THE SPY
“why you haven't kissed me yet”
“OKAY, LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT,” Andrew took a deep breath, having just had the whole of last year explained to him. Turned out there was a lot more to Hawkins than first meets the eye. “There’s another world that is kind of a… uh, dark reflection of this place and Will — Jonathan’s brother — just stuck in there, somehow, for a week. There was also Nancy’s friend, Barb, that got stuck in there too, but she did die and now there’s more creatures coming out from this other world, one of them being this thing you’ve lost.”
“Uh, yeah, pretty much,” Dustin nodded, Hammer To Fall blasting from Steve’s radio as they drove towards Dustin’s house. The day had grown later, the sun completely disappearing behind the trees that blurred past them. “Except… you forgot about the Demogorgon.”
“Right, yeah, of course, sorry,” Andrew frowned, trying to wrap his mind around it. He guessed he just had to accept it, especially since it looked as if these two had already gotten so used to it. “The Demogorgon. But this… this creature of your’s — it’s not a Demogorgon?”
“Well, I think it is,” Dustin shrugged, turning around in his seat to face the older boy. “You see, I think that Dart is a baby Demogorgon.”
“Oh, so they can have children?” Andrew raised an eyebrow, swallowing thickly.
“Um… They’re like any other animal species, so, yes,” Dustin replied, but even he didn’t sound too sure.
Andrew shared his sentiments. “It’s from a different dimension.”
“Okay, so not like any other animal species,” Dustin corrected himself, but he hurried to add, “Look, all I know is that Dart is growing and he could turn into an actual Demogorgon any moment.”
“Great,” Andrew leant back in the backseat, placing his hands on his knees, tapping his fingers with a small sigh. “Perfect, really.”
“Wait a sec,” Steve suddenly said into the silence that had fallen over the three of them. He turned his head briefly to Dustin as the smaller boy settled himself forward in his seat again. “How big?”
Dustin put a small space between his thumb and forefinger. “First it was like that.” He then held up his two hands with at least a foot or two of space between them. “Now he’s like this.”
“I swear to God, man, it’s just some little lizard, okay?” Steve shook his head with a disbelieving scoff.
“So it’s not a creature from a different dimension?” Andrew questioned, leaning forward again.
“No, it is,” Dustin assured him, turning his head back to Steve. “It’s not a lizard.”
“How do you know?” Steve asked, giving Andrew an amused look through the rearview mirror.
“How do I know if it’s not?”
Andrew leaned even further forward, his head sticking into the front of the car. “Yeah, what if it’s not a creature from a different dimension?”
“I’m pretty sure it is because his face opened up and he ate my cat!” Dustin yelled over the two boy’s constant questions. Steve’s amused expression dropped immediately, Andrew’s eyes widened in shock. The silence filled the car, only being interrupted by Queen still blaring out of the speakers.
Steve pulled the car into Dustin’s driveway, all three of them getting out and going back to the trunk. Steve opened it up, tossing the keys to Dustin, who clumsily caught them. He got out the nail bat he’d kept back there for a whole year now and Dustin lent them both a flashlight.
The three boys walked in silence down the hill from Dustin’s house, the boy’s storm shelter hidden behind a couple trees. It kept it discreet from any passing cars, which meant if they had to take out this creature, they probably wouldn’t be questioned by any passer’s by. Andrew honestly wouldn’t know what he could say if someone actually asked what they were doing. He barely knew how he fit into all of this.
Walking up to the doors of the storm shelter, Steve stared down at them, waiting a moment. But the storm shelter sounded completely empty. “I don’t hear shit.”
“He’s in there,” Dustin assured him, making sure to keep himself a fair distance from the doors. Andrew got the idea that he should probably do the same.
Steve seemed nonplussed by the whole situation, taking a glance over at the other two before taking another small step closer to the storm shelter. Reaching out his bat, he lightly tapped the top of it against the metal, the sound letting out a low, hollow clink. Nothing happened. Steve stuck his tongue into the side and then threw down the bat on the doors, the bang echoing through the night, nearly sending Andrew backwards over his own feet. Yet again, nothing happened.
“Alright, listen, kid,” Steve spoke up, the irritation pinning his eyebrows closer together. He shone his flashlight into Dustin’s eyes, causing the boy to shut them closed, nearly blinded by it. “I swear, if this is some sort of Halloween prank, you’re dead.”
“It’s not,” Dustin argued in indignation. “Andrew believes me.”
“He believes everything,” Steve waved him off simply.
“I didn’t believe you could win back Charlie,” Andrew stepped in, slightly offended.
Steve sucked in his lips, not amused, pointing the flashlight in Andrew’s eyes now. The darker-haired boy only blinked, his vision filled with stars.
“It’s not a prank,” Dustin huffed, growing annoyed at the lack of help he was being given.
“Yeah, now stop blinding me,” Andrew complained, shoving Steve’s hand down to his side.
Steve set his lips in a stiff line, thinking for a moment before shaking his head like he couldn’t even believe he was falling for this. “You got a key for this thing?”
Dustin passed over the key to the storm shelter, Steve leaning down to the lock, turning it to open it up. He flung open one before pushing up the other one. Andrew crept lower, looking over Steve’s shoulder as he pointed his flashlight down into the overwhelming darkness warily, just waiting for some sort of creature to come flying up at them like out of some horror movie. However, that expectation fell flat as there was only a concrete basement below them.
Steve felt Andrew’s breath on his neck, frowning and looking up. He snatched the flashlight from the boy’s hands, ushering him backwards a little so he had some space. “Let me see that.”
“He must be further down there,” Dustin reasoned, seeing that the empty-looking storm shelter probably didn’t look too good for his story. While he knew what the truth was, Steve seemed to need some convincing. Andrew looked happy to go along with anything. “I’ll stay up here in case he tries to… escape.”
Andrew and Steve turned their heads towards the boy, already seeing him starting to back away. They didn’t look at all amused at what that meant for them. Steve took a breath before tightening his grip on his bat, standing upright as he took a careful step down the first two steps into the storm shelter. Upon realizing he was entering completely, he turned his head to see Andrew still at ground-level.
“What the hell are you doing?” Steve hissed up at him, gesturing for him to follow.
“I’m not going down there,” Andrew looked at him as if he was crazy. “You have a bat to fight off whatever’s in there. I don’t have a weapon.”
“Then get a… a stick or something, I don’t know.”
“A stick!?”
“Dude, just grab a stick and get down here!”
“Jesus. Alright, alright. Let me get a stick.”
After a quick brush through the dirt, Andrew found a pretty heavy-looking stick. He hurried back over, muttering a quick prayer under his breath before following Steve into the depths of the storm shelter. Steve checked behind him to make sure he wasn’t alone this time and then headed down to the basement’s cement flooring. Andrew held the stick up like it was bat Steve was holding, but he was sure if he hit it against anything thicker than a cent, it’d snap.
Steve stopped at the string that was attached to the bulb on the low-hanging ceiling. With a small electric snap, dim light filled the small basement and Andrew’s eyes immediately fell upon what sat on the floor at his feet. He wanted to gag as he lifted his sneaker up from the puddle of goo, strings of it pulling from the sole. Beside that puddle, there was a piece of skin, or at least what Andrew could guess was skin.
It was scaly, like it could have come from a snake or a lizard, but this was too large for either animal. Andrew took a few quick steps back, hearing the smack of the goo on the bottom of his sneakers making prints along the concrete. Steve, who had been staring around at the walls, finally heard the struggle from Andrew, turning to see the piece of shedded skin himself. His lips twisted into a grimace, utterly disgusted by what he had just laid his eyes on.
“What the hell is that?” Steve asked, his voice low as if he’d raised his voice any higher, the piece of skin would somehow reanimate.
“How would I know?” Andrew choked, still feeling the strong urge in his somersaulting stomach to vomit. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you? What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know, I can’t get a good look,” Steve shrugged, looking slightly panicked. More panicked than Andrew had seen since he’d met him, and that meant something. “Pick it up.”
“Pick it up?” Andrew repeated in a hoarse voice.
“Yeah, pick it up.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“Not with your hands,” Steve reasoned, as if it would make it any more appealing. “Your stick.”
“Use your bat,” Andrew argued, gesturing at it with his stick.
“Jesus. Jesus! Fine,” Steve concluded, holding out a hand. He took a deep, shuddering breath before reaching forward with the tip of the bat, hooking under the piece of rotting skin with one of the nails.
However, by the time Steve could really get a good look at whatever it was in the light of the bulb, Andrew had found something even more spine-chilling behind the other boy.
“Steve, behind you.”
It was a simple warning and it was enough to get Steve’s attention. He turned his head to follow Andrew’s eyeline, seeing exactly what he had.
“Steve? Andrew?” Dustin’s voice distantly called from the entrance of the storm shelter. “What’s going on down there?”
Andrew hurried over from his spot, managing to rip his sneaker away from the goo that stuck to his sole. He stuck his head around the corner, seemingly scaring Dustin as the boy jumped back at the sudden appearance.
“I think you need to come and look at this,” Andrew told him solemnly.
Making his way down the steps, he stopped to see where Andrew was pointing. Steve held up the piece of skin at first, showing him the goo that dripped down from it. Dustin’s face fell, still not catching sight of the real problem here yet.
“Oh, shit,” Dustin complained, knowing that meant Dart had grown again. Slowly, Steve dropped his bat down to his side, allowing Dustin’s vision to settle on the situation they now had to deal with. A hole ripped apart in the corner of the basement, literal concrete blocks torn through like butter, the hole burrowing deep below the earth, looking as if it went on for miles. “Oh, shit!”
All three of them crept their way up to the hole, shining their flashlights deep inside, but the beams weren’t long enough to touch the end. It seemed to go on for miles, twisting and turning, and Andrew only just seemed to realize that all of this was much more serious than he first believed.
“Whoo-hoo!” Murray cheered as he placed the second bottle of vodka down onto the coffee table, falling back into his armchair opposite from everyone else. Charlie was curled up on the side of the couch, Nancy in between her and Jonathan, each of them holding yet another glass of watered-down vodka. Standing with his shoulder leaning against the pillar was Harvey, his eyes surveying his daughter, still looking on in worry. “To taking down the man.”
“To taking down the man,” Nancy and Jonathan agreed in unison, both raising their glasses. It had seemed that they’d manage to figure out a whole lot while Charlie had been stuck finding out her whole life was a lie.
Murray’s eyes lingered on the two of them for a couple more seconds before moving over to Charlie, raising his glass at her too. “And to finding the man.”
“Sure,” Charlie said with a little less energy than when she had first started drinking. She took down the whole glass while Nancy took it in short sips, her eyes still flickering over to Charlie, Jonathan having had enough after trying one glass from before.
“Commie bastards sure know how to make a spirit. Am I right?” He smirked as he looked over the room, once again looking at Charlie. “I know you do.”
“Can definitely take your mind off things,” Charlie admitted, sliding her glass back across the coffee table, silently asking for another.
Murray went to pour for her with an impressed chuckle, but Nancy cut in with her hand, shaking her head. “Oh, no, no, no. We… I think we’ve had enough.”
“Yeah, no,” Jonathan agreed, looking over at Charlie. Seeing the bored expression staring back at him however, he made up an excuse. “No, I’ve got to drive.”
Quite honestly, Charlie had completely forgotten this was only really meant to be a day trip. After everything that happened, it felt more like this was some kind of hell that she wasn’t allowed to get out of. But she did have an escape. She definitely wanted to use that escape as of right now, but from the look on both Murray and Harvey’s face, she could tell they would stop her if she tried.
Murray glanced back at Harvey with a look of disbelief. “Are you hearing this?” He turned to the three teenagers again, pouring Charlie another glass despite Nancy’s pleads not to. “Drive? What, tonight?”
“Our parents…” Nancy spoke carefully, all too aware that Harvey was right there.
“Would be and are proud about what you’re up to,” Murray finished for her. Charlie could tell he was a pretty convincing man, especially as he'd managed to get her father to stay in one place that she thought was entirely impossible. “Just tell ‘em you’re at Tammy’s or Dawn’s or whoever’s, and take my guest room.”
Charlie avoided whatever quiet conversation was happening between Jonathan and Nancy, taking her glass from Murray’s hands, deciding she was going to have to stay whether or not the other two decided on going. She wasn’t staying for her dad, she’d barely registered his presence since their conversation. It really wasn’t Charlie’s fault that was happening, it was mostly because she was so used to her father being dead and not standing at the edge of the room, giving her a judgmental look for still drinking.
“Okay. Uh…” Jonathan stammered, it sounded as if the two of them had come to an agreement. It sounded like they were staying. “Could I use the sofa?”
Murray’s eyes narrowed, staying quiet for a moment. “Okay, I’m confused. What’s going on here? A lovers’ quarrel?”
“Nope,” Charlie replied for them, her tone overly bitter. Her lips popped the ‘p’ so casually, Nancy’s head turning towards her in confusion. “They’re friends. Just friends.”
Murray glanced suspiciously at Charlie, a thought forming.
“Yeah, she’s… she’s right,” Jonathan agreed quickly, gesturing over at Charlie. “We’re— We’re just friends.”
“Right. Friends,” Nancy joined in, finally understanding after her brain short-circuited.
Murray suddenly let out a rambunctious bout of laughter, his head leaning back over his armchair. He looked over at Harvey, pointing back in between the three teenagers. “Are they… Are they serious? I think they’re being serious.” He wiped away a tear as he set his eyes across the coffee table, the laughter turning to short wheezes. “You’ve told me a lot of shockers today, but that… Well, it’s gotta be some sort of lie. You’re telling me, all of you are just friends?”
“There’s no lie,” Nancy frowned to herself, trying to laugh it off nervously. Charlie watched with a grimace, taking yet another drink of her vodka. Jonathan just looked awkward.
“No?” Murray raised his eyebrows, sounding as if he was surprised that she was doubling down. Something that he didn’t know about Nancy — but Charlie did — was she was an expert at avoiding any sort of truth she didn’t like. “You’re young, attractive. I could see there being chemistry between each pairing of you three. Plus the real shit, shared trauma.”
While Nancy and Jonathan purposefully averted eye contact from anyone in the room, Charlie only yawned, feeling particularly tired. Whatever Murray was going to say sounded significantly less important to her than finishing her drink.
“Trust issue, am I right?” Murray guessed, gesturing his glass at Jonathan. “Something to do with your dad.”
“What? No, I mean, my dad’s—” Jonathan stammered, unsure how to respond to that.
“A jackass at his best and an absolute dipshit at his worst,” Charlie finished for him, giving him a wink with a raised glass. She remembered those exact words coming out of Hopper’s mouth when he’d warned them not to go and search for Will at Lonnie’s house.
“Hmm,” Murray hummed. “It is a curse to see so clearly.” He turned his head to Charlie now, a broader smile reaching his lips. “Well, you… you are a gold mine of parental negligence, aren’t you? I’d say that you definitely have separation issues. Fear of losing people.”
Charlie shrugged, not having much to say on the subject. She thought it was pretty clear there was a lot wrong with her. One being her father being alive for ten years, two being she had feelings that wouldn’t go away for one of her best friends, third she basically just got it confirmed that she wasn’t even fucking human. So, yeah, she had some issues.
“You, you’re harder to read,” Murray admitted when he finally got to Nancy after he’d laughed at Charlie’s reaction to his comments. He looked back over his shoulder at Harvey, trying to get his input. “You wanna take a stab here?”
“Uh, sure,” Harvey said, nonplussed by the whole situation. Charlie didn’t find it completely surprising since he’d practiced behavioral sciences his whole academic life. The man wandered over from his stance by the wall, stopping beside Murray’s armchair. “I’d say… The obvious answer. Too scared to accept yourself, who you really are deep down, and so… you retreat back to the safety of…” He looked at Charlie, raising an eyebrow. “Is there a name?”
Charlie took a quick glance at Nancy before replying, “Steve.”
“Oh. Steve,” Murray joined in again, enjoying this entirely too much. “We like Steve.”
“Yes,” Nancy agreed quickly. Far too quickly. It was rather robotic.
“But we don’t love Steve,” Murray shook his head sadly.
Nancy almost looked at a loss for words. “What?” She kept glancing around for help from Charlie and Jonathan, but Jonathan was still as awkward as ever and Charlie didn’t really feel like stopping it. Maybe it was cruel, but she wanted Nancy to realize. “No, we… I mean, I do.”
“There it is, ladies and germs, the second lie of the evening,” Murray announced to the room, making Harvey hide a low chuckle behind his glass. The man crossed his legs over one another, really getting settled. “So what I’m getting is that… there’s certainly two people who like each other here.” He eyed carefully in between the three of them. “And it’s not Nancy and Steve.”
Charlie snorted into her vodka glass, unable to control herself. Nancy sent her a stone cold glare while Jonathan turned his head and Charlie guessed he was barely suppressing a laugh as well. Murray was pretty sure he knew which one’s he’d been referring to before.
“So, how did I do?” Murray asked in the tense silence hanging in the living room air. He seemed to thrive in the atmosphere. Not one of them replied, Charlie keeping quiet only because she was sure if she were to say ‘good’, Nancy might punch her. “My goodness. You three are adorable, aren’t you?”
“Okay, okay,” Harvey stepped in once he really saw how uncomfortable Murray was making them — he was more looking at Nancy and Jonathan, Charlie looked like she could care less. “How about Jonathan taking the pull-out sofa in the study? The spare room has a double bed, I think you two girls can comfortably fit.”
“Uh…” Charlie tried to speak, finally having some sort of issue with what was happening.
“Oh, they’ll fit comfortably alright,” Murray laughed joyfully to himself as he grabbed the vodka bottle off the coffee table and went towards the metal stairs that led to the next floor.
Charlie swallowed thickly, realizing there was nothing left in her glass to wet her dry throat. She took as quick of a glance as she could over at Nancy, finding her already looking at her, her cheeks red in embarrassment. Jonathan looked severely out of place on the other end of the couch, already trying to find a way to excuse himself to bed.
Charlie sat on the end of the double bed she was supposed to be sharing with Nancy, her eyes currently scanning the bottle of alcohol she had managed to swipe from the cabinet when she’d ‘gone to get a glass of water’. Her heart was beating out of her chest, she’d felt like the exhaustion she had felt a couple minutes before had completely disappeared with the announcement that she’d yet again be sharing a bed with Nancy. Last time they tried that, it didn’t exactly go well.
The conversation that had just played out had really burrowed a hole in her brain. She couldn’t make out if Murray was trying to hint that Nancy and Jonathan had feelings for each other or if she and Nancy had feelings for each other. It could even have been if she and Jonathan had had feelings for each other, but that was less likely, at least to her.
The thought that Nancy could even have feelings for Jonathan stung a little, she had to admit. It was the same kind of feeling whenever she remembered that Steve was with Nancy, or that when Nancy had kissed her, it would never mean anything. That stinging in her chest that continually battered the mask she had so carefully mended over and over again. But with the alcohol in her system, she could feel that mask slipping off.
Maybe that’s what really scared her.
Charlie flinched as the door in front of her opened, Nancy slipping into the room. The brunette turned around, her eyes immediately narrowing onto the bottle in the blonde’s hand. She could already see that disapproving look coming from a mile away.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Nancy asked, not moving from her place by the door.
“Hey, I never got the experience of stealing alcohol off my dad,” Charlie shrugged as nonchalantly as she could with her heart trying to break through her ribcage. She spun the top off the bottle, taking a small sip. “Let me relive the memories I never got.”
“I’m just worried about you, okay?” Nancy admitted quietly, moving over and taking a seat at Charlie’s side on the end of the bed. She carefully took the bottle of the blonde’s hand, placing it down at her feet instead. “I mean, you’re dad being alive… That’s— That’s some pretty big news, don’t you think? And what did you talk about? Did he explain everything?”
Charlie let out a sigh, her shoulders slumping heavily. She leaned her elbows down on her knees, placing her chin on her hands. “I kind of already knew.”
“Huh?” Nancy asked in confusion, bending down a little to see the girl’s face.
“I had an idea he was alive before we got here,” Charlie admitted, but it really came out in a mumble. Somehow, Nancy could still find a way to translate for herself. “Before you came to get me, I found some old papers in the cabin. They said my dad had been seen after he’d died. I was going to try and get some answers here, but I didn’t think he’d just be here.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
Charlie shrugged again, not having the answers herself. Really, it had just been easier not to burden them with it all. They were already weighing themselves down by taking down a whole government lab. She didn’t think they needed to know that her dad who had died was actually alive and her uncle had been lying about it for years.
Nancy chewed on her bottom lip for a long while. “Did he… tell you anything?”
“He told me a lot,” Charlie replied, sitting up straight again with a deep breath. “He told me that they worked for Martin Brenner. He told me that my mom got pregnant while working there. And then he told me…” Charlie paused for a moment. Was she really about to admit out loud that her father had been telling the truth? That she was some weird creation, and she always had been. She didn’t think Nancy would ever want to go near her again if she heard. She wouldn’t want to touch her, knowing that what was inside her was what had taken her best friend. The thing she hated with her entire being. “And then he told me that he, uh— he was sorry.”
Yes, she had lied through her teeth. But Charlie didn’t want to tell Nancy what she was. She hated who she was, what was currently coursing through her veins. The thing that was keeping her alive and somehow still produced blood. She was human, but only on the surface. If anyone ever dug deeper, they would see the truth. They would know that she was something to be feared and thrown away. But was that really different to any other part of her life before she found out?
“This has gotta be hard,” Nancy said, and she winced at her words. Winced because of how obvious they sounded. They sounded stupid. “I mean, of course, but… but you’re the strongest person I know, Lottie. You know it’s fine if you can’t forgive him, right? If you don’t want to?”
“I know, I don’t want to,” Charlie said confidently. It was the only thing she was the most sure about in this exact moment. Even despite that, she was getting sick of thinking about it. She was about to throw up all of that alcohol she had downed. “Could we… change the subject? I just don’t feel like talking about all this anymore.”
“Of course, yeah,” Nancy nodded hurriedly, not wanting to push Charlie further than she wanted to be. She couldn’t even begin to understand everything that was going through her head, that was objectively correct. Because while Nancy had blood passing through her head, Charlie had some sort of liquid that belonged to the Upside Down. “I’m actually… not that tired, surprisingly. I don’t know, maybe all that talk out there has me wired.”
“Well, if neither of us are going to sleep anytime soon…” Charlie began, a surge of undeserved confidence bursting into her chest. It seemed to cushion the heartbeat still violently trying to escape. It seemed like the alcohol was finally beginning to set in.
Leaning over Nancy’s legs, hearing the sharp, quiet gasp that escaped the brunette’s lips in surprise, Charlie grabbed the neck of the vodka bottle. She held it up with a small, slightly suggestive smile. “How about we play a game?”
A game. Something to keep her mind off everything that kept filling it. Nothing would go, she was almost positive of that. But that was her tipsy side talking, and that side should probably not be trusted. Yet she was going along with it because it was a distraction.
“What kind of game?” Nancy asked with that same teasing smile that could melt Charlie into a smile. She watched the brunette readjust herself on the bed, pulling her legs underneath her, waiting for the answer.
“Truth or dare,” Charlie suggested.
“Are there really any dares we can do here?” Nancy raised an eyebrow with uncertainty.
Charlie roamed her eyes around the pretty bland room, only seeing a bookshelf and the bed they were sitting on. “Huh. Guess not.” She shrugged, waving it off quickly. “Truths, then. We don’t have to do any dares.”
“Okay, yeah… I’ll play,” Nancy nodded slowly, and Charlie could tell there was another part coming. “But—” Yeah, she was right. “—I get to go first.”
“Fine,” Charlie agreed immediately, her instincts calling the cards. “Rules are: You don’t want to answer, you’ve gotta drink. Got it?”
“Got it.”
And so the totally ‘nothing could go wrong’ game of truths began.
Nancy let Charlie move herself over to the opposite side of the bed before asking her first question. “Okay, hm…” Nancy thought to herself, tapping a finger against her chin to make it all that more dramatic. “Who was your first kiss?”
“Really?” Charlie scoffed, nearly letting out a laugh. “Come on, you know this.”
“Do I now?” Nancy raised an eyebrow, almost daring her to actually answer.
Charlie rolled her eyes, but she answered. She wasn’t looking for any old excuse to drink just yet. “Steve Harrington. And I know you know that because he told me he told you.”
“I know, just wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth,” Nancy smiled innocently as Charlie passed the bottle over to her.
“Did you just call me a fucking horse?”
“Oops,” Nancy covered her mouth with her hand. “Alright, your turn to ask.”
“I don’t go easy on these, just so you know,” Charlie warned her.
“Okay, Thomas, just ask,” Nancy pushed her, nudging her with her foot.
Charlie nudged her back before asking, “Okay. What’s your favorite sex position?”
Nancy almost choked, her cheeks turning the same shade as a beetroot. Charlie laughed into her fist as the brunette tried to recover herself, patting her chest, easing her throat.
“What… the hell kind of question is that?” Nancy demanded in utter astonishment.
“A truth question, Drew,” Charlie informed her, matter-of-factly.
Nancy looked at her, analyzing her face before lifting the bottle up to her lips instead. She drank for a couple seconds, Charlie letting out an audible sigh. Silently, Nancy passed the bottle back over, the blonde shaking her head in disapprovement.
“Oh, come on, really?” Charlie said, taking the bottle again.
“Yeah, really,” Nancy told her as if it were obvious. “We’re not just there yet.”
“We can get there, though?” Charlie raised a rather cocky eyebrow. The blonde really wasn’t in her right mind, and that question proved it. It was very obvious flirting, at least it was in her own opinion. And Nancy seemed to bite.
“We’ll see.” And then she winked. An action that flipped Charlie’s stomach so violently, she could feel herself go lightheaded. Good Lord, this was bad. She should stop. This game should stop. But Charlie wasn’t going to stop, she was too far in now.
“Okay, ask me a question, then,” Charlie instructed, licking her lips that felt significantly drier than since they started playing.
“Alright…” Nancy thought once again about what she could ask, and then her mind landed on something very specific. Charlie could almost feel the atmosphere in the room switch. “At the motel… What did you mean when you said ‘complicated’ like that? And please don’t say you didn’t, because we both know you did.”
Charlie was determined not to take a drink. Not because she wanted to win, because she didn’t think there was a way to win this game — unless someone passes out? — she just wanted to prove that she had nothing to hide. Even if that meant saying the exact things she had been hiding for a year. But, hey, she was pretty drunk. Charlie didn’t know better.
“I think Murray’s right,” Charlie admitted easily. It was clear on Nancy’s face that she didn’t expect Charlie to reply just like that. “I think that you like Steve, but you don’t love him. So when you call your relationship ‘complicated’, it's more of an excuse to avoid admitting Steve isn’t right for you. And, personally, I think you could do a whole lot better.”
Nancy was stunned for a few seconds, milling over what had been said. While, yes, it had practically been exactly what Murray had been referring to before, this was different, because Charlie had said. “You think I could do better?”
Charlie looked at her with a small bit of confusion. She expected more of an argument like in the motel, but Nancy seemed to be wearing down. Either from the drinks or from actually facing it, Nancy seemed to realize that everyone else had been right. “Oh, yeah. I guess… Yeah, Steve, he’s cool, but… He’s not perfect. And you, Nancy Wheeler, deserve perfection.”
That’s why Charlie didn’t deserve Nancy. Not even as a friend. Nancy deserved more than her, she deserves someone that could love her infinitely. Charlie couldn’t do that. She couldn’t because she wouldn’t let herself. Loving Nancy meant facing everything they had lost, facing who she was, facing the fact that Nancy couldn’t love her back.
Well, that was what sober Charlie thought.
Drunk Charlie couldn’t stop looking at how pretty Nancy was even when she didn’t try.
“So, who… do I deserve?” Nancy asked quietly. If Charlie had been able to untangle all her thoughts, she would have heard the hopefulness in her voice, but the blonde grew panicked. She didn’t have an answer to this one.
“By my calculations, you’ve had two truths in a row now,” Charlie sidestepped the question, passing the bottle over to her. “It’s my turn.”
Nancy looked reluctant, but took the bottle, waiting patiently.
“Why did you start dating Steve again?” Charlie asked as casually as her voice could muster. But as much as she tried to ease it, there was still that small, nervous shake in her tone. Maybe she was scared of the answer, or maybe she knew she wasn’t going to like it.
“It felt right,” Nancy said, and she didn’t take a drink this time. “At least it did at the time. Well, actually… I guess…” Her forehead creased like it did when she reached a particular math equation in her homework. Charlie noticed those little things even when she didn’t mean to. “I guess it only ever felt right when I first asked. After that… Since Christmas… Being around him felt forced. Like it just had to happen because he was my boyfriend.”
Despite answering the question, Nancy took a swig of the vodka. Charlie raised a curious eyebrow, but tried to hide it when the brunette handed the bottle back over. She looked ready to ask her next question, like the vodka was for courage.
“Why’d you stop hanging around us?” Nancy asked without leaving a moment for the blonde to breathe, let alone think on her previous answer. “I noticed it around January. You’d leave whenever we studied together, you’d never come to parties, you’d never let Steve take you to school with us. It was like you were purposefully trying to avoid us.”
Charlie bit down hard on her bottom lip. She wouldn’t be surprised if she’d drawn blood — she’d be more surprised if blood actually appeared seeing as she apparently didn’t have any. Somewhere in her head, probably the sober part, it begged her to take the drink. To swallow down the truth. To keep the mask on like she’d done for so long. But wasn’t she tired? Wasn’t she just so exhausted?
And so, the game turned down the path she should have known it always would.
“I was jealous,” Charlie answered, and she didn’t even bother to keep her voice even this time. She could already see the look on Nancy’s face, the beginning of a realization that slowly dawned as she kept talking against all the will of the rest of her body. “Not of you. I didn’t want to be with Steve. I’ve only ever liked Steve once and I will only ever like Steve once. No, it wasn’t Steve. I was jealous of him because he got to be the person you thought you deserved. He got to be the person you turned to. The person you would remember. The person you’d love, even if it wasn’t real. You would still tell him and that made something in me so in pain… I just couldn’t stand it. So I stopped hanging round with you, I tried to avoid it all. But I couldn’t. Because you’d always find me, I don’t know why. But it happened, and, somehow, I didn’t mind. Because it was you, Drew. It was… you.”
All those words and all those admissions burned in her throat. Charlie could feel her brain go blank for the first time in a while. It was the type of blank that made her completely freeze up, her whole body would be stuck, just waiting. She didn’t know what she was waiting for, but her eyes seemed to. They traced Nancy’s face, watching the brunette with an analytical gaze. She went through many emotions, a few she could perceive; confusion, understanding, wonder. And a few she couldn’t make out.
Either way, whatever Nancy was thinking, Charlie felt herself become a lot more sober than she had been a couple seconds ago. Her chest heaved like she’d just run a mile, but all it was a small speech, a tiny portion of what had been going through her head for the past couple months. It felt like all the alcohol had submerged itself in those words and now that they were out in the open, they no longer drained Charlie’s soul. She felt weightless. She couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing. That was relying on Nancy right now.
When Nancy’s head did lift up again, Charlie was surprised by what she said. “Your turn.” Charlie looked down to see the girl reaching for the bottle and the blonde didn’t know what else than to give it to her. Charlie couldn’t move her mouth, still waiting for a proper response from Nancy. “Come on. You’ve got to ask me something, right?”
What the hell was she playing at? Charlie had no idea, but she guessed she had to use the game to some kind of advantage. “What are you thinking right now?”
Nancy looked her dead in the eye — as if she expected the question — and replied with such confidence it shook Charlie to her core. “Why you haven’t kissed me yet.”
Charlie found herself for the second time in one day, wondering if she was being pranked. She had the terribly stupid idea that, somehow, without her knowledge, everybody in her life had come together to create a cruel joke to play on her. First, she would be told that her uncle had been hiding the fact that her father had been alive for ten years. Second, she would be told by said father that she was some sort of experiment gone wrong. Third, the girl that had plagued her mind since last year had practically told her to kiss her.
It all sounded so awfully coincidental. That everything she’d ever wondered pieced itself together on the same day. And it caused Charlie’s head to burn.
“I didn’t think…” Charlie barely got out through a rasp, finally meeting Nancy’s eyes after at least two minutes. Looking at her, waiting for her to jump up and shout ‘joking!’ in her face. But it never happened. Nancy just stared right back, that daring in her eyes trying to urge Charlie to grab her and kiss her. “You wanted me to.”
Nancy slowly moved herself up from the position she had been sat in for the entire game. While that confident air still followed her, Charlie could see the nervousness starting to break through on her features. It stood out in her eyes, asking Charlie if she was doing this correctly. Charlie couldn’t answer, she didn’t know if there was a correct way to do this.
Charlie watched Nancy now above her, the change in their usual height difference for some reason so vivid in her mind. She was unsure what to do, and Nancy obviously felt the same, staying in her position above her, her eyes scanning for some type of answer still.
This was happening. It finally hit Charlie. This was happening. She couldn’t just sit still.
Pushing herself up onto her elbows, Charlie’s back was against the backboard, eyes still looking into Nancy’s. There was something still so innocent in them. Even when Charlie felt Nancy’s hand grip hard onto her shirt collar, pulling her forward. She didn’t even have time to register everything when there was barely an inch between them, their noses brushing against each other. Charlie was chasing Nancy’s lips, feeling intoxicated by the mix of toothpaste and vodka on her breath. Nancy made it like a game of cat and mouse, pulling back for a few seconds before finally letting Charlie catch her.
Nancy’s lips were so soft against her own. The kiss wasn’t like she’d dreamed — those dreams being so deeply repressed Charlie hated to even think about them. She expected their first kiss to be calm and gentle, but it was the exact opposite. Nancy didn’t waste any time, her grip only getting tighter on her shirt collar, deepening the kiss as she pushed forward. Charlie eagerly reciprocated, finally moving herself upright that she could use her hands freely, placing them onto Nancy’s waist.
In a smooth movement, Nancy climbed over Charlie’s legs, straddling her as she ran her tongue along the blonde’s bottom lip. Such a simple gesture, yet Charlie couldn’t suppress the shiver that ran down her spine. Nancy obviously felt it because Charlie could hear the chuckle against her lips, the one that told her that the brunette was smug for gaining such a reaction.
Charlie couldn’t let her have all the fun.
Running her hands up from Nancy’s waist, she felt goosebumps erupt in the wake of her fingers. Finally, her hands found Nancy’s back, and she knew then she could pull away from Nancy’s lips. Nancy sounded as if she was about to complain or question where Charlie had gone, but her words turned to a hum of satisfaction, feeling the blonde’s kisses tracing up and down her neck. It wasn’t like when Steve did it. Steve was so rough, he didn’t mind leaving marks. Charlie kept it gentle, and while marks were sure to still appear, Nancy didn’t mind them as much. At least not right now.
Charlie leaned back once again as she felt Nancy drop her hands from the front of her shirt. Her eyes widened the smallest bit as she realized what Nancy was going to do. She watched as the girl’s shirt was tugged off over her head, leaving her in her bra over Charlie. The blonde was in awe of the girl’s beauty and it was clear Nancy could feel it, heat rising to her cheeks. But their eyes didn’t leave each other.
Not until it was over. When Charlie settled herself back into the pillows of the bed, sweat shining over her body and her breath still getting caught in her throat. Nancy was breathing as heavily as her, maybe even more, her cheeks still flushed. They laid beside each other, Charlie staring at the side of Nancy’s head, almost waiting for her to say something. But her eyes closed before she could wait any longer.
When Charlie woke up, her head was shooting painful jolts of agony through her whole body with every bit of movement she took. For a second, she pushed her face further into the pillow under her head, hoping the feeling would just pass. She’d been hungover enough to know it didn’t work like that and the only way to feel better was to push through it. So, with a reluctant amount of strength, she managed to lift herself up from the mattress.
She expected to feel some kind of weight on the other side of the bed, a small reminder to her that Nancy was probably still sleeping. A big reminder about what they had done only a couple hours ago. However, there was nothing there. She blinked roughly, her temples aching as she did, wondering if she was imagining things. But, no. Nancy was not sleeping next to her. In fact, that side of the bed looked almost unslept in. Like no one had been there at all.
But Nancy had been there. Charlie vividly remembered kissing her way down her stomach, feeling the girl shivering under each touch. She remembered Nancy’s hands twisting in her hair, knotting themselves so deeply, she was unsure Nancy would ever be able to part from her.
The duvet had been thrown to cover Charlie completely, the sheet over the mattress pulled tight to the corners so it was completely unwrinkled. There was no pillow on Nancy’s side. Where the hell had Nancy gone? Charlie’s head hurt so much she hadn’t even fully processed that this was awful, terrible news. This was what she had feared all those times she never told her. She had lost her because she finally admitted to herself and Nancy what she felt.
And along came that freezing cold sinking feeling. Charlie felt like a weight had been tied to her chest and Nancy had thrown her headfirst into a lake. The water rose above her heads and all the sense she had had a few seconds ago were gone. The last words she’d shouted towards Nancy had taken the breath that could have saved her life. So, now, as she sunk deeper and deeper to the rocks below, she could only wait. Wait to be swallowed by the tide.
Charlie didn’t care that she was still dressed in her pajamas as she made her way out of the compound, the only thing she felt like she needed right now was fresh, morning air. Outside, the sun had only just started to appear from behind some nearby trees, the clouds a gloomy gray. Charlie couldn’t blame them. She closed her eyes against the cold, winter breeze, letting her skin turn pale and blossom with goosebumps. She let herself start to float again.
“You look like you’ve had a rough night,” a voice spoke. All the air Charlie had managed to gain was let out in one large gasp, nearly scared to death by Murray sitting on some old gas canisters on the other side of the front door. He let out a choking laugh, smoke drifting up into the air as he lowered his cigarette from his lips. “Been a rough night for all of us. Just so you know, the walls aren’t that thick.”
Charlie didn’t even have time to be embarrassed. She walked over to him and held out a hand, silently asking for a cigarette. Murray shrugged, not seeming to care even the slightest bit if it was inappropriate or not to give his roommate’s daughter something that could kill her.
Sitting herself up onto the opposite gas canister, she let Murray light it for her and she took a drag of it as soon as possible. It burned in her throat and nose, worse than the vodka, but she could care less. It was better than the pain that was left in her chest from Nancy.
Murray chuckled at the girl’s actions. “Why are you out here? Shouldn’t you be waiting for your lover to awake from her slumber?”
“I would be if there was a lover to be waiting for,” Charlie grumbled, taking another hit, this time much more successfully. It still burned, but it was bearable. She didn’t bother to hide the truth from Murray any longer, she was sure he’d known last night anyway.
“Trouble in paradise again?” Murray asked, his voice muffled with the cigarette in between his lips again.
“No, but I’m sure there will be,” Charlie said. The feeling in her chest was like a mirror image of what she felt when she saw Nancy with Steve. It was the same, but opposite. Now she was jealous of who she was before everything happened. Back then, she could pretend nothing happened. Now, Nancy probably hated her which meant she had to face the consequences of her own actions. “Pretty sure she hates me.”
“What did you do wrong?” Murray raised an eyebrow. For the first time since they’d met, he sounded somewhat genuine.
“I loved her,” Charlie shrugged. The reply was so simple it felt stupid. “Steve was the first. And I’m the second. Should have seen it coming, really.”
It was weird to put herself and Steve in the same situation because deep down she knew they couldn’t be more different. Steve loved Nancy and Nancy didn’t love him back. Charlie loved Nancy and she knew Nancy felt the same — as surprising as it was — but Nancy had chosen to not love her. This had been a choice. Nancy had chosen to leave her behind.
“How do you know that for sure?” Murray asked, breathing out a cloud of gray smoke.
“Because that’s who Nancy Wheeler is,” Charlie replied. It was cruel, but it was what Nancy had made true. This was her fault. But Charlie still loved her. Fuck. “She gets scared and quits. She can call herself brave and I’ll believe her, but when it comes to love… She gets skittish. You can’t go too fast, you can’t go too slow. And she won’t warn you when she wants to leave. She’ll just do it. And it’ll break your heart. But you have to live with it because you know that despite everything, you can’t stop loving her.”
Murray nodded along, listening to every word that left her mouth. It felt nice to just have one person that really listened. He didn’t seem like the type, in fact he seemed like the type to talk over you and tell you exactly what you were feeling, but he wasn’t. He kept the surprises coming, but this was a surprise Charlie could at least appreciate.
The creaking sound of the front door of the compound caught the two of their attention, both their heads turning to find Harvey sheepishly wandering towards them. He was still in a red-striped dressing gown, one knuckle wiping at his eye before putting on his glasses. Charlie could only roll her eyes, turning her head right back to staring at the rising sun, bringing the cigarette up to her lips to distract herself.
“Could I… have a moment?” Harvey asked nervously, sending a pointed look towards Murray. Charlie supposed she didn’t have a choice in this, and must be subjected to whatever after-party apology this was going to be.
“I’m going to go serve us all up some breakfast,” Murray put out his cigarette on the ground with his slipper heel, rubbing his hands together as if leaving the conversation was totally his idea.
With Murray disappearing back off into the compound, it only left Charlie and Harvey, the silence deafening as neither said a word. It wasn’t like Charlie was going to start speaking to him, she didn’t have anything to say to him. He was the one who had to make the first move here.
“You really shouldn’t smoke,” Harvey decided was his first sentence, which was a terrible choice. He seemed to realize that as he watched his daughter turn her head back to him with a glare that could cause world damnation if it wanted to.
“I think you lost the privilege to tell me what to do when you faked your death for a decade,” Charlie replied bitterly, letting out a thin plume of smoke, allowing it to warm the cold that had settled over her uncovered arms. She didn’t know what Harvey was trying to do, she had already come to the decision she wanted little to nothing to do with him anymore.
“I know I’ve been a terrible father—” Harvey tried to continue.
“Bold of you to say that in past tense,” Charlie scoffed, bringing the cigarette to her lips again.
“Look, please…” His voice broke off, a sniff following after. Charlie clenched her jaw, looking over her shoulder to see his face in his hands, and what she could only imagine was a whimpering, pathetic mess beneath. For fuck’s sake, she had too much to deal with, she didn’t need to add a crumbling father to the mess. “Please, Charlotte.”
“You’re not getting my sympathy,” Charlie told him, her voice hard. “Not now, not ever. You can cry all you want, but, I promise you, I’ve cried over you a lot more than you’ll cry over me.”
Slowly, Harvey dragged his face from behind his hands, sniffing again. Charlie had been right, he had been crying. While she could feel a small pang in her heart, she ignored it. Because why the fuck should he ever be treated with care when she never was? How was that fair?
“I wanted to finish the conversation we were having yesterday,” he said, his voice hoarse. He took another step towards where Charlie was sitting and she quickly turned her body away, just emphasizing how much she did not want to hear this. “You haven’t heard all of it yet.”
“What’s left to say, huh, dad?” Charlie snapped. Not only had she just been proven right about feeling so disgusted with herself, but it seemed as if Nancy agreed because why else wasn’t she there when she woke up? Charlie was so over this weird, fucking roadtrip. “You’ve already told me I’m actually a freaky monster from another universe, what’s next? This freaky monster that I apparently am is gonna kill me sooner or later?”
“What? No! No, I… There’s just more to it than that,” Harvey insisted hurriedly, sitting down next to his daughter on the gas can next to her. Charlie frowned a little, inching further away for good measure. “I haven’t told you everything yet. There’s still more.”
“Fine. What is it?” Charlie huffed, throwing down the cigarette and stamping it out below her. She decided that seeing as her life was fucked anyway, she might as well keep going on this trail of ruining everything she’d ever built up for herself.
“You didn’t let me finish yesterday…” Harvey said with a sigh, clasping his hands in front of him on his lap, unsure what to do with them all of a sudden. Charlie guessed it came along with the guilt he deserved to feel. “I know you were confused about the whole ‘no blood-thing’, but…” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “But when the scientists looked deeper, they found something else. You do have a type of blood, not like other people’s, because your blood isn’t classified as ‘blood’. It’s a fluid, technically. Caused by the cell implanted in you—”
“You see, you’re not making any sense,” Charlie told him rather impatiently, turning on him with that hard glare again. “Because I told you. I have bled before. Red. I have seen that I have red blood. So either your murdering scientist friends got it wrong or you’re lying.”
“I’m getting to that,” Harvey assured her, Charlie only pursing her lips in response. “The cell in you acts like it's got a mind of its own — it doesn’t, just to clarify. But it acts like it does. It keeps you alive, but it also adapts to do that. So, when skin is penetrated deep enough to draw blood, it has developed the ability to disguise itself. It…” He bowed his head with a sigh. “That wasn't always the case. It learned to do that.”
“This is fucking nuts…” Charlie mumbled under her breath, jumping off the gas can to walk away. “You’re obviously lying. This… This doesn’t happen. Not in real life.”
“It does and it has,” Harvey protested, following behind her. “Charlotte, when you were four, you fell off your bike. You scratched your knee up real bad, but there was no blood. You bled, but it was this greenish-black stuff. I wanted to take you to a doctor, I thought it was an infection, but your mother didn’t think it was a good idea. Without me knowing, she took you to Dr. Brenner and he told her what it actually was. A side-effect. Of what you went through before you were even born.”
“How can I trust you!?” Charlie argued, her chest feeling tighter than ever all of a sudden. She felt as if she didn’t even belong in her own body. It felt as if it didn’t work for her. It worked for this thing that had been forced inside of her before she even looked like a human. Before she even had ears or any properly working facial features. “Mom isn’t here! You weren’t here for a decade! You lied, you made me think you were dead, for God’s…” Her voice cut off as she sobbed, tears pricking at her eyes. She clutched a hand to the middle of her chest, trying to help herself to breathe easier. “Shit…”
“I didn’t want to leave you, Charlotte,” Harvey said, moving closer, wanting nothing more than to hug his own daughter. “Your mother didn’t either. We loved you, even if that is hard to believe. Your mother saw the error of her ways after that last visit with Doctor Brenner. We planned for the next three years on what we could to get out of what he had managed to find ourselves in. We wanted to take you with us, but we couldn’t… We couldn’t do that to you. But when we were on our way down the highway, we were pulled over. I don’t know how the lab knew, but they did and they are everywhere. They shot your mother and I made a run for it. They wanted to take you back, but with us gone, there was no way they could know where you were. I couldn’t come back, I couldn’t put you in that type of danger.”
“That doesn’t make up for leaving me,” Charlie replied in a quiet, tearful voice. She couldn’t meet her father’s eyes, she could only focus on breathing.
“I know it doesn’t,” Harvey nodded sadly. “I know. But I hope, someday, I can do something that does.”
Charlie's lips set themselves in a straight line, glossy eyes looking up to look him in the face. “I hope you can too.”
There was yet another creak from the door of the compound, forcing Charlie and Harvey to drop each other’s gazes, finding Jonathan’s uneasy expression peering out from inside.
“Murray says breakfast’s ready,” he told them meekly before disappearing again. Charlie took the opportunity, leaving Harvey standing out in the front yard in his slippers and robe.
Charlie had to place this breakfast up very high in the list of the most awkward breakfasts she’d ever attended, and she’d attended a lot seeing as Hopper and Eleven had many shouting matches that ended with a bitter breakfast the next morning. She sat next to Jonathan a little nervously, her chest still in that tight knot from when she woke up this morning, unable to get the courage to look diagonally across the table where she knew Nancy was sitting. It seemed as if Nancy was going the extra mile now, not even breathing in Charlie’s direction.
That’s what made Charlie so sure that this wasn’t like any of those other times they had had fights or awkward moments. This was the closest she ever hoped to get to hell. Nancy didn’t even give her a polite smile to mask the fact that there was something wrong, in fact she was ignoring the problem altogether — that problem being sat on a chair five feet away from her, also ignoring her own separate problems.
Harvey took the spare seat next to Nancy, feeling the awkwardness as soon as he laid his elbows on the table. The silence was almost eerie, except for Murray’s little mumbles under his breath as he served the eggs and bacon onto some plates in the kitchen. Jonathan just looked a little lost, maybe flustered, as he peered around the table, unsure why Charlie and Nancy hadn’t said a word to each other since being in the same room for the last five minutes.
“You sleep alright?” Jonathan asked quietly over to Charlie, nudging her in the side gently with his elbow. Nancy looked up for half a second at the noise, but quickly ducked her head back down to her empty placemat before anyone could take notice.
“Yeah… Fine,” Charlie replied, her teeth gritted tightly. “You?”
“Uh, yeah,” Jonathan smiled absent-mindedly, chuckling a little. “Yeah, I slept good.”
“Alright, then,” Charlie shrugged, not paying enough attention to even hear his answer.
Disturbing the silence, Murray hurried around the table, placing down five different plates of the same eggs and bacon rather haphazardly. No one said a word still, everybody keeping to themselves as they picked up their cutlery. Only Jonathan made any sort of effort to thank Murray for the food, giving him a half smile that looked thankful. The dining room rang with the sound of knives and forks on plates, Charlie eating despite her urge to throw up an empty stomach, knowing it would at least ease some of her hangover that she was really regretting right now.
“So, Jonathan…” Murray finally spoke, tearing through the thick tension covering the entire table like a cloth. “How was the pull-out?”
Charlie was a little confused when Jonathan suddenly choked on the juice he was drinking from his glass, patting him on the back. What Murray had asked had seemed like the most genuine thing he’d asked since they’d met him, so Jonathan’s reaction was a little over the top. Nancy was now having a pretty fierce staring contest with her scrambled eggs.
“Uh, sorry?” Jonathan replied in a hoarse voice.
“The sofa,” Murray clarified, his eyebrows creasing in suspicion. He took a glance between Jonathan and then Nancy, frowning a little.
“Oh, yeah,” Jonathan hurried to say, his cheeks turning a deep red. “Yeah, it— it was good.”
Charlie sighed, not seeing anything confusing about what just happened except Jonathan’s exaggerated reaction, going right back to her breakfast. This meant she was completely unaware of Nancy and Jonathan’s awkwardly missed glances and Murray’s purse-lipped look over at Harvey, an air of disapproval about him.
“Oh, yeah,” Nancy’s voice spoke through the phone from behind Charlie. The blonde was waiting for her turn on it as she leant on the pillar with one leg up, Jonathan standing beside the couch with his hands in his jacket pockets. “Yeah, we just, um…” Nancy’s voice started to stumble a little, getting weaker. “We just had— had some fun girl… time.”
Poor choice of words.
“Oh, good,” Karen replied from the other end of the line, sounding oblivious to her daughter’s sudden spike in stammering. “Will you be back for dinner?”
“Mhm,” Nancy hummed, taking a deep breath, specifically not looking in any direction that involved Charlie still. “Yeah, I’ll be home real soon.”
“Say hey to Charlotte for me,” Karen said happily, buying the lie.
“Okay. Alright. I love you, too, mom. Bye,” Nancy quickly hung up at the mere mention of the blonde girl’s name, not even bothering to pass the landline over to her, instead putting it down on a nearby table for her to get herself.
Charlie rolled her eyes, mumbling a ‘thanks’ under her breath. She took the landline, picking up the receiver, dialing in the cabin’s number as Nancy pulled Jonathan aside. She was a little thankful for the privacy because if El was the one to pick up — even though she wasn’t supposed to — she didn’t want to out that she was still alive when she wasn’t supposed to.
She held the receiver up to her ear as she heard the dial ringing, tapping her foot on the rug as she waited. However, nobody picked up and she was left to the dial. Her frown grew, she tried again. It was weird to get absolutely no answer. Usually, if she called, she at least got a few seconds of silence before she spoke and then Eleven would respond. It wasn’t like El had suddenly woken up today and decided to play by the rules.
After the fifth try, she gave up, slamming the phone right back down onto the table next to her. She ran her hand down her face, still reeling from everything that had taken place in the last day and a half.
“Hopper,” Harvey’s voice stated from behind her, causing Charlie to turn around swiftly, a little annoyed to get disrupted from her thoughts. “You live with Jim now, right?”
“Yeah, he was the closest living relative,” Charlie replied, the slight mention of her parents abandoning her immediately making her turn bitter. “Well, the only living relative. All your side of the family is dead. Just like you were until two days ago.”
“Come on, Charlotte…” Harvey sighed, a painful look on his face. But he knew he deserved all the jabs and the comments, he knew he’d always deserve them.
“Look, we’re leaving now,” Charlie told him, letting down her guard the tiniest bit. “You know where I live, if you want to talk to me… I guess you can try. It’ll depend on the day if I answer, or if I ever answer.” She pursed her lips and then took a deep breath. “And it’s not like I’m upset you’re alive. I’m just annoyed that you are. And hurt. I need time.”
“Okay… I understand,” Harvey nodded sincerely, a sad smile on his lips. “I’ll give you time.”
Charlie stepped out of the compound happily, Jonathan and Nancy following behind her, neither one of them exactly excited for their long drive back to Hawkins. The morning air was a lot fresher than it had felt that morning when the sun was coming up, but that was probably because she was nearly over her hangover and she didn’t have smoke in her lungs.
Murray appeared in the entrance way of the compound, causing them all to turn back around to face him, Charlie seeing that Harvey hadn’t come to see them out. “For your travels,” Murray offered out a bottle of the same vodka they’d been drinking last night to Charlie, the girl wincing a little as she took it out of politeness. “And to water it down,” Murray added, offering out a bottle of water as well, Jonathan taking it when he saw that Nancy was looking longingly over at the car, wishing they could leave already.
“Uh, thank you… for all of this,” Jonathan told him, seeing as Charlie and Nancy both looked absolutely ready to go with no words left to say.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Murray replied with a cheerful smile. “Just keep your eyes on the papers, hm? And if you need to reach me again…” His smile dropped quickly. “Don’t.” And he slammed the compound door in their faces.
Charlie’s back was tweaked after sleeping the night on the motel floor on the way back from Illinois, having gotten the idea that Nancy wasn’t going to sleep in the same bed and as much as she was annoyed and utterly hurt by her right now, she wasn’t going to let her sleep on the floor — she also wasn’t going to pull Jonathan into their drama right now, so let him have the spare bed despite how much he argued to sleep on the floor instead.
After a couple more hours of horrible silence in Jonathan’s car, they managed to reach Hawkins again, turning off the road into town and parking right up the drive of the Byers’ house. They’d all gotten in, finding the house completely quiet. Almost too quiet. Apparently, from information from Karen, Mike was currently having a sleepover with Will here. Charlie knew from experience that those sleepovers were never quiet affairs, they usually ended up with Will and Mike chasing each other round the house like they were playing real life Dungeons & Dragons.
Jonathan immediately began to panic, turning his key in the lock hurriedly and throwing it open to find the living room in a complete wreck — scratch that, the entire house in a complete wreck. Charlie stepped in behind Nancy, eyes widening as she found every wall and ceiling and floor and space in the house covered with papers and drawings. Blue, green and black crayon were scrawled over the sheets, different drawn vines crawling everywhere they could.
“What… What is all of this?” Nancy wondered out loud, turning herself around in the middle of the room to take the full extent of madness in.
“I don’t know,” Jonathan replied with a mix of panic and confusion.
Charlie bent herself down, trailing one of the drawings with her finger. “Is it just me, or… does this look like some kind of fucked up map?”
“I… I don’t know,” Jonathan repeated himself, the confusion disappearing as the panic took full control again. He sprinted his way further into the house calling for his mom and Will, Charlie sharing a strained look with Nancy — not one either really felt pleasure in sharing — and followed quickly behind him.
Nancy drifted off to the kitchen as Charlie wandered into Will’s bedroom, finding Jonathan staring down at another sheet of paper in his hands. She went to walk over, but nearly tripped over something under her foot. Leaning down to pick it up, she found a polaroid reel, furrowing her eyebrows in a deeper confusion.
“Since when do you use polaroid?” Charlie inquired, holding it up for Jonathan to see.
“What…?” Jonathan trailed off, tearing his eyes away from the drawing to see the thing Charlie was holding, finally registering the question. “I don’t.”
They met each other’s eyes with suspicion, Jonathan walking behind Charlie as they met back up with Nancy in the kitchen, the blonde throwing the reel down on the dining table in front of the brunette girl, grabbing her attention.
“I don’t shoot polaroid,” Jonathan clarified solemnly.
“What?” Nancy said, a little surprised by their sudden reappearance.
“It’s not mine,” Jonathan continued.
Charlie crossed her arms, raising her eyebrows. “Which means someone else has been here.”
.ೃ࿐ AUTHOR'S NOTE
The first part of this chapter was written like AGES ago, so there are some things I forgot I was gonna add, but I did finish it.
I was also going to carry on following Andrew as well as Charlie, but to be honest, I got bored and also you're gonna get a lot of Andrew in Season 3 anyway.
Hope you liked this chapter!