✓ Her Mixtape, Stranger Things

lx. the supercut

Because hearing Richard reminds him of the nights his mother cried out his father's name through the thin walls of their house. He was four years old when he first heard her; "Stop, Richard. Not today." "Come on, Laurie, don't be a prude, loosen up," his father would say in response.

He used to believe it was a game in which mom would say no because she was exhausted from work and dad would say yes because he had been bored at home all day.

Because when he hears Richard, he remembers holding his mother's hand tightly as she tried her hardest to hide her son behind her pregnant belly while Richard stalked around the two, screaming until his face turned red because Ricky spilt his glass of milk while reaching for the cereal box.

"Richard, please. It was just an accident. He's five!"

Because when he hears Richard, he recalls covering his two-year-old brother's ears as they hid in his bedroom closet. He has no idea why they were hiding, but he vividly remembers hearing his mother yell, "Richard!"

Stop, Richard!

Because hearing Richard reminds him of the day he turned eleven. The night Richard ruined Dani, Eddie, and his mother's surprise birthday party for him. Richard had swayed into the house, a bottle slipping through his fingers just as Ricky had blown out the candles on his cake.

He'd never forget how everyone's smiles faded when he appeared because Richard had been gone for two weeks and they thought he'd never return. Jonathan Byers had told Ricky that when fathers leave, they never come back. But then he stood there, his cold, empty eyes scanning the room until they fell on Daniella.

"Richard," He slurred, his gaze fixed on his eldest son. "What'd I say m'bout bringin' in trash to m'house?" The man seemed to be barely alive, with pale skin and a starving body from only eating trash.

But he still charged forward, snagging one of Dani's pigtails and yanking her out of the house. Eddie stood there, horrified, as Alex began to cry and Dani screamed to get the man off her.

Lauren was the first to get up, and she told Ricky to get Eddie and Alex out of the house, which he did. Ricky picked up his younger brother into his arms and shoved his best friend out the back doors, fighting the part of him that wanted to go back and help his mother and Dani.

The three boys dashed through the backyard to Mrs. Driscoll's front porch, where the gracious old lady greeted them with open arms.

"Richard's... he's..." Mrs. Driscoll tried to say, her voice breaking as she sat the kids down on her couch. Ricky noticed the pain in her eyes when she frowned, fixing his colourful birthday hat, "He doesn't deserve your mother, Richie... never be like your old man, all right?"

When Ricky saw Dani the next day at school, she had a bruise on her cheek.

"It's sick, isn't it, Richie?" She beamed when he asked her about it. "I look badass."

"So badass," Eddie nodded, laughing with her. "Totally metal."

But Ricky didn't laugh. How could he laugh when he could recognize the bruise on her cheek to have the same print as the rings on his father's hands? A similar bruise as to the ones his mother would have on occasions on her arms and legs and...

"You're getting older, Richard," His father would say once he was thirteen, "you gotta learn how to be a man."

"And learn from you? No thanks." Ricky had replied, his words blurting past his lips before he could stop them.

Seconds later, he couldn't see from his right eye, and the defining scar he still carries today was brooked.

He told Alex, Dustin Henderson, and Luke Sinclair that he got it after crashing his bike into Jim Hopper's truck, and he told everyone else that he got it by jumping a fence into private property.