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summer, 1985; hawkins, indiana
Max missed the way things were.
Not even before the divorce; before the divorce, she lived in a state of constant fighting and misery, and the feeling that she had to pick between two sides. It's not like she still didn't live in a house of loud voices and angry holes punched in the walls, but before Starcourt (that was the only way she could stand to think of it: Starcourt, and all its despair and heartache) she at least had a family, even if it wasn't the one she was given. No, she had a family in her friends: Lucas, Dustin, El, Mike, and Will.
She missed spending long hours at the diner with Lucas, sharing milkshakes and pie, requesting "Put Your Head On My Shoulder", one of Max's favourites, until they got kicked out. She missed wasting away her days at the arcade with the boys, beating them at video games until they were too broke to go on, and then they would go back to Mike's and play Atari until they fell asleep. She missed the odd moments she had with El, while the boys were watching a movie or playing the rare video game that Max was completely uninterested in, and they would work on puzzles together, or trade magazines. She missed the feeling she had, like she was back in California, spending long hours on the hot pavement, playing street hockey with Nate, and learning to skateboard. She missed the humid, sticky feeling of Mike's basement in the spring, and how dusty and cold it got in the winter. She missed her friends, her family.
Now? Now everything just felt out of place. As she opened her thick eyelids to stare up at her ceiling, turning her Walkman even higher to drown out the sound of Neil and her mom shouting at each other, she thought about how gross and ashamed she felt. Ashamed that she hadn't listened to Mike about El, and wound her up with an eaten up leg and no powers. Ashamed about her misplaced grief for Billy, a man who had caused her nothing but pain throughout his albeit short time in her life, and who had discriminated agaisnt Lucas. Sometimes, selfishly, she wished that he hadn't apologized in his dying moments, or that he had had enough time to tell her what for: Was it for what he did to Lucas, Nate, and Steve? Or just her? Or just his actions when he was flayed? Now she had to live with that confusion forever, all the what ifs bouncing around her brain.
Max sighed and closed her eyes again as "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" began to play, desperately wishing it was spring again, when everything was easier, and her biggest concern was what Lucas' next ploy to win her back was going to be.
---
fall, 1985; hawkins, indiana
Dustin’s whole world is crashing around him.
Will and El had moved away, just a few hours ago, and it felt like the end. Of course, it was the end; it was the end of the party, and life, as they knew it. Especially for him. He didn’t have as good of a reason to go visit them every weekend, like Mike did, and he didn’t have another person to cling to in this moment that could truly understand, like Lucas and Max did. He could run to Steve, and he knew that he would run to Steve, but he still missed the Party, and as much as he hated to admit it, he missed the way things were, before Max and El had showed up on the scene. He loved both of them to death, of course, but he still missed Dungeons and Dragons marathons, and staying up all night eating pizza and goggling at Princess Leia. He missed blowing all his money at the arcade and biking around town, and he only got those luxuries with the others for three years, whereas they had been friends since kindergarten and he had always felt like he was the odd man out. He had never been as close with Will as he was with Lucas and Mike, and he was never as close with Lucas and Mike as they were with each other. Sometimes, he felt like he was on the margins, like he never even mattered in the first place. Because, honestly, when did he? He didn’t feel like he mattered when El showed up, or when Lucas started to get upset that Mike was focusing on El too much (when Dustin was right there, if he had even cared). They hadn’t cared last year when Dart turned into a Demogorgon and he had to call Steve Harrington of all people, or when he was missing for days on end in a Russion bunker.
Okay, Dustin knew he was being unfair. He knew he mattered, logically. But his self esteem had taken a major hit when his dad left, and again when Max chose Lucas over him. And now? Now that El and WIll were moving away, Lucas was on the JV basketball team and was now hanging out with Troy on the regular, taking Max with him, and he only had Mike left (but Mike barely counted, because most days they hung out for twenty minutes before they hiked up to Cerebro to take turns trying to contact Suzie and El)? Now it was at an all-time low.
So there he sat, fiddling with his gadgets from science camp, wishing desperately that he had built a time machine instead of a radio, so he could go back to the sixth grade, when everything was okay.
---
fall, 1985; sterling, illinois
Will desperately missed Indiana.
Their new town, Sterling, was basically budget Hawkins; probably (like everything was, these days) to give El an easier time. The downtown had the same low brick buildings, and rollings fields of wheat surrounded the outskirts of town.
Jonathan pulled up to their new house: a small, two storey brick building with pink and blue flowers hanging under the first floor windowsills. The front door was wide open, and his mom and El were already walking to and from the house, dropping boxes in the living room to be unpacked.
It was bigger than anything he could've dreamed, and it was still the smallest house between all of his friends (did they even count as his friends anymore? He'd probably only see Mike from now on, unless they were allowed to go to Hawkins for Christmas and Easter, like he had overheard Mike and El plotting). Both storeys were incredibly small, and he knew for a fact this is what his mom had spent the bill from Hopper's two propreties and his (albiet small) life insurance check on. The lawn was mostly green but dying, and more flowers grew along the edge of the house and down the path to the driveway.
"Home sweet home," Jonathan said absent-mindedly, putting his car in park on the curb. Will sighed, and pursed his lips as El came out of the house again, pushing her hair back and glaring up at the setting sun.
"It's not her fault, you know," Jonathan said. "What Mike said."
"I know that," Will said. "It's not like I'm taking it out on her."
"You haven't spoken to her in two weeks," he pointed out. "And you're sharing a room with her now."
"Well then I guess we'll tak, won't we?" Will said harshly, too harshly, he realized as soon as he said it. He saw Jonathan bite his lip before he got out of the car, stomping over to the truck, where his mom was lifting boxes out of the trunk and putting them on the pavement for El to take into the foyer.
"Hey baby," she said to him, out of breath, pushing her hair out of her face and grinning at him. "How was the drive?"
"Good," he said. "Jonathan and I found a great radio station in range."
"Awesome," she said, and her grin widened, if possible. "Would you mind taking this up to your room? It's the last one on the right up the stairs."
Will took the box wordlessly, but offered a weak smile to his mom. She pushed his hair back and smiled at him again. "I'm sorry, baby," she said. "But El just couldn't stay there."
That's funny, considering she's the last person who would want to leave, Will thought. But he wouldn't give his mom attitude. Not after everything.
"I know, Mom," was all he said. He took his box and walked into the house, passing El on the way, for the first time.
It was dusty and had a faint smell of rot, but there were a lot of windows that filled the room with rich sunlight. Right off the side of the entrance was the staircase to the upper floor, and Will took the stairs immediately, and found his way to the room he and El were going to share.
Theirs was the biggest room in the place, and Will immediaely felt guilty about it. There were two bed frames with mattresses pushed to either side of the room, and a big window seperating them on the front facing wall. On the right of the door, there was a big closet and a dresser. El hadn't set anything up yet, but a small stuffed bear was sitting on the right hand bed, so he assumed that was her side of the room.
Sighing, he sat down on the opposite bed to the bear, leaning his head back against the cool white wall, wishing he were anywhere but there.
---
winter, 1985; hawkins, indiana
Lucas could remember everything about his time with the Party.
The group had pretty much, but still unoffically, disbanded. He was still with Max, thankfully, but he hadn't spoken to Mike or Dustin in weeks, and hadn't seen El and Will since they left town (though he had heard they were coming back for Christmas today). Now he hung out with, against his better judgement, Troy and his gang, as they all played on the JV basketball team together. That was probably the reason he, Dustin, and Mike were not on speaking terms, but he wasn't going to sacrifice a potential university scholarship on a middle school friendship.
But still, he thought about his old friends often. He thought about the early days, walking home from first grade with Mike and Will, their backpacks that were much too big for their tiny bodies hitting the backs of their knees with every step. He remembered exactly how it felt to stay up until three in the morning in Mike's basement, watching Star Wars as soon as it came out on VHS. He could remember every single detail, vivid in his mind, about spending the first hot, sticky days of June packed in El's cabin for board games night, all playing Uno and the Game of Life over sodas and chips. Lucas missed those days, more than anything. He missed the inside jokes, Dustin's high pitched laugh, or when they all cheered after they beat a level on a videogame.
But with Dustin and Mike, it just wasn't the same anymore. Mike was so broken after losing El, it was like 1984 all over again; all he wanted to do was call her, write to her, listen to music that reminded him of her. And since Lucas had abandoned Dustin in favour of Troy and the basketball team, Dustin just went along with Mike, calling Suzie over Cerebro whenever Mike and El took a break from talking.
So there Lucas was, all these thoughts scrambling around his brain, watching the Byers' car pull up on the cul-de-sac. He knew that he couldn't go see them, because they obviously knew about their falling out, but that didn't stop his heart from aching when Mike and Nancy ran out of the house, hugging the Byers with all the force in their bodies. He knew that he should be down there, too, hugging Will and catching up on all the latest in Sterling. He should probably call Max, because she and El were still on good terms and talked often. She would be thrilled to hear that the rumours were true, and would immediately go and find her copy of The Karate Kid so they could watch over and over.
But Lucas simply laid down in bed and closed his eyes, thinking about what he would give to go back to the spring previous.
---
winter, 1986; somewhere on the i-86, indiana
Mike found that, leaving El? It never got any easier.
The ride back to Hawkins was the worst part. Before he could go sulk in his room and start counting down to when he could see her next, he had to sit in the car with his sister for six hours, swallowing back tears. Luckily for him, he had had lots of practice at pretending to be okay, from when she left him the first time, so he was very well versed in the act of holding a poker face even though he was dying internally.
His Walkman was playing his favourite mixtape, one he had made with El in April of the year previous. It had all their favourite songs, and was probably the most comforting thing he owned. He played it all the time, but especially on drives back home, when Nancy played whatever mixtape Jonathan had just given her (it was always the Clash and the Smiths), so he could drown out her music. Mike tried to avoid looking at her, on these drives, as he found tears were usually running down her face, and that was too awkward to discuss with her, so he opted for staring out the window and pretending to be indfferent (an act that fooled no one.)
On drives like these, he often ended up hanging out in the very back of his brain, the place he least liked to be. He had good reason for it, too, because it never ended well. He always ended up thinking thoughts that weren't helpful to anyone, really, and usually ended up with Mike being depressed for several days at a time. This one, that his brain had so helpfully just managed to conjure up, was a great example:
Maybe me and El aren't meant to be together.
Before El, he had never really given much thought to soulmates, or romance at all, really. But during those rough, awful months where he had nothing left of her except for the memories in his own head, he decided that, if El were to come back to him at any point in time, they would have to be soulmates, right? If she could manage to come back to him from literally beyond the grave, then he figured there just had to be something pulling them together. It was just logic, to his little twelve-year-old brain. So, when she came back to him, he decided that they were soulmates, and that's the belief he held until this past October.
And it's not like he still didn't believe it now: he did. It's just that, now? It felt like it was too much, like El getting torn from him again and again couldn't just be a coincidence. Maybe the universe just didn't want them together.
That thought terrified Mike. He loved El, so much, and never even considered the thought of loving anybody else, for the rest of his life. Maybe it was simply his youthful ignorance talking, but he genuinely believed that El was it for him. Even if the universe didn't want them together.
Mike sighed and leaned his head back against the headrest, wishing he still had El firmly in his arms.
---
spring, 1986; sterling, illinois
It had been nearly a year since El had lost her dad, and yet she still thought of him nearly every day.
It wasn't easy, grieving, but it did get easier. Joyce told her, once, when it had all washed over her fresh again, that her dad had once said everyday it got a bit easier. El agreed with that statement -- but whether that was because it was true to her life, or because she just desperately wanted her dad to know that he was right, it was getting easier, she couldn't tell you. All she knew was that she was taking it day by day, hoping that it got better eventually.
(What she didn't want to admit to anyone was that, a tiny part of her, the tiniest section of her brain, was hoping that everything turned out like it had last time, where everyone assumed her dead until she, of course, had returned. She didn't want to tell anybody, wanted to save herself from their pitiful glances, but sometimes she thought she could tell Mike. He would understand, of course, but she also felt that saying it out loud, speaking it into existence, would make it untrue, and would just make it hurt worse when it inevitably didn't happen. But, nonetheless, the thought helped her to bed at night, the thought that her dad was out there, somewhere, trying to get back to her.)
Half of her was happy that Joyce had moved her far from Hawkins; she didn't need to be reminded of her dad everytime she left the house, but the other half was sad that she had to leave. She was just getting to know Max, their friendship blossoming into a very real relationship. El missed Lucas and Dustin with every piece of her being, too, as they were easily her best friends in the world. And then, of course, there was Mike, the boy she loved (and who loved her, too, a fact she loved to be reminded of). She always missed him, always, but somedays she missed him so much it was like a piece of her was attached to him, still, like the last time they hugged a piece of her soul latched onto his and now she was incomplete without him.
These were the nights it got terribly lonely; they were few and far between, but sometimes the loss of both her dad and Mike hit her in the chest all at once and she let herself fall apart, in the hazy moonlight of her room. It was on the second level, something she wasn't entirely used to, and so when it got so bad she couldn't bear to be there anymore she crept over to her closet, careful not to wake Will, and pulled two things from there: Roary, a symbol of her first day with Mike, the first day she ever felt safe, and one of Hoppers flannels, and then snuck downstairs to sit on the back porch.
This was where she found herself tonight. She was laying on the porch, the flannel covering her mouth and nose so she could smell the faint smell of her dad; cigarettes and dust. The scent faded with every passing day, but Joyce had told her to keep all the flannels in a box together to preserve it longer. El was eternally grateful for the advice, as it let her keep memories of him on nights like tonight. She was pressing Roary's chest occasionally, her roar soothing her in away few things ever could. It took her back to Mike's room, the plasticy scent of comic books and Dungeons and Dragons toys, mixed with clean laundry and air freshener. It smelled like home. Roary sounded like home.
The stars glowed above her, and they fascinated her, just like they had Sarah. They were always, to her, a stark reminder of her escape and the life she was lucky to be living. She remembered her conversation with Hopper, too, just before the gate, about him being a black hole, way up in outer space. That was supposed to be a bad thing, but it comforted her now. The thought that he was up there, sucking things towards him, and that just maybe, she was flying towards him, too.
"I miss you," she whispered to the sky. "I miss you so much." She swallowed, thinking of what to say. She imagined her dad was really listening, that he was laying next to her on the cool patio. She wondered what she would say if he were.
"I think about you every day. When I get up and when I go to sleep, when I eat breakfast and eat dinner. Joyce misses you, too. I think you... I think you mean more to her than you think." She fought back tears. "And... I miss you more than... than I can believe. More than I missed Mike. And he's sorry, by the way, he is. I don't think he hated you, I think he... he was just mad." Despite her efforts, she was crying now, full-on. "I still listen to J-Jim Croce, and --" she chuckled, "I still keep my door open three inches. And I miss you, and I wish you were here. I wish I was home."
When she said that, she meant all her homes. She missed the cabin, and Mike's house, and the night her and Max stayed up all night, reading comics. She missed Dustin's warm hugs and cackling laughter, Lucas' witty jokes and arcade game skill. She missed Nancy teaching her math and Jonathan lending her his camera to take pictures of all her friends. She missed her bed in the cabin, the bed that smelled of perfume and firewood, and she missed the soft smell of dust and laundry detergent that came with her pillow fort. She missed it all, and desperately, and she hated the fact that she had to let it all go, for the most part. El wondered if it would ever be the same.
She stayed there for a while longer, trying her best to let everything that she would never see again go. She tried to kiss it goodbye, but that was the thing about goodbyes: they were never sweet, and she could never quite bring herself to let anything go. Goodbye meant something was gone, and she couldn't bear the thought of anything being gone. In her life one minute, out the next? Everything had tasted so sweet, felt so warm, for six short months, and now she couldn't force herself to let those days go, even though they were dust. She wanted to put them in a little suitcase and carry them everywhere she went, right close to her heart. Those days were the only ones of her life where everything felt okay, like everything was in their right places. She couldn't just let them go, no matter how much she tried.
And so she stayed there, staring up at the stars and wishing her dad was next to her, instead of being gone, just like the best days of her life, just like Mike and Max and Lucas and Dustin.
She stayed there, and wondered if her dad was wrong about him being the black hole of their family.