#bth:starter

WHERE: The Strip Mall, SpinCity Laundromat.

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Jonathan never really knows how to spend his weekends. On Saturday afternoons, he’s generally stuck jamming quarters into the dented machines at SpinCity Laundromat – this weekend was no exception. Sitting on a vinyl chair, he watched his clothes mush through grey water and found himself thinking about whether Chinese or Pizza would be on the menu tonight. He was exhausted after a week of dealing with cranky customers at Melvin’s and it showed in the purple bags resting under his eyes. Hawkins has never been a major tourist attraction but the town always doubled in size over the summer as voyagers (with fat wallets) stopped in town while completing their trips to bigger and brighter places.

Jonathan crossed his arms and rested his head on the wall behind him, closing his eyes for a while before jolting awake to the beep of his dry cycle ending. He peeled himself from his chair and crouched to shove clothes in his laundry bag. The bell at the storefront went off as he closed the drawstring and turned towards the entry. His tired eyes widen when he sees [them]. Caught off guard, he opens his mouth but nothing comes out. "H-Hey" It takes him a second to figure out what to say and he glances back at Tara - the laundromat manager and only other person in the store - who is now looking up from their magazine to eavesdrop. One hand goes up to scratch the back of his neck. "I- uh, I guess you also do laundry on Saturdays?"

where: outside town hall!

It was obvious that Jack had bitten off more than he could chew by coming to Hawkins. He knew before he crossed the border into Nevada that this wouldn’t be easy, because of who Max was. Because they’d always been similar, and he had a tendency to be stubborn and could hold a mean grudge. But after the first night, the big blowup, things had been... evening out. He hesitated to say they were on good terms, Max was still acting like a caged animal some days, but they were getting used to each other again. The hostility was less blatant. 

When Max had mentioned a town hall meeting, Jack had to bite back a groan. Town hall meetings were never for good reasons, that much he knew, and when Max got dodgy about what was going on, Jack knew he had to attend. If only to keep an eye on things with her and this Lucas Charles Sinclair. So, he fished out the singular button-down shirt he’d packed, halfway smoothed out the wrinkles, and taken a seat in the back of the room. If he hadn’t been so goddamn shocked by the mention of an explosion that killed five people, Jack probably would’ve applauded his niece’s thinly-veiled disdain for the boys in blue. 

..

Unsurprisingly, the cops gave little to no information, and Jack could tell that everyone was just as frustrated as him. Still, he was sure Max knew something more about this-- why else would she have avoided telling him about it? When the Chief ended the meeting, Jack stood up and scanned the room for his niece. The chair she’d been sitting in was vacant, and he didn’t even see her boyfriend, who easily stood a head above the crowd. Jack pushed through the crowd to get to the street, which was a dead end too. Frustrated, he locked eyes with the first person he saw: “Have you seen Max? Mayfield?” He paused, cast another cursory glance at the crowd milling around them. If he knew Max, she was long gone by now. But, maybe this stranger could help enlighten him on whatever the hell was going on. “What exactly is going on? What’s the explosion all about?” Jack asked, not thinking to clarify that he was new in town and not pulling the stranger’s leg. 

where: Hawkins Public Library

Shockingly, Hawkins Public Library didn’t have anything resembling an internship program, but that didn’t stop Suzie. The first day she was in town, she’d walked in and explain why they needed her. And, upon further inspection, they really needed her. What library wasn’t already digitizing their catalogue in ‘88? They couldn’t pay much, but Suzie didn’t mind. She just wanted something to do while Dustin worked. 

The first few days of her faux-internship were spent setting up her workspace. Of course, they had a computer-- but of course, it wasn’t rigged the way she needed it to be. Today, Suzie’s goal was to create a data entry program so she could easily grab and enter the library’s catalogue, and, eventually, they could check out books without writing or stamping. Ignoring the librarians looks of alarm, Suzie clocked in and got to work. After a few hours, she was ready to test her system. 

Suzie knew exactly what she wanted to use for her experiment, so she made a beeline to the fantasy section. On the way there, a patron stopped her which-- given her Hawkins Public Library name tag-- made sense, but she was still surprised. “Sorry!” she exclaimed, turning and facing the other. “What was that?” 

this hick town in the center of nowheresville, usa! gave a new definition to the meaning of shithole. thad felt the soles of his shoes get significantly filthier as he stepped through this indiana idea of a downtown. all for nancy, he supposed. the thought made him roll his eyes, but at the end of the day, he definitely couldn’t afford to start senior year without a babe on his arm. 

desperately convinced she was on the brink of breaking up with him because she hadn’t written, thad did the only rational thing and drove to her hometown to make sure they wouldn’t happen. he hadn’t announced his arrival to her yet, of course. if she was prepared to split it off, he’d have to woo her back into his arms, and that started with buying her flowers. thad was kicking himself for not stopping sooner, or calling the florist back home for an order, because no matter where he stopped in, he couldn’t find anything suitable. entirely irritable, he firmly grasped the shoulder of the nearest passerby, effectively stopping them in their tracks, “excuse me,” he cleared his throat, belated. “could you happen to point me in the direction of this town’s most bangin’ florist?”

technically, the pool was closed, but that just meant that it was closed to the public. lucas had volunteered to close that evening and had just finished up locking up the concessions and cleaning out the filters. he glanced over his shoulder, just in case, but he was alone now. he stepped up to the diving board and squinted out at the pool. it was hard to believe this was the same space he’d had to wrangle six middle schoolers from cracking their heads running to the diving board or had to jump in to save toddlers without their floaties. it was so…calm.

lucas counted to five and then jumped. the hangtime was the best part.he wished they had a high dive here. before he knew it, he was underwater. he reoriented himself to face forward and swam down towards the floor of the pool. with each kick, the pressure was mounting. he could feel it in his ears. and he was kind of out of shape from not being able to run as far and as fast as he was used to, so his lungs burned a little bit. but lucas still kept going until his palm touched the bottom of the pool. then, he flipped over and kicked off from the bottom, breaking the surface and drinking in air hungrily.

as he shook the water out of his face, lucas could make out the shape of…someone. “hey,” he breathed, paddling towards the edge. “we’re closed, you know.”

where: middle of the road

what was he doing? was he really about to go to a barbecue that was being thrown at the wheeler’s house? he had been invited, of course, but something didn’t feel right on just showing up there. how was he going to react when he saw nancy? and worst of all, how was she going to react? all of these thoughts were going through his mind as he drove - he should have been paying the attention to the road, but luckily he snapped out of his own head just in time to spot someone crossing the road right in front of his car. without even thinking, steve hit the brakes as hard as he could, his body leaning forward with the abrupt stop and before he knew it, he was honking the horn in protest, before sticking his head out of the window to get a better look at the person who was standing in front of his car.

“what the hell are you doing, dingus? you can’t just... walk in front of my car like that, you could have damaged it! i mean, you could have gotten hurt.” steve said, shaking his head as he ran a hand through his hair - both of them had been lucky, he thought to himself as he took a deep breath. “you going to the wheeler barbecue or what?” he asked, once it got awkward enough - they couldn’t just be there forever and the person didn’t seem to move, and steve definitely couldn’t run over them.

normally, jenny wouldn’t be caught dead at the public pool. they had their own pool in the backyard, of course, but while that was good for sunbathing and socializing with her friends, it didn’t give the best views. her friends always liked watching the lifeguards at the pool or scoping out the swim team as they did offseason workouts at the club. her family’d had a membership at the country club for as long as she could remember, but for some reason, her father’d forgotten to pay the membership fee for the month of july. that left jenny with two choices: tan at her place and be subjected to her mother’s complaining or go to the public pool and schmooze with hawkins lower tax bracket.

for a few days, she’d suffered through afternoons lounging at home. erica sinclair, tracy tyler, and mindy novak kept her company. but the girls were all busy today and jenny couldn’t stand the idea of listening to her mom on the phone with her dad asking why he wasn’t back from his conference yet for another day. so she’d packed up her beach bag and set off for the pool. 

she’d spent a lazy afternoon tanning and eyeing heather holloway from behind a book she wasn’t even reading and even got some boy to buy her an ice cream while she ignored his stories of his exploits on the football team last year. jenny knew the kid, of course. he’d rode the jv bench all year. but a couple of well placed eyebrow raises and smiles and she’d gotten what she’d wanted. as usual. 

a few hours later, she headed for the parking lot to go home. there would be a party to go to or a friend to bother this evening, after dinner with her grandparents, of course. but when she put the key into the ignition of a sportscar she’d never wanted but her daddy had bought her as an apology for missing her cheerleading senior night, the engine sputtered, turned over, and made a wheezing noise that even jenny could tell wasn’t quite right. “are you serious?” she said, like the car was going to talk back to her and slammed a palm into the steering wheel for emphasis. the car, predictably, did nothing but cough some more. jenny rolled down the window and killed the ignition, leaning out into the parking lot and waving at a passerby.

“hey. you. yeah. you think i could grab a lift?” she jutted her lower lip out in a pout and tipped her head. “unless you’re any good with cars...?” asking for help was something jenny hated doing, but she needed to get home. she had better things to do than hang out at the public pool. important things. meaningful things...at least, she hoped she did.