his shoulder, the two tussling in the dead leaves scattered on the grass. They crunched under their weight, the summer sun drying them to crisps. Will and Lucas leaned back, watching the fight with a bored gaze. This happened far too often for either of them to pay it any attention, especially since they all had the same ending. Like all of the other times they had thrown each other on the ground, within two minutes they were up again, the handshake already secured. Dusting the leaves off of his pants, Mike motioned for Lucas and Will to get up. “Alright, what are we playing today?”

Lucas shrugged. “We were trying to decide before you and Dustin decided to go at it.”

“I thought you guys would have come up with an idea before we stopped fighting.”

“We were waiting for you two to stop,” Will groaned, aggressively sweeping the leaves off of the back of his pants, turning his head as if he were a dog chasing a tail.

They stood in the middle of the woods, Lucas staring at the sky. The clouds had shifted, an indicator of the time that had slipped away from them. Somehow, time had passed and yet he had stayed in the exact same spot. The clouds continued to move and morph, Lucas growing lost in how they formed. The water traveled in microscopic bits up through the sky and gathered into puffy white clouds…

All of a sudden he felt a tap on his shoulder. “Tag, you’re it!”

He jumped back, Dustin gleefully sprinting in the woods with a shit-eating grin. Lucas licked his lips and began to chase furiously after him. “You little shit!”

“No take backs!” Dustin shouted, ducking behind a stray log.

Will and Mike weren’t too far behind, never far enough that Lucas couldn’t see them but not too close that he could easily reach them. His eyes darted between the two, quickly deciding on his target: Mike. He had talked too much about his little sister for him to spare him mercy. Before Mike could even react, he had already cleared half the gap.

Racing through the woods, Lucas could feel the wind buzzing on either side of him. He dodged stray sticks and weaved in between bushes. Mike scaled a tree that had fallen onto its side, Lucas hopping over it as if it were a hurdle. The woods became nothing but a maze that Lucas had to charge through, a huge and endless brown maze. Staring at Mike’s dark green shoes, Lucas knew he would grow tired any second, the lack of effort in P.E. playing in Lucas’ favor.

Sure enough, the original burst of adrenaline wore off, Mike slowing to a meager jog. With one final burst of energy, Lucas tapped him on the shoulder. “No take backs!”

He watched as Mike groaned, turning back and trying to corral the rest of his energy as he went after Dustin. Lucas breathed out a large puff of carbon dioxide, his heart beating faster than it had in days. Jogging behind Mike to keep up, he enjoyed feeling the wind through his scalp, the hair no longer interfering. He looked back at the clouds for a moment. He smiled. It was a nice summer day out.

____________________

Wednesday, September 4, 1985

There were too many mechanics in running than Lucas cared to think about. His shoulders needed to be relaxed yet engaged. His core had to be uptight yet his chest had to fall forward ever so slightly. His feet needed to strike in front of him in between the heels and the balls of his feet and somehow end up behind his knee when he picked the leg up again. So many mechanics to think about, and somehow Lucas’ brain was completely empty, void of any stressful thoughts.

Cross country had been a left field for Lucas. He had never done any sort of organized running in his life. He had never joined his mother whenever she participated in walks for charity or neighborhood 5Ks. He had been so on the fence about trying out for the team that he had missed tryouts. But word had gotten out that the cross-country team was missing one person to have both a varsity and a JV team, so he had showed up to the Hawkins High track with ratty old running shoes. After an informal tryout, one that was unfortunately on display for the entire cross-country team to see, he had made it to JV, now committed to a two-hour practice after school every day where all he did was run.

The coach had decided to show no mercy to them before the upcoming meet, deciding a five-mile “shakeout” would be the perfect antidote for all of the “lazy kids” to get whipped into shape. Lucas had been just as unenthusiastic about the twenty laps he would be forced to endure, not allowed to walk for any meter of it (or else it would be another lap,) but twelve laps in, he wasn’t even struggling, spaced out as the laps merged into themselves.

His mind drifted from how each muscle of his body was working in order to run to other topics. He thought about the reading log he had to complete after dinner, forgoing the little TV time he was granted to complete it. He grumbled at the thought of the reading log. Romeo and Juliet was a horrible book in his opinion, not to mention how horrible it was to decode it.

He thought about the Starcourt incident, though only for a fleeting moment. The images of the fire had burned into his mind, each spurt of smoke or rising of a flame vivid to him whenever he relived the memory. Even in the few seconds Starcourt flashed through his head, he saw Billy’s body being covered by a blue tarp. He remembered Max’s anguished screams, El desperately trying to console her on the bloodied mall tile. He remembered the colorful fireworks boomeranging onto his skin, leaving small burns that he could only notice if he looked closely enough.

When he decided he had enough of the Starcourt incident, he continued to concentrate on his running stance. He adjusted his chest, straightening up just a little bit. He pretended that he was catching himself from falling every step, his stride growing slightly more instinctual with each move. As he passed the white line drawn in chalk by his coach, he was relieved he only had seven more laps to go.

The bottoms of his feet had suffered in the past couple of days, his body still readjusting to the intense amount of running he was subjecting his body to. He could feel the calluses forming, both delayed and relieved by the plush sole between the pavement and his foot. He exhaled sharply, feeling the blisters getting irritated. He pursed his lips, soldiering on past one of the struggling JV members– Moises Evans– accepting his fate.

At six more laps to go, he realized he had made his way to the top, only surrounded by varsity members. Though he was trained to never do so, he glanced behind him to see that all of the other JV members were struggling, breathing heavily with their lips pursed into a circle. He even saw Moises Evans puking in the grass, the coach rushing over with a paper bag and some Gatorade. Lucas knew that the coach would make sure Moises would finish running his laps even if it made the entire team stay an hour past their designated end time. “Nobody goes back to the lockers until everyone completes their laps.” It was meant to create team unity, but only created resentment between the quick varsity team and the slow JV team.

At five more laps, Lucas looked at the unforgiving sun. He knew that the sun wouldn’t set until seven, but if he squinted closely, he could see the trademark orange hues of a sunset cutting through the soft blue sky. He watched as a bird effortlessly soared by. Lucas normally wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but running often gave him too much clarity and forced him to try and find meaning in things that he found utterly meaningless.

Four more laps– one mile– left. His legs were beginning to feel it and Lucas could tell that if he didn’t rest properly that he would be sore in the morning. He slowed his pace just enough for his legs to feel some sort of respite, never losing his stride. If he lost his stride, his muscles would cramp. He still kept pace with the varsity guys, though they didn’t seem to notice him. Everybody was stuck in their own little worlds while they ran.

At three more laps, Lucas noticed Moises Evans was back up and running. The coach was tough, though not cruel, and Lucas knew the coach wanted more out of Moises than anybody else in the team. Moises was known for frequently having to drop out of practices because he passed out. He claimed he just wasn’t that good at hydrating, but everybody suspected that he just was tired of running and as the cross-country captain, Daniel Alvarez, put it, “a lazy motherfucker.” Half of Lucas wanted to give up like Moises had minutes ago and collapse on the ground, but the other half of him forced him to soldier on.

The wall was beginning to hit him at two more laps. Most guys hit the wall between fourteen and fifteen laps, but for Lucas the final two laps were always the hardest no matter if it were four or twenty laps. The track seemed endless, each footstep less and less meaningful. He focused on the sound of his shoes slapping against the track, inching closer to the finishing line. Two more laps… one more lap… end.

As Lucas finished his run, the immediate rush of endorphins hit him as he staggered to his water bottle leaning against the fence. His heart pounded, blood rushing back to his legs. He took quick gasps of air in between drinks from her water bottle. His body had to be reconditioned to not run vigorously within minutes, other men collapsing around him as they too finished their practice.

Lucas sat down against the fence, his breath slowing as he watched Moises Evans limp to the finishing line. He gave a few short claps in solidarity as the seniors helped him across, Moises griping and cursing loudly. The coach stood over him as he writhed on the ground, panting as if he had just run a marathon.

“Back to the lockers!” the coach shouted curtly, Lucas shooting up from the grass and heading back to the high school to change into civilian clothes before biking home.

The locker room was a putrid shade of yellow that Lucas constantly sneered at. He wondered who had picked out such an awful color and liked it. Around him, he heard sharp claps of handshakes and back slaps. Lucas kept his head down, zipping up his track jacket, and quietly slipped into the area where his locker was.

Nobody ever locked their lockers, the locks all hanging by their singular metal hook. Swinging the metal door open, Lucas grabbed the baby wipes his mother insisted he buy so he didn’t have to brave the showers. Ripping open the packages, he coated his arms and head in the cleaning substance. He glanced over to the left absentmindedly, tossing the dirty baby wipe back into the locker. Within half a second, he turned his body back to the locker, a pit settling in his stomach.

It wasn’t a new feeling he had whenever he was in the locker room. Whenever he strayed too far from his spot in the locker room, he noticed the stares and the dirty scans a few select members of the team gave him, mainly the juniors and seniors who acted like everything they did had an impact on the school. They seemed almost disgusted with his existence, their faces emotionless but their eyes giving the whole story.

Lucas knew it wasn’t just him. It was also Isaiah Bankole, the only other black person on the team. The two had been bonded together in the last week not by choice, but by necessity, in case any of the other teammates decided to get a little too brazen with their taught disgust. The strange looks, the hostile exchanges– 

They were merely victims of being black in Indiana.

____________________

Thursday, September 5, 1985

Lucas sat down at the lunch table, Dustin already going to town on his school lunch. The Party was quick to sit around the round table, El leaning on Mike with a tiredness only Lucas could understand, the type of tiredness that only emerged when one was being hypervigilant about their surroundings. Max sat next to him and gripped his hand tightly, Lucas inclined to intertwine their fingers together just as she liked it. He couldn’t help but smile as he dug into the disgusting school fries, all mushy and bland. They tasted like nothing short of simple and seasonless boiled potatoes to him.

“How do they make fries so bad? I didn’t realize it was possible to make fries this inedible,” Lucas sighed, scrunching up his eyes as he forced himself to swallow down one.

El took a bite of her hand-packed lunch, something that Joyce seemed to only do for her, and reached across the table for one of Lucas’ fries. Chewing it in her mouth, she shrugged. “The same as lab fries.”

Dustin chortled, taking a bite out of the stale and chewy Sloppy Joe sandwich. “We’re being treated like lab rats. Wonderful.”

Lucas noticed El shrink into herself, chewing her sandwich a little slower than normal. Lucas also noticed Will was working on the project for art class, head stuck in his sketchbook, the graphite material he used scraping intensely against the paper.

“Dustin, do you have any updates on the Hellfire Club?” Mike asked, running a hand through his messy hair.

Dustin’s eyes widened as he swallowed down the bite of food in his mouth. “Yeah. I talked to him yesterday. He said he would be willing to let us try out his club this Friday. Seven to nine p.m.”

Will looked up from his sketchbook, furrowing his eyebrows. “Seven to nine? That’s past curfew for El.”
Lucas knew Hopper was still strict about El’s movements. According to Dr. Owns, her one-year partial isolation period was supposed to last a year, and until November, she wasn’t allowed to be out past eight o’clock, eight fifteen at the latest. Lucas remembered countless times they had played Dungeons and Dragons during the remainder of their objectively crummy summer break and Hopper bursting into the basement to take El.

“Hopper will say yes. He wants me to be involved,” El shrugged, crunching her teeth down on a chip.

“Where was that excuse when I wanted to take you to Teen Wolf?” Mike asked.

“The movies are not educational. Hopper said that the game will at least teach me math and problem-solving.”

“Yeah, well, I heard that the Hellfire Club is going to perform a satanic ritual on the football field,” Max exclaimed.

Lucas glanced over at her. “Where did you hear that?”

“From some of the cheerleaders in algebra. Did you guys know about satanic panic and Dungeons and Dragons?”
Mike took a loud sip of his milk, the straw gurgling inside of the carton. “Satanic panic?”

“Yeah, it’s wild. In 1979, there was a murder and the murderer said they were inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and some shit. Anyway, everybody thinks Dungeons and Dragons is some game where you dance with the devil.”

Lucas cast a skeptical glance to Max. “That sounds like horse shit.”

Will sighed, setting his sketchbook onto the table, a half-drawn portrait of a window displayed on the paper. “She’s right. When Dad– Lonnie– learned I was playing Dungeons and Dragons he called me the epitome of the devil.”

“But Lonnie’s an asshole,” Mike said.

“Doesn’t mean he didn’t know about satanic panic. To your credit, though, he was about three beers deep into what turned out to be a weekend-long bender.”

“Bender?” El asked.

Will shook his head vehemently, El shrinking back even further. “I’ll tell you when we get home.”

“So can everybody make it on Friday? We’re meeting in that random janitor’s closet by the E hall that nobody ever goes into. That’s where they host their meetings,” Dustin asked midway through a bite.

Lucas glanced over at the popular boys table. They ate their school lunches as if it were a mere snack, scarfing it down before downing whatever food they most likely stole from Bradley’s Big and Buy. Their girlfriends were practically attached to them, using any spare moment to steal a kiss. Lipstick would transfer between the lips, something that Max never wore except for that one time at middle school graduation. Lucas imagined himself sitting there with Max. He wouldn’t be ostracized but accepted, one of the top brass of the school. Nobody would give him weird looks in the locker room. No teacher would make microaggressive statements that made Lucas grit his teeth and replayed in his mind for weeks on end.

He would be celebrated for his smartness and his athletic achievements. He wouldn’t be a nobody that was an easy target for bullies. He would be somebody they feared to speak down to. He would protect his friends from bullies, too. Lucas would be popular.

Suddenly he heard snapping of fingers. “Lucas? Lucas!”

Whipping his head back to the table, all eyes were on him as Dustin snapped his fingers inches away from his face. “What do you guys want?”

“Are you going to go to the Hellfire meeting?” he asked.

Lucas hesitated. The Hellfire Club wasn’t exactly popular, especially with the satanic panic craze. Despite his best interests, his heart pulling him in the other direction, Lucas found himself nodding his head. “I’ll make my character sheet tonight.”

____________________

Lucas’ legs were still recovering from the 1500 meter wind sprints the coach had made them do for practice, yet he couldn’t stop bouncing his leg as he slaved over his character sheet, all dolled up with flowers that Erica had drawn all over them. He hadn’t made one in almost a year, the Dungeons and Dragons campaigns tapering off in the beginning of eighth grade. It made him feel like he was twelve again, playing in Mike’s musty basement for hours. He was hunched over, furiously scribbling down statistics as his desk lamp flickered on and off.

He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to figure out what class he wanted to go for. He normally went as a ranger, but he was hesitant to pencil it in. There were mage, cleric, barbarian– who said he had to continue to play as ranger? Setting his pencil down, he leaned back in his swivel chair, turning the chair to face the other wall. Groaning, he stood up from his chair. His brain was buzzing with too much noise for him to concentrate. So, he grabbed his Walkman, clipped it into his basketball shorts, and turned off his light.

Lucas had never been a big fan of running before joining cross-country, but it had quickly become one of his go-tos to destress. He especially loved running at night when the roads were empty. At night, it was cooler, offsetting how hot he got when he exercised. He loved the feeling of the night air on his body and the ability to use his Walkman without fear that he’d get run over by a car.

Heading out the door, he quickly slipped on his sneakers and peered into the living room. Erica was watching The Cosby Show, taking down notes as if she were presenting a thesis on the episode the next day. Before she could catch him peeking, he quietly slipped out of the door and set off on his run.

Pressing the side of his Walkman, Duran Duran’s Arena album began to play. The ending of the first song spit through his headphones, Hungry Like the Wolf playing instead. He shrugged as he turned off of Maple Street. He liked Hungry Like the Wolf more than the premier track, Is There Something I Should Know?

Lucas tried to puff out his chest as much as he could, his lungs struggling to adjust in time. He took smaller steps, his stride shortening for a minute until his lungs caught up. Stabilizing quickly, he instinctively made the left onto Gloucester, immediately turning right onto Elm. The route was slowly becoming instinct to Lucas, every turn happening with his body before his brain caught up. His route was about one mile long, just enough to be meaningful while short enough to not gas him out before the next cross-country practice. He didn’t mind that it also passed Max’s house on Cherry Lane.

Max had been through some shit over the summer. Max always seemed to be going through shit to Lucas. She had an abusive stepfather and an abusive step brother that always seemed to target her rather than her mother. Her step brother, Billy, had been one of the few victims of the Starcourt incident, his insides plunged by the Mind Flayer as he protected El with his last few minutes. It had been like a storybook redemption arc to Lucas, the mean step brother using his last minutes to save someone’s life. It had messed up both Max and El badly, but Max didn’t seem to step out of the funk like El had.

It had been a slow descent after the funeral, not the quick plunge that Lucas had prepared for. It started with sleeping in for an hour, then two, then missing hangouts entirely because she was busy sleeping. When her stepfather left it had been almost a relief, but he knew that it had been hard on her mother to keep up the house payments, spending more time at work than at home. Lucas running by her house was just an excuse to check up on her.

It didn’t take long for Lucas to reach Cherry Lane, running up the hill with short steps to conserve his energy. His heart pounded quickly as he got closer to her house, the familiar butterflies he felt whenever he saw Max settling in his stomach. He smiled as he spotted her house: 4819 Cherry Lane. He loved even more that Susan’s car wasn’t in the driveway, his chances of being caught dramatically reduced.

Approaching the driveway, he quickly deviated to the side of the house where Max’s room was. Turning off his Walkman, he slid the headphones off of his ears as he got to her window. Peeking inside, he noticed that the little lamp she always left on during the night was off. Looking to her bed, he saw a lump laying on the mattress. He couldn’t take her eyes off of her. Lucas thought Max looked beautiful whenever she slept, the way her eyebrows weren’t constantly pointed down without a scowl. She looked so free of stress and panic, something that Lucas knew didn’t come naturally to her.

He fought the urge to call out to her and wake her up. Looking down at his watch, it was only seven forty-five. Lucas knew Max normally didn’t go to bed until ten o’clock, but her sleep schedule seemed to be getting worse and worse. He wrinkled his eyebrows as he watched her breathing, his hand resting against the window balled up in a fist. He tried to soak in her features one last time, as if he wouldn’t see her ever again.

Tearing himself away from the window, he kicked his leg behind him, stretching it out before heading home. Slapping the headphones onto his ears, he rewound the tape, waiting for it to return to Hungry Like the Wolf. The sound flooded his ears, the backward singing of Duran Duran making him squint his eyes with pain. When the song finally started, he set off again, his sneakers softly hitting against the drying grass as he took off back toward his house.

“ A scent and sound, I’m lost and I’m found; And I’m hungry like the wolf.”

Chapter Text

Saturday, January 5, 1980

Mike couldn’t wait to show his friends what he had gotten. He had been to the store with his mom, shopping for baby clothes. His new baby sister was due next month and with nothing else to do on that day, he had been roped into going through aisles and aisles of baby clothes. He whined as he dragged his tennis shoes on the scratchy carpet of the department store. Every time he thought he would get to the end of an aisle, his mom would suddenly fawn over a new onesie or dress, leading to even more delay in his mission to go home.

“Look, Michael, don’t you think that Holly would look absolutely darling in this dress? She would look like Minnie Mouse,” his mother exclaimed, swooning over a red dress with polka dots that Mike found absolutely meaningless. Holly could wear a potato sack for all he cared, as long as she was cute.

Mike shrugged, looking at the cart already half-full of baby clothes. “Sure.”

His mother sighed, facing falling flat, dropping her shoulders and rubbing a hand on her growing baby bump. “Look, you’ve been a good sport. I know this isn’t how you would want to spend your weekend. Why don’t you go grab something out of the toy aisle? You don’t even have to use your allowance money.”

Mike had never run so fast in his life, wind flowing through the gap in his teeth as he smiled. Rushing out of the clothing aisle, he booked it to the toy aisle of the store, the fabric turning into shiny toys. His eyes darted from appealing item after appealing item. There were countless LEGO Star Wars sets, action figures that seemed to come to life, and vibrant comic collections. There were so many choices, and yet a muted beige box with a black horse in the middle caught his eye. 

It looked unassuming and yet Mike had the unexplainable urge to grab the box. Reaching for it on the top shelf, his fingertips were barely able to grasp the top of the game, pulling it down. On the top of the box was bold red text, black words scrawled under it. Scanning the box, his eyes lit up with excitement. Breathing out an awed sigh, he gleefully went back to his mother holding the box under his arm. That’s how the game managed to sit on the Wheeler’s basement table, the four boys standing around it.

“Dungeons and Dragons: Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures,” Dustin read, furrowing his eyebrows. “Why did you pick this out again?”

“Remember that time you were complaining we had run out of things to do?” Mike asked, Dustin shrugging. “Well, this is it.”

“What even is it?” Lucas asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“It’s a role-playing game. You create characters, assign them values, and then somebody creates a story where the characters have to work together to beat the monsters,” Mike explained. “Really, I think you’ll like it.”

Dustin pursed his lips, Lucas slowly shuffling away from the coffee table. An awkward moment later, Will smiled. “I think it’s really cool. Let’s try it.”

Mike grinned. “2-2, 50% rounds up to 100. Majority wins. Come on.”

The four of them kneeled around the coffee table, Dustin and Lucas albeit reluctantly, and Mike opened up the box. Examining the contents of the box, several metal minifigures of monsters rolled out of the box, Dustin picking up a three-headed serpent.

Dustin laughed. “Hey, this is kind of cool. Look, Lucas.”

Thrusting the figurine into his face, Lucas jerked his head back unexpectedly. “It’s a piece of metal the size of your fingernail. What’s the big deal?”

“Lucas, stop being such an asshole and just start working on your character sheet. I’ll start working on creating a story,” Mike said, smashing down his pencil so hard the graphite crumbled to a shortened stump under the force.

“Who told you you’d be in charge of creating the story?” Dustin asked, spit flying out from his lisp.

“I bought the game, dumbass. Do you know how the game works?”

Will timidly stuttered, gripping the golf pencil the game came with shaking hands, his red puffer jacket pushing up against the wooden coffee table. “What does armor class mean? And what are classes? Levels? Is there a handbook?”

“I think so,” Mike muttered, sticking his hand in the box. Seconds later, he opened up a small booklet, thumbing through the descriptions. “A character’s class affects a character’s available skills and abilities. A well-rounded party of characters requires a variety of abilities offered by the classes within the game.”

“Well, what are the classes?” Lucas asked.

Mike splayed the rule book out so his friends could see the classes. “The main classes are bard, cleric, monk, thief, fighter, and magic-user. There are also sub-classes, like druid, assassin, paladin, ranger, and illusionist.”

“Cleric sounds cool,” Will exclaimed before furrowing his eyebrows. “What’s a cleric?”

“It’s like a clergyman or a priest. My uncle Rob’s a priest,” Lucas said.

“Oh. Well, I’ll just make him a wizard cleric.”

“Bard… what the hell is a bard?” Dustin asked before shrugging. “Whatever. He sounds really cool. I’ll go with that.”

“It sounds like the stupidest one in the whole book,” Lucas retorted, Dustin retaliating with a swift punch to the shoulder. “I’m choosing ranger. He sounds like the only sensible class. Mike, what about you?”

Mike scratched his chin, looking through his options. Illusionist didn’t sound so bad. He could probably make up things on the spot and defy the bad guys he came up with on the spot. A thief or a fighter also sounded useful, their skills unmatched in battle. Yet somehow his eyes couldn’t stop trailing back to one of the classes, the name striking him as important.

“I think I’ll go with a paladin. Now, next up are the alignments. There are three alignments, lawful, chaotic, and neutral…”

____________________

Wednesday, September 11, 1985

Mike had become acquainted with the Byer’s dining table very well over the past couple of months. After the Starcourt incident, El and Hopper’s cabin had been rendered unlivable and they had moved into the Byers’ cramped shed of a house. It was a cozy situation, oftentimes cramped according to Will, but El seemed to enjoy having a family. And whatever made El happy made Mike happy.

It had taken a week for Hopper to allow El’s curfew to be extended to nine fifteen in order to fit in Hellfire Club meetings, forcing El to miss the inaugural meet. She had apparently begged and pleaded every day, noting that the club was, “going to be educational and help with her math skills and reasoning.” It was a bullshit excuse and while Mike knew Hopper wasn’t fooled, something made him cave. That’s how Mike found him at the Byers’ dining table, El sat next to him, a blank character sheet in between. Thumbs brushing against each other under the character table, El wrote the character name she had been thinking of in the first slot: Waff-El.

El perked her head up and gave an expectant smile. Mike knew her body language like the back of her hand and pressed a kiss to her cheek. She was looking for a compliment. “It’s perfect. Very clever. I wonder how you got that name.”

El laughed. “You are funny. What is class?”

“A class is the type of character you are. It helps you figure out what your skills and abilities are. I’m a paladin, Lucas is a ranger, Dustin’s a bard, Will’s a cleric, Gareth’s a druid, Eddie’s the dungeon master– he doesn’t have a class, Jeff’s a monk, and Todd’s an assassin. You can choose one of those, but Eddie likes it when everybody has a different class– it brings something cool to the table.”

“Where’s zoomer and mage? You said I was a mage and Max was a zoomer?” El asked, her eyebrows furrowed.

Mike brushed his thumb over her wrist. “Zoomer’s not real. We made it up because of her skateboard. A mage isn’t in this edition. It’s rumored to be in the next one, though. You’d definitely be a great mage, though.”

Mike watched her scan the choices, the glint in her eyes showing careful consideration. Mike loved how hard of a worker she was and how thoughtful she was. She put so much care into everything, especially stuff that appealed to him. It took a while, Mike watching the seconds tick on the clock on the wall as Joyce bustled around the kitchen making lasagna, but El came to a decision eventually, scribbling in, “Illusionist.”

“Jonathan said they are like magicians,” El said, her shaky handwriting making her words nearly illegible.

“Kind of. They change things in their surroundings to help out their teammates. Kind of like how you killed the bad people at the school a couple of years ago to help us escape the Demogorgon.”

For a moment, El’s eyes glazed over, staring into the distance. She looked lost, Mike squeezing her hand. She sharply inhaled, bringing her free hand to grip the blue bracelet on her wrist that covered the tattoo on her wrist. “Illusionist. I’ll be an illusionist.”

Mike smiled. “Great. Since you’re new, you’ll be at level one. Eddie doesn’t like too many level ones, but I told him you were special. Now you have to choose your alignment.”

“Alignment…” El murmured to herself, tapping her pencil against the table.

“There are three alignment types– lawful, neutral, and chaotic. Eddie will sometimes add a second dimension, but I wouldn’t worry about that for now. It helps you make decisions about your character when you’re called on.”

“Which one am I?” El asked.

“You get to choose. Are you a good person, a bad person, or someone in the middle?”

That question seemed to confuse El, her lips receding back into her mouth as she blinked heavily. Her breathing quickened just fast enough that Mike squeezed her hand, refraining from offering verbal support. El had told him how she wanted to figure things out on her own and wanted him to speak for her less. He had been apprehensive, the attachment between the two strong, but Mike knew how important being her own person was to her.

Quietly, she scribbled down lawful. “Is this what a good person is?”

Mike nodded. “I mean, you can still make questionable decisions, but generally you try to be more peaceful and stick to the rules than other players. Will’s lawful too.”

El tilted her chin down. “I want to be a good person.”

Mike brushed his thumb against hers again. “Okay, then. Now I have to grab my dice from my backpack to roll for strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution, and charisma. I’ll be back in a second. Need anything?”

El didn’t look up, her head shaking as she looked away. Mike slowly untangled their hands and got up from the table, his backpack on the couch next to Jonathan, who was filling out college applications. Quiet to not disturb what seemed like a stressful session, he grabbed the small canvas bag, black dice clattering inside of it.

Heading back to the dinner table, Mike saw El’s head resting on the table, her shoulders slouched. He frowned, guilt pooling in his chest. Dungeons and Dragons was not her thing, he wasn’t that clueless. Every time they had played in eighth grade, she had lost interest within ten minutes, playing with his action figures instead. It didn’t take Mike long to realize that El was doing this for him, not herself, and that made him feel somewhat regretful about roping her in on Hellfire Club to begin with.

Suddenly, El’s head perked up, a smile on her face. “I waited for you. You take too long! I need to roll the dice, right?”

Mike blinked his eyes, mechanically moving to his chair, setting the dice bag with a clink on the table. “Yup. Now, to roll for these you need four six-sided dice and get rid of the lowest number and add them up…”

____________________

Chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, and the smell of his mom’s famous black forest cake wafted through the dining room table as Mike sat down, his plate already waiting for him. He had nearly been late for dinner, wrapped up in making a backstory for Waff-El. It was the part he loved the most about character making and at some point it had nearly become Mike’s character more than El’s. Nancy was already at the table, messing with her freshly done perm she had convinced her mom would be a good idea to celebrate her senior year.

His dad was still sweaty from a long day of sitting at his desk and doing audits as an auditing clerk, sitting down with an exasperated sigh still in his button-down shirt, tie still in perfect condition. Holly came running down from her bedroom, hands red from the way she gripped her crayons, pincer motion still not mastered. Mike’s mother sat down last, sighing with delight as she sat down. With her arrival, Mike began to cut into the chicken almost automatically, the dark meat tender.

Nancy groaned as she chewed the chicken. “This is nice, Mommy.”

His mother smiled, Mike noticing the darkening eye bags under her eyes. “Thank you, sweetie.”

Dinners were always the worst for Mike. They started average and quiet, everybody consumed by the inherent need to get food in their system. But soon enough, someone would say something offensive, which would set off someone else, and then it became a whole issue.

“I heard there was a kid who was beaten up in the locker room today at gym class,” Nancy said, her mouth filled with mashed potatoes.

“Why?” Mike asked.

“She was caught kissing Bethany Mercer last night behind the Radio Shack. Some crazy Evangelists went after her. Left her with a black eye and everything,” Nancy muttered.

Mike silently spooned mashed potatoes in his mouth before he heard a chortle from his dad. “Serves her right.”

Mike stopped midchew as Nancy dropped her fork, staring daggers into her father’s wide glasses. “Are you seriously saying that gay people deserve to be beaten up?”

“When did I say that?”

“Since you said it ‘serves them right!’”

“I’m just saying, kissing a girl like that in public, it’s disgusting. Nobody wants that lesbian stuff being spread to our children.”

Mike curled a skeptical eyebrow, shoveling food in his mouth before it got too ugly.

“Ted,” his mother muttered under her breath. “Stop talking.”

Ted guffawed instead. “You know, the last time there was a lesbian in my office– my old secretary, Shannon– she got fired and had to move out to Massachusetts. It was a shame. She was a pretty little thing. Cute ass. I mean, it’s complete nonsense. Why would you choose to be like that, living in sin?”

“It’s not a choice, Dad!” Nancy screamed, Holly sliding down her chair.

Mike tried his best to ignore the chaos unfolding, continuing to chew vigorously on his green beans despite the anxious nausea settling in his throat.

“Nancy, please. Let’s just try to enjoy dinner,” his mom offered, Mike noticing the all too familiar concerned glint in her eyes.

“No! Dad’s being a bigot and it’s not okay,” Nancy exclaimed.

“You will not call me a bigot and live under my roof. Keep it up and you’ll be kicked out of the house the day you turn eighteen,” his dad threatened, another one of his empty threats that he made.

“Fine! I’ll live with Jonathan, then,” Nancy scoffed.

“That scumbag? Didn’t he take those photos of you? And doesn’t he live in the slums? God, what a piece of white trash,” his dad muttered. “Go be a whore in the dump then for all I care.”

That did it for Nancy. Wordlessly, she shot up from the dining room table and grabbed her keys, slamming the front door shut as she most likely gunned it to either Ally's house or Robin’s house to get away for the night. Mike felt his chest tighten, his foot tapping rapidly against the wooden floor as he heard Nancy’s car accelerate outside of the driveway.

“I swear to God, she pulls one more stunt and I won’t wait for her to turn eighteen,” his father sneered, chewing on his plate of chicken.

Finally, Mike couldn’t take it any more, pushing away his half eaten plate of food and storming upstairs. He heard his mom call out for him, but he just ran faster, racing to his room and slamming the door shut behind him, locking it with a soft click.

Mike couldn’t contain his anxiety anymore. The room smelled like disgusting rubbing alcohol and the unmistakable stench of rotting flesh. His hands trembled as he reached for the stuffed bear he kept under his bed, away from his dad’s judgemental and snide comments. Hugging it close to his chest, he tried to focus on the comforting smell of his mother’s special fabric softener she used. Curling up against the wall and the headboard, he let the tears fall down his face, dripping from his cheeks onto his shirt in a dramatic fashion.

This is how it always went– Nancy would always be the one to start with some anecdote or liberal notion that irked his father. When he was younger, he used to blame Nancy, but as he got older and was able to form his own opinions he knew his dad was the real asshole. Mature men were able to appreciate and respect other people’s opinions, even if they didn’t match their own personal ones. Then his dad would make some comment about it, often in poor taste, which would then make Nancy get mad, and then the whole cycle would begin again. Nancy would run out of the house, Holly would slink down in her chair, too scared to leave her mom. And Mike would race to his room so he wouldn’t be caught crying in front of his parents.

His dad couldn’t ever just let them have a normal dinner, could they? 

____________________

Normally, his mom left him alone for the rest of the night whenever these episodes happened. Even when he would collect himself half an hour later, he either got too tired to do homework and fell asleep in his school clothes, or couldn’t sleep and found himself reading another horror novel until the early hours of the morning. The images the authors would create would keep the adrenaline from the fight continue to course through his body, slowly bringing down his anxiety levels until he was able to fall asleep, albeit having to wake up three hours later for school.

Sometimes he would hear the front door open, Nancy coming back from his escapade. Only then would he slink out of his room to hers, just to make sure she was alright. She was almost always damaged, but not irreparable. Nancy was too strong to be broken by one person.

This time, however, he heard a knock on the door, the soft knuckles of his mother rapping against the white wood. “Mike, can I come in? Can you unlock the door?”

“Go away,” he grumbled, wiping the stains the tears made on his pale and freckled face.

“Mike, please. It’s about Holly,” his mother pleaded and something in his tone made him reluctantly get out of bed and unlock the door.

His mother immediately opened the door, a laundry basket on her hips full of Nancy’s pastel clothes folded neatly in stacks inside of it. “Can you check to see if Holly’s alright? She was supposed to be in before the street lights but she hasn’t been outside and it’s been ten minutes.”

Mike had half the mind to ask her, “Why can’t Dad do it?” but he suspected he was one or two whiskeys deep in his recliner watching the new episode of Highway to Heaven on NBC. Instead, he quietly nodded and slipped past his mother, his hand sliding against the railing as he went down the stairs.

Holly never strayed far from the driveway, often playing with whatever new toy their dad indulged her in, whether it be a brand new set of sidewalk chalk or a new doll he stumbled upon at the convenience store. Mike wanted to feel jealous that he never received that attention from their father when he was Holly’s age, but he knew it wasn’t fair to her to feel that way. Quietly slipping on his shoes, he entered the yard and peered out to the driveway. Alarmingly, the driveway was void of any little girl lost in her world drawing on the pavement.

The memories of Will’s disappearance began to flash through his mind. Getting called into the principal’s office, realizing Will was missing, searching through the woods, seeing a Demogorgon eat El’s captor…

“Holly?” he called out, the air silent except for the slight September wind waving through the air. He stepped out into the driveway, his voice louder. “Holly?”

“Mike?” he suddenly heard, her chirpy and light voice distant. “I’m by the side door. I need your help.”

Without thinking he rushed to the side of the house, noticing her straw blond pigtails first. She was crouched by a bush, her knees and her dress most likely stained by the dirty grass underneath her weight. She wouldn’t take her eyes off of something beside her.

“Holly,” he called out again, slowing his frantic run to a slow jog. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“Just get over here!” she screamed, her normally timid nature melting away.

It only took a couple of seconds for Mike to catch up to her and look down to where Holly was. Kneeling down on the freshly mowed grass, he looked over to what Holly couldn’t peel her eyes away from: a little gray animal. It was on its back, its paws reaching for the sky and its squeaky voice desperately meowing for help.

“I heard cries and I went to the noise and I found this kitten and now I don’t know what to do. What do we do?” Holly asked, her voice nearly in tears.

Alarmed by her panic, Mike shoved her aside and picked up the kitten. The cat didn’t have a collar or a tag on it. It couldn’t be more than a month or two old and was clearly lethargic, its eyes sunken in. How long had it been here without their mother?

“I got him,” he murmured. “I need you to get me a towel from the bathroom, okay?”

Holly darted off back into the house through the side door a few feet away, Mike hearing her dash to the basement bathroom. The cat meowed, Mike looking down to see its bright brown eyes staring back at him. Mike was never an animal person, immediately finding a distaste for pets once his pet lizard died within a week of getting him from the pet store. But now he was finding himself instinctively pressing the chilled cat to his chest.

“You’ll be okay, little kitty. You’ll be okay,” Mike murmured as Holly came back with a yellow towel.

“Is he hurt?” Holly asked, handing Mike the towel.

Mike shook his head, carefully wrapping the gray fluffy pet in the towel. It purred with satisfaction. “I don’t think so. Let’s get him inside. Mom will be able to take him to the emergency vet and see if he’s microchipped.”

A few hours later, Mike found himself in the living room with his sister in the middle of the night, holding the cat close to his chest still wrapped in the towel. After an emergency trip to the vet with his exasperated mother, there had been no owner attached to the cat. With no leads in his mother’s vast social circle and no microchip or collar, his mother had tentatively allowed him and Holly to keep the cat. Sitting on the couch, they traded back and forth names, a six-year-old and a fourteen-year-old desperately trying to come to a compromise.

“Twinkle Toes,” Holly offered.

“It’s a boy. We’re not naming him Twinkle Toes.”

“But his eyes are sparkly!”

“What about Warlock?”

Holly scrunched her nose. “Ew, that sounds like an ogre.”

“Does not!”

“What about Merlin? Ms. Bercheck read us a book with his name in it. It sounds like a cat name,” Holly said.

Mike looked down at the kitten, his sparkling eyes staring back into his soul. Mike scratched the top of the kitten’s head, a bone-rumbling purr coming out of the small animal. “Merlin’s nice. I like it.”

That’s how the Wheeler’s came to be the owner of a six week old gray kitten named Merlin, much to Holly’s excitement, Ted’s chagrin, and Mike’s quiet optimism.

Chapter Text

Thursday, September 7, 1978

Dustin Henderson grew up "casually Christian," according to what his father and mother said they were. They would hang up wreaths and set up a Christmas tree during Christmas. They would eat a big dinner during Easter and participate in the neighborhood easter egg hunt. They didn’t often indulge in church or mass, just took Sundays slow like they often did. The Bible in the house often collected dust, only being dusted off when his father decided to study religion, always next to the Torah and the Qur’an the family owned. Being a casual Christian, it never made sense to Dustin why he attended St. Hedwig’s Elementary School, a private Catholic school fifteen minutes away from his house.

He wore a stupid navy blue uniform, the funny t-shirts he and his father loved to collect stashed in drawers. The blazer was always too tight around his shoulders– something that was exasperated by his lack of collarbones (well, except for the little nubbin that had miraculously been gifted to him by whatever higher power existed)– the button downs were always too starchy and coarse, and the ties felt like he was being choked. He’d rather slap on the first t-shirt in his drawer, a pair of cargo shorts, and sneakers instead of dress shoes. They didn’t even allow him to wear a baseball cap.

Some part of him didn’t mind the uniform, though, since it allowed him to fit in. Dustin never fit in by any other regards: too short, too pudgy, too nerdy, too much for people. He could see it from the way the sisters teaching the classes would grit his teeth whenever he corrected their teachings– often fueled by the Bible and its teachings of everything stemming from God’s magical hands– with emerging scientific facts. He could see it from the way that the gym teacher always picked on him a little more, always critiquing his jogging form or his low stamina more than the other kids. It was isolating, but Dustin didn’t mind much. He always had his pet turtle, Yurtle, to complain about the cattiness of second-grade children.

One day he was in Bible class, the only time he ever read the beloved scripture forced onto them. There were two types of people whenever they read the Bible: the people who annotated and wrote meaningful notes in their Bibles, and others who were one step away from tearing the pages out of the Bible and throwing it in an incinerator. Dustin was the latter. None of it made any sense to him. Half of the “miracles” they talked about could easily be explained by science.

They had been reciting passages from Leviticus that day. Dustin had managed to hold his tongue throughout the inaccuracies, his knee bouncing from the growing stress through his body.

“Juliette, continue,” Sister Kathy stated, pointing to the cursive inscription she had painstakingly written on the board. “20-23, please.”

Juliette Abrahms, a girl with strawberry-blonde hair and the cutest freckles Dustin had ever seen, cleared her throat. “All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground. Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper. But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest.”

Immediately Dustin raised his hand. He heard Sister Kathy sigh. “Yes, Dustin?”

“But it’s been scientifically proven that insects have six legs,” Dustin said, the snide looks from his classmates already beginning to show.

“Dustin, we have been through this time and time again. Back when the Bible was written, insects had four legs. God decided to give them two more afterwards,” Sister Kathy groaned. “Detention after school. No more interrupting. Rachel, continue.”

Dustin huffed a frustrated breath as Rachel Carpenter continued to spit out Leviticus verses. Too many detentions would lead to a suspension and then an expulsion… but if the Catholics were free to spread their gospel, wasn’t he?

After mumbling about the inaccuracies under his breath for the rest of the class, then begrudgingly completing a worksheet about the book, the bell regan for recess. Dustin was more than relieved, slipping on his light green coat and stepping outside to feel the fresh air. He reveled in the feeling for just a moment, standing on the grassy hill right by the exit.

Then something suddenly pushed him forward. Covering his mouth to protect his fragile teeth, he managed to roll so the blow impacted his shoulder and not his head. Looking up, he saw Rachel, Juliette, and Emily Morris standing over him.

“Listen up, Toothless, if you keep disrespecting God like you did in the classroom, we’re gonna have more problems,” Juliette barked.

“It’s not my fault that you believe a book full of scientific inaccuracies. I’m just pointing out the obvious–” Dustin tried to explain before he was punched square in the chest by Emily Morris. With no collarbones to protect him, he sharply exhaled, his trachea fighting to reopen.

“In Lord’s name we pray that Toothless finds his way,” Rachel sneered.

“Punching isn’t very Christian of you,” Dustin squeaked, guarding both his chest and his mouth as Emily punched him again.

“We’re just… spreading the gospel. Keep your mouth shut, you got it?” Juliette warned, blonde hair messily blowing in the wind, Dustin nodding furiously. 

Juliette scanned his leg, judgemental eyes making Dustin physically shrink away. “And go to the nurse. Your knee is bleeding.”

Dustin sat up, grunting, to look at his house. Blood was soaking through the kneecap of his pants, the navy turning a disgusting brown. He watched as the three girls skipped off, heading to the blacktop to play double dutch with Evelyn Wilder. The pain in his knee was beginning to grow, the adrenaline wearing off. Heart beating fast, he hobbled inside, headed to the nurse’s office.

No matter how hard he tried, Dustin never seemed to make friends easily.

____________________

Friday, September 13, 1985

Science Olympiad had been a new venture from Dustin. His biology teacher, Ms. Grandfield had seen a potential in him to fill the spot in their team that had been left open by a graduating senior. Dustin had been apprehensive at first, since he enjoyed spending his entire Friday preparing for the Hellfire meeting later that night, but he enjoyed science more than anybody he knew. And with encouragement, and a little persuading from Lucas and the Party, he had decided to take the spot.

Every Friday immediately after school they met in Ms. Grandfield’s classroom at G208, preparing for their first competition in November. The meetings had been lackluster to say the least, everybody quietly doing homework or taking short assessments that Ms. Grandfield had concocted to determine strengths amongst the team. Dustin found himself staring at a picture of a human body, with “Name That Organ” printed across the top. It seemed easy enough until they got to the small organs nobody talked about, such as the colon or the nose. Let alone the multiple-choice exam on the back where he would have to know about each organ– it seemed daunting. But Dustin was never afraid of a challenge.

On his left were two seniors, Jack Sterling and Bill Sterling– identical twins. They were constantly in Dustin’s engineering class, whether it be aiding for Mr. Yarn, the engineering teacher, or building something for the robotics team, another extracurricular Dustin felt himself gravitating towards. They were nose deep into Physics 2 AP textbooks, annotating in the margins.

One of them turned to Dustin unprompted, tapping him on the shoulder. Dustin picked his head up from his paper. He scanned the kid’s face, the mole on his left cheek signifying he was staring at Bill. “Do you need something, Bill?”

“You’re one of those smart kids, right? One of those real smart kids in all accelerated and that shit?” Bill asked, his foul language leading Ms. Grandfield to pick her head up for a moment to stare him down unsuccessfully.

Dustin shrugged. “I’m in English and history honors, but other than that, yeah, I guess.”

“Do you know the formula for density? My stupid mind– can’t think of it,” he asked.

Dustin didn’t hesitate. “Mass over volume.”

Bill patted him on the back, slapping him so hard it lurched him forward. “You know, you’re a nice sonuvabitch, you know that?”

“Bill! Language!” Ms. Grandfield peppered.

Dustin flashed a quick smile, scooting as far away from Bill and Jack as he could in the confined space of his desk. Turning back to his paper, he continued to struggle with the assessment in front of him. Before he could make any leeway, he heard a chair screech beside him, somebody sitting in the desk to the right.

“Don’t listen to them. They’re smart, but boy, they’re obnoxious, aren’t they?” a girl chirped, her melodious voice enough to make Dustin pick up his head.

“Pardon?” he asked.

“I said don’t listen to the twins. They have brains, but they act like they got the brains of a kindergartener,” she said, laughing afterward. “I’m Melody. Melody Perkins.”

She stuck out her hand, Dustin noticing that her hands were the same bright pink as her sweater, hair permed into tight curls. “Dustin Henderson. Say, do you know what that organ is? I can’t figure it out.”

Melody took a look before sighing. “Ms. Grandfield uses the same assessments every year. That’s the gallbladder.”

Dustin stuck his tongue out slightly as he wrote, leaning back in his chair. “What are you, a junior?”

“A sophomore. You’re a freshman.”

Dustin nodded. “Rookie in the flesh.”

Melody giggled, twirling a piece of her hair. “I’ve seen you around in engineering. You don’t act like a rookie. You’re one of the most competent people I’ve ever seen in that class.”

Dustin blinked. He didn’t realize girls could take engineering. Like woodshop and home economics, he thought they were segregated by gender, a stupid practice that had remained in Hawkins despite the fights for equality throughout recent years. “You’re in engineering?”

“I sit right behind you, silly. I guess you’re not very observant.”

Dustin’s ears grew flushed with embarrassment.

“So you want to go into engineering as well?” Dustin asked.

Melody shook her head. “I just needed the technology credit. I’m going to go into music.”

Dustin chuckled. “Fitting.”

“Melody’s my middle name, but I’m gonna get it changed when I’m eighteen. My real name is Ella, but I never liked it much.”

Dustin ran her name– Ella Melody Perkins – through his head. It sounded alright. “Better than my middle name. It’s Clarence, my grandpa’s name.”

Melody unexpectedly put a hand on his, Dustin jumping as he stared at her oddly cold hand. “Say, you have a date for homecoming?”

“Oh, uh–” Dustin froze, her bluntness short-circuiting his brain. “I have a girlfriend in Utah. It sounds fake, I know.”

A look of dejection glazed over her face before she laughed, the pitch of the laugh a little too shrill for his liking. “No, silly, I meant as friends. You wouldn’t want to go with one of your guy friends, wouldn’t you?”

Dustin’s stomach turned with uncomfortableness. Was this cheating? “I’d have to run it through my girlfriend first. I’ll let you know at the next meeting.”

“Your girlfriend got a name?” Melody asked, one of the strands of hair she was twirling releasing from her scalp, her fingers fluttering to get rid of it.

“Suzie Bingham,” Dustin said confidently, hopefully confident enough that Melody didn’t think she was lying. His heart skipped a beat even thinking of her. He couldn’t wait until they both went to Indiana State… then Suzie would leave the church of the Latter-Day Saints…

“Suzie Bingham… nice name. Alright, well, I need to get ready for the football game. I’m flying tonight– damn Jenny broke her ankle– I’ll see you next time, Dustin.”

Dustin stared at Melody as she waved goodbye to Ms. Grandfield, heading down the hallway toward the locker room. It occurred to him that she wasn’t even put off by his Hellfire shirt, the demon unabashedly breathing fire on his shirt. And she was a cheerleader? What a weird character…

____________________

As Dustin entered the reformed janitor’s closet, he heard rock music playing in the background. Detroit Rock City, Dustin realized as he made his way to the long table, all decked out and prepared for their campaign. He noticed everybody was here except for Lucas, known for running late due to his insistence to run the two miles from his house to the school. El had already sat down next to Mike along with the rest of the members, anxiously holding a binder decked out with some of Holly’s rainbow stickers.

“Welcome, young one to the second session of our tantalizing Eldoria campaign. Please, have a seat and prepare for the battle of your lives!” the leader, Eddie Munson, dramatically announced, sitting on a decked-out throne he had found at the junkyard and lugged to the closet without anybody batting an eye.

Eddie Munson was the loudest leatherhead of the bunch. He was a super-super senior, having failed senior year two times already coming into 1985. He had been the leader and the Dungeon Master of Hellfire Club since its inception, and with his taste of loud rock music and long curly hair, Dustin had grown to admire him throughout the few weeks that they knew each other. Sitting down next to Will and across from Mike and El, he flashed a small smile to El, who seemed beyond nervous.

“El, are you excited?” he asked, hearing the door open to reveal none other than Lucas.

El shrugged. “Mike thinks I will like it. It seems interesting.”

“You will, trust me. You told me Hop used to read you stories,” Will said, flipping to his character sheet eagerly.

“And now you get to be part of the action, young one,” Eddie droned, Dustin noticing his erratic movements making El nervous. He had half the mind to ask Eddie to quiet it down, but he knew that would only make him more flamboyant.

Eddie nodded his head toward Lucas, who sat on the end next to Jeff. “Sinclair, here you are. Are we ready to begin?”

Dustin chuckled. “We were born ready.”

“We introduce a new player to our league, the level one illusionist Waff-El, accompanied by returning Tayr,” Eddie introduced, the rest of the Hellfire Club hooting and hollering at an uncomfortably loud level. El shrank in his seat with a bashful smile, something Dustin saw Eddie take note of.

In a quieter voice, he explained what had happened last campaign. For centuries, the city of Eldoria had been protected by the Order of the Silver Flame, a group of powerful wizards, warriors, and clerics. Recently, the Order’s influence waned (which Eddie had to clarify to El meant weakened), and whispers of a returning darkness had spread across the land. Strange creatures have been seen in the night, and villages have started to disappear without a trace. In the first week, the Hellfire Club had gone to the village of Eldoria to figure out how the inhabitants had gone missing. After an encounter with ghouls and shadows, they had found clues in the abandoned house and deciphered a map that had led them to a cult’s hideout in the Whispering Woods.

Dustin smiled when he noticed El seemed much more interested in playing than she had five minutes ago. With his stellar story building, Eddie began to set the scene, a map of the Whispering Woods in front of them. The Hellfire Club carefully treaded through the woods, following the map as best as they could.

“Weird Al Yankeevic, what’s your wisdom?” Eddie asked, Dustin glancing down at his character sheet.

“Fifteen,” he answered, Eddie smirking with excitement, the joy of Dungeons & Dragons palpable throughout the whole room.

“Roll a D20.”

Dustin gripped a black die from the center of the board, the twenty-sided die gleaming in the dimmed lights. The die clattered on the table, landing on six.

“Weird Al Yankeevic, you have failed to lead the group in the wrong direction,” Eddie announced, the group groaning.

“Totally my fault, guys,” Dustin said, playing into the storyline. “I guess when Tayr handed me the map, I didn’t realize it was still upside down.”

“What happens now? We are lost,” El asked.

“Well, Waff-El, you notice something glowing in the distance– two beady yellow eyes staring you down. What do you do?”

El stammered, checking her character sheet. Dustin saw the gears turning in her head, somewhat squeaky yet still efficient. “I would tell the rest of the group what I see.”

Eddie motioned for her to continue, leading El to pretend to act. “Guys, what is that over there?”

Dustin winced inside. She was not a good actor.

What had turned into a mistake by Weird Al Yankeevic had turned into a full-blown attack from a pack of wolves corrupted by dark magic. They had nearly lost Sunny-Side, Jeff’s character, but Will had used some sort of spell he had in his wizard inventory to heal him up. It had been oddly difficult, but they managed to defeat the pack of wolves without any casualties and get back on track to find the hideout where the cult was hiding.

“You walk through the forest, but no matter which way you turn, you just can’t find your way to the ruins. All of a sudden, you notice a small cottage in the words. It looks enticing, a comforting glow emitting from it. It almost calls to you. Sundragon, what do you do?” Eddie asked.

Dustin waited for a response anxiously, his foot tapping. Lucas was always too brash or too conservative. Thankfully, if anything, he was somewhat predictable. “I think we should knock on the door.”

Dustin noticed El chortle, ducking her head down when Eddie suddenly changed his somewhat gruff accent to a high-pitched accent, sounding like a little girl. “When the door opens, out pops a little druid. Quietly, she murmurs, ‘Well, hello there. I am Estella. What can I do you for?’”

Dustin couldn’t help but join into the charade as the older boys laughed so hard Gareth snorted milk through his nose. “Uh, hi, Estella. We were wondering if you had any information on where we can find some ruins around here?”

Suddenly, everybody quieted down, Dustin leaning in to hear what Eddie had to say next. “Estella looks down, timid. Then, through her squeaks, she says, ‘Well, I can help you. But I’m afraid you’ll need to do something for me before I give you any information.’”

Dustin realized that Mike may have informed El of her nervous tendencies, because instead of having to assassinate somebody like normal all they had to do was rescue a cat out of a tree. To Eddie’s credit, he had made it as treacherous as possible, and once again somebody had nearly died, but they had managed to return a tawny cat named Motley to Estella and finally gathered information on where to find the ruins.

An hour later, they had managed to decode the letter Estella had given them and reach the ruins. Right as they approached the ruins, the egg timer Eddie had stolen from his uncle’s trailer went off. Dustin realized Mike must have also briefed Eddie on El’s strict curfew, for often they went past the initial cutoff.

“And that is where we conclude the story for today, ladies and gentlemen. Act I will conclude next Friday,” Eddie announced, leading everybody at the table to burst into applause as they packed up. “Henderson, stay back for a minute.”

Dustin furrowed his eyebrows as he waited for the rest of the people to leave. One by one, they filed out, Mike and El walking hand and hand out of the janitor’s closet. After five minutes, it was just him and Eddie, who was already lighting a cigarette.

He took a deep inhale and exhaled a puff of smoke as if he were Marlon Brando. “You know, Henderson, before you and your goons came along, I always thought that Hellfire would die with me. I mean, all of the other guys are graduating this year, and between you and me, Gareth isn’t… Dungeon Master material. I mean, he nearly died saving a cat from a tree.”

Dustin laughed, snorting. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I see real potential in you, Henderson, to be the next Dungeon Master.”

____________________

Saturday, September 14, 1985

Saturdays meant sleeping in. Saturdays meant waking up to see his frenetic mother pace around the house frantically about some news story. He had become used to it– after the divorce, his mother had contracted some sort of panic disorder, and while never formally diagnosed, Dustin had essentially become her coping mechanism, calming her down whenever she had an episode– and when he woke up this morning he had expected to hear a loud, “Dusty!” from the living room. This morning, the only thing he heard was a quiet house, Tews purring on his bed as the slight sound of eggs frying in a pan could be heard through the door.

Within seconds, however, the quiet atmosphere was ruined when he swallowed. A horrible feeling rang through his ears, the paint flowing from his ears to his throat. He groaned and flopped back onto his bed. Another ear infection, something all too common with cleidocranial dysplasia. He stared up at the ceiling, testing out a few swallows. Every single one of them hurt. He sighed, wincing as the mere act of making the sound made his ears throb. Getting out of the bed, he grimaced as he slid the door open from his room.

“Morning, Dusty!” his mom chirped. “I have to do some errands today, but your breakfast will be ready in a minute.”

“Do we have any leftover antibiotics?” Dustin asked, feeling a pang of guilt as he noticed his mother’s cheery demeanor flatten. “Another ear infection.”

His mother flopped the fried egg onto the plate, shifted the pan to a cool burner, and rushed over to the other side of the peninsula. She cupped his face, Dustin biting back a grimace as she laid her hands right where it hurt. “Oh, Dusty, let me go see if we have anything in the medicine cabinet.”

His mother rushed to the bedroom, leaving Dustin alone in the living room. Hearing a meow, he looked down to see Tews brushing up against her legs. A pang of compunction– something Dustin thought was worse than guilt– rushed through him as he remembered the way that Dart had so cruelly eaten Mews, his mother’s beloved pet. It had been a horrific crime against humanity, killing the one thing that had gotten his mother through the divorce.

Before he could go down the spiral of shame he often found himself going through when he thought too hard about the events that conspired in 1984, his mother returned with a pill. “I’ll call your doctor to get some more. It’ll be one of my errands.”

Dustin quickly grabbed a glass of water before downing the antibiotic, groaning as the mere act of swallowing was near unbearable. “I’ll call my friends. I’ll stay at home today.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay at home, baby? My errands can wait a day. You know what, why don’t I make you some chicken noodle soup–”

“Mom,” Dustin cut her off. “I’ll be okay. You have things to do. I have homework to do. I promise to take another antibiotic in six hours and to call you if it gets worse. I’m not incapacitated.”

His mom gave her one of those nostalgic smiles that she always seemed to have on her face. My baby’s growing up. “If you insist. Is there anything you want me to pick up from the grocery store? Popsicles?”

“Strawberry popsicles would be great, Mom,” Dustin compromised, knowing that if he didn’t give her one thing, she would make a racket. He kissed her on the cheek. “I love you. Thanks for breakfast.”

“Alright. I’m off. Take care of Tews for me! Toodles!” his mother exclaimed, slipping on loafers and grabbing her purse from the curtain.

Dustin sighed as he sat down in the kitchen to eat his breakfast– a fried egg and buttered toast, just the way he liked it. The peace and quiet was something he both relished and detested. Silence meant he could work without distraction, but distractions always made his day so much more interesting and lively. Tews continued to brush up against both his feet and the chair legs as he ate his meal. Each time he swallowed was absolute hell.

He ate it in such big bites to reduce swallowing that he managed to finish it in three minutes flat, a new record for him. Tossing the plates in the sink, he went back to his room, Tews diligently following him. Grabbing his walkie-talkie he flopped on his bed, turning his channel to Mike’s house.

“Mike? Are you awake? It’s me, Dustin,” Dustin asked, his voice echoing throughout his bedroom.

It was a minute of static, nothing but silence. Dustin continued to ask if Mike was there, waiting for him to reply. After what seemed like forever, he heard a large groan from the other side. “Sorry, I had to feed my cat. What’s up? Over.”

“I can’t make it to movie day today. I got another ear infection. Over,” Dustin sighed.

“Aw, man. That sucks. I thought you would help me learn how to play with Merlin. He keeps running around the house but won’t play with any of the toys Holly insisted we buy. Over,” Mike groaned.

“Get one of those lasers. Cats go crazy for that shit. I’ll see you on Monday. Over and out,” Dustin said, shutting off the radio and collapsing the antennae.

Mike had begun to say something else, but it was cut off as Dustin shoved the walkie-talkie back onto his nightstand. He glanced at his backpack and grumbled, dragging his feet to grab the homework that he was going to do the next day. He looked out in his small window, noticing the wind and the bright sun, the blue sky almost taunting him. Turning to his Spanish homework, he jotted his pencil down, his world collapsing to the small bedroom.

Dustin never seemed to make friends easily. Even when he did, there was always something holding him back.

Chapter Text

Saturday, June 20, 1981

San Diego, California, was more than the city where Max lived. San Diego was Max. Nestled in a small sanction called La Playa, it was an arid part of town filled with desert-like temperatures and constantly dead grass. The only places where the grass was its correct green color were the skatepark and the park. Even then, they weren’t invincible from a small patch of yellow grass here and there.

Max had been skating all day that day at the skatepark. The coarse material on the front of her skateboard had begun to wear down where her feet spent the most time, small imprints visible if she looked closely at them. Bandages made her knees sweat under her knee pads, covering bloodied cuts she had created the one day she had forgotten all of her protective material.

The skatepark wasn’t a skatepark per se, but a small half-pipe that spanned at least twenty feet. Kids would skate from one side to the other, sometimes crafting ramps of scrap wood for entertainment. Max had been skating there since she was eight, facing ridicule from dumb teenagers until she was nine when she was accepted into the unspoken clique. She loved spending her weekends there, especially after her parents had divorced. The halfpipe's rocking motion was soothing, letting her mind escape from the new boyfriend Susan had picked up named Neil Hargrove.

Neil Hargrove was nothing short of an asshole. He was gruff and abrasive and insisted on calling her “Maxine” instead of Max. He was too traditional for her taste, claiming Max was, “a boy’s name.” Despite the two only being together for two months, Neil had become a distasteful father figure to her, making fun of her boyish tendencies. Not to mention his fourteen-year-old son Billy– the Hargroves were a walking danger sign.

With the sunset straying further into the night, the sun was out by the time Max’s leave-by time hit. Her wheels made a clickety-clackety sound under her feet as she skated on the sidewalk, now able to effortlessly balance herself on the terrain switches. La Playa was still bustling with life, kids running outside in a game of tag in one yard and a cookout between neighbors in the next. Max loved the community she lived in. She never wanted it to change.

Rolling up to her mother’s house, the one her father had left her after the divorce, Max let the skateboard slip under her feet as she hit the driveway, entering the unlocked front door. Her stomach dropped the moment she took a sniff of the steamy air. Chili. Setting her skateboard by the front door, she allowed the nervous adrenaline to course through her. Her mother only made chili when she was going to announce bad news.

“Maxie, sweetie, is that you? Dinner’s ready! Wash your hands before you sit down,” her mother called out from the kitchen. Max struggled to control her anxiety as she went to the half bathroom, letting the water run over her hands. She didn’t reach for the soap, merely drying her wet hands before going to sit down at the dining table.

Her foot thumped against the wooden floor as her mother placed a bowl of her famous, or rather infamous, chili in front of Max. The ground beef and spicy tomato sauce mixed with the neutral beans and sweet corn always made Max feel comforted, even if the chili always brought terror along with it.

She could tell her mother was hiding something, the way her voice was higher-pitched than normal, and the way she avoided eye contact. “So… how was the skatepark?”

Max swallowed, ducking her head down slightly. “Tommy didn’t give me any sh– crap today, so it was fine. I’m still trying to convince Frances to come with me.”

Her mother cleared her throat, changing the subject abruptly. “You know, I remember when your dad and I bought this house. You were barely two years old and you couldn’t get enough of running through the grass in the backyard. It was the first time I’ve ever had a backyard.”

Max scrunched her eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve decided to sell the house, Maxie. We’re going to be moving in with Neil and Billy.”

Max dropped her spoon, all power in her drained. With a volume that could only be described as futile, she asked, “What?”

“Max, Neil thought it would be nice if we started to become a family. And to be honest, this house has bad memories for me. A fresh start, you know?”

“I don’t need a fresh start! I’m perfectly fine!”

“Max… it’s only ten minutes away. You’d still go to the same school. It’s even closer to the skatepark.”

“I don’t care! This is my house. I’m not leaving.”

“Maxie… please…”

“Did Neil put you up to this? I’m telling you, he’s not nice! I don’t understand why you love him so much.”

“Neil’s a good man.”

“And Billy’s such a pervert. He has all of those magazines in his room and he plays all of that disgusting music.”

“Billy’s fifteen. One day, when you’re fifteen and have a boyfriend, you’ll understand.”

“I'll never have a boyfriend if I have to live with Neil in that crappy house. I’m not going to that house, Mom. I won’t.”

“Max. We’re moving. I’ve already found someone who will buy the house,” her mom announced. “The Parkinsons have been looking to buy. And the money we get can go towards your college fund. This is a good thing, Max. This is what a family does.”

“Neil and Billy will never be my family,” Max grunted, leaving her bowl of chili stranded on the dining room table as she got up, storming to her room.

Max heard her mother call out for once, a desperate plea for her support. Max wouldn’t have any of it, slamming the door behind her. Staring at her room, she spun in circles, tears pricking the corner of her eyes. This was her room… hers…

____________________

Sunday, September 15, 1985

Max’s mother’s blue 1972 Chevrolet Vega puttered, the brakes squealing as they made the sharp turn onto the dusty road. With Max’s head stuck in one of Dustin’s comics he continuously gave her, “to support her whilst she was grieving” (Max found Dustin annoying, but she had to admit that she truly cared for him in the same way he did), her mother scanned the trailers, looking for a certain one in particular. Glancing down at a notebook piece of paper stained with the last bit of coffee they had scoured, her mother muttered to herself under her breath.

“50… 52… 54… ah!” her mother gasped, turning sharply into an even bumpier driveway, Max thrown off-balance and nearly slamming into the side door. Shutting her comic book, she looked at the trailer that lay ahead, a depressed brown structure that couldn’t be bigger than a two-bedroom apartment. It sagged from the outside, sharing Max’s sentiments. The structure was her new house.

After Billy’s death, Neil made it two weeks before taking everything that mattered to him and flew back to San Diego. He had left nothing but divorce papers and a small check of $350 on the counter. The $350 had carried them a month before they had to sell the house, settling for a small property in Forest Hills Trailer Park, where the “white trash” lived, where the alcoholics, druggies, and poor people resided. Max had yet to accept she had found herself stuck in with that crowd.

The boxes full of their possessions were stuffed in the trunk, in boxes labeled in permanent marker. “You start bringing in boxes, Maxie. I’ll unlock the door,” her mother delegated, Max opening the trunk and grabbing the first box that popped out to her– the kitchen. With a clear pathway from the car to the interior, Max grunted as she lifted the box, staggering up the few steps to what was going to become her new house.

The trailer park was already stuffy, half-furnished with the essentials– a stove, fridge, a green, moldy, old couch that Max assumed somebody died on– other than that it was barren. Setting the box down on the counter, she hurriedly rushed out of the house, taking in the respite of fresh air as she went to grab another box. In black Sharpie, her name stared back at her.

Her mother and she hadn’t discussed whose room would be whose, but she knew her mother would want the one with the most amount of space. So, Max graciously accepted the smaller room, barely bigger than a broom closet. Setting the box down on the rickety hardwood floor, Max took a moment to spread her arms out on either side of her perpendicular to her body. She sighed. Both of her hands pressed flat against the walls.

After Max had grabbed the rest of the boxes dedicated to her room she heard the familiar fizz of a beer from the kitchen, the air causing the foam to form on the top. A can tab clinked in the trash can, a disgusting gulp emanating from the outside. It was only ten o’clock and her mother was already on her first drink of the day.

A bit selfishly, she decided that her mother could grab the rest of her boxes herself. If she was going to get herself drunk before noon, she could at least unpack herself. Grabbing the pocket knife from her worn denim jeans, she sliced the tape holding the box together. She immediately regretted it, since the big items wouldn’t arrive until later that day. There was nowhere to shove her clothes, place her tchotchkes– not even a place to lay down. Instead, she moved her hands down to the bottom of the box, grabbing the few posters she had decided to take. There was a Madonna poster from her Borderline Virgin tour that her older cousin Julia had mailed to her for her birthday. It reminded her of the life she had left behind in California and with some leftover masking tape that she had kept in her back pocket, she stuck it in the corner where she had decided to put her bed. It sat next to the window, rays of sunlight highlighting the orange border surrounding Madonna.

A rectangle image of Pac-Man was next, the yellow video game character running as he gripped a blue ghost in his arm and a pink ghost in his mouth, the orange and red ghosts running for their lives. This was one of the few memories she had left of her father, when he had shown up to her twelfth birthday party, obviously strung out of his mind on drugs, and gave her the poster. It had become torn during their move from San Diego to Hawkins, but the rip didn’t compare to the bittersweet memories it symbolized. She hung it next to the door, hearing the large moving truck clamber up the road.

As the moving truck squeaked to a stop in front of their house, Max pulled out one final poster: a Metallica poster, small, white, and square. Her heart sank to the bottom of her chest. When Neil left, he had taken most of Billy’s things, like his clothes and most of his awards and achievements (a Little League trophy and a fourth-grade honor roll certificate– Billy wasn’t a very good person). But he left behind most of his posters, and when her mom, who couldn’t bear to go into Billy’s room, had gone to her shift at the post office, she had stolen one of his posters. She had forgotten that she had packed it until now, holding it as if it were a newborn baby– cradling it in her arms.

For a moment, her knees stuck to the ground, unable to move. When the moving guys knocked on the door, however, the startle brought her off of the ground, grabbing her tape and plastering it right above where she would put her desk. She would always be reminded of Billy… and how cruel she felt inside…

He deserved to die. He was an asshole. You need to stop feeling bad, Max, she would tell herself, right before the next thought entered her mind: You’re a monster for thinking those thoughts. Before she could dwell on the thoughts, she grabbed her skateboard from the box and left her room, noticing her mother, already buzzed, chatting with the movers.

“Mom? I’m going to Family Video,” Max said, unapologetically interrupting the meaningless conversation between the adults.

“Hm?” her mom asked, her curly red braid lagging behind her head movement. “Oh, hold on, baby. One sec. Excuse me.”

Dodging one of the workers, she grabbed her wallet and gave her an old two-dollar bill, sad yellowing on the edges of the bill. It was thin and worn, flopping in the air as she handed it to Max. “Buy us a movie to watch when we’re done packing. Have fun!”

____________________

Out of all of the places in Hawkins, Max hadn’t expected Family Video to be where she spent most of her time. But after the Starcourt incident (Black blood poured out of Billy, moments after he stood in between the extraterrestrial monster and Max’s best friend. He screamed, blood bubbling out of his mouth) that left hundreds of teenagers unemployed, Steve and Robin had managed to snag spots as sales associates at the video store, and wherever Steve went Max followed.

Skating on to the sidewalk, she gripped her board with her fingers as she entered the store, a bell ringing up above. Movie posters were plastered on the walls, advertising movies that were bound to come out and movies that had premiered decades ago. Hundreds of VHS tapes stocked the shelves, arranged by category. In the middle of the store was where Robin and Steve were, looking through files on the computer.

“Cinderella. It’s rewinded, too,” Steve called out, Robin punching in numbers as Steve reached for VHS tapes in a blue plastic bucket. “Blazing Saddles and A Clockwork Orange were returned, too.”

“Blazing…” Robin muttered under her breath. “Thank God. The man’s had it out for three weeks and two people are on the waitlist.”

“Ah, here’s a weird one– Ker-elle? Qu-ellie? Querelle. Dammit, they didn’t rewind the tape… oh, hi Max,” Steve exclaimed, catching Max off-guard as she stood in the middle of the store unmoving.

“Oh… hi,” Max mumbled.

“Hey, Max. What can we do ya for?” Robin asked, jumping out of her chair.

Max stared at their green vests, decked out in pins. Robin’s was amassing a much bigger collection than Steve's, but Steve’s seemed heavier. They looked so official with their name tags, showing everybody in the store that they were getting paid…

“My mom’s looking for a movie to watch tonight,” Max muttered, walking up to the desk. “What do you recommend?”

Steve smiled at her. He always had one of those smiles on his face, the ones that made Max feel okay. “I think a movie just came in that’ll do the trick.”

Flipping up the hinged counter, he exited the circle of counter space, heading straight to the comedy section. “I assume your mom isn’t a big fan of horror, right?”

Max shook her head. “We tried to see Poltergeist once… never again.”

“Science fiction?”

“I think she just wants something to take her mind off of everything,” Max said.

“Then I’ve got just the thing– Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

Steve held up a VHS tape. On the cover were six men dressed in medieval garb, holding yellow and red flags whilst sitting in a yellow goblet being gripped by a giant hand, a castle behind them. It looked entertaining to Max.

“I used to love this movie when I was a kid,” Steve said. “My babysitter would put this movie on just to shut me up and I would be glued to the TV for hours. It’ll run you two bucks a day, but, for a friend discount I’ll give you a buck fifty to start.”

Max grinned without her teeth, taking the VHS tape from Steve. “I’ll take it.”

Steve clapped his hands together, quietly moving to the register. As she set the VHS on the counter, she realized that she would probably end up watching the movie by herself. Her mother would either be passed out on the couch or the bare mattress in her room. Maybe I should have gotten a horror movie instead…

“Total will be one-fifty for today. You can pay the rest in advance or you can pay when you get back,” Steve said, his voice sounding like he was reading a script.

Max handed him the two-dollar bill. “How much does it pay to work here?”

“Minimum wage– three dollars and thirty-five cents an hour. But I think Robin and I may be bumped up to five dollars an hour after the new year,” Steve answered, passing her the movie and two quarters. “Why do you ask?”

Max shrugged, gripping the VHS in her hands. “Just wondering. How’s it like to manage school and a job?”

“Well,” Robin exclaimed from the computer, continuing to enter movies back into the system. “I only work weekends and Wednesday nights. It’s pretty alright. Sometimes it can get a bit hectic with schoolwork and marching band. But I don’t have to go to any of the competitions since it’s senior year– just the football and basketball games. As long as you can manage schoolwork and a job, then you should be fine. Why, are you looking to start working?”

Max shook her head. “My friend, Allie, she’s looking to get into the workforce. Kinda bored at home.”

Max didn’t have a friend named Allie.

“Ah,” Steve murmured. “Any other news before I kick you out?”

Max stalled for a second. There was so much news to share with Steve. Neil leaving… people defacing Billy’s grave… the way her mother was downing alcohol as if she needed it to survive… moving to the shittest trailer in Forest Hills Trailer Park… “Nope. Just… coasting through.”

“Yeah, well, high school can be a bitch but if you keep your head down and get good grades, you should be fine,” Steve sighed, resting his elbow on the counter.

Robin chortled. “You’re one to talk, King Steve.”

“Hey!” Steve snapped. “Look where I am now, I learned my lesson. And, I’m going to apply for RCC next year.”

Robin smiled. “Hey, like me!”

“RCC?” Max questioned, fiddling with the VHS tape in her hands.

“Roane County Community College. It’s about fifteen minutes out. If you get your associate’s then you can transfer to any Indiana State without needing to apply,” Steve explained, thumbing the keys on the belt loop of his jeans. “But Dad said I needed to work for a year before I can apply. He said I needed, ‘real-life experience,’ whatever the hell that means.”

Max slowly inched away from the counter. “Yeah, well, I’ll see you tomorrow. You’re picking us up, right?”

Steve nodded. “Three o’clock. Bye, Max.”

“Bye!” she called out, closing the door behind her and walking to Palace Arcade next door.

If Max ever wanted to get out of the trailer park, she needed a job.

____________________

She had managed to get five job applications that afternoon: Palace Arcade, Radio Shack, Family Video (she made sure to ask when Robin and Steve weren’t working and crusty loser Keith was), Hawk Theatre, and Pam’s Womens Clothing. For half of them, Max had to lie and say she was sixteen to get because despite Steve clearly saying people hired at fourteen, everybody was reluctant to hire people so young.

As expected, her mother had passed out on the couch by the time Max had gotten home at three o’clock. Her breath reeked of yeast and ale, empty beer bottle in her hand. She had made dinner, which had been a TV dinner that they had packed from their old fridge at their old house, and watched Monty Python on the floor, her mom managing to plug in the TV before she got too wasted. The movie had been funny, if not a little stupid and juvenile, but by the time the clock hit seven, Max was in her barely furnished room, sitting on the floor surrounded by her paper applications.

She hated writing out her full name: Maxine Andrea Mayfield. Every time she wrote out the “ine” in her first name, it felt like the pen was going to puncture the paper with the amount of force she used. Still, she suffered through it, writing it out on each job application. She made sure to write the address of the Forest Hills Trailer Park, going against every instinct she had, accustomed to writing 4819 Cherry Lane on every envelope she sent back to her dad in California.

Max glanced at the homework she had put on the counter. She had done her French and math homework, but she couldn’t bear to do her science homework. Ever since her mother had told her they were moving, anything that took an extreme amount of mental work seemed to slip her mind.

With her radio crooning quietly in the background, she didn’t notice the loud creaks of her mother’s footsteps against the rotting floor until her mother was standing in the threshold. With a voice slurred beyond belief, her words were nearly incomprehensible. “Maxie, what is all of that work?”

Max stuttered, chills going down her spine as she turned her neck to face her mother. She didn’t want her mom to find out. “N-Nothing.”

“No, silly, I’m your mother,” she groaned, drunkenly bending over to reach one of the papers.

Max’s eyes widened as her mother scanned the page. “No, Mom–”

“Job application? Max, you’re only thirteen– no, how old are you again?

“Fourteen, Mom. My birthday was last October, remember?” she murmured, her head cast down to the floor.

Her mother looked at Max. Max noticed an odd soberness in her eyes, something she hadn’t seen in weeks. Her mother set the empty bottle in her hand on the dresser, perfectly still. “Why are you doing this, baby? Do you need more money?”

“I just–” Max stammered, “If I got some extra money then maybe we could move back into our old house again.”

The soberness in her mother’s eyes was as gone as soon as it came, replaced with a sadness that broke Max’s heart. Without warning, tears spilled out of her mother’s eyes as she collapsed to the floor. Max jumped back, her mother landing on one of her job applications.

“Maxie, baby, I’m sorry. I’m such a bad mother,” she cried. “I get too drunk and I waste all of our money and I’m a horrible person.”

Max was shell-shocked. Her mother reeked of alcohol to the point where she had half the mind to call an ambulance. Instead, she settled for petting her mother’s shoulder with the faintest touch. “It– It’s okay, Mom. I’ll throw away the papers. I… I won’t get a job.”

“Baby, you need to focus on school. You need to get a good job so you don’t end up like me,” she slurred, swallowing with extra force that made Max grab the trash can she had set up by her desk just in case.

“Mom, you’re not a bad person. I love you,” she muttered, caressing her mom’s hair.

“I love you so much, Maxie. I’ll stop drinking,” she sputtered, spit flying onto Max’s jeans. “I’ll use the money and you can go to a good college. You’ll go to Harvard.”

Max glanced at her unfinished homework. Her best shot was Indiana State.

“We should have never left California, baby. We were happy there, weren’t we?” her mother cried, curling up into a ball.

Max swallowed. “We’re not in California anymore, Mom. We’re in Hawkins.”

“It’s all my fault,” her mother sobbed, tears dotting the wooden floor, looping the conversation around. “I’m a bad person, Maxie. I’m so bad.”

Max breathed out a frustrated puff of air. She wasn’t supposed to be doing this. Her mom was supposed to be taking care of her, comforting her. Yet when her mother gagged on her vomit, she was there to pull her up and put her head by the trash can. Somehow, it sprayed all over the job applications, tarnishing them and ruining Max’s chances of getting a job. By the time her mother passed out on the floor, body sprawled out on Max’s rainbow rug, it was nine o’clock. Max had gotten up, cleaned up the vomit that had gotten all over the floor and in the ends of Max’s braid, and went to work on her science homework at her desk. Her mother’s words had rang true, despite their lack of soberness– if she didn’t want to end like her mother, she needed to go to a good college.

She glanced at the walkie-talkie Lucas had gotten her for last Christmas on the table. She could call Steve. He would take her to his house and buy her pizza and watch movies– like how a family was supposed to spend their night. But then she would look at her mother asleep on the floor. Max couldn’t leave her mother in the state she was in, intoxicated to a concerning level.

Her mother was broken, and so was Max, all taking place in their new home at 56 Forest Hills Trailer Park.

Chapter Text

Thursday, April 7, 1977

The beeps of the scanning machine quickly annoyed Will as he sat behind the counter, dragging his car against the tile. He loved to see the wheels hitch slightly in the cracks between each tile, slowly sanding down the grout. His mother stood next to him, scanning items for a customer at Melvald’s General Store.

“I can’t believe the elementary school let out early, and for what? I’ve got little Derek all alone at home because I couldn’t find a babysitter,” the lady exclaimed as his mom began to bag her items. “I don’t worry about him, though. He’s so independent– probably nose-deep in the television at this point.”

His mom let out one of those laughs that Will had learned to read well– I’m getting tired of this conversation but it’s rude to say that out loud– The lady was oblivious, continuing to go on and on about her family, much to both Will and his mom’s chagrin.

“Ya know, I asked Thaddeus to take a day off work. I mean, metal forging, that can wait a day, can’t it? But, I mean, men, always think they’re more important than their wives and children. Ya know, if we lived in a world where we didn’t have to marry men and could… marry competent people, ya know… the world would be a better place.”

His mom let out another chuckle. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

Will made a vroom sound as he drove his car on the floor again, looking up at the clock for what felt like the millionth time. Five fifty-five– five minutes until his mom’s shift was over. He couldn’t wait to tell Jonathan about what Mike had done at school, standing up to Troy and James when they were picking on him. Of course, his dad was a downside to home, but his mom and his brother made up for it.

“Joyce,” an old man boomed, his dress shoes clacking on the speckled tile. Peering up, Will could tell it was his mom’s boss, Mr. Melvald, or as he wanted Will to call him, just Don. “I’ll let you go a few minutes early. Good work today.”

“Thanks, Don,” his mom sighed, hanging her vest up on the hook by the cash register. Will noticed his mom looking down at him. She smiled and Will held up his car.

“This car goes really fast,” Will murmured.

His mom laughed. “I bet it does, baby. I have to grab my stuff from the back. Why don’t you look at the bulletin board for a moment while I go to the back?”

Will nodded, standing up from his place under the counter. She kissed him on the top of the head, his bowl cut shifting slightly as she moved it. Will giggled, moving his hair back to its original position. His mom smiled before walking to the back of the store where her purse was. Will moved over to the community bulletin board posted on the wall near the cereal aisle.

The bulletin board was a hodge-podge of Hawkins, from missing dog posters to help wanted ads. For the past couple of months, Jonathan had begun to scour the list for odd jobs, popping by every now and then and occasionally taking one of the flyers home. Whenever he did, his mom seemed to worry a little less about money. Standing on the tips of his toes, he looked at the pages held up by the sharp pushpins, digging into the corkboard.

It was the same thing as the last time– Twinkie was missing, there was a puppet show by the creep McCaffrey in the trailer park– and then Will saw it. An ad that piqued his interest. It was a black-and-white flyer, a silhouette of Shakespeare holding a skull in his arms. He was on a stage, surrounded by floppy curtains and thick print that read: Acting Lessons from Lindy Jenkins. 9874 Terrace Avenue, Jonesboro, Indiana, $10 a lesson. Call now!

Will remembered the time their school went to see a rendition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in second grade. Nobody understood what was going on, not even the teachers, but seeing the raw emotion on the actor’s face and their pure ambition for the art form enthralled him. This was his big chance. Grabbing the flyer, he ran to the back where his mom was walking through the paper aisle, and shoved it into her face.

“Mom! Mom, mom, mom! Please? Please? It’s only ten dollars a lesson!” Will exclaimed, his mom taking the poster and stretching it out, reading it over carefully.

“You’ve never talked about wanting to be an actor… like in movies? Because, Will, sweetie, I don’t know if we’ll have the time to put you in movies, sweetheart…” his mom murmured, tussling her hair.

“No! I want to do stage stuff, like Shakespeare.”

That made the wrinkles on her forehead disappear. Will didn’t understand why, but for some reason, stage acting seemed less stressful than appearing in commercial movies. “I’ll talk to your dad about it tonight, sweetie.”

Dinner had been one of his mother’s infamous casseroles– green beans and cheddar cheese, mixed with cream of mushroom and whatever meat was on sale at Bradley’s (beef). It tasted better than it looked, but Will could tell by the way his father’s shoulders were pinched and the way his scraggly beard looked unkempt that he was unhappy. Or drunk. Or both.

“Jon, how about I take you huntin’ this weekend? Kill some game for your mother to cook up instead of this god-awful casserole,” his dad blurted out, the stench of alcohol hot on his tongue.

Jonathan merely moved his casserole around. He was meek and quiet, lost in his stained plate. “I– I don’t know, Dad…”

His dad scoffed. “How’d I raise a couple of queers, eh? Why can’t you guys just be real men for once?”

Will’s stomach twisted, remembering the flyer. He silently scarfed down his casserole, ignoring any and all questions raised to him. Showing off his clean plate, he didn’t even ask to be excused. He set the plate in the sink and practically ran to his bedroom.

Two hours later, the nightly arguments began. No amount of comic books or mixtapes could hide the terrifying screams and bangs from his dad, and the feisty yet timid spirit of his mother.

“I’m not going to sign him up for fucking acting lessons, Joyce!” his dad spat. “Why can’t he just be a normal kid who likes baseball and fishing and all of that shit? Why does he have to be such a fag?”

Will hated hearing that word, his heart beating faster and the blood coursing quicker through his body. It was dirty, horrible, wretched– still politically correct for his drunken father to shout out in arguments.

“Will isn’t different, he just has other interests. And why shouldn’t we support them in that? You got Jonathan a camera for Christmas!”

Santa Claus had gotten Jonathan that camera.

His dad sputtered. “That’s different. Photography is dumb, acting is for queers. And I won’t have my son be one of them. Goddammit, Joyce!”

He heard the sound of something breaking, whether it was ceramic or glass Will couldn’t tell. “I’m signing him up for Little League tomorrow. Sometimes the only way to get the fag out of someone is to beat him out of it, Joyce.”

Will ducked his head in between his knees, tears spilling down the insides of his jeans.

____________________

Monday, September 16, 1985

Will sat in the front row of his French class, his foot tapping anxiously against the tile. Gripping the paper with the alphabet, he watched as Max, void of any confidence (and if Will looked hard enough, void of life) stumbled through her recitation of the French alphabet. Madame Littman sat on her desk, marking up a rubric with the dreaded red pen.

“Ess, te, oo, V (it was supposed to be vey), dooble vey, eeks, uh… Y– no, ee-greek… no, no, ee-grek, et zed,” Max stammered, looking down at her feet as the French teacher smacked her lips in dissatisfaction.

“Merci, Mademoiselle. Asseyez, s'il vous-plaît,” she groaned, waving her hand toward her seat and plucking out a gray hair from her growing scalp full of them as Max shuffled back to her seat. Will gave her a thumbs-up, but she ignored him, Will shoving his thumb back into his fist.

Will had decided to take French over Spanish for no particular reason. He had taken Spanish in middle school and he didn’t hate it. The teacher was alright, the lessons she provided were helpful enough to give him a passing grade. Maybe he thought the Spanish teachers sucked. Maybe he wanted to try something new. It didn’t matter much to him anymore. 

French was his most boring class, sucking up an hour and a half of his time every other day. He envied Mike and Dustin who had chosen Spanish with Señora Bonner, who let them watch movies and Spanish and made up fun games to teach them necessary grammar and vocabulary. In sharp contrast, Madame Littman was dry and unhelpful. With her nose always stuck in some book presumably written in French, she opted to pass out packets instead of physically teaching them about the vocabulary. Instead of flashcards, there were pop quizzes after pop quizzes, and this time around– an oral presentation of the alphabet.

Madame Littman clicked her tongue, pushed a stray of her mousy brown hair back into her failing bun, and pulled out another name out of the fishbowl, a small smile growing on her face. “Clayton.”

Will’s stomach turned, hearing the familiar screech of the metal chair against the tile, rumbling until the boy stood up. Will resisted the urge to turn around, Clayton’s black Reeboks slapping against the floor. Will tried his best to avoid eye contact as Clayton stood in front of the class, hands by his side.

Clayton Perry was the only freshman “geek” who had managed to surpass the label and become popular. He had acted in plays, musicals, and even did a state production of Oklahoma! when he was ten. Somehow, he had befriended the popular boys and despite his odd talents, people seemed to love him. It made sense to Will. He was gorgeous.

Standing in front of the class, Clayton had dirty blonde hair, coiffed into a sweeping poof at the top of his head, his hair beginning to snake into a mullet at the nape of his neck. He wore a blue sweater, a red and a yellow stripe emblazoned across his chest. Black slacks and blue Reeboks complimented the outfit, Clayton brushing his hair back as he read the French alphabet.

Clayton Perry was fashionable, popular, and Will was totally and utterly in love with him.

“Ah, beh, ce, deh, uh, eff, jay,” he began to recite, Will’s heart beating faster as he stared at his sweater, close enough to show Clayton he was paying attention but not close enough to his eyes. Will’s palms began to sweat with anxiety, and he rubbed them against his slacks discreetly. He pursed his lips, thinning them into a straight line, biting his lip for a moment against the hard enamel of his teeth. Running his finger across his lip, he could feel the slight indentation.

“Ahsh, ee, gee, kah, ell, emm, enn, oh, pay.” Will knew he should be listening to him recite the alphabet, comparing his memorization to Clayton’s flawless speech. But the only sound in Will’s head was the blood rushing throughout his body, his heart beating at the speed of light, accompanied by his dad’s– Lonnie’s – words, mean and vile. Fag. Queer. Gay. Sissy. Everything he swore to himself he would never become. Everything that he had ended up becoming.

“Qoo, arh, ess, te, oo, vey.” Will had the urge to strike his head– with the horrible bowl cut that he just couldn’t get rid of– with his palm and try to knock whatever curse– it wasn’t a disease, yet somehow it felt like it festered in him like one – was in him. Nobody in the middle of Indiana was going to accept him for being gay, let alone be gay themselves, let alone like him. Mike and El were together– a girl who had been in a lab for twelve years had found a boyfriend before he could – Lucas and Max, and now Dustin and Suzie. But there was Clayton, tall, blonde, handsome, and 100% straight.

“Dooble-vey, eeks, eh-grek, et zed,” Clayton finished anticlimactically, scattered applause littering through the classroom as bored teenagers waited for their names to be called.

Will turned away for a moment to the back of the classroom, trying to balance the number of times he clapped– enough to show support, not enough to show obsession– to look at Max. She was slumped in her seat, eyes cast downward, shadows covering her. She doodled on her hand with a pen, her desk obscuring to Will what she was drawing. Though he couldn’t see her eyes, something about her made her look emptier than when she had after the Starcourt Mall incident. 

Will could tell she had been trying to act normal at lunches, making witty remarks, but he could see right through her. He knew what it was like to be broken– both by the Upside Down and his brain. To feel like you didn’t deserve to be here. To feel like nobody would ever love you again.

If Will had been looking up front, he would have seen Clayton brush the edge of his table as he was walking by.

____________________

It had taken forever for the lunch bell to ring. The clock had taunted the class with its ticking, counting down second after second in what seemed to be a never-ending loop. Even by the time everybody had finished their presentations, they had to sit in awkward silence until the shrill bell rang throughout the school, nobody daring to interrupt Madame Littman’s reading time with unnecessary conversation.

When it had rung, Will had never seen people shoot up from their desks so quickly. Max had gotten up so quickly, her chair had fallen behind her, landing with an embarrassing clatter. Thankfully, everybody was so anxious to get out of the unwelcoming and stuffy classroom, that nobody heard her. Will waited for her at the threshold of the door so they could walk to lunch like they often did. This time, Max zoomed right by him.

“El needs help preparing for a mini-quiz in history. We’ll be in the library,” she grunted. “Oh, and she told me to tell you to tell Mike that she’ll be coming over after school to work on her thing for D&D.” Before Will could respond, Max jumped into the sea of traffic.

Will couldn’t get a word in before she disappeared, quietly clutching his lunchbox in one hand and joining the sea as well. Moving systematically, he looked around the halls mindlessly, trying to find one of his other friends. He spotted them halfway up the hall, too far away to try and push his way through when they were going to the same place.

He always loathed the walk to the cafeteria. Some people would call the hallways controlled chaos, but he preferred to shorten it to just chaos. Horny teenagers were making out in one corner, the bathrooms always smelled like weed (especially during lunchtime), and he was always slightly on edge, afraid of being slammed into a locker like he had when he was in sixth grade.

As Will shuffled to the cafeteria, a piece of paper caught his eye. It was taped to the wall amidst all of the other papers collected on the wall next to the cafeteria doors. It wasn’t uncommon to see colorful posters taped up, people desperate for their words to be out in the open. But the piece of paper was special for two reasons. One: it was for drama tryouts.

Two: Clayton’s name was written in his signature loopy handwriting right under it.

The paper was the largest one in the bunch of advertisements, lines littering the paper for names. The top of the paper read in thick, bold writing: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe– Sign Up Now! Written and directed by senior Julianna Garrett. Auditions 9/16 at 3:15 pm in B116 . He reread the names he had already subconsciously scanned over: Ava Bales, Sandy Olin, Clayton Perry .

Looking at the paper made Will travel back to when he was eight years old, staring at the flyer that had made him want to become a stage actor for the first time. The ambition no longer coursed through him the way that it had when he was eight, but there was some child-like curiosity flowing through him while he stood there.

He thought of his dad’s words that night. He remembered shoving himself against the side of his bed, turning his back away from the door. He stared at the beige wall in between the legs of the table that held his few accolades– a science fair second place ribbon, a first-place book reading award– his father’s words rattling the whole house.

“I’m not going to sign him up for fucking acting lessons, Joyce!” his dad spat. “Why can’t he just be a normal kid who likes baseball and fishing and all of that shit? Why does he have to be such a fag?”

His dad had been an asshole, always drunk and always pushing harmful masculine stereotypes that made Will feel like an alien in his own family. His dreams had been rebuked out of him the day they had entered. His hand trembled as he gripped the top of his pencil, hesitantly removing it from his pocket.

Will was no longer eight years old, easily influenced by his horrible father.

Will was no longer eleven years old, watching his mom break as she fought through a horrible divorce.

Will was no longer twelve years old, trapped in hell and wishing that he could feel his mother’s touch one more time.

Will was no longer thirteen years old, possessed and broken from the inside out, feeling like he would never be cured of something that had had a vice grip on him for the entirety of 1984.

Will was fourteen years old, with a family that was healing. No more Lonnie to insult him. No more Upside Down nonsense that left everybody more broken than they already were. Moving his pencil across the first empty line before he could regret it, he looked back at his own name etched on the sign-up sheet. Will Byers . He felt good, almost like he was committing some rebellious act. In a way, he was. A fuck you to Lonnie.

It wasn’t until a guy accidentally bumped into him as he was walking into the cafeteria that Will realized how long he had been standing there. His friends would be worried if he didn’t get to the lunch table soon. Entering the bustling cafeteria, he struggled to reorient as he saw his friends in their little corner. Striding toward them, Dustin rolled his eyes.

“Dude!” he immediately exclaimed before Will had a chance to sit down. “You just missed Eddie going on one of his rants about how phony the world was. He was yelling and screaming and he even punched Lucas in the shoulder. It was so cool!”

“For you,” Lucas interjected. “It’s going to be sore for days.”

Will shook his head as he opened his lunchbox. He didn’t have as many issues with food as El did, who seemed to have issues with everything as of late, so unlike a perfect bologna sandwich Will was stuck with yesterday’s leftovers packed in a Tupperware container: tuna salad. Grabbing the Cosmic brownie in the corner, he ripped into the packaging, trying to ignore the growing regret bubbling in his stomach as he forced himself to get through his meal. Signing up for drama club wasn’t a punishment , he told himself. You’re allowed to do things you like .

The next period, he told El that he would be walking home that day. He had other matters to tend to.

____________________

Thursday, September 19, 1985

With a Friday off for some teacher training assignment, Thursday was their last day of school for that week. The cast list had come out after school, theater geeks, drama nerds, and Will racing to B116 to find out their parts. His audition had gone alright– he had read a monologue the drama teacher selected out for everybody to read, and then read subsidiary scripts. Will had only had to read the first monologue, the drama teacher claiming, “I’ve seen enough. You’re free to go.”

Will would be lying if a part of him enjoyed the process. Acting was more intuitive for him than he thought, the words flowing off of the paper and out of his mouth more naturally than he anticipated. Lonnie’s words had been festering inside of him for the whole, mixed with nervous anticipation. Behind him, he could hear El scurrying, messing with her hair.

“What is a play?” she asked.

Will grumbled. El had so many questions and Will had only so much patience or answers. “It’s where people act.”

“Act?”

Will sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s like Miami Vice but on a stage.”

He took El’s silence as acceptance, turning out of the A hallway and into the hall toward the B section.

“What do you think you’re going to get?” El asked, adjusting the blue band on her wrist.

Will shrugged. “If I’m lucky, I’ll get an ensemble role. If I’m unlucky, I’ll get cut.”

“Cut?”

Will stifled a groan. It’s not her fault, it’s not her fault . “I won’t be in the play.”

The two walked in silence as a crowd of people flocked a piece of paper, groans and cheers seeming to come out of the same person.

“I can’t believe it! He’s a freshman. Who cares if he was on one tour of Oklahoma ?” one of the people exclaimed, storming out of the crowd and down the hall.

Will’s heart skipped a beat, knowing who they were talking about. Glancing over to El, he grabbed her shoulder. She had gone pale, eyes wide as she stared at the gaggle of hooligans. “Stay here. I’ll report to you in a second.”

Leaving her by the dance studio doors, Will approached the crowd that was slowly thinning. He rubbed his hands against each other, toes shaking inside of his shoes. He wished he had a bracelet like El did, something to take out his feelings on. He quietly pushed through the people until he got to the middle where the casting list was posted.

Up at the top, he saw Clayton’s name next to Mr. Beaver, one of the characters that Julianna said, “was the comedic relief of the whole show.” Will always saw Clayton more serious and earnest but he shrugged it off. He moved his eyes down the paper, reaching down to the bottom.

Will frowned. And then he smiled. Exiting before anybody could complain to them about their unfortunate position, he noticed El slumped against the wall. She was staring into space, her eyes glassy. Right as Will furrowed an eyebrow of concern, she locked eyes with him and immediately stood back up.

“Did you get it?” El asked, bouncing on the tips of her toes.

“I’ll tell you at dinner,” Will murmured, anxious to get back to the parking lot where they had inevitably kept Hopper waiting. He probably finished his cigarette by now .

When Hopper asked what kept them up, Will lied and said it was because their P.E. teacher wanted to see them about something. El had given him a confused look but said nothing as they drove back to their cramped house on Cornwallis Street.

“How are renovations?” El asked as they drove down the main street, some obscure Johnny Cash song crooning on the radio.

“Tomorrow, you and I are going to look at window installations,” Hopper said. “Will, you want to come along, bud?”

Caught off-guard, Will shook his head on instinct. “No, thanks.”

The rest of the car ride was silent as Hopper’s car parked into the Byer’s gravel driveway within minutes. El gave him a quiet but deadly stare as they hopped out of the car, one full of confusion and resentment. Will kept his distance from her until dinner, almost wishing he had changed his answer.

Will always saw Hopper as gruff and a little mean. He had had multiple encounters with him as a young child, often breaking up awful domestic disputes. The way he handled Lonnie was admirable– cuff him and keep him in the county jail for the night before inevitably releasing him. He often wondered why his mom wasn’t also arrested, since Jonathan said that often both parents were arrested, but now he knew that that was because he and his mother had a history. Even after Hopper had saved his life and been with him to countless doctor appointments, he had only seen him as rough around the edges.

But once Hopper and El had moved in post-Starcourt incident and began dating his mother, Will had seen a different side of him. From the get-go, he had seen the differences between Hopper and Lonnie. Hopper bought Joyce her favorite brand of cigarettes. He allowed El to practice painting his nails with the brightest pink Will had ever seen. He gave Will extra quarters to top off his arcade money and bought and developed Jonathan’s film whenever he was in “the area.” Over time, Will had grown an appreciation for the gentle giant, enough that he valued his opinion.

What would Hopper say about drama club?

In order to combat his nervousness (and confrontation) Will had completed all of his weekend homework in one sitting and helped El with her English homework. It was probably for the best, with Lucas’ cross-country meet and a lengthy art project he was working on taking his top priorities for the weekend. Will didn’t come out of his room until his mom returned with Chinese food for dinner, his palms sweating and his leg shaking.

Chinese food was something else Hopper had introduced to when he moved in. His mom didn’t make enough money to afford to eat out more than once a month, but with Hopper’s much more generous salary, they had been introduced to the wonders of takeout like Chinese. Eggrolls, spring rolls, tempura shrimp– the works.

Will always ordered black pepper chicken and fried rice and a chicken egg roll. His plate was distinct from the others– everybody else seemed to like spring rolls or cream cheese rangoons more. Grabbing his plate, he sat down at his designated spot, Jonathan and El on either side of him.

Slowly digging into his food, the sweet taste of preservatives hit as Hopper went on about some anecdote of some bogus call he had been sent on that day. Something about squirrels and some farms growing pumpkins or whatnot. Will couldn’t be bothered to listen, staring at his plate and pushing his food around it. He was trying to figure out what to say. Maybe he didn’t have to say anything at all, just drop off tickets and live at Mike’s house until college. He wouldn’t have to–

“Will, what’s going on, sweetie? Do you feel sick?” his mother suddenly asked, Will jerking his head up and nearly knocking over his glass of water.

“Uh– no, just… just thinking,” he murmured, taking a bite of his fried rice.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Hopper asked.

Will gulped, his leg almost shaking the table. “I tried out for the school play– The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe . I got an ensemble role.”

Across the table, Hopper smiled. “Good job, kid. I can’t wait to see the show.”

Chapter Text

Friday, August 14, 1981

Two months. Two months of Billy’s anger, Neil’s sly alcoholism and misogynistic comments, and Max’s acting out in school were all it took for Max’s mom. She had come to an epiphany, a breakthrough of sorts as they entered the door after their latest date, a haze in her mom’s eyes as she ran to her daughter who was watching a movie on the living room couch.

She had decided to accept Neil’s engagement. A small diamond ring slipped onto her ring finger, where her dad's wedding ring used to live.

“Isn’t it beautiful, Maxie?” Susan had boasted, kneeling on the floor as Neil peered over her with a smile that altered the shape of his mustache.

Max could only feign a smile, having quickly learned that in the Hargrove house if you didn’t pretend everything was alright you were as good as dead.“It looks beautiful, Mom.”

Now they were in a bridal shop, looking for flower girl dresses for Max. Even if it was a lost cause for her mother, Max was determined to make every moment of the outing hell on Earth. Not only did Max hate wearing dresses, she hated the upcoming marriage between her mother and Neil even more.

“Max, please, I’m begging you, just please try on the dress. It’s just for one day!” her mother begged, holding a glass of champagne the employees had mercifully given her. “I know that green isn’t your favorite color in the world, but these dresses look nice.”

Max sneered at the dresses, not because of their color. The only one that looked mildly appealing was the one that was lighter with a floral pattern. “I think they look weird.”

Her mother groaned, slapping the arm of the couch. “Damn it, Maxine! Just try on the damn dresses.”

Max froze, staring at her mother who looked equally as terrified. It was a terrible sign of the poison that was slowly infiltrating the family. Wordlessly, she grabbed the first dress on the rack, a dark green velvet dress with puffed shoulders and black ribbon every three inches on the sleeves and on the waist. Sliding the curtain that separated the dressing room from her mother, she begrudgingly took off her comfortable hoodie and jeans. The dress pinched her stomach and her chest in uncomfortable ways, Max quickly discerning that this dress was meant for a grownup. She shifted the dress around her, trying to find a more comfortable way for it to be worn, but quickly gave up and with irritation showed the dress to her mother.

The reaction was mutual between the two redheads. Her mother grimaced as Max shuffled in a circle to show the full dress. “I told them to pull anything in a child’s large. That’s clearly…”

Her mother got up and examined the itchy tag off of the back of the dress. “Oh, great, a size double-zero women’s. Because clearly, you’re a fully grown adult.”

Max thought of the perfect insult but decided to pocket it for later, instead grabbing the next dress on the hook: a bright chartreuse dress. The velvet was patterned into some sort of ancient curly doily-like pattern. There was a bow that started at the scapulas and extended down to the bottom of the dress, hiding any sort of figure Max had. The only thing Max liked about it was how it sat on her bony shoulders, the way it accentuated her collarbone. As she slid back the curtain, she was certain her mother would share the same reaction.

When she stepped into the light, her mother gasped as if she had just won the lottery. “Oh my God, Max, it’s beautiful!”

Max frowned. “I don’t like the shape.”

Her mother stood up and guided her to the mirror on the side of the room, Max watching as she moved behind her and rubbed her shoulders, the chartreuse dress ruffling. “This. This is what I always imagined for you, Max. A beautiful dress to wear on a beautiful day.”

Max rolled her eyes. “Could I wear a different beautiful dress? The color doesn’t even match the frosting on your wedding cake. It’s too bright.”

Her mother pursed her lips. It was clear she was disappointed, and Max immediately regretted showing her discontentment. “Try the next one on, please.”

The next dress was her favorite. It wasn’t sharp or blinding like the other dresses. It was a soft, simple sage green with pink flowers dotting the dress. Dark green leaves stood out against the light canvas, a modest neckline with lace and short sleeves hemmed at just the right angle– it was perfect. As Max stood in front of her mirror, she couldn’t help but let out a small giggle. If she had to wear a dress, it would be this one.

Max even managed to squeak out, “This dress is cute!” to sell it even more. Unfortunately, her mother was not impressed.

“It looks like a nightgown, Max. I can buy it for you for another special occasion, but if we’re talking about a wedding… I’m not sure this is it, baby,” she groaned, Max’s confidence deflating.

“But this is the only one that I like. That other one was awful,” she whined.

“I know it’s not your favorite, Maxie, but it’s only one day. Please make your mommy happy for this one, okay? I’ll get you ice cream if you let me buy the dress,” her mother offered, Max raising an eyebrow.

She knew a cheap bribe when she saw one.

“Double scoop, waffle cone, rainbow sprinkles,” she negotiated, knowing that her mother wouldn’t dare to let her consume that much sugar.

“Deal.”

Max stood there off-guard for a second. She glanced back at the dress, realizing that to her mom the dress meant more than just a dress to her. Perhaps she could appease her on this one tiny detail of the wedding that she was beginning to loathe every day it came creeping closer.

____________________

Saturday, September 28, 1985

Max couldn’t stay in her room all day like she had been for weeks. When she wasn’t in school or at Family Video (those meetings were decreasing), she was in her room. She had grown to enjoy the feeling of her broom closet of a room, the way it made her occasionally panicky from the claustrophobia. It made her feel something, like she was still a human. Still alive. But sometimes locking herself in a broom closet wasn’t enough to make her feel like a human. When those times arose, Max turned to El.

El and Max were two shades of the same color– one cerulean like the waves and the other navy like the confines of a dark room. They understood each other more than anybody else they knew, not because they were both girls, but because they both had to deal with hardship. If any person in Hawkins could make Max feel better (next to Lucas), it would be El.

Something on the calendar had been popping out at Max for a while– homecoming. Max had always wanted to go to homecoming ever since Lucas and she had become an item. To be able to put on a pretty dress (yes, a dress. Max had come to learn that she hadn’t hated dresses as much as she thought), makeup, dance, and drink punch from a most likely spiked punch bowl. And what better excuse to get out of the house than go dress shopping with your best friend?

El was never one for spontaneous plans, but Max knew that she would always concede to her plans. Taking her skateboard, she pocketed the twenty-dollar bill she found in the courtyard of Hawkins High– call it divine intervention– and quietly slipped out of her house so she wouldn’t disrupt her hungover mother sleeping off the alcohol in her bedroom. Grabbing the skateboard that rested on the steps before her house, she quickly gained momentum from the hill that was the road outside of her house and began her trek to her house.

El’s house wasn’t far away, much closer than when Max used to live on Cherry Lane. She had to get on two-lane roads without a sidewalk to get there, but as long as there was a shoulder at least a foot thick, Max could make do. Keeping her head focused on the excitement of seeing El again, it took all of five minutes until she approached the Byers’ house. She was relieved when she saw Joyce’s car outside. El always needed a chaperone if she wasn’t going to school or with at least two of her friends (Max thought the rules were dumb, but after the Starcout incident, she had decided to follow them begrudgingly). Before Max could even knock on the door, El came running out with a grin that was all teeth and gums.

“Max!” she exclaimed, enveloping the redhead in a hug.

El’s hugs always felt sweet, like there wasn’t a bad bone in her body. Pulling away a few seconds later, El immediately jumped into questions. “Why did you come here? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“Did you wanna go dress shopping at the thrift store for homecoming dresses or something? It’s a couple of weeks away. If we don’t go soon then all of the good shit will be taken,” Max asked, thumbing the dollar bill in her pocket.

El’s eyes lit up and she immediately ran back into the house. Max stood there in the driveway for an uncomfortably long amount of time, waiting and waiting, the sun beating down on her.

She tried to bask in it, knowing that it wouldn’t be long until Hawkins would become a snowy desert. When the door opened again, El and Joyce popped out.

“Joyce will take us. The rules,” El murmured, Joyce walking behind her slowly.

“Hi, sweetie,” Joyce exclaimed, her awkward smile making Max give one of her own.

Max had noticed Joyce’s watchful eye after the Starcourt incident, even if inside they both knew that her quiet pestering wouldn’t help Max in any way. The extra chip she slipped Max when the boys came over for snacks, the silent check-ups during another horrific movie night, and often inviting Max to outings with El, similar to dress shopping. Loading up in Joyce’s Pinto (which she was talking about potentially trading in for a better one), Max felt a bit of excitement for the first time in a while.

The thrift shop was a bit out of reach, but not by much. It was in Jonesboro, about twenty minutes away. Max and El had come to know thrift shops like the back of their hand since Max wasn’t rich and Hopper didn’t know the slightest about fashion. With twenty-dollar bills in their pockets and Joyce quietly following them in case some government official decided to follow them into the local Goodwill, they immediately ran to the dresses.

“Don’t get a normal dress that you would wear to school. School dances require fancy dresses,” Max told El, stressing the fancy.

“I went to the Snow Ball, Max. I read your magazines, too,” El reminded her. “I don’t want super fancy. And, I don’t know what Mike will wear.”

Max shrugged. “He’ll wear a generic suit and probably buy a tie that will match your dress. He can adapt more than you can.”

Truth be told, Max was not impressed by the dresses. Most were casual sundresses that wouldn’t hold much merit at a high school dance. Any suitable dresses were either pink and frilly or some awful color that made Max want to vomit, especially one chartreuse Max swore came right out of Neil and her mother’s wedding. The one next to it, however, was a beautiful red dress that Max practically tore off of the rack. Checking the size (medium) and the price ($5), Max held it up against her in the mirror and smiled. This was the one.

It was much gaudier than Max would normally go for, but something about it drew Max in. It was bright red with a long lace bodice and an unusually short satin skirt that fell just at her knees. There were roses above the armpits extending to puffs sewn onto the shoulders. The only issue for Max was a small hole in the long lace sleeves, something that nobody would notice. It was perfect for Max, immediately imagining the bright red lipstick she would wear and the way she would borrow her mother’s hair curler to tame her frizz. For the first time, she had something to look forward to.

From behind the mirror, she could see El running toward her with another dress in hand, an infectious grin on her face.

____________________

“And then I just… push?” El asked, her arms stiffly outstretched.

Max nodded from the curb, tying her ratty shoelaces. “Yup. Just take your dominant foot and push off of the ground.” Before El could interject, Max added, “Your dominant foot is your right foot.”

El smirked, “I knew that,” before hiding her chuckle with her sleeve. 

Max watched as El was balanced precariously on Max’s skateboard, knees wobbling back and forth as she took a hesitant push, moving less than a foot before slapping her foot back on the street. She let out a squeal, panting as she stopped the skateboard with the other foot.

“You did it, you just need more confidence. Try to go ten feet,” Max said, playing with the braids that El had insisted she try on Max.

El groaned and stomped her foot against the ground defiantly before biting her lip and squaring her shoulders. Max sighed, realizing that El was trying too hard to skateboard, the relaxing element of the sport taken out of the equation.

Max had noticed that ever since high school had begun, El had rapidly tried to fit in. She had stopped wearing her brother’s flannels (which she thought looked “bitchin’” on her) and began to wear more of her remaining Starcourt clothes mixed with girly clothes from the thrift store. Gone were the brown and yellow plaid, replaced with neon sweaters and acid-wash jeans. Max thought of it as slightly disingenuous to El’s true reserved fashion, but considering Max dressed like a slob, she didn’t have much of an opinion of the matter. Around Max, however, El seemed comfortable enough to wear one of the flannels she still kept in the back of her closet. 

The flannel blew in the wind as El stammered on the skateboard before gaining enough courage to push off. The speed was slow, and the skateboard wobbled as Max watched El skate across the road. Jumping off of the skateboard before it flipped from the ramped curb, Max leaped from the curb, racing to grab her skateboard.

“That was it! It wasn’t so bad, was it?” Max asked with a smirk, El bashfully smiling as she shook her head.

“Skateboarding is scary, though. My feet are not on the ground,” El said, blowing some of her hair that had gotten in her face. Max noticed that her natural highlights had faded as the September season grew further, turning into a dull amber.

Max laughed. “That’s the joy in it– the adrenaline.”

El stopped laughing and stared at Max as if she was an alien. “Adrenaline?”

“You know that feeling when your body tingles after something surprising happens? Your brain sends signals to make adrenaline in case you have to run.”

The laughter died out as Max tapped the bottom of her skateboard on the ground as they stood in the middle of the street. Staring up into the sky, Max noticed that the bright sun had dimmed to the color of a yellow lollipop, with orange rings surrounding it.

“Hopper always loves sunsets. He says they’re better than sunrises because you don’t have to wake up early to see them,” El commented. “I like them, too.”

“I think everybody does. But in California the sunrises were much better than the sunsets, especially when you watched from the beach,” Max described, El taking in a deep inhale.

“Joyce says that Jonathan and her will go to Chicago for a senior trip after he grad-u-ates. We should go to California when we grad-u-ate,” El sighed.

Max smiled at the idea of going back to California before remembering how much money it took to travel to California. “Yeah, maybe. If you could go to any state, which one would it be?”

“Florida. Hopper says it has Disney World. I like Disney movies. Will showed me Cinderella the other week. I want to be Cinderella.”

“But your hair is brown. What about Snow White? You’re already good at living in the woods with a grumpy old man.”

El laughed. “I do not know how to make pies. And Hopper fixed the windows of our cabin, but I do not think we will live there again. He’s happy with Joyce.”

Max shoved her free hand in the pocket of her hoodie. She knew what it was like to be jerked out of one home and be forced into another without any warning. Silently glancing back at the sun, Max noticed that the yellow lollipop had begun to fade, purple and pink littering the sky. Soon, the street lights would be on and El would be called in for dinner.

“Joyce is making another bad casserole,” El sighed. “I can tell because Hopper has that sad look on his face. He says we cannot make her feel bad, but I don’t like it. Jonathan and Will like it, though.”

Max remembered all of the times her mother would make something for dinner that she would like, that Neil and Billy would end up hating, another reminder of their differences. “Sometimes, families have different tastes. It’s just the way it ends up. At least she keeps Eggos in her house. Joyce is not a fan of name brands.”

“Hopper buys them so she doesn’t have to. Hopper says that Eggos are more expensive than normal waffles, but he knows I, ‘live on them,’” El exaggerated, using air quotes to make her point.

Max wondered how she had learned air quotations. Before she could even think, Max blurted out, “You can sleep over at my place. Mom will let us order pizza.”

El stared at her with an immediate smile. “I will ask Joyce. Stay here.”

Max felt her stomach drop to the ground as El ran inside, nearly slamming the door behind her. What would El think of her new house? Would she comment on the beer cans inevitably scattered around? Would she tell Hopper, who would most likely call CPS? Max began to regret her decision, but by the time she tried to come up with an excuse, El came running out with a duffel bag full of her items. There was no turning back now.

____________________

El had taken the trailer park surprisingly well, at least to Max. The two of them had set off on the mile walk, Hopper claiming that it was too late for any government official that was still on her trail to capture El, let alone with a friend. El had stayed quiet when they took the wrong turn off of Cornwallis, turning left onto Kerley instead of Mulberry where they normally turned whenever going to Max’s house. Max was on edge the whole time, keeping quiet as El blabbered on about something she had seen in a magazine.

“Mike said that Ralph Macchio was dumb and that he is too old, but I do not think so. I think he looks young…” El droned, swinging her arms wide as the duffel bag bumped against her hip.

Suddenly, she stopped out of the corner of Max’s eye as they approached the trailer park. “Why are we at Eddie’s house?”

“I live here now. With Neil gone, did you expect that we would be able to keep our old house?” Max scoffed, fully aware that El didn’t have the slightest idea about mortgages and buying houses.

El shrugged. “They look nice. Hopper told me he used to live in a trailer. I went there once when he first found me. It was dirty and had beer and pills.”

That’s how the inside of our trailer looks now… Swinging the gate into the trailer park open, they passed the bus stop and the weird playground that hadn’t been maintained for what felt like decades. Max noticed that El seemed more excited than she expected as if she were waiting in anticipation. There’s nothing much to anticipate: a drunk mother, a horrible stench of alcohol, greasy leftovers, and The Jungle Book rented from Family Video…

56 Forest Hills Trailer Park was towards the end of the long stretch of dusty road, Max and El playing soccer with some stray pebbles. By the time they arrived at Max's front doorstep, the sun had gone down, clouds covering up the twinkling stars. Opening the door, Max braced herself for the disgusting appearance of her trailer. Peeking inside, Max couldn’t have been more blown away.

The house was clean. No beer bottles, no dirty napkins… a normal-looking house. She stepped in and noticed her mother wasn’t passed out on the couch. “Mom?” she called out, only to be met with silence.

El glanced around, taking in her surroundings before pointing at a note. She squinted at the loopy handwriting, Max crossing the counter to look at the note as El read it out loud. “Dear Max, Picked up a shift at the diner. Will be home tomorrow morning. Here’s money for pizza. Sho-sho, Mom.”

“It’s XOXO, not ‘sho-sho’. It means hugs and kisses,” Max corrected before sighing loudly. “Put your shoes by the door. Duffel bag on the couch. I’m calling for pizza. Pineapple okay?”

El scrunched up her nose. “Hopper says pineapple is a sin to put on pizza.”

Max chuckled. “Those cigarettes your dad smokes are a sin. They almost made me asthmatic the last time I was over. Give it a try.”

A sudden slogan from her California days came back to her. “Try before you deny.”

El laughed through her nose, rolling her eyes. “I’ll try it. Put it on half in case I don’t like it.”

Against logic, the pizza place was somehow never busy on Saturday nights in Hawkins– Max assumed everybody got pizza on Fridays, leaving the pizza place high and dry the next day. With an estimated time of twenty minutes, Max decided to bring out her “sleepover kit” from her room– mainly nail polish and magazines. When she brought out the plastic tub, El’s eyes lit up from her spot on the couch.

“Give me the light pink one,” El begged, Max furrowing an eyebrow.

“You normally go magenta or black. I have them if you want.”

El shook her head, insistent. “This girl, Reagan, has light pink nail polish. She is popular.”

Max shook her head in turn, shaking the nail polish by beating it against her palm as she walked over to the couch. “I don’t see the appeal of fitting in. They’re all superficial– it means not important past the surface– and fake. Popularity isn’t important past high school.”

“I do not want to be popular. Dustin and Lucas and Mike and you and Will are not popular. I want to fit in,” El explained, holding out her hand, nails bitten down to the quick, all short, and stubby to the point of concern.

Max understood completely, but she merely shrugged. “Sometimes it’s okay not to fit in.”

El pursed her lips into a thin line, Max carefully spreading the polish against her nail. It was meditating in a way, painting each other’s nails. After the Starcourt incident, Max had come over to El’s house as much as she could, often bringing nail polish in order to distract themselves. It painted over their grief and anger and allowed for something positive to come out of their processing.

The light pink looked better on El than Max cared to admit, complimenting her dark pink sweater. Max could tell by the way she looked at the nails that the color was unfamiliar, off-putting even. Max saw how she repressed it, swallowing hard and digging around for a nail polish color.

“Something dark,” Max said, the input enough for El to quickly pull out a maroon color.

“You haven’t used this color in an age,” El exclaimed, shaking the polish just like Max had taught her.

“It’s ages… I haven’t used this color in ages.”

“You haven’t used this color in ages,” she corrected, holding her chin up high as she squinted at Max’s nails. “They have gotten healthy. And strong.”

“It’s hard not to pick at the dirt under my nails,” Max said. “But there’s less dirt in them now that we’re not hanging around the woods all day.”

“I bite my nails more in school than I did out of school. I try but it’s hard not to.”

Max stuck out her tongue examining El’s precise work. Max always admired El’s steady hands when painting nail polish. The two settled into a comfortable silence, one that they often lulled into as they painted each other’s nails. It made the time pass like both quicksand and like rapid waters, the perfect medium.

By the time the pizza came, Max’s nails had been painted a deep red. Like the blood flowing out of Billy… She remembered why she had stayed away from the color.

Chapter Text

Sunday, July 20, 1980

July in Delaware was always bustling with people, especially where Dustin lived. The boardwalk was filled with tourists who naïvely fed the seagulls their ice cream and funnel cakes, the menacing white birds growing aggressively hungry whenever they saw food being dropped onto the boardwalk. Hermit crabs crawled in mesh cages held together by nothing except wood and God themself, crawling around in colorful shells, most of them clinging to the mesh with fear. The murky water wasn’t clean but still magical in its own right, with colorful shells hiding at the bottom for kids to find while their parents tanned on towels and chairs on the sand.

Dustin and his father walked to the boardwalk as they did every Sunday, the repetitive sounds of the Rehoboth Beach waves ringing in their ears His dad, leading the way with his large and slightly pudgy build, a remnant of his football days, led Dustin to the boardwalk, Dustin feeling the nails under his sandals.

“Whaddya say, bud? Small, medium, or large?” his father asked, turning around with a smile on his face.

Dustin grinned, all gums and next to no teeth. “Large!”

His father laughed, ruffling Dustin’s curly hair. “That’s my boy. Find us a bench, will ya?”

As Dustin’s father went to join the growing line of tourists lining up to get the classic fries, Dustin snagged a seat facing the beach right as an elderly couple left with an empty cup that was once filled with vanilla ice cream covered in chocolate sprinkles. For a minute, he allowed himself to bask in the coastal aura, hearing the birds squawk and the waves dance. He tried to capture it all at the same time, trying to grasp onto every sensation. It didn’t take long for the smell of peanut oil and grease to welcomely invade his meditation, the thick bench barely making a sound as his father sat down, a bucket larger than his dad’s face sitting proudly in his lap.

“Dig in, compadre,” his father invited, Dustin immediately grabbing a fistful of fries eagerly. “It looks nice today, doesn’t it?”

Dustin kicked his legs before criss-crossing them, nodding. “I don’t want to go home. I just want to stay here forever.”

His father sighed. “I know you don’t want to leave Delaware, kiddo. Hawkins isn’t as attractive in comparison, I guess. No beach, no Dolly’s taffy, no Funland. I remember having great days just playing in the woods as a kid with my friends. It’s where you and your mother met, too. It’s full of small treasures.”

Dustin scoffed. “I don’t understand the woods. You can just stay inside and play video games and Dungeons and Dragons. Nobody in Indiana will like Dungeons and Dragons, Dad! Why can’t I stay here with you?”

“Well, for one, the judge ordered you to stay with your mother when she moves back. And I’ll be coming down from time to time when I get enough time off of work and Thanksgiving and Easter. Don’t forget, you’ll be coming back up for Christmas and a couple of weeks in the summer.”

Dustin shoved his face full of fries. “I don’t understand why you and Mom couldn’t just stay together if you’ll be coming to Indiana all of the time.”

His father ran his fingers through his long hair, scratching his beard that nearly touched the fries in length. “That’s just how life is, Dustin. We’ve talked about this a ton. I love your mother and I love you. The bond is always there. But sometimes it just doesn’t work out.”

His father paused to chew his fries. “Instead of talking about the things we can’t control, though, why don’t we talk about something else, like our Grotto’s trip tomorrow? Have you thought about the pizza you’re going to get? Or the gelato?”

Dustin shook his head. “All I know is that I’m staying away from the olives.”

“I told you they wouldn’t be good, son.”

“Will there be pizza like Grotto’s in Indiana?”

“In Indiana? No shot. But, I’m sure you’ll be able to find something even more special about Indiana. People are strange creatures, Dustin. We adapt and change. It’s something unique to us humans. You don’t see penguins adapt to rainforests or camels adapt to seas. Yet when presented, we learn to swing with the monkeys and swim with the fish. We will always find a way to heal and grow, even when we don’t want to.”

Dustin stared off into silence. “Indiana will never beat Delaware, though.”

His father laughed. “I agree. But there will be ways that Indiana will beat Delaware just as there will be ways that Delaware will beat Indiana.”

“When you come up, will you bring Thrasher’s?”

“Son, the fries will be cold by the time I bring them up.”

“Mom said that when we get to Indiana, she’s gonna invest in a toaster oven.”

His father raised his eyebrows, slowly nodding. “Maybe I’ll bring a small bucket, then. I don’t know if your mother would be happy if I brought such a large bucket like today.”

Suddenly, Indiana didn’t sound so bad to Dustin with the promise of Thrasher’s fries at Thanksgiving. His father sighed abruptly, reaching around Dustin to pat him on the shoulder, bringing him in closely. “You know, son, you’re going to have to be the man of the house. You’re going to have to help her out whenever she gets overwhelmed or scared. It may be a little worse in Indiana than it is here. You’re gonna have to be her rock.”

Dustin stayed silent. His mother had always been a little antsy, always insisting on being on time, always worried about every natural disaster that had come their way. Even amidst the divorce proceedings, his father had helped her. Suddenly, he heard a shrill jingle bouncing up and down. Looking at his dad, he smiled at the sight of shiny silver quarters perfectly sealed within a plastic bag pinched between his dad’s fingers.

“Ready for Funland?”

____________________

Sunday, September 29, 1985

Lazy Sundays were supreme in Dustin’s opinion. When there was no homework to do, no monsters to fight, no ear infections to nurse. They were rare, especially with the influx of homework ninth grade had brought to him, but when they did occur there was no better place to spend it than Family Video.

Family Video brought the similar vibes that Dustin had felt at Scoops Ahoy!-- mainly because Steve and Robin worked behind the counter, acting as one as they checked back in, rewound, and shelved books. Sunday and Monday were their slowest days, so it wasn’t uncommon for Dustin to chill behind the counter, either reading a book he rented out from the library across the street or helping rewind movies for free (though Steve would often pass him a five-dollar bill under the table for his work).

It was overcast and slightly windy outside, the trees that were planted on the sides of sidewalks swaying, broken leaves often being blown away by the wind. Dustin was shacked up in the back, his eyes focused on I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. It was one of his favorite science fiction novels; or rather a collection of short stories. He had expected Steve to give him shit about it, but he quickly learned that as long as he was quiet and didn’t bore Steve to death with his zealous and niche monologues, Steve wouldn’t lovingly mock him.

“That will be two dollars, ma’am,” Steve said, quickly followed by the sound of the cash register dinging open and a sigh. “I understand it was a dollar seventy-five last time, but that’s because we were doing a sale.”

Dustin closed his book, hooking his thumb as a bookmark and looking up curiously. “Are you swindling me, young man? I know your mother.”

Steve shook his head, chuckling charismatically. “No, ma’am, I’m not swindling you. Robin, how much is this movie?”

Robin stuck her head up from her station at the computer. “Huh? Oh… two bucks, I think. Just came off sale, right?”

Dustin smirked as the lady pursed her lips with a grumble, mumbling under her breath as she haphazardly tossed two bills on the counter. Dustin saw Steve tense his shoulders, his back muscles nearly visible through his polo shirt and vest as he attempted to maintain a positive attitude.

“Thank you, ma’am. Have a good day, all right?” he called out, the lady leaving silently as the bell rang behind her. 

The second the door closed, Steve stuck out the middle finger, turning to Dustin. “What an asshole. I can’t believe she thought I was gypping her.”

“Ladies care about their movies. Not much else to do when their husband is tired from work,” Robin shrugged, miming a glass of wine as she continued to catalog movies. “Dustin, how’s Back to the Future going?”

Dustin shrugged, sticking his nose back into his book. “Fine, I guess. Better than when we watched it before.”

Steve laughed. He was the only person who had gotten past the events of Starcourt enough to laugh about it. “It’s a lot crazier when you’re on commie drugs, I tell you.”

The bell rang and Steve was quickly silenced, putting on his signature charm for the customers, the one old grandmas and young teens alike fell for every time. With Steve now away from the counter, Dustin was able to concentrate. Unfortunately, it didn’t take Robin long to shake the bucket underneath, void of any movies to check in, meaning that it was her time to blabber.

“I don’t understand what the hype is about reading. Whenever I read, the words are like ants– they scatter all along the page,” Robin sighed, running a hand through the hair she had promised she would cut a month ago, reaching just past her shoulders.

Dustin looked up from his book. “What’s not to like about reading? It’s like you get transported to another dimension. This one’s all about this doctor, Susan Calvin, trying to figure out the interactions between robots and humans. It was written in the 1950s, too, so it’s pretty futuristic.”

“I wonder if people thought we would have robot assistants by now,” Robin mumbled. “Want to help me put back some movies?”

Dustin figured he didn’t have anything better to do, so he set his book on his chair, standing up with a groan as his knees popped. He was too young to have these issues, yet they seemed to afflict him anyway. Grabbing a handful of movies, he quietly made his way through the shelves. He was sure he would make a great summer employee if he wasn’t going to Camp Know Where to reunite with Suzie. Ever since Dustin had connected Cerebro to the radios, he could radio Suzie in the comfort of his own house. Thinking about her made his heart melt.

“Henderson, head out of the clouds!” Steve suddenly snapped, Dustin noticing him standing at the end of the shelves. “Or else I’m going to kick you out for loitering.”

Dustin squinted his eyes and turned the corners of his lips upwards ever so slightly, quirking his eyebrow and flipping him the bird. Steve sighed as he walked back to the counter. “That Munson freak’s gotten to you, Henderson.”

Dustin grumbled as he put away the last of his movies. Eddie Munson was labeled as the freak by everybody else, and “King Steve” hadn't gotten rid of that stereotype even though he’d already graduated high school. It didn’t matter to Dustin all that much. He never cared about popularity like Steve did.

After putting away the movies, he went back to his little station behind the counter, hoping for some peace to finish up his book. He only managed to read three sentences before he heard the jingling of keys, noticing Steve’s shoe out of the corner of his eye. It was enough for his growing concentration to be broken, snapping his head up.

“Alright, Henderson, enough reading. We’re going to lunch. Rob, are you alright to manage the store while I go on thirty?” Steve asked out loud, the deserted store quiet enough for Steve’s voice to nearly echo off of the walls.

“Yeah. I’ll go when you get back,” she exclaimed, Dustin grabbing his book and his walkie-talkie, keeping the foldable chair he brought behind the counter.

“Where are we going?” Dustin asked, adjusting the brim of his counter.

Steve shrugged. “Kammy’s?”

____________________

Kammy’s Kafe was the only diner left in the immediate area, out on the outskirts of Jonesboro and Hawkins. It had seen a huge uptake in business in recent years after Benny had been shot dead by the government, his once beloved restaurant turning into a dumpy hangout for the popular boys to get drunk in. 

It was a small restaurant, a hole-in-the-wall. The owner, Kammy, was in her 50s, still alive and kicking. She often worked the register, her husband cooking the meals. It was a popular place for felons to get back on their feet, often working as dishwashers, waiters, and busboys. To Dustin and Steve, it was a perfectly acceptable place to grab a cheap meal. The staff had grown acquainted with the two and their frequent stops at the cafe for lunch on Sundays.

“Hey, boys. Table for two?” Kammy asked, holding two paper menus and a few sets of utensils in her hands.

Steve gave a slow nod, hands in his pockets. Kammy led them to a booth in the corner. The red leather was beginning to fray on the edges, Dustin and Steve sliding on either side of the booth. An old-time jukebox, defunct and yellowed, sat on the end of the table against the menu. Dustin fiddled with the buttons as Steve lazily scanned the menu.

“Homecoming’s coming up, right?” Steve asked, his eyes settling on something on the menu.

“What?” Dustin asked. “Oh… yeah, I guess it is.”

“Do you have a date? Or are you still holding out on Suzie flying to Hawkins?”

Dustin rolled his eyes. “Remember that her parents don’t know about me, dipshit. She’s Mormon, I’m agnostic. Well, she’s going to leave the church after high school to be with me anyway. I have a date, though. I had to run it by Suzie first.”

Steve raised his eyebrows, setting down his menu. “Who is it?”

“Melody Perkins. She’s a sophomore on the cheerleading team and in the Science Olympiad.”

Steve began to laugh, leaning forward. “You mean Carol Perkins’ sister? God, I didn’t realize you were into such bad girls, Henderson.”

The color from Dustin’s face drained as a pit nestled in his stomach, his eyebrows furrowing. “She came onto me! I’m already taken. Plus, she can’t be as bad as Carol. She’s in the Science Olympiad. Straight As and everything.”

Steve shrugged. “Not the worst date. Sophomore year I went with Allison Beckett. She got pregnant by James Decker and they ran off to New York by the end of that year.”

“Jesus,” Dustin murmured, scanning the menu before landing on the thing that he always got when he was here.

“High school’s wild. I guess Melody Perkins isn’t too bad. What did Suzie think of it?”

Dustin shrugged. “She understood. I promised her that we weren’t doing anything romantic and that we were going as friends. She just made me promise that I would send her another baseball cap.”

“Yeah, like you’re not going to do anything romantic with a girl a year older than you. Get your head in the game, Henderson.”

“Well, I’m not an opportunistic playboy like you. I’m a committed man.”

The waiter, a guy named Richard, took their orders: a BLT with fries for Dustin and a hot ham and cheese with fries for Steve. There was only one other customer, an old man who seemed to come after church to get pancakes and talk with Kammy, so Dustin knew it wouldn’t be long.

“Did I tell you Robin and I are applying to Roane County Community College?” Steve asked.

“Wow. Are you seeking higher education? Impossible,” Dustin quipped, Steve reaching across the table to swat him against the arm.

“Dipshit,” he muttered under his breath. “It’s the only way to get into Indiana State without outright applying.”

Dustin was intrigued. He never took Steve as one that had ambitions or was going to amount more than a Family Video employee in his hometown, spending his parent’s wealth while being a damn good babysitter in the process. Before he could make any comment, witty or genuine, the sandwiches came out piping out, pressed straight from the grill.

For a second, Steve transformed from himself into his dad. Eating fries on a Sunday, this time accompanied by sandwiches in a diner. He nearly smelled the sea breeze, the seagulls echoing with squawks in the distance. He was back in Wilmington, the fries in front of him having the signature peanut taste that Thrasher’s had. When he turned back to Steve, the vision was lost, the reality of living in Hawkins, Indiana flooding back to him. It didn’t hurt as much as it did when he was a kid.

“What are you going to major in?” Dustin asked, chomping on the toasted bread and brittle bacon.

Steve shrugged, chewing his ham and cheese sandwich voraciously. “Probably something stupid, like philosophy or religion. Maybe general studies.”

“Philosophy and religion aren’t stupid subjects! They’re noble topics that have carried through society for thousands of years.”

“Says the agnostic.”

“Being agnostic doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate religion. My dad used to study all of the religious books available. I just don’t believe in its literal existence. Anyway, you ? Studying religion? You could barely stand Animal Farm senior year, let alone analyzing ancient religious texts with a billion deeper meanings with tons of scientific contradictions.”

Steve jokingly sneered at the boy, biting the corner of his sandwich with a crunch. Compared to Steve, Dustin was a fast eater, shoveling the fries in his mouth as if he had never eaten a meal in his life. He always blamed it on his dad, who had always been a fast eater. Just an old family habit.

Steve glanced at his watch, motioning for Richard to bring over the check. His plate was half-finished, but Dustin always knew Steve was more peckish than most. “We should head out. My break ends in ten minutes.”

“Thanks for the lunch,” Dustin said, taking the final bite of his lunch.

“Don’t mention it.”

____________________

Dustin had left Family Video at three o’clock. He was very mindful of the time, especially since his mother would freak out if wasn’t home at exactly seven o’clock. With another stop to make, he couldn’t stay all day at Family Video like he normally did. Biking to Forest Hills Trailer Park, he coughed as the dust from the road kicked up into his lungs. Making a sharp right onto a worn driveway created by the tough treads of a truck, he set his bike near the porch, ran up the stairs, and eagerly knocked on the door.

He heard rustling inside and a sharp cough before harsh footsteps pounded on the door. With a shrill creak, the knob turned and the door opened, a man with a mullet for days and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth in the threshold.

“Henderson!” Eddie Munson smiled, blowing the cigarette smoke in his face. “How do you do, my liege?”

Dustin smiled, his new braces gleaming against the sun. He had asked for black and red bands to match the Hellfire colors and Eddie smirked when he saw the colors. “Respect for the commitment to the colors, man.” Eddie paused for a minute, smashing his cigarette against an ashtray out of sight from Dustin. “Come in, come in.”

Dustin quickly entered the stuffy trailer, immediately hit with the smell of cigarettes and the skunky stench of weed. He hacked, Eddie, laughing almost manically as Dustin tried to breathe without feeling nauseous. “You’ll get used to it, young one. Just the smell of a drug dealer’s house.”

Dustin’s fingers cupped his cheeks, dragging down to pinch his lips to hide the grimace. He forgot Eddie sold drugs. Last week he had taken mushrooms during a Hellfire meeting, the rest of the campaign going off the rails. Eddie called it an experiment that was, according to him, a huge success. Dustin had originally deemed it awesome but as he thought over it, especially after El had confessed how scared she had felt, his feelings surrounding it had soured.

“Come on, I want to show you my new baby,” Eddie beckoned, walking away without waiting for Dustin to catch his breath.

Still coughing, he rushed to Eddie’s room, where the pungent marijuana smell intensified, his lungs burning. Eddie’s room was the definition of a mess. Clothes were strewn about the floor to the point where the wooden slats weren’t visible. Posters of metal bands covered the walls, half of them peeling away. False bottoms on the nightstands were visible, a horrible attempt to hide the drugs he sold. Hanging up on the wall next to his desk that collected dust was his baby: a shiny, black guitar.

“This is my new beloved– a B.C. Rich NJ Warlock Guitar,” Eddie announced, taking it off of its hanger. “The amount of shit I had to sell to buy this. Boy, what a beauty. What do you think, Henderson?”

Dustin scanned over the guitar. It cut in sharply at the sides, the tips pointed to the point it could pierce someone if they decided to mess with Eddie. It was nice and sleek, but it seemed kind of boring compared to Eddie’s old red guitar. “What happened to your old guitar?”

“Sold it to get the final bucks to buy this baby. A hundred buckaroos,” Eddie said, lazily strumming the tuned guitar strings as he sat on his bed. “Say, you ever heard of Black Sabbath?”

Dustin shook his head and Eddie’s eyes widened. “Ozzy Osbourne? Seriously, you’ve never heard of Black Sabbath?” He sighed, shaking his head. “Oh, Henderson, Henderson, Henderson. If you’re going to be part of my club you’re going to have to learn metal, dude. The two greatest places to start are the bands Metallica and Black Sabbath.”

Eddie reached for the cassette player on his nightstand. “Listen to this and tell me what you think.”

Immediately, the sound of a low electric guitar riff flooded the room. It was methodical and predictable, but in a way that Dustin liked, bobbing his head to the tempo. A bass guitar jumped in, the already deep sound growing deeper. It was kind of slow, unlike the rock he heard on the radio. Eddie had a growing smile on his face as the drums kicked in, occasionally beating faster and jumping out from the slow rock.

“This is nice. Chill,” Dustin commented, Eddie laughing almost manically.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet, my friend,” Eddie smirked, the tempo picking up as if it were on cue. “This is one of the chiller songs of Black Sabbath, but wait until you hear their other discography.”

It was still relatively slow but at a more acceptable tempo for Dustin. Then this guy started singing. It was so… different, there were almost no words to describe it. It was nasal but still grounded. Flat yet sharp. Deep but shrill. It was unattractive, but somehow it worked in a way that Dustin couldn’t help but continue to nod along, especially when it picked up. By the time the song ended, Dustin wanted to play along.

“What did you think?” Eddie asked eagerly, pausing the player with a click.

Dustin smiled. “I liked it. The man’s voice is very unique.”

Eddie nodded. “That was In The Void by Black Sabbath. It’s one of my favorites. The singer’s name is Ozzy Osbourne. He’s so metal, dude. I mean, insane. More insane than me.”

Dustin snorted. “That’s not possible, man. I mean, there is nobody more insane than you.”

Eddie chuckled, glancing downward before staring right at Dustin, Dustin jerking his head back with surprise. “A couple of years ago, he ate a bat live on stage. A real bat. It’s been on my bucket list ever since.”

“To eat a bat?”

Eddie nodded. “I think they eat them in Thailand or some shit. But they cook it. Osbourne ate it raw.”

Dustin shook his head with a smile, eyes full of admiration as he turned back on the cassette player, another unknown song crooning out of the radio. Eddie was so cool . “You’re crazy, Eddie.”

Chapter Text

Tuesday, October 24, 1983

She shouldn’t have looked at the paper. She didn’t even know why it was left on her desk. It was next to the small plant she had been tasked with caring for, its leaves pointing toward the buzzing lights. It wasn’t like any of the books Papa had placed in her room for en-rich-ment pur-po-ses. It was just one sheet. Eleven had been lying in bed, waiting for Papa to bring her out for a test. She picked at the hem of her hospital gown, eyes darting to the paper on the desk. Something pulled her to the paper, and before she could even control herself, she stood in front of it, peering down at it.

She struggled to read the words on the paper, the limited skills she had been graced with hindering her. She focused on the words that she could read, which while limited, were somewhat hopeful. “Test #657. Goal: Have ------- 011 ------- the task of -------- words that will be spoken in another room. Will ----- that ---------- --------- are --------- and will allow for 011 to ------ harder tasks in the ------.

The only thing regarding words in her tests was whenever she had to repeat them. A man would say them in one room, holding a paper in one hand. Eleven would then repeat the syllables that somehow formed words that made no sense to her. At first, she couldn’t do it, the man fuzzy and the words incomprehensible and garbled. But now she was starting to make sense of them. The visions had become clearer, the syllables sharp.

Her eyes glanced down. Separated by a dotted line was a list of words. She tried to sound them out to herself, murmuring under her breath.

As-i-ni-ne.

Air-pl-ane.

Chor (or what is core)-e-og-raph.

Gi-raf-fe.

Car-di-ac.

Eleven’s stomach dropped when she realized what she was staring at. This was the paper that the man held. Someone had left it at her desk. She looked at the cameras in every corner of her room. Was this a trap? She knew she wasn’t supposed to look at the paper beforehand. Papa said it would be un-eth-i-cal for the sake of the mission. The government needed real results, not ones that were doc-tored.

But there was some evil inside of her, something she couldn’t name or place. She felt awful, her brain feeling like it was backing off her soul. She couldn’t stop trying to read the words on the paper. They were all too advanced for her, of course, they were meant to be. But she sounded them out anyway.

Box-ing.

El-ec-tric-al.

Men-or-ah.

Pol-a-roid.

An-or-ex-ia.

Eleven mumbled them over and over, the list of words becoming ingrained in her head. It was so bad, so bad, so evil. Her stomach felt like it did whenever the guards punched her for being bad, for talking back. This was so much more than saying no at the wrong time. This was what Papa called “ru-in-ing the in-te-gri-ty of the pro-gram.” She had heard it over and over again when she had refused to kill the cat for the in-ves-tors that were looking at her. That cat had been worthy of life… the guards she had impulsively killed when they tried to take her to the isolation room were not… she felt sick thinking about them. They had papas, just like she did. Thinking about it made her feel too bad, so she focused over and over again on the words. Asinine. Airplane. Choreograph (she had determined it was most likely pronounced core). Giraffe. Cardiac. Boxing. Electrical. Menorah. Polaroid. Anorexia. Asinine. Airplane. Choreograph. Giraffe. Cardiac. Boxing. Electrical. Menorah. Polaroid. Anorexia.

Then she heard the unmistakable sound of Papa’s shoes. She darted back to her bed, heart thumping with fear and guilt as she laid away from the door, hearing the door open with the sterile hinges creaking ever so slightly. Then she heard the footsteps get closer and closer before drifting over to the desk. After he gripped the paper with a slight crunch, Eleven felt something sinking into the mattress. She felt a hand meld around the side of her ribcage, chills going down her body, mind drifting somewhere else.

“Did you have a nice rest, Eleven? I hope you feel stronger now,” Papa said, his voice both comforting and chilling.

“Yes, Papa,” she said robotically, practically seeing Papa’s frown as he began to stroke her scalp, fingers running through the buzz cut.

“You don’t seem well, Eleven. Perhaps we should delay the test. Would you like that, Eleven?” Papa asked.

The fear of not receiving dessert, which was only given to her after performing her last test of the day, overtook her. She shook her head, repeating the words she had read on that paper in her head. “No, Papa. I can.”

He stopped running the hand through her fuzz. “Good. Come now, Eleven.”

Eleven stood up, and like always he held her hand as the two of them walked to the testing room. But she didn’t feel attached to him. She felt detached. She was a liar. A liar who was going to ruin the entire thing Papa had been working toward for her entire life. She never knew what it was, but she knew it was important. He always talked about adults wearing suits.

When they entered the testing room, she didn’t see anybody wearing suits in the waiting area. She only saw a few men with lab coats taking notes on clipboards. She remembered the time Papa had given her a clipboard to play with. She had mimicked them. She had enjoyed it.

But now she felt sick, looking at the blindfold perched on the table. Carefully, she placed it on her face, feeling the silk carefully cradle her face. She was a liar. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. She was going to ruin everything.

“Are you ready, Eleven? Do you know what we are going to do today?”

She did know what she was going to do. But she forced herself to shake her head. She was doing something that Papa hated: lying. “No, Papa.”

____________________

Tuesday, October 1, 1985

“Day after day, week after week, passed away on my re-turn to Geneva; and I could not collect the courage to recommence my work. I feared the vengeance of the disappointed fiend, yet I was unable to overcome my repugnance to the task which was enjoined me. I found that I could not compose a female without again devoting several months to profound study and laborious disquisition.”

El buried her nose in the book, head hitting the desk. She groaned, snapping the blue hair band against her wrist. Frankenstein was the worst book she had ever read. A dictionary was bolted next to her, pages constantly flipping, words written in a notebook with definitions. Her handwriting was shaky, nearly illegible, but she was only trying to get through the study guide for the quiz tomorrow.

She had reread the chapter at least five times, rewriting vocabulary and reanalyzing the text, every time coming up empty-handed. She had to deal with metaphors that she didn’t understand, complicated words that only an old person said. Even the first paragraph was horrible. What was Geneva? Recommence? Vengeance? Repugnance? Enjoined? Disquisition?

Up until that night, Hopper had helped her with the study guides and reading the chapters out loud. It had helped, like it always did. Hopper said she was starting to build a skill called context clues , which meant she could figure out what words meant with the words around it. The reading, while laborious, was beginning to get easier for El as long as Hopper was with her.

But tonight Hopper had to work the night shift. After Starcourt, Mr. Powell– Calvin, he said she should call him– was promoted to co-chief officer. He worked night shifts while Hopper worked day shifts, a cycle that worked perfectly for their schedules. But now Calvin was on vacation, Hawaii , so Hopper had to pull an odd night shift, leaving El alone.

She wasn’t truly alone. Even though Hopper was at work and Will was at drama rehearsal, Joyce was making spaghetti and Jonathan was working on college applications. But in Will’s room where she was sitting, she never felt more alone. You do not work like them… you will never be like them…

The study guide was all but empty next to her, the only thing filled out was the name and the date. The name Jane still seemed foreign even after using it for over a month. She wished she could be called El, but Hopper said that birth certificates mattered. Jane felt like a different person to her. Jane was a normal child. Jane went to school and played Dungeons & Dragons on Fridays. El was nothing more than a dumb idiot who couldn’t read a book for the life of her.

El took a breath and a sip of water, flipping back to the first page of Chapter 18. She stared at the first question on her study guide. She knew that if she could get the answers down she would pass.  Mr. Bailey’s impatience played into his class’ favor– the questions on the study guide were nearly identical to the ones on the actual test.

What does Victor’s father think may be the cause of his melancholy?

El had rewritten the question on a separate sheet of paper like she often did: “What does Victor’s father think may be making him sad?”

Glancing at the book, the answer became glaringly obvious. Victor doesn’t want to marry Elizabeth, but he has to because his mother wished for them to get married before she died. She thought about how Billy’s dying wish was to be a good brother to Max as she scrawled the answer down on the worksheet. Max would never get to fulfill that wish for Billy. Because of you, you monster…

El glanced at the clock, the green numbers blinking at her. It was seven past five, twenty-three minutes until Will would come back from rehearsal and fifty-three minutes until dinnertime. Hopper’s shift had started seven minutes ago and wouldn’t end until three o’clock when he would get some rest and have to be back at work at nine.

She had started this paper at four o’clock. It had taken her an hour and seven minutes to finish five out of the eight questions. She imagined that Mike was finished with all of his homework, playing with Holly and Merlin. She still had a math worksheet to do, and while math was quickly becoming her favorite subject since the rules never changed and were easy enough to memorize, she knew she would be too drained to do it without help.

Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to concentrate and dissect. She looked over the words both in the book and the dictionary until it clicked. Over and over again until she answered the sixth question. And the seventh. By the time Will got home from drama rehearsal, she had finished the worksheet.

The one thing that nobody seemed to understand, not even El, was her inability to retain the information she wrote down. There had been multiple times when she had taken notes on a presentation and nearly failed the pop quiz that followed. Staring at the paper, the words blurred and blended. She could read them, the letters forming words, but she couldn’t comprehend them. There was a glass sheet between the two, stained so that the words were twisted and colored in different ways.

She glanced at all of her other English tests. Mr. Bailey loved to quiz her and Will, giving the class a test on every chapter. The highest she had ever scored was 88% and that was on a technicality she and Will had to fight for. Everything else had been a low 80 to a mid-70. Mr. Bailey wasn’t cruel. He offered extra help, but the one time El had gone she had felt so ashamed that she never went again. Each chapter had gotten harder and harder to comprehend, the plot getting too complex for El to handle.

There was no way she was going to pass the test if she didn’t take desperate measures.

____________________

Wednesday, October 2, 1985

El never wrote in pen. The tattoo on her arm always strayed her from the material. To her, ink was a sin. But Hopper had insisted on buying some just in case for school. “Sometimes, teachers make you write in pen. And when that happens you have to do it, no questions asked.” This was the first time the pens had come in handy.

She had made sure to wear long sleeves that day, something that was growing increasingly popular with the weather getting chillier. She had opted for a gray crewneck sweater with red stripes. Max always said to pair gray with white, blue, or black; and if it was a top to never wear colorful pants. So she opted for dark denim pants that cuffed at her ankles. She scratched her arm, feeling the poison seep into her blood.

She was more skittish than normal at breakfast. With Hopper sleeping off the night shift, Jonathan had to drive them to school in his car which was one degree away from breaking down, the car clunking to the high school. She tugged at the precious hair band that donned her wrist no matter what. The taste in her mouth was bittersweet just looking at the band, but she pushed those feelings to the back of her head. He’s not your real dad… he had a life, a good life  before you came along. You ruin everything…

Art was harder than usual. El had to deal with Mike’s handiness, something she both craved and hated. She loved it whenever they held hands in the hallway, the way their hands seamlessly melded into one like they were always meant to. But whenever they kissed in class or the cafeteria, she felt embarrassed. Eyes were always on her. The new girl and the dork were a hot topic for the first week of school that year, whispers in the hallway that El forced herself to ignore. Hopper said drama happened, but it was always su-per-fi-ci-al . That day, she took all of his attempts at affection without any protest. He barely noticed how nervous she was, the way her knee bobbed up and down rapidly as she worked on her collage, combining a Superman and a Batman comic to create some piece that Ms. Morningstar always loved no matter how much El hated it. The glue felt sticky in her hands, stickier than usual from her clammy palms, the sponge brush coating the vinyl paper, using the thinnest stroke in order not to tear the paper.

She felt a hand on her knee stroking her kneecap, trying to get it to calm down. El felt even more guilty that he felt responsible for fixing her problems. She gritted her teeth behind her lips and planted her heel firmly on the ground, trying to fix her problem. You can’t just fix yourself. You’re too much for people…

Then the bell rang. Rubbing her hands against each other, she tolerated one of Mike’s kisses before turning left out of the art room. Will trailed behind, trying to scrub any evidence of paint from his hands.

“Mr. Bailey always complains that I get material on my assignments,” Will grumbled, El trying to steady her heartbeat as she felt the poison nearly consume her, walking into Mr. Bailey’s classroom and pulling out a pencil.

The entire classroom was quiet aside from a few kids quizzing each other on the material. El tried her best to appear confident and nonchalant. Mr. Bailey was always too engrossed in other kids to notice. When the bell rang, pink papers were passed out, four questions staring back at El with spaces underneath ready to be answered.

El took a shaky breath, writing her name at the top with a nervous hand. The letters looked noncommittal as if she was questioning herself while writing them. Glancing at the teacher, she was relieved to see him reading a book, one with fancy covers. Scratching her arm, she pulled up her sleeve and put her head down so she could both look at it and write at the same time.

On her arm were the answers to the study guide, written in firm black ink.

El swallowed back her nerves with a gulp and read the first question: What does Victor’s father suggest Victor should do to cure his melancholy?

As El’s mind drew a blank she looked at her arm. One word stuck out: marriage, the pieces clicking in El’s head. A feeling of dread and sour excitement filled her veins as she wrote down the answer in a complete sentence. She looked around again and was relieved to see nobody had caught on. The rest of the test was a breeze and she was the third person to turn in her paper. For a moment, she felt nothing but joy.

That joy turned into nausea within seconds.

Feeling her stomach twist, she tried her best to act natural as she pulled down her sleeve, and walked to the teacher’s desk. Mr. Bailey was always frowning. El wondered why he wanted to become a teacher in the first place. Looking up from his book, he frowned even more.

El coughed. “May I go to the bathroom?”

Mr. Bailey’s lips tightened, his pen moving intensely across the paper. Tearing off the paper with a wave of anger that El believed wasn’t worthy of such a small ask, she shuffled out of the room and practically ran to the bathroom.

She immediately grabbed a paper towel and doused her arm in soapy water, scrubbing away the evidence. Every time she looked at it she felt like a monster… As you should, you’re such a monster. Who cheats on such a simple English test? People died so you could go to school… even more of a monster than she was. Her arm was red and raw, some skin peeling away, but she didn’t care. The ink had been removed, the second-most important ink on her body. Feeling the nausea overtake her, she ran into the furthest stall from the door and pulled her hair back with the hair tie, revealing her fading 011 tattoo. Staring at it, she felt her breakfast come up… What a monster she was. Taking opportunities she was given and corrupting them…

____________________

Two quiet people seemed to always enjoy people’s company. Jonathan and El were no exception. Whenever Will had drama rehearsal, which was becoming more frequent with the show being less than a month away, Jonathan and El would drive home in near silence, listening to some underground record that overlapped the groaning of Jonathan’s car as it puttered into the driveway. El learned she liked Siouxsie and the Banshees. It reminded her of her time in Chicago with Kali and her gang. He would quietly unlock the door and head straight to the kitchen. El, if she wasn’t too overwhelmed, would toast an Eggo while Jonathan would grab an apple before working on homework and college applications. El would then grab her toasted Eggo and head to Will’s room before he got home.

Today was no exception, except El was even quieter than usual, shrinking within herself. She couldn’t get what she did out of her head. She still felt the ink soaking into her skin, ruining it with its dark lines. Even though there was no evidence of her crime apart from some tenderness where she scrubbed until it almost bled, her mind was running rampant. Body shaking, she tried her best to hold it in during the car ride, tuning out the loud songs Jonathan played on the radio and taking shaky breaths that seemed to do nothing but aggravate her body even more.

She could feel Jonathan’s eyes burning into her as they parked in the Byers’ driveway. She was nothing more than a monster. A spectacle for her friends and family to stare at. El leaped out of the car before Jonathan had a chance to question her, grabbing the key from under the doormat and turning it into the lock. Jonathan closed the door behind her as she threw her Eggo into the toaster.

“Everything go okay at school?” Jonathan asked, tossing the apple in the air before he caught it.

El nodded, scared to look him in the eyes. “Everything was fine.”

Jonathan hummed, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “Why don’t you do your homework on the couch with me today?”

El froze, the toaster ticking.“Why?”

“I could use some company,” Jonathan shrugged, taking a crisp bite out of his apple. “I’m finalizing my essays before I go to the library on Saturday to type them up. I can help you with your homework later if you want.”

El paused. This was not their normal routine. What did he know? What was he up to? Against El’s better judgment, she nodded along as the Eggo popped up from the toaster. “Okay.”

She didn’t have too much homework: a worksheet for science and a worksheet for math. Math was arguably the easiest but science didn’t seem to make much sense to her. Asking and answering arguably philosophical questions about the world when she had known nothing except the confines of a laboratory for the first twelve years of her life was cruel, and her lack of knowledge was apparent by the vague and empty answers she produced. All of this work for what? You’re not going to bring them back with good grades…

El sat on the floor so her arms were perpendicular to the coffee table, half-eaten Eggo left on a plate as she gripped her pencil awkwardly. A year ago, she had barely known how to write her name, and now she was writing out math expressions and equations. She would have felt a little bit of peace with math, but with Jonathan innocently looming over her it felt impossible. He was scribbling ideas furiously, scratching out some and underlining others. Every time she looked over, she saw a messy paper with outline after outline written in shorthand. 

El felt like the true criminal she was. Just this morning she had committed a crime. And Jonathan seemed so menacing, the shadow creeping up on her. The questions on the paper blurred together, pencil dropped on the table. And now her knees are curled up to her chest, and everything is moving so fast and so slow, and she can’t breathe… why is there water on her face… why can’t she breathe?

 “El?”

Jonathan’s voice was wavy, but El couldn’t tell if Jonathan was scared or her brain was playing tricks on her.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Jonathan asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. It seemed like someone was going to grab her and take her away. You deserve to be locked up again. Your existence has only caused pain.

El tucked her head in between her legs, feeling the suffocating air weave its way through her hair. “I did something bad.”

“What happened? Did something happen at school?” Jonathan asked, but El was too scared to answer his questions.

Her chest felt heavy and her body was trembling in between the couch and the coffee table. It felt like her skin was being stretched, her lungs aching to keep up with the pain it was under. Her stomach turned and twisted as Jonathan left only to return with a glass of water, which was precariously perched on the coffee table.

He put his hand back on her shoulder. “Do you need me to call Mom, or Hopper, or Mike? I can call them, it’s not a big deal.”
“No,” El shakily murmured. Hopper was too overworked at his job, Joyce wasn’t her Mom, at least not for long once she figured out what she had done, and Mike was over too much. El needed him too much. She needed to figure this out on her own.

“What happened at school, El? You can tell me, I promise. Just tell me what I can do,” Jonathan pleaded, his spare hand dragging across his face as El heard him murmur, “I don’t know what to do.”

El shuddered and sobbed. Hopper always said that the truth would set her free. Whether it be about breaking a plate or robbing a convenience store, as long as it wasn’t about her powers or the lab, to always tell the truth. Friends don’t lie. With a shaky sob, she curled within herself, and whispered, “I messed up my English test.”

“Did you fail it?”

El shook her head. “I got a 100.”

“That’s good, right?”

El shook her head again.

“Then what did you mess up?”

“I wrote the answers on my arm,” she choked out, tears dripping onto her pants.

Jonathan paused. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” she cried, lungs heaving as she felt dizzy.

“Don’t be sorry. English– school is hard for you. You just wanted to pass, right?”

El nodded. “Every– everybody gets As and Bs and I… I can’t!”

She slammed her fist into the carpet.

“I know how you feel, El. I used to cheat my way until sophomore year when… everything happened. It wasn't because I didn’t know the stuff, but because I was lazy. You’re not lazy. You try so hard. But if you get caught, then you’ll get in a lot of trouble.”

He doesn’t know. A broken father doesn’t compare to an abusive one who kept you as a lab rat for twelve years . All El could muster was a broken apology. “I’m sorry.”

“El, it’s okay. Just promise me you won’t do it again, okay? And promise me that when you have trouble with school you’ll come to me. We can all help. We want to help, El.”

He doesn’t want to help . El nodded anyway, picking her head up only to let out a few final sobs, wiping away the tears and snot that cascaded down her face. Picking up her pencil, she went back to answering math questions, her handwriting nearly illegibly.

What a burden.

Chapter Text

Friday, June 14, 1985

“Finally!” Dustin shouted as the five of them practically burst out of the blue metal doors, and headed straight for the bike rack. “Fuck you, middle school!”

“Dustin,” Lucas hissed. “You’re gonna get in trouble, man.”

“What are they going to do, suspend me? It’s summer! In two days, I’ll be off to Camp Kno Where with some of the brightest minds in the world by my side. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even get a girlfriend.”
“Without your pearls?” Max questioned, quirking an eyebrow as she pulled her skateboard out from the side of her arm. “I doubt it.”
Dustin frowned. “They’re going to grow back in, for your knowledge.”

Max rolled her eyes. “Mike, is your family still hosting that barbeque tonight?”

Mike nodded. “It’s so lame. They did the same thing for Nancy when she graduated and me when I graduated fifth grade. You guys can come if you want.”

Lucas noticed Will was more withdrawn than usual, shrinking into himself. He had picked up cues like this when he suffered from the attacks, back when he was possessed. Even though he stopped getting the attacks, Lucas’ hypervigilance never went away

“How is it lame if your girlfriend is coming?” Lucas teased, only to receive a nice punch in the arm.

“Your girlfriend is coming too,” Mike mocked as Lucas hopped on his bike and the four of them pedaled off, Max trailing on her skateboard. Billy had stopped giving her rides a week ago after an argument, so for now, they cycled slowly for her to tag along.

By the time everybody had gotten to their house, it was almost time for the graduation party. Lucas was lucky; Mike lived twenty feet away. His mother had forced him to wear a flannel shirt, the blue and white squares cramping the casual t-shirt he had planned on wearing to the barbeque.

“It’s not just a barbeque, baby. It’s your middle school graduation! You’re my first baby. Show a little class,” his mother had said with her proud smile, and Lucas couldn’t help but cave.

Walking over with some potato salad, he had his mother’s voice stuck in his head. “Mrs. Wheeler is so nice, so nice, baby. But she puts raisins in the potato salad! No one should have to have fruit with their potatoes. Don’t tell her I said that, though.” He chuckled with a small snort as he swung open the fence with his free hand, smoke already flying off of the girl.

“Lucas!” Dustin screamed across the backyard, gripping a beach ball in his hands. “Did your mom make her potato salad?”

Lucas held up the bowl as Dustin cheered. Mrs. Wheeler’s voice rang out as she set a pitcher full of lemonade down on the table, citrusy slices and ice cubes floating in the sugar concoction. “Is that Sue’s potato salad? Set it down over here, sweetie.”

After Lucas put the bowl down on the picnic table, Lucas took stock of the backyard. Mr. Wheeler was grilling hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill. Holly was playing with chalk on the patio, unbothered as she gripped the chalk awkwardly. Mike and El were canvasing the flowers Mrs. Wheeler loved to plant, Mike most likely explaining every one to her. Dustin was throwing a beach ball in the air, twirling around in circles as it landed on his head. He laughed.

“Dumbass!” Lucas shouted as he charged toward his friend, leaping to pop the beach ball up before it touched the grass.

“Hey! You try playing volleyball in the wind!” Dustin yelled as he used his fingertips to push it afloat.

“I don’t have to try!”

Their quips went back and forth like the balloon, only interrupted by a flash of red hair that quickly punched the ball away from them. Dustin and Lucas watched with disappointment as the colorful sphere lightly touched the grass, rolling a few inches to a stop.

“What the hell was that for?” Dustin exclaimed.

Max shrugged. “Wasn’t it dramatic?”

Dustin scoffed before racing to grab the balloon. Max followed pursuit, Lucas leaving the two to fight over the ball. He sat down at the picnic table, glancing at the gate and at his watch. Will was three minutes late. Lucas knew that Will’s mother wasn’t the best at keeping track of time, especially since Bob’s death, but his mind naturally went to the deepest and darkest places. He imagined Will being dragged back to the Upside Down, traveling through the woods nearly unconscious in the grips of wet flesh until they reached the hospital, dragging Will through the black corrugated tube…

Will came ten seconds into Lucas’ spiral, stopping it in its tracks. Will pushed his hair to the side as he scanned his eyes around, locking them with Lucas. Lucas raised his hand into a lazy wave as Will jogged through the grass.

“What held you up this time?” Lucas asked as Will sat down, the smell of the charring burgers drawing closer.

“Jonathan and Nancy sucking face. It’s disgusting,” Will seethed.

“Careful, man. One day you’ll be sucking face with a girl,” Lucas laughed, Will scratching the back of his neck.

“Yeah,” he uttered, eyes furtively glancing around with an uncomfortableness Lucas hadn’t noticed in a while from him.

Before Lucas could question Will, Mrs. Wheeler’s commanding voice cut through the backyard. “Burgers are ready!”

Within seconds, the Party was situated around the picnic table. Max sat next to Lucas, playing with his fingers quietly under the table as Mr. Wheeler flipped the burgers onto the buns. Lucas enjoyed the secrecy of physical affection in public, unlike Mike and El who once were caught having a makeout session amid a sleepover. Even at the table, El’s head was lying on top of Mike’s shoulder. Dustin adjusted his baseball cap.

“I didn’t know you were going to church after, Lucas,” Dustin scoffed, rubbing a dried ketchup stain on his shirt.

Lucas rolled his eyes. “My mom told me to.”

“It’s not as bad as the time Mike’s mom made him wear a Santa hat the day before winter break,” Will snorted, Mike reaching across the table to flick his shoulder.

El looked up with teasing eyes. “A Santa Claus hat?”

“At least she didn’t make me wear a beard,” Mike sighed, the burgers sliding across the table with paper plates.

“Dig in, guys!” Mrs. Wheeler exclaimed, sipping on her drink which Lucas quickly realized was a cocktail in disguise, the plain glass not doing much to hide the amber glow of alcohol.

Lucas eagerly grabbed the cheeseburger in front of him, the soft burger buns expertly mixing with the tough meat and melty cheese. It was the perfect way to sum up some of the most stressful years of their lives, with best friends and delicious food.

____________________

Friday, October 11, 1985

All Lucas could think about was cross-country these days, both directly and inadvertently. His first thought when he woke up– what was he going to eat to make sure he had enough fuel for the miles he had to run after school? His grades were tethered to his athletics, every good test grade allowing him to continue running. When he saw someone else on the team, he always made an effort to smile and nod, a way to strengthen the camaraderie that he struggled to build up naturally. Sometimes they wouldn’t even acknowledge him, leaving him feeling like nothing more than a shell.

Lucas was an outcast on the team in more ways than one. He wasn’t obnoxious and loud like the other men on the team. He was quiet and reserved, often lost in his thoughts as his complex running form had become second nature for him. While teammates hyped each other with screams and complex handshakes before races, Lucas prayed– to whom Lucas didn’t know– and tried to find Max at the starting line. Instead, his bodaciousness showed out on the track, where he had begun to lap even some of the slower varsity members. Even when the coaches murmured about his “God-given” abilities, and teammates began to clap him on the back after impressive times on the daily workouts, he never made a fuss about it.

He had even begun to make a name for himself even in the Roane County cross-country scene. The JV meets were held much earlier than the varsity meets, sometimes at 7 in the morning. If the meets were close to Hawkins, he saw his friends on the sidelines, dark circles under their eyes. Even though most of them looked somewhat disinterested, he knew El and Max enjoyed it, which kept him going. She commented it was the only sport that made sense. El had had such a hard life, so if Lucas could help make it easier for her, he would. And Max… was, well, Max.

The Roane Cross Country Finals were ahead of them, set to begin on the following day. Lucas should have been done with cross-country for the year, creating training schedules in his free time and preparing for the winter basketball season. But the coach had dragged him into his office the week before. Lucas had sat in the chair across from the coach’s desk, legs spread wide and feet tapping anxiously on the floor.

“We’ve never sent a freshman to County before, but Justin strained his hamstring on Thursday and we don’t have anybody else. Do you think you can stick around for the rest of the season?”

Lucas had never said yes faster in his entire life.

All of a sudden, he was thrust into the varsity lifestyle. The locker room no longer smelled of juvenile sweat but real body spray and deodorant, making it slightly more bearable. He was required to learn all of the chants and cheers the JV kids didn’t get the pleasure of memorizing. Morning workouts were mandatory twice a week, Steve offering to drive him without a hint of annoyance. If anything, Steve made him cooler. All of the older kids often expressed jealousy he was bumping elbows with “King Steve” Harrington, something that Lucas couldn’t help but relish in.

The morning workout was often less exhausting than the afternoon for the sake of their education, but everybody seemed to require coffee in their water bottles to survive. Lucas took the tortuous way through, slogging through the tiredness as he watched the sunrise every morning, black fading to orange fading to blue as the surrounding animals loudly awoke. It was all the more impressive to his other teammates when he still managed to be in the front of the pack on their tempo run that morning. His legs burned, lactic acid sticking to his muscles as he heaved out a sharp breath, heart thumping against his ribcage.

“What’re you filled with, Sinclair? Crack?” Daniel often joked, his jabs often making Lucas smile as they ran nearly side-by-side, Daniel always slightly ahead. Acceptance felt nice, even if it often was at his own expense.

Twelve brutally beautiful laps later, Lucas watched from the sidelines with a scratchy towel around his neck as Eammon O’Leary puffed his way to the finish line, his fluffy red hair flying in the wind. The slowest varsity runner, he was still miles faster than most of the JV kids. He clapped and grunted as Eammon staggered to his water bottle. The coach clapped a few times, adjusting the cap on his head.

“Remember, the bus leaves at 6:15, no exceptions! Don’t forget snacks and water. The green uniforms, too, boys. Dismissed,” the coach exclaimed, Lucas stretching out his sore legs as they staggered to the main building to the locker room.

His mind drifted to the reading assignment he had to finish up before second period when he heard a voice behind him. “Lucas, lemme talk to you a sec.”

Glancing behind him, Daniel was jogging up behind him, feet lazy as they hiked through the parking lot. Lucas hung back, a pit of fear settling in his stomach. The captains rarely talked to the underclassmen. “What’s up?”

Daniel pushed his hair back. “I was wondering if you were planning on coming to the afterparty tomorrow night.”
The pit in his stomach quickly flipped. “The afterparty?”

“Yeah. Jason Carver’s letting us use Benny’s for the night. I thought since you’re with the big guys now that you’d wanna tag along.”

Lucas looked down for a split second to hide the grin that had flashed onto his face. No JV kid ever got invited to an afterparty, let alone Lucas. Craving filled his veins, his heart beating fast as he blinked quickly, trying his best to control his emotions in front of the upperclassman. “I’ll have to think about it, but if I can, I’ll definitely come.”

Daniel crisply nodded with a charming smile before rushing to catch up with his friends who were already waiting for him at the locker room door. Lucas stared at him with amazement.

____________________

Supplementary angles, common angles… logic and proofs seemed to be a different beast entirely from their relatively easy introduction to geometry. Lucas had always been a logical person, but even he scratched his head at some of the terms on the worksheet. What was a linear pair postulate?

Their geometry teacher, Mrs. Adeshoga sat behind her desk, head tucked in a book. She peered up an average of two times a class after passing out worksheets. Her eyebrows scrunched together as she flipped the pages at an inhuman speed. Whenever a classmate asked a question, she grunted as if they were bothering her. With hair graying at the roots and thick-rimmed glasses, Lucas sometimes questioned how she was able to stay as a teacher for so long with such a lazy aptitude, let alone get a master's in mathematics that she so proudly boasted on the first day of school.

It had been luck that Dustin, Mike, and he got put next to each other in the seating chart, Lucas sitting on the end closest to the window. Whenever he got bored or his head began to ache, he would look out at the scenery. There were a few trees slowly dying on the front lawn of the campus, stairs just out of view. He always appreciated the variance Hawkins brought in weather, even if it could be inconvenient. Sometimes it would be sunny one minute and downpouring the next. The people below the scenery were also interesting. There was always someone in view. Whether it was someone going off-campus for lunch or a kid unsuccessfully sneaking out, it provided some sort of escape for Lucas– an excuse to stay alert.

The pencil scratched explanations of proofs on the paper, the one time Lucas was required to write paragraphs for math. He felt as if he was in Mr. Bartholomew’s English class with all of the writing, drawing reasonings, and proofs from the recesses of his mind. Lucas sometimes questioned if he was okay, but his solid grade in the class told him he was doing something right.

Inevitably, his mind drifted to the cross-country meet the next day. He thought of the Tiger Milk bar slowly melting in his lunchbox to provide him with more protein to keep his newfound muscle mass. He thought of the spaghetti that his mom always made before meets for “good luck”, even if the tomatoes always caused acid reflux during the race. He wondered if he would perform well if he would live up to the expectations set by the coach. What even classified as a “good time” to the coach? He felt a pang in both his head and his stomach, settling in his throat. Arms burning, Lucas tugged on the sleeves of his Hellfire Club shirt. He could see the words on the page getting shaky with each passing second, setting his pencil down momentarily.

This was the price for being good at sports. Maybe it was the price of his past, the price of their unfortunate middle school endeavors. Whatever it was, there was a small part of him that was happy he got to worry about sports at all. There were many times when he wasn’t sure he would make it past twelve, thirteen, fourteen… fighting a Demogorgon with nothing but rocks; standing in the junkyard bus while Demodogs surrounded them, preyed on them; blasting a Mind Flayer with colorful fireworks to save one of his best friends and ultimately failing to save his girlfriend’s racist stepbrother… Calm settings were too suspicious for Lucas anyway. He wished he hadn’t grown so wary of them, but how else was he supposed to stay vigilant?

When he realized he had stopped midway through his answer, he shook out his hand and flexed his fingers before continuing, glancing around the room quickly. One of the positives of being on the far end of the classroom was that nobody seemed to notice. Nobody except Mike, who was staring at him dead in the eyes.

“Hey,” he hissed, leaning over with a hand cupped so it shielded his mouth from the teacher. “What’s wrong?”

Lucas shook his head, staring at his paper, shapes and angles blending into one. “Nothing, just… thinking.”

Mike’s lips pursed into a thin line. Lucas could tell Mike was in his head, the gears in his brain practically visible. “Did something happen?”

Lucas drew his shoulders into himself as he worked on the final proof, refusing to make eye contact. “I’m fine, Mike. Did you need something?”

Mike glanced at Mrs. Adeshoga furtively before leaning in again. “No, I, uh… I was wondering if you wanted to come over after your cross-country meet. Me and the guys, and El, I think, and maybe Max, too– we were going to do a Star Wars marathon. Do you think you can make it?”

Lucas stopped writing, tapping his pencil against the side of his desk. He was a sucker for movie marathons. Eating buckets and buckets of popcorn, roughhousing with Dustin over petty fights, being able to fall asleep next to Max without fear– it was something he never passed up. Missing the movie marathon for an afterparty would be breaking familiarity. It would be straining a bond that had existed ever since they were seven.

“I… uh, I don’t know if my parents will let me. You know, too many activities in one day. I mean, I’m staying up late tonight ‘cause of Hellfire and all of the morning practices… It’s a lot, you know? But, I’ll see,” Lucas mumbled before adding, “Are you guys coming to the meet?”

“El and I are. She likes to see you run,” Mike smiled. 

When Lucas looked up, he had that lovestruck smile that Lucas used to tease him about, that was until he got his own girlfriend. It made his stomach turn for a moment.

“I’ll look out for you guys,” Lucas said, turning back to his desk with shame filling his body.

He finished the worksheet with an anxious fervor, barely able to adhere to the geometrical principles. His brain was trying to solve a much more complex problem, one that didn’t apply to any set of rules.

____________________

Saturday, October 12, 1985

The air was crisp and clear, a mutable sixty-five degrees. Lucas felt goosebumps on his arms as the slight wind blew on them. The green tank top he wore bore the number eight on the back in white stitching, a tiger embroidered on his chest. He felt small next to the other runners. Most of them were older and either lanky or extremely muscular, and all of them were tall. Lucas had seen only one other freshman from Christian Academy, and Lucas was certain that someone had to have paid for his admission into the meet.

Lucas stuck to the inner side of the trail, midway through the pack. Starting too close to the starting line would mean he would get jostled around while starting too far would mean he would have too much catching up to do. When he peered his head up, he looked for anybody wearing green on the field that wasn’t from Pine Grove. He saw his parents first, Erica reading one of her fantasy books in front of them. They waved and smiled, his mother holding a steel thermos that he assumed was filled with coffee. Next to them were Mike and El, as promised. It made his stomach turn just like it did the day before. They were so supportive… too supportive.

He faced the start of the race, three miles long, and surveyed the immediate and ahead of him. It was hilly, but he knew that as long as he kept pace on both the uphill and the downhills and made sure to keep his chest high he would be okay. When the gun went off, he ran.

The start of the race went off without a hitch. Lucas knew he wasn’t gunning for first place, and got into the middle-to-fast lump that had formed. He looked at the trees, the surroundings, whatever took his mind off of the burning legs that had formed quicker than he would have liked. He had the urge to get faster and gain some lead, but he stayed where he was. The one rule in running was not to tire out too quickly.

The lap went faster than Lucas thought they would, the ability to zone out proving to be useful. He heard cheers come and go as he passed the first lap. Keeping his chin high, he forced himself to continue looking forward. Any difference in mechanics would throw him off, even looking over at his mother or his friends. Somewhere in the distance, his coach screamed at him to keep it up.

The other people had backed up between the first and second lap, still hot on his toes. It was a rookie mistake to believe that it was a game of chase, but it was also a rookie mistake to believe that it was not a competition. Lucas enjoyed the fine line between the two, no matter how much one fueled the other. When the finish line passed him once more, he noticed that the white flag had been hung precariously– the sign of the final lap, the hardest of them all.

In through the nose, out through the mouth. The wall was hitting Lucas hard, the lap neverending as people had become stretched further and further apart. There was no one to help him keep pace other than himself. The mechanics of running were no longer automated, every muscle in his body responding to Lucas’ thoughts rather than second nature. Everything hurt and burned, muscles threatening to cramp after every step. His breathing was the only thing Lucas could control, no matter how much his lungs begged for him to pant, conceding to his instincts.

But with the air flowing by him, the empowerment pushing himself gave him, made it worth it. When Lucas crossed the finish line for the final time, he heard the cheers of his parents, the loud claps of his sister accompanying him. Jogging to his coach, he nearly collapsed to the ground as he was given a water bottle and a banana.

“Breathe, son. Breathe,” the coach coaxed, rubbing his shoulder as Lucas gave into the burning feeling in his body, flopping into a metal chair as he chugged the water. “That was one hell of a showing, Sinclair.”

Within gasps of air, his body trying to gain some source of normalcy, he glanced around their makeshift camp. It was barren. “Where is everybody?”

The coach chuckled. “Still running.”

Lucas glanced at the clock ticking away near the line. 18:42. “What was my time? Seventeen minutes?”

This time, the coach laughed. “16:12. You got third, kid. That’s the fastest time I’ve ever seen for a freshman in my years.”

In the distance he could see Daniel staggering to the camp, breathing so heavily Lucas could hear it from thirty yards away. His face contorted when he saw Lucas, grasping the water bottle and banana. “Damn, Sinclair. You’re back already?”

Lucas shrugged his shoulders, his heart thumping out of his chest as the shock settled into him. “I guess so.”

Lucas didn’t know how to feel at first. Proud that he had accomplished such a feat? Embarrassed, since he knew his mom would call all of his relatives the second she got home the boast the fact that her baby got third? Happy that he had performed so well in his first varsity showing? He settled on the first emotion. Third place was reserved for seniors who spent their whole life running, not a first-time varsity kid who hadn’t run a day in his life a month ago.

“There’s gonna be a whole medal ceremony, kid, so if you want to see your family, go see them now, okay?” the coach told him as more kids began to flutter into their area, each of them clapping him roughly on the shoulder as he pushed his way upstream to the spectator area.

Within seconds, he felt somebody embrace him. He froze for a second before recognizing the smell of jasmine and sandalwood. Mom.

“Ah!” she shrieked as she rocked him back and forth in his arms. “My baby got third! I’m so proud of you, sweetie. You were so fast!”

Lucas chuckled, a blush forming over him. “Thanks, Mom. I didn’t even realize I got so high.”
His father clapped him on the shoulder as if he were a teammate rather than his son. “You did very well, son.”

“We’re going to need a picture with your medal to mail to Grandma!” his mother exclaimed. “Erica, do you want to say anything?”

Erica shrugged, nose tucked in her book. “Congratulations, I guess.”

“Erica,” his father grumbled, prompting Erica to look up from her book.

“Don’t you have other friends to talk to? It’s getting interesting!” Erica whined, Lucas chuckling at her as he eyed Mike and El standing patiently behind his father.

“Nerd,” he whispered as he made his way back, Erica slapping him on the back awkwardly as he immediately felt El’s arms around him, Lucas stumbling back as El jumped on the balls of her toes.

“You went faster than before. By two minutes!” El exclaimed. “Mike said that was a lot re-la-tive-ly.”

Lucas glanced down and noticed Mike was wearing green nail polish that was already chipping on the sides. “Who did that to you?”

Mike glanced at the hand intertwined with El’s and chuckled sheepishly. “El wanted to practice painting nails. She said Max was busy.”

“Max has been grumpy. Upset about something,” El sighed, leaning on a nearby tree. “Do you get a medal? Mike said you get one.”

Lucas felt a pang of jealousy. Max should have been here to see him. Instead, he was practically a third wheel at his own event. “Yeah, I get bronze. Coach says medal ceremonies are going to be after the girls go.”

“Bronze?” El murmured.

“Oh, um… bronze is like the color of pennies, but pennies are made of copper. They give them to third-place winners.”

“Copper?”

Lucas stammered over himself, Mike stepping in. “I’ll explain it to you later, okay? It’s a very complicated system of metals.”

Lucas noticed that El’s excitement had faded quickly, only remedied by one of Mike’s kisses to her hair. Mike turned to him as El snuggled into him, the two lovestruck teenagers nearly making Lucas gag. “Are you gonna come tonight? We’ll even let you get your own bowl of popcorn.”

“Wow, that’s generous,” Lucas said before scratching the back of his neck, feeling beads of sweat form. “Look, man, I think that the team’s gonna want me to stick around or something. The coach’s gonna take us out for dinner or something, and then we have other stuff to do. And my parents are tired… I really wish I could come.”

The joy from Mike’s face was depleted, an anxiously awkward air filling the space. He stumbled over himself, eyes void of the happiness that once filled them. He stumbled over himself to recover.

“Oh, uh…  no problem, man, I totally get it. Uh… good job. I’m sure that the team…” Mike trailed off, ending with a small, “yeah.”

For a moment, the two stared at each other, observing the others' movements. It was intimidating, and Lucas quickly excused himself back to the tent before it could get any worse. Guilt immediately flooded his lungs. There was no dinner afterward, no coach-authorized team bonding events. Just a stupid afterparty. For a second, he felt the urge to turn back and recant what he told Mike. But when he returned to camp, cheers rang out.

“There he is!”

“Look at him. Barely breaking a sweat.”

His teammates crowded him, harsh slaps on the back and butt being handed to him as he pushed his way through, keeping his head down as he let out an embarrassed chuckle. The guilt dissipated within seconds. This was acceptance.

This was belonging.

Chapter Text

Saturday, August 17, 1985

“And now we come to you with a breaking story out in Kokomo, Indiana about the continuing AIDS crisis. Ryan White, a thirteen-year old, has been denied entry to school after being diagnosed with AIDS. People are now protesting for White to remain out of school. We turn over to Rose Adrianas on the scene,” the newsman bellowed behind a desk.

Will sat in front of the television, posture pin-straight as he stared at the box. This was not what he expected to turn to when he woke up for his childish routine of watching Saturday cartoons. The rest of the house was dead silent, nothing but the quiet snores of Hopper in his mother’s room that still gave Will a bit of a chill whenever he heard them. He wasn’t used to such deep noises within his house… not for years.

“Thanks, Dale. I’m here at the Howard County Courthouse in Kokomo, Indiana, where a small crowd of angry mothers and fathers are protesting on the grounds as thirteen-year-old Ryan White is currently in court, awaiting whether or not he can return to school,” Rose spoke, her blond hair puffed and curled, a coral blazer with sharp shoulder pads taking up the majority of the screen. Behind her was a small group of people with signs. It wasn’t more than ten or twenty, but it still sent chills down Will’s back.

“This fight has been going on for quite some time now. Since December of 1984, Ryan White has been fighting both an AIDS diagnosis and the fight to return to school. He received the disease after a bad blood transfusion, required because of a condition known as hemophilia.”

The television cut to a pre-recorded interview with what Will assumed was Ryan’s mother, a lady with a curly black bob and a green peasant top. “He’s been getting better, and he keeps asking me when he can go see his friends again. It’s been nearly six months since he’s been in a school building. He’s not a danger to kids. He did not receive some sort of punishment from God. He’s just a kid.”

Cutting back to Rose, she continued. “Ryan has become famous nationwide for the continued fight for him to return to school. Protestors say it is too much a risk for their kids to be around someone with AIDS, since the method of transmission is still murky. However, what we know so far about the illness is that it spreads through both blood and intimate sexual contact. We spoke with one of the protestors.”

It switched to a video of an old lady wearing a gray sweatshirt, peppery hair in pigtails and pink glasses perched on her nose. “We’re not saying that the boy doesn’t deserve to live. But he’s a danger to our kids. We don’t want our children to come home with this disease. He’s a silent killer, and we won’t stand for it.”

“As of right now, the judge is still trying to determine whether or not it is safe for the young boy to return to school. Dale, back to you.”

“Thanks, Rose. We now head to another story about–”

Will switched the channel to The Bugs Bunny Hour without thinking, lungs burning with panic. He had heard of the disease in the past couple of years, whether it was GRID, HIV, AIDS– whatever new acronym the public had decided to use. At first, he had either sneered at it or ignored it, putting up that mask, that act. But now… now he couldn’t ignore it.

It had started as a small disease to a full-blown epidemic within years, targeting the most vulnerable. Hemophiliacs, people with chronic illness, and gay men were the most affected with the disease. But now it was affecting children. 

His palms wouldn’t stop sweating as he forced his eyes to focus on the gray bunny, running around aimlessly with the carrot. The bowl of cereal in his hands trembled. It felt as if the whole room was shaking, body tingling to the point of pain. This wasn’t supposed to impact children, not so close to Will, not so close to home.

His mom and Hopper had never even spoken of the topic, ever. It was like a tight-lipped secret, something that shouldn’t be spoken– some sort of Pandora’s box. It was merely a whisper in the community, something so foreign to the small town (unlike supernatural monsters, apparently) that even mentioning it was met with disdain and odd stares.

As if being closeted wasn’t hard enough.

He heard a door slip open. Whipping his head faster than he should have, he noticed El stumbling out of the bathroom. Her hair was a mess, leg still in a bandage. He watched her gait almost automatically– no more limp. It had been an adjustment having her and Hopper live in their already cramped house, but slowly it had become a normal occurrence to see her tread on eggshells around them.

“Hey,” Will mumbled, El freezing in her tracks.

Her arms hung awkwardly at her side, dressed in some of Max’s old pajamas. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she finally murmured, “You’re up early.”

Will tilted his head with confusion. “Yeah, it’s Saturday. I’m always up this early.”

“What is so special about Saturday?”

Will’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull, incredulous. “You’ve never heard of Saturday morning cartoons?”

El shook her head and Will nearly gasped. “Go grab some cereal. I’ll find something better than Bugs Bunny.”

As El shuffled into the kitchen, shoulders tensed with uncertainty, Will stared at the television. The news story flashed in his head for a moment, fear rippling through his body. A shuddery sigh left his mouth as he lurched forward and dialed through the channels, landing on the Berenstain Bears– juvenile, yes, but Will was happy to relish in childhood glory for the morning. It was so much better than his life now.

____________________

Friday, October 18, 1985

The role of ensemble was not as gratifying as Will initially thought. They only showed up in the second act when the battle broke out, with no lines to call their own. They huddled in the back of the stage, fighting ruthlessly in the horizon as the battle went on. Will had the honor of collapsing when a stray sword pierced him in the stomach, but then he was forced to lay on the ground for the entirety of the scene. If he laid in a certain way, he could still watch the action while playing dead.

Nonetheless, Will was excited to show up every day, even if he didn’t get to do anything. When he wasn’t on the stage or doing homework in the seats, he liked to watch the director work. Will recognized that Julianna, for her age, was an incredibly talented director. She spoke with the confidence of a seasoned professional and with the humor and grace of a young adult who didn’t know boundaries. Even the theater kids who said, “I’m never going to take orders from a woman” grew to respect her. She was meant to lead– meant to carry thirty odd children on her shoulders.

The set was beginning to develop. Someone had painted a snowy background on a large, stretchy canvas, most likely Julianna herself (the tech department was quite lacking) and some people had crafted cardboard cutouts of evergreen trees coated in snow. Some were more polished than others, but the variation made it seem more realistic than if they were cookie-cutter models of one another. He knew that El would love it. She had become increasingly invested in art classes, which to Will meant more than just copying his designs. Autonomy , Hopper called it.

Of course, Will couldn’t get his eyes off of Clayton Perry whenever he watched from the seats in the audience. Dressed in a brown suit two sizes too big, he practically tripped over himself as he delivered his lines. He was a well-rounded actor. Clayton could cry one moment and laugh the next. He was reactive, a true genius in the arts. Will wished that he could act like him sometimes…

Not just in plays… in life…

Be like him, even…

Sitting in the stands, she saw Julianna stand in front of them, just below the stage, holding the binder of pages and pages of handwritten script. Will thought it was interesting that she used her personal copy when she had meticulously typewritten scripts for all of the cast.

“Psst, are you the Sons of Adam and Eve?” he murmured to Tyler Atkins, the junior boy who played Peter.

“We’re some of them…”
“Not so loud! We’re not safe, not even here,” Clayton dynamically whispered, his soft voice carrying to the back of the theater.

“But there’s no one around,” Jonah, the boy who played Edmund, exclaimed with the monotone sound of boredom.

“Jonah, we need emotion,” Julianna muttered through her microphone for what seemed like the hundredth time.

Clayton cleared his throat. “There are the trees… Most of them are on our side, but even among them there are those that would gladly betray us… to her.”

Jonah mustered up some feeling of confusion, though Will could see through the sheer façade. “If it comes to talking about sides, how are we to know whose side you’re on? We’re strangers here, after all.”

Carine McCandless, a girl who played Susan, butted in. “Edmund!”

“Quite right! Quite right! Here is my token,” Clayton said, fishing in the pocket of his suit for the prop that the stage manager left unattended.

Adrienne Smith, who played Lucy, gasped after too long. “Oh! My handkerchief! The one I gave to Mr. Tumnus!”

“That’s right! He got wind of the arrest, and asked me if anything were to happen to him if I could meet you there, and take you… they say that Aslan is on the move!”

Jonah, Carine, Adrienne, and Tyler– the children– gasped. “Aslan!”

“Yes, yes!” Mr. Beaver shouted. “But I can’t tell you about that here– come along home with me, and I’ll tell you over a nice warm supper. Come along!”
The five of them swiftly exited stage, and Julianna clapped her hands once. Tom Sahr, the guitarist, took it as his cue to start packing up his instrument while the cast crawled onto the stage, sitting on the edge. Julianna stood at the front, adjusting the beret that sat on her head.

“Okay, everybody, get out early!” Julianna exclaimed. “Enjoy homecoming tomorrow!”

Will huffed as he slid off of the stage. Everytime homecoming was mentioned, his stomach turned. Max had Lucas, El had Mike, Dustin had this girl named Melody… who did he have? Slinging his backpack over his shoulder, he heard a shout behind him.“Will!”

Standing at the threshold between the stage door and the hallway, he turned around to see Clayton rushing to catch up to him. His chest tightened as Clayton gripped the door with his knuckles. Will swallowed, stumbling back into the hallway. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, just…” Clayton looked back, a scoff rising in his throat. “The other kids blow.”

Will nodded along, brain hazy. He felt as if his eyes could go blurry any moment, and he had to remember to not stare right into his soul, eyes darting around too much. “Some of them can be pricks. Did you need anything?”

There was an awkward lull of silence, the whizzing of the air conditioner buzzing around them. Clayton tutted his teeth.“Do you want to go grab some grub?”

Will’s heart pounded, his mind empty. “Grub?”

“You know, grub? Food? I was thinking of burgers. It’s on me.”
Will slapped the back of his neck, feeling a wave of cold embarrassment rush over his body. He felt the five bucks Hopper had given him earlier that week– what reason he didn’t know– in his pocket. “Don’t worry about the money. Oh, uh… I just have to be back by six.”

“Six, no problem. Bull City?”

Will chuckled, stuffing his other hand in his pocket, legs carrying him toward the exit. “Is there any other place?”

____________________

Bull City Burgers had been a staple in Will’s life ever since he was a little kid. It was the only restaurant in town except for the trashy pizza place (one time he saw a rat skitter across the floor when he was nine) that his family could afford. They had a nice kids menu, ones that came with a set of four crayons instead of three. A good hamburger with a few toppings would be five bucks, a far cry from the fifteen dollar meals that Enzo’s would put up. Throw in some deep-fried pickle chips, and a good meal for the whole family would be $22. It was home to some of the few times he could remember Lonnie sober. Happy and sober, at that.

The lights were dim that day, cloudy weather absorbing the happiness. Grabbing seats in the back, Will fiddled with his fingers. Checkered tiles littered the floor from its days in the 50s, red metal stools lining the marbled tables. Will glanced around anxiously. “How often do you come here?”
“Pretty often. It’s cheap enough for nights out but nice, you know?” Clayton asked, his jean jacket falling off of his shoulders.

“Yeah. My parents, me and my brother and I– we all went here when I was young.”

Will’s stomach turned at the mere mention of his father, even if he had brought it up.

“Your dad was Lonnie, right? The guy who worked at the gun store down the street?” Clayton asked.

Before Will could answer, the waitress came around like a guardian angel. Ordering their burgers and waters, he prayed that Clayton would drop the subject. But he noticed Clayton’s eyebrow quirk as he took a sip of water, and his stomach twisted.

“Uh… yeah. He, uh, worked at the gun store on the corner of Cherry and Mulberry.”

“Haven’t seen him in a while,” Clayton muttered, almost to himself, playing with his straw. He coughed. “Anyways, how’ve you liked the play?”

Finally, something Will enjoyed talking about. “It’s not as weird as I thought it would be. Julianna’s nice. I like to watch you when you act. You’re really good.”

A wave of mortification washed over Will as Clayton smirked. “You’ve, uh, been watching me, huh?”

Will coughed, cheeks flushing into a rosy red. “I mean, how could you not? You’re the only supporting cast member that, like, brings life to the performance. Everyone else there is just… lifeless.”

Clayton’s smirk turned into a sheepish smile. “Thanks. I’ve been an actor since I was a kid, you know? I’m not one to compare myself to the ones who only do stage productions at the school. I’m just glad they let the others shine, too. They’re– you, too– are just as passionate as me at it. I’ve just got lucky, supportive parents and all that.”

Will took in a sharp breath. He noticed the burgers arriving in the corner. He was glad– something to keep their mouths full that wasn’t uncomfortable conversation. A hamburger with cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, and pickles; the perfect burger. The onions hung out of the burger, pickles hidden underneath the bun. Will tore his burger in half, saving the rest for another day. He didn’t want to ruin his appetite for dinner. When he took a bite, everything bad about the conversation seemed to mellow out. 

Clayton ran a hand through his hair, his other hand gripping his burger that had ketchup spilling off the side. “So, do you have anyone coming to see you?”

Will swallowed the bite of his burger. “My mom, her boyfriend, my brother, and my friends.”

“How many friends do you have coming?”

“Four.”

Max had made an excuse on why she couldn’t come. It had been something watery, something both Will and her knew was bullshit. But Will had been too afraid to push back. It wasn’t her responsibility to come, anyway.

“That’s a good amount,” Clayton mumbled. “My whole family’s coming. Mom, dad, Aunt Marlene, Uncle Domingo, my cousins, grandparents… They think it’s another national tour or something, I swear to God. They’re going to take up half of the auditorium. Cheryl’s coming, too. Didn’t convince the wrestling boys to come, though.”

Will quirked his eyebrow, sinking his teeth into the burger once more. It spilled pinkish juice on the plate. “Who’s Cheryl?”

“My girlfriend.”
Will’s heart stopped. Then it sank. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”

“Yeah, she goes to Westwood a couple of miles down the road. She’s super into theater, too. She’s playing Desdemona in their production of Othello , and she’s only a sophomore!”

Will’s burger lay limp in his hands. He stuffed his face with it, giving a curt nod to stop Clayton from asking any questions.

“Anyway, did you get the French homework done?” Clayton asked. “I’ve been meaning to get around to it, but I’ve been so busy and I don’t think I’ll get it done by Tuesday.”

Will struggled to make any real conversation, the urge to flee coursing through his body. “I… uh, yeah, I’ll give it to you at lunch tomorrow.”

Clayton tutted his teeth, setting down his burger. “Are you okay, Will? You look sick.”
Will grabbed the rest of his burger, wrapping it in a napkin. “Yeah, I, uh… I have to go home. My sister has trouble with homework and I need to help her before she spends all night on it.”

“Oh. Well, it was nice to hang out!” Clayton said, leaning back in the chair.

Will had never seen someone so forgiving and kind. Placing his five-dollar bill on the counter, he went as fast as he could without racking up suspicion. He tore the lock off his bike and turned on the headlights. The sun peeking through the clouds was already beginning to set, something that his mother complained about on the regular. His heart thumped as he raced back home, stomach twisting. A drop of rain landed on his cheek.

How could he have been so stupid?

____________________

Will had made it back in time for dinner, but only by three minutes. The door was already unlocked, the sounds of the oven being opened audiating outside of the house. When he walked in the house, he could smell the chicken casserole being taken out of the oven. Setting his shoes by the door, he kept his head down, embarrassing chills running through his arms and into his ribcage as he ignored Hopper and Jonathan on the couch and his mom in the kitchen.

“Will, sweetie, how was practice?” his mother asked, Will tuning it in one ear and out of the other. “Will?”

He opened his door to see El stooped over her homework splayed all about his desk. In his haze, he recognized the science homework she had managed to finish. Progress , he thought to himself as anger filled his veins.

“How was the play?” El asked, scratching her pencil over her math homework.

“Get out,” Will grumbled, aggressively tossing his backpack on the pillow with such vigor El bolted up from his chair.

“Will, what happ–”
“I said get out!”

El was out of his hair within ten seconds, papers gathered in her hands messily. She slammed the door behind her, and Will, with his room to himself, flopped on his bed. The curtains wooshed in the open window, and while the stream of air was annoying, he didn’t bother to close it. He groaned into his pillow, shame filling his stomach.

Of course Clayton would have a girlfriend, let alone be into boys. Let alone be into him . Clayton was perfect. He was the right height, he had the right hair, the right body, the right personality. He was both a theater nerd and a wrestler gunning for a spot on the varsity team as a freshman. He had straight As. Why wouldn’t he have a girlfriend?

Will tried to imagine Clayton’s girlfriend. She probably had black, coily hair and beautiful tawny skin. She wore the trendiest makeup that made her lips pop and her eyes shine. She had the money to wear the trendiest clothes that one could only get at the mall an hour away. His body shook at the realization that he would never be her. He could never be enough for someone who wasn’t looking for him.

It was honestly a wonder that Clayton had taken notice of Will, but it must have been part of his charm, befriending everybody no matter where they came from or what clique they were a part of. He was too kind for this world and Will had fallen head over heels because of that. Will hadn’t come from money, even if Hopper lived with them for the time being. He wasn’t someone who engaged in sports, or was part of a popular group. He was simply a nerd who lived in the shadows.

Tears welled up in his eyes with frustration when someone knocked on the door. The gruffness behind it told him all he needed to know. “Will, kid, it’s time for dinner.”

Will sniffled, wiping the tears inside of his eyes, patting his fingertips dry on his jeans. “Yeah, I, uh… I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Don’t forget to wash your hands!” Hopper called out, Will tossing in his bed before lifting himself out of it. He didn’t want to.

He looked in the bathroom mirror as he lathered his hands in soap. He didn’t look red or puffy. He didn’t look overly depressed or angry, despite his lungs burning from the humiliation. He looked normal, completely and utterly normal. He hated it.

Walking out into the dining area, he saw how normal everybody was acting. Jonathan and El were looking over a piece of homework, Hopper was pouring wine for him and his mother, some sort of red with a fancy name that Will didn’t bother remembering. Everything moved around him as he sat down, his mother gently pushing a plate of casserole in front of him.

“Rehearsal didn’t go so well?” his mother asked, pouring him a glass of water from the plastic pitcher they had had ever since Will could remember.

Will shrugged.

“Did the kids make fun of that Julie girl again?”

Will shrugged once more, murmuring under his breath, “Her name is Julianna.”

“You kids know too many people for me to keep track, honey. El, sweetie, do you want apple juice or water?”

And just like that, Will was forgotten.

Hopper sat down, two glasses of wine sloshing next to each other. He knew the sight of alcohol still made Jonathan cringe, but it didn’t seem to bother Will all that much. His mother still drank and she was nothing like Lonnie. Hopper got rowdy when he was drunk, his mother recounted from their high school days, a little obnoxious and pushy, but nothing like Lonnie. Will had been witness to his brutal attacks in the past. He wished he could say that he couldn’t see Hopper doing the same, but he was still uncertain. His gigantic frame didn’t do him any favors.

His family had too much to worry about, anyway. El was struggling more than expected in school, Jonathan was stressed between managing the photography department of the school newspaper and college applications, and Hopper was still making improvements on the cabin that he claimed would be “move-in ready” by the end of November. Though, Will didn’t see Hopper and El leaving their cramped abode any time soon. The more Will could fade in the background, be less of a burden, the better it would be. He could come out when El’s grades were average and Jonathan was off at Emerson with some imaginary scholarship that would allow for him to even think about attending such a prestigious college.

The Byers’ house was full of chaos. They barely had time to worry about themselves, let alone their little queer son’s crush on a boy. It wasn’t like anything good would happen out of it, anyway.

Chapter Text

Friday, December 3, 1982

Christmas songs crooned on the radio in the hallway. Mike sat on his father’s recliner, watching a rerun of The House of 34th Street on their new television, which they had gotten on Black Friday. It was a whole 22 inches, much bigger than anything he had ever seen. Holly was restless in his lap, playing with a dalmatian stackable. She babbled to herself, eyes going anywhere except the television screen. He gripped her tightly, afraid that she would wriggle out of her grasp and she would fall. Nancy was upstairs, working on homework. She was always either doing homework or talking on the phone now that she was in high school, but it never seemed to be with boys, only with Barb. Mike prayed that he would have more friends than his sister in high school.

Mike heard the sounds of his mother’s sharp heels clacking against the kitchen tiles. She fiddled with the silver spiral earrings that dangled from her ears, pushing something behind her ear. Mike lazily stared at the television, focusing more on his mother. She wore a long white dress with beading on her shoulders, wrapping around her waist and a second piece of fabric covering her legs just below her knees. Her sleeves were flouncy. She looked like a member of ABBA.

“You look pretty, Mom,” Mike said.

His mother smiled. “Thank you, Mike. Please get Holly to bed on time. Nancy has a lot of homework to do, and I can’t come home to the same ruckus I came back to last year,” his mother sighed, grabbing her white clutch from the kitchen table.

Mike groaned. “Why can’t Nancy do it? Why can’t she take, like, five minutes off of her homework?”

“She’s in high school, Michael. You’ll understand when you go to high school.”

Mike rolled his eyes. He couldn’t fathom a world where he spent more than half an hour on homework each night.

“Just get her in pajamas, brush her teeth, read her a story. You’re eleven, Mike. I’m sure you can get it done.”

“I’m not her mother!”

“Mike!” his mother yelled, and Mike took that as a sign to turn back to the television, grumbling, “Fine.”

He heard the heavy steps of his father coming down the stairs. They creaked under his weight. When he emerged into view, Mike was surprised to see he had slicked his hair back, his chin prominent. He wrapped his arms around his mother’s waist, kissing her cheek.

“Gross,” Mike mumbled, his mother rolling his eyes as her heels came closer to the recliner.

“I need you two to be on your best behavior, all right. Especially you, Mike,” she warned, kissing the two on their foreheads.

She walked up the stairs. She yelled, “Nancy, I’m leaving! ”

There was a beat of silence before Nancy shouted back. “Bye!”

Holly wriggled in her confines, and Mike held her closer as he heard their car putter off their driveway. “What do you think of the movie, Hol?”

Holly continued to squirm. “‘M tired.”

Mike sighed. “Already? Mom and Dad just left.”

“Mishe!” Holly exclaimed, the ‘k’ sound still too hard for her to say.

“Fine, fine,” Mike sputtered. “Let me… I’ll get Nancy to put you in pajamas.”

“Nance,” Holly repeated as Mike hoisted her up from the recliner.

“Yup,” he grunted as a droopy Holly lay against his chest.

Holly used to be so easy to carry, but now that she was two, she was significantly heavier. It wasn’t like Mike was boasting any muscles. He struggled up the stairs and clumsily dropped Holly off at the foot of Nancy’s door. Venturing into Holly’s room, which used to be Nancy’s until she demanded the bigger room, he found the pajamas– a Strawberry Shortcake nightgown. Gripping the fabric, he rushed down the hallway before knocking on Nancy’s door.

“What, Mike?” Nancy groaned, and Mike heard the sound of a pencil slamming down on her desk.

“Can you change Holly into her pajamas?” Mike asked.

He heard footsteps coming closer, the door knob clicking as the door opened. “And why can’t you do it?”

“She’s a girl! I– can you please just change her? I can do all the other stuff.”

Nancy rolled her eyes. “Grow up, Mike.” She looked down at Holly with a soft smile, Mike feeling the anger radiate off of his sister. “Come on, Holly. Let’s get you ready for bed.”

Mike waited by her door, hearing Nancy baby-talk to her as she struggled with Holly. The hallway was dark, and Mike felt cornered. He tried to focus on the sounds on the other side of the door. They were real. They were human.

It didn’t take long for Nancy to change Holly. Within a few minutes, the door opened and Holly, fresh in her nightgown, stumbled out. Mike lifted her with a grunt, taking a free hand to hold her old clothes.

Nancy looked exasperated. “Do you need anything else?”

Mike shook his head. “Do you think Mom and Dad are having a good time?”

Nancy laughed. “I don’t think Dad’s ever had a good time with anything. But Mom, you know how much she loves parties.”

“I don’t get why people go to dances like that. I mean, you just fumble around the middle and do nothing.”

“You’ll understand when dances actually mean something. The Snowball’s for babies. Homecoming is the best. They play music, and you get to dance with all of your friends. It’s super fun.”

“Unless you don’t have a date.”

Nancy sighed. Her fingers tapped anxiously against the frame of the door, Holly squirming in Mike’s arms. “Then just go with your friends, okay? I don’t have time to worry about hypotheticals about my brother’s dating life. Good night, Mike.”

Mike stood in the hallway by himself, Holly slipping into his arms. It was too dark for him to stay put. He shifted Holly so she didn’t feel so insecure. “Okay, Holly, let’s go brush our teeth.”

____________________

Saturday, October 19, 1985

Mike thought that the morning of homecoming would feel more special and anxious than any ordinary Saturday. His mother would make pancakes, a special homecoming breakfast. His dad would be present at the table, doing more than drinking black coffee and dryly turning the newspaper. Nancy would be chattering on and on as her freshly painted nails clacked against the table. Holly would be twirling around the breakfast nook, claiming to be a “pretty princess at the dance like Nancy.”

To his chagrin, it was not so special. It was just normal. His mom did make pancakes for a special homecoming breakfast, but also because it was Saturday. His dad wasn’t even at the table, instead watching the early morning news in the living room. Mike had heard the shouts over the night, tense even through the ceiling. Something about Billy, even though Mike knew he had been long gone. Hell, he had seen Billy die.

 Nancy wasn’t home, either, spending the night at Jonathan’s house after the argument got so tense that Nancy “couldn’t stand it.” Holly hadn’t even touched her breakfast, withdrawing into herself after the argument and choosing to play with Merlin. It was just Mike and his mother.

“So, your friends will come up at five. I’ll order some pizzas and make a nice spread. What time does homecoming start again?”

“Six to nine,” Mike answered, stuffing syrup-soaked pancakes into his mouth, syrup flooding onto his eggs. “And Will’s coming up at three. Says he wants to work on homework where it’s not so loud.”

His mother pursed his lips. She looked weary, as if last night had aged her twenty years. It was just in that moment that Mike had noticed how dark her eye bags were, and how strong her coffee smelled. “Michael, slow down. Your breakfast isn’t going to fly away from you.”

Mike obeyed. His mother sighed. The weariness had turned into some sort of reminiscentness, eyes almost sparkling under the limited light. “God, I remember when you were so young. And now you’re off to your first high school dance. And Holly’s off to kindergarten… where did the time go?”

Mike shrugged. His life had been slipping in syrup since late 1983. Trudging through molasses at some points, whilst gliding on thin ice at other points.

“Remind us of your girlfriend’s name again,” his mother asked.

“Jane. But she likes to go by El.”

“Why El? Is it short for Eleanor or something? Is Eleanor her middle name?”

Anything but, he thought to himself, remembering the numbers savagely and permanently tattooed on her wrist. “Her middle name is Elizabeth, not Eleanor.”

That wasn’t a lie. Hopper had chosen it to go with her name in case she ever slipped up in conversation. But it wasn’t where anybody who knew her backstory liked to think of where her nickname came from. It was somehow easier to confront the raw truth than cover it up with extravagant webs of lies they had created to falsely console each other.

“El. Isn’t she Hopper’s daughter?”

Mike nodded. Before her mother could question, Mike filled in the gaps. “She, uh, she lived with her mother until eighth grade. It was some sort of thing that happened before he was married to Diane. Her mother, uh, is kind of a wreck. He didn’t want her to end up in foster care.”

Or worse, back in the laboratory.

His mother stiffened, idly playing with the cloth napkin on her right. Sometimes, he forgot how conservative his parents were. “Well, I’m glad that, erm–” she squirmed, “That El can have a good life here. Do you know where she lived before?”

Mike stopped. This had never been a part of the textbook. “Chicago.”

“Chicago. Well, then, that makes sense.”

Mike curled an eyebrow as his mother sipped his coffee. Their pancakes had been long forgotten. “What makes sense?”

“The crime rate there has been horrific, ever since drugs touched the city. It’s a shame; that city was once beautiful. Me and…”

His mother coughed into a clenched fist.

“Me and your father thought about taking a vacation, just the two of us, a couple of years ago. But when we looked into it, we were horrified. Depending on the part of Chicago, El’s mother could have been some sort of drug junkie. Though the statistics don’t exactly play out in that scenario’s favor. Do you know anything about her mother?”

Mike shook his head. “Not much other than her name. Terry, short for Teresa, I think.”

“Terry. You know, we have our own Terry in Hawkins. Terry Ives. She was deemed a bit of a nutcase, but she was a nice lady whenever I talked to her.”

Mike’s throat tightened. He was afraid that anything he said was going to derail, reveal. He said nothing.

“Anyway, I’ll make sure that the house is ready for homecoming. If I’m out when Will comes by, tell him that I said hello.” His mother reached his head back to the dining room. “Holly, give Merlin a rest and come eat breakfast! I don’t want you hungry before gymnastics practice.”

“I’m not hungry,” Holly whined, reluctant.

“Mike, make sure Holly eats. I’m going to… settle some things before I have to drop Holly off for gymnastics.”

“I’m going to the Olympics!” Holly exclaimed to no one in particular. She had her heart set on it ever since she saw Mary Lou Retton when she was no older than four. With no shortage of money, at least within reason, Mike suddenly saw his sister practicing on foam mats outside their front yard whilst being driven to practice at a complex fifteen minutes away twice a week.

Mike smiled as his mother left the area. His shoulders dropped. “Olympians eat their breakfast.”

She didn’t need any more encouragement. With his mind free, he stared at the covered window. He thought of El, thought of what her dress might look like. Max had insisted that it be a surprise for both him and Lucas. His mind drifted… waxed and waned… 

____________________

His father had been long gone ever since Will had shown up with his books and binders. He was already dressed in his suit he wore to the Snowball, though it was slightly more snug than it was in eighth grade. With a black vest and a white undershirt, the striped blue tie was hidden discreetly. It was all covered with a black blazer that hung on the chair until five o’clock.

Mike dressed similarly, except he had decided to wear a tan suit to complement what El said was a “green dress.” He wore a light green tie that his father had purchased for him at the fancy suit shops he frequented. His mother had insisted that his growing hair be slicked back, so he settled for a nice comb back, parted just slightly on the side. He felt a small smidge of resentment for his father– he had had to tie the tie himself.

An impressive array had been set out on the dining room table by his mother. There were chips and crackers, and veggie platters. Two pizzas were set on either side, one cheese, the other pepperoni. It wafted occasionally into the living room where Will and Mike anxiously waited in silence. They tried to ignore the sounds of Nancy and Jonathan sucking face in the other room. It was quiet, too quiet for Mike’s taste.

“Are you excited?” Mike asked, knee bouncing as his stomach flipped.

Will shrugged. “I’m kind of third-wheeling.”

Mike stared a little longer at Will. Something about him seemed… down. Dejected, almost. Before he could ask, however, he heard a sharp rap at the door. He rolled his eyes as the person kept knocking.

“Alright, alright!” Mike grumbled as he opened the door to reveal Max and Lucas.

Mike took a step back as Max burst through. “Finally, Wheeler! Took you long enough.”

Mike was stunned into silence, unable to come up with any remark. Max was wearing makeup. Her eyes shimmered with purple, and her lips were a bright red to match her dress. Lucas shuffled in behind him, but Mike paid him no mind.

“Mike?” Max asked, snapping her fingers in front of his face. “You’ve been staring at me for, like, ever.”

Mike blinked. “Sorry, it’s just– sorry.”

He turned to Lucas, Lucas offering a shuddery grin. Mike reached out for a slap on the hands, and Lucas reciprocated. Mike whispered, “She’s wearing a dress.”

“Yeah. She looks so beautiful,” Lucas smiled, tightening the bright red tie that matched his girlfriend’s dress.

“Wheeler, I didn’t know your mother got real chips! Will, come here, look at this!” Max exclaimed, Will rising off the couch with a groan to follow her.

It wasn’t long until there was another knock on the door. Mike, closer this time, opened the door fairly quickly. His heart started to beat a little faster, but it was quickly deflated when the door revealed Dustin and his date, Melody.

Melody and Mike had seen each other in the hallways. She always wore her cheerleader uniform on game days, but never seemed to have the arrogance like the rest of the cheerleaders. She was humble, and according to Dustin, intelligent. Melody seemed too multifaceted for high school, too developed, almost.

Dustin didn’t have the same tragic hairstyle he donned for the Snow Ball, but it was still somewhat enhanced, shaping into a sphere around his hair. He wore an orchid corsage on his lapel to match Melody’s dark orchid. Even if Dustin insisted they were going as friends and that he would forever stay loyal to Suzie, Mike swore they looked like a real couple, arms linked together.

“Hey, Dustin,” Mike said, letting the two in. Melody gave an awkward wave. 

Dustin stepped inside. “Is El here yet?”

Mike shook his head. “We’re waiting on her before we can eat pizza.”

Lucas looked up from the dining room table, red sauce on the corners of his lips. “We were supposed to wait?”

Mike rolled his eyes. “I guess not.”

Lucas eagerly took another chunk of his slice right as the door knocked for what Mike hoped would be the last time. His hand shook as he opened it, excitement flooding his veins. This time, he was not disappointed. El was standing in front of the door, in a green dress just like she promised, hair in a curly ponytail. Her dress was a green dress that fell just below her knees. The neckline fell to the middle of her chest in a sharp V. There were gold-lined pockets wrapped around the side and on the hems of her sleeves. Pink and yellow flowers sprinkled the dress with pearly white buttons all down the front. It wasn’t a trendy dress, not like the ones Mike saw in the magazines. There was little poof or flair or bright color. But it was her dress.

Hopper stood behind him, hands stuffed in his pockets. “El, I want you to have fun, but be careful. There are a lot of people and the rules don’t end–”

“In two weeks. I know,” El sighed, turning back. Her arms wrapped around his father, Mike, waiting near the threshold awkwardly.

Hopper kissed her forehead before staring at Mike with an irritated glare. “Keep her safe.”

“I will,” Mike quickly answered, hiccuping over his own words as El rushed inside.

Closing the door behind him, El quickly cupped his cheek and jolted into him, lips pressing together. Mike blinked with surprise before letting go after a few seconds. “You look really pretty, El.”

“Joyce did my makeup. There’s no pink last time, but there’s some green,” El commented, closing her eyelids.

Nancy trained him well. “The eyeshadow did its job.”

She opened her eyes again and looked around, racing for the pizza within seconds. She gasped as she sat down next to Max. “You’re wearing lipstick.”

“So are you. Be careful when you’re eating so it doesn’t go away,” Max said, eating her pizza with a knife and a fork.

El grabbed her own set of utensils.

“You’re Jane, right?” Melody suddenly piped up, grabbing a handful of carrot sticks.

Mike stood and watched, breath hitched as his girlfriend slowly nodded.

“You know, I didn’t see you around at all last year. Where were you?”

Mike saw El’s nervous eyes darting all around the room, landing on Mike. “I, uh…, moved from Chicago to be with my dad.”

“Chicago?” Melody’s nose scrunched. “Yuck.”

El nodded along, Mike taking his cue and sitting down on her other side. He gripped her fingers under the table, resting on his kneecap. “Melody, why don’t you tell us about yourself? We don’t know much about you.”

At some point, Will had rejoined them at the table, fighting with Lucas over the last slice of pepperoni pizza.

Melody laughed. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about me. You’re just going to know me for tonight, and then I probably won’t ever be in your lives again. Dustin tells me he’s got a girlfriend all the way in Utah.”

“Suzie,” everybody sighed collectively, El gripping his hand a little tighter.

Mike was glad El wasn’t living in some far-out West Coast state. She belonged right here, right next to him.

____________________

People scattered all around them, clustered in groups with white cone-shaped cups in their hands. Mike shuffled his feet, watching as the front of the line became closer and closer. El stood next to him, fiddling with her slip. He watched as teachers crossed off names one by one on a sheet of paper, checking any bag large enough for alcohol. Clutching his paper ticket, Mike walked up to his science teacher, sitting at the plastic table set up in the entrance to the school.

“Michael!” Ms. Anantua exclaimed, taking the paper ticket from both his and El’s hands. “You two look nice tonight.”

“Thank you,” El murmured, blushing as they watched him scrawl his signature on the paper.

“You two have a nice night,” Ms. Anantua said, shooing them away so Max and Lucas could check in.

Music was heard from the gym a few feet away, and El leaned into Mike. “There are a lot of people here.”

Mike shrugged, gripping her on the cheek. “You’ll be fine. It’s the same number of people as the Snowball.”

“I liked the Snowball,” El smiled, and she rested her head on Mike’s shoulder.

Mike’s heart swelled as he squeezed her hand. Being in a high school with El, his girlfriend , seemed surreal a year ago. For a moment, he remembered crying into the walkie-talkie in her blanket fort before pushing it out of his mind. That was then. He wanted to focus on the now.

Mike took a look around. The school had been decked out in orange and green streamers. A boombox was set on a table just near the entrance, playing some top hit that Mike couldn’t recognize. He bounced on his toes as the rest of the Party cashed in their tickets.

Max huffed. “The decorations look so lame.”

Mike rolled his eyes. “Can you be happy just for once?”

Max pursed her lips. Her eyes went cold. Mike stared at her for a minute before she dragged Lucas away. “Come on, I want to dance.”

Mike furrowed his eyebrows with confusion, tracing the pair with his eyes. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Her brother just died, Mike,” Dustin mumbled, locking arms with Melody. “Come on, let’s go dance with her.”

His stomach dropped. The Starcourt incident seemed like it was miles away some days, and like it was yesterday other times. El tapped him on the shoulder, her thumb pressing on the back of his hand. He blinked unexpectedly, turning to her.

“Dustin said to dance. We should go,” she said.

Mike nodded, lips curling upwards. He kissed her hair, interlacing their fingers as they turned to the gym. “Yeah, let’s go.”

The gym had been decorated in orange and green as well, with pictures of tigers hanging from the walls. Mike snorted back a laugh at the poorly-made decorations, the streaky crayons gleaming in the dim lights. Upon a pedestal was an intricate setup full of speakers and boomboxes. The cassette tapes glinted in the light, and as people flooded in, they became quickly obstructed.

El dragged them to the corner where a circular table sat. Max and Lucas were sitting there, Max tapping her foot to the beat. Mike saw Dustin and Melody following them out of the corner of his eye, Melody’s flouncy dress bouncing as she walked. El sat down next to Max in a rickety white chair, Mike standing behind Lucas. “I thought you wanted to dance.”

“Yeah, we are. This song blows. And where’s Will?”

Mike glanced around. “He should be ar… Will!”

Raising his hand, he stared at him. Standing by the door, eyes wide, was Will. His eyes were frantic, darting, until he spotted Mike. He gave a quick smile and pushed past all of the kids littered amongst the gym.

“Why aren’t we dancing?” Will exclaimed once he was in view.

“Max doesn’t like the song. El won’t leave Max,” Mike answered, eyes floating back to El.

Her eyes were somewhat glazed over, her foot lazily tapping to the beat of the now-ending song. She stared at the people dancing, Mike assumed with some awe. Hands still laced together, when the song changed to Tainted Love , his arm was tugged. Both Max and El stood from their chairs, Lucas fixing his tie.

“Come on, Mike,” El exclaimed, pulling his arm nearly out of his socket. “Dance.”

“Okay, okay,” Mike chuckled, stumbling ahead to relieve the discomfort in his shoulder.

El pulled them to the edge of the dance floor. Neither of them knew how to dance; nobody really did. Knees bounced, arms waved, feet shuffled. Everybody shouted the chorus, the two sharp beats separating the words. He was surprised to see that El knew the words, but he remembered how much Max had influenced her. More fashionable clothes, different taste in music– she had started to become her own person.

It was hot, and all of the students in the school crowded around each other. A bead of sweat formed at the bottom of his scalp, the singular fan in the back of the room providing next to no comfort. It was a sweaty mess, but nobody seemed to pay much mind. Most of all, he loved to see El smile, be happy. Mike had dreamed of the moment they would be dancing together without fear of her being found by the government, going to school together, and being a real couple.

After a couple of minutes, though, he saw El grow cold, almost robotically moving to the bleachers. He stopped dancing, dress shoes loudly clapping against the floor as he rushed over to his girlfriend.

“El?” Mike exclaimed, sitting down. “El, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Mike,” she sighed. “I’m just…”

Mike let out a sigh. “Oh, do you want–”

Before he could get out his sentence, he felt his lips on her. It was dynamic, and Mike wrapped his hands around her instinctively. She was fierce, pushing harder than they had ever gone before. For a moment, he was enthralled, running a hand through her ponytail. He didn’t hear the music around them. Her arms languidly moved to his neck, her speed feverish. As the adrenaline faded, a sense of embarrassment washed over him.

“El,” he gasped, moving her lips away, eyebrows furrowed. “El, what… what are you doing?”

It seemed as if a glaze had been removed from her eyes, and she quickly stood up, brushing the end of her dress. Rocking on her feet, she stood awkwardly, hands erratically fidgeting. He could almost feel his heartbeat. “I’m going to get food. I will bring Will with me.”

Mike didn’t have the heart to reach out, watching El walk with an anxious speed. He had never been more confused.

Chapter Text

Saturday, January 12, 1985

The cabin was not where Lucas thought he would be spending the first few days of the new year. In fact, before November, he didn’t know such a place existed. He had nearly forgotten about the 1983 incident by the next year. Of course, there were Will’s PTSD (possession) attacks, and the odd feeling in his gut whenever he passed by the laboratory, but their life had returned to a nice stasis.

Then El showed back up, and after a harrowing journey to rid Hawkins of the Upside Down and Will of the Mind Flayer, stuff had lulled back down. They hadn’t seen El for a good two weeks after she appeared in November, but with promises from the chief, who had supposedly taken her in after the first attack, they impatiently waited for the ability to see her again.

It had been a hard two weeks. Lucas had to confront everything that had happened in 1983, from Will going missing to the dead body floating in the quarry, to how he had treated El. He had forgiven himself at that moment. His actions had been founded in logic, shaped by biases that were a product of the natural world. El had broken too many of them, from supernatural abilities to horrible people living mere miles away, and he had acted accordingly. The apology he had given in the junkyard, the same junkyard where he and Max had truly talked for the first time, had done enough in the moment to placate their grudges, but deep down, Lucas still knew how unfair he had been to her. The regret festered in him like a seed, embedding its roots in his stomach and sprouting through his heart, turning into guilt.

After those weeks had trudged past, Hopper had allowed them to come by on very specific conditions. Once a week, they would all come as a group for two hours. They couldn’t bring any recording devices or a radio that could give away their location. Mike had been more than disappointed. Lucas remembered a muffled screaming match behind closed doors between the chief and Mike, the chief winning as expected. Of course, Hopper had promised that the rules would get less and less strict as the year went on, though Lucas didn’t care all that much. Once a week, the Party would feel whole again.

The first few times had been awkward. Lucas had brought along Max, stupidly. El barely talked those times, focusing almost all of her attention on Mike. Max didn’t mind all that much, as long as Lucas promised that he would try to mend things to make them better. He promised, though he barely knew how to strengthen his relationship with El.

After the new year, as promised, Hopper allowed two visits a week, and for El to spend some time outside with them. However, the cold Hawkins winter prevented that from happening too much. El didn’t seem to like the snow all that much. Instead, she had turned to books– specifically textbooks. She had made it her mission to go to school with the boys the following year, and while Lucas had been skeptical, he knew that if El could flip a van, she could certainly learn to read and write.

Whenever the Party came over, the first hour always turned into a sort of question-and-answer session. “What does this word mean?” “What’s a cumulonimbus cloud?” “What is France?” They were such menial questions that Lucas was at first taken aback by her lack of understanding of the world. She knew numbers, shapes, letters, and colors. She knew Morse Code, how to build a fire, and yet she couldn’t even read an on-grade-level book.

To his surprise, El had decided to gravitate to him for the history questions. Lucas hadn’t even told her that he was the best at history out of the Party. Yet it was like she had a sixth sense. Whenever there was a question about Egyptians or war generals, she would gravitate towards him, as if some magnetic pull drew the two together for that topic only. She would keep her distance on every other matter, still frightened by her previous experiences (which Lucas still felt guilty over).

With pizza in Lucas’s hand, Mike eagerly rang the doorbell. Saturdays were easily Lucas’s favorite visits. They were allowed to see the Sun, unlike when they visited at night. It was just Lucas and Mike this time. Will had to visit the doctor, and Dustin was inflicted with another ear infection. El eagerly unlocked the locks, though when they barged in she was sitting on the couch, TV turning from some sort of drama to a brief static before turning off entirely.

Lucas put the pizza on the dining room table and sat on one of the two red chairs in perfect condition despite the years spent in a musty cabin. He looked away as he heard the sounds of kissing, the slimy feeling in his gut slithering to his throat. He thought of Max, how her red hair was so nice to play with, how she and El were like two of the same sides on a magnet, how there was a random bruise on her collarbone…

“Lucas,” he heard, and a shot of adrenaline ran down his spine, too wrapped up in her world. 

Turning back to the living room, he saw El, hair slowly flattening, holding up a history workbook. “America book. Can you help me? I don’t understand some.”

Lucas smiled. “Yeah, sure.”

He quietly enjoyed helping her. Her questions were easy to answer, most of the time, and any time that could be spent making positive memories would, hopefully, eradicate the first bad week they spent together. Mike sat back with a slice of pizza in his hand, the chief idly watching them from a chair stuffed in a corner.

“Will we learn this in high school?” El asked.

“We learnt this in fifth grade, I think. So… ten, eleven years. You’re getting closer,” Lucas said.

“I want to get to nine. Hopper says freshmen were ninth graders.”

“We hope so, too.”

____________________

Sunday, October 20, 1985

The final official meet of the cross-country season: states. Lucas felt tense, standing near the starting line. The air was chillier than he liked, arms crossed, feet bouncy. He shivered out a shaky exhale, his hot breath coming back to hit him in the face. It was already three o’clock, and yet the chilly nature couldn’t hide itself in the dying shrubbery. His tank top was too loose for his liking, with nothing to keep whatever warmth he was producing near him. He was wedged toward the edge, being pushed around by a kid from Morgan County. He felt his side rub against the hard metal pole keeping a hundred-odd kids contained, but there was a positive: being able to see Dustin with his green flag, tiger flapping in the wind. Sometimes, he loathed their excitement. Today, he craved it.

Nobody on the team was gunning for a spot at nationals at this point. Behind Dustin and Erica, whose head was once again stuck in a book, were the four other injured varsity players who were supposed to compete in states. Casts and crutches littered the field, bandages and tape wrapped around strained knees. Within a week, the varsity kids, including the co-captain Andy Burset, had their seasons cut dangerously short. From torn ACLs to concussions off the track, it was bad enough that the coach had considered bringing up Moises Evans as a substitute.

Remember, we’re doing this for the heck of it, now. Don’t stress yourself out too much fighting for a competitive spot. Just have fun with this one, okay? The coach’s words rang in his ears. Unfortunately for the coach, it went in one ear and out of the other. Lucas eyed the horizon as the warning air horn went off; everybody near or on the track was dead silent. Lucas thumped his fist against his chest, leaning ever so slightly forward. There were fewer people to contend with, Lucas told himself. He didn’t let himself remember that he was one of the youngest, if not the youngest, of them all.

When the gun went off, he didn’t let himself get jostled around. He didn’t even care about the people around him. All he cared about was his own pace– his way to the end. This track, situated at Silverlake High School, not far from Hawkins, was a single-lap course. Lucas always preferred them more. Disappointment seemed to come more frequently when he reached the end, only to realize it was a mere checkpoint.

He tried to keep himself within the first five people, something that was a hard task considering that the front pack was full of seniors who were gunning for scholarships. Lucas almost felt remorseful; surely his win would cause trouble with their resumés. Nonetheless, he kept racing, the air pushing against him as the adrenaline that had carried him most of the way had all but sunk into his ocean, pure strength and willpower carrying him to the end. He grew tunnel vision, all of the nature surrounding him fading into darkness. He tried to imagine running from the Demogorgon, as sick as it was. That freak… that monster… carried him further than he could ever imagine. He imagined running through the hallways, the government lurching on one arm, the fleshy monster threatening on the other. He was running and running, giving a final unexpected push as he felt a plastic band wrap and then break under his force.

And then it was over.

All of the pain crashed over him, lungs seizing and burning with the pressure and heat of a thousand suns. He limped, grabbing his water bottle off the table as his vision went in and out. Lightheaded, when he made it to his tent, he all but collapsed on the chair next to Dustin. Not even a moment later, as he rested his forearms on his knees to try and open his lungs, he felt Dustin shake him.

“Dude!” Dustin exclaimed. “Dude, dude, dude!”

“What?” Lucas asked, snapping up as he thrust out an apologetic hand. “Sorry. I. I. Can’t. Breathe.”

“You won! You won the whole thing!”

Lucas’ eyes went wide as he took a sip from his water bottle. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, man! Some guy took a photo of you as you crossed the finish line. Did you not see it?”

Lucas shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish laugh. “I kind of blacked out, I guess.”

“Do you know what this means, man? If the other guys do well, then–”

Lucas laughed a little harder this time. “Dude, I’m the only person left from counties. It’s helpful that I just…”

He let out a happy wheeze, endorphins starting to seep into him. “...won the whole thing. But we’re not going to nationals.”

Dustin shrugged. “You never know.”

Lucas leaned back in his chair, chugging what was left of his water. He watched as hoards of people crossed the finish line. A surge of adrenaline coursed through him as he thought of the gold medal wrapped around his neck.

“Sinclair!” he suddenly heard, whipping his head to see his coach barging towards the tent. “You know you just won the whole thing, right?”

Lucas nodded, unable to hold back a proud smile. “I guess so.”

“You know you just won yourself a ticket to Nationals?”

Lucas’ eyes widened, standing up so fast that he nearly knocked over his chair, his hands shaking. “Really?”

The coach nodded, adjusting the cap on his head. “I should go talk to your folks and give them the information. It’s in San Dego, next week.”

Stepping forward, Lucas felt the coach slap him on the shoulder. “Good job, kid. You’re earning your letter.”

As the coach walked away, Dustin slapped him on the arm. “San Diego, huh? That’s where Max is from.”

“California,” Lucas murmured to himself. “Yeah.”

“You’re gonna be on the front page of the Indiana Daily.”

Lucas chuckled, putting his hands on his hips. The front page.

____________________

The race ended too late in the night for a team dinner. For hours after the race, Lucas had to suffer through congratulations from coaches and runners that he didn’t know. Teammates clapped him on the back so hard he swore there was a handprint near his spine.

When it came time for the medal ceremony, he felt unnaturally awkward getting his medal. It shone in the bright lights of the makeshift stage in the middle of the racetrack, the gold reflecting at him. He couldn’t stop staring at it, a surge of pride shooting through his veins. His parents stood in the front, right by the official cameraman, taking photographs with their small handheld device. His eyes darted around as he stood on the tallest podium, unsure of which camera to stare at. He made sure his smile was bright, teeth glinting in the moonlight.

He didn’t want to take the gold medal off his neck, the blue ribbon holding, scratching the sweat off of it. Even in the car, he held it in his palm, clutching it against his fingers.

“Am I coming to San Diego, too?” Erica asked.

“Your dad and Lucas will be going, and you and I will get some alone time together,” his mother said. “And you have your piano recital that Sunday.”

“Maybe Dustin can help me with a campaign,” Erica sighed, tossing her fantasy book into the side holder.

“I got a Math Olympiad thing to handle all next weekend. We’re handling the middle school Olympiad at Jefferson Middle School,” Dustin said. “Maybe you could get a middle school Olympiad off the ground at Hawkins.”

Erica scoffed. “I’m not that much of a nerd.”

His mother piped up from the driver’s seat, turn signal blinking. “Lucas, sweetie, where do you want to go out to eat?”

Lucas shrugged. “I don’t mind all that much. Whatever works for you, to be honest.”

His father scoffed, looking back. “Now, son, you just won a state competition, and you have a family, and Dustin, who’s hungry. You’ve earned a nice dinner out. Where’d you like to go?”

Lucas glanced around furtively. “How about Bull City?”

His father smiled, turning back in his seat to face the front. He tapped his fingers against the middle console. “Why not?”

“Charlie, how far?” his mother asked, turning on the headlights as the sun dimmed above.

“Down the road and to the second left. Should be right there.”

Within five minutes, they were sitting at a table, menus in their lap. Erica’s book had finally migrated to her lap, playing with her nails.

“I need these painted for my costume.”

“What are you going as?” Dustin asked.

Erica squinted her eyes. “Applejack.”

Dustin mouthed, “Nerd.”

Lucas rolled his eyes, glancing at the menu. His stomach grumbled– he hadn’t eaten in hours. He had become wary of eating any food before a race thanks to Moises Evans, who once vomited so much he had to be hospitalized for two days, and had fasted all day. Finding the biggest burger on the menu, he quickly ordered it and felt his body constrict with hunger.

“Did you do the geometry homework? I swear, Mrs. Adeshoga is trying to kill us,” Dustin said, grabbing some of the crispy fried pickles in the middle of the table, parchment paper crinkling within the black woven basket.

“It’s not that bad. It was, what, ten questions about coplanarity and collinearity? I think you may just be bad at math, man,” Lucas chuckled.

“Me? Might I remind you who got straight As in middle school? Plus, I’m the one who…” Dustin began before trailing off.

Lucas’ parents were too caring to ignore any jab made at the Upside Down. None of their parents, except for Joyce and Hopper, knew what the Upside Down was. They barely knew who El– or, in some of their houses, Jane– was. They couldn’t finish the sentence– Plus, I’m the one who figured out that the compasses were askew. I’m the one who figured out the sensory deprivation tank. I’m the one who crawled for days in vents with your little sister. Tension filled the air between them, and Lucas glanced out the window.

“Excuse me?” he suddenly heard, an unexpected shiver rushing down his back. “Are you Lucas Sinclair by any chance?”

Turning his head, he saw two girls, no older than seventeen, standing next to him with bright eyes and wide smiles. He had never seen these girls in his life. He averted his eyes, fingers fidgeting. “Yes…”

“You probably don’t know us, but we just heard of your run on the news, and we just wanted to say congratulations.”

Lucas was overcome with humiliation, blushing as he stammered over himself. “Oh, uh… thank you.”

The girls giggled to themselves, glancing furtively at each other. “Well, okay. Bye!”

Awkwardly, he watched them run out of the restaurant, sneakers slapping against the tile with little agility.

“Oh, look at that baby! You’re the talk of the town,” his mother gawked, the smell of their burgers invading his nose.

Lucas stared at the tablecloth. “I don’t know who those girls were.”

“They’re on the cheerleading squad, JV, I think. Couldn’t tell you their names,” Dustin murmured before breaking out into a huge grin. “Dude, you have a fan club now. Wait until school tomorrow. People will be flocking to your side.”

Lucas pushed him away. “I do not. They said they saw me on the news or something. Chance encounter at best.”

Dustin shook his head, unconvinced as their burgers made their way to their table. “Nuh-uh, man. Face it. You’re popular now. All of the girls will be begging to date you.”

Lucas smirked. “Yeah, right. My heart is only loyal to Max.”

Erica let out a snort, kicking Lucas’ leg under the table.

“Look, all I’m asking is don’t leave us in the dirt, all right?”

Lucas concealed a smile, biting into his burger. Popular .

____________________

The gold medal that hung on his desk lay on a medal pedestal his mother had bought him after his bronze at the counties. It glimmered against the light from his lap as the fizzing static from Lucas’ radio dissipated into the air. He had tried for twenty minutes to contact Max with nothing but silence on her end. He was concerned; they always talked every night, but lately she hadn’t been picking up. Max had been growing quiet and cold, Lucas barely holding onto her by the tips of his fingers. He was surprised that she allowed him to kiss her at homecoming and had danced with him at all. She needed space– that’s what his mother said– but it seemed like the space expanded infinitely between them.

Setting the radio down on his nightstand, he stretched out his sore legs. They felt like Jell-O, his body vigorously trying to repair the excruciating damage he had inflicted upon it. He glanced at the map of the fifty states he had stuck up on his wall. California and Indiana were hundreds of miles away, a seven-hour flight, his coach had said. He tried to imagine what it would be like, running in a place known for its heat. He shuddered.

Right as he turned to get into bed, he heard a sharp rap at his door, followed by a shrill voice on the other side. “Lucas, are you dead?”

Lucas rolled his eyes. “Don’t you wish I were? What do you want, Erica?”

“Can you help me with something?”

Erica’s voice was muffled by the distance. “Just come in.”

The doorknob clicked as it was pushed open, Erica holding a stack of papers and a flimsy book in her arms. “I need your help with a character.”

“A character? For what?”

Erica scoffed. “For Dungeons and Dragons. Dustin’s going to host a campaign for me and my friends in a couple of weeks, and I haven’t even started.”

Lucas stretched his arms out, raising his eyebrows. “Your friends are into Dungeons and Dragons? I thought that was just a you thing.”

“It was, until Tina got into it. Once Tina got into it, Tanya got into it. Then April, Kelly, and now they all want to start a campaign,” Erica groaned. “And I need to set a good example for them with my character! They’ll be starting at level one while I’ll be starting on level three, and if I don’t make my character good, then it’ll be over for our whole squad!”

“Who said you’d be level three?”

“I’m the leader, so Dustin said I could be a couple of levels ahead. That’s not the point, dummy. Will you help me or not?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll help you. Come on, we’re doing this at the dining table,” Lucas groaned, every step stiff and unnatural as they ambled to the dining room downstairs.

“Hurry up, slowpoke!” Erica groaned.

“Yeah, well, try running a 5K in fourteen minutes fifty,” Lucas snapped. “For all we know, I could have broken some sort of long-standing record.”

Erica snorted. “I doubt it. El could break it in minutes.”

Lucas glared at her, protective rage filling his chest. “You don’t understand why she’s a fast runner. If you did, you’d wish she were in a wheelchair.”

Erica rolled her eyes as she set the papers down on the table. “Geez, man. She’s not even your girlfriend. Don’t be so protective of her. That’s Mike’s job.”

“Whatever,” he grumbled. “Do you have any idea of what class you want to be in?”

“Rogue. I didn’t sneak in all of those air vents for nothing,” Erica smirked. “It’s more setting up all of the other stuff that I need your help with. I have my species and class and everything.”

“Species?”

“I’m going as a half-human, half-elf.”

Lucas leaned back. “Interesting complexity. I wonder how it would affect your… What's your character’s name?”

Erica smirked. “Lady Applejack.”

Lucas crinkled your eyebrows. “You’re playing one of the most revered games in history, one full of adventure, and you’re going with Lady Applejack?”

“I like My Little Pony,” Erica shrugged. “I need help with my ability scores. I brought dice.”

She grabbed a sack on the other side of the table and rolled the contents out on the table. They were glossy green dice.

“Who got you these?” Lucas asked. “These are, like, professional dice.”

“Dustin had a spare set.”

Lucas shook his head. “Okay, what you need to do is roll 4 d6 dice for each and then take out the lowest score. The way Hellfire plays is that you get extra points for… dexterity and charisma since you’re a rogue, and then you take your scores, write them in, add an extra two for charisma and dexterity, and then assign extra points for advantage and disadvantage. Your worst score will have a +0 advantage and a -3 disadvantage. Then it goes +1 and -2, +2 and -1, you get the idea. Dexterity and charisma will have a +4 and a +1 for disadvantage.”

“Those are weird rules,” Erica griped, shaking her dice in her hands.

“It’s probably the rules that Dustin will play with, too. He’s obsessed with Eddie.”

As Lucas watched Erica roll the dice on the table, scratching in values, he thought of the chaotic beginnings of the Party’s Dungeons and Dragons journey. How they had gotten way into the rules the first time that it wasn’t fun, how Mike’s campaign had so many plot holes that the latter half of their first campaign was spent on arguing. There was no peace and no fun until Dustin’s first campaign, where his campaign, while simple, had worked.

“Why did you guys start playing D&D?” Erica asked, counting dice with the tips of her fingers.

Lucas shrugged. “Mike got it at some store and told us we should try and play it. We got kind of obsessed with it.”

“Is it fun being in Hellfire, then? Or is it too many people?”

Lucas shook his head. “I thought it would be way weirder, but it’s nice to get to be yourself there. Eddie’s great. I’m glad I joined.”

Lucas meant it.

Chapter Text

Saturday, July 4, 1981

She knew that the Parkinson’s weren’t at their house– her house. There were no cars in the driveway, no lights on in the house. She had parked herself at their house, defiantly sitting just at the threshold of their residence. Max sat anxiously at the edge of the driveway, foot tapping against the curb. Knees tucked into herself, she watched the road for her father’s green Volkswagen Beetle. He promised her last week that they would go to the beach together on July 4th. The problem was that he was thirty minutes late. She looked at the back of her house… it would always be her house… and imagined how lifeless the new owners had made it.

“Max!” she heard, and when she glanced back at the street, she saw her mother running down the sidewalk.

Her stomach dropped.

“Max, what are you doing here? Do you know how scared you made me? Why did you run off?”

“Go away!” Max yelled, stomping her foot against the pavement as her mother jogged across the street. “Just– Leave me alone!”

“Maxie,” her mother murmured, crouching to her level. Her face was sympathetic, almost patronizing. Max scowled at her mother, arms wrapped around her knees. “What’s going on?”

“He doesn’t know!” Max grumbled, arms shaking.

“Who doesn’t know?”

“Dad! He doesn’t know our new house. And he said that he would take me to the beach today. But he was late, and it’s because he doesn’t know where our new house is.”

The face of sympathy turned into one of sorrow, Max’s blood turning ice cold with confusion. Tears welled up in her eyes, brain working ahead. “Max, your father called me last night. He’s not coming, sweetheart.”

Her brain was right.

Tears slipped down her face as she pushed herself away, minuscule scrapes on her palms from the gritty driveway. “He always promises, but he never comes!”

She felt his mother wrap her arm around her. “I know it’s hard, sweetie. I know how much you love your dad. He’s… not in a good place right now, okay?”

“He’s never in a good place,” Max sobbed, drying her tears on her mother’s tank top.

“Why don’t we go back to the house now, okay? Neil is grilling hot dogs and burgers. He told me that he’ll even let you have extra bacon on your burger.”

Max took one long, leering look at the house. “This house wasn’t very good. The memories are bad.”

Her mom frowned. “I know it’s hard, Maxie. Come on, let’s go.”
She didn’t have the guts to tell her mom that her new house was worse. 

Opening the gate to the backyard, Max felt the familiar pit in her stomach when she saw Neil smoking a cigarette, flipping burgers. “Maxine, you’re back from your escapade!”

Max scoffed. “Wouldn’t you like to know where I went?”

Neil turned to her, the burgers sizzling loudly on the grill. For a moment, they stared at each other, two furious and strong people sizing up the other. Max wasn’t one to break down, glaring at him until Neil turned back to the burgers.

“Bitch,” he heard Neil murmur under his breath, before coughing. “Go hang out with Billy. Burgers will be ready shortly. Don’t leave our sight again, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Max sighed, tacking on the unfamiliar sign of respect that he hated with every atom of her being.

Walking across the small backyard, not twenty feet away, was Billy, pouring some of his father’s beer into his cup. “You want a taste, Red?”

Max sneered with disgust. “No, thank you.”

Billy took a swig and coughed at the yeasty taste. “Where’d you go?”

“My home. I was waiting for my dad. But he never comes, only says he will.”

Billy frowned. “That’s what parents do. They make all of these grandiose promises and raise your expectations. And you fall into the trap every single time, since, you know, that’s what you’re supposed to do. But then they fall through every. Single. Time. The sooner you stop falling into the trap, the easier it gets.”

Max quirked her eyebrow. “I thought your mother came to visit you a couple of weeks ago.”

Billy laughed. “It’s just what my father says to make it seem like they have a healthy relationship, you know, ‘co-parenting’ and all that shit. But I haven’t seen her in four years. She left with her mistress and never came back. Probably for the best, to be honest.”

“Your mother seems like an asshole.”

“Hey!” Billy barked. “She wasn’t, okay?”

Max sank in her chair. “Okay, okay.”

"She was much better than Dad– Neil– ever was and ever will be.”

“I wish I could say the same about my dad,” Max sighed. “He’s all wrapped in stuff. Mom tries to hide it from me, but I know it’s drugs.”

Billy’s anger faded as soon as it came. He seemed to stutter over his words. “I… I’m sorry about that.”

Max smirked, guards quickly rising. “Was that a real apology, Billy?”

Billy smirked back. “I guess it was. Drugs can be a real bitch. I’ll smoke cigarettes and weed and alcohol and all of that shit, but I would never take hard drugs. That stuff will fuck you up.”

He leaned in. “You never take a drug, you hear me? If you do, I’ll beat your ass before the cows come home.”

Max nodded, leaning back with an ounce of comfort. “Do you think if my dad had never taken drugs, that my parents would be together?”

Billy shrugged. “I hope so. That way, we would have never met, and I wouldn’t have to babysit your ass.”

“I’m that much of a bother?” Max asked with a superior raise of her eyebrows.

Billy reached over to rustle her hair, but Max swatted his hands away so she could smooth it out. “Yeah, shitbird. Sometimes you can be a real pain in the ass. But we’re going to be family, eventually, ‘cause let’s face it, my dad has lured your mother into his trap. So we have to look out for each other, you know?”

Max nodded. “Yeah… I know.”

____________________

Monday, October 22, 1985

Max gripped the newspaper from the front displays, tucking it under her arm as she walked to guitar class. On the front was Lucas, right as he burst through the green tape that held the finish line together. The headline read: HAWKINS FRESHMAN WINS INDIANA STATE, FIRST TIME IN TWELVE YEARS. Nancy had authored the article, and Max felt a deep pang of regret as she stopped by the door of her guitar case, unfolding the newspaper.

She skimmed the article, heart both elating and sinking, floating within the liminal space of her chest cavity. Lucas had not only been the first person from Hawkins to win states in twelve years, but was the third freshman of all time in Indiana’s history to win. On one hand, Max was proud of him for achieving something he had worked hard to get. On the other hand, she was overwhelmed by guilt. She should have been there. She had planned on it, too. But something wouldn’t let her get out of bed that day, and she listened to the radio instead, some college sophomore too enthusiastic to make his debut, yelling constantly. He hadn’t done a very good job.

Haphazardly, she ripped the article out of the newspaper, tossing the rest in the recycling can. She put the picture within her music folder, grabbing her guitar off the shelf. Mr. Rosen sat in the corner, fiddling with the pegs, tuning his strings. The sour sounds of sharp and flat strings pierced her eyes as she set up her stand, leaving the clipping isolated in her folder.

Mr. Rosen was the guitar and music theory teacher at the school. His white beard was long, and his hair was even longer. He was stuck in the hippie days of the sixties, or what was left to remember it, at least. Paisley shirts and brown suede vests with bell-bottoms and tall boots were his average get-up. He disowned the idea of desks, opting for moveable metal stands that could act as both desks and holders for music. He was passionate and calm, and he was easily Max’s favorite teacher of the year, mainly because he left her alone, letting her fade in the background. For that one period of the day, she didn’t have to contend with Dustin or Mike or Lucas, and Mr. Rosen let her breathe.

As the kids flowed in, Max let herself become consumed by the stoners and hippies reeking of weed on one side and the seniors desperate for a fine art credit on the other side. The rest of the kids sprinkled throughout, but nobody looked in Max’s direction. She ignored the skunky smell leeching off of their clothes that Mr. Rosen seemed to invite, or the clattering of stands from people who couldn’t partake in common sense. To them, she was invisible.

Except for this day. As Mr. Rosen took them through the basic chords and passed out new sheet music for them to learn, one of the seniors kept looking back at her. It was one of the boys from the front section, with a black sweater with one of those white diamond patterns stitched around as a band. At first, it was a glance, so unnoticeable that Max swore she just mistook him for a change in the air.

Then he glanced back again, a little longer. Max tried to ignore him, her confrontational nature diminishing unnaturally. But when they made eye contact, he saw that look in his eyes. The one of recognition. The one of pity. Blood pooled like a stain in her chest, heart thumping, stomach quick to sicken as the notes became blurry on the page. She swallowed despite the pain throughout her body, muscles shaking as she fumbled her fingers around the frets.

Her eyes burned in the back of his skull, waiting, almost praying he would turn around again so she could reclaim her strength. But he kept his eyes facing forward toward Mr. Rosen, and Max forced herself to do the same. The corner seemed smaller than she originally remembered. What she once thought would contain seemed to begin to suffocate her. Shifting further in her chair, she plucked the strings quietly, head in a hazy space.

She heard strings humming as she scanned over the music, the boy finally too attuned to his work to bother with her. Sheet music had never been her speciality. She had only encountered it once in fifth-grade saxophone, something that lasted a month after Neil forced her to quit, claiming she sounded “like a dying bird.” It was a learning curve, but it was a nice distraction from the nosy boy, whom she had noticed looking back at least two more times.

By the time the class was over, Max couldn’t wait to leave. At least freshman English class was full of kids who were too obsessed with their boy toys to give a shit. Hanging her guitar back on the shelf, she grabbed her backpack and shoved her headphones back on her ears. She thought she would get away without a confrontation.

However, right as she tried to step out into the hallway, she was suddenly cornered by the same senior. He pushed his hair back and stared at her right in the eyes with that same sense of recognition. He snapped his fingers to his side. “Hey, wasn’t your step-brother Billy Hargrove?”

Max glared at him, brushing her hair away from her ears. Her heart pulsed, everything in her body burning as if it were on fire.“What about it?”

“Man, I just wanted to say I was sorry. I heard about the fire and, dude, Billy was such a good basketball player and he was a great partier, and I’m sure you must have been really upset about that, you know…”

Her stomach turned as she pushed through him, adjusting her headphones as they threatened to fall down her ears.“Leave me alone, asshole.”

____________________

Max hadn’t even made it halfway to English class before she had decided to skip. Even though the boys enjoyed Mr. Bartholomew, Max couldn’t stand him. He was awful in comparison to Mr. Rosen, a horrible whiplash occurring every day. Unlike Mr. Rosen, Mr. Bartholomew was chauvinist, callous, and rude. She had never been a fan of English, but thanks to Mr. Bartholomew, she outright despised it.

Max was never proud of skipping classes. She knew how disappointed her mother would be, how mad Neil would be, how Billy would sit her down and threaten to beat her up if she ever tried to do anything that would prevent her from leaving Hawkins; nobody was around to lecture her. She was too anxious to do anything productive anyway, adrenaline coursing through her veins even though she was merely rushing through a busy hallway. Diverting her direction, she headed toward the Hellfire room, confident no one would be in there. 

When she peered into the janitor’s closet, she smiled. It was dusty, dark, and most importantly, desolate. A single lightbulb swung in the middle of the room, attached to a metal chain. She took a peek around. There was D&D paraphernalia hanging from the walls– tapestries full of dragons, swordsmen slaying beasts beyond her wild imagination– she never understood why she was so defiant with Hellfire. As the late bell rang, she shut the door and slid back against the neighboring hall.

Hitching her knees to her chest, she felt her body vibrate as she shuddered, tears quietly slipping down her face. Her body ached with grief as she coughed thickly, mucus rising in her throat. Her shoulders shook as she tucked her face into her knees, tears drying on her dark jeans. She had been doing everything in her power to try and distance herself from Billy. She hid the posters she had stolen from his room, she stopped wearing his hoodie that was two sizes too big– the only thing she couldn’t get rid of was the people who knew him.

“Max?”

Panic rose throughout her body as she sniffled, covering her tears with a sneeze as she wiped them on her sleeve. Looking up, she stared at Lucas, who was holding a pink attendance slip in his hands. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Max snapped, her red and puffy face hidden by the dim light.

“I left my English book here on Friday. I needed to grab it.”

She tracked Lucas as he went to the side counter and grabbed the slim book off of it. She prayed he would leave her alone. But it wasn’t in his nature to abandon his friends.

“Mr. Bartholomew’s out,” Lucas said. “The sub accidentally gave me two passes. We could forge one, so you know, you don’t get in trouble for cutting.”

Max paused, unable to form anything comprehensible. “I don’t… I don’t know.”

To Max’s chagrin, Lucas began to walk closer to her, eventually sliding down the wall with her. He grabbed her hand, a sick feeling twisting in her stomach. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on!” Max exclaimed, pulling her hand away sharply. “I just… needed a break. I’ve had a headache since yesterday, and it’s just killing me.”

“Do you need to go to the nurse?” Lucas asked.

Max shook her head. “No, I just needed a break. I need a break. This is the first place I could think of.”

Lucas chuckled. “You like it? Eddie’s been decking out the place for a few years.”

“It’s… nice, I guess.” She sighed, a shudder running through her neck. “Look, can you just leave me alone? It’s nice that you’re checking up on me, but I just need a break.”

Lucas grew quieter, leaning in. Max fought the urge to shuffle away. He didn’t have the look of sympathy, but he had that sick look of recognition– the same one the senior had. “Did someone say something?”

“Nobody said anything,” she lied. “How many times do I have to say that I just needed a break?”

“Because you don’t look okay, and you’ve been getting quieter and quieter and have been showing up less to things and skipping classes. I know you. This… isn’t you.”

Max scoffed. “You don’t know me. You haven’t known me for more than a year.”

“I’m your boyfriend. Boyfriends are supposed to take notice of these things. You’re not yourself, and now you’re hiding in the Hellfire room.”

“Oh, so you’re only doing this out of obligation?”

Max knew it was a low blow, but she was too afraid to reach any higher.

“Can you please just tell me what’s going on? I want to help you.”

“I don’t need your help. You may be my boyfriend, but you’re not a savior.”

Lucas licked his lips, taking a shaky breath. “All I want to do is make sure you’re okay. You’re stepbrother just died–”

The same brother who hated him because of his race.

“– and that’s got to be hard for anybody, let alone how he died.”

Have to lie. Everybody thinks it was a mall fire. Nobody can know the truth; nobody will ever know the truth.

“How he died doesn’t matter. He was an asshole.”

“It doesn’t mean you can’t be sad about it.”

That did it for Max. She abruptly pushed him away, hands shoving his arm askew. “Just leave me alone, okay?”

Max could see the gears turning in Lucas’s head as he hesitated. After a few tense seconds, Max tacked on, “You don’t have to work about me, okay? I’m fine.”

He kissed her hair, another sliver of guilt ringing down Max’s spine. “Doesn’t mean I can’t worry about you.”

He stood up, knees cracking. “Do you want me to forge a pass?”

Max shook her head, lying through her teeth again. “I need some time. I’m going to take some medicine. I’ll be in class in a few minutes. Leave the pass on the table.”

She never showed up for English class that day.

____________________

She was driving. No, he was driving. She was in the passenger seat, a mere observer. Gone were the days of harsh brick buildings in vibrant colors as they drove home from school. As she peered out of the tinted window, all she saw was the soft nature of trees, the simple dampened wood of fences lurking behind them. Even further, peering behind the forest and fences were cows. Max stared at them, trying to find a deeper meaning but coming up empty.

“What’s so interesting out there?” Billy asked, sarcasm reeking from his pungent cigarette.

“There were never any cows in San Diego,” Max murmured.

“Yeah, and whose fault is it that we’re seeing cows?”

Max pushed her shoulder against the window, bracing herself.

Billy looked away from the road, spit flying onto Max’s pale skin. “Whose fucking fault is that?”

Max refused to speak to him. She knew his behavior was like a bell curve. It would get higher and higher, but he would burn himself out. She just had to give him an hour… maybe two… maybe ten…

“Answer me, bitch!”

She heard a horn honk. Staring at the road, she saw how far away they were from their side of the road. Drifting across the drastic yellow line, Billy was veering right in the way of a car. The horn honked incessantly, the car unable to swerve.

“Billy, move!” Max yelled, grabbing the steering wheel.

It was too late. Right as the impact hit, Max felt herself being flung. She waited for the pulsing pain of smashing against the headboard, but she kept falling forward, tumbling into darkness. When she looked to her left, Billy had blood dripping from his face, his nose broken against the steering wheel. Pink matter was flowing out of his ears. The airbags hadn’t gone off .

When she looked to her right, she saw the arid lands of Arizona, a place she had only been once on their road trip to Hawkins. The highways shielded Max from many of the desert conditions, but she had seen them out of the car window of the Camaro. Cacti were standing like statues, not big and tall like picture books had described. Sometimes they were tall, but most of the time they were barely the size of Max’s foot, spiky and dark with flowers sprouting off of them. Billy had taken a detour, offroading so they could steal a cactus that Neil made them get rid of the second they set foot into Indiana. This time, when the opportunity presented itself, the car suddenly smashed into a brick wall that had appeared out of nowhere. When she looked to her left, Billy had blood dripping from his face, his nose broken against the steering wheel. Pink matter was flowing out of his ears. The airbags hadn’t gone off .

When she looked to the right, Max was back in the Starcourt Mall. There were screams from up ahead. “Flay this, you ugly piece of shit!” someone cried out as they flung the gunpowder-filled cylinder at the Mind Flayer. Fireworks cracked and shot out in every direction. The mall was both dark and eerily colorful, reflecting off the shattered glass roof. The monster screeched out in agonizing pain as bomb after bomb was pelted upon its gruesome non-Newtonian body.  Sparks turned into embers as they flew back at the teenagers, who Max saw ducking behind the railing. She averted her eyes back to the ground floor, El desperately trying to inch away from the Mind Flayer, broken leg throbbing in pain. Max was helpless, hiding behind a pole, her eyes peeking out beyond it to witness the turmoil. 

Billy stood near her, upright and unafraid. His body was tainted with burns and scars from the night. His veins were so pronounced they looked black. Max’s heart thumped as she realized how possessed he looked, the crazed glint in his eyes horrifying. As the fireworks stung the Mind Flayer, Billy trashed and writhed. El tried to flee, but Billy was quick to recapture her and throw her under him, like a predator devouring its prey. Max clapped a hand to her mouth, screaming. The two stared at each other, El’s chest rising and falling quickly.

Until it all stopped. El was talking. Billy was crying, a tear dripping from his face onto El’s. Max removed herself from the pole, fearfully standing alone, exposed. Her shoe stepped on a piece of glass, dissolving under its weight. El raised a hand to his cheek, thumb brushing over it. Billy seemed to melt into it. Max noticed a trail of blood from El’s hand following itself from the ground to his cheek.

Then she saw Billy turn to the monster, its bleeding flesh oozing into the ground. The fireworks had stopped, the Mind Flayer’s stomps vibrating against the ground as it slowly marched toward a helpless El, drained of anything to save her. Billy rose to his feet, Max’s stomach plummeting to her feet. Her body shook, stinging with pain as her knees knocked. Tears stung from the corners of her eyes as she helplessly watched her step-brother– her brother– be devoured by the Mind Flayer, tendrils plunging into his chest, black blood spilling out of him.

“Billy!”

She gasped, breath flooding her lungs. Her arms shot up to hold her up, but they quickly collapsed, Max falling back on her bed. Her heart thumped wildly as her breath grew more and more labored, the air slowly pinning her to the headboard. Forcing herself to stand up, she saw an outline of her body made with sweat. Her head pounded as tears flooded out of her eyes, snot dripping out of her nose. It was just a nightmare. Just a nightmare.

She glanced at the radio, enticing her from her desk. All she had to do was radio Lucas. He would come and save her. She began to reach for it, but logic quickly snapped into place, and she retracted her hand. She couldn’t run to him. She needed to fix this on her own.

Chapter Text

Friday, November 4, 1983

Tens of manuals were strewn all over his dad’s dusty workbench. Green dice were scattered over them, papers folding over one another at crude angles. The scratching of a pen could be heard as Mike furiously scribbled down idea after idea, clause after clause, tying back old plot holes he had written about weeks ago to the climax of the campaign.

It had been his turn to DM for their weekly campaign, arriving on Sunday. He had spent the better part of two weeks coming up with the premise, the setting, the characters– everything. His hand ached as he agonizedly wrote out every word by hand. He had thought about borrowing his mother’s typewriter, but it almost seemed to hinder his creativity. Everything could be better worked out on paper– the maps, the plotlines– everything dynamic and shifting. This needed to be the best campaign he ever put together.

He had named it the Hunt for the Thessalhydra, one of the most advanced monsters in Dungeons and Dragons. It was supposed to take all day on Sunday, perhaps the next Friday if necessary. Dustin was known to get too into roleplaying, too into the acting, the arguing. Mike always let him get away with more than he probably should, extending the campaign by sometimes hours. But that was the fun part of D&D; it wasn’t supposed to be conventional.

Next to him on the floor was a growing binder full of plotlines he had already finished up, the timeline expanding. He had finished the beginning with Sir Tristan, the key to their whole adventure. He was the ruler of a small village that had been attacked by the Thessalhydra. They had met before on Dustin’s campaign last week, and Mike loved to interweave parts of his friends' campaigns into his own. It created some continuity that nobody else noticed except him. It was their job to try and kill the Thessalhydra before the knight’s village was consumed. They had tried, but they were too inexperienced to finish off the Troglodytes, guarding a maze that would lead to the Thessalhydra. Of course, the Party had been using the same characters for years, levels ahead of any of the commoners within the village. Fulfilling their duties, they would valiantly charge ahead to beat the Thessalhydra and its puny minions.

Of course, no adventure would be good without village encounters. It was hard to make some NPCs meaningful and some garbage, especially since Lucas was prone to ignore everything except how to get to whatever monster they were finding. There was one about apples that would tell them to go to the apple orchard, a traveling priest that was enticing but otherwise bullshit, a woodcutter with tips about the caves, and a farmer, who was Mike’s favorite. “I ain’t never seen no thessalhydra, but owlbears we got plenty of around here!”

Then, of course, there were the caves; ten areas where they would gain information, get closer to the Thessalhydra, and fight tons of Troglodytes. Troglodytes were essentially chump change to the Party, but they still invoked a sense of fear that sensed more was coming. Of course, some of the caves were filled with valuables that they would only find if they rolled a high enough number, and sometimes the luck of the dice would determine the number of troglodytes they would have to fight. 

At the end was this huge labyrinth that they would have to navigate, which Mike estimated would take them at least an hour to defeat. It had at least ten different dead ends, a loop that went into a disorienting circle, and only one way to the end. Dustin was normally pretty good at mazes, drawing where they went on a stray piece of paper, but Mike was determined to stump him this time. He would get so confused with the circle that he would probably crumple up his piece of paper and throw it in a rage. Mike chuckled at the thought.

They had to keep working at the labyrinth until they found the Lonely Knight, hidden on one of the dead ends. The Party had one of two choices to deal with him– either chase him or beckon to him. The catch was that whenever they chased him, he would switch to a different dead end, never the same one twice. If they stopped chasing him and beckoned to him successfully, he would come up and tell them information about the labyrinth.

The key to finding the exit to the labyrinth was understanding that the end of the labyrinth was  not in the normal universe but in something Mike called the “Upside Down.” It was pretty similar to the Vale of Shadows, but the name didn’t fit. It tickled Mike to think that something like the Upside Down ever existed in real life, but it played a key part in the fantasy. The Thessalhydra was secretly hidden in the Upside Down, its poison slowly seeping into Sir Tristan’s village. A few more twists and turns later, and then BAM! They were in the Upside Down.

It was just like Earth, but cold and slimy and gross. It was rotting and disgusting and forever dark. No matter how long they rested, they would never regain any health. Everything was broken and in ruins. The main characters they would encounter would be the Proud Princess and the Demogorgon, the latter being the more important. It was like a normal human, except for the face, which had petals that opened up into a monstrous mouth. It had teeth on every one of its petals, razor sharp. It was terrifying, and while Mike hadn’t bought a new miniature from the comic book store, he had done a good enough drawing of it to describe it to the Party.

Once they defeated the Demogorgon, they entered the lair of the Thessalhydra, more difficult than the caves. The Troglodytes were way more advantageous, and they would not be going easy on them. But Mike knew they could handle it. They would be able to sever the many heads of the Thessalhydra and navigate back to Sir Tristan’s kingdom, where they would be rewarded for their troubles. 

As Mike wrote the thrilling conclusion, he let out a satisfying sigh as he collected all of his papers. He would be damned if this wasn’t the most epic campaign they had ever played as a Party.

____________________

Thursday, October 24, 1985

“Mom will be home in two hours, and she’ll want the house empty to cook dinner, so find somewhere else for you to hang out where she doesn’t have to worry about you! And don’t forget your essay is due tomorrow!” Nancy exclaimed as she ran upstairs, desperate to change before she and Jonathan mailed their college applications together. Not very romantic, according to Mike, but to Nancy, it was almost like they were getting engaged.

“Okay!” Mike shouted, El hiding back a chuckle by his side, wrapping her fingers around his.

Setting their backpacks down by the entrance, she and Mike went up the stairs much less erratically than Nancy did. El’s long blue and red plaid sweater scratched his arms, but he didn’t care all that much. They finally got to have some time alone for the first time since the quarter began. El flopped down on his bed immediately, Mike closing the door behind them. Merlin purred outside the door, little kitten paws scratching at the door.

“Hold on,” Mike sighed, opening the door and tossing a toy for Merlin to play with. It was a rope, so big that it was as long as the cat. 

El raised her head to see Merlin. Mike knew El was wary around cats. She had told him the story of how she had been nearly forced to kill one at the hands of Dr. Brenner, and had to exchange two lives for the price of the kitten. When the door was closed, she flopped back down, chest rising up and down a bit quicker than Mike perceived as normal.

“I’ve been thinking of moving to a loft so I can have my desk under my bed and free up some space,” Mike sighed, sitting on the edge of the mattress, El absentmindedly playing with one of his pillows.

“No room to hide Bearbee,” El pointed out.

Mike snapped his fingers. “Good point.”

El smiled, cheeks turning rosy red. “When we live together, you won’t have to hide your bear.”

Mike hummed as he leaned over and pressed his lips on hers. He felt an uneasy feeling settle in his stomach at the thought of being forever with El. She was the love of his life, but marriage… it seemed too far away to even fathom. He resorted to stroking the top of her hand with his thumb, kissing her cheek. “Halloween is a weekend away. Are you going to dress up for Dustin’s party?”

“You mean the movie marathon at my house?”

He hesitated to call it a party, but Dustin said he wanted it to sound more “official.”

El shrugged, leg tapping nervously against the bed frame. “Red shirt. Blue skirt. Yellow headband. Wonder Woman. You should go as Superman and match.”

Mike remembered seeing the Wonder Woman comics collected neatly in a pile in Will’s room when he went over last. Max had clearly introduced them to her, because whenever they talked about superheroes, she always threw out Wonder Woman’s name with that excited grin that made Mike melt.

“I went as Superman when I was little. I may go as Dracula.”

El laughed. “Will you buy fangs? Max has some from the arcade.”

Mike shook his head. “You’ve seen me try to talk with fangs before. I sound like oatmeal.”

“You know, you should read other comics. I have Superman and Batman comics that you might like,” Mike offered, El flopping her head in his lap. He ran his hands through her hair, the hair that she was so proud of having grown.

El shrugged, fingers fidgeting. “I think I may read Spider-Man.”

Mike chuckled. “That would be Lucas’ department. He reads Spider-Man and Wolverine.”

“Wolverine?”

“Yeah, it’s a man who gets dipped in acid and comes out like a wolf. He has retractable wolf claws and a wolf mask.”

“Retractable…” El trailed off.

“It means it can collapse on itself and set itself back up.”

El nodded quickly before she scrunched up her nose. “Acid? Yuck.”

“I guess it is kind of disgusting,” Mike relented.

He looked down at her. How peaceful she seemed during the rare moment of silence. He rubbed her kneecap, the sound of her anxious tics making his heart pound. “Are you excited for the Halloween campaign tomorrow? Remember to wear your Hellfire shirt to school or else Eddie will get mad.”

El drew back a little bit, sitting back up. Every Friday, the Hellfire Club was condemned to sit at Eddie’s lunch table. Mike knew it was easily the worst and best part of El’s day. The worst because Max was banished to the library, no matter how much they tried to convince Eddie to let her eat at their table. “No freeloaders at my table. If she wants to join, she’s more than welcome to.” But El loved to see Eddie’s overanimated antics. She was as enchanted with him as Dustin seemed to be.

“Will Eddie go scary?” El asked. “I like his campaigns, but I don't like scary. Sometimes, he goes scary, where it is fun, but Dustin has told me that he used to go scary, where it was scary.”

Mike bit his lip. “I wish I could say he wouldn’t. He tones things down for you. Remember, I talked to him about it? But sometimes Eddie doesn’t play by the rules.”

He saw El curl her knees in as she lay sideways on the bed, eyes glassy, and his heart twisted. She looked almost as scared as he saw in his bad dreams, not quite nightmares–like glimpses into a past he never experienced. Shaved head down to not even an inch, staring with that same empty stare she got whenever she had flashbacks. He lay down next to her, mattress indenting as he wrapped an arm around her, thumbing and rubbing shapes onto her back.

“You know that I’ll always protect you in the campaigns, right? I’ll make sure that Eddie doesn’t make it too scary, okay?”

El looked up at him with her doe-eyed stare, amber eyes blinking at her under batting lashes. It made Mike blush. “Promise?”

Mike kissed her forehead. “Promise.”

____________________

Michael Wheeler

English 9 Accelerated

Christine Moore

October 25, 1985

Eva Kor and the Mengele Twin Experiments

In 1944, hundreds of Jewish people from Romania arrived by cattle car to the Auschwitz concentration camp. As they peered at the humongous building that stood before them, they had no idea that this was where their lives would change forever. They were bullied off of the cattle car by soldiers, and quickly, chaos began reigning around the platform. Soldiers were running around, snatching people, tearing them away from their families without so much as a goodbye. When everything settled down, the Jewish people were separated into two groups. They did not know what each line was for or why they were in the one that they were in. One line would be forced into excruciating labor, while the other would be sent to an inferno to burn alive. But two children were not in either line. They would not be forced into labor, nor charred to death. They would become experiments, without their consent, for the doctor at the camp, Dr. Mengele.

 Josef Mengele (Yo-seff Main-ga-la) was born in 1911 in Gunzburg, Germany. His family owned a small business, and from a very young age, he knew he wanted to stand out from his family. He was generally well-behaved throughout his childhood and very intelligent. After he graduated high school, he began studying medicine at Munich University. It is known that he did not share anti-semetic views when he began attending Munich University. He then gained his Ph.D. in 1935, and his thesis was about how he could determine what race a person was by their lower jaw. Shortly after, he became a research assistant at the University of Frankfurt, where it is believed that he was completely pro-Aryan. This was not an uncommon thinking practice at the time, coupled with Mengele being heavily involved in the Catholic church throughout his entire life, often attending services and joining youth groups throughout college. At the age of 27, he gained his medical degree and swiftly joined the Schutzstaffel, or the SS, officially joining the German army in 1940.

Dr. Mengele was a medical doctor in the SS, and he performed many experiments, especially experiments on twins. Many people in the modern day, especially medical personnel, question the ethicality of experimenting on multiples. While having essentially two of the same person is wonderful when talking about variables and controls, experimenting on multiples just because they are twins is controversial, especially experimenting on multiples without their consent. A prime example is Three Identical Strangers, a case where three identical triplets, David Kellman, Robert Shafran, and Eddie Galland, were adopted to different people with different lifestyles to understand nurture vs. nature. The triplets grew up never knowing of each other’s existence until college, where they all eventually found each other in 1980 and turned into mini-celebrities. They quickly demanded answers, only to get vague responses from the adoption agency who refused to give them actual answers. While the official findings of the experiment, led by Peter Neubaurer, will not be available until October 25th, 2065, when all of the experiment subjects will have certainly died, it will be interesting to see what he conjured up from separating twins and triplets apart and observing the very act of nurture vs. nature. However, the fact that Neubaurer is guarding the results until everybody has died is questionable, and people question the ethicality of the experiment as a whole. However, Dr. Mengele did not fear the unethicality of twin experiments. In fact, he enjoyed the possibilities of having two humans with exactly the same DNA to play around with. And very soon, Dr. Mengele would get his toys.

Born in 1934 in Transylvania, Romania, twins Eva and Miriam were the third and fourth children in their families. In May of 1944, they arrived via cattle car at Auschwitz. Immediately after stepping off of the car, they were separated from their father and two older sisters. Fearful, they clung to their mother for dear life, terrified at the sights around them. They were quickly taken by a German soldier who was searching for twins. After that brief interaction, their mother was taken from them, too, and the twins were left with the German soldier. Very quickly, Eva and Miriam were used in Mengele’s experiments. While they had certain privileges, such as weekly showers, sanitized clothes, and the prohibition of physical harm, the goal of the experiments was to figure out how to kill someone in the quickest amount of time possible. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, they were put in a room, naked, with many other pairs of twins. Nazis would measure every part of their bodies. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, they would go to a blood lab. They would tie their arms to restrict blood flow. They would take vials of blood out of their left arm and inject a minimum of five injections into their right arm. It is still unknown today what those injections contained. After a particular blood lab, Eva fell ill with a fever. After being taken to the hospital, she had an estimated two weeks to live. Fortunately, Eva fought for her life. After two weeks, her fever broke, and after five weeks, Eva was healed. When she returned to Miriam, Miriam appeared traumatized, and refused to speak about what happened. They were soon liberated on January 12, 1945, by the Soviet Union.

The two sisters never spoke about their time separated in Auschwitz until this year in 1985. In those two weeks Eva was expected to die, Miriam was under constant medical supervision. After those two weeks, Miriam was taken back to the blood lab. She was injected with liquids that made her feel very ill. After they were liberated, Miriam moved to Israel, married, and began developing severe kidney infections. After going to a doctor, it was discovered that Miriam’s kidneys never developed past that of a ten-year-old child, most likely from the numerous mystery injections she had been forced to take when Eva was ill. Her kidneys soon began to deteriorate after having her third child.

After Miriam’s illness, Eva continued to tell their story, refusing to let their horrific experience be forgotten. Dr. Mengele thought his experiments were justified. He thought his findings would “save us” from the Jewish population. But Eva and Miriam disagreed. The two were tortured by Dr. Mengele in the cruelest ways and suffered with the horrendous aftereffects of their treatment. But they stayed strong. Eva told the story again and again to warn the world about the dangers of when an experiment goes too far and when people can’t give their consent. Obviously, some doctors didn’t listen, as shown by the Three Identical Strangers case, but it raised attention on the subject. It showed another way that Dr. Mengele lived true to his nickname, the “Angel of Death.”

____________________

Friday, October 25, 1985

“Make sure to write your name in your book so you don’t lose it forever, or else there’s a ten-dollar fee!” Ms. Moore exclaimed right as the bell rang, ushering kids to their third period.

Mike was more than ready to leave his English class. He was the only person he knew in the class, surrounded by strangers whom he had the displeasure of seeing every second period. Especially on this day, when the teacher spent the entire class grading papers and assigning new books for the quarter. At least in geometry, he knew Will, Dustin, and Lucas. Sticking his pencil in his pocket, book tucked under his arm, Mike hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders and headed towards the exit.

“Michael,” the teacher suddenly called out. “Hang back for a second for me, will you?”

Mike’s stomach sank, eyes rolling to the back of his head for a second. He didn’t remember doing anything wrong in class. He just put his head down and read the synopsis of their new book. He dragged his feet as he shuffled over to Ms. Moore’s desk. “Did you need anything?”

Pulling her hair into a bun, she flipped through the stack of papers on her desk. Pulling one out, Mike looked at the header on the left to see his name. On the right was a red mark. One hundred percent. “I just wanted to congratulate you on your essay. Your essay was one of the best ones I’ve read in the past year or two.”

Mike scratched the back of his neck, startled. “Oh… thank you.”

“Have you ever done any other writing before?”

“Uh,” Mike let out a puff of air. “I used to write my friends and I’s Dungeons and Dragons campaigns in middle school. That was, until we joined Hellfire.”

He glanced down at his shirt as Ms. Moore smiled. “Have you ever thought about joining the creative writing club at our school? We meet on Mondays after school.”

Mike blinked. “The creative writing club… that’s a thing?”

“Yep. If you come next week, you’d start just in time for our second quarter writing course. We’re doing a science fiction theme this year, and this quarter’s about time travel. Come check it out on Monday, okay?”

Mike nodded absentmindedly, gears turning in his head. “I will… can I have a pass to class?”

“Oh, absolutely!”

He fidgeted with the pink pass in his hands. He hadn’t gone to the club fair earlier in the school year. With the extra hour on his hands, he could get back to writing campaigns, or even his own original short stories. Rushing into geometry class, he barely made it before the bell rang, the shrill sound blaring through the P.A. system right as he sat at his desk.

“Dude, where’d you go?” Dustin asked as Mike slid into his seat.

“My English teacher wanted me to join a club,” he whispered.

Before he could say anything else, Mr. Adeshoga slapped the chalkboard with a ruler. Mike whipped his head around.

“Grab a study guide and leave me alone; I’m hungover. Test is on Tuesday,” Mrs. Adeshoga grunted, rubbing her head with the back of her palm. “Be quiet. I don’t want to hear any of the nagging. If you have a question… ask someone else.”

The rest of the day was filled with going through the motions. A new packet in Spanish, a lecture on the failed Reconstruction efforts in America, and a boring game of dodgeball where Max managed to sock someone in the face and nearly knocked out a kid’s front teeth (she was taken out for the rest of the class). By the time Mike got home and finished his homework, he was exhausted; a two-hour Hellfire campaign awaited him in a few hours. As he finished the last problem on the geometry study packet, he heard a knock on the door.

Mike sighed, putting his head down on his desk, his finished homework assignments splayed out around the desk. “Come in.”

He smelled his dad’s cologne mixed with the starch from his suit as the door opened. He heard the sound of fabric rubbing against fabric, his father loosening his tie. “Hey, son. How was school?”

Mike turned around his chair, eyes fleeting to his bed. He breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t see his bear. “It was fine. Joined a new club.”

The words slipped out of his mouth faster than he could put them back in.

“A new club, huh?” his father said, frowning when he spotted the old dinosaur memorabilia still on his dresser. “Future Business Leaders of America?”

Mike’s skin prickled with fear. “The creative writing club. It meets after school every Monday. I can grab a ride with Lucas after sports practice.”

His father’s frown deepened. He let out a sigh, one of resentment. “Son, I know that you’ve always liked writing your little stories for your friend’s… what’s it called, high-school dropout club?”

Mike gritted his teeth. “Hellfire Club.”

“Sure, sure. And this club is nice and all– it’s good you’re getting involved– but I just want to let you know that this writing thing, if you choose to make this a career, you’re not going to be able to provide for your family, let alone yourself.”

“I never said I was going to turn this into a career,” Mike muttered, shrinking in on himself.

Suddenly, he felt like he was eight again.

“I know, I know. But I’m just warning you. Your job isn’t supposed to make you happy. Hell, if I had a choice, I would become an astronaut. But life doesn’t play into your hands, Michael. Just don’t expect this writing thing to be a big thing, alright?”

Mike swallowed his tears so they wouldn’t erupt through his eyes, burning his throat as he stared right at his father, trying to look as brave as he could. “Alright.”

Chapter Text

Wednesday, December 13, 1978

The second grade winter play was one of Hawkins Elementary prized performances. It was almost obligatory for parents and young children, even parents who didn’t have kids in the play. It was a Christmas tradition, folding chairs pushed together in the auditorium while people wore their church clothes. Every local business sponsored the play, allowing for grander and grander productions each year. 

Will remembered watching Jonathan and Nancy’s play in second grade when he was four years old. He didn’t remember what the theme was, not exactly. It had something to do with the Sun and the Moon, which he only remembered because Sabrina, a kid that Jonathan played with on the weekends, was the Sun. Jonathan had played Tree Number 3, standing in the background with no lines. His father had openly mocked Jonathan during the play, breath reeking of alcohol as he hid the acidic beer stain on his shirt with a strategically placed handkerchief. He saw the stares of judgmental parents, not knowing they were upset, and how embarrassed his mother was. He remembered his mother taking his hand and leading him out away from his father to the back of the auditorium, taking out her camera to get the perfect shot of Jonathan. 

As he got older and worked his way through the ranks of elementary school, he began to grow excited for the winter play. Rumors swirled around like dust clouds throughout the second grade. After their field trip the girls were convinced they were doing a Shakespeare play, even when the teachers (who were sworn to secrecy), outright denied it. Mike and Lucas thought it was going to be The Jungle Book since one of the main characters was a tiger like the mascot of the high school. Will didn’t care, never sticking to one rumor for long. He just wanted to perform something, and hopefully get a more prominent role than Tree Number 3. 

The second graders were gathered in an auditorium during their first block on Monday. They were split into two groups for two different plays, both set to be performed on the same night. Will’s toes tapped eagerly as he sat between Mike and Lucas, listening to the teacher’s every word.

“This year, your class will perform a play about the presidents!” Ms. Bercheck exclaimed, Will’s feet falling flat just like his smile.

The presidents? All of the second graders were silent before emitting one loud, long groan.

“The presidents!” Mike exclaimed. “Nancy got one of the four seasons and we got presidents?”

Lucas snorted. “I wonder who’s going to get Jimmy Carter.”

“Quiet, everybody!” Ms. Bercheck shrieked, a hush falling over the small crowd. “I understand that this may not be as… extravagant, but people aren’t believing in the president anymore. Some people need to remember how far we came from.”

Will stared blankly at her. He had barely thought of the president in the past year. He was more worried about Little League starting up again in the spring, and how his father would be taking him out to practice for hours. He watched as Ms. Bercheck passed out papers stapled together. A script.

“Your role has already been chosen for you on the first page. We’ll be rehearsing on Tuesday and Thursday during your activity period. I want your lines to be memorized by next Tuesday so we can run through the dress rehearsal on Thursday for the performance next Friday.”

He felt a small package slipping into his hands. Will caught his breath in his throat as he stared at the front page.

A Lifetime of Presidents, Hawkins Elementary 1978-1979. 

Name: Will Byers

Role: Jimmy Carter

“I got George Washington!” Mike breathed, flipping through the pages. “I’m, like, the whole center. Lucas, who did you get?”

“William Henry Harrison,” Lucas huffed. “He has one line. Will?”

“Jimmy Carter,” Will breathed, almost as if it were unreal himself. “I got a whole page.”

Mike flipped to the back. “It’s the last part of the play.”

Will scanned over it. “The future of America is in our hands… and just like all presidents before me, I will protect and serve it… I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday.”

He flipped to the back to see a blank page.

“God, my mom is going to bring flowers for me,” Lucas groaned.

Will quirked an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with flowers?”

“Boys don’t get flowers! And she’s going to get pink flowers, I just know it. All of the flowers in our home: pink.”

“Yeah, well, my mom is going to bring her camcorder and use it in the back. And then Ms. Bercheck is going to pay her ten dollars for the film to show the whole town,” Mike sighed.

Will kept quiet, blankly staring at his page. He could see the scene now: his mother wearing a nice dress, hair and makeup done. Jonathan, bringing a small handheld camera to take pictures of Will on the stage. His father, wearing a wrinkled suit with his tie sloppily hanging off of his neck. Alcohol permeating his breath, red sunken eyes looking everywhere except his own son. He would mock Will just like he did to Jonathan, vomit on the horizon of his father’s throat. He would be unafraid of the town’s response, eyes staring at him. Staring at his poor mother. Staring at Jonathan. Once again making them pariahs of the town. His mother would get more anxious, more of the new pills she was trying leaving the bottle. She tried to hide them from his father, but she couldn’t hide them from Will, not when she would take them over the kitchen sink while he was coloring. His father would be irate to find the pills. In a particularly bad mood, he would commit her to Pennhurst. Then there was no telling what he would do to him and Jonathan without his mother’s careful eye. 

He wished he would get flowers, or an overenthusiastic mother. Instead he got a drunk.

____________________

Saturday, October 26, 1985

“It’s closing day!” Carine shouted as Will walked into the backstage area, backpack slung over his shoulder. She was at the makeup station, patting her cheeks with some tan paste– foundation, Will had learned. She was humming a song under her breath that Will couldn’t quite name. Her dark hair was in a bun, microphone taped to her ear, makeup staining the edges of the adhesive.

Signing his name on the call sheet under “Dying Man,” the honorable title Julianna had given Will to differentiate him from the rest of the ensemble, he sat down a few seats away from Carine, sliding his bucket of makeup across the table. Julianna had insisted that everybody, no matter boy or girl, wear makeup. “The stage lights will wash you out! I don’t want ghosts on the stage!” He stared at himself in the mirror, brushing his bangs out of the way as a putrid anxiety coursed through his body. Quietly grabbing his makeup sponge, he squeezed some foundation out of a tube, three shades too dark.

“Hey, Carine, do you have any bobby pins…” he heard from the door, and the pit in his stomach that he had tried to ignore deepened. “Will! You’re here early! The ensemble isn’t called until 5:30.”

Will swallowed thickly, lump in his throat. It wasn’t attraction anymore, but shame. He faked a glance at his watch. “My brother needed to drop me off early.”

His bike rusted in the green rack off of the side entrance, lock swinging off of the painted red metal.

Clayton clicked his tongue. “That reminds me, Carine, they need you in sound for a mic check.”
Carine hurriedly twisted the cap back onto her foundation, Will’s foot tapping against the tile as he buffed out the orange liquid. He watched through the mirror as Clayton took a seat next to him, popping an eyeliner pencil out of his pocket.

“Any idea why you left so soon the other week?” Clayton asked, the question heavy in the air as dread filled Will’s muscles.

He paused for a moment, racking his brain. “I… had a book report due.”

Clayton laughed. The top of his lip curled, edges lifting. He looked sly, almost smug. Will kept his eyes focused on the mirror. Clayton did too, tracing the black pencil on his waterline. “That’s funny you say that, because that day you said your sister needed help with her homework.”

Will’s body flushed with embarrassment. He stayed silent, ears ringing.

“And I know Mr. Bailey doesn’t have his book report due until this Tuesday. I’m in his first period.”

“I–”

“Look, I’m not trying to accuse you of anything. I just want to know if you’re okay, that’s all. Friends, they care about each other.”

The word friends made Will nauseous. His skin paled, lips growing chapped and uncomfortable. He had to come up with something quick, something more vulnerable so Clayton would leave him alone. “Uh, my dad and I, the whole family, used to go there when I was little. And he wasn’t a good guy. And after my parents got divorced and everything happened in seventh grade… I don’t know, it just had worse memories than I thought. It’s not your fault.”

Clayton set down his pencil. “I… I didn’t know–”

“It’s not your fault. I wouldn’t expect you to know.”

“No, I should’ve known something was up. I mean, your family’s been the talk of the town since 1983. It’s got to do something to you guys over the years. God, I’m sorry, Will,” Clayton sighed. “If there’s something else, a little lowkey, that you’d like to do next time, I’d be down for that.”

Will’s teeth gritted against themselves. “Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

Clayton smiled, patting his shoulder as he got up to leave. “You got it. Have a good closing night! I’ll see you for warmups soon.”

Will stared at himself for the mirror, dragging the paint across his face. His face turned orange, little hairs on his neck easing the transition to his pale neck. He felt tears brimming on his eyes– whether it was from the lack of blinking as he carefully spread the black charcoal on the rim of his eye or the anxious tension spreading throughout his veins, he couldn’t tell– and he swallowed them down, throat burning from the salt. He felt a perpetual hatred spread through his chest, infecting him with dark ink. It was an invisible spread, one that nobody else could see. 

His heart beat faster when he saw the rest of the ensemble filter through the door, cheerful yet forlorn. They had comrades, dare Will say friends, throughout the production. But his secret , his one little, minor, magnificent, bursting, fading, expanding, secret would make him lose everything. It was threatening to spill with every second passing on the clock, lungs straining to take a full breath for no reason.

“Will, do you know where my vest went?” one of the ensemble members… Megan.

“Check the other rack by the bookshelf,” Will called out, surprised at how level his voice was.

He coughed, checking his stability. It was too fine, too perfect after a meltdown. His eyes weren’t bleary, hands weren’t shaky– his body was still okay. He held onto that feeling, grounding him as his legs wrapped around the chair, finishing up his face. It looked overexaggerated, just silly enough for the stage.

He heard someone shout. “Warmups on stage!”

Will squeaked out of his chair, fluffing up the sagging bowl cut. Moving through the hallway, his shoes squeaked against the tile. He shuffled to the back of the stage by the painted trees, cassette flowing through the radio as he scrunched his nose to stop the tears from flowing out. An over energetic junior playing Mrs. Beaver, Rachel Carlin, led the front. Through his jumping jacks, he saw Clayton staring at him. Daring to look in his direction, Clayton gave him a small smile, teeth slipping through the gap.

And Will felt okay.

____________________

“What an extraordinary place!” Adrienne exclaimed, Will lurking out of view behind the curtain. “All of these artifacts– it’s like a museum!”

“Hush,” said Carine, “Aslan’s doing something.”

The lion was made up of three people, junior Noah Moore controlling the head and the voice, and two freshmen– twins Alexis and Amanda Flores– controlling the legs. The three worked in unison, the lion dully walking around the stage.

Adrienne gasped, loud enough for the microphone to grasp it. “Oh, Susan! Look! Look at the lion!”

Aslan, which had been wounded and captured in a previous battle, began to pick up both speed and flair, growing stronger and stronger until it let out one big magnanimous roar. Will heard the audience clap just as loud as it had the past two days. Adrienne and Carine went from awestruck to hesitant.

“Oh, dear! Do you think it’s safe?” Carine asked.

“It’s alright!” shouted Noah joyously. “Once the feet are put right, the rest of me will follow.”

The two freshmen moved the sticks of his legs, shaking them out just as rehearsed. A comedic moment right before the big final battle.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Carine whispered.

“Bless me! I must have been asleep. Now! Where’s that dratted little Witch that was running about on the ground? Somewhere just by my feet it was.”

The people surrounding him, his army, slowly began to awake. They wore blue armbands, a sharp contrast from the orange one on Will’s forearm.

“Wake up! Wake up! We must go looking for the poor prisoner! We must! We must!” Noah boomed. “Leave no corner unturned, men. We must find him.”

Adrienne and Carine blended in with the blue army perfectly, scattering around the stage to try and find the captured Mr. Tumnus– the man the four had met earlier with the Turkish Delights. There were a few moments of chaos, everybody frantic until Adrienne ran to the middle of the room. 

“Aslan! Aslan! I’ve found Mr. Tumnus. Oh, do come quick.”

Mr. Tumnus, senior Garrison Adams, was frozen on the stage. One touch from Aslan and he became undone. Carine and Adrienne danced around him in a circle. The whole blue army cheered, and the audience clapped. Will felt an anxious turning in his stomach, foot tapping against the floor.

“But how are we going to get out?” Garrison asked, everybody turning to stare at the prop gate at the back of the stage.

“That’ll be alright,” said Noah, who lifted his hands to a ninety-degree angle to look as if he were standing. “Hi! You up there,” he roared. “What’s your name?”

James Miller sat on a ledge near the gate, a black box extending a foot off of the foam gate. He tipped his cap. “Giant Rumblebuffin, if it pleases your honour.”

“Well then, Giant Rumblebuffin,” Noah said, “just let us out of this, will you?”

“Certainly, your honour. It will be a pleasure,” said James. “Stand well from the gates, all you little ‘uns.”

James banged the top of the gate with a stick, and once he jumped down he struck the rest of the bars. A tech on either side of the wings rolled back half of the gate to reveal the empty space. James pretended to turn exhausted, panting heavily.

“Blowed if I ain’t all in a muck sweat,” said James, puffing like the largest railway engine. “Comes out of being out of condition. I suppose neither of you young ladies has such a thing as a pocket-handkerchee about you?”

“Yes, I have,” said Adrienne, standing on tip-toes and holding her handkerchief up as far as she could reach.

“Thank you, Missie,” said James, stooping down. Next moment Adrienne got rather a fright for she found herself caught up in mid-air as James lifted her in the air. But just as she was getting near her face he suddenly started and then put her gently back on the ground muttering, “Bless me! I’ve picked the little girl instead. I beg your pardon, Missie, I thought you was the hand-kerchee!”

The audience chuckled.

“No, no,” said Adrienne laughing, “here it is!” The time he had managed to get it but it was only about the same size to him that a Turkish delight would be (it was a tiny paper square about the size of his thumb), so that when she saw him solemnly rubbing it to and fro across his great red face, she said, “I’m afraid it’s not much use to you, Mr. Rumblebuffin.”

“Not at all. Not at all,” said James politely. “Never met a nicer handkerchee. So fine, so handy. So– I don’t know how to describe it.”

“What a nice giant he is!” said Adrienne to Garrison.

“Oh, yes,” replied Garrison. “All the Buffins always were. One of the most respected of all the giant families in Narnia. Not very clever, perhaps, but an old family. With traditions, you know. If he’d been the other sort she’d never have turned him into stone.”

At this point Garrison clapped his hands together and called for silence. “Our day’s work is not yet over. And if the Witch is to be finally defeated before bed-time we must find the battle at once.”

Will straightened his posture, adrenaline coursing through his veins. Not stage-fright, but not excitement.

“And join in, I hope sir!” added Carine.

“Of course,” said Garrison. “And now! Those who can’t keep up– that is, children, dwarfs, and small animals– must ride on the backs of those who can– that is, lions, centaurs, unicorns, horses, giants and eagles. Those who are good with their noses must come in front of us lions to smell out where the battle is. Look lively and sort yourselves.”

And with a great deal of bustle and cheering they did. The most pleased of the lot was Garrison who kept running about everywhere pretending to be very busy but really in order to say to everyone he met. “Did you meet our army? We’re going to take down the Witch and save Narnia once and for all.” That was, until Carine placed a weight on his back and he could no longer keep speaking.

Quickly they set out through the gap and exited on each side of the wing. Will moved out of the way, adjusting the band on the forearm. He noticed the small X on the stage in light green tape where he was supposed to land. When the last person exited the stage, the lights dimmed and when a beat passed he charged the stage. He grabbed the fake sword from his sheath and clashed it against Eleanor’s, letting out a quiet cry. He noticed the spotlight out of the corner of his eye, and Adrienne, Carine, and Garrison charged to the center. Garrison let out a roar.

“Off of my back, children!” he shouted and Adrienne and Carine dispersed into the crowd, blue armbands clashing with the orange ones.

Will waited, hearing the grunts and groans of the lion and the witch’s final fight. He waited for the piece of foam to hit him in the chest. It wouldn’t sting, but he knew he had to make it look as painful as possible. When he felt the small push, he contracted his muscles and let out a louder scream of pain, Eleanor taking the chance to “stab” him in the back. He flopped on the stage, trying to control his breathing to make it look as if he were dead. His body went limp.

____________________

He was in the second line of bows. The audience cheered, though Will did not feel much connection with the stranger’s following their social dignity. He searched, and failed, for his cluster, for the lights were too blinding for him to see. They fell into a wave, one bowing after another, before joining hands for one final bow. Rushing to the back, he watched as the main cast came in their respective groups– first Clayton and Rachel; then the witch; Garrison and his legs; Mr. Tumnus; and finally Jonah, Tyler, Adrienne, and Carine. Julianna came out to thunderous applause. Emotion crushed Will’s spirit as they performed one final bow. Two months of hard work was over before he knew it.

Quiet tears of joy– it was over– and pain– it was over – slipped down his cheeks as traded his brown vest and tattered black pants for a flannel and jeans, lack of makeup giving him a rather pallor look. Julianna was outright sobbing in the corner, a box of tissues tucked under her arm. Anybody that needed hugs were given them, by friends, enemies, strangers. Theatre was a sacred space, where everybody was accepted and very few were truly appreciated. Will sat on the outskirts before signing his name out on a white sheet, quietly making his way out of the backstage room. He glanced one more time at the door, watching Clayton and Cheryl kiss. They were perfect for each other.

He shuffled into the auditorium, a loud burst of noise hitting him. Parents were admiring their children’s hard efforts, friends were exchanging gifts and slaps on the back. He looked around anxiously, eyes darting from one section to the other for his group. It took a moment for the crowd around him to clear, but at last he spotted them in the back, Mike’s hand outstretched as high as it could be. With a quick smile, he put himself in motion.

“Will!” Jonathan shouted as he came nearer. He held his camera in the hand by his side.

Will’s stomach dropped just a little. “Oh, please don’t tell me you got that on camera.”

Jonathan smiled. “Just the part right before you died.”

Behind him, Hopper chuckled. “They gave you a special part in the playbill. Dying Man .”

Will looked up at him, almost expectant. “Did you like it?”

Hopper nodded thoughtfully. “It was a good showing. I think that the director did a nice job.”

Will’s heart couldn’t help but lift.

“I liked the puppetry,” Dustin chimed in. “The two girls holding the lion’s legs– that was cool to see, kind of how it worked. I want to talk to the person who designed it.”

“I think it was Nicole– she’s the lead carpenter,” Will muttered. He peeked over Dustin to see Mike and El– Mike, who was back to sitting down and El, who seemed to be holding a hand to her head. “El, did you like the play?”

She nodded from her chair, Mike standing up. “I could not understand some of it, but I liked seeing you.”

“Yeah, man. We all thought you died there for a second,” Mike chuckled before pausing. “We don’t really understand the whole theatre scene, but we liked seeing you in it. You seemed… in your element.”

Behind Hopper was his mother. She had done her hair in nice curls, much nicer than he had seen as of recent. There was a bit of blush on her cheeks, some lipstick on her wizened lips. He felt her arms envelop him. “My boy! You did so good, sweetheart.”

He would have felt mortified, but after 1984 nobody seemed to care if their friends saw parental affection. They were lucky they were alive and could receive it. Nonetheless, his cheeks turned a nice shade of pink. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Are they looking for a carpenter for the musical?” Dustin pressed.

Will shrugged. “Interest meeting for Once Upon A Mattress is in a month. I’m not doing the musical, though. Too much… excitement.” He left out his true internal feelings. Too public. Too many people.

“It was long,” El sighed from the back. “You were working on it for a long time."

Will nodded. So many thoughts in her head coupled with little words between them did not lead to productive conversations.

“Lucas sends his congrats. He’s on a plane back. Couldn’t make it in time.”

“Do we know about his meet results?” Will asked.

Dustin shrugged. “He’ll tell us at lunch.”

“No, he’ll tell you at lunch. He’ll tell us in art class because he didn’t go rogue with engineering,” Mike quipped.

“First night of true sleep in a minute with all of your late rehearsals, huh?” Hopper asked. “That reminds me, El, I’m going to get some wood from the yard tomorrow after work and over the weekend, I’m going to fix the broken logs.”

El looked in the distance, eyes fixed on nothing, and nodded. “Okay.”

Mike slinked away from the conversation, resting in the seat next to her. Will glanced over right as their hands found each other. He looked back. As Jonathan, his mother, and Hopper were transfixed in their own conversation, he saw Dustin hold a small ball of paper in his hand. He tossed it, Will catching it with confusion.

“What is–”

“It’s the homework,” Dustin whispered, inches from Will.

“I–”

“Don’t play dumb with me. You haven’t been in class all week for the play. Just give the paper back to me before school starts in case Mrs. Adeshoga has a stick up her butt. Room E174.”

Will gave a small knowing smile. “Thanks.”

He glanced back out to the stage. He saw a crew member peeling the light green that his foot was planted on a mere hour ago. A sense of pride washed over him. He hadn’t expected to like theatre as much as he did. He almost missed it, even though he was mere yards from it.

Maybe he would do it again next year.

Chapter Text

Monday, July 4, 1983

Nothing good came when her door was left unlocked, wide open. When she stared into the open space, more white tile looked back at her. It was comforting, the white tile. She loved counting the tiles in groups of fifteen, as high as she could manage. She counted the 1260 tiles in her room, or as she thought, five groups of fifteen of fifteen plus nine. Still, when she looked at the extra depth she knew what it meant. And still, she was compelled to move into the depth and examine the hallway.

She carefully stepped off of her bed, bare feet quietly padding across the room. There were no orderlies in sight to watch her– after all, it was what Papa called, “a holiday.” Of course, he always came in no matter if it was a holiday. Stepping across the threshold, Eleven looked both ways before noticing a quiet buzz at one end of the hallway.

She walked on her tiptoes toward the buzz, the sound slowly morphing into a recognizable timbre: Papa. Eleven paused, uncertain of the consequences if she tried to listen in on the conversation. It wasn’t a testing day.

“She’s twelve and isn’t performing nearly at the level your first test subject has been able to,” someone else said, his voice careful.

“Eleven had a major setback a few years ago. We had to build her from the ground up. Do you know how much work it takes to build a weapon?”

Eleven didn’t understand many of the bigger words, but she stood in front of the door where the voices were coming from and tuned in. If the door opened, she could easily fall to the side and pretend she was asleep.

“We’re not saying that you haven’t done a good job so far. In all transparency, she is outperforming all of the data we have on three-year olds. But she’s only performing at about the level of a five-year old.”

“And that points to extreme progress. In that time, we’ve had to reteach her how to walk and how to talk. How to swallow. The basic functions of a human.”

The alien voice gave a sigh, one that Eleven could tell was impatient. “We’re also… concerned about her potential to complete remote assassinations within the next few years. This war isn’t going to last forever. She hasn’t tested on anything live. No dog. No cat. Not even a fish.”

“We believe she is capable of completing the tasks.”

“So then what is the problem?”

Papa set something on the table. “Eleven is a… sociable one. Even when she was younger, she was shy, but she was loving. She brings too much attachment into things. We’ve tried to remedy this, by giving her a stuffed animal to hone her affection, to give her nothing but a white and sterile environment otherwise– she cannot dehumanize anybody.”

“And that’s why we’re recommending opening up your testing pool again.”

“Are you insane? Did you read over what happened in 1979? We cannot open up our testing pool.”

There was a pause. “The only problem here is… her, sir.”

“I don’t follow.”

“The 1979 massacre was a huge problem for us and the investors, no doubt. A major setback for all parties involved. And as we’ve already discussed, she has made significant progress over the last three years. But we need spies ready within the next nine months. Ones that can talk fluently in both English and Russian. Sir, she can’t read past a three year-old level.

“She has made tremendous leaps in her speak–”

“And when she does become a spy, how do you think that will affect her? You said yourself she was loving and shy. She gets attached too quickly. One conversation with the man she is meant to kill and she will grow too empathetic to finish the job. She doesn’t have the traits necessary to be a spy.”

Papa paused. “So what is your suggestion here?”

“In order for the grant to extend into the next year, we need one of two things. One: a significant improvement within her that shows readiness towards her goal; Two: to expand your testing pool.”

“You know both options are improbable.”

“Which is why we’re suggesting… termination.”

Eleven didn’t know what termination meant, but she didn’t think it sounded good.

“Termination? You’re not suggesting…”

“We thought about potentially moving her to a residential facility in order for her to gain social skills necessary to assimilate with normal life. In addition, we would place a Soteria in her neck and provide electroconvulsive therapy in order to remove any memory of her time here. But there would be too many risks involved with that, unless, of course, you thought of any reasons why it would work.”

Papa paused. “I suppose Eleven could live with me if necessary. I could raise her as a normal child. I could apply the Soteria to subdue her powers.”

“You know that would be unethical, Martin.”

The room went still for a moment.

“Termination… would be the best option if you want the grant extended. Start over. I’m sure the results will come faster than ever with all of this other research backing you up.”

Papa slammed his hand on something. Chills ran through Eleven’s back as she grasped the idea of what the word meant. She felt life prematurely draining from her veins and she slid down the bumpy tile floor. Each ridge made a sob erupt from her throat.

“I will not allow you to kill her. She is a human just like all of us in the room!”

Someone scoffed “If you truly believe these experiments are human, then you wouldn’t be doing this at all. You’re building weapons for us, Martin. Do we need to find someone else to run this program? Because I promise another pediatric psychologist would be willing to replace her.”

A chair slid against the tile and Eleven shot up, pacing backward toward her room. “I will not allow you to continue demeaning and badgering my work for the sake of your own egotism.”

“You’re under our mercy, Martin.”

“I am under nobody!” he shouted, and at that Eleven sprinted back to her room, tears leaving a trail behind her.

She was failing.

____________________

Wednesday, October 30, 1985

El stared at the paper as it arrived on her desk. It was the final Frankenstein quiz that she had prepared ruthlessly for. A timed essay about whether or not it was ethical for Dr. Frankenstein to create the monster or not. It took everything in her not to go in a tirade about her own experiences in the lab– how it wasn’t right for someone to be held at the mercy of another. But instead, she had to draw from the book and its themes. Quotes, too. It had been an unorganized, chaotic mess. Effort had been poured out, her heart had been broken, all for the top to be marked with a 50%. A failure. She sighed and put her head on the desk, a silent tear slipping down her cheek. Mortification filled her veins as the bell rang. Will went without her, getting to see their friends while El was stuck with the dumb algebra kids.

“Jane?” Mr. Bailey suddenly asked. “Can you come here, please?”

She slowly stood up and noticed him grab a chair from a nearby desk and pull it up toward his desk. She got the message, sliding into the seat. Her foot tapped incessantly against the tile. As the kids filtered out of his classroom, he balled his hands up on the table.

“You got a 50% on your English essay. Lower than I expected.”

Perfect way to memorialize the dead. El stayed quiet, pulling at the sockets within her fingers.

“How long did you prepare for the essay?”

El licked her lips, chewing some of the dead skin. “Last night? Two hours. Last night before was three. Will helped me too.”

“Will Byers?”

El nodded. “Our parents live together.”

Mr. Bailey leaned back in his chair, finger to his chin. “The average person spends only an hour and a half preparing for the essay, especially since you could use a cheat sheet. How well did you understand the book?”

El shrugged. She shrunk into herself, staring at the wide tiles underneath her shoes. She used to be someone. Someone better than this.

“Your reading tests don’t show great understanding, that’s for sure. But you’ve definitely read the book.”

Then she opened the gate.

El nodded. “I didn’t like it.”

“No? Why?” Mr. Bailey asked, eyes glazed with intrigue.

El stammered, thinking over her words carefully. “Humans should not make new humans and keep them. It’s not fair to the kept human.”

“You talked about that in your essay. Even if you only got fifty percent, it was still interesting. To your credit, your thesis was quite compelling.”

Compelling? She opened the gate. The gate was the reason Barb… Bob… Billy was dead. She wished she could talk to them. Apologize for the horrors she created.

The two paused for a moment before El caught her breath in her lungs. “When can I go to math?”

“In a minute. How much trouble do you have with reading?”

El shrugged again, heart somehow pounding recklessly in her chest and slowing to an alarming stop. “A lot. It’s getting better. My dad taught me to read earlier this year. I read chapter books.”

“Last year?”

El choked over the next sentence. “I used to live in Chicago. I was homeschooled by my mom. She didn’t know how to read, either.”

A perfectly placed lie. A lie that she didn’t deserve to have.

Mr. Bailey leaned back in his chair. “Have you been tested for any learning disability?”

El shook her head. “I get tutorial. I use it to read.”

“You have tutorial and your scores still aren’t improving. Have you ever thought about taking English 9 seminar?”

El stared at him with no answer.

“English 9 seminar is a first period class where you would get more time with the reading and you could catch up on some fundamentals. I think you’re capable of passing this class, Jane. You’ve been soaking everything up like a sponge. But you can only soak up so much when you don’t know your basics.”

“I have art with my friends that period… I like my friends. And my boyfriend is in that class, too.”

Mr. Bailey leaned forward in his chair, the swivels creaking underneath his weight. “I understand that your friends are very important. You seem like a very caring person. But sometimes we have to make sacrifices for our future.”

El paused, chest contracting as tears silently slipped down her cheeks. In a burst of adrenaline she shot up from her chair, grabbing her backpack. “Please talk to my dad. He can help you more.”

“Have a good Halloween, Jane,” he called out quietly as Jane sniffled, wiping her cheeks.

For the first time, she decided to skip class. They died for her, all for her to waste her life? Algebra was easy to catch up on, she rationalized. Their test was yesterday, which she scored an 87% on. Slipping in the bathrooms, she heard the air conditioning whirring above as she slipped into a stall. Dropping her backpack, she locked the stall behind her and stared blankly into space. Almost out of habit, she began to count the tiles. One… two.. three…

____________________

El always liked that P.E. was the last period of the day. No matter how tired she felt with the rest of her school work, she always enjoyed getting out the final burst of mismatched energy that filled her veins. It was the one class where she felt up to par. She wasn’t the last picked for a team because Lucas was always picked as a team captain, and after Max, chose her. She wasn’t the slowest, wasn’t the dumbest, the least strategic– she was just a girl. Completely average with her classmates. And that felt wonderful to her.

“10 v. 10 volleyball,” Mr. Speake shouted. “Sinclair and… Adams captains. Adams goes first.” He sounded off his decision with a whistle, digging through cassettes to play during the match.

Lucas and Garrison stood in front of the remaining students, El locking eyes with Lucas. Max sat next to her, their knees shaking in tandem. The teams were almost chosen from the start. Mike, Dustin, Will, El, and Max found themselves rightfully on Lucas’ team, while the rest of the kids (minus four) were on Adams’ team. Positioning themselves on either side of the net, El stood toward the back. Bump, set, spike. Bump, set, spike.

One of the other kids on their team, one El didn’t know, bumped the ball into the air, where it made contact with another kid’s fist on the other team. They went back and forth, El setting it when it came to her area even if she was supposed to bump. Setting allowed for more height and more time for someone else to get to it.

The game was monotonous, but El didn’t mind. It allowed for her mind to go elsewhere, a place with no thoughts. She was running on autopilot. When the blue ball was detected, she set it. When the yellow manilla envelope came into view, she grabbed it without thinking. Feeling the foreign object in her hands, she paused. Looking down at her hands, she realized the sounds of the volleyball had stopped. Mr. Speake was taking down the net.

“Okay, everybody! Make sure to get your report cards signed by your parents and get them back to your first period teacher by Monday. Have a good day off!”

She stood there, confused, until her fingernails instinctively ripped the sticky glue that held together the flap. With a scraping sound, she pinched a piece of paper inside of the envelope. There were boxes on the page, and it took a while for her brain to make them make sense.

Course: Art I: Defining the Artistic Process     Teacher: Betsy Morningstar     Period: 1

Grade: A+

Course: English 9     Teacher: Christopher Bailey     Period: 2

Grade: D+

Course: Algebra I     Teacher: Jeannie Evans     Period: 3

Grade: B

Course: Earth and Space Systems Science     Teacher: Mark David     Period: 4A

Grade: C+

Course: Tutorial     Teacher: Xavier Irani     Period: 4B

Grade: A+

Course: World History: Modern     Teacher: Amanda Brong     Period: 5

Grade: B-

Course: Physical Education     Teacher: Jim Speake     Period: 6

Grade: A+

Hopper had told her everything below a C was failing. There had never been much detail into what failure meant in the context of school, always dismissed with Hopper’s optimism. “You’re too smart to fail a class.” But here she was, staring at the D she had earned in second period. A failure. She always knew she was.

She felt a sudden lightheadedness strike her in the head, airy pain invading her skull. Tears welled up in her eyes as she stumbled back, heels of her feet squeaking against the waxy hardwood. She heard the volleyball clatter to the floor. Sighs of relief, curses of anger. All El could muster was a small whimper. Her arms felt weak and tangy, muscles wasting to shreds. The air was always out of her reach, poison infecting her lungs. She clambered backwards until she hit the padded wall, her right hand holding the paper while her left hand pulled up her sleeve, the tattoo of her past concealed.

“In order for the grant to extend into the next year, we need one of two things. One: a significant improvement within her that shows readiness towards her goal; Two: to expand your testing pool…  Which is why we’re suggesting… termination.”

She now knew what the word termination meant. Her legs crumpled underneath her, weight too much to bear. She heard the sounds of sneakers padding across the gym floor. Her vision swam, head pound with that same light feeling of before. It was pinched and sour, the fluorescent lights humming a menacing and all-knowing tune as she saw a shadow cascade itself across her body.

“El, are you okay?” she heard someone ask and she saw the coily brown hair of Dustin, baseball cap perfectly perched on it.

El stayed quiet, her heart pounding as her extremities went numb from the fear. She placed the letter in her lap, the dusty envelope washing the printed letters from her vision. The shadow cascaded away from her only to be quickly replaced by one who had striking red hair. Max. El saw something that vaguely resembled a pale freckly arm and grabbed at it, unsure if she made contact.

“What happened?” Max asked, squatting down to meet El’s eyeline. She turned her head before El could respond. “Lucas, go get her some water.”

She heard Lucas’ firm sneakers, new ones he got just this week as a present for cross-country, scuffle to the nearest water fountain. Max gripped her trembling hand, Mike joining her other side. “El, what’s going on?”

El wriggled out of Mike’s grasp to reach for her report card. She shoved it to him, Will and Dustin peering over Mike’s shoulders as Max shifted her weight to look. El felt the embarrassment creep up the side of her calves, wiping her tears on her dark blue sweater.

“Hopper said… lower than C was a fail,” she spilled out, tears streaming down her face freely. “He didn’t think I would fail.”

She heard Dustin turn away, slapping something. It sounded like denim. “This is not a viewing gallery. Go do something else, you idiots.”

“El, I need you to try to breathe,” Mike said, holding the envelope with one hand, the other combing her hair.

“My lungs are stuck,” she cried, Lucas returning, tall enough that he towered over the rest of them while kneeling, all except Mike.

The bell rang overhead, but no one moved. She hid her face in her knees. “My head hurts.”

“I know it does,” Max soothed. “Drink some water.”

El glanced up to see a flimsy paper cone filled with water. She drank it too eagerly, sputtering up some of it with a cough. It reset her lungs, the burn inflaming harshly. She hissed as it cooled down, the pain still present through her body.

“I failed,” she sobbed, wiping her nose with her sleeve.

“You can still pass the class. One D isn’t going to ruin your chances of passing, El,” Mike said.

“You all got good grades. I got bad.”

“You’re still adjusting. And believe me, we had a hard time, too,” Lucas offered. “We’re all having a hard time.”

What am I doing wrong? was the unspoken sentence heavy in the air. She felt herself being lifted to her feet, hands grabbing her arms.

“I have her backpack,” Will exclaimed. “Hopper waits in the junior parking lot.”

It felt too much like Starcourt, being helplessly dragged by Mike and Max as they tried to escape the wrath of the Mind Flayer. It rang in her head and she struggled not to try to flee. Her face got hot with fear and her stomach twisted as it consumed her. Her feet felt like they had been lifted off the ground. She was helpless.

You are a failure.

____________________

El could barely breathe when she neared the police vehicle. The water cup had long been forgotten, but her mouth was dry enough that she craved it again. Tightness shivered through her body, traveling down her torso and shocking her ankle. She felt as if she had her leg injury all over again, limping without any pain. She could feel the hot breath of the Mind Flayer… shattered stained glass cracking under her feet… the metallic smell of black blood and Billy’s bitter bile bubbling… Max even had the same braids in…

He heard the car door open, heavy boots stepping on the pavement. From her unreliable eyes, she could see his chest deflate, sunglasses popping off of his eyes. “What’s going on?”

“She got a bad report card,” Mike sighed, slapping the papers on Hopper’s chest. “She’s panicking.”
He put the papers in his pocket, absentmindedly taking El’s denim backpack from Will’s hands and tossing it in the front seat.

Max tugged on El’s arm, pressing her other arm on her chest.“El, you need to get in the car. Mike and I are going to come home with you, okay?”

“Cabin?” El asked, eyes lazily staring ahead as Max brushed some hair out of her face.

Hopper puffed out a sigh, bending down to match El’s height. “Kid. Kid, you need to look at me. You’re okay.”
She smashed herself in his chest, feeling his burly arms wrapping around her. The Starcourt Mall disappeared from her memory, only to be replaced by the smell of suffocating smoke and the sobs of a distraught Max. The pain of her shattered ankle followed by the outpatient procedure the next day to repair the bone…

“I–” she couldn’t think of anything to say.

“I know, kid. We’ll get you home, okay?” Hopper said, squeezing her tighter. “It was just a bad day, that’s all.”

He peeked his head. “Jonathan, get in the car, alright?”

“Is everything–” he paused. “I’ll, uh, go with Nancy.”

El wriggled herself out of her grasp, unsteady on her feet. She stood, wavering. Before she could fall, she felt Dustin and Lucas’ hands on her. Lucas rubbed her shoulder. She felt her body relax a bit, curling her toes into the soles of her shoes.

“Dude, we need to get her in the car,” Dustin said.

The world wasn’t as bleary anymore, the panic slowly being replaced with anger. Despite the tingly burning rage slowly filling her insides she let herself be lifted in the car by Max and Lucas– the two strongest in the Party. For a moment, everything was silent.

As Mike crawled in the other side, she overheard Hopper behind the closed doors of the car. “Over a report card?”

“She failed a class,” Dustin tried to explain. She couldn’t bear to look out of the window as Hopper unfurled the paper from his pocket. She saw the moment he digested the English grade, lips curling in on themselves.

He stayed silent for a moment. “Thank you for getting her here safely. Do you two need a ride?”

The two of them shook their heads, Dustin shoving his hands in his pockets. “Lucas has drill team and then Steve picks us up.”

El was interrupted by Mike moving her over, hand reaching behind her to grab her opposite hip. She jumped, not enough that he could tell. She leaned into his chest. Max crossed her arms and leaned up against the van’s window, skateboard pressed against her knees. Hopper grunted as his knees popped, hoisting himself into the van. He looked back, frowning as he glanced at Mike.

“I know you tried hard, kid. We’re going to help work on it, okay?”

El blinked back tears with whatever resolve she had left. “Not… mad.”

Hopper shook his head, offering a small smile. “I’m not mad. You tried your best.”
El could feel her heart trembling just a little less. Hopper had dropped them off after a near silent car ride, El quietly enjoying the feeling of Mike’s hand. It radiated warmth, warmth so desperately needed. Sitting on the couch, her backpack rested on her knees. Unzipped, she held the Frankenstein book in her hand.

“Frankenstein sucks. I read it last year and it was just so long for no reason,” Max groaned. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. What’s the next book?”

El sighed, listlessly staring at the droning television. “Night. It is short.”
“I read that this quarter. It’s horrific. You’re going to learn about… let’s not worry about it for now,” Mike said.

El leaned back on the Byers’ couch, looking down at her report card. Max and Mike still held theirs in their hands, manilla envelopes still sealed shut. Calculations done to pass classes were futile, numbers jumbling in her head like words often did. Breathing in, she was hit by the long-forgotten smell of Hopper’s cigarettes.

“I miss the cabin.”

Max took a section of El’s hair and combed through it. “I thought Hopper fixed up the cabin.”

“He says the in-fra-struc-ture is good. The windows and holes are gone. But he doesn’t want to leave Joyce. He wants to stay here.”

“And you?”

El shrugged. “I miss my bed. I used to sleep on the air mattress. Hopper started sleeping in Joyce’s bed. I use the couch now.”

There was a beep on Mike’s radio. He groaned as he got up to deal with it, storming into Will’s room. Will had sectioned himself to his room ever since they got home. Max rolled his eyes and El flopped into his section.

“Have you told Hopper that?” Max asked.

El shook his head. “He is happy here. I don’t want to make him mad.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you guys’ll move to a different house.”

“What about the cabin?”

Max shrugged. “Doubt he’d get rid of it.”

El glanced away, heart aching. “It was my first house. I don’t want to lose it.”
“And you won’t, El,” Max sighed, brushing back her hair.

She stayed quiet as Max began to section her hair into three parts. You don’t know that.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, October 30, 1979

Orange walls wrapped around the kitchen and the living room, encasing it in a rusty amber glow. Kernels were crackling in the metal pot, yellow corn turning into white, airy puffs as they jumped from the hot butter. Sodas were fizzing into glasses, bright orange and green colors warping around the reflective surface. Candles were lit in spite of the soft glow of the overhead lights. The wife was out with her girlfriends. The son was sitting in front of the television, knees bouncing excitedly. The VHS tape was loaded into the VCR, awaiting all but one click from the remote.

“How much more time, Dad?” Dustin asked from the couch, flopping his back against the couch.

“Just a few minutes, kid. Don’t want the popcorn to be half-popped,” his dad chuckled, tossing the popcorn in the pot. “Don’t start it without me!”

Just as Dustin contemplated disobedience, his father sauntered in with a bowl of popcorn large enough to fit both of their heads. “Don’t tell your mother that I’m letting you watch this. This is R-rated, okay? Not. For. Kids.”

“I. Won’t. Tell,” Dustin laughed, diving his hand into the buttery popcorn.

Mews climbed up on the back of the sofa and lay next to Dustin, curled in a brooding position. He glared at the television as if it were prey, ready for something to come out of the device and attack it. His father reached for the remote, pressing play on the movie.

The Omen was one of the more recent horror movies to come into Dustin’s father’s possession, grabbed before one of the local video stores closed down. It was a relatively new horror movie where an American diplomat adopts the son of Antichrist. It was scary and depressing, and somehow Dustin had convinced his father to let him watch it for the sake of Halloween.

“This movie has one of the best plotlines I have ever heard of. Great use of religious horror, and all of the kills are clean-cut. You’re going to love it,” Dustin’s father exclaimed, groaning as he sat down on the television, knees popping and the sofa cushion depressing.

Right as he said, “religious horror,” a Bible verse appeared on the screen, or at least, what was supposed to act as one. “ Let he who hath understanding; Reckon the number of the Beast; For it is a human number; Its number is Six, Hundred and Sixty-six.”

“This movie is already cool,” he smiled, voice strained from its whisper.

“Hush,” his father commanded, lightening his words with another pass of the popcorn bowl.

Mews accompanied with his own purr, watching as the scene shifted to a hospital. “Dustin, this is important– have you ever heard of a stillbirth?”

Dustin shook his head, baseball cap rustling atop his curls.

Dustin’s father sighed. “It’s when a baby is born already dead. It’s pretty rare. It’s important for the story, okay?”

Dustin reeled back, shuffling uncomfortably. Words couldn’t escape his mouth, only a strangled, “Oh.”

He couldn’t think about it for very long, a bloodied baby strangled by the grasps of human nature. He couldn’t even think about how a baby was born, let alone how a baby could die. Just as he shook his head, he saw a woman crying in pain on a hospital bed. He bit the inside of his lip, popcorn resting in his mouth, reacting uncomfortably on his tongue. A stock shot of a baby was shown, and it wasn’t crying like it was supposed to. It lay uncomfortably still, dangerously still.

A man leapt from a limousine into the hospital, Dustin leaning ever so slightly forward. He raced through the hospital, green tiles echoing eeriness. Heavy double doors swung open, and the well-dressed man with grayed edges to his dark hair jittered as he walked to a hooded priest. “Is… the child born?”

“Yes,” the priest said, holding back a breath in his throat.

The man seemed hesitant. Dustin felt unnerved. His suit was too crisp for his liking. “... My wife?”

“She is resting.”

Stillborn, Dustin screamed in his head.

“...Something’s wrong…”

“The child is dead.”

“Is this the horror part? The fact that the child is dead?”

Dustin’s father paused, gripping the remote and halting the movie. “Dustin, maybe your mother was right. Maybe this movie is too much for you at the time.”

“No!” Dustin whined. “I like horror movies!”

“There are other movies closer to your age range.”

“But they’re all boring and– and juvenile!”

Dustin’s father chuckled and shook his head. “You really are a special kid, huh?”

Dustin nodded affirmatively, grabbing another handful of popcorn. “I am very smart.”

He ruffled his curly hair under the cap and pressed play on the remote.

The man sagged against the wall as the priest continued. “It breathed but a moment, then breathed no more.”

An uneasy vibration echoed through the long corridors. It cut to the same man sitting in a hard-backed chair, hands pressed against his head. The priest stood next to him, grief heavy even through the screen. Through the gaps in the man’s fingers, Dustin could see that his eyes were pink with acidic tears.

His voice was soft, almost inaudible. “...It’ll kill her… my God… she wanted it so much.”

“You could adopt…” the priest offered.

The man shook his head, sniffling. “She wanted her own. She needed her own.”

He raised his head, staring at a woman offscreen before hazily eyeing the priest. He was anguished, each word getting stuck in his throat and burning like fire. “There were two… twice… she miscarried. She wanted more than anything … to bear her own child.”

Even as excited as Dustin was, he yawned, time catching up to him.

“Emotionally, she… I’m afraid of what this will do to her.”

The priest nodded slightly. “You love her very much.”

The man choked. “Yes.”

“Then you must accept God’s plan.”

Somewhere between then and the next day, he had fallen asleep.

____________________

Thursday, October 31, 1985

The report card swung on his fridge, held by one of his old alphabet magnets. All As except for one B in geometry. New geometry books sat on his desk, fresh from the library. He ate his sugary cereal and avoided looking at the report card. How could he be so disappointed with his report card when El failed one of her classes? He felt sick thinking about yesterday, how hopeless he had felt. It reminded him of seeing the billows of smoke from the mall from atop the hill of Cerebro. Erica had clung onto him, fearful for her brother’s life… He never wanted to set foot in any mall again. He was so out of sorts that he almost forgot it was Halloween.

Halloween used to be more special than it was. Last year, Dustin had put on his Ghostbusters costume and went trick-or-treating with a new girl dressed as Michael Myers. There had still been some magic, some innocence in the air. Now, what was there? Two more horrendous adventures into the alternate dimension, countless deaths– Halloween didn’t feel much like anything this year.

Mr. Wheeler had been the one to cap the trick-or-treating for the Party. “You’re too old to go fishing for candy, Michael. If you really are that much of a sugar addict, we’ll buy you and your friends a bag of candy.” And when one person couldn’t go trick-or-treating, it had been determined that none of the Party would go trick-or-treating. He thought about going to Family Video for the day until he remembered that Keith worked Thursdays and would kick him out after ten minutes. With no costume hanging in his closet, he resigned himself to loneliness until two o’clock.

The phone rang, its shrill nagging knocking the skittish Tews off the couch. He hissed at the telephone as Dustin’s spoon clunked against the ceramic bowl, sloshing in the milk. 

“Don’t worry, Tews,” he called out as he reached for the cord phone, curly string stretching out. “Hello?”

“Dustin?” someone said on the other line.

Dustin crinkled his eyebrows. “Yes?”

“It’s Melody. How are you doing?”

A smile couldn’t help but fade on his mouth. “I’m doing fine. How are you?”

“Doing good. You know, I forgot to tell you I had fun at homecoming.”

“Me, too.”

“Got any plans for Halloween?”

“My friends and I are having a scary movie marathon in a couple of hours.”

“Ooh, what you got on the lineup?”

“Nothing too bad. One of my friends… they don’t have a strong stomach.”

It was easier to joke about it to other people than delve into El’s struggles. Too much had gone on for all of them.

“I love all of the scary movies,” she explained. “My dad showed me The Omen when I was younger.”

“Mine, too!” Dustin blurted, too excited to contain himself. “God, I was way too young!”

“Way too young!” Melody echoed. A still laughter settled between the two of them. “How’s that girlfriend of yours?”

The cat pawed at Dustin, but he ignored him. “Good. I’m going to radio to her in an hour or so.”

“Radio?” Melody asked.

“We have a high-powered radio system that we use to talk to each other. It’s all linked to a system called Cerebro. It sits at the top of the hill for maximum radio efficiency.”

Melody laughed. “You really are a nerd.”

“Does it help that we met at Camp Know Where, a science camp in Wisconsin?” Dustin added, and Melody’s laugh permeated through the telephone.

“Yeah, that’s good,” she sighed, pausing for a moment. “Well, I’ve got to go, Dustin. You have a good time at your movie marathon, alright?”

“Alright. Bye, Melody,” Dustin said.

“Say hi to Suzie for me!”

The line went dead.

____________________

Mike’s house had the biggest television in the whole town, Dustin was sure of it. 22 inches of nothing but pixelated happiness. Dustin bounced on the balls of his feet as Mike’s mom opened the door, hair perfectly curled. Holly stood next to her, sweatpants over a gymnastics leotard.

“Hi, Mrs. Wheeler!” Dustin exclaimed. “Hey, Holly.”

“Happy Halloween, Dustin,” Mrs. Wheeler smiled before turning her head to the stairs. “Mike! Dustin’s here!”

“One minute!” Mike shouted, two pairs of footsteps racing through the hall and down the stairs.

Dustin stepped through the threshold and slipped off his shoes as both Mike and El entered the foyer, hands entangled. He noticed the fangs in Mike’s mouth, but cast them aside as he took an extra glance at El. She looked tired, with dark circles under her eyes even through the Wonder Woman costume. He didn’t want to think about how much sleep she had lost over the report card.

“Hey,” Mike muttered, eyes darting to the plastic cases digging into Dustin’s armpit.

“Oh,” Dustin said. “These are VHS tapes I got from Family Video. We have Halloween, Black Christmas, and Friday the 13th.”

El stared at them, distrust more than a glint in her eyes. “Mike said the movies were scary. They’re just movies. They’re not real.”

“I guess this is your first real scary movie marathon, huh, El?” Dustin said, turning to see Lucas and Will entering without even knocking.

“I’m telling you, man, no way is Bad Seed not a wimp movie! It’s just a little girl murdering a few people. The real movies could happen in real life,” Lucas defended, Dustin struggling to pick up on the context.

“Bad Seed scared the shit out of me–” Will glanced at Holly. “I mean the crap out of me when I was young. It’s my mom’s favorite horror movie.”

“Yeah, well, your mom needs to watch a better horror movie,” Lucas said, shaking his head. He looked around. “Where’s Max?”

Mike shrugged. “Should we radio her?”

El shook her head. “Skateboarding takes a little bit of time.”

“She lives, like, two streets down.”

El pinched her lips. Dustin could tell a secret lie between the two of them, but he let it go.

Will tapped his shoe against the rug. “What are we watching first? We can set it up.”

Mike glanced over Dustin’s movies, and Dustin quietly held up Halloween. Mike rolled his eyes. “You want to start the marathon with Halloween again?”

Dustin smiled. “Just like last year.”

El’s eyes lit up a bit, but Dustin could tell they were still dampened by sleep deprivation. Mike gripped her hand a little tighter.“Last year, we were actually trick-or-treating, but you get the idea.”

Dustin saw Will’s shoulders tighten as they made their way into the living room, where Mike’s dad was still in his recliner.

“Dad?” Mike asked. “We’re here for a marathon.”

“Can’t you use the television downstairs?” he groaned, dress shirt still tucked pristinely as if he were going to work.

“No, it broke in the storm, remember? You said we could use the one here until you get the old one fixed next week. Something about taking Nancy to get a car or something,” Mike muttered, shrinking in on himself.

Mike’s dad frowned. “That little raucous bitch.” He grunted as he stood up. “I guess she and I do need to talk about a car if she really has her heart set on going to Boston for college.”

Mike’s feet curled in his socks as they waited for him to leave the living room. Dustin reached over for the VCR. “I don’t want anybody screaming their heads off other than El, okay? I’m talking to you, Lucas.”

Lucas scoffed. “You’re the one who screams his head off!”

Dustin shook his head, grabbing the tape out of the case. “No way. When Max gets here, she’s totally going to be on my side.”

There was a quiet shutting of the door, and two fiery red braids made their way to the living room. “Lucas? Oh yeah, he totally screams. Screams like a little girl. Remember last year when I jumped out of the bushes?”

Dustin turned his head around and smiled. “Told you she’d be on my side.”

Dustin fiddled with the VCR as she heard the sounds of footsteps and a groan on the couch. When he turned back around, he saw El, Mike, Max, and Lucas all huddled on the couch, Will sitting in the recliner.

“So you put the movie master on the floor?”

El laughed, leg shaking. “I guess.”

The movie booted up, transferring to the television. Dustin pressed a button on the neighboring remote and set his back to the hardwood of the bottom of the couch. “Does anybody have popcorn or snacks?”

“My mom got us a ton,” Mike sighed, Dustin hearing some sort of kiss above him as Mike went to grab something from the kitchen. He stepped on Dustin’s toe.

“Ow! Jesus,” Dustin grunted, knee snapping up. “No respect for the movie master?”

“None,” Max laughed, the small giggles of El trailing her.

Mike returned with a large bowl of already popped popcorn. Dustin erupted in laughter. “Dude, that’s bigger than your head.”

“Bigger than all of our heads combined. Mom said it was a present for all of us, since we survived the first quarter of high school.”

Max groaned. “Don’t remind me we have fifteen more quarters of this shit.”

“You wouldn’t be so upset if you joined Hellfire,” Dustin sang, Max swatting his cap off of his head.

“It is fun when you understand the math,” El said. “And Eddie is good at telling stories.”

“Can we just watch the movie?” Will pleaded.

Their bickering turned to silence as they watched the scene unfold on the TV screen.