Strawberry Cigarettes | Max Mayfield

20. road trip to the pumpkins

Everyone's breathing stopped. How? How is that possible? That girl's supposed to be dead. Taken away by the demogorgon into the depths of fuck knows where. But yet here she is, standing on both of her legs, safe and sound. Chris' lab sister, mike's what seems like girlfriend, a great friend and the second superhero of the party.

"Eleven." Mike said and went forward. He missed her. He missed her so much he called her everyday. "Mike." Eleven replied and Mike went in for a hug. The girl gasped slightly at the sudden movement, tears starting to run down her smoky eyes.

No one dared to say a word. While they were hugging, Chris slowly bend down and picked up her gun. She went over to the table and left it there. "Is that...?" Max asked quietly, not wanting to interrupt the moment but still wanting answers to her question. The boys and Chris nodded. "It's El." the girl with glasses said from beside max, joy filling her voice.

"I never gave up on you. I called you every night. Every night for-" "353 days. I heard." El finished for him. Mike looked at her with a puzzled face. "Why didn't you tell me you were there? That you were okay?" the wheeler teen asked.

"Because I wouldn't let her." Hopper answered from behind the boy.

'Pause, what?'

Chris narrowed her eyes at the man. Hopper walked forward to El. "The hell's this? Where you been?" he asked her. "Where have you been?" El talked back to the man. Chris tilted her head. This was too much and her little brain couldn't deal with this. "What's going on?" she questioned quietly, as she watched the two hug.

"You've been hiding her." Mike realised. "You've been hiding her this whole time!". The boy pushed Hopper, anger flowing through his veins. "Hey! Let's talk. Alone." Hopper said and started pushing Mike towards one of the bedrooms. As they left, Eleven scanned the group, her eyes landing on Chris.

"Fee." she said with a smile. Chris smiled back and came in for a hug. "El. Jesus, do you even know how much you scared us? Don't disappear like that! Ever. Please." she ranted, as her glasses fell onto the ground. Max eyed them a bit as they hugged. Was she jealous? No. That couldn't be.

El giggled at the little rant of her sister. "I am sorry." she apologized. "It's fine. But don't do that again, okay?". "Fee, it's our turn to hug her now. Move." Dustin joked and he and Lucas went to hug El as well. They pushed Chris slightly away, just enough for them to tackle El into the hug. "Hey!" Chris laughed and shook her head. She bent down to pick up her glasses and wiped the dust off of them before putting them back on.

Max just stared at the interaction, not really knowing what to do. The younger harrington teen went over to stand closer to her, seeing her still all confused. "We missed you." Lucas said, still hugging the girl. "I missed you, too." "We talked about you pretty much every day." Dustin chimed in. They got out of the hug and El narrowed her eyes at the sight of both Dustin and Chris now.

She first went to Dustin, checking if her vision was fooling her or not by sticking her thumb to touch Dustin's teeth. "Teeth." she said. "What?" the boy asked, slightly confused. "You have teeth." El stated. Dustin smiled at that. "Oh. You like these pearls?" he asked and then did his little growl thingie.

The growl seemed to scare Eleven a tiny bit and she went over to Chris. "And... lenses?" she asked, pointing at the glasses. Chris chuckled, "Yeah. Those are glasses. They help me see better." she said and took them off. Chris handed them to El. "Here. You can try them on." she said.

El hesitated a bit but put them on her nose bridge. She immediately shrugged back and her eyes widened at the sudden zoom on things. The boys and Chris laughed at her reaction a bit. El looked around. Everything was blurry and like 2 times bigger, it was new for her. She took them off and gave them back to Chris. "You are blind." she said.