three; THAT SWEET PRE-TEEN TURNED KING ASSHOLE
The candy bars were still on Will's pillow when Alison poked her head into his bedroom. She knew he wasn't there, but she couldn't help the need to punish herself, even in a small way.
She shuffled into the kitchen, passing the fried phone which lay innocently back on the hook, and she dropped into a chair at the table across from her mother, thankful it was Jonathan's week to cook. She watched her frantic mother quietly as she inhaled what looked like half of her cigarette in one breath and exhaled shakily after a moment, turning her head to blow the smoke in the opposite direction from where her daughter sat.
"All right, Mom." Jonathan's tone was gentle, afraid to startle, "Breakfast is ready."
Alison placed a notebook on the tabletop when her brother attempted to put the plates down, and Joyce immediately took to shuffling papers away from her children. Her wild eyes frantically ensured nothing had spilled or stained the poster they'd spent the night making perfect.
"No, be careful of the poster." She pleaded.
"Yeah, okay." Jonathan set the plate down once Joyce had moved everything, "All right."
"Sorry," Alison whispered, and she grabbed the plate her brother had tried to put down in front of her. She set it on the notebook so she wouldn't upset her mother, "Thanks, J."
Joyce shook her head, "I can't eat."
Alison frowned in worry, "Mom, you need to."
"We just need you to eat, Mom." Jonathan urged her.
She shook her head again, sniffling, "Listen, listen. The Xerox place opens in like thirty minutes..."
"Yeah."
"But Ali has her test first thing, and I don't want you to go alone–"
"No, no, I know." Jonathan interrupted her gently, not wishing to worry her, "I told you, I got it."
"Screw that test." Alison said, "I can go with him."
"No." Both her mother and brother told her in unison. Alison rolled her eyes as she grabbed her fork, scooped up some eggs, and shoved them into her mouth, chewing as she watched her mother, who continued, "So, I'm gonna have Karen take you, 'cause I should be here."
"Okay, okay."
"We need to make what, two hundred, three hundred copies? How much is a copy?" Joyce questioned, seemingly more to herself than to her children, while Jonathan voiced his agreement, "Ten cents?"
"Okay, Mom. Mom..."
Alison frowned, "Hey, Mo–"
"I-If we–"
"Mom." Jonathan grabbed her hand, "You can't get like this, okay?"
"I'm sorry," Joyce whispered to him. She looked at Alison, "I'm sorry."
Jonathan continued to calm their mother as best he could when a knock at the door broke them each from their state, and Alison quickly shot up from her seat.
"I've got it, Mom." She told Joyce, who had started to get up, "It's okay."
Alison rushed to the door and unlocked it quickly, her face falling when it wasn't Will but Hopper who stood on the other side, a frown set on his face when he noticed her look.
"Hey, Chief." She spoke and quickly stepped aside to let him into the house. He only took a few steps into the home before he turned to face her, his frown deepening at the sight of the dark circles beneath her eyes.
"How're you holding up, kid?" He asked gently.
Alison didn't know how she wasn't a bawling mess on the carpet if she were entirely honest. Each time she entered a room and Will wasn't there, safe and ready to show her a new piece of art he'd been working on, she wanted to scream. If she saw the candy bars mocking her from their place on his pillow, and when she recounted their last conversation when she was dropping him off and wasn't home by the time he was, she wanted to curl into a ball and cry.
She settled for an attempted smile at the chief, who did not buy it for one second, "As good as I can be. Mom's in the kitchen, uh, living room now apparently," She corrected herself when she turned to find Joyce standing in the doorway.
"Thanks, kid," Hopper muttered.
"We've been waiting six hours," Joyce exclaimed shakily.
"I know. I came as soon as I could," Hopper explained to her.
"Six hours!" She repeated as Alison moved away from her spot between the two and stopped beside her brother. Her mother moved closer to Hopper.
"A little bit of trust here, all right?" He asked tiredly, "We've been searching all night, went all the way to Cartersville."
"And?" Joyce asked desperately.
"Nothing," Hopper confirmed what Alison already knew, considering he hadn't returned with her littlest brother in tow. Joyce let out a small cry, covering her mouth with her hand to muffle the sound as she looked between the stoic chief and her children, "Flo says you got a phone call?"
"Oh, yeah." Joyce pulled herself from her state and bustled by her teenagers to get to the phone around the corner, leaving Hopper no choice but to follow after her.
She gestured to the phone, and Hopper pulled it from the hook to reveal the blackened mouth and earpiece. He made a sound of puzzlement.
"Storm barbecued this pretty good."
"The storm?" Joyce almost scoffed, and Alison was inclined to agree with her mother's line of thinking.
The storm, doing that, was a ridiculous notion.
Alison had seen the moment the device had shocked her mother and while she wasn't as well versed in all things audiovisual as her youngest brother and his friends were, she was sure a storm could not do that.
Hopper looked at her in confusion, "What else?"
"You're saying that's not weird?" Joyce cried.
"No, it's weird." Hopper agreed, putting the dead phone back.
"Can we, like trace, who made the call?" Jonathan asked hesitantly, "Contact the–"
Hopper shook his head with a sympathetic frown that made Alison want to scream. She didn't want to see the usually stoic police chief showing sympathy. For one, it was insane to think about, let alone witness, and it was also due to the spiral each accounted member of the Byers family was heading down.
"No, it doesn't work like that." He looked away from Jonathan and back at Joyce, "Now, uh, you're sure it was Will? Because Flo said you just heard some breathing."
"No. It was him." Joyce answered firmly, and it seemed she had forgotten Jonathan's earlier words, her voice breaking as she continued, "It was Will. And he was scared. And then something–"
"It was probably just a prank call." Hopper interrupted, "It was somebody trying to scare you."
Jonathan scoffed, "Who would do that?"
"Well, this thing's been on TV. It brings out all the crazies, you know." Hopper explained to him, not seeing Joyce shake her head in denial.
"And the assholes." Alison crossed her arms over her chest, frowning at the phone, "I could give you a list of mouthbreathers who'd get a kick outta doing this."
Hopper stared at her for a moment and nodded, gesturing to her, "False leads, prank calls, uh..."
"No, Hopper, it was not a prank." Joyce snapped, "It was him."
"Joyce."
"Come on, how about a little trust here?" She mocked his earlier words, craning her neck to stare at him desperately, "What, you think I'm... I'm making this up?"
"I'm not saying that you're making it up." Hopper answered in an even tone, "All I'm saying is it's an emotional time for you."
Joyce didn't seem to hear him as she worked herself up further, shaking herself away from Alison, who had moved to comfort her, "And you think I don't know my own son's breathing?" She cried, before delivering a blow, "Wouldn't you know your own daughters?"
"Mom!" Alison exclaimed in surprise. A scolding edge attached itself to her tone when she saw the vein in Hopper's forehead make its appearance and how pale his face had become.
To Joyce's credit, she did look the faintest bit regretful that she'd allowed the words to pass her lips, but the damage was done. Hopper ran a hand down his face and turned away from the family. He wandered to the furthest part of the kitchen.
The air was tense when he finally turned back to the group, and his face was blank again, still more unsettling than the usual annoyance or indifference.
He cleared his throat, "You hear from uh, Lonnie yet?"
"No." Joyce's tone reminded Alison of when she was a kid and almost finished with a bout of anger or sadness. It reminded her of how sorry she'd felt, but her stubborn refusal to apologise was still there by the shift in her voice.
Her father hated that face.
Hopper nodded once and made a beeline for the front door, placing his hat back on his head while he moved, "It's been long enough. I'm having him checked out."
"Oh, come on!" Joyce threw her hands up, more than a little frustrated, "You're wasting your time."
Hopper ignored her as he opened the door and disappeared through it.
"God!"
Alison and Jonathan shared a look, and they were quick to begin moving. Jonathan grabbed the flyers he needed to take to the printers, while Alison grabbed both of their bags from the hooks by the phone.
Joyce was frozen in place, tearing up as she watched them move.
"I'll meet Karen at the middle school," Jonathan assured their mother. He pressed a quick kiss to her head while Alison patted her shoulder comfortingly.
"I have work later, but Jonathan will be back after school." She promised.
Joyce nodded as she moved back to the kitchen table, and the siblings shared another look before they rushed out the door.
Hopped had stopped at his car, back facing the siblings.
"Hey, Hopper."
"Hopper!" Alison yelled out.
Jonathan didn't waste time waiting for the man to face them or with pleasantries, "Let me go."
"Us." Alison corrected with a glare, shoving his bookbag into his arms.
He turned to face them, shoving something into his pocket, and Alison nearly jumped for joy when she saw the annoyance on his face.
"I'm sorry?"
"To Lonnie's." Jonathan clarified, "You know, if Will's there, it means he ran away."
"And if he sees the cops, he'll think he's in trouble," Alison added as they watched the chief pull out a pack of smokes from another pocket.
"He'll... He'll hide, you know." Jonathan stammered, "He's good at hiding."
"Yeah? Well, cops are good at finding. okay?" His voice muffled by the cigarette now lodged between his teeth. He stepped toward the teenagers, clasping a hand on each of their shoulders, and glared down at them, "Stay here with your mom. She needs both of you."
Neither had a chance to respond before he stormed away from them and climbed into his vehicle.
"Fucking hell."
✦❀✦
Alison's foot tapped nervously against the step of her chair as she turned to the last page of her quiz. Her attention lifted from the mind-numbingly boring words on the page to look at the clock above Ms O'Donnell's head.
Ten minutes.
She'd be out the door in ten minutes, meet up with her brother, who'd be back at school, and they'd put up some flyers. Then they'd ditch so they could drive out to Indianapolis.
"Eyes on your pages, everyone."
Alison rolled her eyes and looked back at her paper. She clicked her pen twice as she read the question and almost smiled. Through all the worry fogging her brain, she remembered this one.
Alison liked to think she was above average in math, but today was not her day. She knew she'd be lucky to just scrape a pass for this test, and she was not looking forward to the Chemistry one on Wednesday, and both O'Donnell and Kaminsky were the fucking worst when it came to low scorers. It didn't matter if it were one time or one hundred times. You always needed to make up for it.
Alison got halfway down the page when the class received their one-minute warning, and quickly she wrote her working out for the third last answer. She'd moved on to the second last question, getting a quarter of the way through the words when–
"Pens down."
Alison frowned, dropping her pen onto the desk with a huff as she finished reading the questions she was on. She also knew that one.
The bell trilled, and she was out of her seat with the rest of her classmates, ignoring whatever Ms O'Donnell was shouting at them as they dropped their quizzes on her desk on their hightail for the door.
Alison joined the sea of students dashing for their next class, the cafeteria, or the parking lot, and she made her way to her locker before she'd follow the hoards heading out the door, either to enjoy their free period or ditch.
She began to shove everything into it once she got the door open, knowing she wouldn't need any of it. As she moved to grab another textbook from the bag she'd had since eighth grade, she flinched in surprise when the metal door slammed closed as if by itself.
Alison glanced to her right and scowled at Steve Harrington.
He leant with his shoulder against the locker beside hers, leg crossed at his ankles as one rested against a bottom locker, balancing him. Tommy H stood behind him, palm against the locket as he leered at her.
"Asshole Ali." He greeted with the same insincere grin he'd used for the last four years, "How'd you find the test? You seemed distracted."
Alison sighed, face void of her usual mocking smile, "Fuck off."
Steve wasn't put off by the tired edge her words gave or the scowl on her face in the slightest. Not noticing or caring about how much she didn't want to deal with anything today, especially him.
But then again, he never was deterred by her frosty attitude, and he never really had been.
"Wow, no large-scale response." He placed his hand over his heart, or what Alison assumed Steve thought to be his heart as he'd had it pressed to the wrong side, "Have you decided that you'd no longer like to be Hawkins' resident shrew?"
Tommy cackled, "Maybe you're just so distracted by the thought of me naked?" He pondered, a grin splitting across his freckled face, "We could get you away from that awful reputation, huh?"
Alison laughed quietly to herself. She spun the dial on her lock back to zero so she could reopen her locker and turned to face them properly.
"Am I that transparent?" She quipped stonily. She smiled mockingly at the duo, and her voice became flat and cutting as she spoke, "Oh! I want you, Tommy. I need you."
Steve laughed while his best friend's face fell.
Tommy's eyes narrowed, and he shoved Steve in the shoulder, "Still a fucking shrew, what a damn shame." He sneered.
"Same as I was last week and the week before that. Oh, and the year before that." Alison responded, and she rolled her eyes at the boy, "Run back to your girlfriend, who quite frankly I'm starting to worry for, considering she still finds you tolerable, lick your wounds, and maybe come back with something better, yeah?"
"How about heinous bitch." Steve offered, and Tommy momentarily forgot his growing anger as quickly as it came and laughed loudly. He was a moron like that, Alison knew.
"See, Tommy." Alison spoke, the taunting smile never leaving her face, "At least Harrington here is a little creative with his oh-so-loving nicknames." Steve's face fell, surprise flooded his face, and Tommy's anger returned, but Alison did not let it phase her. She wouldn't ever again, "Now, how about you two do what I asked of you before and fuck off?"
Carol strutted in their direction, and Alison barely held back a groan. Dealing with Tommy and Steve had been brutal enough, but she'd leave school with another suspension on her belt if Carol spoke to her today.
Thankfully, she didn't have to deal with either prick much longer because Nancy Wheeler, the most recent girl to garner Steve's attention, at least that's what Thea had told her, had wandered by at the end of the hall. Barbara Holland walked alongside her and appeared to be quizzing her, judging by the flashcards in her grasp.
"Duty calls," Steve whispered to her with a grin before he was off as suddenly as he appeared with Tommy fast on his trail.
"Later, shrew!" He called.
Alison flashed them her middle finger.
As they all disappeared, she watched as Steve snatched the cars out of Barbara's hand.
"Hey!"
"Assholes." She muttered to herself while she reopened her locker and finished dumping everything inside, except for all the things she'd need for Chemistry.
She still needed to finish the notes Kaminsky was surprisingly allowing them to bring into the test. Glancing at her watch, Alison checked the time and slammed her locket closed. She began to walk in the same direction that Tommy and Steve had followed Nancy and Barb down.
"Oh, God, that's depressing!"
When she rounded the corner, she slowed her pace at the sight of her brother. Jonathan stood at the bulletin board, carefully pinning what Alison knew to be one of the 'HAVE YOU SEEN ME?' posters he'd missed some of his first period to go and print.
Alison spotted Nancy and Barbara, still standing with Hawkins High's most beloved (hated, depending on who you asked) trio. They watched the middle Byers sibling as he hung the flyer, yet to spot the oldest, who hadn't moved from where she stood, also watching.
"Should we say something?" Nancy asked the group, and Alison was happy to discover that Steve's douchiness had yet to rub off on her.
"I don't think he speaks." Carol simpered.
"How much you want to bet he killed him?" Tommy spoke as though he were sharing the most exciting piece of gossip.
Her earlier frustration toward Tommy H boiled over into rage in a single second, and she kept her feet rooted to the ground to not bruise her knuckles over someone as pathetic as Tommy fucking Hagan.
From her frozen place, she watched as Steve smacked him in the chest. Hard by the look of it.
"Shut up!" He, surprisingly, criticised him.
Through her red-tinted gaze, it was just barely that Alison caught a glimpse of the old Steve Harrington. It was minute, but she saw the sweet and wide-eyed, scrawny pre-teen Stevie before he became the douchebag asshole known as King Steve, with his stupid need to humiliate everyone and his dumb hair that somehow got bigger with each passing year.
As Nancy made her way to where Jonathan still stood, Alison began to walk. She brushed past Steve and slammed her shoulder harshly into Tommy's, grinning without a single ounce of amusement as she spun to face the group who had turned their attention away from her brother.
"Bag your face and have some fucking decency, Tommy." She spat, walking backwards a few steps to better see his stupid, shocked face.
Satisfied, she spun back on her heel and began to walk without bumping into others.
"Everyone's thinking about you." Nancy was saying to her brother, and Alison scoffed as she slowed down. When she got closer to her brother, she smiled at Nancy, who returned the gesture as Alison quickly informed him that she'd be waiting by the car, not wishing to interrupt his conversation with Nancy for too long.
The fall air was cool against her face as she exited the school, making a beeline to where Jonathan had parked this morning before he'd gone over the hill to the middle school to meet with Karen Wheeler.
Opening the back door, which didn't lock, Alison dumped her nearly empty bag onto the backseat and climbed into the car. She crawled through the space between the front seats of the Ford and settled into the passenger side before she rolled down her window a crack.
"Attention, faculty and students. At eight p.m tonight, there will be an assembly on the football field in support of Will Byers and his family." Principal Higgins announced, "All are encouraged to attend. Volunteer sign-ups for search parties are still available in the office."
The driver's side door opened, and Jonathan lowered himself into the vehicle with a sigh.
"Nancy's cute, huh?" Alison teased her brother.
"Shut up." He muttered before he nodded at the nearest speaker, "Get a load of that."
"Total bogus." She scoffed, momentarily putting a pause on her teasing, "How many of how classmates know our actual names and not the nicknames that were so lovingly given to us by King Steve and his minions."
Jonathan's lip twitched as he nodded his agreement.
"You ready?" He asked cautiously.
"To see Lonnie?" Alison laughed, "Never."
Jonathan smiled as he shoved his keys into the ignition, "Great, me either."
══════════════════
thanks so much for reading!
~r