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Not today Justin
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@rp-anne-watson
Get to know me: Annie
Name: Anne Watson Nickname: Annie Age: 19 Job: library (during the day), diner (in the evening); come by if you want to hang out!
Family: mum, dad, younger sister and brother (twins) Pets: My Sammy (mixed breed dog) Found Family: Can I adopt Dustin as my baby brother, please? Thank you. We can talk about physics together.
The bell over the door gave its usual half‑hearted jingle as Wes Vale stepped into the diner, brushing the cold off his jacket and scanning the room with that easy, habitual deputy awareness. The place was warm, humming with low conversation and the clatter of plates, the kind of small‑town comfort he never quite admitted he relied on. He offered a polite nod to the waitress behind the counter before heading toward an empty booth, fingers tapping lightly against the back of the seat as he paused.
“Evening,” he said to whoever was closest, voice friendly but tired around the edges. “Didn’t think this place would be this busy tonight.” He slid into the booth, stretching out his legs with a quiet sigh. “Guess everyone had the same idea. Hide from the cold and hope the coffee’s strong enough to fix the day.” He glanced up, a small, lopsided smile forming. “Mind some company?” // @sterpstarters
“Can I get you anything?”
Anne cringed, realizing too late that the Deputy who had just entered the Diner had still been talking to someone else, but the damage was already done. So, quickly she shot the other customer an apologetic smile before turning back to the Deputy.
She knew Deputy Vale, of course she did. He was a regular but didn’t turn up during her shifts often enough that she could have confidently named his usual order. So instead, she clicked the pen open, hovering it over the page of her notepad and gave him a smile, the typical I-want-to-come-across-like-the-nice-diner-waitress-who-doesn’t-cause-you-anymore-stress-today-smile.
“Oh, and just letting you know, today’s special offer is a free doughnut if you order a milkshake,” she quickly added.
He scoffs, the shock of the question almost pushing a genuine bit of a smile into the motion. He looks to see her standing there, unassuming, with the dog by her side. He's never talked to this girl, not really. Sure, her face is familiar. But he only knows her now from seeing her hanging around Max's friends and the ever-expanding ragtag group they have.
"Couldn't be better," he grits out, turning his head back to the woods. He feels the humming in his eardrums like a bassline warbling out from the trees, seeping down through the roots and into the ground. "You?" He spits the word out with a sarcastic glee, like they're old friends catching up. Like having normal conversations can somehow force him to be anything other than what he is, which he ironically can't even be sure of.
Most days, he feels like a blip of space between frames of film. Like he exists only in moments no one sees, hears, or breathes. Like something else takes over for all the other moments in between.
Anne blinks at him, almost more surprised than he seemed to be at her question. Quite truthfully, she hadn’t expected him to answer, much less to ask back. Although she’s not quite sure how to place his tone of voice. Was he mocking her? Or sincere? It wouldn’t be the first time she failed to read the room, but she quickly decides that if he was the one mocking her, he was the asshole, something she refuses to be. Might be naïve, but what was the worst that could happen? Well, the worst that could happen to her? Billy would probably not be stupid enough to agitate her dog.
Shifting her weight from one leg to the other and back, she quickly thinks about what to tell Billy, before answering slowly.
“Same as always, as always, I guess,” she shrugs, absentmindedly wrapping Sammy’s lead tighter around her hand. “Dry skin from dusty books in the library and I cut my hand on a broken glass in the Diner yesterday-”
She holds up her bandaged hand as if to prove her words.
“And I wish the damn radios would finally stop glitching,” she adds, almost like an afterthought.
Eddie didn’t move at first. He just let her lean into him, let her warmth seep through the leather of his jacket, let her fingers stay tangled with his like she was the only thing keeping him tethered to the here‑and‑now. Maybe she was. When she said she didn’t know he was scared, something in him cracked, not painfully, but like a door finally giving way after being held shut too long. “Anne…” he breathed, voice low, rough. “I’m terrified.” He didn’t say it dramatically. He didn’t joke. He just said it like a truth he’d been swallowing for months. “I don’t look scared because if I let myself show it, I’m afraid I won’t stop. I’m afraid I’ll fall apart and won’t be able to put myself back together again.”
His thumb brushed her cheek again, slower this time, like he was memorizing the shape of her relief. “And the voices? The lights? The… things I’m seeing?” He swallowed hard. “I don’t know what any of it means. I don’t know if it’s the Upside Down, or trauma, or something new. My head’s a mess. I’m trying to be normal again, to be a person who goes to work and pays bills and doesn’t flinch every time a light flickers, but it’s like my brain keeps glitching.” He let out a shaky laugh, humorless but honest. “Everything feels tangled. Like I’m trying to build something on ground that won’t stop shifting. Half the time I don’t know what’s real and what’s just leftover static from dying.”
When she listed their friends, their family, something warm and painful flickered across his face. He turned his head just enough to look at her, eyes shining in the dim light. “You’d raise hell for me,” he whispered with a soft chuckle, giving her hand a squeeze, firm and steady. “And I’d do the same for you. For all of you. Every single one. If anything comes back, if anything tries to take us again, I’m not running. I’m not hiding. I’m not letting it happen.” He leaned his forehead gently against her temple, voice barely a breath. “You’re not losing me, Anne. Not to the dark. Not to the voices. Not to whatever’s clawing at the edges. I’m scared, yeah… but I’m here. With you and I’m not going anywhere.”
The touch of his skin against hers, the soft tickle of his still damp locks against her neck as he leant over- it all suddenly lost the kind of nervous terror that any contact with Eddie had caused her before. Usually, her heart beat in her throat, her cheeks burnt and she feared he could tell how nervous he was able to make her from a single look. If he had ever noticed, he had done her the courtesy to never bring it up, but now his hand around hers, his forehead to hers were anchors in an increasingly crazy world.
Everything seemed to slow down, and for a moment the harsh light of the library staff room, the smell of hot chocolate heated in a microwave that would probably soon go up in flames, and the scratchy fabric of a wooly blanket over the sofa back rest became the foundation of her own personal safe haven. It was such a stark contrast to the feelings she should have, considering what they had just talked about, that she couldn’t help the giggle that slipped past her lips.
“It’s ridiculous, but-” she admitted, turning her head slightly, forehead still pressed to Eddie’s but now able to glance at his eyes – big, dark pools of attention focused on her, “I know I’m scared and all that, terrified even, but when you’re here, I feel safe.”
A shiver went through her, and she brushed her fingers over Eddie’s, feeling the rough skin on his fingertips from where it had gotten accustomed to guitar strings digging into it.
“I’ve felt on edge constantly for- for weeks. But not right now. Not here with you. Thank you.” The words were heartfelt, and a soft smile tucked at her lips, as she glanced at Eddie, whose forehead still was still pressed to hers, who had refused to shy away from her.
In truth, Jonathan was just glad that he'd bumped into Anne. But the two both acting like they had never stopped being friends, still comfortable around each other even through the initial awkwardness, well... it was just nice to have friends again—especially ones that didn't remind him of the evil entity that seemed hell-bent on bothering his brother. And with the promise of continuing this friendship again, hanging out and drinking milkshakes? It was... nice.
Jonathan let out a small laugh, of course Anne would still like The Clash. As if anyone could simply stop liking them. They were just too awesome. "Yeah—photography has kinda been my thing for a while now. I used to take pictures for the Hawkins Post, even. But then I got fired, it was a whole thing... but I still use my camera a lot. I mostly just take photos of the people around me, now."
"I can't believe you're into that too," he shook his head with a smile. "Guess we're really too much alike, huh? I think I like photography more than filming—catching individual moments rather than a whole scene. What about you? What kind of stuff have you been taking pictures of?"
“You’ve worked for the Hawkins Post? That’s incredible!” Anne couldn’t hide her admiration. “Getting in in the first place is an amazing achievement, even though it sucks that they fired you-” she grimaced, before stepping closer, as if sharing a secret with Jonathan. “But my mum once tried to get them to write about my sister’s girl scout group’s cookie sale, and she said all the guys there are total assholes.”
The insult slipped a little too easily over her lips, but the realization just made her smile a little to herself, before she stepped back again as to not overstep Jonathan’s boundaries too much.
“So now you’re doing portrait photography, huh,” she asked, considering Jonathan for a moment before nodding to herself, as if she was trying to imagine him doing it and judging it a good match. “I’m mostly doing nature photography – landscapes, insects, flowers, sometimes a bird or other animals if I find them. And I’m still working at my concert photography style at the Hideout. You know, finding a way of taking pictures that makes them look like… mine. Maybe I should finally try doing my own developing. You got any experience in that?”
Lucas kept alternating between stuffing fries and burger into his mouth like he hadn’t eaten in days, but he actually paused when Annie mentioned that Dustin had only gotten into The Silmarillion because of her. Lucas's eyes went wide as he looked up at her, surprised. “Wait, seriously?” he asked, grinning at the connections between Dustin, Eddie, Annie, and the book. “Okay, that’s actually such a cool set of coincidences and connections. Do you hang out with Dustin sometimes?”
“And people say nerdy stuff doesn’t connect people...” he added with a smile. Lucas honestly believed that sharing a love for fantasy just made friendships deeper, because you could literally spend hours spiraling into theories and philosophy over it. “Okay, this is officially one more reason I’m gonna start reading the book to Max,” he decided finally. “Lots of murder? Sounds promising. And fairytales too. At the end of your typical fairytale, a sleeping princess usually wakes up, right? That could totally work for my story.” He flashed a crooked smile and went back to eating. “I just hope I actually understand The Silmarillion. But if I don’t, I can always ask you three experts,” he added with a playful smirk.
“Have you ever read The Chronicles of Prydain?” he went on. “I loved the five main books so much. But I’m super into comics too. Those are probably my favorite thing to read. They’re just… kind of terrible for reading out loud to Max. So I haven’t really been keeping up with them lately. Even though she loves them aswell,” He smiled a little lopsided. “And with music’s kinda the same right now. I basically only listen to Kate Bush these days because she’s Max’s favorite, and I’m constantly playing her songs for her…” Lucas gave a half-amused grin. Running Up That Hill was, if he was being honest, starting to get a little old — but that definitely wasn’t going to stop him from playing it for Max over and over again.
“What kind of music are you into?” he asked, genuinely curious. If he was being fair, Lucas would listen to almost anything. Unlike a lot of his friends, he didn’t really have one super specific taste in music. There was at least something he liked in pretty much every genre and he was always kind of ready to fall a little bit in love with whatever music someone was recommending to him.
At the question of whether she sometimes hung out with Dustin, Anne shrugged a semi-guilty shrug. “Emotionally I have kind of adopted him, but then again we don’t really… hang out, I suppose,” she answered honestly, before swiveling back to the topic of the Silmarillion. “The Silmarillion is really just the story of the Silmaril, three jewels that were created by an Elven smith. The way it’s written, the book almost reads like… Greek mythology. I don’t know if there really is much to understand, beyond family trees, but hey, if you have any questions, feel free to ask anytime!”
“The Chronicles of Prydain,” Anne continued, after Lucas had asked her about the books. “I haven’t read them. I just know that… Wait, isn’t Prydain the Welsh word for Britanny? And please don’t ask me how I know that… What are they about?”
As Lucas continued talking about the love for comics he shared with Max and the music he was listening to for her, Anne couldn’t help but smile. It was obvious how much Lucas cared for Max, loved her. Be it as friends or lovers or maybe something more like siblings, in the end it was love. And it was quite honestly beautiful to know that there were people in the world who so naturally expressed their love.
The question about her music taste surprised her for a moment, but then she smiled, made a point of flipping her neatly tied back, blond hair over her shoulder to the front and propped her hands against the counter. “Why don’t you take a guess, hm,” she encouraged him, the glint in her eyes giving away that she didn’t believe he would be able to guess right.
"Cool," Steve chuckled at her explanation. He was sure the dog would protect her with his life, another reason he wanted one of his own someday.
As they walked, his eyes scanned over the forest and its makeshift path back to the street. He had walked this trail so many times, thanks to several meaningless hookups, but he had never felt cautious of it until the lights started flickering again.
"Um yeah, yeah I'm still there. I also coach Little League now," he added. Coaching had been surprisingly fulfilling, and it was a start toward deciding what he wanted to do with his life.
"What about you? Still in school?" He couldn't be sure, but she seemed younger than him.
“Uhm, no. I graduated in summer. Along with Nancy,” Anne threw a glance over at Steve. She knew Steve and Nancy had been together before they had broken up (rumor was, it had been Nancy who had ended things, but Anne couldn’t be sure) and Nancy had started dating Jonathan.
“I was supposed to go to college, but…” she sighed. Was she oversharing? Probably. But the way she saw it, they were stuck in Hawkins together, so she might as well try to get along with as many people as possible. A decision she would doubtlessly regret come tomorrow morning. “Things here got weird, with the military and all, so my parents asked me to delay that for at least a year.”
“I didn’t know you’re coaching Little League though!” Appreciation swung in her voice, almost something akin to respect. “Which sport is that? Baseball, right?”
Ollie watched as the woman picked up her pen after it rolled off the table. She watched as Anne placed the pen back on the table with a soft thud. As the woman spoke, Ollie nodded her head slowly, as if she wasn’t feeling sad anymore. Something about Anne made Ollie feel warm; her smile was needed.
This year, Ollie was graduating, and she was nervous about it. She had good grades, but lately she had been struggling because of all the events that had happened. There were times when Ollie thought she was back at the lab again. Those thoughts were reminders. Her mind would wander to the darkest places because that was all she knew.
Today, in this moment, she would try her best, try to make a friend if she could.
“Oh, I thought you were still in school. You just look young.”
After a beat, Ollie looked up at her with her green eyes. They were soft and glossy, probably from crying. But she pretended everything was okay, even if things around her were falling apart.
“Oh yeah, I see you all the time. I come here after school to focus on homework and get a snack.”
Ollie looked back at her work, shuffling her papers around.
“You got that correct. I have to write this paper on The Great Gatsby, which I’ve read a million times. It’s my favorite book. Do you like it, or did you have something else you liked to read?”
Ollie looked back at Anne, waiting for her to answer. This time, she had hope that maybe things weren’t so bad, maybe she could make a new friend, at least.
„Gatsby, hm?“ Anne leant over the table, trying to read some of the notes. “I just read it for school. All I remember of the symbolism is the green light and Eckleburg‘s eyes. Can’t believe I actually good a decent grade on that essay… I would offer you help with the assignment, but I think I can’t keep up with your expertise in that particular book. I’m more a fantasy reader. Or science and music magazines. Not literature. And yes, I know, I should at least read the classics,” Anne laughed quietly, almost feeling a little embarrassed, “but it can’t be helped, I suppose. I just don’t see too much appeal in them, all that dystopian stuff… But I did always like Nick Carraway.”
Anne looked down at the seated girl, then glanced around the Diner. It was almost empty now, usual for this time, but the presence of the military lately had dimmed the people’s excitement to come out of the safety of their houses. If she spent a few minutes longer just chatting, nobody would mind, would they?
“What about you? Do you have a favorite character in Gatsby,” she asked, hoping the lost expression in the girl’s eyes might fade if she could distract her for at least a moment.
The irony of her statement did not escape him, but he decided to keep that to himself as she took back the record. He held his hands up in a gesture, meaning he meant her no offense. "Alright, spitfire. Tell me what I don't know," he challenged with a friendly grin.
Willow was trying to be helpful, but if his opinion was unwanted, hopefully she would at least humor him. She clearly knew a thing or two about music. Despite her youthful appearance, he was open to learning something new from her.
"Anything you can recommend me? I'm a metal sort of guy, but I'll give anything a chance," he explained casually.
She shot him a look from the corner of his eyes, considering for a moment if she actually wanted to do him the favor of continuing to entertain him. But then again, she had hardly any friends as it was. This was a 50/50 chance – either they’d get along great, or he ran as fast as about 90% of Hawkins as soon as she opened her mouth.
“Metal, hm,” she asked, tucking the record under her arm before she turned back to him. “I’m more in the punk scene… Are you looking generally or locally? Because generally speaking, if you’re looking for records…”
Her eyes skipped over the shelf before she pressed past him and reached towards the records stacked under A to D.
“Amebix-” she pulled out a cover and handed it to him, and reached for a second one, “and C. O. C. - Corrosion of Conformity. They’re amongst those that have some metal influences, I’d say. Alternatively, if you wanna give something new different a spin? You can never go wrong with the Beatles, Pink Floyd or Mike Oldfield. And what about you,” challengingly she looked up at him, “what can you recommend?”
Mona blinked, a bit confused. It wasn’t the reference that threw her, but the way Anne said it, like she was bracing for something that wasn’t coming.
"Yeah," she said, nodding easily. "Duchamp. Motion studies. I get it." Her eyes flicked to where Anne’s fingers twisted the apron string, then met her gaze again. "That piece always feels like watching someone sprint through a memory."
She softened, her voice evening out. "And hey, I wasn’t boxing you in. I didn’t mean your photos should look like a baroque painting." A brief, almost sheepish smile tugged at her mouth. "You said you usually shoot landscapes and still subjects, and now you’re trying to capture portraits in motion. I just meant that art naturally leans that way—from stillness toward something more alive. Baroque did it with light and tension. Duchamp did it with repetition and motion. Different forms, but same heartbeat—chasing movement." She tilted her head slightly, that spark of interest still bright in her eyes. "And Duchamp? That’s a sharp reference. Most people don’t think about what movement feels like—they just point and hope for the best." She smiled, light and genuine. "You’ve got vision, Anne. Real vision. You just have to trust it."
When Anne brought up school, Mona’s expression warmed. "College?" she echoed with a smile. "I didn’t go the formal route. Learned by osmosis in New York—hanging around artists, sneaking into gallery openings, loitering in paint-splattered studios that smelled like turpentine and half-eaten takeout." She smiled at the memory, then looked back at Anne. “It was messy, but honest. And it gave me what I needed." Her gaze held steady, voice quieter now. "I get wanting your art to say something. That’s not easy. But I can tell you’ve got the drive for it. So—what do you want to do with it all? Any school you’ve got your eye on? Or are you still figuring it out?"
„I don’t really know anything about Duchamps,“ Anne admitted. „I just wrote an essay about Etienne-Jules Marey-” she cringed at how she butchered the French pronunciation, “and that painting by Duchamps was inspired by Marey’s Chronophotography.”
When Anne realized, Mona obviously seemed so think she was considering art or film school, she couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Well, the dream is Cal Tec, with a scholarship, obviously. For now I’m stuck in Hawkins - thanks strange murders and military-thinking-they-have-to-get-involved-in-everything, but at heart I’m a physics girl. Actually, that’s where the photography comes in. I’d love to work on developing space probes one day, the ones that take pictures. Imagine building a camera and sending it out into space so far away as nobody has ever gone,” Anne grinned, the idea obviously exciting her. “We could collaborate. I take pictures of space, and you create some art that has to do with space or existence or life, and we’ll make an exhibition together – show people that art and science aren’t as far apart as they sometimes might think.”
Billy ★ At the Edge of the Woods
The rotting picnic tables on the outskirts of Forest Hills trailer park have become a place of refuge for him. They sit right where the gravel stops and the brush becomes unkept. It's the one place he mysteriously has a clear enough head to not feel like such a freakshow. The border of the forest seems to hum in a way that quiets everything else raging in his head: the memories from Starcourt, the grating voice of the Mind Flayer echoing in his head, the strange voices screaming out to him in the night, the low, concerned whispers of Max's posse. Might as well be his posse, too, now, with the way they never leave him alone. He feels like their test subject, a volatile specimen that needs to be watched.
He'd kill for a cigarette right now. Tragically, he had to kill that habit. Owens' doctors said his lungs were shot after that Mind Flayer tendril punched a hole in his chest. He would've ignored them if he were able to take a deep enough breath of normal air without breaking into a pitiful fit of hacking.
As wrecked as his body is, his mind's worse. The voices. The nightmares. Flashbacks, hallucinations, panic attacks. All symptoms of PTSD, he's told. But it feels like more. It feels deeper, like an abyssal pit. He can't keep anything straight anymore. For months after the mall, he could barely muster a sentence. He's worked his way partially out of his crumpled shell, but he's far cry from the loudmouthed bastard he was before this shit came into his life.
And he feels this profound, foreboding dread building under his skin with every day that passes. Something is coming, hurtling towards this shithole town like a comet, he can feel it. The itch nags at him every moment of the day, and it only seems to abate when he can decompress here, at the edge of the woods by the trailer park.
The afternoon sun is warm on his skin, the heat soothing in a familiar and basal way. He picks at the splinters in the rotting wood of the table, staring out into the shadowy green of the forest, eyes flitting over the dark emerald of the leaves and the winding stems of weeds and wildflowers.
He enjoys it while he can, because he's never alone for long. He may be on a steep mental decline, but he's nothing if not perceptive. Those dorks that call themselves "the party" are always on his ass for one reason or another. They don't like it when he's unsupervised for too long, and it makes him feel like a goddamn child.
Sure enough, after ample time has passed, he hears the poorly concealed crunch of gravel behind him.
"You rats can't leave me alone for more than five minutes, can you? Piss off." He spits, but it has a tiredness to it. It lacks the bite that a younger Billy would have put into it. "I can't guarantee I won't bite your head off if you keep annoying me."
@sterpstarters
“You can try, but I promise you, he’ll be faster.” Anne’s voice is unamused as she gestures to the dog standing at her side, the two ever a duo, unless she’s at work. “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she apologizes in a softer voice. She doesn’t know everything that happened, only bits and pieces in between from what Dustin told her, the boy she might as well adopt as her younger brother.
Of course, she knows Billy, or knew him. Before Star Court Mall. They sometimes came across each other in the school hallways, and his mop of curls was always her signal to duck into a corner and wait out the storm, until Billy’s walked past.
It’s been… what? A year? Since then. She’s grown more confident since then, and Billy is anything but that. There’s little of the bully left who she was so afraid of in school. As little as she likes him, she still can’t help but feel bad for him, considering what he went through. Even just the physical aftermath of the Mind Flayer must be harrowing. Not to mention the emotional and psychological consequences. She could almost pity him.
She’s turning away already, almost ready to leave Billy Hargrove rot like he deserves to, but a few words, words she has carved deep into her heart in rebellion to her parents’ education, keep pushing against her ribcage. “Being kind is being punk.” She’s still learning how to be the second, but she has the first down like an expert.
So, with a sigh, she turns back to Billy. The dog at her side looks up to her expectantly. “Are you okay?” She tries to make her voice sound soft, not aggressive, not mocking. She can only hope Billy won’t take offence. If he does and is still his violent self from school… she’s not sure Sammy, her dog will be as kind as her.
"Look, I do believe in free choice but—" Willow gently tugged the record from their hands. "There is no way in hell I can in good conscience, let anyone listen to this abomination."
Some people might consider the music he made, the work of the devil himself, but those same people would never know about his broad taste in music. He never hated on other genres, he found inspiration within them all, and he knew that every genre was capable of shit music.
// @sterpstarters
“Excuse you,” Anne raised her eyebrows challengingly at the man.
Something about being out of her soft, baby blue sweater and instead dressed in a diy-ed band shirt and a leather jacket gave her more courage than she was used to. Or maybe it just took away the mask she usually was wearing. Sure, she still didn’t look like a punk, not really. But that didn’t change anything about what was inside.
“I don’t expect you to understand the finer arts of punk rock,” she eyed the vinyl the stranger had taken out of her hands. “But you don’t get to tell a girl whether she gets to listen to the Misfits. That’s between me, and-” she grabbed the record back, leaving no room for discussion, “the Misfits. Or are you going to ask me to name three songs, next? Thank you for your unnecessary interruption.”
Anne turned back to the shelf, twisting the record in her hands, her heart racing. It was still a strange feeling to stand up for herself, but if the countless hours in the Hideout have taught her anything, it’s not to allow men to talk shit about her choice in music. Still, she can’t help but anxiously wait for the reaction of the man, standing still next to her, now empty handed.
Paranoid. That's all Nancy can feel. Paranoid that she's being watched, that the government knows that she knows something. But Nancy feels empty-handed right now; no evidence, no photos, just an alive friend who should have died. Eddie. Of course, she's looking out for Eddie; everyone is, they'd be crazy not to. Eddie, Billy, the Echoes…it's all making Nancy's hair stand on-end, to the point she doesn't hear someone approach the library table she's huddled in, her papers and red string strung across the oak surface as she trying to piece it all together. Why did they come back? And am I being watched right now?
Paranoid.
Can it really be just paranoia when you know you're on the right path?
“Nancy?” Anne carefully approached her former classmate. They had never been close, but the determination to look out for Eddie was what had made them bond. If that’s what you could call it.
The table before Nancy was covered in notes, books, maps, anything that might contain a piece of useful information.
“Is there something I can help you with? Something you’re looking for in particular?” Anne glanced over at Nancy, at the curls, the fingers that ghosted over the papers. As the librarian on shift, she felt like it was her responsibility to help Nancy with her research, at least when it came to supplying her with material. “We just got today’s newspaper, if that’s any help?”
Rory didn’t pull away when Anne’s grip tightened. If anything, she leaned into it—steady, grounding, letting Anne anchor herself however she needed. She listened, really listened, the way she always did when Anne’s brain kicked into overdrive and started sprinting ahead of her mouth. And when Anne finally ran out of words—when the panic and brilliance and fear all tangled together and she whispered no, don’t listen to me—that’s when Rory stepped in. “Anne,” she said softly, but with that unmistakable Rory‑Vale certainty, “I am listening to you.” She reached out and gently caught Anne’s hand before it could fully fall away, thumb brushing over her knuckles. “And none of that was crazy.”
Her voice stayed low, warm, steady—like she was talking someone back from a ledge without making them feel like they were on one. “You’re describing something that actually makes sense. More sense than half the crap we’ve lived through. You’re talking about frequencies and overlap and shadows and—Anne, that’s exactly what this feels like. Like something’s brushing up against our world without fully breaking through.” Rory took a breath, eyes searching Anne’s face with a mix of awe and worry.
“You’re not pulling this out of nowhere. You’re connecting dots the rest of us are too scared to look at.” She shifted a little closer, their elbows still hooked, her voice dropping even softer. “And you don’t have to pretend you don’t believe in parallel universes. We’ve been in one. We’ve seen what happens when the frequencies don’t match. The cold. The shimmers. The shapes that don’t fully load.” Rory’s expression softened, something protective flickering behind her eyes. “You’re not crazy. You’re scared. And you’re smart. And you’re onto something.” She squeezed Anne’s arm gently, grounding her again. “Talk to me. What part of that theory scares you the most?”
Anne stared at Rory for a moment. The fear threatened to swallow her whole, but Rory’s belief in her anchored her.
“We’re talking pure theory here. It’s more unlikely to be wrong than to be right,” Anne began, partially because it needed to be said, partially because she needed to buy time. “What scares me most?”
Her eyes wandered over to the camera Rory was holding, back up to her eyes.
“If we’re talking frequencies, waves, then… I don’t know how much you remember from science class in school. The problem with waves is that if you have more than one wave, or that wave gets reflected or broken or anything, you get an effect with so called maxima. These maxima are higher than the original wave. And you can get an effect called superposition. That also causes stuff like rouge waves, monster waves in the ocean. They’re unpredictable and destructive. If we really assume the whole two or more universes and universe-frequencies-thing, then these rouge waves will eventually occur and I have no idea how or where, or what might happen. It could mean a ripple of shadows at best; it could tear our reality apart at worst. Which brings me to point two: the universes meeting. You said, they feel like they’re brushing against each other. What if they do more than that, like with the Upside Down? What if the other universe starts taking up space in ours? Or the other way around? What happens to the matter, the things, the people at those points?”
Anne’s voice had started shaking, her mind running a thousand miles an hour, both with increasingly terrifying ideas about possible world ending scenarios and at the thrill of it all. If something messed up had to happen, it was at least something exciting like the laws of physics being rewritten.
“Anyway, that’s what terrifies me. Especially because I have literally no idea how or who could fix that, if any of this were to be true.”
Expectantly she looked at Rory, as If the girl before her had the answer to that problem. Maybe she just wished someone could take control of the matter. Anne was sick of static on the radio and glimmers in the air and cold spots and air pressure drops. She wished the problem was as easy to fix like the flickering tv of her childhood. But why would Rory know more about what to do than she did?
Danica didn’t answer right away. She let Anne talk, the way people only do when they’re finally admitting something they’ve been trying to rationalize for too long. And when Anne finished, when the humor slipped and the questions sharpened, Danica’s expression shifted into something quieter, steadier. She stepped a little closer, boots scuffing the pavement, her voice dropping into that low, even register she used when she didn’t want someone to spook. “Yeah,” she said, “I’ve smelled it.” No hesitation. No dodging. Just the truth, offered plainly. “And you’re right — it lingers. The cold, the stink, the way the air feels wrong even after everything looks normal again. That’s not your imagination. That’s not nerves. That’s environmental. Something brushing up against our world and leaving residue.”
She tapped her radio once, not fidgeting now but thinking. “As for the lab?” A humorless huff escaped her. “They weren’t studying the smell. They were studying the pattern. The way the air shifts. The electromagnetic spikes. The way animals react before people do. The smell was just one of the markers.” Her gaze flicked back to Anne, sharp but not unkind. “And before you ask — no, I didn’t work for them. I worked near them. Adjacent. Close enough to see what they were doing wrong, far enough to keep my conscience intact.”
She let that sit for a beat, then softened her tone. “Anne, you’re not the only one noticing this. And you’re not the only one who can smell it. Your family not reacting? That doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. Some people just… don’t pick up on it. Or they don’t want to.” Danica angled her head, studying Anne with a kind of quiet respect. “You do. You notice things. You always have. That’s not a liability — that’s why you’re seeing the shimmers before most people even register the cold.” A small, wry smile tugged at her mouth. “Meatloaf with that smell in the air sounds like a crime against humanity.” Then, more gently, “Tell me something. When it happened in your dining room… did anything else feel off? Lights, sound, pressure in your ears. Anything at all.”
Anne listened intently, soaking up every little piece of information. A trade. A deal.
Her eyes flickered to Rouke fidgeting with her radio, then back up to her eyes, the color strangely piercing in the low light, but not unkind. Anne tried to think back to the shimmers, the lights, the cold, the smell.
“At that time in the living room, it was just the smell, the cold and the lights. Well, first the cold, then that feeling that wind is picking up, and then the lights and the smell. Then the lights leave and the cold and the smell stay. But the day before yesterday-” she thought back to the moment. “I was in the forest, for a walk. With Sammy, my dog. He- he started behaving weirdly, nervous. Then again, the cold, that feeling of a storm. Or when you drive up a mountain in a car, the change in air pressure. And then the shimmers. And we’ve been struggling with the radios all over town. At home, the car, the Diner, the library. And the lights in the Diner, too. But no sounds that don’t seem to have a-”
Anne stopped. A phone call came to her mind. But if she told the policewoman about her friend, the one who technically shouldn’t be alive, the one who was hearing voices, the one who had been hunted for murder (which he hadn’t committed), the one who was infamous for having sold drugs- that probably wasn’t a good look.
“I haven’t heard sounds that… shouldn’t be,” she answered slowly. “But I overheard someone mentioning something like that. Voices that belong to no physical body. And friends told me about their flickering lights too, about their radios. It’s all over town. Things lurking in the corner of your eyes, but you can’t ever see them. But I don’t know any more about that.”
Anne took a breath, gathering her thoughts. “I’ve told you my side. You’ve got to know I want to know why they’re conducting these experiments at the labs. What are they looking for? What are their theories?”
“what— no— it’s not— i wasn’t— this isn’t—!”
dustin practically short‑circuited, words tripping over each other like his dignity was trying to outrun his mouth. his face went red as he immediately flung the bra across the room like it was a live grenade.
“that’s not mine!” he exclaimed, voice cracking halfway up to mars. “it’s—it’s my cousin’s—wait—no—that makes it sound worse!”
he froze, looked at anne, realized the hole he’d already dug, and let out the kind of sigh reserved for failed experiments. “okay! yeah. i’m shutting up now.”
his hands hovered awkwardly for a moment before he cleared his throat and all but scrambled toward her, desperate for rescue by way of electronics. “right, static. static i can handle. radios, i understand.”
he snatched the portable radio from her and fiddled with the dials, the familiar rhythm of buttons and clicks helping cool down the absolute inferno taking over his face. “okay, so if it's all frequencies, it’s not the tuning—it’s more likely interference. maybe the antenna’s loose, or there’s signal disruption from—uh—”
after a second of concentrated tinkering, a burst of faint, warbling music came through the speaker. dustin’s eyes lit up immediately. “ha! see? fixed it.” he grinned, the earlier embarrassment still pink across his cheeks but fading into something more familiar—his usual, excited energy.
“probably just a grounding issue. or, y’know, atmospheric distortion. hawkins is weird like that.” he handed the radio back carefully, brushing a curl out of his eyes.
“It’s not the antenna,” Anne rolled her eyes before shooting her now working radio a dirty look. “You’ve done nothing different than I have done for the past half hour. Traitor!” The last part was directed at the radio.
She looked around the room and flopped down on the sofa, not waiting for an invitation. The internalized voice of her mother was screaming in terror at her rudeness, but she figured Dustin wouldn’t mind too much.
“And atmospheric distortion, really?” This time her glance went in Dustin’s direction. “Nice try, but we both know it’s not atmospheric distortion. Some kind of interference, okay. But it’s not natural. Not anymore.”
She sighed, leaning her head back, thinking back to the many conversations she’s had had recently. If anyone in Hawkins was going to puzzle all the pieces together it might be Dustin. The boy was a walking encyclopedia of scientific knowledge. Why hadn’t she considered talking to him about the weird stuff that had been going on sooner?
Turing her head to look at the still slightly blushing teen, she considered him for a moment. The curls, the lingering embarrassment, the expectantly widened eyes as if he knew the real reason she had shown up uninvited was not for him to fix her radio.
“Dustin,” she started, pursing her lips slightly. “Have you noticed anything… weird, recently?”
Lucas was just relieved he had his little emotional meltdown back under control and that Annie was finally handing him his burger. “Thanks! Mmmh… this looks amazing,” he said, his eyes flashing with excitement for a second. He immediately dug in. After thoroughly dunking his fries in chili sauce, he shoved a whole handful into his mouth at once. Then he grabbed the burger and took a huge, unapologetic bite. “Delicious!” he praised with his mouth full, already leaning in for another bite before he’d even swallowed.
“Of course I like Tolkien! Who in their right mind doesn’t like Tolkien?” he went on, still talking through a mouthful of food while continuing to eat in a way that was not exactly refined. But Annie had survived him nearly bursting into tears earlier, she could probably handle his questionable table manners too.
The way Annie lit up while talking about The Silmarillion made Lucas smile. He always found it kind of adorable when people got that passionate about something, especially when it was something nerdy. “‘The Quantum Physics of Fantasy’ actually sounds really awesome,” he said with a grin. “My friend Dustin’s been telling me forever that I should read The Silmarillion. I mean, obviously I’ve read Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, multiple times. And I read The Two Towers to Max not that long ago. But I’ve never actually dared to tackle The Silmarillion…”
Lucas took another long sip of his Coke and tilted his head slightly. “If you’re selling it like that, I should seriously give it a try. I’ll borrow it from Dustin and read it to Max next.” He smiled and took another big bite of his burger. “Are there as many songs in The Silmarillion?” he asked curiously. “I honestly always skip those. Especially when I’m reading out loud.” Otherwise Max would probably wake up from pure shock if Lucas suddenly started singing a LOTR song to her.
Anne watched in amusement as Lucas shoved a hand full of fries into his mouth as if he was starving. The part of her that had been drilled by her mother to always behave lady-like and never appear wanting, was shivering in terror, but got shoved far away into a back corner of her mind by the part that had learnt not to care. Not about unimportant things like table manners anyway.
“Well, if Dustin tells you to read the Silmarillion, then you better do,” Anne laughed. “Actually I might be the one that got Dustin into that book in the first place… We know each other,” she quickly added, suddenly realizing that it was probably weird for her to know the younger boy, but he had become like a brother over their shared enthusiasm for physics and fantasy. “Now that I think of it… I know Dustin because we started talking about that book, and I met Eddie because of it too. I lost my copy at school, and he found it and gave it back to me. Because he had seen me with it and remembered me because of that.”
“As for the songs… not as many as in the Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit. It’s more like… a really long fairytale. With lots of names. And just as much murder. Very… fun.” The last part was dripping in sarcasm. “But what about you? Any grand book recommendations? Or music?”
