cliffside melancholy

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

The first few weeks after the Accident were, of course, difficult. The party found themselves referring to the event that claimed so many lives as just that—the Accident—as if the Demogorgon's brief claim on the town of Hawkins was just that. As if you could believe the newspapers that began to flood around town, proclaiming an 'accident' that got Will lost in the woods and an 'accident' that occurred within the halls of Hawkins Middle, claiming the life of the beloved Brandon Fairgrieves (and unnamed others). Lucas tried not to read those newspapers, especially the ones that spoke about Will, as if his return was some kind of miracle. It wasn't. It was just plain old skill developed from years of playing hide-and-seek.

The people of Hawkins treated Will like some kind of mascot, something to be paraded around, as if to brag to the other cities around them that no, Hawkins wasn't just a boring town. Look, they had news! A little boy came back from the dead! Could you say that in Indianapolis or New Castle or Richmond? And even though the boy had to stay in the hospital for a week after his reappearance, that didn't stop the news reporters trying to barge in on him, that didn't stop the phone calls constantly ringing through the Byers household, and it didn't stop the constant questions Lucas, Dustin, and Mike, would be barraged with at school.

Lucas hated it all. He hated how the people of Hawkins were treating Will, like he was some kind of dog instead of a human, but he also hated how they had treated Alina. The girl who had been found in Hawkins Middle clutching the dead body of her father, screaming her head off. How had they explained this, plus the broken wall? An Accident. A fire that started within the halls. A fire that had only taken out one section before the brave firefighters (there had been no firefighters at the scene) had put it out. By then, it had been too late, and poor Brandon Fairgrieves was dead.

The people of Hawkins treated Alina as if she was someone to be pitied, which was annoying, considering several racist remarks that she had been subjected to before the Accident. Like, she'd go into a diner, and everyone's faces would fall, and the waiter would give her a free dessert. Having her trauma so public seemed to really hurt her, but it wasn't even the adults in Hawkins that affected her the most. No, it was the kids. Of course it was the kids.

When Mr. Clarke had announced that Alina would be taking a couple weeks off of school in order to try and recover from the fire (the school had been closed for a couple of days while everything was cleaned up, but everything was up and running pretty quickly), the kids in Lucas's science class immediately burst into inquires about her dad and how he'd died. And when she got back, it was even worse. Some people would laugh, chuckle at the fact that she couldn't walk to class when there were people there, chortle when she left class early to go throw up in the toilets. They didn't know that this was Alina's nightmare that had come to life, each day harder and harder without her dad.

She wasn't the Alina Lucas had grown to like. She was numb. She'd come over to play Atari and she'd just stare at the walls. She'd play D&D and jump when anyone slammed their hands down on the table. She'd be riding her bike with the party and nearly fall off of it when she heard a rustling in the bushes. And she'd cry, too. A lot. In Lucas's arms, by herself, at school. She cried so much Lucas thought it was a wonder someone could produce so many tears.

He found himself thinking of that Alina right now, the one that had been as fragile of glass, as he looked down at the quarry far below. It was three days, seven hours, and forty-five minutes (not that he was counting) after they'd arrived at the hospital, and he'd had no new news about her condition. She hadn't died, like they'd expected, because the doctors had managed to draw breath back into her, but she wasn't waking up, either. She seemed to be stuck in a state of unconsciousness, and the doctors said she might never wake up. And there was still a possibility of death.

Lucas couldn't imagine that. Alina unconscious for the rest of her life. Or dead. She'd never again laugh at her own jokes or smile at him with her sunshiney smile or grab his hand. He'd wasted his time with her, because he thought they'd always have more. Thought they could watch a thousand sunsets together and play a thousand video games and watch a thousand movies. But now, with this news...

His hands curled around a smooth stone, and, with a grunt, he hurled it into the water far below. He watched it fall, twisting through the November air before submerging into the depths.

Will was in the hospital, too, but the doctors expected him to make a full recovery. There wasn't anything wrong with him physically, just more trauma he'd have to deal with. The party was determined not to let him do it alone.

Last year, they'd all been focused on themselves, focused on healing from the events of the Accident, that they didn't really consciously think of the others. It wouldn't be like that this time. Lucas had already visited Will, who was so much more alive now that he was himself again, but without Alina by his side, it wasn't the same.

Will had known everything. Of course he'd known. He'd been connected to her, felt her pain as she felt his, but he'd been unable to tell them all. Lucas didn't blame him one bit. None of them did, because they all felt so stupid for not knowing. For not figuring everything out.

Gabe and Max were also officially part of the party now, and they'd been gifted their own walkie talkies for communication. Even Mike couldn't say no when he realized how much they, like Alina last year, had done for them. Even if some rules had been broken to tell them everything.

Lucas threw another stone. God, how he missed Alina. He'd told her he'd have to take some time to think about how he felt about her, but it had always been clear. He'd never liked Max, not like that. Her freckled face and blue eyes had never caused his stomach to lurch like Alina's curly hair and brown eyes had. The way she rolled her eyes good-naturedly at him never made his heart beat a little faster. When she'd clutched onto him on the back of his bike, he hadn't felt shivers down his spine.

It was Alina that did. It was always Alina.

And he'd figured it out too late.

"Lucas?" that was Gabe, who was sitting beside him, making sure to stay well away from the edge of the cliff. When Lucas had announced this morning at the hospital while visiting Will that he was going to go down to the quarry, Gabe had surprisingly asked if he could come with, with the excuse that he needed to clear his head. And so, the two boys sat together, both of their faces etched with sorrow as they relived what had happened that night over and over again.

"Yeah?" Lucas's voice was raw from crying, and he remembered another night he'd spent sobbing into his pillow, when they'd found Will's fake body. Alina had come over that morning as he stared at the ceiling, and they'd talked about normal things, and then he'd foolishly asked her where her scars had come from. She'd told him about her abusive mother, and Lucas's hands had curled into fists, because nobody deserved a mother as horrible as Linda Fairgrieves.

"I have a question," Gabe said. He phrased it so calmly and normally that Lucas blinked when he asked it. "How did you know you liked Alina?"

Lucas swallowed, thinking of the way she'd screamed last night. Her cries would be embedded into his brain forever. "I don't know," he said, but it felt good to talk about Alina, so he kept going. "Well, I first started liking her when we were nine, and I was biking home from Dustin's, and then I saw her in the rain..." he told the story Alina had relayed to him about the emergence of her powers.

"She had blood in her hair, and her eyes were closed, but ever since then, I saw her differently." He continued. "Like, when she came and spoke to us at recess and I found out she liked comics and stuff, I felt this feeling inside of me and I just wanted to get closer, and then I saw the way the sunlight bounced off her curls and made them almost gold and the way her eyes lit up when she talked about her cat and the way she defended all of us and I just... I knew."

Gabe gulped. "Oh." He was thinking about those feelings in his chest, the shivers down his spine, the urge to protect, protect, protect. "What if..." he couldn't say it. He couldn't admit the feelings that had stirred inside of him when he'd caught sight of him. Not her, but him.

What Lucas had described was exactly what Gabe felt about Will Byers. Even with the sweat matting his hair and the hospital gown swamping his thin frame, when Gabe had seen Will this morning, he'd thought that he'd never seen a more beautiful individual before.

Lucas looked at him. "Are you okay?"

Gabe nodded, then shook his head. "I don't think I'm going to be okay for a while," he admitted. Every time he closed his eyes he could feel the vines wrapping around his legs, could feel the smoke burning into his lungs as the hub burned, could hear Alina's screams echoing again and again. Every time he closed his eyes he could see Steve's bloody face as he was pummeled into oblivion, feel his heart drop when he got the news that Bob was dead, feel the fear trickling through his veins as he waited with a kitchen knife for almost certain death.

He was grounded, too, but that was the least of his concerns. His grandparents didn't seem too mad at him. And when he'd cried and told them two of his friends were in the hospital, they'd gone easy of him. Held him tight. He'd clutched them tightly, and he didn't regret the decision he'd made two weeks ago. Not one bit.

"That's okay," said Lucas. His eyes were puffy, his face etched with tear tracks. He took a breath, and let another rock fall. Gabe traced its path with his own eyes. "I don't think I will be, either. But that's okay."

Gabe nodded, licking his dry lips. "Thank you," he said suddenly, and Lucas faced him again.

"For what?"

"For being my friend. I didn't think I'd have any of those in Hawkins, to be honest."

Lucas managed to turn the corners of his lips up. He wasn't the boy Gabe had met, the one with the bandanna and his presumptuous comments and his Ghostbusters costume. He'd grown up, again, this past week putting him through more horrors than he had the energy for. But Gabe had grown, too. And as he stared at the trees swaying in the wind across the quarry, he felt like he was a thousand years old.

"Of course," said Lucas. He stood up. "I should get going. I don't want my parents to worry."

Gabe stood up, too. "Yeah."

"You want to come visit Will again tonight?"

Gabe managed to really smile. "Yeah."

Maybe this story would end here, with two new friends walking through the forest in the middle of November, with their hearts heavy with grief. But that wouldn't be an ending, would it? That couldn't be it, after all of the horrible things all of them had gone through. But it wasn't.

Because the walkie talkie in Lucas's pocket was crackling. And Mike's ecstatic voice was coming out of it. And when he said those two words, both boys knew that their story was far from over.

"She's awake."

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: *hidden cameras pop out* ha, you just got p r a n k e d! alina fairgrieves is not dead!! got you!!

seriously, y'all really thought i was going to kill off my favourite oc of all time?? no! i'm too attached!! which isn't a bad thing ig lol

the next few chapters are all out of canon, following alina in the hospital and, finally, the full explanation of gabe's backstory!! also, a certain hated character is going to show up via a letter :)) so the angst isn't over yet

honestly, i don't know how i feel about this chapter, like, i'm in the middle between liking it and disliking it, but i hope you like it anyway. you probably did more than the last one tbh, especially with the fact that yes, lucas is still into alina!! another plot twist!! because i'm also never breaking up that couple oops

'till next time!