a whole lot of snacks

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

Alina got home that night to find all of the lights on, and the color immediately drained out of her face. For all of her twelve and a half years of life, Alina had never once come home so late, as she never had anywhere to go. Today, however, she had, and although her time at Mike's wasn't fun, she hadn't even given a thought to her father, who, despite all of his flaws, must've been worried about her. Her hands trembled as she reached for the doorknob, and she stared at it as if when she opened it, the barrage of yelling wouldn't begin.

Her hand remained on the doorknob for around five minutes, the only sound her harsh breathing rattling through her chest, a strange surge of adrenaline through her. Finally, she realized that she'd probably never open it if she kept standing there, and finally turned the doorknob, the door creaking open ominously into a fully lit hallway, where Brandon Fairgrieves was sitting. He sprung to his feet when he saw her, and Alina cringed away, hands over her face not wanting to hear yelling, feel the burn of the switch.

Instead, however, she heard a deep sigh, and Alina peered through her fingers. "Ally." Instead of angry, Brandon Fairgrieves seemed relieved, and that was when she remembered that he wasn't Linda. He'd never really gotten mad at her, until that day at the Lab. "I was so worried about yo—is your nose bleeding?"

Alina's hands went to her nose, and sure enough, when she swiped a hand underneath it, her knuckles came back striped with blood. Alina stared at the streak of blood on her hand for a minute. That was strange. She didn't remember bleeding. And her head was really aching now, too, pain thudding from her forehead all the way down to her jaw. She rubbed at it absent-mindedly and looked to her father, as if he might begin to yell at her again.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice hoarse. "I didn't—I didn't realize how late it was."

It wasn't that late—around ten or eleven o'clock—but to Brandon Fairgrieves, Alina might as well have come home at five am.

Brandon just shook his head, staring at his daughter. "Where were you?" he asked. "You've never—I thought you'd... you'd disappeared. Like Will."

Alina swallowed dryly. Her tongue felt like sandpaper and her pulse skyrocketed. So much had happened today, and there had been so much Alina had found out. She'd solved the mystery of Eleven, discovered that Will was hiding in some unknown place from a monster that may or may not be real, and found out that her father was a bad man. She could still barely look him in the eyes, every time imagining him being a part of the experimentation on El at the Lab.

"I—" Alina's mind came to the same excuse she'd used for Mrs. Wheeler tonight before dinner. "I had a group project. I went over to Mike Wheeler's house for a while to work on it, then his mom invited me to eat dinner, and I thought it would be alright and I've also never done it before, and then after we worked on the project and I didn't realize how late it was. I'm sorry, dad." She wiped the slowing flow of blood from her nose, streaking her knuckles with red again. "Are you... are you mad at me?"

"No." Brandon shook his head. "I'm not mad, Alina. You—you've never done something like this before. And you deserve to be a kid. You deserve to do things like that." He smiled. "I'm happy for you, Alina. I'm happy that you're finally making friends."

"It was just a group project," Alina murmured. "We're not friends." But when she noticed her dad's face slump, Alina modified her sentence, filling it with the hope she had for tomorrow. "Yet. We're not friends yet." Maybe searching for your missing classmate would be the best way to make friends. It sure did beat sitting around all day.

Brandon nodded. "Well, we can only hope. Now, come on, Ally. Off to bed. You've still got school tomorrow."

Alina tried not to let her voice break. "Okay, dad." She walked upstairs to her bedroom, pulling off her clothes. She stared at the collared shirt she'd been so excited to wear this morning, smoothing out the wrinkles with her thumb. It seemed like weeks instead of just hours since she'd woken up, making it out of the door in fifteen minutes to talk to Lucas and Dustin about Eleven. In that time, she swore she'd aged five years.

Pulling on her pajamas, Alina noticed the flow of blood from her nose had ceased, dried blood crusted beneath it. She kind of looked like Eleven. But Alina knew she didn't have superpowers. If she had, she would've found them out ages ago, wouldn't she?

After wiping the bloodstains off her nose and knuckles, Alina brushed her teeth, staring at her bloodshot eyes in the mirror. Her head was still rattling with pain, exhaustion beginning to cause her eyelids to droop. She looked like a disaster and must've looked worse with the blood spurting out of her nose.

What was happening to her?

Despite her exhaustion, Alina forced herself to stay awake, pulling her notebook out of her backpack. I solved the mystery today, she wrote. Soon, she found herself lost in the words, writing out all of her pain and frustration and fear down, everything she'd found out about Eleven and her own father. After, with her hands trembling and her eyelids nearly closed, Alina, as usual, buried her notebook in her underwear drawer before crawling into bed. As soon as she shut her eyes, she drifted off, letting the day wash off of her.

The next day, Alina went over to Mike's again. Lucas had called her bright and early, an hour before she'd normally wake, and told her to come over to the Wheeler household as soon as possible. "We're planning our operation for today after school," he'd said, his voice slightly higher and tinny on the Fairgrieves phone. "Operation Mirkwood. Are you in?"

"I'm in," Alina replied, before hanging up.

She had noticed something odd on her way out, though, but she hadn't mentioned it to anyone. Just like during the day with the burnt trees, the doorknob leading into the house was burned slightly black, with red around the edges. And, like with the trees, as soon as she'd touched it, the red had disappeared.

Now, she was standing at a table with Dustin, Lucas, and Mike, the soft humming of the walkie-talkie emitting from the couch, where Eleven was fiddling with it yet again. The four of them had heavy backpacks at their feet, Alina packing a couple of things she'd believed were needed for this trip. Mike hadn't seemed so happy to see Alina, but so far, he hadn't said anything about it, only shot Lucas a hostile look when he welcomed her to the group. She stood as far away from him as possible as he began to explain the plan.

"We just tell our parents we have AV Club after school," said Mike. "That'll give us at least a few hours for Operation Mirkwood."

Alina raised her hand slightly. "I'm not in AV Club," she pointed out. "What do I say?"

Mike huffed. "You're not coming," he said. "Will's our friend, not yours. We can manage perfectly fine without you."

Alina groaned. "Not this again," she said. "I thought we already established that I'm staying. You know that I can help you, you just don't want to believe I'm useful! Because, what? Because I'm a girl? Because I'm a freak? Those things aren't stopping Eleven from coming, are they?" She took a deep breath. "I had a deal with Dustin and Lucas. I told you that. And if I want to get in the party, you said I needed to prove myself. Well, I'll prove myself by helping you find him."

Mike groaned. "Fine. Alina, just tell your dad whatever you told him last night. I'm sure it won't be a big deal. Anything else?"

Lucas spoke up. "You seriously think that the weirdo knows where Will is?"

"Just trust me on this," said Mike. "Okay?"

"Okay."

"Did you get the supplies?"

"Yeah." Lucas began to pull his supplies out of his backpack. "Binoculars... from 'Nam." He set a pair of sleek-looking binoculars on the table for all of them to see before continuing. "Army knife... also from 'Nam." He continued putting the items down as he spoke. "Hammer, camouflage bandanna, and..." he pulled the last item out of his bag, holding it up for them to admire. "The wrist rocket."

Dustin seemed skeptical. "You're gonna take out the Demogorgon with a slingshot?"

"First of all, it's a wrist rocket," Lucas corrected. "And second of all, the Demogorgon's not real. It's made up. But if there is something out there, I'm gonna shoot it in the eye..." he snapped back the rubber of the wrist rocket, the sound echoing across the room, Dustin flinching a little at the noise, "...and blind it."

"Lucas is right," piped up Alina. "I've been doing some thinking about it last night. El used the wizard to represent Will, right? Because it was all she had? Well, maybe she used the Demogorgon piece to represent something else. A monster, or a... bad man." She winced at the two words that had recently taken on more meaning. "But until we find out what it actually is, we can just refer to it as the Demogorgon. Yeah?"

"That's smart," said Dustin, eyes growing wide.

Mike just sighed without responding to Alina's theory before turning to Dustin. "Dustin, what did you get?"

Dustin brightened, and tipped his bag over. Instead of the supplies Alina expected, a number of chips, candy, and other treats came spilling out onto the table. "Well, alrighty," he began, listing off the food he'd packed. "So, we've got, Nutty Bars, Bazooka, Pez, Smarties, Pringles, Nilla Wafers, apple, banana, and trail mix."

At the mention and sight of food, Alina's stomach growled. She hadn't wanted to miss anything, and so she'd skipped eating and biked over to Mike's as quickly as possible. Now, however, she was beginning to regret it.

Lucas just sighed. "Seriously?"

"We need energy for our travels," Dustin defended. "For stamina. And besides, why do we even need weapons, anyway? We have her!" he gestured to Eleven, who was still fiddling with Mike's walkie-talkie, looking bored.

"She shut one door!"

"With her mind!" Dustin was looking at Lucas as if he was insane. "Are you kidding me? That's insane! Imagine all the other cool stuff she could do. Like..." his eyes brightening with an idea, Dustin crossed the room to where a couple of Mike's toys sat on the table. "I bet..." he uncovered a toy spaceship, the Millennium Falcon, "that she could make this fly!" He held the toy out in front of Eleven. "Hey, hey." He urged the small girl to look up. "Okay, concentrate. Okay?"

Without giving Eleven time to react, Dustin let the Millennium Falcon fall, and, to no one's surprise, it did not suddenly begin to fly, instead falling to the floor with a clatter. "Okay," said Dustin, unfazed, bending to pick up the spaceship. "One more time. Okay. Use your powers, okay?" he urged Eleven, before letting the Falcon fall again. For a second time, it hit the floor, and Alina burst out laughing.

While Dustin shot Alina a glare, the girl still chuckling, Lucas just shook his head. "Idiot," he muttered, which almost set Alina off again. But she didn't want to get on a potential friend's bad side, so she pressed her lips together, trying not to let any laughter escape.

Before Dustin could try it again, Mike scooped up the toy Falcon. "She's not a dog," he snapped, just as Karen's voice rang from upstairs.

"Kids! Time for school!"

Lucas, Alina and Dustin began to gather their stuff, Alina saying goodbye to Eleven, who was still on the couch. After she was done, Dustin turned to her. "Hey, wait, what did you bring?" he asked, pulling on his jacket.

Alina zipped up her own before listing the items. "Binoculars, a flashlight, some water, chips, a first-aid kit, and..." with a grin, Alina pulled out her own special weapon, something she'd snuck out of her garage this morning. "A switchblade. My dad kept one in his garage, and he probably won't notice it's missing."

"Woah." Dustin took the blade in his hands in awe. "I've never been allowed to even touch one before."

"We're only using it in an emergency," said Alina, snatching it back and packing it safely in her bag. "I just thought—it made me feel better to have a weapon with me."

"Yeah," said Lucas. "Me too."

And the trio went upstairs in silence.

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: another update in honor of christmas! i hope you guys all had an amazing day!