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Chapter Text

The Hideout looked exactly like every dive bar Maggie had worked in San Francisco, just with more pickup trucks in the gravel parking lot and fewer safety pins holding the aesthetic together. She killed the Nova's engine—the thing coughed twice before dying, same sick rattle it had developed somewhere around Nebraska—and sat for a moment with her hands on the wheel, watching cigarette smoke curl against the windshield.

Hawkins hadn't changed. Same water tower looming over everything like a rusted guardian. Same trees pressing in from all sides, making the whole town feel like it was slowly being swallowed by Indiana itself. She'd driven these streets every Christmas for nine years, pulling in for three or four days of forced cheer in Joyce's cramped house while Lonnie made it clear her presence was tolerated at best. Every year she'd promised herself it would get easier to leave. Every year it got harder.

This time she wasn't leaving.

Maggie pulled her leather jacket from the passenger seat—covered in pins from shows at the Fillmore, patches from galleries in the Mission, the whole thing a map of a life she'd just packed into boxes and driven away from. The late afternoon heat made wearing it ridiculous, but it was armor. California armor in a town that still thought Fleetwood Mac was pushing boundaries.

The Hideout's door stuck the way dive bar doors always did, swollen wood fighting the frame, and she had to put her shoulder into it. Inside was exactly what nine years of bartending had taught her to expect: dim enough to hide the stains, bright enough to see your drink, jukebox in the corner playing something that might have been Eagles if Eagles had given up halfway through. Three men sat spaced along the bar in that careful arrangement regulars developed, nursing beers with the slow deliberation of people who had nowhere better to be and knew it.

The man behind the bar looked up from wiping down glasses that probably hadn't been clean since Carter was president, and recognition moved across his face like weather. Dale Morrison. Older than she remembered from last Christmas, more gray in his hair, but still the same steady presence she'd seen around town every year, who'd nod at her in the grocery store or wave from his truck.

"Well, shit," Dale said, setting down the glass with something that might have been a smile if smiles came easier to him. "Maggie Maldonado. Didn't expect to see you till December."

"Yeah, well." She crossed to the bar, feeling the weight of three sets of eyes tracking her movement, taking in her scuffed cowboy boots and worn Levi's and the jacket that screamed outsider in every pin and patch. "Plans change."

Dale poured her a beer without asking, the pour smooth and practiced, and slid it across wood so scarred it was basically topographical. "Joyce know you're here?"

"Not yet." Maggie took a drink, let the cheap beer cut through two thousand miles of road dust. "Wanted to line up work first. Thought I'd see if you were hiring."

One of the men down the bar perked up at that, straightening on his stool. "You sticking around town? Like, actually sticking around?"

Dale shot him a look. "Mind your business, Danny"

"Just asking," Danny said, grinning into his beer. "Joyce's sister from San Francisco moving back to Hawkins? That's news."

"Nothing's news until it happens," Dale said, then turned back to Maggie with something considering in his expression. "You got bartending experience?"

"Nine years at a place in San Francisco. The Velvet Underground, down in the Mission District." She watched him process that, saw him decide to accept it as credentials without asking questions he didn't care about the answers to. "Worked my way up from barback. I can pour, I can handle drunks, and I don't start fights I can't finish."

"Don't get many fights in here," Dale said. "Get a lot of loud drunks who think they can sing when bands play. Get a lot of spilled beer and wishful thinking about tips. You good with that?"

"I've worked worse."

Dale studied her for a long moment, and Maggie held his gaze the way she'd learned to in a hundred dive bars where looking away first meant losing ground you'd never get back. Finally he nodded toward the taps, the register, the whole operation with a gesture that encompassed years of accumulated grime and broken dreams.

"Thursday through Saturday nights, seven to close," he said. "Gets busy Fridays and Saturdays when bands play, dead Thursdays, but I need the coverage. Two-fifteen an hour plus tips. You keep what you make, I don't take a cut, and weekends run decent if you're good with people."

Two-fifteen was standard tipped wage. The real money was always in the tips anyway, and she'd made it work in San Francisco on worse. "When do I start?"

"Thursday work for you?"

"Thursday works fine."

Dale nodded, already moving on to refill the beers of his regulars, and Maggie recognized the dismissal. She drained her beer, left a couple bills on the bar—more than the drink cost but not so much it looked like she was showing off—and headed back out into the heat.

The drive to Joyce's house took less than ten minutes, and Maggie spent them smoking and trying to figure out what the hell she was going to say. The house looked smaller than she remembered when she pulled into the driveway, which was saying something because it had never been large. The whole place seemed to sag under its own weight, paint peeling like old skin, gutters hanging loose in a way that said Lonnie had stopped giving a shit long before he'd actually left. Joyce's station wagon sat there looking like it was held together by prayer and duct tape, which meant she was home from Melvald's.

Maggie killed the engine and sat there for a moment, smoke curling up from her cigarette. Through the kitchen window she could see lights on, shadows moving, the whole domestic scene so achingly normal it made something twist in her chest. Nine Christmases she'd shown up, stayed just long enough to feel like an intruder in Lonnie's house, then escaped back to California before the walls closed in. Now she was choosing to stay, and she had no idea if Joyce would be relieved or furious or both.

She stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray—overflowing, she'd need to empty it—and got out before she could talk herself into leaving.

The front door was unlocked because of course it was. Joyce never locked the door, said it made her feel trapped, and Maggie had given up arguing about it years ago. She knocked anyway, called out "Joyce?" as she pushed inside, and the smell hit her immediately. Coffee and something burning slightly and that particular scent of a house where people lived hard and had no energy left for anything else.

Joyce came around the corner from the kitchen with a dish towel in her hands and froze. Just stopped completely, eyes going wide, and for a second Maggie saw every year between them written across her sister's face. Joyce looked exhausted in a way that went deeper than lack of sleep. The lines around her eyes had deepened since Christmas, her hair was pulled back in a way that said she'd stopped caring what she looked like, and her hands twisted the dish towel like it was the only thing keeping her anchored.

"Maggie?" Joyce's voice came out thin, confused. "What are you—did something happen? Are you okay?"

Maggie had rehearsed this. Somewhere around Wyoming she'd practiced what she'd say, how she'd explain it. All those careful words disappeared.

"I packed up my apartment. Gave notice at the bar. Drove two thousand miles with everything I own in the back of the Nova."

Joyce's hands went still on the towel. "Maggie—"

"I got a job at the Hideout. Thursday through Saturday nights. I'm staying, Joyce."

For a long moment Joyce just stared at her, emotions chasing across her face too fast to name. Then her face crumpled, dish towel dropping to the floor, and she crossed the space between them and wrapped her arms around Maggie hard enough to hurt.

"You're really staying," Joyce said into her shoulder, voice breaking.

"Yeah." Maggie held her sister, felt how thin she'd gotten, how much she was holding together through sheer will. "I'm really staying."

Joyce pulled back, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand, laughing a little even as tears tracked down her face. "God, I must look like hell. I wasn't expecting—I was making dinner, the house is a mess—"

"The house is fine." Maggie picked up the dish towel, handed it back. "Where are the boys?"

"Jonathan's in his room developing photos. Will's—Will!" Joyce turned toward the hallway, raising her voice. "Will, come here. Aunt Maggie's here."

Footsteps, and then Will appeared around the corner, eleven years old and all eyes and uncertainty. He'd grown since Christmas, gotten taller, and there was something in his face that reminded Maggie of herself at that age. That look of someone who lived half in their own head.

"Aunt Maggie!" Will's face lit up immediately. "Are you visiting early? Is it someone's birthday?"

"Actually, I'm moving back." Maggie watched his expression transform from confusion to excitement. "Thought maybe we could paint together more than just at Christmas."

"Really?" Will looked at Joyce like he needed confirmation this was real. "You're staying?"

"I'm staying."

"That's so cool! Can I see your paintings? The ones you told me about at Christmas? And—oh, can you teach me how to do that thing with the perspective you showed me?"

"Yeah, we can do all that." Something in Maggie's chest went tight at how eager he was, how open. "I've got a bunch of supplies in the car. We'll set up properly once I get settled."

Jonathan appeared in the hallway behind his brother, fifteen and wary. He looked so much like Joyce it was startling, all dark hair and watchful eyes, but there was something else there too. Something that said he'd grown up too fast, taken on too much. He nodded at her, polite but distant.

"Maggie," he said, hands shoved in his pockets.

"Hey, Jonathan." She didn't push. "Good to see you."

"You too." He shifted his weight, looked at Joyce. "You need help with dinner?"

"No, I've got it." Joyce turned back to the stove, movements a little jerky. "Maggie's taking the couch tonight while she looks for an apartment. I'm not letting you get a motel."

"Wasn't planning on it," Maggie said. "But I'll start looking tomorrow. Something nearby."

Joyce spun around. "An apartment? Maggie, you just got here, you don't need to—"

"Joyce." Maggie kept her voice level. "I'm not moving into your house permanently. Close enough to help with the boys, close enough to actually be around, but you don't need me underfoot. You've been doing this alone. I'm not here to take over."

Joyce opened her mouth, closed it, and something in her face shifted. Relief, maybe. Or gratitude that Maggie understood without having to be told. "Okay. Yeah. That makes sense."

"Good." Maggie grabbed a beer from the fridge without asking. "Now what's burning?"

"Shit." Joyce lunged for the stove, moving the pan, and Will giggled from the doorway. "It's not burnt, it's—it's crispy."

"It's burnt, Mom," Jonathan said from the hall, and there was the ghost of a smile on his face.

They ate at the small dining table, the four of them crowded around food that was a little burnt and a lot simple. Will peppered her with questions between bites—did she paint the Golden Gate Bridge, what was her favorite thing she'd ever painted, did she know any famous artists. Maggie answered while Joyce picked at her food and Jonathan stayed quiet. But he was listening. She could tell by the way his eyes tracked to her when she talked, the way he'd pause with his fork halfway to his mouth.

After dinner, Maggie asked the boys to help her grab a few things from the car—just what she needed for the night. Jonathan followed her out with Will trailing behind, and she popped the Nova's trunk to pull out her duffel bag.

"Just need this and maybe—" She gestured to a box of cassettes visible among the chaos of her packed life. "Can one of you grab that box?"

Jonathan reached for it, lifted it out, and Maggie saw the exact moment his eyes caught on the labels. The Clash. Ramones. The Pretenders. Talking Heads. His expression didn't change but his hands stilled on the box, fingers touching the edge of a tape like he was trying to pretend he wasn't interested while being completely unable to look away.

"You can borrow them if you want," Maggie said, slinging her duffel over her shoulder.

Jonathan's eyes flicked to her, wary. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I've got doubles of some of them anyway." She didn't, but she could make more copies. "You into music?"

He shrugged, that teenage noncommittal gesture that meant everything and nothing. "Some."

"Jonathan has like a million cassettes," Will offered helpfully. "He's always making mixtapes and stuff."

"Will," Jonathan said, voice tight with embarrassment.

"What? You do." Will grabbed the box from his brother. "I'll carry it. It's not that heavy."

They headed back inside, Will chattering about whether she'd been to any concerts, Jonathan silent but carrying her duffel without being asked. Maggie watched him set it down carefully in the living room, saw how his eyes tracked back to the box of tapes Will had dumped on the couch.

"Seriously," she said quietly, "You want to borrow any, just ask."

Jonathan nodded once, quick, and disappeared down the hallway to his room before she could say anything else.

Will lingered, looking at her duffel and the box of tapes like they were treasure. "Are you really staying? Like, for a long time?"

"That's the plan."

"Good." He smiled, sweet and genuine. "I missed you. It's better when you're here. Less..." He trailed off, glancing toward where Joyce was cleaning up in the kitchen, then back at Maggie. "Just better."

He headed to his room before Maggie could figure out how to respond to that, and she was left standing in the living room with her duffel and a box of cassettes and the growing realization that she'd spent nine years missing all of this. The small moments. The way Will opened up when Lonnie wasn't around to make him careful. The way Jonathan pretended not to care about things he cared about deeply. The way Joyce held everything together despite looking like she was one bad day from falling apart completely.

She grabbed another beer and joined Joyce at the sink, taking up a dish towel to dry. They worked in silence for a few minutes, the rhythm familiar from every Christmas, and Maggie let the quiet settle before speaking.

"You're pissed," she said.

"I'm not pissed."

"You're something."

Joyce scrubbed at a plate that was already clean, hands moving harder than they needed to. "You had a life in San Francisco, Maggie. A real life. And you just threw it away to come back here."

"I didn't throw it away. I made a choice."

"To what? Watch me struggle? Because I've been managing just fine on my own." Joyce's voice had gone tight. "I don't need you to swoop in like I'm some charity case who can't take care of her own kids."

"I'm getting my own apartment," Maggie said. "I told you that. Close enough to help, far enough to give you space. I'm not here to take over your life, Joyce. I'm here because I want to be. Because I'm tired of bartending in San Francisco and going home alone to an apartment that never felt like home. Because you're my big sister and those boys are my nephews and I barely know them, and that's my fault. So yeah, I left San Francisco. But I didn't do it for you. I did it for me."

Joyce's hands stilled in the water. For a moment she just stood there with her shoulders tight and her head bowed. Then she let out a breath that sounded like it had been trapped in her chest for months.

"Okay," she said quietly. "Okay."

They finished the dishes in silence, and by the time they were done Maggie's eyes were gritty with exhaustion. Joyce set her up on the couch with sheets and a pillow that smelled like laundry detergent, and Maggie lay there in the dark listening to the house settle around her.

She'd left San Francisco. She'd come back to Hawkins. She'd gotten a job and told her sister she was staying and watched Jonathan pretend not to be interested in her music collection while being completely unable to look away.

Tomorrow she'd start looking for an apartment. Start figuring out what the hell her life looked like now.

Tonight she just lay there in the dark and smoked a cigarette she probably shouldn't be smoking indoors, watching the ember glow in the shadows, and tried not to think too hard about whether she'd made the right choice.

Chapter Text

Thursday Night

The apartment above the hardware store was exactly what Maggie expected for one-fifty a month in Hawkins, Indiana. One room with a kitchenette that barely deserved the name, a bathroom with tiles from sometime around the Korean War, and windows that looked out over Main Street's whole lot of nothing. The floorboards creaked in places that suggested structural concerns she chose not to think about too hard, and the radiator clanked like it was personally offended by the concept of heat, but it had good light—southern exposure, the kind painters dreamed about—and enough wall space to make it work.

Henderson, who ran the hardware store downstairs, had handed over keys Tuesday morning without asking a single question beyond first and last month's rent—one-fifty a month, one-fifty deposit. Cash smoothed over a lot of curiosity in small towns, Maggie had learned. Made him her favorite person in Hawkins after Joyce.

She'd spent Tuesday and Wednesday unpacking what would fit and accepting what wouldn't. Boxes of paintings stacked against the walls in careful rows—nine years of work reduced to cardboard and bubble wrap. Art supplies colonized every available surface. The kitchenette counter became home to her coffee maker, ashtray, and the good brushes she'd splurged on after selling three pieces at a gallery show in '79. Her clothes hung in the closet, taking up maybe a third of the space. Everything else—the sleeping bag rolled out where a bed would eventually go, the milk crates full of records and cassettes, the boxes of books she'd read and reread until the spines cracked—sat waiting for furniture she couldn't afford yet and might not bother with anyway.

The whole place looked like she was squatting in her own life. Like she hadn't quite committed to staying. But the light was good and the lock worked and it was hers.

By Thursday afternoon she'd hung a few pieces, testing how they looked on Hawkins walls instead of San Francisco ones. The abstract she'd painted after Ray left, all blues and grays and violence rendered in acrylic. A landscape of the Mission District at sunset that had almost sold before she'd pulled it from the gallery show because she couldn't quite let it go. A portrait of Joyce from last Christmas, something haunted in her sister's eyes she still couldn't name—the way she held herself like she was bracing for the next hit, the exhaustion that went deeper than lack of sleep.

Standing back to look at them, Maggie had felt the distance between who she'd been in San Francisco and who she was trying to become in Hawkins. The work was good. She knew that without ego. But it belonged to a different version of her life, and she wasn't sure yet what this version would make.

Now it was Thursday night and she was behind the bar at The Hideout with a towel over her shoulder and her leather jacket hung by the register, and the place was exactly as dead as Dale had promised.

The Hideout on a Thursday felt like the last bar at the end of the world. Same three guys from her interview sitting in their designated spots, spaced along the bar in that careful arrangement regulars developed—close enough for occasional conversation, far enough to maintain the fiction of solitude. Danny Hagan, who'd been a year ahead of her in high school and apparently hadn't left town either, nursing what had to be his third beer of the night. Pete something-or-other, quiet guy with work-worn hands, drinking steady and slow. A third man whose name she hadn't caught yet, staring at his beer like it held answers to questions he'd stopped asking years ago.

The jukebox in the corner was playing something that might have been Willie Nelson if Willie had recorded it in a gas station bathroom. Dim enough to hide the stains on the floor, bright enough to see your drink. The smell of stale beer and cigarette smoke and decades of broken dreams had soaked into the wood until it was part of the architecture.

She'd worked worse crowds. At least these guys tipped.

Dale had shown her the register, the taps, where they kept the liquor that wasn't rotgut. Pointed out which beer glasses were chipped badly enough to cut someone, which bottles the owner watered down to stretch profit margins, where the bathroom was and not to go in there without knocking first. Then he'd disappeared into his office to do paperwork, leaving her to handle the slow march toward closing time.

Standard Thursday night. She'd bartended through worse in San Francisco—the nights when fights broke out and she'd had to call cops, when drunks got handsy and she'd had to remind them she knew where they lived, when the bands were so bad even the performers' friends left early. This was easy. Quiet. The kind of shift where muscle memory took over and her brain could drift.

Danny cleared his throat, pulling her attention back. "Maggie Maldonado." He said it like he was testing the name out, trying to place a memory that was just out of reach. "You were what, class of '73?"

"Yeah." Maggie wiped down the bar even though it didn't need it, the motion automatic after nine years of this work. "You were '72, right?"

"Good memory." He raised his beer in something that might have been a salute. "Joyce said you were out in California. Doing art or something."

"Was." The rag moved in careful circles, working over a stain that had been there longer than she'd been alive. "Now I'm here."

"How's that working out for you?"

"Ask me in a month."

Pete laughed into his beer, quiet and knowing. Danny grinned, settling back onto his stool with the satisfaction of someone who'd successfully made small talk and could now return to the serious business of drinking.

Maggie moved down the bar, checking levels, refilling Pete's beer when he tapped the rim of his glass. The third guy—still didn't have his name—wanted another whiskey, and she poured it neat because he hadn't asked for ice the first two times either. The work was easy, familiar. Her hands knew what to do even when her brain was somewhere else.

The light from the Budweiser sign behind her caught on the row of bottles, turning cheap whiskey amber-gold. An artist could do something with that—the way dim light transformed garbage into something almost beautiful. The way dive bars at seven PM had their own particular palette, all shadows and warm tones and the occasional sharp highlight where light hit glass or metal. She'd painted bars before, back in San Francisco. Might paint this one eventually.

The door opened, bringing in a wave of humid evening air that did nothing to improve the temperature. A man stepped inside, and Maggie felt something shift in the room's atmosphere—the way the regulars got quieter, more careful, like prey animals registering a predator even if this particular predator had long since stopped hunting.

He was tall, broad through the shoulders, wearing a rumpled Hawkins Police uniform shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a badge that caught the dim light. Lines around his eyes that said he was older than the body suggested, or maybe just tired in ways that aged you faster. He moved like someone who'd already been drinking before he got here—not stumbling, just that particular control that came from years of practice, every step deliberate.

Maggie's hands stilled on the glass she'd been drying.

She recognized him. Summer of 1971, she'd been sixteen. Joyce had pointed him out on Main Street—Jim Hopper, grew up here, left after high school. He'd been visiting with his wife and baby daughter, the young family passing through town. They'd looked happy then. Like they'd figured something out.

Whatever he'd been that summer—the young father with his whole life ahead of him—was long gone. What walked into The Hideout was someone going through the motions of being alive because stopping would require more energy than continuing.

He made straight for the far end of the bar, the spot that put his back to the wall and his eyes on the door, and dropped onto the stool with the heaviness of someone who'd been on his feet too long or just couldn't be bothered to sit down gently anymore.

"Whiskey," he said, his voice rougher than it should be. Worn down by cigarettes and whatever else he used to get through the day. He didn't look at her when he said it, just pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and shook one out.

Maggie's hands moved automatically, reaching for the Jim Beam—the decent bottle, not the rail shit. She poured two fingers and slid it across the wood.

"Thanks," he muttered, picking it up and drinking half of it in one go. His hands were broad, scarred across the knuckles, steady despite everything else.

She moved down the bar, giving him space. Checked on Danny and Pete, wiped down surfaces that didn't need wiping, gave Hopper time to exist without being perceived. That was part of the job too—knowing when people wanted to be left the hell alone.

When she came back he was tapping his empty glass against the bar, that universal signal that transcended language and geography. She poured again without asking. This time he looked at her.

Really looked—not at her face, not at first. His eyes tracked down her body and back up with the flat assessment of someone cataloging whether she was attractive enough to be worth his time and deciding she probably was. There was no warmth in it, no real interest beyond the basic calculation. Just inventory.

Maggie kept wiping the same spot on the bar, her skin prickling under that gaze. She'd been looked at like that before—plenty of times, in plenty of bars—but something about the complete absence of pretense made it different. He wasn't even trying to hide what he was doing.

Then his gaze came to her face and stayed there for a moment. Something flickered in his expression—maybe recognition that she was new, maybe just mild curiosity about why Dale had hired someone—before it disappeared behind another drink.

"You're new," he said. Statement, not question.

"Started tonight."

"Hm." He took another drink, considering. "Dale finally hire some help?"

"Just weekends. Thursday through Saturday."

"Weekends." He almost smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. Didn't reach anywhere really, just pulled at the corner of his mouth for a second before disappearing. "Thursday's not the weekend."

"Close enough."

He grunted, something that might have been agreement or amusement or just acknowledgment that she'd spoken. Took another drink. "You from around here?"

"Used to be. Left after high school, came back Monday."

"Yeah?" He pulled on his cigarette, exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. "Why the hell would anyone come back to Hawkins?"

"Family."

Something shuttered in his expression at that word. He finished his whiskey in one swallow and set the glass down hard.

Maggie grabbed a rag and went to wipe down tables that didn't need wiping, giving him space. When she glanced back he'd lit another cigarette, staring at nothing in particular, shoulders turned inward.

When she came back fifteen minutes later he'd finished the second whiskey and was pulling out his wallet, movements economical and practiced.

"Six bucks," she said.

He pulled out a ten and slid it across the bar. "Keep it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." He stood, and she noticed he was steadier leaving than someone with two whiskeys in him should be. His eyes met hers again briefly—that same flat assessment, like he was filing her away under 'new bartender' and moving on. "See you around."

Then he was gone, door closing behind him, leaving nothing but the lingering smell of cigarette smoke and whiskey.

Maggie let out a breath she hadn't meant to be holding.

"Chief Hopper actually talked to you," Danny said, impressed. "That's something. He'll shoot the shit with Dale sometimes, but new people? Usually just drinks and keeps to himself."

"Seemed pretty quiet to me."

"That's chatty for him." Danny's grin faded. "You know about his daughter?"

Maggie nodded. Joyce had called years ago with that news. Cancer. The little girl—Sarah, maybe?—had died, and everything fell apart after.

"Yeah, well." Danny shook his head. "Came back here after. Wife stayed in New York. Been at The Hideout most nights since."

Pete made a sound into his beer that might have been agreement or sympathy or just acknowledgment of a fucked-up situation.

"Does his job, though," Danny added, like this was important. Like functioning at work made the rest of it somehow better. "Keeps the peace. Could be worse for a police chief."

Maggie washed glasses, hands moving through familiar motions while her brain tried very hard not to catalog certain details. The width of his shoulders under that rumpled uniform shirt. The scarred knuckles. The way he'd looked at her—that flat, assessing gaze that had reduced her to a series of calculations. The four-dollar tip on six bucks' worth of whiskey, left without hesitation or thought.

She knew this script. Broken men who drank alone in dive bars, who moved through the world like they were already dead. Men whose damage felt deep enough to be interesting, whose silence felt like depth instead of absence.

She pulled out a cigarette and lit it, taking a long drag and watching smoke curl toward the stained ceiling.

"See you tomorrow then," Danny said as he settled up around eleven, leaving exact change and a decent tip. "Fridays get busy when the bands play. You'll earn your tips."

The bar emptied out slowly after that. Pete left around eleven-thirty, quiet goodbye and exact change. The third guy whose name she still didn't know nursed his last beer until close, then walked out without saying a word, like speech was a resource he'd used up years ago.

Dale emerged from the office to help clean up, and they worked in comfortable silence, wiping down the bar and washing glasses and stacking chairs on tables so the floors could be mopped in the morning. The jukebox had gone quiet sometime around midnight, and now there was just the sound of running water and clinking glass and two people who knew how to work around each other without needing to fill the space with words.

"Hopper come in?" Dale asked as they walked out into the humid night, locking the door behind them.

"Yeah. Two whiskeys, left a four-dollar tip."

Dale nodded like this was exactly what he'd expected to hear. "He's a good tipper. Drinks too much, but he pays his tab and doesn't cause problems."

He climbed into his truck without elaborating, and Maggie was left standing in the gravel parking lot, the Nova's keys in her hand.

She drove home with the windows down and a cigarette burning between her fingers, watching Hawkins slide past in the dark. The town looked different at night—smaller, more claustrophobic, all those trees pressing in from every side like they were slowly reclaiming what humans had stolen. Main Street was empty, shops closed and dark, the only light coming from street lamps that turned everything orange and unreal.

The apartment was dark when she got there. Just her sleeping bag on the floor and boxes she hadn't unpacked yet and paintings leaning against walls. The place still felt temporary—furniture she couldn't afford yet, boxes she hadn't sorted through—but it was hers.

Maggie cracked a window, letting in humid night air that didn't cool anything down. Lit another cigarette and lay down on the sleeping bag, staring at the ceiling and watching smoke curl up toward the water stain that looked like a map of somewhere she'd never been.

Broad shoulders and careful control and that flat assessment that said she registered but didn't matter. Two whiskeys and a four-dollar tip and "see you around" like it meant nothing either way.

Outside, the town was silent except for the occasional car passing on Main Street, the sound fading into the distance like it had somewhere better to be.

She stubbed out her cigarette and closed her eyes. The apartment was warm and still, spring in Indiana settling heavy like a preview of worse to come, but exhaustion finally pulled her under.

Chapter Text

Friday Morning

The dream came in fragments, the way dreams did when they wanted to stick around past waking.

Dark forest. Not the woods around Hawkins—something else, something fundamentally wrong. Trees skeletal and reaching like broken fingers against a sky that had no business existing. Lights overhead, strung through dead limbs, glowing cold and insistent. Christmas lights maybe, if Christmas lights could feel malevolent. They pulsed in rhythm with something she couldn't hear but felt in her chest, a pressure that made breathing difficult.

Someone was screaming.

She couldn't see who. Just sound cutting through the dark, raw and terrified, the kind of scream that came from the animal parts of the brain that knew when death was coming.

A figure ran through the trees ahead—small, child-sized—stumbling over ground that looked like ash. The lights tracked its movement, following. Hunting. Maggie tried to call out but her voice wouldn't work. Tried to move but her feet had rooted to earth that felt cold even through her boots.

The figure fell. The lights descended.

The screaming stopped.

Maggie woke gasping, heart slamming against her ribs, the sleeping bag tangled around her legs. For a moment she couldn't remember where she was—the ceiling was wrong, the light was wrong, everything smelled wrong—then reality reassembled itself piece by piece.

Hawkins. The apartment. Friday morning.

She lay there breathing hard, watching dust motes drift through southern light. The dream clung to her skin like smoke. She'd had dreams like this before—vivid enough she'd sketched them out trying to exorcise whatever her subconscious was processing. Not the same dream exactly, but the same wrong-cold atmosphere. The same sense of something watching from just beyond perception. Dark forests and lights that didn't belong and cold that seeped into bones.

This one had screaming though. And the figure running through ash. Those were new.

Her hands were shaking when she reached for the cigarettes on the floor beside the sleeping bag. She lit one and pulled smoke deep, but it didn't help. The dream stayed with her—the weight of it, the wrongness. Every time a car passed on the street below she tensed, half-expecting to hear that scream again.

Six seventeen according to her watch. Too early to be awake on three hours of sleep, too late to bother trying for more.

She smoked the cigarette down to the filter and made coffee in the percolator, but the familiar ritual didn't ground her the way it usually did. The dream had gotten under her skin, into her bones. She kept seeing that small figure running through the ash-ground, kept hearing the scream cut off too suddenly.

The joint was in the tin on the counter. She lit it off the stove's burner and took coffee and weed to the window, settling cross-legged on the floor. First hit expanded in her lungs and she held it, exhaled slowly, took another. The sharp edges started to blur but the dream stayed, lurking behind her eyes every time she blinked.

She needed to paint it.

Not wanted to—needed to. The compulsion crawled through her chest, insistent and uncomfortable, the way it always did when something demanded to be made real. She'd painted nightmares before. After Brett backed her against his car, she'd spent three days on a canvas of hands and teeth and parking lot asphalt. After Ray left, she'd painted blues and grays and the particular violence of being chosen second. This felt different. Not something that had happened to her. Something that would happen. Or was happening. Or had always been happening just outside her peripheral vision.

By the time she'd finished the joint and the coffee, her hands had steadied enough to work.

Maggie pulled a stretched canvas from where her supplies colonized the corner—sixteen by twenty, primed and ready. Set up her easel where the light was best. Squeezed out paint without thinking about the colors, just reaching for what felt right. Her hands knew what to do even when her brain was still trying to shake off the dream's residue.

The first strokes came out violent and fast. Broad sweeps of brown-black for the skeletal trees, branches reaching up like they were drowning. The ground beneath built up in layers of gray and ash-white, textured wrong, like nothing should be able to grow there. The sky—she mixed and mixed until she got that particular shade of not-quite-dark, that sense of a place where day and night had given up fighting and settled into something worse than either.

The lights were hardest. They needed to feel cold and alive simultaneously, needed to pulse with that awareness she couldn't name. She worked them in thin layers, building up the glow, stringing them through dead branches like decorations designed by something that had heard about Christmas but didn't understand what it meant.

She painted until sweat stuck her shirt to her spine and the morning heat had turned the apartment into a kiln. Painted until her back ached and her coffee was long cold. Painted until the image on canvas matched the one burned behind her eyelids closely enough that she could finally step back and look at what she'd made.

The painting stared back at her.

The forest looked dead but watchful. The lights looked hungry. The ground looked like the place you went when you'd used up all your chances and the world was done pretending to care.

Maggie lit another cigarette with hands that had started shaking again. In full daylight the painting should have looked normal—just trees, just lights, just another nightmare rendered in acrylic. But something about it made her not want to turn her back on it.

She grabbed her bag and keys and got out.

The drive to Melvald's gave her something to focus on besides the dream and the painting and the feeling that she'd just put something dangerous on canvas. By eight-forty-five she was pushing a cart through fluorescent-lit aisles, working through a list. Coffee, because she'd go through what she had in a week. Bread, eggs, milk, cheese. Pasta, sauce, ground beef. The basics to keep herself functional.

Then she started on Joyce's list—the one her sister would never write because it would mean admitting she needed help. The good peanut butter Will liked. Fruit that would actually get eaten. Chicken breasts Joyce could portion and freeze. Rice, dried beans, potatoes. Ingredients for actual meals instead of whatever she was cobbling together from discount bins and determination.

At the register, a woman whose name tag said DOLORES rang her up with efficient boredom. Forty-three dollars and change. Maggie paid cash, loaded everything into the Nova's trunk, separated what was hers from what was Joyce's.

Eight bags total. Three for her apartment, five for Joyce.

Joyce's shift at Melvald's started at ten, which meant she'd leave around nine-thirty. The house would be empty. Maggie could drop off the groceries, put everything away where Joyce would find it, and be gone before her sister could argue about pride or money or any of the complicated things that would make this harder than it needed to be.

The driveway was empty when she pulled in. The station wagon was gone, which meant Joyce had already left for work. Good. Maggie grabbed Joyce's bags and headed for the front door, knocked once out of habit, and tried the knob. Unlocked, as always.

The house was quiet in that particular way empty houses were. Coffee maker still warm on the counter. Dishes in the drying rack from breakfast. She moved through the kitchen quickly, putting things away where Joyce would find them. Chicken in the freezer, fruit in the crisper, peanut butter in the pantry next to the bread.

She was closing the freezer when she heard it—the sound of running water cutting off suddenly, then footsteps in the hallway.

Jonathan appeared in the kitchen doorway wearing yesterday's clothes, hair wet and finger-combed back. He froze when he saw her, something like guilt flashing across his face before he could hide it.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

"Free period?" Maggie asked finally, keeping her voice neutral.

"Something like that." Jonathan's eyes tracked to the groceries still spread across the counter, then back to her. He didn't ask what she was doing. Didn't have to.

Maggie went back to putting things away. Rice in the cabinet. Beans next to it. She could feel him watching her, tense and waiting, like he was bracing for something. A lecture maybe, or questions he didn't want to answer, or the kind of adult concern that would make this into a bigger thing than it needed to be.

"You want breakfast before you head back?" she asked without looking at him.

"I'm not—" He stopped. Shifted his weight. "Are you gonna tell Mom?"

"That you're home? Or that I brought groceries?"

"That I'm home."

Maggie pulled out a cigarette, lit it. "None of my business what you do with your Friday."

Jonathan's shoulders dropped slightly, the tension easing. "I've got photos to develop. Was gonna use the bathroom as a darkroom, work on the new roll. Make sure I'm getting the exposure right."

She recognized the deflection for what it was—offering one explanation to forestall deeper questions. She'd done it herself enough times. "Sounds more useful than whatever's happening at school."

"Yeah." Something shifted in his expression. Not quite relief, but close to it. "That's what I figured."

"You hungry?"

He hesitated, that teenage calculation of whether accepting help meant giving something up. "Yeah. I guess."

She scrambled eggs while bread toasted, made enough for both of them. They ate in silence at first, Jonathan focused on his plate with the intensity of someone who'd learned to appreciate a hot meal. Maggie let the quiet settle without trying to fill it.

"This is good," Jonathan said after a while. "Thanks."

"It's just eggs."

"Still." He took another bite, swallowed. "Mom usually has to leave too early to make breakfast. It's just cereal most days."

Maggie lit another cigarette, exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. "I stocked the fridge. There's eggs now if you want to make them yourself."

"I saw." He glanced toward the refrigerator, then back at his plate. "She's gonna want to pay you back."

"I know."

"She won't let it go."

"Probably not." Maggie tapped ash into her empty coffee cup. "But that's between me and Joyce. You just worry about your photos."

Jonathan absorbed that in silence, pushing the last of his eggs around his plate. When he stood to clear the dishes he moved with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd been doing this for years. Washed both plates in the sink, dried them, put them away without being asked.

"I should get to those negatives," he said, lingering by the table.

"What time does your mom get back from work?"

"Six usually. Sometimes later if they're busy."

Maggie nodded. "Plenty of time then."

He shifted his weight, looked at her properly. "You still mean it? About coming by to look through your records?"

"Absolutely. Apartment above the hardware store on Main Street."

Jonathan nodded once, something like gratitude flickering across his face. "Thanks. For the eggs. And for—" He gestured vaguely at the kitchen, at everything he didn't have words for yet.

"Yeah."

He disappeared down the hall. Maggie heard his bedroom door close, then open again a moment later followed by the bathroom door shutting. Running water through pipes, the sounds of someone setting up to work. She finished her cigarette, made sure everything was put away where Joyce would find it, left the receipt on the table weighted down with the salt shaker.

Let herself out and drove back to her apartment, hauled her own groceries up the narrow stairs.

The painting of the forest was drying in the corner where the light was best.

Maggie stood looking at it while she smoked, studying the way the lights seemed to glow against the dark, the way the trees reached up like they were drowning. In full daylight it should have looked normal—just trees, just lights, just another nightmare rendered in acrylic.

But something about it made her skin crawl.

The dream clung to her still. The screaming. The small figure running through ash. The lights descending like they were hunting something.

She stubbed out her cigarette and turned away from the painting.

Her shift didn't start until seven. Plenty of time to eat something, shower, and crash for a few hours.

She'd need to be functional for Friday night. Tommy said it got busy when the bands played.

Outside the window, Hawkins looked the same as it always did. Trees pressing in from all sides. The water tower looming over everything. Main Street quiet in that particular small-town way that felt less like peace and more like holding its breath.

Maggie lit another cigarette and tried not to look at the painting.

Tried not to think about why these dreams had started again the week she came back to Hawkins.

Tried not to wonder what that meant.

Chapter Text

Friday Night

The Hideout on a Friday night was a different animal—bodies packed wall-to-wall, heat rising off drunk conversations, cigarette smoke thick enough to paint with. Every stool occupied, tables crammed with people who'd clocked out and decided the bar beat whatever was waiting at home. The air itself felt heavier, sweat and beer and electricity.

By eight Maggie was moving behind the bar on autopilot, pouring and wiping and collecting money in smooth rotation. Her pockets were already heavy with bills and the night had barely started. Dale worked the other end, both of them navigating around each other without needing to speak, filling gaps and keeping the flow steady. Her pockets were already heavy with bills and the night had barely started. Dale worked the other end, both of them navigating around each other without needing to speak, filling gaps and keeping the flow steady.

The band was setting up on the small stage in the corner—four guys in denim who looked like they'd been playing the same covers in the same bars since 1975. The lead singer tested the mic and feedback screeched through the room, making everyone wince except the guys already three beers deep.

The band launched into "Proud Mary" and half the bar cheered—genuine enthusiasm for middle-aged men playing Creedence. Not ironic, just people happy to hear something familiar played loud enough to feel in their chest. The crowd was different from Thursday—louder, messier, more desperate. The kind of people who needed noise to drown out whatever was waiting at home. She'd seen this in San Francisco bars—the Friday night urgency, bodies pressed together like proximity could fill whatever was missing.

She slid three beers across to Danny Hagan and his buddies, collected payment and made change. Refilled Pete's beer when he tapped the rim without looking up from whatever he was staring at in the middle distance. Mixed a Jack and Coke for a woman with lipstick on her collar who was working on forgetting something. The work was easy in its intensity—no time to think, just move.

The door opened during the bridge and the room shifted. Regulars getting quieter, conversations dropping.

Hopper stepped inside, still in his uniform shirt with the sleeves rolled up, badge catching the dim light. His eyes tracked the room, then he moved toward the bar with that deliberate control, every step intentional.

Maggie's hands stilled on the glass she'd been drying.

Someone vacated a stool at the far end and Hopper dropped onto it, back to the wall, line of sight to the door. He pulled out his cigarettes before he'd even fully settled.

Maggie finished pouring two shots of tequila for the Melvald's crowd, collected money, then made her way down to him.

"Whiskey," he said, not looking up from lighting his cigarette.

She poured Jim Beam, two fingers, same as last night. Slid it across and he picked it up immediately, drank half of it in one go.

"Thanks." He set the glass down, eyes tracking to her properly for the first time. "You're Joyce's sister. The one from California."

"Word travels fast."

"Small town." He finished the whiskey and she reached for the bottle, poured another two fingers without waiting for him to ask. "Not much else to talk about."

She moved back down the bar to handle the steady stream of orders—three more beers, a rum and Coke, another Jack for the lipstick woman. The band transitioned into "Take It Easy" and someone near the stage started singing along badly, off-key but committed.

Dale called her name from the other end—someone wanted to open a tab and he was slammed. She grabbed the guy's license, fed it through the machine that took three tries to read anything, got him set up. The flow kept steady—pour, wipe, collect, repeat. Her shirt was already sticking to her back and it wasn't even nine yet.

The band announced they were taking fifteen minutes, which got groans from the crowd but also triggered a rush to the bar. Everyone wanted refills before the music started again. She and Dale moved fast, pouring on autopilot, barely looking at what their hands were doing.

By the time the wave subsided, Hopper had finished his second whiskey and was working on his third. She hadn't seen him order it—Dale must have poured while she was buried.

The band came back from break and launched into "Sweet Home Alabama," which got the biggest cheer of the night. Danny started singing at full volume, arm slung around Pete's shoulders like they were best friends instead of two guys who drank in the same bar. Even Dale was tapping his foot behind the register.

Hopper grimaced into his whiskey like the song was physically painful.

Maggie grabbed a rag. Yeah, she knew the feeling.

She wiped down the section of bar in front of him and he moved his glass and cigarettes without being asked, that small courtesy of someone who'd spent enough time in bars to know how they worked.

"You're not a fan?" she asked.

He pulled on his cigarette. "I'm from Indiana. This song's not even about us, but try telling that to Danny over there." He gestured toward Danny, who was singing at full volume. "He'll fight you on it. Lost that fight twice already this year."

"You keep count?"

"I'm a cop. Counting drunk arguments is basically the job description." He drank. "That and arresting people for drugs I used to do in high school."

The deadpan delivery should have been depressing. Somehow it almost sounded like a joke.

"That cheerful, huh?"

"I'm full of surprises." He stubbed out his cigarette. "Mostly whiskey and poor life choices, but still. Surprises."

Maggie laughed.

The corner of his mouth pulled—not quite a smile—then was gone.

She grabbed an ashtray that needed emptying and moved down the bar.

Someone was waving money with the impatience of someone four beers deep. She poured him a bourbon, collected payment, moved to the next customer. The rhythm was constant, no breaks, just the steady flow of Friday night.

When she made it back, Hopper was stubbing out another cigarette and pulling out his wallet. His fourth whiskey sat empty in front of him. She'd been counting without meaning to—bartender instinct, keeping track of who'd had how much.

"Ten," she said.

He dropped a twenty on the bar, already standing. "Keep it."

She made change from the register, pocketed the ten. He was already moving through the crowd with that careful navigation of someone who knew exactly how drunk they were and how much control they had left.

"Ten on ten," Dale commented, appearing with an armload of dirty glasses. "That's more than usual, even for him."

"Yeah." Maggie kept wiping the same spot. "Good tipper."

"Best we've got." Dale dumped the glasses in the wash bin.

The band cycled through their rotation—"American Girl," "Ramblin' Man," "Old Time Rock and Roll." Every song got the same enthusiastic response, the crowd getting progressively louder and drunker as midnight approached. Couples swayed near the stage. Danny's enthusiasm had evolved into friendly shoving with his buddies. The lipstick woman was crying into her friend's shoulder.

By the time they shut down at midnight, Maggie's feet were screaming and her shirt was soaked through with sweat. She and Dale cleaned up in comfortable silence, the kind that came from two people who knew how to work around each other. When they counted out tips, she had eighty-three dollars.

"Same thing tomorrow," Dale said as they locked up. "Saturday's solid, even without a band."

The parking lot was mostly empty when Maggie walked out. Just a few cars belonging to people too drunk to drive or too occupied in backseats to notice closing time. She sat in the Nova for a minute with the windows down, smoking and letting her pulse come down from the rush. Moths circled the parking lot lights in lazy patterns.

The drive home took five minutes through empty streets. The apartment was dark and warm when she got there, humid air doing nothing to cool anything down. She stripped off her work clothes and left them on the floor, pulled money from her pockets and added it to the growing pile on the counter.

The painting was in the corner where she'd left it that morning. In the dim light from the street lamp, those lights through the skeletal trees seemed to glow on their own. She moved to turn it toward the wall, stopped with her hand an inch from the canvas.

Something in her gut said don't. Not logical. Just instinct, the way you knew not to step on ice that looked wrong.

She pulled her hand back.

Cracked the window wider instead, but the air that came in was warm and heavy. She collapsed onto the sleeping bag, cigarette between her fingers, watching smoke curl toward the ceiling.

Her back ached and her hands smelled like beer and cigarettes and her brain was still wired from the noise. That post-shift buzz that took hours to fade. But every time she closed her eyes she saw those lights strung through dead branches, pulsing with awareness she couldn't name.

Outside, Hawkins was silent except for the occasional car passing on Main Street, the sound fading into the distance like it had somewhere better to be.

She stubbed out her cigarette and turned on her side, facing away from the painting in the corner.

Sleep took a long time coming.

Chapter Text

Saturday Morning

The rain started sometime after dawn—not a downpour, just persistent Midwestern drizzle that turned everything slick and colorless. Maggie woke around eight to the sound of it tapping the window, lay there smoking and watching water streak the glass until nicotine and guilt got her moving.

Joyce would be at work by now. Saturdays were busy at Melvald's—people bought on weekends what they'd needed all week and convinced themselves could wait. Which meant the boys were home alone, and Maggie had told herself she was here to actually be here, not just bartend and paint nightmares and avoid looking at the canvas in the corner.

She pulled on jeans and a faded Joan Jett shirt, grabbed the bag she'd packed last night—sketch pad and charcoals for Will, that Smiths cassette for Jonathan she'd dug out of her collection. Coffee from the percolator, black, no time for breakfast. The painting sat in the corner, still wet along the edges. She didn't look at it on her way out.

The driveway was empty when she pulled up, water pooling in the low spots where the gravel had worn away. One of the porch steps had started rotting through on the left side—she made a mental note about that. Will or Jonathan could put a foot through if they weren't careful.

She knocked once out of habit, then let herself in. The smell hit her immediately—coffee and toast, something burning slightly underneath. Down the hall, guitars bled through a closed door, something with edge and distortion turned low.

"Jonathan?"

The music cut off. He appeared in the hallway wearing yesterday's Clash shirt, camera around his neck, shoulders already tensing like he expected criticism.

"Mom's at work," he said.

"I know." Maggie held up the bag. "Brought you something."

She pulled out the cassette and he took it slowly, turned it over to study the track listing. His thumb traced the edge of the case like he was trying not to show too much interest.

"The Smiths."

"Thought you might like them."

"Yeah." He was reading the back now, absorbing every detail. "I've heard 'How Soon Is Now' on the college station. Didn't know they had other stuff."

"They've got three albums. This one's my favorite." She lit a cigarette. "The guy who sings—Morrissey—he's got this whole thing about being miserable and dramatic about it."

"Sounds terrible," Jonathan said, but his mouth pulled at the corner.

"It's great. You'll hate how much you like it."

He almost smiled then, something genuine breaking through the careful neutrality. "Can I make a copy before I give it back?"

"Keep it. I've got another."

She didn't, but she could mail-order one from the record store in the Mission if she needed to. Worth it for the way his expression shifted—surprise, then something that looked like gratitude before he caught himself.

"Thanks." He held the tape like he was trying to figure out what it meant that she'd thought of him. "That's... yeah. Thanks."

"There's stuff for Will too. He around?"

"His room. He's supposed to go to Mike's for D&D."

Jonathan disappeared back down the hall and she heard his door close, then the immediate sound of the tape deck clicking open. Morrissey's voice filtered through the wood, morose and dramatic, exactly as advertised.

Will's room was wallpapered in drawings—tacked up, scattered across his bed, covering every flat surface. He looked up when she knocked and his whole face transformed, that careful watchfulness dropping away completely.

"Aunt Maggie!"

The sketch pad and charcoals passed between them and he opened the pad immediately, fingers running over the blank pages with the kind of reverence reserved for things that really mattered. He tested the weight of a charcoal stick, rolled it between his fingers.

"Really? These are the good kind—the ones that blend smooth?"

"Right. Remember what I showed you at Christmas?"

"Build up layers. Don't press too hard at first." He was already pulling out the other sticks, examining each one like he couldn't believe they were his. "These are so cool."

He showed her recent work—Castle Byers rendered from shifting angles, his friends drawn as their D&D characters with surprising skill, one study of Jonathan with his camera that caught something vulnerable in his brother's eyes. The lines were getting confident, his understanding of form developing faster than she'd expected.

"Mike's been planning this campaign for like two weeks," Will said, carefully packing drawings into his backpack. His voice picked up speed, enthusiasm building. "We have to fight this whole army of orcs and there's this magic sword that can kill like fifty enemies at once, and Lucas's character gets to use it because he rolled a natural twenty—" He stopped, glanced at rain streaking the window. "I should probably leave soon."

"I can drive you."

"You don't have to—"

"I know. But I'm offering."

His facial expression shifted—gratitude fighting uncertainty, like he was trying to figure out if accepting meant giving something up. "Okay. Yeah. That'd be good."

Jonathan was in the kitchen when they emerged, pouring coffee with Morrissey still bleeding through his bedroom door.

"I'm driving Will to Mike's," Maggie said.

Jonathan nodded, something like approval crossing his face. "He was gonna bike in the rain."

"Not anymore."

Will settled into the passenger seat with his backpack clutched on his lap, already talking before she'd even started the engine. Rain drummed on the roof while she fiddled with the radio, hunting through static until she found something that wasn't commercials. The wipers moved in lazy arcs as Hawkins slid past—houses with lights on against the gloom, the grocery store parking lot half-empty, familiar streets rendered strange by rain.

"You and your friends play D&D a lot?"

"Pretty much every weekend. Sometimes after school too, if we can." Those careful walls were completely gone now, his voice animated in a way she'd never heard at Christmas with Lonnie around. "Mike's the best DM. He does all these voices for the NPCs and plans out these whole storylines. Last campaign we fought this demogorgon that almost killed Dustin's character."

"What do you play?"

"Will the Wise. He's a cleric." He shifted in his seat, warming to the subject. "I wanted to be a magic user at first but we needed healing, and clerics are actually really cool. They get turn undead and you can still cast offensive spells and—sorry. I'm talking too much."

"You're not."

"Mom says I talk too much about D&D."

"Your mom says that because she doesn't understand it. Doesn't mean you're talking too much." Maggie turned onto Maple Street, squinting through the rain. "Which house?"

"The one with the basketball hoop. There."

She pulled up in front of a neat two-story where lights glowed warm through basement windows. Through the glass she could make out shapes moving, probably the other kids already setting up for their game.

"Thanks for the ride," Will said, hand on the door. "And for the art stuff. It's really cool."

"Yeah. Have fun killing orcs."

His grin was pure and uncomplicated. He climbed out, backpack bouncing against his shoulders as he jogged through rain to the side door and disappeared into the basement without looking back.

Benny's Diner sat a few miles outside town where the road thinned to fields and rusted signage. Benny had taken over from his father sometime in the late sixties—she remembered watching him work the grill while Old Man Hammond still ran the register. By the time she was in high school it was just Benny running the place himself. Same red vinyl booths and counter stools, same smell of coffee and bacon grease that had soaked into the walls over thirty years of service.

The parking lot was half-full despite the weather—Saturday morning crowd chasing breakfast and something besides their own kitchens. She found a spot near the door and ducked inside.

The bell chimed. Patsy Cline on the jukebox, something about falling to pieces. The air was thick with bacon grease and coffee and cigarette smoke, steam rising from plates as Benny worked the grill with practiced efficiency. Conversations hummed low—farmers discussing weather, couples sharing sections of newspaper, the comfortable noise of Saturday morning in a small town.

And there at the far end of the counter, hunched over a plate of eggs like he was protecting them from unknown threats—Hopper.

Clean uniform, but his eyes were red-rimmed and his movements had gone careful in that particular way of someone running on no sleep and forcing themselves through the motions anyway. He added sugar to his coffee without looking, stirred it in, then added more. Kept stirring even after it had dissolved.

He glanced up when the bell chimed and his eyes tracked to her on instinct. Something flickered across his face—recognition maybe, or just resignation that his quiet breakfast was over—before he went back to his eggs.

"Morning," she said, moving to the counter. She left a stool between them—close enough to acknowledge they knew each other, far enough to not be presumptuous.

He grunted something that might have been agreement and went back to methodical eating. Fork to plate to mouth, repeat. The same controlled movements she'd seen him use at the bar.

Benny appeared with the coffee pot, smile lines deep around his eyes. "Maggie. Good to see you back in town. What can I get you?"

"Scrambled eggs, bacon, wheat toast."

"You got it." He poured her coffee in one smooth motion and headed back to the grill, already cracking eggs onto the hot surface.

The coffee was good—better than what she made in her apartment, stronger than the Hideout's. She drank and smoked and tried not to obviously notice that Hopper looked like he'd been awake for thirty-six hours straight. She could feel him there at the edge of her peripheral vision though—the hunch of his shoulders, the way he'd pause between bites like he'd forgotten what he was doing.

"Rough night?" she asked after a minute.

He took a drink of his over-sugared coffee, grimaced. "Same as always. Couldn't sleep. Figured I'd come here instead of staring at my ceiling for another hour."

"Insomnia?"

"Something like that." He caught Benny's eye and tapped his empty cup. "You always up this early on Saturdays?"

"Not usually. Checked on Joyce's kids, dropped my nephew at his friend's house. Didn't want him biking in the rain."

"The younger one."

"Will."

Benny refilled both their cups without comment before heading back to the grill. Hopper added sugar without measuring—too much, more than before—and this time seemed to realize it halfway through stirring. He stopped, stared at the spoon for a second, then set it down and drank anyway.

"He's a good kid," Hopper said. "Quiet. Gets picked on at school sometimes." He said it matter-of-fact, cop voice, like he'd responded to enough calls to know the patterns. "His friends too. They're all a little..." He gestured vaguely with his cigarette. "Different. Stand out."

"Different how?"

"Smart. Into weird shit—science, that game with the dice and dragons." He drank, grimaced slightly like the coffee was too sweet now. "The kind of kids who don't fit the mold, which means assholes give them hell for it."

Maggie lit another cigarette. "You keep an eye on that?"

"When I can. Can't arrest people for being assholes or I'd have to lock up half the town." He pulled on his cigarette, exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. "Including myself most days."

The corner of her mouth pulled despite herself.

Benny returned with her food—eggs piled high, bacon crispy, toast already buttered and golden. She worked on it while Hopper lit another cigarette, and they sat in silence that should have been awkward but wasn't. Just two people drinking coffee in a diner on a rainy Saturday morning, both running on too little sleep and too many cigarettes. Around them the comfortable noise of the diner continued—the scrape of Benny's spatula on the grill, the waitress calling out orders, rain drumming steadily on the awning outside.

"You working tonight?" Hopper asked after a few minutes.

"Seven to close."

"Hm." He tapped ash into the tray between them. "Saturdays are good. Not as crazy as Fridays with the band, but steady."

"So I've heard."

"Just the regulars and whoever's too drunk or too lonely to stay home." He almost smiled, but it didn't reach anywhere that mattered. "The usual crowd."

"That include you?"

"Most nights." He said it without shame or apology, just stating fact. "Whiskey's cheaper than therapy and the conversation's better than talking to myself."

"That's a low bar."

"Yeah, well." He pulled deep from his cigarette and exhaled slowly. "I excel at meeting low expectations. It's basically my only marketable skill at this point."

The coffee went down wrong and she choked, coughing, had to set the cup down hard while her eyes watered. When she could breathe again she was laughing—actually laughing, not just a polite chuckle—and his expression did something complicated. Surprise, maybe. Like he'd forgotten what it felt like to make someone laugh, or like he was trying to decide if that was allowed.

"Jesus," she managed, wiping her eyes. "That's dark."

"I'm told I'm a ray of sunshine." But there was something in the corner of his mouth that might have been the ghost of a smile, there and gone before she could be sure.

The moment stretched between them and something shifted in the space of the diner. Not comfortable exactly, but less careful. Maggie went back to her eggs. He smoked and drank his over-sugared coffee and stared at nothing in particular, blinking too slow. She noticed things without meaning to—the way he held his cigarette loose between two fingers like he might forget it was there, how his eyes tracked to the door every time it opened, cop instinct overriding exhaustion. The heaviness in his shoulders.

She focused on her bacon instead.

Rain kept drumming outside. Benny flipped something on the grill that sizzled and popped. The waitress refilled someone's coffee at the other end of the counter. Patsy Cline gave way to something instrumental on the jukebox.

"See you around, Maggie," Hopper said finally, pulling out his wallet and dropping a ten on the counter.

She watched him over her coffee cup. "Yeah. See you tonight."

He nodded once and headed for the door, moving careful through the tables like he was concentrating on each step.

The bell chimed. Through the rain-streaked window she watched him climb into the Blazer and just sit there with his hands on the wheel, staring at nothing. Rain drummed on the roof but the wipers didn't move. He was just sitting in his truck in the rain, and something about that made her chest feel tight.

She stubbed out her cigarette and looked away.

Then his engine caught and he pulled out, taillights disappearing down the road into the gray morning.

Benny appeared with the coffee pot and topped off her cup, shaking his head as the Blazer disappeared. "That man," he said, not finishing the thought. Didn't need to.

She finished her eggs and drank the last of her coffee before paying her tab and leaving a decent tip. Outside the rain was still coming down steady, turning the parking lot into a maze of puddles she had to navigate to reach the Nova.

The interior was already humid when she climbed in, windows fogging at the edges. She sat there with the engine running, watching water run down the windshield in uneven streams while she lit a cigarette and cracked the window to let smoke curl out into the gray morning.

Seven hours until her shift. Plenty of time to go home, shower, maybe catch a few hours of sleep if her brain would cooperate.

She pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward home. Rain drummed on the roof while the wipers beat their steady rhythm. Hawkins slid past in shades of gray—houses with lights on, the grocery store parking lot, the hardware store below her apartment. The town looked smaller in the rain, like it was trying to disappear into itself.

Maggie lit another cigarette and tried not to think about Hopper sitting in his truck, staring at nothing.

Tried not to wonder what ghosts he'd been up all night avoiding.

Chapter Text

Hopper

The day refused to end.

Hopper had given up on sleep around six AM, spent dawn chain-smoking on the cabin's porch while the sky went from black to gray. Made it to Benny's around 9 for eggs he barely tasted and coffee he ruined with too much sugar, then straight to the station for what was supposed to be a quiet Saturday shift.

Calloway had other plans. Called in sick—third time this month—which meant Hopper got stuck covering everything. Mrs. Henderson reporting suspicious activity that turned out to be her neighbor's kid smoking behind the garage. A property dispute on Route 6 that escalated into two farmers nearly coming to blows over a fence line they'd been arguing about since Eisenhower. Powell somehow locking himself in the holding cell because his keys were in his jacket and his jacket was in his locker, which would have been funny if Hopper had the energy to appreciate the irony.

By four PM his hands had developed that fine tremor that came from too much caffeine and not enough food, and by six his head was pounding behind his eyes like someone was using his skull for target practice. By eight he was done pretending to be functional—a performance he'd gotten good at, though today the mask kept slipping.

The Hideout was packed when he finally made it there around nine-thirty. Every stool occupied, bodies pressed three-deep at the bar, the air thick with sweat and cigarette smoke and competing conversations. The jukebox fought with the television mounted above the bar—baseball game, looked like, though he didn't care enough to check which teams or why it mattered.

He found a stool at the far end when someone vacated it and dropped down hard enough the vinyl creaked in protest, immediately pulling out his cigarettes like they were medicine he'd forgotten to take all day.

Maggie appeared before he'd finished shaking one out. Her hair had come loose from whatever she'd tried to pin it back with earlier, dark strands sticking to her neck from the heat that hadn't broken despite the sun going down hours ago. She grabbed the Jim Beam without asking, which he appreciated more than he'd admit. Saved him having to specify what kind of oblivion he was after tonight.

She poured two fingers neat and slid the glass across, already turning to the next customer before he could respond.

He drank and smoked and let the noise wash over him like water, watched the game without really seeing it—just shapes moving across a screen while the whiskey burned going down and settled warm in his chest, taking the edge off the day's accumulated bullshit one swallow at a time. This was the best part of his day.

Maggie worked the bar like she'd been doing it her whole life, reading the room for who needed refills and who needed to be cut off and who just needed someone to see them for thirty seconds so they didn't feel completely invisible. She and Dale moved around each other without speaking, their timing synchronized through some bartender telepathy he didn't understand and didn't need to.

The first drink disappeared faster than it should have, the whiskey doing its job too efficiently. He tapped the glass rim and Maggie swung by on her next orbit to pour without comment, already moving again before the whiskey had finished settling in the glass.

"Rough day?" she asked when she came back around, wiping the bar near him with efficient movements that suggested she'd done this ten thousand times before.

"Is there any other kind?"

"Fair point." She collected his empty ashtray, replaced it with a clean one in a smooth motion that barely interrupted her rhythm. Her eyes lingered on him a beat longer than necessary. "You look like shit."

He almost smiled at that. "Flattery will get you everywhere."

"Just calling it like I see it."

"Yeah, well. I feel worse than I look, so that's saying something." He raised his glass.

She almost smiled at that, the corner of her mouth pulling before she moved to the next customer, and he watched her work—the efficiency of her movements, the way she could read what people needed before they asked, the casual competence that came from years of practice.

By his third drink the day's sharp edges had worn smooth enough to tolerate, and he'd settled into that pleasant space where the exhaustion was still there but had moved to background noise he could mostly ignore. Maggie kept orbiting past him between other customers, their exchanges brief but building into something that felt different from the usual bartender-customer dynamic he was used to. She wasn't trying to fix him or save him or ask questions about why he drank alone most nights.

"Your team?" she asked later when the crowd around the bar had thinned slightly, nodding toward the television where men in uniforms did things that probably mattered to someone.

"Don't have a team."

"Everyone's got a team."

"I've got whiskey." He lit another cigarette, let smoke curl up toward the stained ceiling tiles. "That's enough commitment for one lifetime. Whiskey's reliable—always does exactly what you expect it to do. Can't say that about much else."

"That's bleak."

"I'm a cop in Hawkins, Indiana. Bleak's pretty much the job description." He drank, felt the warmth spread through his chest. "What about you? You a baseball fan?"

"Not really. Just know enough to follow along when Dale gets excited."

"Smart. Baseball's mostly an exercise in disappointment anyway." He pulled on his cigarette, watched her wipe down the bar with those same efficient movements. "Whiskey's more reliable. Doesn't care if you win or lose, just does what it's supposed to."

"You're just full of optimism tonight."

"I'm known for it. They're thinking of putting it on my tombstone—'Here lies Jim Hopper, he was really fucking optimistic about everything.'" He paused. "That or 'At least he showed up.' Haven't decided which is more accurate."

She laughed at that, genuine and unexpected, and he watched the way her whole face changed when she meant it—not the polite bartender laugh but something real that made her eyes crinkle at the corners. Made him want to say something else that would get that reaction.

Dale appeared during the eighth inning, wiping his hands on a bar towel while his eyes tracked to the screen like his life depended on whatever was happening there. "Cubs are actually winning."

"Miracles happen," Hopper said. "Usually right before everything goes to shit, but still."

"That's the spirit."

The batter connected and the ball sailed over the outfield wall in a clean arc that had Dale whooping loud enough to startle half the bar out of their Saturday night stupor. He dropped his rag to pound the counter with both hands, already reaching for the good bourbon on the top shelf—the stuff they kept for special occasions and people who actually paid attention to what they were drinking.

"Holy shit! That's game, that's fucking game." He was grinning like a kid at Christmas, pouring himself two fingers before grabbing a clean glass for Maggie without asking, his hands moving with the same efficiency she'd been showing all night.

She looked up from counting someone's change, saw the drink waiting, and raised an eyebrow in question.

"Cubs are winning," Dale said, like that explained everything. Like maybe it did.

She touched her glass to his and drank, made a face at whatever top-shelf bourbon tasted like compared to the rail shit she'd probably been pouring all night. "That's actually good."

"That's because it costs more than my truck payment." But Dale was still grinning, riding the high of his team not breaking his heart for once in what was probably a very long time.

Hopper watched them throw back another round when the ninth inning ended, Dale pouring with the enthusiasm of someone who'd forgotten what winning felt like. Maggie laughed at something Dale said, that same genuine sound, and clinked her glass against his again.

He turned back to his whiskey.

The crowd thinned gradually as people settled tabs and filtered out—early shifts tomorrow, kids to get home to, whatever reasons made them choose sleep over drinking. The noise level dropped gradually, conversations becoming distinct instead of just part of the general roar, and the bar took on that end-of-night feeling he knew well. The good part of the night, when it was quiet enough to hear yourself think but not so quiet you had to.

"You sticking around?" Maggie asked when she passed him again, collecting empties with one hand while balancing fresh drinks for the remaining customers with the other.

"Till close, probably. Got nowhere better to be." Which was true enough. The cabin was just him and silence and thoughts he didn't want, and at least here there was noise to fill the space.

Her eyes met his for a longer beat than necessary, and she held his gaze without saying anything before moving away to handle the next order. But there was something different in how she moved now, awareness in the space between them that hadn't been there before, or maybe had been there all along and they were just now acknowledging it. Interesting. Dangerous, but interesting.

Maggie POV

By midnight the crowd had thinned to the diehards—Danny and his buddies nursing final beers at their usual spots, Pete staring into his glass like it held answers he'd stopped looking for years ago, a couple in the corner booth who hadn't spoken to each other in twenty minutes and probably wouldn't speak on the drive home either. And Hopper at the end of the bar, working on what was definitely his fourth whiskey of the night, though he held it better than most men she'd served who were three drinks deep.

The Saturday night energy was different from Friday's chaos with the band—quieter but more desperate somehow, like people were here because they'd rather drink alone in public than face whatever waited at home. The stragglers who remained weren't singing along or swaying near the jukebox. Just occupying space, killing time, putting off the inevitable return to empty houses and alarm clocks that would go off too soon.

Maggie collected empties and wiped down tables, her feet aching from hours of standing—the familiar end-of-shift burn she knew would fade by morning. Her pockets were heavy with bills that made the ache almost worth it, and she'd probably clear a hundred by the time she counted everything out.

Dale appeared from the back office around twelve-fifteen, pulling off his towel with the tired satisfaction of someone who'd survived another Saturday night without anything catching fire or anyone throwing punches. "Bev just called—sink's leaking, needs me home before the whole kitchen floods." He glanced around at the stragglers who were still nursing their drinks like they could make them last forever. "You good to handle last call and cleanup?"

"Yeah, I've got it."

His eyes flicked toward Hopper, then back to her with a question he didn't quite ask out loud. "It's late—"

"I'll make sure she gets to her car," Hopper said without looking up from his whiskey, his voice carrying that cop authority even when he was four drinks deep and probably shouldn't be driving himself. "Won't let her walk out alone."

Dale studied him for a moment, some calculation happening behind his eyes that weighed drunk cop against reliable regular against the general safety of leaving his new bartender alone at closing time. Finally he nodded. "Appreciate it, Chief." He raised his voice to carry across the nearly empty bar. "Last call, everyone. Finish up."

Danny and his buddies settled their tab and filtered out, still arguing about something that had probably started hours ago and would continue tomorrow when they were all nursing hangovers and pretending they remembered what the argument was about. Pete left a few minutes later with his usual quiet goodbye, sliding exact change across the bar like he'd counted it out beforehand. The couple in the corner finally spoke to each other long enough to decide they were leaving, though from their body language the silent treatment would resume the moment they got to their car and probably wouldn't lift until sometime next week.

Dale locked the door behind them and headed to his truck with a wave, leaving just Maggie and Hopper in the sudden quiet that felt heavier than the noise had.

She moved back to the bar where Hopper was stubbing out his cigarette. "Four whiskeys," she said, already doing the math. "Twelve bucks."

He dropped a twenty on the bar.

She made change from the register and slid eight dollars back to him, but he shook his head and stood, movements careful but steady. "Keep it."

She pocketed the eight and rang him out before locking the register, then grabbed a rag and started the real cleanup—stacking chairs on tables with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd closed too many bars to count, wiping every surface down properly instead of the quick passes she'd been doing all night when customers were still watching.

Hopper stayed at his spot smoking, and she was aware of him in a way she hadn't let herself be while other people were here—the way he hunched over the bar as if protecting his space, how he'd pause between drags on his cigarette like he'd forgotten what he was doing, how his eyes tracked to her when she passed.

When she'd finished most of it she grabbed two clean glasses and the Jim Beam, poured two fingers in each and brought one to him before keeping the other for herself.

"To unexpected victories?" she said, echoing Dale's earlier toast with a slight smile that felt more real than most of the ones she'd been wearing all night.

His mouth pulled at the corner in something that might have been a smile if smiles came easier to him. "To making it through another day without anything catching fire."

"More realistic."

"I'm a realist." He drank, grimaced slightly like the whiskey hit different when he wasn't expecting it. "Comes with the territory."

She lit a cigarette and exhaled toward the ceiling, watching smoke curl up past the lights. "How's that working out for you?"

"About as well as you'd expect, which is to say poorly but consistently." He stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another with the automatic motion of someone who'd been smoking so long they didn't remember doing it half the time. "At least I know what to expect from disappointment. It's reliable that way."

She laughed, and he was watching her when she did, his eyes holding there for a beat longer than necessary before he looked away like he'd been caught at something.

"You're pretty good at drinking whiskey without falling over, at least."

"Years of practice." He raised his glass in another mock toast. "Dedication to my craft."

"That what we're calling it?"

"You got a better word for it?"

"Several." She moved to finish counting the register, her hands moving through the familiar motions of separating bills by denomination while her brain was still half-focused on the conversation behind her. "Most of them less generous."

She killed the lights over the bar and the jukebox in quick succession until only the security light by the back door was still burning. Grabbed her leather jacket from the hook and shrugged into it despite the heat that hadn't broken all day.

Hopper was already moving toward the door —the walk of a functional alcoholic who'd been managing this for years.

She followed him, killed the last light and locked the deadbolt behind them, tested it twice out of the habit she'd developed working dive bars where the insurance only paid out if you could prove you'd actually locked up properly.

The parking lot was empty except for the Nova and his Blazer, both sitting under the one working streetlight while moths circled the bulb in those lazy hypnotic spirals that would continue until dawn when something else would draw their attention.

They stood there in the gravel for a moment, not quite looking at each other while the night pressed in around them with that particular weight summer nights in Indiana had—thick and warm and heavy with humidity that made breathing feel like work. Cicadas screamed in the trees beyond the lot like they were trying to drown out whatever either of them might say, filling the silence with noise that somehow made the quiet between them feel heavier.

Maggie pulled out a cigarette and lit it, watched smoke drift up toward the moths and light while she tried to figure out what she was doing. Her pulse had kicked up without her meaning it to.Three days of knowing someone wasn't long, but it was long enough to know they were both thinking the same thing.

Hopper leaned against the side of his Blazer and fished out his own pack, the silence stretching between them but not feeling awkward the way silence usually did. Just heavy with something neither of them was naming yet, waiting to see who would break first.

"You good to drive?" he asked finally, his voice rougher than it had been inside.

The bourbon sat warm in her chest, made her fingers tingle slightly and the night feel softer around the edges. Not drunk, just pleasantly buzzed. "Yeah," she said. "You?"

"Been drunker." Smoke toward the sky, his eyes still on her like he was trying to read something in her expression. "Made it home in worse shape than this."

"That's not exactly reassuring."

"I'm not exactly a reassuring person." But there was something in how he said it, an edge of dark humor that invited her to push back instead of taking it seriously.

"I've noticed."

"And you're still standing here."

"I'm still standing here."

"Your place?" she asked, the words coming out before she'd fully decided to say them.

Hopper's eyes met hers and the careful exhaustion that had been sitting on his shoulders all night dropped away, replaced by something more immediate and aware. "Yeah."

"I'll follow you."

He nodded once and pushed off the Blazer without any further discussion, no pretending this was anything other than what it was.

She climbed into the Nova and started the engine on the second try, that familiar cough and rattle before it caught and settled into the rough idle she kept telling herself she'd get fixed eventually. His headlights came on behind her bright enough to light up her rearview mirror, then he pulled around and she followed his taillights out of the parking lot and onto the main road that would take them further away from town.

He turned left at the intersection, away from the few streetlights Hawkins had and toward the darkness where the roads got narrower and the trees pressed in from both sides to block out most of the sky. They drove for maybe ten minutes through darkness punctuated only by his brake lights, until those lights flared bright and he turned onto a dirt road she would have missed completely if she hadn't been following close enough to see where he went.

The cabin appeared in her headlights like something out of a dream—small and isolated and surrounded by trees that made it feel like the only structure in the world, like civilization had forgotten this place existed. He parked and she pulled in beside the Blazer, killed the engine and sat for a second in the sudden silence that felt louder than the bar had.

The night was loud with insects and wind through leaves, no other houses visible in any direction and no lights except what had spilled from her headlights before she shut them off and left them both sitting in darkness.

Hopper was already at his door with the key in the lock. He glanced back once to make sure she was following, then pushed inside and left the door open behind him like an invitation he wasn't going to repeat.

Maggie grabbed her keys and followed him in.

The cabin was dark until Hopper flipped a switch, single lamp casting dim light across a space that was sparse even by bachelor standards—couch that had seen better days, coffee table with rings from too many glasses, kitchen visible through an open doorway that showed exactly two plates in the drying rack. Everything clean but empty, like someone had moved in years ago and never bothered to make it a home.

He tossed his keys on the table and turned to face her, and suddenly the air felt different in a way she couldn't quite name. No buffer now. No public space with other people watching. No pretending this was anything other than what it was.

"You want—"

She crossed the space between them and kissed him before he could finish the question, before either of them could think about it too hard and talk themselves out of what was already decided.

For a second he went still like he was surprised, then his hands came up to her waist and he kissed her back hard enough to taste desperation underneath the whiskey. His mouth was hot and demanding and she responded in kind, fingers already working at his shirt buttons with hands that shook slightly from adrenaline or alcohol or both.

He walked her backward until her spine hit the wall next to the door, his hands moving to pull her shirt up over her head in one smooth motion. She raised her arms and he yanked it off, dropped it on the floor without looking to see where it landed. His mouth found her neck, teeth scraping skin in a way that sent heat straight through her, and she got his shirt open finally after fumbling with buttons that suddenly seemed more complicated than they should be, pushed it off his shoulders and let it fall.

"Bed's—" he started, his voice rougher than before.

"Don't care." She kissed him again and he got the message.

His hands were on her jeans, button open, zipper down. She kicked off her boots while he shoved the denim down her hips along with her underwear in one impatient movement. When she stepped out of them he was already working his own belt, fingers clumsy with urgency and alcohol and need that made finesse irrelevant.

She reached for him, got his belt open and his jeans unbuttoned and shoved down enough to get her hand inside his boxers. He was already hard when she wrapped her fingers around him, and the sound he made against her throat sent heat straight through her core.

"Condom," she managed, her voice not quite steady.

"Wallet. Back pocket."

She found it while he kicked off his boots and shoved his jeans down the rest of the way, tore the packet open with her teeth because her hands were shaking too much to do it carefully. Rolled it on while he pressed against her, his weight pinning her to the wall in a way that made breathing difficult and she didn't care. Then he was lifting her with his hands under her thighs, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and held on.

He pushed into her in one hard thrust and she gasped, head falling back against the wall. The stretch of it, the fullness—too much and exactly right and not enough all at once. He gave her a second to adjust to the size of him, then started moving with thrusts that were urgent and graceless and exactly what she needed.

She dug her nails into his shoulders and held on while he drove into her, each thrust hard enough to slam her back against the wall with a force that would probably leave bruises. Nothing smooth about it, nothing practiced or careful. Just need and friction and the desperate edge that came from too much whiskey and too many weeks alone. The wall was rough against her spine, his grip on her thighs tight enough to leave marks she'd feel tomorrow, and she didn't care—wanted the bruises, wanted proof this was real and not just another thing she was imagining in the dark.

"Fuck," she breathed, already feeling the tension building low in her belly like a coil winding tighter with every thrust. Her thighs were shaking with the effort of holding on, muscles burning from the angle and the strain. It was almost too much, too deep, riding that edge between pleasure and pain that made her gasp every time he bottomed out and hit something that made stars burst behind her eyes.

He shifted his grip, hitched her higher against the wall, and the new angle hit something that made her vision white out for a second.

"Right there—" Her voice broke on the words. "Don't stop—"

He didn't. Just kept driving into her at that same brutal pace, that same perfect angle, his breathing harsh and uneven against her neck.

The tension coiled tighter and tighter until her whole body was wound so tight she thought she might break from it. Then it crashed over her like a wave and she came hard, gasping his name against his shoulder while her body clenched around him in rhythmic pulses that seemed to go on forever. He followed seconds later with a rough groan torn from his throat, his hips stuttering as he pushed deep and held there while he finished.

They stayed like that for a long moment, both breathing hard and trembling with aftershocks, her legs still wrapped around him and his weight pinning her to the wall while sweat cooled on her skin. Her pulse was still racing, heart slamming against her ribs like it was trying to escape.

"Jesus," he muttered finally, his voice wrecked.

He pulled out and she felt the immediate absence, the ache already starting between her thighs that she'd definitely feel in the morning.

"Bathroom?" she asked, her voice rougher than she expected.

"Down the hall. Second door."

She grabbed her clothes off the floor on her way—The bathroom was as sparse as the rest of the place, just a towel and soap and nothing decorative or personal to suggest anyone actually lived here instead of just existing. She cleaned up quickly and got dressed with hands that were steadier than they'd been ten minutes ago.

When she came back out he was in his jeans again, standing by the window with a lit cigarette and smoke curling up past his face in the dim light. He offered her the pack without saying anything and she took one, lit it off his lighter with a small flame that seemed too bright in the quiet darkness. They smoked in silence for a minute, and it wasn't awkward the way she'd expected it to be—just two people coming down from the rush, both aware of what they'd just done and not needing to make it into more than it was.

"That was—" he started, then stopped like he wasn't sure how to finish.

"Yeah." She pulled smoke into her lungs and let it drift back out slowly. "It was."

"Not gonna make this complicated, are you?"

"Wasn't planning on it." She met his eyes.

"This doesn't have to be anything. Just two people who wanted the same thing."

Something shifted in his expression—relief, maybe. "That simple?"

"That simple."

"Works for me."

They finished their cigarettes in comfortable silence, and Maggie felt the pleasant warmth still sitting in her veins, the lingering ache between her thighs that would be there tomorrow as a reminder this had actually happened and wasn't just something she'd imagined after too much bourbon and almost a year of not touching anyone.

She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table. "I should—"

"Yeah." He moved toward the hallway. "Let me just—"

The bathroom door closed. Water ran through the pipes.

Maggie stood there for maybe ten seconds, listening to water run and feeling her pulse finally start to settle. Then she grabbed her jacket off the couch where she'd left it when she first came in and checked she had her keys in her pocket where they belonged.

The water was still going when she let herself out, closing the door quietly behind her so it wouldn't slam.

The Nova started on the first try and she pulled out of his driveway with her headlights cutting through darkness, leaving him to come back to an empty living room and figure it out on his own.

Hopper POV

The water was cold by the time Hopper turned off the tap, his face dripping into the sink while he tried to get his head clear. He'd splashed it three times trying to wash away the whiskey fog and the exhaustion and what had just happened .

He grabbed the towel and dried off, ran his hand through his hair and caught his reflection in the mirror before looking away because he wasn't ready to see whatever expression was sitting on his face right now. Probably the same one he always had these days—tired and empty and going through the motions.

When he came back to the living room she was gone.

He stopped in the doorway, taking in the empty couch where her jacket had been draped over the arm just minutes ago. Her cigarette was stubbed out in the ashtray, still smoking slightly like she'd just put it out before walking out the door. Through the window he could see taillights disappearing down the dirt road, red lights already being swallowed by trees as she drove away from this place without looking back.

Hopper stood there for a long moment, then huffed out something that might have been a laugh if he remembered what those sounded like.

"Huh."

He found his shirt on the floor by the door where it had landed when she'd pushed it off his shoulders, pulled it on without bothering with the buttons because what was the point. Grabbed his cigarettes from the coffee table and moved to the window, lit one while he watched the empty driveway and the darkness beyond it.

Most women stuck around after. Made it complicated—wanted to talk about what this meant, where it was going, all the shit he didn't have answers for and wouldn't have answers for even if someone held a gun to his head. Expected him to ask them to stay, got hurt or pissed when he didn't, made the morning after worse than the night before with questions and expectations and needs he couldn't meet even when he'd been a better man than he was now.

She'd just left.

Smart move, really. Saved them both the awkward morning-after dance where they'd have to pretend this meant something or didn't mean something or whatever the hell people did when they fucked someone they barely knew. Just scratch an itch and move on. Simple. He could appreciate simple.

He pulled smoke into his lungs and let it drift back out toward the ceiling. His shoulder stung where she'd dug her nails in, the kind of ache that would probably still be there tomorrow when he woke up. If he slept. Big if.

The cabin felt emptier than usual, which was saying something considering how empty it usually felt. He'd gotten used to the particular quality of loneliness that came from living alone in the middle of nowhere, but tonight it felt different somehow. Like the silence was louder. Like he could still smell her perfume mixed with cigarette smoke and whiskey.

Fuck.

Hopper finished his cigarette and stubbed it out harder than necessary, killed the lamp and stood there in the dark for a minute, listening to insects scream in the trees and wind move through leaves that rustled like they were sharing secrets he didn't want to know.

He headed to bed and lay there staring at the ceiling for a couple hours, watching shadows move across the room while his mind refused to shut off no matter how much whiskey was still in his system. His shoulder kept stinging where her nails had broken skin. He kept seeing her face when she came, the way her whole body had tensed and then released against him. Kept hearing that sound she'd made when he'd hit the right angle.

Finally exhaustion dragged him under sometime around three or four, pulling him into whatever passed as sleep these days—shallow and restless and full of dreams he wouldn't remember in the morning.

Same as every other night.

Chapter Text

Sunday Afternoon

Joyce's driveway looked the same as yesterday—gravel worn down to dirt in two tire tracks, the gutters still sagging like they'd given up. Maggie killed the engine and sat for a moment with her hands on the wheel, watching heat shimmer off the station wagon's hood. Sunday morning in Hawkins meant church bells carrying through humid air and families on porches, the whole town moving slow like it was too tired to pretend otherwise.

She grabbed the bakery bag from the passenger seat—donuts from the gas station, the only place open Sunday mornings besides church—and let herself in without knocking.

Coffee was already going in the kitchen, the smell cutting through air that hadn't cooled overnight. Down the hall, Morrissey bled through Jonathan's door—that same dramatic misery she'd promised would grow on him, all minor chords and British melancholy that probably felt like the first person who'd ever understood him.

Joyce appeared from the kitchen with a dish towel twisted in her hands, moving with that jerky exhaustion Maggie was learning to recognize as her sister's baseline. Her eyes tracked to the bakery bag, something complicated moving across her face—gratitude and resentment fighting for space.

"You didn't have to."

"I know."

Joyce pulled out two mugs without asking and poured, the coffee dark enough to be a threat. They stood at the counter drinking in silence, and Maggie lit a cigarette before cracking the window. Outside, cicadas were already screaming in the trees, that relentless Midwest soundtrack that meant summer was settling in whether anyone wanted it or not.

"Jonathan's been playing that tape nonstop," Joyce said. "Is all their music this depressing?"

"Pretty much."

"Great." But something in Joyce's expression had softened—not quite a smile, but the ghost of one. "He asked me this morning if you knew any bands like that. Local ones."

"Not in Hawkins."

Joyce took the cigarette from Maggie's fingers, pulled on it hard enough to make the ember flare bright, handed it back. Smoke curled between them, catching the light from the window in thin streams. "You staying for lunch?"

"If you're offering."

"Sandwiches. Nothing fancy."

"Sounds good."

Will's door was wallpapered in drawings—Castle Byers rendered from shifting angles, dragons mid-flight with wings spread wide, his D&D character in robes with a staff that probably had a name and backstory he'd spent hours perfecting. They were taped haphazardly across the wood, overlapping in places, the visual diary of an eleven-year-old who lived half in his own head.

Maggie knocked once.

"Come in!"

He was sprawled on his stomach on the floor, charcoals spread in a half-circle around him like ritual objects, working on what looked like a wizard mid-spell. The lines were more confident than they'd been at Christmas—still had that eleven-year-old quality, proportions slightly wrong and enthusiasm trumping precision, but getting better fast. Really fast.

"Aunt Maggie!" He scrambled up, holding the drawing like an offering. "Look, I did the shading thing. See? The layers?"

She knelt beside him on the worn carpet. He'd used the charcoals to build actual depth in the robes, darker where fabric folded and bunched, lighter where imaginary light would catch the peaks. The wizard's face was still a bit off—eyes too big, mouth not quite right—but the technique was solid. Not perfect, but good. The kind of good that said he was actually listening, actually practicing.

"That's exactly right," she said. "You're getting it."

His whole face lit up like she'd handed him something precious. "Really?"

"Really. Keep practicing like this and you'll be showing me techniques."

"No way."

"Way." She ruffled his hair and he ducked away, grinning so wide it made something in her chest go tight. "Your mom's making lunch. You hungry?"

"Always." He started gathering charcoals back into their box with careful movements, treating them like they mattered because they did. "Can I show you the other ones I did after? I tried doing Mike and Lucas as their characters—Mike's turned out okay but Lucas's armor looks weird—"

"After lunch. Deal?"

"Deal."

Jonathan's door was half-open, music spilling into the hallway—Morrissey singing about some girl who never loved him back, probably. Maggie knocked anyway, the sound barely audible over the guitars.

He looked up from where he sat cross-legged on his bed, camera cradled in his lap like something fragile. Pulled off his headphones and the music got louder without the foam barrier—tinny and desperate in that way only teenage bedrooms could amplify.

"You were right about Morrissey," he said.

"Told you."

"It's..." He gestured vaguely at the cassette player on his nightstand, searching for words that probably didn't exist yet. "I don't know. Different."

"Different good or different weird?"

"Both." He almost smiled, the corners of his mouth pulling before he caught himself. "Mom thinks it's depressing."

"Your mom thinks everything's depressing lately."

Jonathan's expression shifted—something that looked like relief that someone had said it out loud, that he wasn't crazy for noticing. "Yeah."

"Lunch soon."

"Okay." He set the camera down carefully on the pillow beside him, stood with teenage awkwardness—all limbs and uncertainty. Paused in the doorway. "Thanks. For the tape."

"Yeah."

Joyce was pulling bread from the cabinet when Maggie got back, already moving with that efficiency that said she'd made ten thousand sandwiches in this kitchen and would make ten thousand more before it was over. Maggie grabbed the peanut butter and jelly without asking, started spreading while Joyce worked on a second cutting board with bologna and cheese. They moved around each other with the ease of shared space, of being sisters even when years had passed between them—muscle memory that survived distance and time and all the complicated things that had kept them apart.

"Jonathan actually talks to you," Joyce said after a minute, her voice carrying that particular exhaustion of parents with teenagers.

"About music. That's it."

"That's more than he gives me lately." Joyce spread mayonnaise in quick strokes, the knife moving with barely contained energy. "Everything's one-word answers. 'Fine.' 'Okay.' 'Whatever.'"

"He's fifteen."

"I know. Doesn't make it less exhausting." Joyce wiped her hands on the dish towel and called down the hall. "Boys! Lunch!"

They appeared within seconds—Will bright-eyed and eager, Jonathan more cautious—grabbing plates and disappearing back to their rooms before either woman could suggest they sit at the table like normal families in television commercials where nobody was divorced and struggling.

Maggie sat at the small table with her sandwich and coffee gone lukewarm. Joyce joined her, but her hands just moved food around her plate, rearranging rather than eating—pushing crusts into neat piles, straightening the pickle she'd added like presentation mattered.

"You okay?"

"Fine." Joyce lit a cigarette, exhaled smoke hard toward the ceiling where it hung in the still air. "Just tired."

"Joyce—"

"I'm fine, Maggie." There was an edge to it now, something sharp underneath the exhaustion. "I don't need you to fix everything."

"I'm not trying to fix anything."

"You bought groceries. You're giving the boys presents. You're here every day asking if I'm okay." Joyce's hands moved restless against the table, fingers drumming patterns she probably didn't realize she was making. "I appreciate it, I do. But I've been handling this on my own for months now, and I'm still standing."

"I know you are."

"Do you?" Joyce's eyes met hers finally, dark and defensive and exhausted in ways that went deeper than lack of sleep. "Because it feels like you think I'm about to fall apart any second."

"That's not—" Maggie stopped. Started over. "I'm here because I want to be. Not because I think you can't handle it."

Joyce opened her mouth to respond, then stopped. Her eyes had caught on something—Maggie's collar, where her shirt had shifted when she leaned forward. The bruise was small, purple-blue against pale skin, mostly hidden but not quite hidden enough.

"Is that a hickey?"

Maggie's hand went to her neck automatically, pulling fabric back into place even though it was too late. "It's nothing."

"Doesn't look like nothing." Joyce's expression had shifted—curiosity cutting through the defensive exhaustion like light through clouds. "You seeing someone?"

"Not really."

"Not really means yes."

"It means it's not a thing." Maggie took a drink of coffee that had gone stone cold, bitter on her tongue. "Just... someone. Nothing serious."

Joyce studied her for a long moment, and Maggie could practically see her sister doing the math—less than two weeks in town, working at the Hideout three nights a week, now showing up with marks on her neck she was deflecting about. The possibilities were limited in a town this small.

"Maggie—"

A knock at the door cut her off. Then the door opened without waiting for an answer, and Lonnie walked in holding a squirming mutt puppy against his chest.

Everything stopped.

The puppy was maybe three months old, brown and white with floppy ears and paws too big for its body. It wriggled in Lonnie's grip, trying to lick his face while its tail went in frantic circles—all puppy energy and uncomplicated joy, completely unaware of the tension it had just walked into.

"Dad!" Will appeared from the hallway like he'd been summoned by magic, eyes going wide enough to show white all around. "Is that a dog?"

"Sure is." Lonnie set the puppy down and it immediately bounded toward Will on those too-big paws, nearly tripping over itself. "Thought you boys could use a friend."

Jonathan appeared behind Will, watching the puppy with that careful wariness he wore around their father like armor he'd learned to put on without thinking. But even he couldn't quite hide the interest when the puppy noticed him and tried to climb his legs with desperate enthusiasm, little claws scrabbling against denim.

"What's its name?" Will asked, already on his knees with the puppy crawling all over him, already in love in that way only kids and puppies understood.

"That's up to you two." Lonnie was grinning, playing the hero with the practiced ease of someone who knew exactly what he was doing. "He's yours now."

Joyce had gone very still at the table. Maggie watched her sister's hands tighten around her coffee mug, knuckles going white against the ceramic, the muscles in her jaw working like she was physically holding words back.

"Boys," Joyce said, her voice carefully level despite everything underneath. "Take the dog outside for a minute."

"But Mom—"

"Outside. Now."

Will scooped up the puppy and Jonathan followed, both of them disappearing through the back door. The moment it closed behind them—the sound of it clicking shut like a gun being cocked—Joyce stood and crossed to Lonnie with movements that were too controlled, like she was forcing herself not to move faster or harder or with the violence she probably wanted.

"You can't just show up," she said quietly, though quiet didn't mean calm. "Next weekend is your weekend. And what the hell is this about a dog?"

"Can't take them next weekend," Lonnie said, shrugging like it was nothing, like he was canceling dinner plans instead of custody time. "Got plans. And it's their dog now, like I said."

"You didn't ask me about a dog."

"Didn't think I needed permission to give my sons a present."

"It's not about permission, Lonnie. It's about vet bills and food and who's going to take care of it when the boys are at school." Joyce's voice was rising despite her obvious effort to keep it down, each word getting sharper. "Did you think about any of that?"

"I brought a bag of food and a bed. It's in the truck." He looked past Joyce toward the table, finally noticing Maggie sitting there. His expression shifted—something mean sliding across his face like oil on water, that particular cruelty he'd always been good at. "Well, shit. Maggie. Thought you were still out in San Francisco drawing pictures and sleeping your way through the bands."

Maggie set down her coffee very deliberately—the mug touching wood with a sound that was too loud in the sudden quiet. "And I thought you'd moved on to emotionally terrorizing someone closer to your own maturity level, Lonnie. How's that working out for you?"

His jaw tightened, neck going red. "Still got that mouth on you."

"Still got that talent for making everything about you?"

"Maggie—" Joyce started, but Lonnie was already moving toward the door with that swagger he'd perfected, the one that said he was leaving because he wanted to, not because he'd been beat.

"Can't stay anyway," he said, all pretend casual like this had been his plan all along. "Just wanted to do something nice for the boys." He raised his voice toward the backyard where puppy barks and Will's laughter were already audible through the window. "See you later, boys!"

"Bye, Dad!" Will's voice floated back, muffled and happy and completely unaware of what had just happened in the kitchen.

Lonnie grabbed the dog food bag and bed from his truck—economy-sized kibble and a cheap foam bed from whatever pet store had been convenient—dropped them inside the door without ceremony, and was gone. His truck pulled out of the driveway with gravel crunching loud under the tires, engine roaring in a way that was probably supposed to sound powerful but just sounded petty. Then there was just silence and settling dust and the sound of Joyce's breathing.

Joyce stood staring at the closed door for a long moment, her whole body rigid. Then she turned and walked back to the table with movements that had gone mechanical, like she'd disconnected from her body to get through the next few minutes. Sat down hard enough to make the chair creak and reached for Maggie's cigarettes with hands that weren't quite steady, shook one out and fumbled with the lighter twice before getting it lit.

"If I say no to the dog," Joyce said, her voice flat and hollow, "I'm the bad guy."

"Yeah."

"He doesn't want them next weekend, so I have to deal with vet appointments and training and everything else." Joyce took a hard drag, smoke disappearing into her lungs and staying there for a long moment before she exhaled. "But he gets to be the hero who brought them a puppy."

"That's Lonnie."

"I can't afford a dog, Maggie. I can barely afford groceries." But there was no heat in it anymore, just exhaustion that went bone-deep, settled in so far it had become part of her. "And if I take it to a shelter, the boys will never forgive me."

"So we figure it out."

"We?"

"I can help with vet bills. Food. Whatever." Maggie took a drag of her own cigarette, pulled smoke into her lungs while she watched her sister's face. "He dumped this on you. You don't have to handle it alone."

Joyce's eyes were bright with something that might have been tears if she'd let them fall, if she'd allowed herself that release. She didn't. Just smoked and stared at the kitchen table—at the scratches in the wood, at the water rings from years of coffee mugs, at the evidence of sixteen years of marriage that hadn't worked—and breathed carefully like she was counting to ten inside her head, trying to find calm in numbers.

"I hate him," she said quietly, the words coming out like a confession she'd been holding back for months. "Is that terrible?"

"No."

"He was my husband for sixteen years."

"Doesn't mean you have to love who he became." Maggie stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray between them, ceramic already full of filters from this morning. "Or forgive him for being an asshole."

Joyce laughed at that—sharp and bitter and genuine, the kind of laugh that hurt coming out. "You always knew how to cut through the bullshit."

"One of my few talents."

They sat there in the quiet kitchen while afternoon light moved across the floor in slow patterns, listening to the boys playing with the puppy in the backyard through the open window. Will's laughter carried through—genuine and uncomplicated, the sound of a kid who'd just gotten the best present of his life. Jonathan's voice underneath it, quieter but there, engaged despite himself.

"They're gonna love that dog," Joyce said finally.

"Yeah."

"And I'm gonna be the one getting up at three AM when it needs to pee."

"Probably."

Joyce picked up her sandwich, took an actual bite this time instead of just rearranging it. Chewed slowly like she'd forgotten what eating was supposed to feel like, like it was a skill she had to relearn. "You're really staying? In Hawkins?"

"Yeah."

"Even with everything being..." Joyce gestured vaguely at the house, at herself, at the general chaos of her life—the peeling paint and broken gutters and exhaustion that sat on everything like dust.

"Yeah." Maggie met her sister's eyes, held them. "I'm staying."

Joyce nodded once, something settling in her expression that might have been relief or gratitude or just the closest thing to peace she could manage right now. They finished eating in comfortable silence while the puppy barked in the backyard and Will tried to teach it to sit with enthusiasm that far exceeded the dog's attention span or understanding of commands.

When Maggie left an hour later, the boys were still outside with the dog—Will flat on his back in the grass while the puppy climbed all over him, Jonathan taking photos with his camera from different angles like he was documenting something important. Joyce was standing at the kitchen window watching them, one hand pressed against the glass, her expression complicated in ways Maggie couldn't quite read. But when she turned to say goodbye, something in her face had softened.

"Thanks," Joyce said. "For being here. And for telling Lonnie to fuck off, even if you didn't use those exact words."

"Anytime."

Maggie drove home with the windows down and her elbow propped on the door, watching Hawkins slide past in late afternoon light that turned everything gold and tired. The town looked smaller on Sundays—churches letting out in clusters of families in their best clothes, people on front porches with newspapers and iced tea, the whole place settling into that end-of-weekend quiet before Monday started the cycle over again. Trees pressed in from all sides like they were slowly reclaiming what had been stolen, patient and inevitable.

Her apartment was warm when she got there, heat trapped under the roof despite the windows she'd left cracked that morning. She opened them wider and stood at the one facing Main Street, smoking and watching the almost-empty street below where nothing moved except the occasional car drifting past like it had nowhere better to be and all the time in the world to get there.

Sunday in Hawkins. Church bells and family dinners and the slow march toward another week. She'd chosen this—packed up San Francisco, drove two thousand miles, walked away from a life that had stopped fitting to try something else.

She stubbed out her cigarette and looked at the smoke curling up toward the water-stained ceiling.

Sunday in Hawkins. She'd chosen this.