♡︎𝐻𝑦𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑓𝑖𝑥𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑡𝑠♡︎

The same purple pen in the same pink hair tie

The Clash?
Stranger Things - Jommy/Tonathan
Genre - Fluff

  Tommy hated English. Before, in elementary school, English wasn't so bad. Tommy had to learn his nouns and verbs, maybe where to put a comma or a period to prevent run-on sentences, but it wasn't terrible. Tommy could handle those kinds of English lessons. What he couldn't handle in an English lesson was having to read an actual book, or write an actual essay. It was stupid.

   But, it wasn't like Tommy was bad at English. Quite the opposite, actually. His native language is Spanish, his mother migrating from Spain to America at 23 and his father from Mexico at 19, so he grew up speaking Spanish more comfortably. But, he had to learn English because of his parents. They still had thick accents, and people rarely ever understood them in public. So, Tommy got good at speaking in English without an accent. It made his family's life easier, which made his life easier.

   And it also wasn't like Tommy was bad at writing, not by a long shot. He had won an essay writing competition in the 4th grade against a high schooler, and got a few thousand from winning too. But it was just boring. Reading stupid tiny words on a stupid tiny page in a stupid tiny book was boring.

    Junior High English just wasn't fun, and he wasn't learning anything new by reading a novel about some random white guy who didn't get what he wanted. Tommy even found his peers boring and unoriginal. Hawkins, Indiana was boring and unoriginal.

    His class was an AP English class (what does AP stand for? Tommy has no idea), so they did more complicated stuff. But, it was all the same for Tommy. AP or not, he was still reading the same story about the same white guy who had the same ending.

    His class was reading The Great Gatsby and Tommy had finished the book in like 2 days, and the class started reading it a week ago. They moved too slow for Tommy, and it was frustrating, so Tommy gave up on trying. He stopped trying so hard on every assignment, he stopped reading ahead, stopped raising his hand, and just stopped in general. Nothing was interesting anymore. It was frustrating.

   So, when Tommy came into class today, he expected nothing different. So, when he found a new girl sitting in front of his desk, he felt almost betrayed? His days became routine to just come into English and nap. Nothing new would happen, no new people, no new book, and especially no new cute girl?

    He huffed before walking towards his desk, she looked up at him with hazel eyes. They were a golden brown with green and blue swimming around her pupils. Her hair was a dark-ish brown, sort of an ombre from a lighter brown to a darker brown, there were tight curls tied together with a pink hair tie.She had a pair of red headphones wrapped around her head.

   She stared as he walked past, and he couldn't help but stare back. She was absolutely gorgeous. Breathtakingly gorgeous, and it hurt.

   He stared at her for the next few weeks, her name was Evelyn Byers. Oldest kid of Joyce Byers, she had a brother named Will Byers, and a dad that wasn't mentioned as much. She was smart, really smart. Smarter than Tommy, which was saying something.

   7 weeks, 4 days, 5 hours, and 28 minutes is how long it took for him to finally say something. Anything at all, even if all he asked was what day it was. It was Thursday, October 16th. It was 12:28 and they were in 5th hour, which was before lunch. Lunch was at 12:50. Then, he asked for a pen.

   "What do you need a pen for, anyway? Mrs. Hugo didn't give you a paper." Evelyn, normally called Eve or Evie, asked softly as not to disturb the class reading.

   "Well, what if I want a paper, then what would I write on the paper with? Do you want me to fail this class?" Tommy teased in the same soft voice she had spoken beforehand. She rolled her eyes at the tease before handing him a purple ball-tip pen. "Thank you, Evelyn." He said sweetly. Her face flushed a soft pink and she whipped her head around.

    Tommy smiled softly. He doodled on the desk with the pen before he slipped it into the same pink hair tie that has tied her hair up for weeks.

    For the next 2 weeks he asked for the same purple pen, and she let it slip into the same pink hair tie every day. It was his new routine, a routine he loved. It was comforting, and the way she smiled before reaching behind her head to grab the same purple pen made his heart swell.

    But today, her music was blaring in her ears, her pink hair tie was around her wrist, and she had tear tracks running down her red cheeks. She looked angry and sad, and he was worried. He never saw her like that, and he didn't want to start.

   He left her alone for the first 10 mins of class, didn't even ask for the same purple pen like normal. When Mrs. Hugo said they could talk freely, and Steve turned to some metal-head looking girl with curly hair, and Carol turned to some band nerd, Tommy took his chance.

   He reached forward, towards the same pair of red headphones that she wore every morning, and tugged them down. Her head whipped around as he pushed the headphones over his own head to cover his ears.

   "Is this The Clash?" He asked in disbelief. He loved The Clash. It was the first English band his mother had ever shown him, and their songs meant things to Tommy.

   Her face flushed a dark red and she mumbled a soft "Yeah.." Like she was ashamed or something. He smiled widely, and he laughed.

    "I love The Clash! Have you heard Should I stay or Should I go? It's my favorite song, well- next to I fought the law. That ones pretty good too." He practically gushed and fangirled to her. She smiled wide and prettily.

    "'I fought the law' is pretty good, I guess. But 'Death or Glory' is better." She said with a soft smile, her eyes twinkling and staring so sweetly at Tommy that it made him melt.

   "I guess, if you have bad taste in music. What else do you listen to?"

   "Y'know, the normal stuff. Queen, The Smiths, David Bowie, Metallica."

  "You listen to David Bowie?"

   She smiled widely and played with the headphone wire.

   "I love David Bowie's music! What's your favorite song?"

   "'Life on Mars?' or 'Starman,' probably. What's yours?"

   "Definitely I'm Afraid of Americans. Stupid lyrics, but I love the song. 'Starman' is real good, though. Good taste, Evelyn."

   She smiled softly at the use of his full name.

   She smiled softly when he asked for a pen.

    She pulled out the same purple pen, that ended up tangled in the same pink hair tie.

     They met in Mrs. Hugo's AP English class, and they bonded over a purple pen and a pink hair tie. They liked the same music, the same movies, and they enjoyed the same books.

    Maybe Tommy didn't hate Junior High English anymore.

    Maybe he really liked Evelyn Byers, and maybe he really liked it when she became Jonathan Byers.