Chapter Text
January 1991
El excitedly steps out of the cabin, her arms full of things her and Hopper would need for the campfire. Hopper is walking into view at the same time, carrying a bundle of sticks and tossing them into a pile. In his opinion, it's a lot, but El made a point to ignore his grumbling about why four bags of marshmallows is entirely too much for just the two of them. Earlier in the day, she begged and pleaded incessantly to let the party come over, and only just now did Hopper agree.
"Fine, they can come over. But only for a little while." Hopper rises from a crouching postion, half smiling at El and she squeals, dropping everything where she stood in the dirt and darts back inside. He calls after her to scold her but she was already dialing Mike's number into the phone. Mike picks up on the second ring, and remains silent as El rambles on about the campfire, and telling him to bring the other three boys with him. Mike agrees and informs El that he'll round up who he can and get there soon.
Ultimately, only Dustin was able to join, but El didn't mind. She pulls Mike into a hug, indifferent to Hopper's disapproving glare from afar as he started the fire. Dustin eagerly shows El snacks he brought along in his bag, and she watches wide-eyed and full of excitement at some of the items she's never seen before.
After a short while, Hopper takes a small swing of beer before standing up with a groan from the ground, "Alright, I'll leave you three to it. I need to get to the station early tomorrow. Try to keep it down out here." El says goodnight with a mouth full of food mid-chew, watching him head inside. Dustin and Mike eventually diverge into an uninteresting conversation about their upcoming DnD campaign, while El lay back on the ground, gazing up at the sky.
Their voices fade away into background noise, and El watches a very small silhouette of an airplane flying overhead. She's never been on an airplane, and wonders what it's like even if the thought of being so high up is terrifying. She then ponders on where she would even go. Probably somewhere far. Far from Hawkins at least.
"El?" Mikes voice cuts into her thoughts and she whips her head to look at him. "I said do you wanna join? Our campaign is this weekend." With an answer already formulated in her mind, her eyes dart between both Mike and Dustin before responding with only a measly shrug. She doesn't like to hurt their feelings, especially Mike. But a campaign is the last the last thing she wants to do this weekend. She'd rather be cooped up in the cabin as she is most days. Besides, she isn't actually in the campaigns. Only for company or to visit Mike specifically.
El's vague response wasn't taken lightly as she had hoped. "You don't know? Or.. you don't care?" Both. El wants to retort, but keeps her lips sealed and her gaze fixed on the dark sky.
"I think she doesn't care," Dustin answers for her after a beat of silence, laughing as Mike shot him a glare. "I'm kidding. I mean it can go on for hours, and she doesn't play. It's probably boring, right El?"
"Right." El repeats softly, only half listening to what was said. She's now interested in the nearly full moon above. Something that everyone else is used to, having seen the sky countless times. But for El, it can still feel so new and fascinating.
"Yeah, I didn't think about that.." Mike trails. "We have to do something fun, for all of us."
"Except El isn't allowed to go practically anywhere." Dustin adds in lower register. If Hopper hears them, he'd shut it down immediately, sending the boys home.
"We can figure something out, I'll think on it."
"I have an idea that you don't need to think on." Dustin adds in that lowered tone again, and El's interest is finally piqued as she turns to look at them. "El, you just turned nineteen," Dustin gestures to her. "Technically you don't have to listen to what the Hopper says." He points his thumb backward at the cabin and El sits up on her elbows.
"What do you mean?" El questions, and notices Mike looking slightly apprehensive about what Dustin is saying, but not arguing.
"I mean, you can go wherever you want. Yeah, he's the chief, but he can't do anything about it now that you're old enough."
Mike says nothing, directing his attention to El and she clams up. "Oh." Was all she could manage to say at this new information. It sounded nice, but she could imagine the look on Hopper's face now when he wakes up one day and she's gone without a trace.
El then recalls his repeated warnings in the years past, claiming that the bad men are still on the lookout for her. But are they, really? She looks vastly different now from when those people last saw her seven years ago. Plus, she knows not to use her powers around strangers. Nothing besides that could give her away. The fear instilled in her by Hopper of being captured by the government was truly the only thing holding her back from leaving.
Dustin nods proudly with a sly smile like he must've seen her internal revelation based on her blank stare alone. "But where would I go?" El sits up completely now.
"Anywhere." Dustin shrugs, looking to Mike.
"Are you sure though?" Mike glances at El skeptically. "How do we know they've stopped looking?"
"Because I'm pretty sure they're dead." Dustin looks between them. "Don't you remember what happened?"
"I know, I know." Mike squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of nose. "Okay, I guess it's up to you, El." El blinks, still sensing how unsure Mike is and instinctively uses that to fuel her decision in the moment.
"I don't know…" El trails, looking down at her lap.
"You don't have to decide now. This weekend." Dustin chimes in jovially. Mike shoots him another glare.
"Do you really think two days is enough time to think?"
El looks at Dustin who is holding his hands up near the fire to warm them. He shrugs, "That's long enough before a person can chicken out of something."
"Chicken out?" El repeats with furrowed brows.
"Ignore him." Mike shakes his head and places his hand on El's shoulder. "You decide whenever. And if you get a bad feeling, then you don't have to." El nods at his comforting words, watching closely as he stands up along with Dustin.
It's around the time that they have to leave, as Hopper said, they could only stay for a couple hours. El really enjoyed their company anyway, and hugs both of them goodbye, grinning after Mike plants a kiss to her lips.
The boys help El gather what was left of the campfire and carry it back into the cabin. El smiles giddily after Dustin generously let her have the rest of his snacks before him and Mike headed back home.
The fire has since dimmed down to a small flame, and El curtly douses it with water. The area outside the cabin is now almost completely pitch black except for the light coming from inside and the aftermath of the campfire smoke smell sticks to her clothes.
Laying awake in bed that night, El thought about what Dustin told her. At first, the idea of leaving without Hoppers permission was enticing, until she went over every possible thing that could go wrong the later the night went on. Now, she could infer what 'chicken out' meant as Dustin called it and she chuckles lightly to herself.
While in a state of exhaustion, El ultimately decides if it's true, that she should be free to do what ever she wants now—she wants it.
El is startled awake by loud knocks on her bedroom door. After tugging the blankets from over her head she mutters for Hopper to come in while rubbing her eyes. It felt much more like he was talking at her while she processes exactly what's being said as she feels herself dozing off again. Once Hopper left for work and El woke up another couple of hours later, she remembers he said something along the lines of how there was a heavy storm last night. Also, something about the trees.
Trees? El drags herself out of bed, and shuffles out of her room to peer through a window. He was right, there are a few fallen branches and trees in the area around the cabin, and El assumes that he told her to clear them. But her stomach is rumbling either from hunger or all of the snacks she consumed last night. She tells herself she'll get to it later once she has the energy to do so.
El mistakenly hasn't checked the time all day except for once while she made something to eat for breakfast. It was only when she grew bored of the shows she had been glued to the television watching that she glanced over at the window to see the sun beginning to set.
Scrambling to her feet from the couch, she shrugs on her coat and shoes before bracing herself at the door to enter the bitter cold. Her body tenses up as the wind blows in her direction, and she quickly zippers it while walking toward the nearest fallen tree.
It must have been a rain storm instead of snow, El concludes while glancing around at the ground partially frozen over. She turns her head to look back where their campfire had been, and there's no sign of it, as everything had been blown away by heavy winds.
El sighs and looks around aimlessly to plan out where exactly she would place the large logs, wishing that Hopper could've called a professional instead.
Her boots crack through the small fallen branches scattering the ground as she makes her way around the cabin, searching for a good spot to pile them. In the distance, she catches a small movement in her peripheral vision. But there wasn't a sound coming from whatever it was, just her own breathing.
El freezes in place and turns her head slowly, hoping that whatever it was, it didn't see her first. Her thoughts go straight to the people who are allegedly after her, but that's ridiculous, right? El thought, squinting out into the trees at nothing. There doesn't seem to be anyone there.
A fleeting thought crosses her mind, saying that she could kill them easily just by looking at them. But these people know that, they might be prepared.. El thinks, looking every which way and now terrified that they could have a weapon.
Even as her thoughts wandered senselessly, her feet stay planted to the icy ground. And she waits. It isn't long before she sees the movement again, but it is so far out that she has to squint to get an idea of who or what it is.
Her legs seem to move on their own toward it, cautiously avoiding the snapping of twigs beneath her feet but it's to no avail. El doesn't care. She has gotten close enough to see that it's a person, a girl. And she isn't walking toward El or the cabin, but away.
El follows her anyway at a safe distance with narrowed eyes. It's suspicious regardless if the girl isnt after El at all. Once El gets into a rhythm of following behind the girl, she comes across another fallen tree, and in a moment of pure determination, she casually lifts it out of her way to walk underneath.
The blood seeping from her nose is only a mild distraction, if any. She ignores it and continues following with tunnel vision. Her heart skips a beat and she pauses just as the girl pauses. She snaps out of whatever came over her and her eyes widen as the girl up ahead turns her head to the side. Maybe she heard me, El thought, and the idea of running away sounded pretty nice, but it's more terrifying to be chased.
El watches closely as the girl turns to face her completely, and remains mostly still after that. They stare at each other for a few agonizingly long seconds, and again El finds herself walking toward what she's fearful of and not away.
The girl up ahead stays put. She doesn't seem like she wants to hurt El, and that only drives her forward. Once El is within a reasonable distance to say something, she doesn't. Instead, she uses this as a chance to get a better look at her.
The red hair curtaining her face doesn't obstruct the view of how alarmingly pale she is. Though her expression is neutral, it has a trace of something El cannot pinpoint.
She realizes just then that the girl isn't looking at her, but at her nose. As El raises a hand slowly to try and wipe it off, her name being shouted in the distance behind her causes her to whip her head towards the sound.
El's first thought is that she's either in trouble for not moving the trees, or not being near the cabin at all. When she turns to look back at the red-haired girl, she's gone.
A breath of relief escapes her, and she turns on her heel to walk back in the direction she came, not without looking over her shoulder a few more times.
"El? Where were you?" Hopper asks as El steps into view with a bloodied nose and unsettled look in her eyes. Hopper stares at her impatiently for an answer as El scrambles her mind for one that doesn't make her sound crazy.
"I was—uh," El stutters, shoving her hands in her pockets.
"And weren't you supposed to get rid of these trees?" He gestures around them, "What happened?"
"Nothing… I thought I saw something." She looks behind herself once more, and Hopper's brows furrow.
"What do you mean? Did you see someone out here?" His hand instinctively flies to the gun on his hip while following El's gaze.
"No, no. It was no one." She hates how his first thought is to shoot whoever it is. Who was she, anyway? El thought, averting her eyes from Hopper's and hoping he doesn't suspect she's lying. "I'll move the trees now."
Hopper nods, narrowing his eyes at her and then the woods before going into the cabin. It wasn't actually that difficult of a task, and El decided to just put the trees off to the side where they won't be in the way. The entire time she thought of the strange girl, and secretly hoped she would show herself again.
Max trots through the woods, with no particular destination in mind, only to find somewhere to stay. Or hide. These woods seem to be the perfect shortcut through the town without running into any human distractions.
However, a few minutes into her walk, she hears movement, and turns her head, perfectly pinpointing a girl in the distance. She seems to notice her, too and stops in her tracks behind a particularly large tree.
Then, Max realizes there is no reason for her to be hiding from the girl. She really just wants to get where she is going. After resuming her walk through the woods, she can certainly feel someone following her, but brushes it aside with an eye roll to herself.
A small thump rumbles the ground where Max is walking, and she ignores that too, not before recognizing how incredibly strange that was. Her walking pace quickens slightly, and the footsteps inch closer, along with a smell that invades her nostrils almost instantly.
Max stops in her tracks. She thinks she must be imagining things out of hunger. It's safe to say she probably hasn't eaten in days. But it's been longer before this, Max thought, and the thought slips away quickly. She squeezes her eyes shut and inhales the scent again.
The girl, or whoever it is, inches closer. Max can or practically hear the girl's heartbeat and it's racing. Every thought Max has is swiftly overtaken by that alluring smell. Damn it. Slowly, she turns her head to the side first, knowing that if she so much as looked at the girl directly she might not be able to control herself.
Max did not plan on doing anything here in Hawkins to risk getting herself caught, as it is a small town. She feels her restraint fraying quickly, and regrettably turns around fully to look.
There she stood, and the first thing Max notices is her bloodied nose. Of course, just my luck, Max thought. Unable to formulate a reason of why she would have a bloody nose in the first place.
The girl doesn't move any closer and just stares. As if in shock. As if she didn't follow her out here. This goes on for a good amount of time, yet immeasurable for Max due to how hard she is trying not to sink her teeth into her neck and taste that sweet, sweet—
"El!" A man's voice in the distance shouts, and the girl, presumably named El, turn her head instantly. Max does not want to risk being seen by anyone else and scurries off, down into an embankment she mentally took note of beforehand.
Max crouches low, hoping that if El looks back, she doesn't see anything.
For the entirety of the next day, El tries to keep her wandering thoughts at bay with cleaning and organizing her room first. Once she starts on the living room, the phone rings and she glances over at it before setting the broom in her hand aside to pick it up.
"Hey El, what are you up to today?" Mike asks through the phone in a voice that El could tell that he's smiling.
"Cleaning my room, and now the rest of the cabin." El admits while looking around the place. It isn't as messy as one would think, but at least Hopper would appreciate it anyway.
"Really? Is something bothering you?" Mike's question snaps her back to reality, and unfortunately right back to the girl she saw yesterday, the very thing that is bothering her. El wouldn't call the idea of the girl bothersome, but she'd rather not think about the possibility of never seeing her again. But why would she need to? El's thoughts of this girl become more absurd and confusing the longer she allows them to continue.
"El? Did you hear me?"
"Oh, yes. I mean—no. Nothing's bothering me." El stutters, wishing she didn't mention the cleaning and made up something less questionable like watching a movie. Mike knows for certain that she occupies herself with mundane tasks when something is on her mind.
"You can talk to me," His voice softens, "Take a break from cleaning." He suggests, and while El is mostly against both ideas, she brings the phone with her to a chair nearby and sits.
As she wonders what to say, she almost decides against it. How can she explain to Mike that she saw some girl lurking around in the woods and now can't seem to stop thinking about her?
"What's going on?" Mike asks patiently after what could've been minutes, El isn't sure.
"Last night, I saw someone in the woods…" She trails.
"Have you seen them before?"
"No. It was a girl. No one ever comes through the woods." They did, but it was very rare, and whoever does come through is there specifically to visit the cabin. People she knows.
"Oh, yeah that is weird. What does she look like? Maybe I know her."
El thinks back to her appearance, this time willingly, "Blue eyes, red hair, pretty—pretty long." She squeezes her eyes shut in frustration. Pretty? No way, El thought, she was pretty, but that was an unnecessary addition to her description. She feels like she's going crazy, but internally praises herself for playing it off.
Mike hums in thought for a moment and informs El that he's never met anyone with that description. El feels a tinge of disappointment, though she expected as much. Something about the girl gave the idea that she shouldn't have been there and didn't want to be seen.
For the rest of the phone call, they discuss what they should do for the remainder of Mike's break before the dreaded day he goes back to college. She usually misses him terribly, but for some reason this time around she feels mostly content about it. Again, with something else occupying her mind, she cannot completely focus on two things at once.
Mike ends the call with telling El that he needs to go do something, and reassures her everything will be fine about the girl in the woods and all. Only if she spots the girl again then she could worry about it.
After hanging up, El believes that if she does see the girl again, somehow she wouldn't be worried, but excited. The cause of worry she expressed to Mike was only to not sound like a crazy person obsessing over a stranger she saw for merely a few minutes.
She finds herself at the window again, hopefully peering through and met with the same old view of seemingly endless trees, barren due to the winter.
When she turns around, she remembers that she was initially planning to clean, and turned the idea over in her head a few times before deciding not to after all. She can't. It seems as if now that she spoke of her aloud, nothing can stop the thoughts in her mind now. Her mind… that's it!
She hurries off to her room to find a blindfold, tossing random things to the floor, indifferent to the fact that she had just spent an hour cleaning up. She smiles to herself, wondering why she hadn't thought of this sooner.
The only issue is that she has no photo of this girl, and no name. She has to rely strictly on an increasingly fuzzy memory and focus.
With the radio static on, she sits perched on her bed cross-legged and thinks back to yesterday. Back to the beautiful, elusive girl. Whose eyes she couldn't pry her own away from.
El can feel the search working momentarily, but it slips away slowly as her heart pounds with anticipation. She attempts to steady her breathing and focus again, and after a few moments she's slipping into the void, and the white noise of the radio fades.
At first, El sees nothing but empty blackness. She also can't hear anything to indicate where the girl would be. Looking left then right, she walks forward through the darkness until finally, she spots her up ahead.
Her heart skips a beat, and she pauses for moment to breathe. She cannot break focus and lose sight of her. What she is losing focus on is figuring out where the girl is. No thought had crossed her mind about what she'd do once she finds out. Perhaps it's only curiosity. To know why she was in those woods at all, or how she suddenly vanished. At one point El began to think she imagined it all.
But it was real, and she's right in front of her. As El steps closer, the image of the girl is more defined. El wonders how she could've gotten more beautiful in the span of just one day.
Currently, she's talking to someone and El had only glanced at the other person briefly, tuning out the conversation and taking the opportunity to gaze at her freely now without feeling intimidated.
Both voices echo in El's head as a distant noise, but one word in particular piques her interest.
"Okay, see you soon Max!" The guy half-waves as he's walking away. She smiles and waves back, watching him leave.
El regrets not paying more attention to what they were saying, but it feels as if she had no choice. How could she do anything but admire her? Max.
So that's her name, El thought. She follows Max in the darkness as she walks towards some sort of building. And it's just her luck that there's no name, she realizes this when Max steps inside, so she doesn't follow Max any further and instead looks around the exterior of the building for any clues.
The only defining thing El finds is a set of three numbers, and she steps closer, running her fingertips slowly over the engraving.
"El, I'm home!" El jerks her hand away, blindly reaching for her face, ripping the blindfold off and wiping the blood seeping from her nose all in one swift motion.
The only reason she doesn't want Hopper to see her in the void is because he'd ask her incessantly who or what she's looking for. But her work here isn't done, she needs to narrow down exactly where Max is.
"I'm back early," Hopper starts, and El hadn't seen him walk into her room as she was too absorbed in her thoughts. "And I brought some food home if you're hungry."
"Thank you…" El trails, watching Hopper's eyes dart to the radio sitting on her dresser, the one she foolishly forgot to turn off, or at least change it from the static.
"What's up with your radio?" He gestures to it and El shrugs.
"It stopped working." El lies, now noticing the blindfold on her lap and subtly tucks it under her leg.
"Really?" He raises his brows, "I'll try and fix it later." El lets out a breath once he leaves, and shuts the radio off before following him out.
She was hungry, but that wasn't the reason she scarfed down the food so quickly and hurried back to her room. Hopper watches her confusedly but doesn't comment on it.
El kept herself occupied in her room for a couple hours before Hopper inevitably took a nap out in front of the TV.
It was slightly more difficult for El to slip back into the void with the excitement coursing through her veins, but she prevails, and finds herself presumably inside that building now.
Max is simply on a bed, sleeping peacefully. Nothing out of the ordinary except that it's still daytime. El finds this quite uneventful, as she had hoped to find out more about her and where this place is.
El hovers over Max now, just watching, and soon comes to the conclusion that Max couldn't have traveled very far by now if she was walking. Maybe she is only on the outskirts of town.
El reluctantly pulls away her blindfold once more, and scrambles her room in search for a piece of paper to write down the numbers she saw earlier and some pointers. It's all she has to work with for now.
Max's plan is going well so far. Her main goal of joking and flirting with some guy enough that he would invite her to hang out later went according to plan except she mistakenly told him her name. Now, if he were to mention between when they met earlier until now, she's risking getting caught.
She never has been caught, though. There have only ever been small mistakes like this. Max is smart and can think on her feet. Always aware of her surroundings, and much more now than a few years back.
The sun has finally completely set, and Max isn't keen on this 'date', except for the only upside of having something to eat. She hasn't eaten for days, and could've went longer so as to properly settle here first, but the bloody-nosed girl in the woods ruined that. Her hunger since then has been unrelenting. It's unusual for Max, but she doesn't think on it much.
"Max? How are you?" The guy spins around and smiles at her as she walks up a little too close behind him. Habit. She takes a generous step back and gives her best flirtatious smile, claiming that she overslept, which she did, and then suggests they find a more private location to talk.
The guy enthusiastically agrees with Max, and she leads the way. She scoped out a perfect spot for eating beforehand, and the guy follows after her happily as if these aren't his last moments alive. He doesn't know it, of course, and Max had stopped feeling sympathy for mortals years ago. She has to satiate her hunger and there's nothing she could do to prevent it.
Once the two are secluded, Max pretends to listen to him talk, all the while her fangs elongate slowly, concealed in the darkness of the night. He suspects nothing, and looks up to the sky, deep in thought whilst telling a story. Max gazes at the visible veins on his neck hungrily, and takes the opportunity to strike then.
El watches in utter shock as Max sinks the pointed teeth into his neck, He thrashes and yells a gurgled jumble of words, struggling to fight her off as the apparent loss of blood drains from his body, slowly turning pale in the face much like Max.
The kicking and wriggling slowly cease, and Max allows him to fall limp to the ground with a dull thud. El's heart is beating so loud in her ears, but she cannot look away. Her eyes drift from Max to the man, his eyes are low-lidded and unmoving. Max stands there for a few moments while taking in a long shuddering breath, as if she hadn't for while.
El's initial shock is gone, and now she's riddled with extreme curiosity. Why did she kill him? And why is she licking her lips as if she—El's eyes widen then at the realization that Max was purposefully drinking his blood. The fang-like teeth that had been protruding just before are now back to normal, and El rushes to tear her blindfold away.
Her room is nearly pitch black and silent, similar to how it is in the void. Silent other than her short, panicked breaths. El always finds herself more confused than not after spying on Max, and no one to ask what's happening. She begins to think that maybe she should ask someone. Someone she knows and trusts.
Her dreams that night are riddled with a replay of Max sinking her teeth into someone's neck. At one point, it was El herself being bitten, and just before any pain settled in, she jolted awake in a sweat.
Through those fragmented dreams, El grew more intrigued than afraid, feeling as if she keeps waking up at the best part. Max's face was so close to hers, so real but also fuzzy and dreamlike. More like the idea of Max. But El knows it was definitely her.
El quietly steps out of bed and shuffles to the bathroom, splashing cold water on her face a few times. It wakes her up more, but that's what she wants. She figures there's no use in trying to go back to sleep if she'll be up again in no time.
Tiptoeing, she walks out to the main room of the cabin, peering out the window into the darkness. There's only minimal light from a small bulb on the porch, and the moon overhead. She doesn't know what she was expecting to see right this second, but ever since seeing Max in the woods she's drawn to just staring out there hopefully.