Chapter Text
Spring, 1985 - Hawkins, Indiana
The Wheeler house was doing what it always did best: settling into its version of evening normal.
The television in the living room murmured on, casting a blue glow over Ted Wheeler, who sat sunk deep into his recliner with a newspaper folded loosely in his hands. He wasn’t really reading it anymore. He flipped a page out of habit, eyes drifting back to the screen every few seconds as if afraid to miss something he wasn’t paying attention to in the first place.
Karen Wheeler moved through the room with quiet purpose, straightening a cushion that didn’t need it, collecting an empty glass from the coffee table. She paused near the doorway, listening to the house: checking, the way she always did, that everyone was where they were supposed to be.
Upstairs, music played softly from Nancy’s bedroom, something light and familiar, the sound drifting down the hallway along with occasional laughter. Holly’s little voice chimed in and out, animated and serious all at once, like she was participating in something far more important than bedtime should allow.
Karen smiled to herself.
Down the hall, Mike’s bedroom door was closed… an unusual but not alarming sight. Inside, Mike lay on his bed with a notebook open beside him, dice scattered across the floor. He wasn’t rolling them. He was thinking. Planning. Occasionally scribbling something down, then crossing it out. The party upstairs barely registered. Whatever world he was building in his head felt more urgent than anything happening in the real one.
Back in Nancy’s room, the mirror light clicked on and off as outfits were tried, rejected, reconsidered. Fabric rustled. Shoes hit the floor. Holly sat cross-legged on the bed like a consultant who had been waiting her whole life for this role.
The house held all of it at once: the quiet, the noise, the ordinary rhythm of a family moving in different directions under the same roof.
Nancy Wheeler had tried on three sweaters, two skirts, and one jacket she immediately rejected for being “too much,” before Holly finally plopped herself onto the bed with the authority of someone who believed she had been invited into this process from the beginning.
“You’re doing it wrong,” Holly announced.
Nancy glanced at her little sister in the mirror. “I didn’t realize there was a right way.”
“You’re supposed to start with the cool thing,” Holly said, nodding toward the closet. “And then everything else matches it.”
Nancy smiled despite herself. She crouched and pulled out a hanger she’d almost skipped over—a soft cream blouse with a modest collar and slightly puffed sleeves, the fabric light and worn-in, like it had already lived a life. Innocent. Comfortable. Safe.
She held it up.
Holly tilted her head. “That one’s pretty.”
“It’s not boring?” Nancy asked, genuinely.
Holly shook her head. “It’s like… movie-pretty. Like when the girl doesn’t know she looks nice but she does.”
Nancy laughed quietly. “High praise.”
She paired it with a dark denim skirt that hit just above the knee, tights underneath because Hawkins nights were still cold, and her brown boots—the reliable ones, scuffed but familiar. She added her blue jacket last, the one Jonathan liked, the one that smelled faintly like laundry soap and home.
At the mirror, she paused.
This wasn’t a party outfit in the way people talked about parties. No drama. No edge. Just Nancy—put together, thoughtful, herself.
“You look like you,” Holly said simply.
Nancy turned, surprised. “That’s good?”
Holly grinned. “Jonathan likes you.”
As if summoned, Jonathan knocked lightly and pushed the door open a second later, dazed like he just woke up from a nap. He stopped when he saw her.
“Oh,” he said.
Nancy felt a flutter of nerves she hadn’t expected. “Oh bad, or—”
“No,” he said quickly, smiling now. “Oh… good.”
She stepped closer, hands smoothing her skirt once out of habit. “Be honest. How do I look?”
Jonathan took her in… really looked. The softness of the blouse, the way the jacket framed her shoulders, how the whole thing felt effortless instead of forced.
“You look like you’re going to a party,” he said, “but you’ll be the smartest person there.”
Holly wrinkled her nose. “That’s not a compliment.”
Jonathan laughed. “It is for Nancy.”
Nancy rolled her eyes but smiled, warmth settling in her chest. “I wanted something simple.”
“It’s perfect,” he said. “Very… you.”
Nancy grabbed her purse, gave Holly a quick hug, and headed for the door, feeling steady, sure, and exactly dressed for the night she was about to have.
The music in Eddie Munson’s trailer had crossed the line from loud to vibrating-the-walls loud sometime around Nancy’s third- or maybe fourth—dirty shirley. She wasn’t sure. The cups all looked the same after a while, red plastic blurring together like bad evidence photos.
Part mixologist, part giggles, the vodka settled into the solo cup followed by some grenadine and extra cherries. This was fun.
Eddie noticed before she did.
“Whoa, Wheeler,” he said, sliding the cup out of her hand with a magician’s flourish. “You are officially cut off. Doctor’s orders.”
She frowned at him, blinking too slowly. Her blue eyes pleaded for some pushback in this scenario. “You’re not a doctor.”
“Spiritually? Absolutely.” He pressed a bottle of water into her hands instead. “Drink. Sit. Pretend you’re having a great time.”
Nancy opened her mouth to argue, then stopped. The room tilted just enough to make her reconsider. She huffed, defeated, and took the water.
The party kept going without her: laughing, shouting, guitar feedback screaming from the corner—but Nancy felt strangely detached, like she’d stepped behind glass. Overserved wasn’t a word she liked. It implied carelessness. Loss of control. Things she usually avoided with surgical precision.
She drained half the bottle, then stood.
Eddie clocked her immediately. “You good?”
“I need air,” she said. “And probably… distance.”
“Respect,” he replied, already turning back to the crowd.
“Be safe, Wheeler.”
Outside, the night was cool and quiet, the kind of Hawkins dark that usually settled her nerves. It helped. A little. She took a few steps away from the trailer when a familiar voice stopped her.
“Nancy?”
Steve Harrington stood near his car, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, concern written all over his face like it always was where she was concerned—whether she wanted it or not.
“You okay?” he asked gently.
“Yeah,” she said, too fast, then corrected herself. “I mean. Not really. But I will be.”
He nodded, accepting that answer the way he’d learned to. “You want a ride?”
She considered it. Considered how easy it would be. How familiar. Out of the whole party, she had to run into him right now? His perfect hair, and his worn-in jeans, and-
“No,” she said. “I’m going home.”
Steve hesitated, then smiled, soft and understanding. “Okay. Call me when you get there?”
Nancy shrugged, not even sure if she had the brain capacity to remember that. “Goodnight, Steve.”
The walk down the street sobered her more than the water ever could. By the time she reached 1224 Maple Street, her head was clearer, her thoughts heavier. She hoped Holly and Mike were asleep. Or they were awake, and going to pry about what Eddie Munson was like. As long as mom and dad didn’t find out about the state she was in.. far from sober Nancy. But at least they let Jonathan sleep over in the basement tonight.
It was past midnight. Karen got wafts of something, and tried to nudge Ted awake, but he assured her go to back to sleep. She didn’t get up when the front door opened, and Nancy let herself inside.
The Wheeler basement smelled faintly like dust, old cardboard, and something sharper that clung to the air in a way Jonathan knew Karen Wheeler would not appreciate.
He sat on the floor with his back against the couch, lights low, record humming softly from the turntable. The world felt a little slower, edges dulled, thoughts drifting instead of colliding. It wasn’t escape so much as quiet—something he rarely got.
Until the basement door creaked open.
“Nancy?”
Jonathan looked up, blinking. “Hey.”
She came down the steps carefully, shoes in her hand, hair slightly undone in a way that told a story she hadn’t said out loud yet. Her eyes found him, took in the scene, the haze, the way he was very obviously not sober.
“Oh,” she said. Not accusing. Just… registering.
“This is a result of Eddie?” he guessed.
She let out a breath that was half a laugh, half a groan. “I got cut off.”
“That bad, huh?”
She dropped onto the couch above him, leaning back like gravity had finally decided to win. “Dirty Shirleys should be illegal.”
Jonathan smiled, then shifted, suddenly self-conscious. “You okay?”
“I am now,” she said honestly. After a beat, softer: “I left.”
The music filled the silence for them. Jonathan reached over and turned it down a notch, grounding himself. Whatever he’d been chasing earlier had already faded, replaced by the reality of Nancy being here, a little unsteady, a little vulnerable.
She slid down from the couch to sit beside him, knees drawn up. “You smell.”
“So do you,” he said, inhaling the smell that clung to her - sweet at first, but then bitter and heavy.
She bumped her shoulder lightly into his. This Nancy was trying to sober up. “Well.”
For a while, they just sat there.
Jonathan eventually stood, offering her a hand. “Come on. You should get some water.”
She sighed, resting her forehead against his shoulder. She would protest. She did want water though.
But Jonathan getting high again was something she just couldn’t shake.