Royal Pain || Stranger Things

nineteen || home sweet home

JANUARY

"So, it's actually a period piece. I haven't done one in quite a while, but I think the time is well suited. It's early nineteenth hundreds focused in Chicago. To put it one way, it's a mafia themed piece, so let's hope it doesn't stir up any bad press for me or make any enemies. One of the gentlemen that was in the facility with me said he used to run with one of the Chicago crime families and that although they'd been underground for years, they've been running operations since the city was established. I want to take a twist on the city's life during the Great Depression and make it not based about the stock market crash, but instead a monster that's been buried in Lake Michigan that been woken up. The mafia gets broken apart because several want to continue crime given the city's distress while others want to keep the monster from rising out of the lake and evaporating everything in the southern hemisphere."

Leaned between the front seats of Elena's station wagon with an intrigued grin, Tatum said, "Very Lovecraft of you. I like it. It sounds fab, Dad."

"I've already got a hundred pages written. I'll let you read it if you like."

Speeding towards Hawkins and chasing the sunset, the Rivers, reunited after two months, hadn't stopped talking since they'd gotten Jordan out of the rehab facility and into the car, spanning nearly four hours as they hit the border of Roane County.

Whether it was about school, Christmas break, Tatum's driving classes, the first snow fall of the season or the interesting people Jordan had met in rehab, it had been covered. Elena had gone on for nearly an hour about the changes happening at the middle school as well as how rambunctious the snow had made all of the kids during recess. Two students had even managed to throw snowballs at one another during class.

"How does it end?" Tatum asked.

Jordan hummed slightly. "I'm still figuring that bit out. I have several ideas, but I want to make sure it's the right one. It needs to be good."

"It'll be good no matter how you write it, love," Elena assuring, reaching over to squeeze his hand lightly.

"I'm quite proud of it so far," he sheepishly admitted. "I have a feeling as soon as it's published, I'll have Hollywood barking after me for it. I'd want to wait, though. It would need much better graphics than films have these days to do it justice."

Tatum grinned, sliding back into her seat as they passed the city limits sign. "You'd have to do an author cameo. One of the mobsters, maybe."

"That would be pretty cool." Jordan leaned over, pressing his forehead to the window. "I almost forgot what Hawkins looked like when the snow dusted. It was always a bitch to walk to school in, but it's pretty."

"Jordan."

"Oh, come off it. She's heard worse." Jordan glanced to the backseat. "I imagine she's said worse."

Tatum only shrugged, offering a soft 'eh' as her father grinned.

"It'll be cold for the next couple of months, but it shouldn't snow much more. We never got snow past the first week of February when I was a kid. There was one year, though, when it had stopped snowing in January and then dropped an entire foot on Easter. It made no sense whatsoever."

Elena groaned. "Let's pray that doesn't happen. I can't imagine the kind of havoc the kids will wreak on the school." She wheeled into the driveway, letting out a satisfied sigh as she turned off the engine. "Home sweet home, darling."

"It's good to be home." Jordan gave out a long stretch as he stepped out the station wagon, nearly ready bend over backwards. "Help me with my bags, hun?"