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Jane ‘El’ Hopper had prided herself on learning as much about the world as she could in the space of time that she’d been outside of the lab. She devoured any television, comics, music she could get her hands on in an effort to feel more connected to the people around her. The words that would escape so effortlessly from their mouths that would sound completely foreign to her. She was learning, slowly, but still, learning.
Max had helped El in her efforts to understand herself a lot more than she’d expected. She felt bad for having hurt the redhead when she’d seen her with Mike, but when she’d seen how Mike had smiled at her, she’d gone a little crazy for a moment. It embarrassed her to admit it, and when she’d told Max the truth, she’d been surprised by the girl’s laugh.
“That’s alright, you were just jealous!”
El knew about jealousy. She remembered bits and pieces of her time at the lab. How her brothers and sisters had eyed her enviously because of the attention that Papa had paid to her. It made sense that she was jealous of Max’s power. Her smile had an ability El wasn’t quite sure she could duplicate.
In spite of her envy, Eleven liked Max. She was kind, and strong in a way that didn’t involve telekinesis or secret experiments. Her strength was found in the way that she would bite back at people who tried to make fun of El. When kids made comments about the way she spoke, Max was quick to defend her, fearless in the eye of conflict.
They would watch movies together, and read magazines and talk about boys. Who would be a good kisser, and other things that El knew Mike would scoff at. She couldn’t bring herself to care if Mike thought it was silly, she enjoyed just being normal for a little while.
Even as she began at Hawkins High, El never really felt normal. She could see the way people looked at her, the whispers that her classmates didn’t hide particularly well. People talked about how Hopper suddenly had a daughter, and whether she was the secret love child of Hopper and Joyce, even if it was logistically impossible. They’d sneer, and make insinuations about her relationships with Mike and Will, and even Jonathan. It made no sense to El. Jonathan was Nancy’s. Why would she want to kiss him like she did Mike? And Will? The idea was almost as crazy as some of the books that Dustin kept trying to get her to read.
“You alright?” Max asked, leaning against the locker next to El’s. The boys were going to Hellfire Club that evening and neither girl was particularly interested in the Dungeons and Dragons club that they’d joined. It meant they got to actually spend time together without it becoming what Max called a ‘geekfest’.
“Yeah.” El said softly. Friends didn’t lie. She wasn’t lying. Not really. She was alright. Even if most people didn’t think she was. Yes, she had wounds that couldn’t be seen, and she might never truly understand, but she had a life she never thought she’d get a couple years ago. She was as close to alright as she’d ever been. El closed her locker, shouldering the strap of her backpack as students rushed out of the halls around them.
“Come on, we’ll go to the arcade.” Max looped her arm through El’s and the two girls dodged the streams of students towards the main doors.
“But we don’t have our bikes.” El mumbled in realisation as they reached the main doors of the school.
“Billy will give us a lift.” Max said, and El looked away. El wasn’t sure how she felt about Billy. There was something about him that felt dangerous. Dangerous in a way she’d witnessed too many times in her life to ignore. She knew the boys saw him as violent bully, and he was, but there was something, just under the surface that El could see when she looked him. It scared her more than she’d like to admit. Perhaps she’d spent so long running and hiding that she saw any strange man as a threat. But he wasn’t a stranger, he was Max’s step-brother. It still felt disjointed and unsettling. There was one man in particular who he reminded her of, one that was tucked away just in the recesses of her mind. A memory she perhaps wasn’t ready to unlock yet.
“I don’t know.” She said lowly.
“It’s either that or you wait around until the boys are done, and they could be hours.” Max moaned at the mere concept. El managed a smile at that. They did tend to get caught up when they were campaigning.
“You are right.” She looks at her feet, as Max leads them across the lot. El sees Billy’s boots before she is brave enough to move her eyes upwards. He’s taller than her, taller than Mike, who is one of the tallest people she knows. Unlike Mike he’s got muscle, and the broadness makes him more intimidating than El’s boyfriend. He’s pretty, in a way that the boys on posters in Max’s magazines are. She’d mentioned this to Max once, and her friend had scrunched up her nose at the idea. Regardless of his good looks, it is his startling blue eyes that are the source of El’s uneasiness. It took her a while to figure it out.
When she’d first met Billy, he’d been dispassionate, and the pair hadn’t even really been formerly introduced. He’d been storming past Max’s room and had shouted at her that he was leaving. He’d given El the once over with those blue eyes before deciding to not even comment on her presence as he left. Most of their interactions had been similar. He wasn’t as outright hostile to her as he was with the boys, but he didn’t behave in the way that El was used to from her friends’ brothers. Steve was like a brother to Dustin, and he was always nice, if a little awkward with her, and Jonathan was quick to jump to her aid any time she needed help. El found Billy prickly by contrast.
“El and I want to go to the arcade.” Billy’s eyes slid off Max and onto El. She looked at him with wide brown eyes. He merely quirked a brow.
“And how do you plan to do that?” He asked, looking back at Max, and El released the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. Max glared at him, with a fire that El envied. As much as she’d taken on government agents and monsters from the upside down, she hadn’t quite figured out how to stare down someone with more subversive powers in the same way Max did.
Max motioned at the Camaro. Billy snorted and lifted the cigarette he’d been holding up to his lips.
“Why should I?” He isn’t as mouthy as he usually is, and El looked between the two siblings. Perhaps it was a good day. Either way, she was thankful for the lack of yelling. She hated it when Max and Billy yelled at each other in front of her.
Max merely glared at Billy for a moment, tilting her head. “It’s either that, or we’re waiting around here for Lucas and Mike to finish at Hellfire.” El winced. She knows that Max’s boyfriend is something of a trigger to Billy. She had watched Dustin and Mike’s dramatic re-enactment of Steve and Billy’s fight after she had closed the gate and had seen the state of Steve’s face that following week. Lucas had apparently been the trigger of that, so it didn’t do well to think about what bringing him up would do now.
El found herself looking around the carpark. Too many witnesses. The voice sounded eerily like Hopper. With that, the spitting begins. Billy and Max sling furious words at each other at such a speed that El can only watch them fly, like one of those table tennis games that Mike had played with her last summer. Half the references go over El’s head, and she distinctly feels like she shouldn’t be there. She lets her arm fall to her side as Max grabs her hand instead, yanking her towards the passenger side of the Camaro. Billy stomped around to the driver’s side, and El realised that they’ve reached what Dustin would call a stalemate. Max flung the seat forward, and motioned El to get in. She complied, hesitantly sliding over the seat and trying to put her bag somewhere that wasn’t littered with beer cans and other miscellaneous rubbish. She didn’t want to cause an argument by crushing something that wasn’t meant to be crushed.
The bickering between Max and Billy started back up the moment the car roars to life, and El wants to put her hands over her ears at sound of the shouting and heavy music. She prefers the happy songs that Max and Mike had shown her to the sounds that come from Billy’s car. She doesn’t say anything though. She’s not Max.
“Shut up Billy, it's none of your fucking business what Lucas and I do!” El tuned back into the argument as they sped too quickly along Hawkins’ backroads. She knew that Hopper would have a heart attack if he knew how quick Billy was driving. Though, many things El does seem to freak Hopper out these days.
“Look at me, Max.” El felt her heart stutter, watching the scene unfold from her place in the back seat. She watched Billy’s unsettling eyes as he stared at Max, longer than she felt comfortable him doing considering he was the one driving the car. “Max...” He repeated his step-sister’s name, attention switching every few moments between the road and her. He says something, something that is drowned out by the loud music.
In that moment, El realises she does know the look that crosses the unpredictable and unsettling eyes of Billy Hargrove. It’s the look Max had pointed out in several of the movies she’d insisted they watch so El could have a ‘well-rounded girl education’.
It’s desire.
El frowned. That can’t be right. Max told her that desire is what boyfriends and girlfriends felt. It was romantic…intimate. Billy was Max’s brother.
It didn’t fit at all.
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El didn’t talk to Max about her realisation. It wasn’t a lie, she told herself, it was simply something that shouldn’t be said. She realised this in the silence. If she had noticed it, from simply observing, shouldn’t everyone else already be two steps ahead?
But no, El realised she was the only one that seemed to notice. For the boys, Billy’s rage came out of a combination of typical bully behaviour and a dash of racism. They didn’t see what El was beginning to notice. The element of desire, and the inability to have what someone else already had so easy (El thought of Max making Mike smile back in October) and it became easy to hate, to lash out at what became an obstacle to contentment.
It seemed simple to El, even if the context was wrong. She’d watched enough movies to see how easy it was to be consumed by love. She often felt confused by her own feelings for Mike. In spite of all the other things that should take prominence in her mind, it was him that most frequently crossed her thoughts at the most inopportune time. If Billy felt what El believed he felt, then he would probably be frustrated by the presence of Lucas and his inability to act on his own desires. He seemed like a man who got what he wanted. El saw how easily he made friends, how half the girls at the high school watched him walk by with heated looks. None of them noticed the way Billy’s eyes sought Max. El did.
Once she’d made her realisation, it seemed as though she couldn’t unsee it.
The basketball game was loud, and the gym was full of people. Even in the crowds, even in the chaos, El could see how Billy’s eyes flittered over to where Max sat after he scored. It was only for a moment, but it was a moment long enough for El.
“Urg, I can’t wait until this is over.” Max grumbled from beside her. Lucas had insisted on Max attending his game, even though it had clashed with the boy’s Hellfire club. Even though the redhead clearly preferred basketball, neither option had been very appealing. El had come along both to support Max and Lucas, and because she’d never been to a sports game. It seemed like a rite of passage.
“Only…” El frowned at the scoreboard. “Three minutes left.” She concluded, watching the rapidly declining clock. As exciting as the game had been, El was ready to be out of the gym. It was too loud and the amount of people squashed into one place was giving her anxiety.
“Woo.” Max cheered sarcastically. Steve stood beside them, trying and failing to be interested in what his blonde date spoke to him about with very animated hand movements. El wasn’t really sure why Steve had wanted to come to the game. He no longer played on the team, and had spent half the time looking over at Robin and the other band members. If El didn’t know better, she’d assume he was interested in their friend. However, the looks weren’t the same as she’d seen from Billy, or even when Steve looked at Nancy. She was beginning to realise, a lot of people wanted things they just couldn’t have. It seemed like a sad way to live, even if it was a little romantic and featured as the storyline of many of El’s favourite movies.
The crowd went insane when Lucas scored the winning points and even Max stood up and clapped for her boyfriend. El managed a cheer, even if she wanted to shrink from the screaming around her. Max wrapped her arm around El’s shoulders, as if sensing her discomfort.
“Come on, we’ll meet the others in the parking lot.” Max told her and El nodded. They exchanged farewells with Steve and his date, whose name had already escaped El’s mind
The air was chilly, but the sky was clear as they spilled out of the building and into the carpark. They waited near Eddie’s van, knowing that’s where they’d likely find Mike and Dustin. Lucas was caught up with his team, surrounded by admirers and wellwishers. El noted that Billy was not a member of that group.
They watched the milling groups for a few moments before Billy’s blonde curls emerged from the front of the school.
“Oi, shitbird, we’re heading home.” He was still in his basketball uniform, sweat pooled on his body. He had a large bag slung over his shoulder and a towel around his neck. Max glared at him.
“Aren’t you going to shower first?” She scrunched up her nose, as if she could smell his perspiration from several feet away.
“I’m having one at home.” He grumbled stomping past them, managing a dark look at the rest of his team swarming Lucas. He didn’t acknowledge El, but she watched him retreat as Max turned to her.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. Tell Lucas congrats.” It was clear Max was tired, and didn’t want to argue with her step-brother. Lucas was still being swarmed by their peers, and it didn’t look like either girl would get a chance to talk to him anytime soon.
“Okay.” El nodded, seeing Nancy and Jonathan exiting the school. She watched Max leave, before shoving her hands into her pocket.
The next morning, Max wore a scarf around her neck. El watched as the boys ribbed her over the accessory. She thought of Billy, the team surrounding Lucas, and how Max had stomped to the car after him. When the offending material had slipped whilst Hopper drove the girls home, El saw it.
The mark. El couldn’t tell if it had come from lips or hands and she didn’t ask. She had a feeling, even though friends don’t lie, Max wouldn’t tell her the truth either way.
There were some things that weren’t said.
Some things were just seen.
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