#vr:open

maybe max was in denial that hawkins was hosting it’s second missing persons case, but if she was being brutally honest with herself, that wasn’t the first instance of denial she’d felt since coming home. it could wait though. it could wait. besides, she wasn’t entirely convinced this wasn’t ptsd. maybe if she started seeing clocks, she’d be a little more worried. when in doubt, it could always still get worse! for now, she was preoccupied with luke and keeping akeem’s nose out of shit. she didn’t know the kid too well, but max had gathered he wasn’t crazy about mike, which, she couldn’t blame luke for. 

she also knew the chances that he was merely hiding out or had run away were probably pretty slim given everything else going on, but max remembered being close to his age, the draw to stashing oneself away. so, max thought about where she used to hang out, and other than the skate park, the carcass of benny’s was her favorite for when she wanted to go undisturbed. especially after el had moved and billy was gone. max had no idea what kids did nowadays in hawkins, but it was worth a shot. nobody bothered her or found her there back in the day. well, except lucas, sometimes, which was annoying to her then.  leaves and nails and broken floorboards crunched under her feet as she examined the new graffiti about bush and lance bass coming out last month. there were other various names and sports titles scrawled everywhere. it was a little more rundown, but mostly the same-- a teenage place of worship. if one thing was absolutely certain, even through the dark, it was that luke was not here. she sighed and sat down, frustrated that her teeny tiny lead had been for nothing. how did people like nancy and jonathan do this shit? “fuck.” she kicked a beer can when she heard crunching near the entrance. max held her breath when she popped to her feet, grabbing a...bong? from the table next to her as a weapon as opposed to choppy the knife, which was always on her person. except for court.

 when max was met with a familiar face, she lowered her arms and let her shoulders slump a little, “thought luke might have run off somewhere.” defeated, she set the bong down and leaned against the back of a tattered couch, arms crossed, “it’s nowhere that i know of.” max crossed her arms and rolled her eyes in an effort to seem casual amidst her discomfort, “and i used to know like, every spot.” the silence hung heavy for a moment before she figured she’d ask, “any news or...?” her face scrunched up, “actually what are you doing here?” 

WHAT: a little eulogy-prep, nothing dark!

"Joyce was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of person," Murray mutters, taking a few quick paces towards the wall and back. With a frown, he crosses it out, deciding it was too cheesy. "Joyce was the best of us... Joyce was--" he threw the notebook at the ground with a grunt, turning to continue his pacing when the door pushed open. "Excuse me!" he bellowed, hands on his hips as he surveyed his intruder. "I'm working on something here, could you--?" he batted his hand, indicating they should fuck off. On second thought, though, a captive audience? Murray sashayed to the door and closed it behind the other, pointing to the pew bench. He cleared his throat and started again: "Joyce was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of person--" he paused, taking a swig from the flask tucked into his jacket pocket. "That's cheesy, right? I mean, fuck, not like she's gonna care, but I've got a reputation here."

Hawkins always seemed chipped and frayed at the edges, one of those towns tourists and those passing through would call quaint. Small town charm. Only that was just the thing, people were never just stopping by for a visit. This town, in all of its decaying buildings would have a way of sinking its claws into you. Summer night's humidity still clinging to the air, damply and warm it would settle against the night as something thick. Lingering. There were always things lingering here, the kind you would make a point of to ignore.

It wasn't any better inside of The Hideaway, there were the ever obvious things everyone was doing a poor job of avoiding discussing. After all a town like this thrived in gossip. Amongst the dim lights, where condensation settled on table tops from patrons drinks, and the night only seemed to grow later by the hour, Ryan sat at the same spot at the bar he normally would. A hand idly resting on his glass, swirling the last remaining remnants of his drink. He'd only make a sideways glance to the person who came up to stand beside him before asking the bartender, "Another please. And one for my friend here."

max hated funerals. she’d been to enough to last her a lifetime, and they never got easier. she never understood why they were so drawn out, the wake one day, the ceremony the next, and the overpass after. what were they even supposed to do during all of the social events? talk about how sad they were? no thanks. max hadn’t even seen these people for thirty-some years, let alone share her feelings with them. at this point, she thought they should rename the town: hawkins, home of the funeral home! max arrived promptly an hour late, dressed head to toe in black, to avoid being detected and planned on sticking to herself, paying her respects, and getting out of there to mourn alone. immediately, she slipped towards where the coffee was set up, trying to buy herself some time before she entered the viewing room. beyond the blatant disbelief that she was back came the disbelief that joyce was gone. she watched cheap coffee pour into her styrofoam cup, deep in thought when the hot liquid spilled over and scorched her hand. “shit.” she grumbled, shaking it off. when max felt a presence beside her, she proceeded to tear open a sugar packet and dump it into her drink, but when the person didn’t leave, she sighed and spoke, “this shithole has a holiday inn now, but the only place i can get free coffee is a wake, how fucked is that?” with a shake of the head and a sigh, max secured the lid over her cup then sipped. she finally faced the other, unable to help the natural quirk of her brow when she clocked who it was. “oh…” a breath, “hey.”

WHAT: a little grocery shop + existential crisis

WHERE: melvald’s general store

no matter how many shows he’d played in foreign countries, strange cities - coming back to hawkins after so many years, they all seemed much more familiar than his former hometown. of course, it still looked the same. most of it did, anyway. downtown hawkins had barely seen any changes to its landscape, except for the changing around of outdated shops to new ones, satisfying the demand. which, eddie was sure, couldn’t be very high in a town like this, but alas.

and yet, despite it all, the sight of hawkins, the very air of it, offered no familiarity, no comfort at all. it was stifling, if anything, momentarily making him break out in a cold sweat. that shop over there, where the record store once was - to eddie it’d always be the spot billy hargrove and his goons shoved him into the brick wall and left him with a stately black eye. and that bench over there, forever connected with the memory of mrs. pillsbury calling him a ‘disgrace’, a ‘deranged murderer’ in passing. 

the fact that he had even managed to come back amazed him, seeing as the highway to hawkins had been an anxiety riddled disaster of a drive. no, he’d have never set foot in this town willingly, if it wasn’t for joyce byers. and for his uncle, too. it felt good to see wayne, even if that reunion was laced with the bitter taste of guilt in his mouth, because eddie definitely didn’t call often enough.

which brought him to the parking lot in front of melvald’s general store - eddie had felt guilty enough to suggest he venture out alone into the town, bring home some groceries, beer, whatever else wayne might need. his uncle was getting older, and if anything, that funeral invite had made it abundantly clear that prioritising your loved ones was getting more important than ever.

here he was, alone, back in hawkins, slamming the car door shut while simultaneously putting some rocked down basecap onto his head. to conceal his identity as good as possible, and for the first time in a long time, not because he’d risen to a small degree of stardom that had catapulted him into being a somewhat easily recognizable public figure, but so that the older townspeople who, eddie was sure, still held grudges, didn’t catapult him with insults or chase him out of hawkins with torches and pitchforks.

with his hat pulled as far down onto his face as possible, he didn’t see who he was approaching on a straight course until it was too late, and their shoulders had already collided. “shit - sorry, my bad. you okay?”