Invisible- Stranger Things Fanfiction

Chapter Seven: Back Home

A/N: To settle any confusion, Monica's nicknames are both Mon and Nikki. Dustin refers to her as Mon, but everyone else calls her Nikki. Hope that helps!
*Nikki's POV*
   I woke up the next morning to the sound of the toaster popping up. The entire cabin was filled with the smell of Eggos. El was making us breakfast.
   Dustin and Will were still asleep, but Max, Lucas, Mike and I were all up. Before speaking to anyone, I went to the washroom and looked at myself in the mirror. Damn, I'm a mess. My hair was full of static and knots, my eyes were caked with those weird eye booger things that hurt to get out. I quickly rinsed off my face, washed it with hand soap, and ran my fingers harshly through my hair. It wasn't great, but it would have to do.
When I came out of the washroom, El had already set a plate of toaster waffles on my sleeping bag. "Thanks, El," I said with a grateful nod. El just smiled in return before waking up the two sleeping boys and giving them their waffles.
While everyone else was in the kitchen or on the couch, I stayed next to Dustin and Will on our sleeping bags. Will's hair was static-filled like mine, but Dustin's was on a whole new level; while it was normally poofy and curly, it looked as though someone had rubbed his head with a gigantic balloon, then rubbed their socks on the carpet and touched his hair.
"Morning, Bob Ross," I muttered, making Will snort with laughter.
Dustin hit my shoulder, then took a bite of Eggo. "Shut up, Little Miss Perfect."
"I'm not Little Miss Perfect. I always make mistakes- or, as you prefer to call them: 'happy accidents.'"
Dustin messed up my hair as Will almost choked on his waffle at my unexpected comeback. "There," Dustin said. "Now your hair's messy, too."
"Not as messy as yours, Tina Turner."
Max moved from her spot on the couch to sit at the end of my sleeping bag, Lucas following suit. "So... what'd you two talk about for so long last night?" Max asked like a curious little girl.
Will piped up. "Yeah, you two were out there forever."
El and Mike joined the powwow on the floor, waiting expectantly for an answer like the rest of the party. I looked at Dustin in anticipation, waiting for him to respond.
"Well," Dustin said, shooting me a very annoyed look for making him answer, "Nikki was pointing out Pegasus to me."
"What?" Max and El asked in unison.
"Pegasus," I repeated.
Lucas looked at me with a face of realization. "The constellation." That was all he said, but I knew the gears were turning in his head; Lucas remembered me.
"Yeah, it's my favorite constellation," I explained to the confused girls.
Mike's head turned to me. "Your favorite constellation," he whispered. There was that look again. I knew Mike had remembered me by the way he was always such a bitch to me, but now he remembered me as his friend. Not Nikki, the girl who left the party; Nikki, his best friend for five years. His eyes softened toward me, and for a brief second, he smiled at me.
El gasped excitedly. "You like stars?"
"No, El. I love stars," I replied, matching her excitement as Mike and Dustin glanced at each other.
"Could you maybe teach me about them sometime ?" El asked timidly. "I've wanted to learn about astronomy forever."
I nodded. "Of course."
We all finished our breakfast, then decided to clean up Hopper's cabin a little bit. (Even the parts we hadn't even used because damn, that place was a mess.) We each grabbed a trash bag or some other method of housecleaning and set off for different spaces of the little house. El cleaned the bedrooms, Lucas and Will took the hallways, Mike and Max took the kitchen, and Dustin and I were assigned to the living room.
"Why did you make me answer them?" Dustin asked as he folded Will's sleeping bag.
   "I don't know." I collected all of the blankets and put them by everyone's bags. "I guess I just didn't know what to say."
   "Why not?"
   I sighed. "Because I didn't want to tell them that I think I'm a nothing, okay? It was too late at night to get into all that shit with strangers."
   Dustin looked up. "I'm not a stranger?"
   "You are," I concluded, "just not as much of a stranger as your friends."
We packed up all of the sleeping bags, picked up trash, and then got ready to go back to my house, where we were all meeting up later that afternoon. Dustin told Will where we were going, then we got our things and mounted what should now be considered as our bike, seeing as we've both been on it so much in the past twenty-four hours. As we got on, I stopped him.
"Hold on." I got on the front of the seat. "I want to pedal this time."
Dustin laughed. "Oh, yeah? Go ahead." He stood there watching me.
"You're not on the bike."
"I think it'd be easier that way."
I smacked the seat. "Get on the damn bike, Dustin."
Reluctantly, Dustin got on the back of the bicycle seat, putting his arms around my ribcage.
   Using all my leg strength, I pushed off of the ground and waited to fall back down. But I didn't. Thank God for Mom's workout videos. I kept pedaling until I reached the end of the street, then stopped to give Dustin a smug look.
  "Holy shit," he remarked. "You're pretty strong for such a tiny girl."
   I rolled my eyes, pushing back off the ground and pedaling faster. "You're pretty annoying for such a young person."
Dustin laughed from behind me, getting a little more comfortable and putting his head on my shoulder as I kept pedaling toward my house.
"Havin' fun there, dipshit?" I asked with a smirk.
Dustin jumped a little, then moved his head off of me. "Sor-sorry."
The rest of the bike ride (like, three minutes) to my place was silent and, for Dustin, a bit awkward. When I pulled up in my front yard, I noticed that Steve was sitting at the pool, his ankles soaking in the chlorine-filled water and his hands in his hair. He was stressed out.