Magic between us || Fillie

Look At Those Eyes

It was nine in the evening.

Wheeler's basement was packed. The air stuffy.

Every possible sitting surface was filled. Mike and El were sat on the little sofa that was set up against the wall. Nancy, Jonathan and Joyce were sitting right across from them on the chairs the gang used to use whilst playing D&D. Max, Lucas, Dustin and Will were sat on the pillows arranged on the sides, closing the unintended circle.

'So... who's gonna start explaining why you're all here?', Lucas asked impatiently. Ever since he got a 'Code red' from Mike on his walkie, he has been going out of his mind trying to figure out what was going on. It had to have been something serious for all of them to come back to Hawkins after a whole year.

'We believe that-', Jonathan started, only to be interrupted by El.

'We know', she said firmly, looking at the confused faces of the friends she's missed since spring break, 'We know that Hop is alive.'

Their confusion didn't go away, it simply got mixed with shock. Jonathan just nodded at Nancy as she faced him, her eyes searching his for an explanation.

'How?', Max uttered finally, although she wasn't sure what exactly she was asking. How was he alive? Or how did they know?

As if she could read Max's mind, El said 'I don't know how he has survived or where he actually is, but I know that he is out there somewhere.'

'And we have to find him', added Mike as he found El's hand and held it in his comfortingly.

El squeezed his hand tightly and proceeded to tell her story once again, Mike and Joyce adding little bits they remembered every now and then.

'So your powers are back?', asked Dustin after a while.

El just looked down, shaking her head in frustration, feeling the disappointment spread across the room. It was obvious what everyone was thinking, finding Hopper without El's powers seemed impossible to all of them.

As if he could feel El's despair, Mike leaned towards her, holding onto her hand tightly, and whispered 'We'll find a way.'

'CUT!'

'Wow, that was the longest take yet, great work!', Shawn praised his cast. There were a lot of different things going on, several cameras involved, it was difficult to get a handle on all of it, but they did it splendidly. To say that he was proud of everybody would be an understatement.

'I'm pretty sure that having Noni here is helping us all stay serious and professional. We're all trying to impress her, aren't we?', asked Charlie as he looked around at all of his cast-mates who just started laughing but nodded in approval nevertheless.

Whenever the younger part of the cast got to do scenes with the older cast members, they would try their hardest to be on their best behavior. They'd be the biggest hard-workers and professionals around them, but, when they were on their own... Now that was a whole other story. That was when you could actually see that you were working with kids, even if some of them are well into their twenties.

'Whatever the reason, keep it going!', chuckled Ross, 'We'll do one more take and then you're free for lunch.'

'I don't have any notes, there's nothing I would change. So just do what you did before and we'll try to get different camera angles this time', added Shawn.

All nine of the actors went back to their marks and settled into their characters, waiting for a cue from Shawn, a cue that came just a couple of minutes later.