wayne.

The corner of her mouth tugged upward. Not quite a smile, but close. “Charcoal’s a flavor profile now,” she called back, stepping into his orbit like it was second nature. “You’re just ahead of the culinary curve.”

She reached past him to snag a paper plate, her shoulder brushing his lightly. “You need a refill?” she asked, nodding toward the beer in his hand.

He flipped a burger onto her plate and a hot dog for the road, just in case.

"You'd be a life saver," he admitted, holding up his empty can. "I'll make better company once this line is served." Dani was an old favorite of the trailer park feasts, so he was grateful for the offer to keep his cup full while he served everyone.

He held up his paper plate, nodding a quiet, respectful greeting to a couple of the Forest Hills regulars who were already lining up. Hopper liked it better down here anyway. No one at the trailer park asked him about town budgets, or why the north-side patrol was late, or expected him to make polite conversation over a five-dollar glass of wine. Here, if you brought a six-pack and didn't act like a prick, you were golden. "Give me one of the thick ones before you incinerate it," Hopper said, gesturing toward a patty that was still mostly pink on top.

"Ah, just for you, sheriff," he declared, scooping up a large patty and dropping it onto the other's plate. "Condiments are right there."

He gestured to the fold out table next to the grill.

"You gonna participate in any of the drinking games or just play ref?" He asked, knowing that once all the food was dished out, people would be quick to pull out cards and beer pong once they got settled.

Ollie walked into the living room and sat down on the couch, looking around the room for a bit. Her eyes went back to Wayne; he seemed to be concerned for her, and Ollie didn’t want people to feel that way. She knew she could do most things herself.

Ollie had originally come here to tell Eddie about a fight she had with David and that she had almost used her powers on him. But a question from deep in her mind came back: did Wayne know what really happened to his nephew, and why he had suddenly come back to life? And now something called the Echoes was everywhere, the reason why Eddie was alive at all. She couldn’t ask that—she would sound crazy if she even began to explain it.

Weird things had been happening, so maybe—just maybe—he had some idea that someone didn’t just magically come back from the dead. It just wasn’t possible; no science or anything could ever explain it.

As she sat on the couch, she started to speak. “Thank you, sir, but I’m good...” Ollie said, pausing a little as the light above flickered slightly before stopping. She spoke again. “Did anyone tell you exactly how Eddie came back to the world of the living?” Ollie said softly, gathering her words, hoping she didn’t sound crazy. Her eyes scanned the room again before stopping to look back at Wayne.

He was no fool. He knew weird things had been happening in Hawkins for awhile. He had just hoped Eddie's return was one of the rare good weird things. He hoped it was something that would last.

The sight of Wayne with a beer and a plate of sad, congealed pizza made something warm and stupid bloom in his chest. “Join you?” Eddie scoffed, dropping into the chair across from him. “Old man, that’s not an invitation. That’s a summoning spell.” He reached for a slice, took a bite, winced dramatically. “Jesus Christ, this is like… refrigerated cardboard. With trauma.” But he kept eating it anyway.

"Good to know you're not too cool to hang out with your uncle yet," he mused jokingly. "We can order something warm," he suggested, since there was less than half a pizza left. That was hardly enough to feed two grown men so he stood up to pull out their selection of usual takeout places.

“Yeah, I do. I am just catching some air, is all. Heartbreak hurts…” El said softly as tears fell from her eyes, and she wiped them away. She sniffled, wiping her nose as well, her eyes remaining wet. She didn’t know much about Wayne, just that he was Eddie’s uncle and worked late nights. He was a nice man and meant no harm to anyone.

“I have a place to go, I just forgot how to get there,” she said again. She had been doing so much running in the fog that she wasn’t looking at the direction she was going. The heartbreak she felt was agonizing to her, like a pain she thought would never heal, and maybe Wayne knew that all too well—not because he was older than her, but because he knew what to do and say.

Yeah, she could have gone to Hopper, but would he even understand? She was young and had her whole life ahead of her. She couldn’t let one boy stop her from that, but pain had a funny way of coming back when you didn’t want it to.

The trailer creaked the way it always did when the temperature dropped. Metal settling, wood complaining, the whole place sounding like it had opinions about being old. Eddie didn’t think much of it at first. He was used to the noise. Grew up with it. Slept through worse. But then he heard movement. Not the usual shift of the wind or the rattle of the siding. It was actual footsteps. Slow. Familiar. He froze halfway through peeling off his jacket. “Wayne?” he called out, voice low, like the dark might echo it back wrong. A beat of silence. Then the soft scrape of a chair leg in the kitchen. Yeah. That was him.

Ollie nodded as she walked inside. The place felt the same as many other times. She didn’t know much about Wayne, just that he worked with David at the plant. He was mostly never there when Ollie was around during the day after school or whenever she stopped by. She wiped her tears away with her sleeve as she walked into the living room, the light shining slightly in her eyes, which remained glossy from crying earlier. Ollie looked around the room, trying to focus her eyes on something other than what had happened. She found a place on the couch and sat down, placing her bag on the other side of her.

The Munson trailer wasn’t fancy, but it was a nice place to hang out. Ollie hated living in a big house—a house no one was in when she got home. It felt lonely, so she did what she could to fill the time while her mom, Ruby, was working at the hospital and her stepdad worked at the plant. They never really seemed to have time for Ollie, though she never wanted David’s time. She hated that man. Hated him for ruining her life. Hated him because he took her mom away from her when Ollie needed her most. That was something she could never forgive. As she sat on the couch, her eyes dropped for a moment before she looked up at Wayne, catching his gaze.

"Hungry? We got leftover Chinese, frozen burritos, and probably some ice cream if Eddie hasn't eaten it all." He liked to think food could fix almost anything, but he doubted that would be the case here. "Or water's always on the menu," he tried to joke, but it fell flat when the girl finally caught his gaze.

Closing time always settled over the bar like a sigh. The music cut out, the lights dimmed, and the last of the regulars drifted out with lazy waves and half-slurred goodnights. Rory liked this part. The quiet, the routine, the way her mind finally stopped buzzing. She tossed a few bar towels into the bin, rolled her shoulders, and started wiping down the counter. The place was empty. Or it should’ve been. She hadn’t heard anyone move in minutes. She flicked off one of the neon signs, bathing the room in a softer, amber glow. The silence felt thick, but she chalked it up to exhaustion. Long night. Too many orders. Too many people. She grabbed a chair, flipped it onto a table, and let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Almost done. Almost free.

She felt the tears fall for a while, until she couldn’t feel them anymore. She wiped her eyes. She heard the rustle of trees snapping and looked around, but couldn’t see anyone. El sat there, turning back around as she held her knees, placing her head on top of them. For a moment, she thought about it—why was she even out here, knowing that someone, or Hopper, might be looking for her by now? Everyone treated El differently, like she was made of glass or didn’t have a good understanding of things. But she knew more than she let on. She was smart and understood how the world worked, in her own way. Her ears caught another snap of branches, and she turned her head. A man was standing there. Her breath shortened slightly, but she heard him ask if she was alright. For a second, she thought it was Hopper, but the man was too lean to be him. The night seemed to swallow them whole, leaving just the two of them. The only light came from the moon, barely illuminating her small figure. What was she going to tell this man anyway? Was she really going to spill her guts about her breakup with Mike, or the fact that Vecna wasn’t the only villain? How could she explain the echoes, the loud noises, all the things messing with her mind? On top of that, how could she explain her powers? This guy probably didn’t know anything about what had been going on—or maybe he had some idea. El slowly stood up, brushing leaves and dirt from her pants as she placed her hands at her sides. “I—” a beat, “I’m okay. Just really sad. A lot going on…” she said softly, standing there and looking in the man’s direction. How could she even explain why she was out here in the first place? How the dark forest reminded her of that tank chamber she spent so much time in, when she was in the void. How the sounds of the lab filled her ears, how the lights would flicker, and the aura in the room felt dark and filled with disdain. How El tried to do what Papa wanted, but it was just too much for her young body at the time. Remembering it now hurt, but she pushed it away like everything else.

"Uh, well, I'm Wayne Munson. Eddie's uncle, if you know him." It was a risk since his nephew did have a more infamous reputation, but if she knew him or the kids that hung around, then she might be more inclined to trust him.

(open roleplay)

Location: Forest

Time: 12:45 a.m.

When: March, 25, 1987

It all started when Eleven was sleeping peacefully. It was a good sleep—dark, but not the kind she had faced when she was younger in the tank chamber, where she had been held for long periods of time. For her, the past was never far away—not from her, or from anyone in Hawkins. Sometimes luck wasn’t around, and chaos was the only thing left to face; even surviving became the main goal. She opened her eyes suddenly, gasping for air as her hands clutched her chest tightly, trying to ground herself. As she did, the lights flickered, and the door in front of her slammed shut with her mind. The noise made her flinch. Blood began to drip slowly onto her sheets. Her eyes fixed on it as she moved her hand from her chest, wiping the blood away with the back of her hand. Eleven forced herself to breathe slowly, in and out, steady and soft. As she did, the lights stopped flickering. She got out of bed and walked to the door. When she opened it and stepped into the hallway, the house was silent. It was the middle of the night, and no one else was awake. At least, she thought so. She decided to leave—just to clear her head. The only way she knew how was to go for a walk. Somewhere not too far. Somewhere no one could see her or ask questions. It had been days since her breakup with Mike, and she was taking it… as well as she could. Of course she was sad, but it was something that had been a long time coming, and her mind was still trying to make sense of it. She wondered if Mike would ever forgive her, or if he would simply pretend that what they had never existed. And what they had was something no one could replace. Was it for the best? She opened the front door and stepped out into the night. The cool air filled her lungs and chilled her skin. For a moment, it felt like everything she was feeling might fade away—if only temporarily. As she walked, she pulled a hoodie over her head, just in case. Her mind drifted back to Mike for a moment. Her shoes hit the pavement with each step as she moved down the street. Her eyes caught sight of a small patch of forest, and she made her way toward it. Twigs snapped beneath her feet as she pushed through the trees, eventually reaching a small clearing. She sat in the middle of it, burying her head in her hands, trying not to cry—trying not to let the thoughts and memories consume her, the way they had consumed her friend, Ollie. The darkness seemed to close in around her as she sat there alone, breathing, trying to hold herself together. There were so many things she didn’t know, things she had never been taught. She had never really been taught how to live—only how to survive. To endure whatever the lab had done to her. To maybe understand why she was so important. It had been a while since everything with Vecna and the echoes had happened, but it still felt like too much. She didn’t know what to do. The sounds of the night filled the air as she sniffled, and tears began to fall from her eyes.

Sighing, he trudged through the forest, wishing he had brought a beer with him, but he also did not want to get a ticket for public intoxication. He had been cut a few breaks when Eddie was still believed to be dead, but that card was maxed out since the kid was back. He was beyond grateful his nephew was alive, but that meant he had to get back to normalcy, whatever that looked like for the Munsons now.

He paused when he heard soft sounds that didn't belong in the forest. It took him a second to realize it was the sound of crying, and he was quick to investigate the source.