Chapter Text
October 31st 2022
The music at Noah’s house make the walls shake as you try to stay steady by the kitchen door frame. The party was well underway before you got there; two hours later, you’re pretty ready to head out. You make your way through the kitchen, looking for Gabi and David who brought you here in the first place, and then seemed to disappear without a trace. Unfamiliar faces meet you as you make your way into the living room in the crowded two-story house. Looking around you, you don’t see your friends anywhere. You shake your head as you take another sip of the punch you’d been given on your way in and refilled only once. As you do, someone knocks into your shoulder, making you spill a bit of your drink and just narrowly miss your dress with it. You knew from the start wearing a long skirt to a high school Halloween party hadn’t been your brightest idea, but with the lack of time your friends had given you to get in their car, you didn’t really have much of a choice in costume.
“Hey, watch it!” you scowl at the person who’d knocked into you. To your dismay, it was Jane, probably the only other person you recognize at this party. Of course she would be here, why hadn’t you thought of that? As you take a glance to her side you notice Thomas next to her. They’re dressed as Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers from Stranger Things. A couple’s costume. You silently thank the gods you’d opted out of that Robin Buckley costume you’d first planned on and went with your Cinderella costume for the easy zipper.
“Mia?” Jane looks you over, gives you a strained smile and then glances over at Thomas. Based on the silence between the two of you stretching further and further, you can tell she wasn’t expecting you to be here either. You clear your throat before walking past her.
“Yeah, it’s me. Nice seeing you Jane.” You say, unconvincingly. “What a funny coincidence…” you mutter the last phrase sourly to yourself. Jane was the last person you wanted to see today, given how everything had ended between you two just over a week earlier. And here she is, with Thomas. A junior. In a couple’s costume. From the show you watched together this summer. From your show.
You can hear Jane call for you as you look for an exit but you don’t turn around. Finally seeing the door leading outside, you grab the knob and finish your drink.
“Mia wait!” Jane catches up to you as you put your drink down on the staircase next to the door. “Me and Thomas, it’s not- We’re not-” you cut her off before she can finish.
“Yeah, well, whatever it is has nothing to do with me. We’re over, remember?” She stares blankly at you, a hint of sadness as well as confusion flashing over her eyes as she thinks about what else she can say. As you wait for her next words, two silhouettes coming down the stairs catch your attention. “Ah, just the people I was looking for! The deadbeat besties.” Okay, so maybe you’d had more to drink than you’d thought, but seeing David and Gabi come down the stairs looking at you with those guilty faces as you were arguing with your ex about things you didn’t want to hear, it just ticked you off.
“Come on Mia-” David tries.
“No, it’s fine. I’m leaving. Have fun chasing your Demogorgons, Nancy.” you hiss the name out with as much disgust as you can muster as you look at Jane and grab the doorknob once more. Strangely, you feel a slight zap on your finger as you touch the knob this time, but you don’t pay it any mind, probably just static electricity or something. “I’m going home.” You turn the knob, close your eyes, and step out of the house, slamming the door behind you.
—
When you’re out in the fresh air you take a deep breath in and let it out before opening your eyes. However, what you see when you open them is not the road outside Noah’s house. It is not the cars parked in the quiet suburb. It isn’t even really a road. It is the woods, which confuses you quite a lot, given you live in Arizona and living trees aren’t exactly thriving in your town. You turned around, completely lost, to find no door, no party, not even a house behind you. Just more forest.
“What the fu-” You pause as you hear music coming from behind you and you turn back around, noticing a street further away from you and a somewhat familiar house to your right. As confused as before, you head for the street when you’re hit by a wave of nausea and a searing pain in your temple. You grab at your head and hold out a hand to find a tree near you to steady you. As you keep walking despite the pain, you feel more and more as if the house in front of you is familiar. Not as if you’d been here before, more as in you’d seen it somewhere before. As you stand in front of the house trying to put the pieces together, a boy storms out of the house and onto the lawn, followed a few seconds later by another boy holding onto a girl.
“Jane..?” You say as you see the girl pass you and enter the second boy’s car. That’s the first thing your brain can come up with to explain how a Nancy Wheeler look-alike could be walking past you right now. Although, that girl looked a lot more similar to Nancy than Jane did back at Noah’s party. A little too similar… a lightbulb goes off in your head, but you shoo the idea away as fast as it comes to you. No. No way. That’s insane. You just drank a little too much, blacked out, and ran off somewhere. It’s not like it hadn’t happened before. Okay, maybe not as strangely and severe as this, but still. As your mind races you chance a look over at the first boy who’d stormed out of the house. Your eyes feel like they’re going to pop out of their sockets. There’s no mistaking this guy. That’s definitely Steve Harrington muttering to himself on the lawn in front of you. This cannot be happening. As you stare, “Steve” suddenly makes eye contact with you. His eyes are confused at first, then angry. He starts walking over to you and you’re paralyzed in your panic and just stand there, staring wide-eyed at him as he approaches.
“What’s your problem princess?” he’s referring - mockingly - to your costume, but you barely even register the words coming out of his mouth, because the closer he got in addition to that voice coming out of his mouth, it just makes you more and more certain. You’re fucked. “I’m guessing you heard or saw whatever that was back there and want some gossip or something, is that it?” When you don’t answer and just stand there staring at him, he starts getting annoyed, puts one hand on his hip, and snaps the other in front of your face. “Hello? Is anyone in there?”
Suddenly you feel that searing headache again and try to back up against the car behind you in order to not fall over. The anger leaves Steve as he reaches out for you, concern taking over his body.
“Woah, woah, woah!” he grabs your arm to pull you back onto the sidewalk, moving before even thinking. “Are you okay?” You hold a hand to your temple and try to keep your mind steady on what exactly you should do in this scenario. Then it clicks.
“Hopper.” You say through gritted teeth as you push his hand off of your arm and start walking down the street. Steve’s eyes followed you, flabbergasted as you wobble away. He starts jogging after you when he gets over his initial shock.
“What? Hopper? What about Hopper?” He asks, trying to piece together anything that was happening.
“I need to get to Hopper, he’ll-” You grit your teeth as another wave of pain hits you. “He’ll believe me. I’ll make him believe me.” Steve doesn’t understand anything you’re babbling about, but he’s more concerned about a girl walking down the street alone in the middle of the night in the completely wrong direction of the police station, seemingly drunk or high or whatever, out of her mind. As you take another step, your foot slips and you trip forward. Steve catches you before you could hit the ground, but one of your shoes slides off in the fall. You don’t have time to worry about that. Your whole head’s spinning like crazy and you can barely see anything.
“Hey, hey, hey! Easy.” Steve grabs your shoulders and steadies you. “Hopper can wait, I don’t know who you are but you can’t just go walking around by yourself like this in the middle of the night.” He thinks the problem over and as he comes to a solution he drops his head. Always the babysitter, he thought. He takes a long breath in and fixes his eyes on you trying to meet yours. “I’ll drive you home, you can see Hopper in the morning alright?” He pats you down to steady you and you nod at him. He holds his arm up as if to point at his car behind you and you turn around and start walking, feeling dizzier and dizzier by the step. As you walk Steve pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head, his eyes catching sight of your dropped shoe. He bends down to pick it up. “So, what street do you live on-” As he stands up and looks over to where you’d been walking he sees you’ve passed out on the grass. Great, just great.