✓ Her Mixtape, Stranger Things

xlix. bravado

Holly had shown Rue every outfit in her closet and introduced her to every doll in the dollhouse in the time she had been in the room. Holly had even agreed to let Rue do her hair, which she had decorated with two baby blue ribbons to match her skirt.

"What's your favourite song?" Holly jumps onto her bed. She rolls to her back and lets her head fall off the side, looking at Rue upside down as her hair cascades over the side of the bed. "I bet you probably like something Nancy does."

Rue leans back on her elbows, "What does Nancy like?"

Holly scrunches her nose, "I don't know. But I hear her play this one song all the time, it's about pains in Africa."

Rue can't help but snort, and she cups her hands to her mouth, "Oh, sorry," she giggles when Holly's eyes grow wide at the sound. "Yeah, that's a good song. Hmm, what is my favourite song?" Rue thinks aloud, and she smirks when Holly rolls her eyes impatiently. "I don't know. I like a lot of songs."

"But there has to be a song," Holly argues as she sits on her bed. "Everyone has a song."

There's a soft knock on the door before Rue can think of an answer. The two girls find Max standing in the doorway with an envelope in her hands and her backpack slung over her shoulders. She shifts nervously in her spot and looks back and forth between Rue and Holly.

Rue sits up straighter, her gaze fixed on the envelope. Her name is neatly written on it, and it reminds her of the letters Max used to write to her regularly before the mail stopped coming. Rue leans towards Holly's music player and turns it down.

"Max!" Holly scrambles off her bed and grins at the red-haired girl. "What's your favourite song? Rue says she doesn't have one, but I'm telling her everyone has one."

"Oh," Max tears her gaze away from Rue, and she looks at Holly. Her face softens, and a small smile grows on her lips. "Well, right now, I'm obsessed with Kate Bush and her song called Running Up That Hill."

Holly makes a face, "I've never heard of that one," she says, and before Max could say anything else, the girl skips toward her music player and turns it back up. Holly returns to dance carelessly as Rue slowly stands from the floor.

"Kate Bush?" She asks and eyes her old Walkman strapped to Max's hips. Rue walks up to her, her steps hesitant and slow as the memory of their fight still burns fresh in her mind, along with the nightmare, four blurred faces, broken bones, blood, cries and the house.

Rue draws in a deep breath while tucking her hands into the pockets of her jeans, trying not to sink back into the hysteria she endured hours before. Rue puts an awkward smile on her lips as she glances at Max, trying to ignore the sour thoughts in her head that Max had read all of her letters but had never replied to any of them, and here she stood before her with a letter in her hands.

Rue recalls that Max has been cursed by Vecna, and she is only hours away from suffering the same fate as Chrissy Cunningham and Fred Benson. Nancy and Robin were doing everything they could to seek a solution, but until then, they were all sitting ducks. Rue attempts to be compassionate.

"Kate Bush is cool," Max puffs out, and the two girls step into the hallway. "She's got cool songs."

"So I've heard," Rue nods, remembering Dustin's letter raving about Kate Bush being one of the best artists of the decade. Now that she thinks about it, Rue wonders if Dustin wrote that letter on his own because she didn't find a Kate Bush cassette in his room.

"Don't act shocked," Max scoffs, "you're the one who added her songs to the mixtape you gave me. If anything it's your fault."

Rue raises her brows, "It's my fault you found your favourite song?"