Jailbird || Stranger Things

bonus ➵ christmas, 1984

some outtakes from part two that I only dropped bc I liked the ending you can now find better. please enjoy a bit of the snowball and christmas 1984 with the party. lots of fluffy goodness!

these are from the first draft and they may not be canon compliant! I just wanted to share some more reese/steve fluff, reese/el fluff, and also some bits about reese's tests, her drawings, plans, and the no longer as famous bet the boys took about teresa's conviction. let me know what you think!

merry christmas if you celebrate; if not, happy holiday season, and happy new year!

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snowball, 1984

"Are you sure about this?" Jim asked, holding his chin with his hand as he watched Teresa change a bandaid on her fingertip.

    "Yes. It'll be great. I'll wait for her, I promise," she smiled, looking up at him once the last bit of the sticky end was stuck down. "I won't leave the parking lot."

    "Okay. And stay on channel ten."

    "Yes, sir," she chuckled, eyes going back to the table as she packed her first aid box together again. Jim watched as her head bopped to a track on one of his records playing in the background, smiling a little at the sight of her relaxed state. As difficult as the previous month had been to adjust back to normality and explain her and Steve's bruises in school—before he blamed it on Billy, and she blamed it on the joke of an illegal fight club—he was happy to see her having continued on as if everything was normal.

    With the lab shut down, Jim held Doctor Owens' at his word, holding onto the faked birth certificate in one of the boxes under the floorboards. The Doc had even agreed to meet with Teresa to talk about her nightmares, all of those documents also in the boxes, hopefully locked away for a good while. He and the others had been both surprised but also relieved that Nancy and Jonathan managed to get the lab shut down, even if it had been with Murray's help. The group finally managed to take a breath of fresh air.

    Well, as fresh as possible, with Barb and Bob's funerals over the past few weeks.

    "You can come with us, you know," she chuckled, watching him stand by the door awkwardly, as if he was itching to reach out for his coat.

    "Yeah, that might be the best idea," he nodded finally, Teresa's smile widening. She would have taunted him further, but El's door opened, and soon enough, she stood by the sofa in a blue dress, hair and makeup done by Teresa just before she got changed.

    "Hi."

    "Pretty," Teresa immediately said, clicking the box—no longer a small tobacco tin—in place before she stood up. Taking El's hand, she made her spin, the girl letting out a small chuckle as the older girl smiled wide. "Man, Mike won't know what hit him," she whispered winking at the girl.

    "I'd prefer you wouldn't tell her things like that."

    "Oh hush, dad," Teresa chuckled, picking up the coat from the back of the couch and handing it to El. Teresa picked up her bag, slipping her first aid box into it, as well as a thermos of coffee she'd made a few minutes ago.

    "All right, you guys go. Stay in the parking lot, okay?" Jim asked Teresa, surprising the girl, who looked up at him.

    "Are you sure?"

    "Yeah. Have fun."

    She doubted her father's decision to stay behind came so suddenly with no prompt, but she did let him pretend like he was letting them go without him.