The Tapehead

Hawkins PD: I've seen more investigative efforts made in an episode of Scooby Doo.

“…Do you,” He spoke slowly, gaze only momentarily wandering to Max, not focused. “Do you … want coffee?” He then glanced back at the fridge.  “Also, we have like, toast – no butter.”

The Post was probably a zoo right now. Nancy would already be there sharpening knives over her keyboard. The big bosses coordinating interviews with Chief Powell.

Jonathan’s attention flicked back to the TV.  This was a mess.

“Have we gotten any calls, Eddie?”

She hovered for a second, unsure if this interaction counted as lingering. If she was overstaying an invitation she wasn't given. But Jonathan didn’t seem to mind, and if he did, Chrissy didn't clock it. Her gaze flicked from the curb and then back to the tailgate like she didn't fully know what to do. Back away? She didn't really want to back away and, did Jonathan Byers always look this lonely when they were in school together? Screw it.

"Is this okay?" Chrissy asked, already halfway to sitting. Her voice was gentler, more like she was testing the atmosphere than asking permission. She landed lightly beside him, smoothing the hem of her skirt, almost instinctively.

She should’ve kept walking. It was getting late, but she still had probably three more booths to visit, kids to check on. But something about this small moment — the smell of cake frosting and cigarette smoke in the air — felt rare. Like something she might not get back.

"I didn’t think I’d end up back here either," she admitted after a beat. Her eyes stayed forward. "But, you know." Life. It was the kind of thing people said when they didn’t have a better explanation. When it was too complicated to get into and too weird to laugh off.

Her gaze dropped to the camera bag at his feet, a little frayed at the seams. She liked that. The evidence of use. Of time. "So..." she trailed, trying her best to find something about him so the conversation wasn't solely on herself. “Photography?”

It sounded dumber out loud than it had in her head. Of course he did photography. There weren't many times she had ever looked in his direction, but when she had — a glance or two, he always had a camera in his hands or around his neck. It actually made perfect sense.

"Does that like, pay well?" Wrap it up, Chrissy, wrap it up.

It took a lot of strength to hide a laugh behind his cigarette. It didn’t even feel like a particularly funny sentence, but Chrissy apparently inventing the archetype prompted his lips to purse, hiding any indication of how crazy it sounded. “Is that … what they called you?” He asked, curious without a hint of teasing. It’s not like Jonathan knew anything about her social life back in the day. If she did smoke, he certainly wouldn’t have gotten an offer to exist in the same smoke pit. God forbid a party, if he’d ever received an invite that wasn’t first pushed by Nancy.

Jonathan caught on to the way she hovered, and it only made him more uneasy on the tailgate, like maybe he’d made her feel obligated to plop her ass down beside him. He didn’t move at all when she did … just offered a slight kind of acknowledgement with a shift in posture. Loosening a little as a welcome without saying anything at all. Lizards did this type of thing when a threat was near.

Then he coughed, voice cracking a little. “Yeah, it’s okay – um, do you mind the smoke?” It was the courteous thing to ask. He hadn’t been around anyone with asthma since Will used to get wheezy at the change in seasons. Either way, he angled the cigarette slightly away from her just in case.

The silence didn’t feel tense to him. He wasn’t in a rush to kill it and, honestly, Chrissy seemed to be doing the heavy lifting herself. “Where’d you go? After high school, I mean.” He wasn’t sure if it was right to ask. Maybe a sore spot? Jonathan always kinda wondered what it would be like to fully leave Hawkins for more than a single vacation at a time.

Photography perked him right up.

He ran a hand through his curls in a way a that signified whatever was about to come out of his mouth would fall short of what he really wanted to say. The pay was shit. “Photography’s kind of a funny thing,” He chewed a bit on his inner cheek. “The Post pays decent wages and my schedule’s all over the place, but I think that’s why I keep at it – I have a knack for, I don’t know … Chasing journalists.” He paused. The clarification mattered more than it should. “With a camera.”

The firework show that had started fifteen minutes ago.

He finally, blessedly, managed to squeeze in between an obnoxious cherry red convertible and a Buick. Lucas was spilling out of the driver's seat before he even put it in park, gathering the sweater, bug spray, and two bags of Bugles under one arm while he turned the lock with the other. He strained to hear the band, trying to place how far along in the theatrics they were as he booked it to the little patch of grass the party had claimed.

Lucas stopped short when he heard a familiar voice calling out, turning on his heel to see Jonathan behind the church, unlit cigarette in his fingers. "Oh-- hey, Jonathan," he smiled, glancing back at his car and nodding. "Uh-- yeah, in my car. One sec?" Lucas deposited his belongings on a nearby bench, jogging back across the street to rummage through his eternally cluttered center console. He returned to Will's brother with a cobalt blue lighter in his hand, which he passed over.

When Jonathan's eyes dropped to the odd collection of items in Lucas' care, he rolled his eyes. "Mom says that I have to run errands for her whenever she wants. 'Cause I'm still on her insurance-- but like, what kid can pay for car insurance off a dishwashing job?" He shrugged, taking a seat on the bench and resigning to his fate of missing the fireworks show. One pro? He wouldn't have to pretend not to see his dad get all teary-eyed about the national anthem.

"You working?" Lucas asked, gesturing at the church behind them.

His eyes flicked over to the sweater, snacks, and bug spray that Lucas plopped down on a nearby bench, “How much do they pay for dishwashing these days?” He said with a slight tilt, warm. A small smile tugged at the overall look. “You’re like a lawn chair and cooler away from moving into one of the kiosks.”

Jonathan jutted his chin toward the church behind them when Lucas asked about work. It kinda hurt his brain to play it back in his head. “Yeah, I was working the wedding at the church. Freelance gig.” He scratched the back of his neck with the butt of his cigarette. “Bride cried. Groom did the worm and, uh – I think the flower girl tried to pickpocket me, but it was decent cash.”

The cigarette still dangled from his hand unlit. Not entirely forgotten but the negotiation on whether to light it paused. He leaned back into the tailgate, metal creaking a bit while his thumb brushed idly over the side of Lucas’s lighter. “Have you seen Will or El out there today? They said they might come. I wasn’t sure if they made it out.”

She gave a nod in response to it all. "I can handle it," she countered, not quite in disagreement with the workload. A classic, Jonathan-structured compliment followed: a simple statement, as though his opinion was just something to casually point out. "Everyone else's just ... busy this weekend." Busy attending the things she was on the clock for: childless and spouseless, Nancy's plans fell to the bottom of the list of importance.

Some things never changed. They'd always been treated differently at the Post; Jonathan with one of the busiest weekends of the summer off, and Nancy covering everything on the calendar. "Well, I--I'll leave you to your weekend off, then," she offered, saving them both from continuing the small talk.

He shot up from the tailgate before she could retreat to her own vehicle. The motion startled the unifinished cake plate, which slid off frosting-first and fell somewhere on the asphalt beside him. Without really thinking, he nudged his chin toward his camera bag like it was the most natural thing in the world. “I can … I can, uh, call Jerry and pencil myself into the schedule.” He offered the lifeline, trying to keep it light, as if it wouldn’t be more enjoyable to spend his Sunday rotting in bed with a box of cereal and a headache. “Hank’s okay with the camera but the guy takes a smoke break every six minutes.” He added the detail like it somehow the whole proposition sound reasonable.

“Your mom’s working?” he asked, catching up enough to keep her in earshot. Jonathan had the decency to look vaguely sheepish when Max mentioned the discount, which made him feel old and also like a fraud. Still, he didn’t say no. Not out loud.

A pause, then he added. “And the pay was fine,” he circled back to her earlier question. “Not exactly funding a vacation, but, you know…”  He walked while undoing one of the tighter buttons on his collared shirt. “It’ll cover replacing one of my lens caps and that’s pretty good in my books.”

Once the Diner came into view, the first thing Jonathan noticed were the fluorescent lights buzzing and a TRY OUR NEW SHAKES sign hanging crooked in the window. He squinted at it, then looked back at Max. Head tilted. “If they have creamsicle, they’re gonna have a hard time getting rid of me around here.  

There had been a time she'd thought the two of them would have a wedding on a night just like this one: on the very edge of summer, when the skies turned more pink than blue, leaving the kind of orange glow Jonathan used to chase with his lens. Nancy nearly thought to ask how it'd gone, but kept the morbid curiosity at bay, instead opting to accept his answer with a simple nod.

"Yeah," she replied, "I'm supposed to cover everything this weekend." Being the most junior staff reporter meant covering the kind of suburban fluff that happened on weekends, when the rest of the men with decades on her got to sit home while their wives took their children to these kinds of things. "You're not, um, assigned to anything this weekend, are you?"

His gaze shifted back to her, then dropped to the recorder again. The thing looked almost identical to the one he used to see on his bedside … or perhaps even the passenger seat of his car, coiled in the seatbelt and on its way to getting lost in the abyss near his console. It used to annoy the crap out of him, but now it just felt like a throwback. Jonathan kicked his heel against the back bumper once, absently.

“You’re covering it all, then? – Solo?” He paused. “Feels like a lot.” There was no judgment in the statement. He didn’t mean it as a dig. It sounded like a weird kind of praise, if anything. “You were always pretty good at, you know. Heavy lifting.” Jonathan scratched the edge of his brow, almost offhand. He didn’t add anything else. Didn’t need to. "And - no, I uh, I'm off duty this weekend."

Chrissy flinched, but she still turned toward the voice, half-expecting a drunk groomsman or one of the high schoolers trying to sneak off for a smoke. But instead... Shit, was that Jonathan Byers? It took her a second to place him. The lighting was bad, and truthfully? Chrissy couldn't remember a time she had ever had a conversation with the guy. Still, Hawkins was a small town and they had gone to school together for all their lives until college.

She tilted her head at the cigarette and then was quick to begin digging in her purse. "Just might be your lucky day," she said, clearly surprised at herself. She pulled out a tangled keychain, granola bar wrapper with half a granola bar still in it, and - "Aha!" A tiny cherry-red lighter. She offered it over to him without much thought.

Then, Chrissy glanced down at the half-eaten cake. Then the kids in the distance. She let out a breath of a laugh. "Looks like you found the good part of the party."

He lit the cigarette with a practiced click. One slow drag, and then he leaned back slightly on the tailgate. Thank God. Moments like these made him feel like his mother, sighing over a cigarette as if it could make a whole damn day disappear. Chrissy’s comment made him glance over his shoulder back towards the church.

“Yeah …” Jonathan said, accompanied with a breathy laugh. “Yeah. It’s … It’s pretty quiet over here. Less screaming and uh … glitter.” He flicked a phantom speck of dust from his shoulder, stalling for a moment, and took a drag from the cigarette.

When Chrissy said he could keep the lighter, his hand sort of froze mid-air. He held it out for her in his sweaty hand. “You sure?” There was a flicker of hesitation but when the offer hung between them, he slipped the lighter into his shirt pocket. “Thanks, really.”

Then a beat. The kind of silence that might have ended this whole interaction if he didn’t say anything.  

“I haven’t seen you around in a while,” he admitted, “I thought you were … I don’t know. somewhere else.” Jonathan felt like his brain was short circuiting. He winced internally. “In a good way.” Another pause. His brow furrowed as his eyes shifted from the ciggy to her face. “Do you … smoke, by the way?” He asked almost cautiously. Not judging, just curious. A question within a question in the event that she actually wanted a seat.

He turned to her booth like it surprised him that she was there. Not because she shouldn’t be ... but because she looked so settled behind that folding table ... School colours practically glowing in the heat. She looked... established, which was weird considering that she’d just started the job.

"Wow," Jonathan scratched the back of his neck. Stepped closer. A little crooked smile tugged at his expression. “Full Hawkins High spirit mode. You’re killing it." He said, eyeing up the display.

The comment came from a place of quiet affection, not teasing so much as acknowledging how nice it was to see. Joyce - his mom - at the heart of a place that used to make them all feel like they didn't quite belong. Kinda poetic, really. Jonathan picked up one of the green/gold water bottles and turned it in his hand.  “You holding up okay? This all feel... good?” His brow lifted faintly. “You look like the only person here not about to pass out.”

He glanced down again at the table, plucked a lanyard between two fingers. “Also, not to alarm you or anything … but I think I might take one of these. My car keys are being held together with a bread tie.”

Hard not to. Max had that kind of presence ... something sharp. A little defiant. She was like a heat mirage. Skimming past the vendor booths on four wheels. Red hair catching the last sliver of sun on this fine summer evening.

He was still in his dress shirt from earlier, sleeves rolled up with a tie half-stuffed into his pocket. The freelance wedding gig had wrapped about an hour ago and he smelled like frosting and sweat. Thank god for vendors because the boy needed a real snack.

What he hadn’t expected was to be publicly called out for being, apparently, pathetic. He blinked. “Wow,” he said, dryly. “Hi to you, too.” And then chaos ensued. Max, doing some strange weaponized act of kindness-slash-theft was suddenly distracting the vendor like it was well practiced. He barely had time to react before she walked away from the scene of crime, victorious, holding out some shiny trinket or snack or ... what was that, even?

Jonathan stared at it. Then at her.

“Max,” he said slowly, low. A tired voice that suggested both concern and a decent amount of resignation, “I don’t think that counts as free.” He stood visibly unsure if he was supposed to scold her or not. Then sighed. “You know there’s, like… laws,” he added. He didn’t walk away. Didn’t take the thing from her either. Just stood there on the edge of the vendor booth like some awkward NPC who couldn’t figure out whether he was part of this quest or not.

“…What even is that?” he asked, cautiously, as if the answer might give him an excuse to let it slide.

When Max clocked the state of him, Jonathan glanced down at himself too, like he hadn’t realized what he looked like until she said it. “Wedding gig,” Jonathan said simply, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the church. “Hired me for some portraits, reception stuff…” He scratched his jaw, the corner of his mouth twitched faintly. “I got paid cash, though”

He shrugged. Something quiet and fond in the gesture. Casual, but not careless. “You hungry?” There was a diner close by. Probably better than lukewarm funnel cake and whatever mystery meat was still hanging around some of these heat lamps at this time of day. “I hear there’s good burgers at one of the new joints.” He added, then looked at her sidelong. A bit of restrained teasing now. “If you promise not to steal the napkin holder.”

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: Main Street Block Party - 8:30pm. Parking lot near St. Francis Parish Hall.

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓: Jonathan is wrapping up a freelance photography gig that so happens to coincide with a huge block party. How fun!

The wedding was still going when Jonathan ducked out. Last he saw, the flower girl was asleep under a folding chair and someone’s uncle was butchering TIME AFTER TIME at the mic. Jonathan wasn’t a guest … just the guy they’d hired to shoot it all. A freelance gig that he’d landed through word of mouth and, honestly, who could turn down a hundred bucks with a dinner plate included? He was in a nearby parking lot now, parked crooked along the back edge. His day had started early with portraits and ended somewhere more unfortunate with the bride crying with makeup halfway melted off. Jonathan sat on the tailgate of his car, tie loosened, camera bag by his feet, with a half-eaten slice of cake sweating through a paper plate beside him. Somewhere not far off in the distance there were fairy lights blinking behind the church hall. A couple of kids running around unsupervised. One of them was wearing a plastic crown while the other kept throwing wedding rice at the moon. The sound from the block party bled in from Main Street. A meeting of worlds. Laughter. Fireworks that weren’t part of anyone’s permit. Jonathan rubbed at his temple. It smeared a bit of sweat into his hairline but his shoulder ached oh so damn bad from holding the camera all day. All the film was already safely tucked away in his trunk – pretty good shots, he thought. Quiet ones. Unpolished. Then, he pulled a cigarette from behind his ear and stared at it like it might light itself. It didn’t. “Shit,” he muttered. Jonathan fished through his pockets with one hand. Nothing … but just when almost all hope was lost, someone passed by. The timing was too perfect to ignore. He didn’t even check who it was. “H-hey,” he called out, a little hesitant at first. God, was that creepy? Too late to reconsider! He lifted the cigarette. “You got a light?”

Nancy clutched her notebook and recorder to her chest as she headed toward the parking lot, satisfied with what she'd gotten out of the party. She doubted anyone but the women over fifty in town was going to read the accounts of groundbreaking family fun that would hit the Lifestyle section, anyway. The sky had darkened, leaving just minutes of light left for her to drive home under.

She hadn't even noticed the figure at the back of its vehicle, but the first utter of an uneasy greeting had Nancy's blood turn cold. Perhaps an olive branch of sorts, an invitation to finally talk outside the walls of the Post building. Instead came the request for a light, something Jonathan knew she wouldn't have, and it was then that Nancy realized the greeting wasn't meant just for her.

"I'm afraid you've stopped the wrong person," she answered, their eyes only meeting as he recognized just who he'd stopped in their tracks. Nancy's gaze darted downward, finding the camera beside his feet. "I didn't realize you were shooting this. I thought it was Hank's event."

“Oh – I’m not,” He admitted quickly, “Shooting it, I mean. That’s still … Hank. Or it was supposed to be.” His voice caught somewhere between wanting to explain himself and not wanting to explain anything at all. All the ruckus from Main Street caught his attention momentarily. Relief.

“I just wrapped a gig – wedding across the street.” He lifted the unlit cigarette faintly, hand dropping afterwards. “Not uh ... Not exactly newsworthy.”

Then came a softer beat. Jonathan reached down and flicked a crumb of cake off the plate beside him. Gave the faintest smile. He didn’t really have to ask what Nancy was doing here. The recorder clutched close to her chest was enough evidence of what she’d been up to. If he wasn’t nicotine deprived maybe he would have come up with something more elaborate to say. “They put you on block party?”  

Time was a funny thing. One day, four years ago, The Hargrove-Mayfield caravan rolled into town, and Max hated it. Hawkins showed it's true colors fairly quickly, in spite of it, she felt a sense of belonging for a brief period of time, then went back to hating it. Now, on the precipice of her senior year, Max still wasn't fond of Hawkins. Whoever said time heals all wounds, or she'd come around, or whatever bullshit, was a big fat liar. In theory, she was supposed to meet the rest of "The Party" (she didn't even play Dungeons and Dragons) behind the barricades that corralled in vendors on main. But she hadn't had a social life this robust in years, so she was comfortable taking her time before surrounding herself with Dustin, Lucas, and Mike and their nonsense for hours on end. Max set her skateboard down in the streets, weaving between booths and bodies freely, reveling in the glare or two she got. She'd miss Summer. Booth after booth flew past in bright blurs of green and gold until one thing, or rather person, stuck out. Max skidded to a stop at the familiar face doing their best, but failing miserably to haggle. Just her area of expertise! Like she'd done a million times before, she tucked her board beneath her arm and approached. "This is kind of pathetic." She informed the other person, then raised her brows to say now watch how it's really done. With the sweetest, most fabricated concern, Max chimed in to the vendor, "Excuse me, I think that kid just ran off with one of your products." She pointed in the opposite direction, and when the vendor naturally looked and began to yell, she snagged something off the table. She'd had worse days, worse deeds. Grinning, she slowly walked away from the booth, holding the item in her hand for the other to take, "See? Now it's free."

Hard not to. Max had that kind of presence ... something sharp. A little defiant. She was like a heat mirage. Skimming past the vendor booths on four wheels. Red hair catching the last sliver of sun on this fine summer evening.

He was still in his dress shirt from earlier, sleeves rolled up with a tie half-stuffed into his pocket. The freelance wedding gig had wrapped about an hour ago and he smelled like frosting and sweat. Thank god for vendors because the boy needed a real snack.

What he hadn’t expected was to be publicly called out for being, apparently, pathetic. He blinked. “Wow,” he said, dryly. “Hi to you, too.” And then chaos ensued. Max, doing some strange weaponized act of kindness-slash-theft was suddenly distracting the vendor like it was well practiced. He barely had time to react before she walked away from the scene of crime, victorious, holding out some shiny trinket or snack or ... what was that, even?

Jonathan stared at it. Then at her.

“Max,” he said slowly, low. A tired voice that suggested both concern and a decent amount of resignation, “I don’t think that counts as free.” He stood visibly unsure if he was supposed to scold her or not. Then sighed. “You know there’s, like… laws,” he added. He didn’t walk away. Didn’t take the thing from her either. Just stood there on the edge of the vendor booth like some awkward NPC who couldn’t figure out whether he was part of this quest or not.

“…What even is that?” he asked, cautiously, as if the answer might give him an excuse to let it slide.