Pretty (Eleven X reader)

Aftermath

That's how they found us, the others. Steve, Robin, Lucas, Mike and Will. At that point I was either in shock, or just feeling too much at once to remember anything, because I have no idea what happened next. Somehow I ended up with Steve's arm around me and El holding my hand as we left the mall.

When we went outside the fire brigade, military and police were all there. The sirens were deafening, the lights blinding, my brain damaged mind couldn't handle it and suddenly I'm sat in the back of an ambulance, a paramedic holding a cloth to my nose and a shock blanket around me.

He walked off, leaving me to hold the cloth there, I guessed. I hadn't been listening to what he said and I looked around. Everyone else was sat around in similar situations, Max and El, who now had a huge plaster on her forehead, sharing a blanket on a stretcher outside an ambulance Will was running out of. I watched him and saw him embrace Joyce, who had picked up a weird uniform at some point.

I stood, holding the blanket around me and walked over to El. I sat down me on her left Max her right. She leaned against my shoulder, I put my spare arm around her. I looked at Max over her head and nodded to her, she nodded back and held the hand I had around El.

El spotted Joyce, now hugging Will tightly, and looked at her expectantly. I followed her gaze, not knowing where else to look and saw Joyce sob and shake her head. I knew what it meant, I knew what it meant for El, for the entire town of Hawkins.

Cheif Jim Hopper was dead.

El started sobbing, I held her tighter, hand slipping out of Max's. Max hugged her with both arms, I did one, and we tried to comfort her. Turns out I'm bad at comforting when it really matters.

El was taken off to hospital due to her leg, and not long after she was taken my parents showed up and took me home. The next day was spent entirely at the hospital, with Max and occasionally the other party members.

A week later I was invited to Hopper's funeral, as was El, now officially out of hospital. You can imagine how that went. I thought I didn't have any tears left in me, after my group hug/cry with Max and El, but I was wrong.

Slowly, Hawkins recovered. Deaths were covered up, as was the destruction of the mall, by a freak accident that set the whole thing ablaze. For the third time I signed away my freedom of speech about the incident, and the lab dissappear all over again. It was also blamed on a growing obsession with satanism, aka D&D, my favourite game ever, great. God, my life should not be this hard this early.

Three Months Later

The Byers were leaving Hawkins. Fucking disgraceful.

That was a joke, I really couldn't blame them. Joyce was thinking about it anyway, her boyfriend last year Bob had suggested it before he died fighting off a pack of Demodogs. Ever since she'd basically being looking for reasons to leave, Hopper's death was the last one she needed.

So I was loosing probably my best friend ever, Will, and also my girlfriend, because Joyce adopted El. Not so bad, you're probably thinking, they can't be going that far. Wrong. Fucking California.

I was in their newly cleared house, okay technically it wasn't their house anymore but it would alway be for me.

"Turn around,"

In the living room, Max and Lucas burst into song. I smiled, ever since we all heard him and Suzie Dustin had never lived it down.

"Look at what you see. In her face, the mirror of your dreams. Rhymes that keep their secrets, will unfold behind the clouds,"