voltage ; stranger things

five ; just things

JIM Hopper didn't necessarily hate Jonathan Byers dating his daughter, but when he catches word of the incident that took place in the Hawkins Post parking lot this morning, he couldn't be happier. Now, all that's left is to get rid of Mike, and they'll all finally be together again.

It seems all his girls have wanted to do lately is spend time with their little boyfriends and go running around doing things they know they aren't supposed to. It's the boys; before them, his girls were just fine and wanted to hang out with him. Now it's Jonathan this and Mike that. But not anymore. One down, one more to go.

However, when a newly platinum-haired Colleen comes home at sunset and asks him to build a bonfire in the backyard, his joy lessens. "What the hell did you do to your hair?" he asks when she stalks towards her room.

"Can you please just do it?" she asks, repeating her previous request. Her voice is strained and cracks in the middle of her sentence, making his heart ache painfully for a moment.

"Uh... yeah, sure." His mouth hangs agape as he looks to Eleven, who stares after her sister with both awe and confusion.

"What is wrong?" she asks, following him as he grabs a box of matches from the cupboards and heads for the back door.

"I'll... tell you outside."

Twenty minutes later, the three of them sit before a bonfire in the back yard, watching a large cardboard box burn in the center. The flames dance before Colleen's eyes, reflecting in the tears that slip down her face. She'd thought that she'd cried all of her tears. She was wrong.

From her side, Eleven tucks her knees under her chin and looks up at her sister. "What is in there?" she murmurs in a soft voice.

Colleen takes a long moment to answer. "Things," she says. She feels as though she's lying, both to the younger girl and herself. Inside is practically her entire life; her journals filled with hundreds upon hundreds of words, given to her by her old boyfriend. Pictures that captured their love and trust. A necklace. Movie ticket stubs. Anything and everything that was given to her, and then snatched away in a single instant.

"Your things?" asks Eleven. Hopper had explained to her what Jonathan had done, and she had wanted nothing more than to snap the boy's neck. But her sister is in pain, and she must come first.

"Yeah."

"Won't you miss them?"

Colleen exhales deeply and watches the red and orange eat up every moment of herself until now. "They're just things," she whispers. She finds she repeats it; perhaps for her sister's understanding, perhaps for herself. "They're just things."

The fire licks and devours the box and everything inside, turning it to white ash and embers that float up into the air like lightning bugs. They wink and simmer above their heads before sizzling out in an instant. That's what happened to Colleen and Jonathan. They burned so brilliantly and brightly, and then they were put out.

As Hopper wraps an arm around her and pulls her to his side, he's reminded of a time that seems like decades ago; a night of death and despair, when they all sat in the hospital waiting for Will to wake up. He'd hugged her just like this, gave her love when she needed it the most. Oh, how the universe loves parallels.

Later that night, after the sun goes down and wishes the family good luck, the house sits quiet and still. Hopper doesn't sit in his recliner and watch television; he sits at the kitchen table and drinks, thinking hard and long. The girls don't have toothpaste fights and kiss their father goodnight; instead, Eleven watches as Colleen climbs into bed, still in her work clothes, and faces away from her.

"Can you turn off the light?" she asks the younger girl.

Eleven doesn't move. This is not good, that much she knows, and she's unsure of what to do. So, she carries on their routine; or, as much as she can. She searches through Colleen's side of the dresser for a moment before producing shorts and a tank top and bringing them to her bed. "Pajamas," she says. Her sister doesn't move. "Pajamas," she says, a bit harsher this time.

"El," says Colleen, turning to face her, "enough. I'm not in the mood, okay?"

"I don't care."

Colleen is shocked for a moment at her words. She hardly ever says things like that, much less at her. Slowly, she gets up and undresses, tossing away her jeans and hideous orange shirt. Eleven hands her the pajamas, then helps her back into bed. Then, she wiggles herself under the covers behind Colleen, turns off the light, and embraces her from behind. It's tight and reassuring, reminding the elder girl that she's right here.

After a long minute or two, Eleven's hand reaches up to touch Colleen's hair. She's dyed it a shiny white-gray color, and chopped off a few inches as well. She thinks they match her scars quite well. "Pretty," she murmurs.

Colleen takes a breath, gripping the bedsheets beneath her. "Thank you." The moment seems to last forever and exists only in a second all at once. It's so odd, so otherworldly, so unnatural, she forces herself to live in it, bask in it. Jonathan Byers cheated on her with Nancy Wheeler. She dyed her hair white. She burned nearly all of her possessions. Her sister, for the first time in years, is sleeping with her.

What a strange, terrible day that has occurred. What a gorgeous disaster the world decided to paint for Colleen Hopper, and her alone. There is no ripple in the aftermath of what has happened, no doubt that everything could be just a curtain wrapped over her eyes. No. This is happening. This is real.

But for now, she decides, she'll live right here. Not in the past, nor the future, but in this very moment. And then, like lightning cracking through the sky, it is gone and she's fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep.