If I had a nickel for every time Charles Vandervaart played the estranged relation of a time-traveling family on a tv series that ended in 2026, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened TWICE, right?
The party gathers for a movie night to keep themselves from going stir-crazy while waiting for Vecna to show. | AO3
Soundtrack: Chilling of the Evening/ Highway in the Wind, both by Arlo Guthrie.
Saturday, October 31, 1987
El’s muscles protested with each descending step toward the basement of WSQK, Mike at her heels. She had kept training long after her body tired today, even as Hopper urged her to rest and recharge her battery.
It had taken some convincing by Robin and Mike to corral everyone to the radio station for movie night. Tensions remained high, and even as they all ran themselves ragged, they had to admit there was little to be done until word of the military’s next burn reached their circle. There had been one just last week, even less promising than the one before. The unofficial schedule so far indicated that they were on their own for a bit.
For now, Robin had insisted on the need for “a little R&R” to keep their spirits up. In fact, movies at The Squawk had become something of a tradition for the whole Party.
El remembered when Steve and Jonathan had wrestled the machinery down the rounded staircase, bickering over the awkward load, each other’s worst traits, and even what they had eaten for lunch that day.
“Boys, boys, boys!” Robin’s voice had echoed behind them. “Save something for the critics!”
The Princess Bride was the latest of many film reels that had quietly rolled into town in the back of Murray’s supply truck. They had already watched a film about a boy skipping school, one where a gorilla lived in a family’s house, and one where a rich lady fell off of her boat. Everyone had silently agreed to turn off the movie about the overgrown potted plant that ate people.
Robin and Dustin had found a movie about a babysitter particularly funny, taking turns elbowing Steve until he had gotten up and crossed the room to sit beside Joyce instead.
El and Mike dropped to the floor to lean back against the weathered sofa. Her head quickly found its familiar spot on his shoulder. The chill of October had reached Hawkins, but her hand-me-down flannel and Mike’s presence kept the cold at bay.
From the corner of El’s eye, Robin signaled Nancy, who cut the lights. Colors began to form into shapes against the yellowed wall of the basement, soft music accompanying them.
The first scene opened to a little boy sick in his bed, playing video games that reminded El of Dustin’s. His grandfather arrived to read him a book, to which he reluctantly agreed.
As the older man fell into the rhythm of the story and a woman, pretty, appeared on screen, El gazed at Hopper, whose eyes were already on her. She would never forget about him reading Anne of Green Gables to her in those first months at the cabin. It had been no mistake that he had chosen a story about an orphaned girl who had little idea how to act around people. Now that El was older, she knew Hop had been trying to assure her that she would find her place, just as Anne had.
El had grown to love many stories since then, especially films. She watched eagerly as the underdogs, as Mike called them, scraped and struggled until they could overcome the mouth-breathing villains.
Movies also reminded her of Max, and the safety of those summer and early fall days they had spent together before everything had changed.
If she closed her eyes, El could still hear her friend’s soft voice echoing through the telephone line to reach her in California. Max had asked what all they had seen and done so far in her home state. Her questions were warm with genuine interest, despite the exhaustion that overwhelmed her voice even when Joyce’s long working hours allowed for afternoon phone calls.
“But are you doing, you know, okay?” Max had asked quietly, as if she might already know the answer. “Are you making friends?”
Max’s hushed but desperate inquiry had been much harder to distract than Mike’s happy-go-lucky letters. “Not like you.” It was the closest El dared to revealing her reality.
Max paused before responding. “I know.” El wasn’t sure, but she thought she had heard a sniffle before Max’s voice sounded again, raspy this time. “Just wait for your trip to Hawkins this summer. It’ll be just like old times.”
But summer had never come, at least not the way they had envisioned. While Max’s body had been well on its way to healing by early June, her mind was still lost as she continued to lay still, wearing a hospital gown that El found all too familiar.
“Jesus,” Hopper’s wry observation interrupted her thoughts as the grandfather introduced a young man named Westley. “That kid’s a dead ringer for our disgraced mayor.” Even from across the room, Hop’s deep voice vibrated through El’s mind, calming something deep inside her that was still shaken from his long disappearance.
But he had come back. El had to believe that meant there was hope for Max, too. She just had to find Henry, and she could save her friend from him once and for all.
She could not do it without the people that filled the room around her, who had made her life so much more than she thought it could be. But they were all at risk as long as Henry was out there, and it was up to her to protect them. So El found herself paying more attention to her friends than the movie, their features lit by the glow of the projector and their peals of laughter warming the room:
Nancy, who had pressed a box of blue cloth-bound mystery novels into El’s arms before the move to California. “Original run,” Mike’s sister had emphasized with a tilt of her eyebrow. And Jonathan, who had gently explained everything that mystified El about the world occupied by Nancy Drew.
Steve, who was still baffled by most of what he had been roped into for the past four years, but cared deeply and never failed to help however he could — giving rides, conveying messages. Robin, who often made jokes at the wrong moment, but had an incredible heart for her friends.
Joyce, who had been mothering her long since before she and Hopper had sorted out their feelings for each other. Murray, who… Well, El was not always sure how Murray had ended up here, but he had proven his dedication many times, and certainly kept things interesting.
Dustin and Mike whispered loudly as they debated what class each movie character would represent if the film were a D&D campaign. El was just glad to see Dustin acting like himself. The loss of his friend was still fresh, and she saw less now of the kind, funny boy that had believed in her all those years ago.
“Now that’s a man that talks entirely too much,” Murray’s quip echoed over the dialogue, as Buttercup’s captor bragged loudly about his own intellect.
Hopper’s cheek quirked under his overgrown beard. “Yeah, he maybe remind you of anyone?”
El felt Mike squeeze her hand as the lovers finally reunited. She shared a smile with him, squeezing back. Mike had been the first person that did not expect her to be anything that she did not know how to be. Even now, he kept meeting her where she was.
She could not miss the tear sliding down Lucas’s cheek, nor Dustin’s hand grasping his friend’s shoulder gently. It was usually only Erica that could convince Lucas to leave Max’s bedside, even for just one night. Brave, loyal Lucas, whose judgment El trusted more than anyone’s. It was too risky for El to be seen at the hospital now, but she had finally stopped asking him if there had been any change in their friend. One look at his drawn face continually revealed the truth.
It was not long before the movie’s heroes found themselves in the fire swamp, as they called it. Will, sitting a few feet away with his knees to his chest, began to tremble as the characters faked bravado about their dire circumstances while lost in the woods.
Just as a creature suddenly attacked in the film, El grasped Will’s hand, forcing him to look at her. “You are not there anymore,” she told him plainly. “You got out.”
Will nodded, patting her hand in turn. Will had been the last of the boys to meet El, and he had seemed unsure what to make of her at the time. But she could always sense when he began spiraling and shutting himself away, and it was not long before he realized there was no sense hiding from her. From there, their bond finally clicked. Will listened like no one else, and understood her in a way that she had never imagined.
“These bastards have never even been close to the pit of despair.” Erica’s voice rang out against the walls of the basement, as the prince’s men captured Westley and Buttercup. Lucas and Joyce tossed Erica reproving looks. “Just the facts,” she insisted, shrugging her shoulders high into the air.
El tried to hide her smile. She did not always understand what Erica was talking about, but she admired the younger girl’s confidence and quick thinking.
But El found herself leaning forward uneasily when the count set up a “machine’ to use on Westley. She knew more than most about unconventional experiments used on someone that mattered little to them.
Her heart sped in her chest as the machine stole the strength from Westley’s body. Mike’s arm tightened around her, while Will squeezed her free hand. As she settled, she realized that all eyes were on her. Her friends tried to appear otherwise occupied, but she did not really mind their attention at this point. While she had been observed endlessly by indiscernible faces in lab coats for as long as she could remember, their eyes had never held the concern that radiated from her friends now.
A collective gasp sounded around the room when “Miracle Max” was introduced. It did not feel like a coincidence to El. If anyone deserved a miracle, it was their Zoomer. And it was just like the silly little man said, slightly alive was better than dead. Max still had a chance, especially if El had any say in the matter.
As the movie wound down, El found herself admiring the man with the dark hair, Inigo, more and more. When the audience first met him, he had been led astray by someone in search of power. El knew something about that. Inigo even reminded her of herself, and her life spent training to overpower the person that had hurt her and family and friends. Someone that would gladly do it again.
This group of people had let her in. She knew they would fight by her side against any threat, just as they had so many times already. They had welcomed her as their friend. Sister. Daughter. Words that had been meaningless for most of her life. There was nothing that she would not do for them.
And just like Inigo, she had no idea what was next for her once Henry was defeated and her friends were safe. How many times had she already believed that the gate was closed and the danger defeated, and that maybe she could have something like a normal life?
El had a hard enough time training for what was next, let alone imagining what came after. She only hoped that it included the people whose quiet chatter filled her ears as the credits played and the lights flickered back on. She believed they needed her. But much more, El needed them. She always would.
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