TIME TO PANIC
July 4th, 1985
⏰ 12:00 pm, 📍Hawkins, Indiana
༺♥༻ Fourth of July morning and the kids, plus Nancy and Jonathan are on their way to Hopper's cabin so El can hopefully find some of the flayed.
After the whole hospital and girlfriend fiasco, Stephanie got home late that night. Although, she realized Steve wasn't home. She didn't know when he left or when he would even be back.
Stephanie decided not to worry about it and convinced herself that he was at some girls house for the night.
But this morning, El basically locked herself in her room while the others wander and sit around awkwardly waiting to hear any news.
Max and Stephanie are sitting next to each other, holding hands while Mike paces back and forth. "It can't be good for her to be in there for this long."
"Mike, you need to relax." Max sighs, looking over at Stephanie and rolling her eyes.
"What if she gets brain damage or something?" Mike shoots back.
Lucas' eyes widen. "Oh, shit. Is that, like, a real thing?"
"No, it's not. He made it up." Max shakes her head. "Mike doesn't know what the hell he's talking about."
Mike stops pacing, suddenly offended. "Oh, and you do?"
"Mike, stop acting like a kid. El is fine in there. She's done it plenty of times!" Stephanie argues. "Do you not trust her?"
"No!-yes I do-I don't-" Mike stutters.
"You don't trust her!" Max yells.
Mike scoffs. "You don't know that! You don't know anything!"
"Yeah, sure." Max sighs, almost asking for more fighting.
Stephanie gives Lucas a glance, who has the same confused face she does, watching Max and Mike argue.
"You agree with me right, Stephanie?" Mike suddenly brings Stephanie into the conversation. "About how careless Max is?"
"No I don't agree with you!"
"I am so tired of this!" Mike gestures between the two girls. "You've ignored me the minute Max beat your high score and now you're constantly all up on her!"
"That's not true!" Stephanie defends herself, even though she's not sure that Mike is wrong.
"Can you guys settle an argument for us?" Max sits up from the couch and walks over to Nancy and Jonathan, pulling Stephanie with her. "Who do you think should decide El's limits? Mike or Eleven?"
"The way that you frame that is such bullshit!" Mike argues.
"It's not bullshit, Mike!" Max looks annoyed having to deal with him. "This is your whole problem! And it is also precisely the reason why she dumped your ass!"
"El dumped you?" Nancy asks, surprised.
"Yeah, because they are conspiring against me. They're corrupting her!"
"What is your problem, Mike?" Stephanie steps forward. "You get mad at me when I don't talk to you enough but this is the way you treat my gi- friend?" Stephanie curses herself for her slip up and prays no one notices.
Stephanie could see Will glancing between her and both girls hands, which were still connected, almost as if he were putting a puzzle together with his eyes.
"Either way, we're enlightening her." Max adds on. "The fact is, she's not yours. She's her own person, fully capable of making her own decisions."
"She's risking her life for no reason!"
"For no reason?" Nancy repeats. "Mike, the flayed are out there doing God knows what."
"Killing, flaying..." Lucas lists off.
"Transforming into monsters." Will continues.
"And El's not stupid." Nancy adds. "She knows her abilities better than any of us."
"Exactly, thank you." Max says, glad that someone's finally agreeing with her.
"And she is her own person." Nancy agrees. "With her own free will."
"Exactly." Max nods more. "El has saved the world twice and Mike still doesn't trust her."
"You wanna talk about trust, really?" Mike yells, turning his body towards Max. "After you two made Eleven spy on us?"
"Wait, what?" Lucas asks, getting off the table he was sitting on.
"Oh, she didn't tell you this?" Mike asks sarcastically, asking for more trouble. "Your girlfriend used El's powers to spy on us."
"No, no, no, I did not make her!" Max argues. "It was her idea!"
"Why are we even talking about this?" Stephanie asks, louder than she wanted to.
"Yeah, who cares?" Will agrees.
"I care!" Lucas gestures to himself.
Mike crosses his arms only to throw them up in the air when he continues yelling. "I guess girlfriends don't lie, they spy."
"Ex-girlfriend." Stephanie whispers to herself, making fun out of the situation.
"We were just joking around!" Max defends herself and Stephanie, looking annoyed.
"Wouldn't it've been so funny if I was taking a massive shit or something?"
Stephanie gave Mike a scrutinizing look. "You weren't!"
"But what if I was?"
"Then gross!" Max defends.
"Seriously, Mike?" Nancy yells, snapping Mike out of his fit of rage.
"I'm just trying to demonstrate how careless Max and Stephanie are with Eleven's powers." Mike explains. "In fact, how careless all of you are!" Mike looks around the room at everyone. "You're treating her like some kind of machine when she's not a machine, and I don't want her to die looking for the flayed when they've obviously vanished off the face of the Earth." Mike rants without taking a breath. "So can we please just come up with a new plan because I love her and I can't lose her again."
Everyone is left in silence, processing the words Mike spoke a mile a minute until El opens her door and walks into the kitchen, making everyone whip their heads towards her. "What's going on?" She asks with a confused expression.
"Nothing. Nothing." Mike stutters, flustered.
Lucas shrugs. "Just a family discussion."
"Oh." El looks down, then takes a deep breath. "I found him."
"Found who?" Nancy asks hesitantly.
————
༺♥༻ El sits herself in front of the static filled TV and puts her blindfold on again.
The others sits behind her in silence, giving El and themselves time to think.
Stephanie snakes her hand into Max's and interlocks her fingers with Max's. Stephanie could tell that Max looked at her, but given the circumstances, Stephanie kept her gaze on the back of El's head, waiting.
El's steady breaths begin to become more rapid until she rips off her blindfold and slowly turns back to the kids.
"Whats he doing now?" Max asks, talking about Billy.
"He's in his room." El says before rushing into the kitchen.
"And that's not normal right?" Nancy asks to no one in particular.
"Billy staying in his room on the Fourth of July?"Max says in an obvious tone. "No, that's not normal." Max looks down at her feet.
Stephanie readjusts herself on the couch, still keeping a firm grip on Max's hand. "He would probably be like, with some other girl having-"
Max fake coughs to cut her girlfriend off. "Stephanie."
Stephanie stops talking immediately as her eyes widen in realization. "Oh, right, sorry."
"He wants us to find him." Will concludes, getting back on topic.
"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of." Nancy sighs, crossing her arms over her chest. "If we go to Billy, then the rest of the flayed know where we are."
"It's a trap, I agree. We'll be ambushed." Mike says, already jumping to conclusions.
"We won't be surprised." Lucas argues, falling back onto the couch. "We'll know that they're coming, and we will kick their flayed asses."
Stephanie scoffs. "You mean El will kick their flayed asses." She corrects.
Mike sighs, pacing and rubbing the bridge of his nose. "It's too risky."
"Yeah." Nancy agrees. "And unnecessary. Killy the flayed won't stop the Mind Flayer. We have to figure out where it's spreading from. We have to find the source."
"Billy knows it." El says while walking back into the living room. "Billy's been there. To the source."
"Yeah, but-" Mike starts, trying to talk El out of whatever she's about to say.
"It's a trap. I know." El finishes, knowing what Mike will say. "We can't go to Billy, but I think there's another way. A way for me to see where he's been."
Everyone nods, unsure of what El was talking about as she sits back down in front of the TV and reaches for her blindfold.
Mike jumps up from his chair and leans down to El's level. "El, I know you think you have to do this, but you don't."
Max rolls her eyes as she looks between Stephanie and Mike.
"It's just, you've only done this before once. And your mom, she loved you, and wanted you to know what happened. And Billy's mind is sick, diseased. The Mind Flayer is in him."
El turns her head to Mike. "He can't hurt me." She shakes her head. "Not in there."
"We don't know that."
"Mike." Stephanie whispers, trying to get his attention.
Mike looks over to Stephanie, who's making a slicing motion against her neck. Mikes eyes go wide as El grabs onto his hands. "Mike. I need you to trust me."
Mike looks back over at Stephanie, nodding her head in agreement. "Yeah. Just...be careful."
Mike sits back down in the chair as El closes her eyes and reties her blindfold.
Everyone watches as El's breathing becomes faster and faster as El reaches around, trying to calm herself down.
"Something's wrong." Mike leans forward in his chair.
Stephanie puts her hand behind her neck and turns to Mike. "Yeah, no shit, Sherlock."
Stephanie instinctually looks at Nancy, who usually has all the answers to all the problems. To Stephanie's dismay, Nancy has the same worried look as everyone else in the room.
"El, are you okay?" Mike repeats as El's breathing slows down.
"I'm okay." She responds softly.
Mike leans forward. "What's going on?"
"I'm...on a beach." El answers.
"Okay, I might be dense," Lucas starts before he gets interrupted by Stephanie.
"Undoubtedly."
Lucas rolls his eyes before continuing. "But the last I checked, there weren't any beaches in Hawkins."
"What else do you see?" Max asks, in a softer tone than her usual one.
"A woman." El answers after a few seconds of silence. "She's...pretty. I...I think she's looking at me."
Stephanie looks at Max, who looks like as if she's putting the pieces together before El continues.
"There's...a boy. It's Billy." She concludes.
"Its California." Max realizes. "It's a memory."
"I think I see it." El says, sounding unsure. "The source."
After a few minutes of waiting, El speaks up. "I think I found it. The source."
"Where, El? Where are you?" Max asks, in an urgent tone.
"Brimborn...Steelworks."
Jonathan jumps off the arm of the chair to the counter and picks up the phone book. He runs back to the living room, frantically flipping through the pages. "Here. Okay, uh, steelworks, steelworks..." He lands on a page and points his finger on it. "Here, steel. Found it. Six-five-two-two Cherry Oak Drive."
"That's close." Nancy smiles.
"El, El, we found it." Mike yells. "Get out of there. Get out."
The group waits for El to take her blindfold off, but she starts breathing heavily, more blood dripping from her nose and onto the carpet.
Suddenly, she rips off her blindfold with a shout, making Stephanie jump almost a mile. "She feels around the floor, presumably for Mike as she hyperventilates.
"El? El? What happened?" Mike says as he rushes over to the girl.
༺♥༻
this chapter was lowkey kinda boring but whatever 🤪
i watched the outsiders and i didn't understand it
okay that's it bye
5/22/23