Chapter Text
SEPTEMBER THIRD, 1983
HAWKINGS, INDIANA
The night was peaceful, a warm breeze cutting through the mid autumn chill and a low fog hitting the ground.
Inside the house sitting on a pristine green lawn, there was an obnoxiously loud group of young teenagers.
“Something’s coming.”
The rest of the boys huddle a bit closer to the speaker, “something hungry for blood.” At this point in their friendship, everyone sitting at the table knew that Mark tended to do this to build unnecessary tension.
“A shadow!” He pauses while looking into the eyes of his other friends,
“Crawling on the wall behind you.”
He looks straight at Chenle, trying to get any form of reaction from the seasoned D&D player, only getting a slight run of the nose.
“It’s almost here.” Mark once again taunts,
“What is it?” Jeno, the youngest, asks with all of the innocence that the boy has somehow managed to retain after the years of being friends.
Something seems to light in Chenle’s brain, his previously small smirk now giving way to a more openly worried expression, “what if it’s the Demogorgon?”
Jeno falls back into his chair with a defeated sigh,
“Oh Jesus we’re screwed if it’s the Demogorgon!” Chenle quickly jumps to the conclusion.
“what’ya mean WE? It’s my turn and you’ve not helped once this whole game…” Jeno can’t help but feel a bit bitter how they’re all the sudden worried.
“It’s not the Demogorgon!” Jaemin quickly cuts in, trying to reassure the two.
Mark not helping by discreetly smiling to the board in front of him.
“Army of troglodytes charge into the chamber!” Mark exclaims while slamming the small pieces onto the middle of the board.
Jaemin just throws his hand up while looking at Chenle, daring him to try him, “Troglodytes?” He says with a small laugh and gets a smug look from Jaemin while they all share a small laugh.
Leave it to Mark though to try and create another rift in the air, “wait a minute… Did you hear that?” He looks around the small basement, feigning fright.
He starts to create his own sound effects as well, boom boom booming his way to try and frighten them. He yells and slams his hand on the table, completely disregarding how much it hurt to do it and thoroughly enjoying how he managed to get them all to jump.
“That didn’t come from the troglodytes. No, that…” he pauses and looks up at Jeno sitting directly across him,
“That came from something else.”
The group slowly looks back and forth from each other as Mark reaches behind the board to grab his play,
“The Demogorgon!”
And instantly the entire group is whining and groaning while slamming their hands.
“We’re in deep shit!” Chenle smacks his hand into his face, Mark quickly turning to Jeno and moved him to make his play against him.
“I don’t know!”
“Jen, fireball him!” Jaemin cuts in,
“I’d have to roll a thirteen or higher!”, Jeno is quick to dispute,
“Too risky! Cast protection!” Chenle puts in,
“Don’t be a pussy, Fireball him!” Jaemin won’t relent and he knows it.
“Cast protection for Christ’s sake!” Chenle all but shouts,
Mark quickly cuts in by slamming his hand on the table, again not bothering with how much he knows it’ll hurt later,
“The Demogorgon is tired of your silly human bickering!” Oh Mark truly does love having the power,
“It stomps towards you, BOOM!”
Jaemin panics again and hits Jeno’s arm a bit too hard but neither can be bothered, “Fireball him!”
Mark happily continues to make his noises,
“Cast protection, goddamn it Jen!”
Chenle again all but screams in his panic, Mark again trying to make Jeno make more risky decisions.
All the yelling eventually gets to Jeno and he throws the dice across the board with a yell for fireball. They quickly scramble for the dice to try and see who’s won.
They knock over their chairs and fumble to the floor looking, tells of the number trying to be found, Chenle panicking and crying out.
The door above the basement unhinges to see Mark’s mum, calling out for the said boy.
“Mark!” He doesn’t think his head has ever shot up so quickly, “mum, we’re in the middle of a campaign!” He throws his hands out to try and look more serious despite the mess in the background.
“You mean the end? It’s Fifteen minutes after eight!” She points at her watch for good measure and turns around to leave, knowing her son will follow. Even if to just ask for more time.
He groans and climbs up the stairs and trips over the one stair like every other time, “wait! Just twenty more minutes!” He shouts as he comes around the threshold into the kitchen.
Mrs. Lee sets down her potatoe that she’d previously been cutting, “it is a school night, Mark.” She continues, not even looking at the puppy dog eyes that her son is giving.
“I just put Jihyun to bed, you can finish this next weekend.” She absentmindedly keeps funneling through her pre washed vegetables, ignoring the preteen’s claims of ‘flow being ruined’
When he once again gets no response he just continues and tries to be cute, “I’m serious! The campaign took two weeks to plan,” he puts the unnecessary emphasis on the sentence.
“How was I supposed to know it was gonna take ten hours…” his mother just looks straight at him with a load full of judgement in her eyes, “you mean to tell me that you’ve been playing for ten hours?”
Mark just makes a bit of an exasperated face and runs his hand through his hair, definitely feeling the forming bruise now, and turns to run back into the basement.
A small voice from Jeno confirms the other dice, “does the seven count?” The younger, but slightly smaller boy says to Jaemin.
“It was a seven? Did Mark see it? No, so it doesn’t count!” They all hurry to grab their belongings and put on coats and jackets.
Chenle picks up their leftover pizza box, “hey, any of you want this?” Just reviving a no from both before they scramble up the stairs again, the boy just looking dumbfounded.
What was he supposed to do with it then?
Sighing, he goes up the stairs, reaching Mark’s older brother’s room.
He slightly knocks and waves at Winwin to gain his attention. The said boy just shoots a fond smile at him and tells his friend on the other line to hold up a minute.
Winwin comes over to the small boy in the doorway, “what is it?”
Chenle just gestures to the pizza box in his hands, “there’s a slice left, sausage and pepperoni!” giving the elder a smile.
He chuckles at him and ruffles up him short blonde hair a bit, “sure, Lele.” And he grabs it and shoves basically the entire piece in his mouth and waves at him to shut the door.
Chenle just takes the box outside and throws it in the nearest can, “Mark! There must be something wrong with your brother.” He bustles down the steps and grabs his bike.
“What you mean? Hyung’s great!”
“I know, how can he be related to your sorry ass then?” He giggles to herself and doges the flying smack that came his way.
Jaemin just laughs at the two, “I’m wondering if he can make that asshole Nakamoto Yuta into a normal person now that they’re dating!”
They just laugh even harder at that, “if anyone can do that, it’s Hyung!” Mark just laughs along while watching them set up their bikes and turn on their lights.
He waves off the others, Jeno staying by for a second longer, “it was a seven.”
Mark blinks in confusion, “the roll, it was a seven.”
Mark just stares before facing his younger, but stupidly tall friend.
“The Demogorgon? It got me.” Jeno says with an easy smile.
Mark can’t help but smile back at the boy, “don’t worry about it, Jen. You’re fine for now.” And he mussed up his hair for good measure and watched the boy peddle off with a promise of meeting tomorrow.
Mark calls back an affirmation and drops his hand back to his side, fully feeling the pain in it now.
He hisses and brings his hand to the light to see the damage, but the lights decide that it was a perfect moment to flicker off and on. Mark just huffs and goes back inside, switching the light off fully.
————————-
Jeno cruises behind Chenle and Jaemin, listening to their playful banter with a gentle smile on his face.
“Good night, heathens!” Jaemin waves an arm behind him to add his own extra flare.
“Make sure to kiss your mum ‘night for me.” Chenle giggles to Jaemin and gracefully turns to wave a hand at Jeno with a big toothy grin shown his way.
Jaemin just rolls his eyes at the loving exchange between the two youngest, shouting an explosive goodbye Jeno’s way.
Chenle turns to back to the boy at his side, “race back to my place, Jeno? Winner gets a comic!”
Said boy just looks at him in disbelief, thinking of just how protective the kid is over his ‘babies’ as he calls them, simply nodding in his direction while sitting down as well as his much too small bike would allow, rushing off quickly to the sound of Chenle complaining on the head start.
“No fair! You’ve got long ass legs you monkey human!” And Jeno can just hear the massive pout on the boy’s face.
He simply lets out a loud laugh and calls back, “I’ll take your X-MEN 134!” And continues to ride off.
Chenle doesn’t even bother after then and slows to a stop while trying to catch his breath, “why did I have to be the smallest one in the band of banshees?!”
————
Jeno continues to lazily peddle in the direction of his small home, quite happy to be returning to his family.
Now if only his stupid, faulty light would stop flashing off and-
The gasp that tore out from his mouth was not planned, nor was the accidental screech and derail of his bike into the nearby trees.
He hurriedly moves to sit upright again, his body filling to the brim with cold anxiety, ‘what the hell was that?!’
Shaking his head and slowly looking around him, his ears meet with an in distinct growling sound. He bolts from his spot and grabs for his bike, not waiting to find out.
He finds the bike stuck in something and just dashed away,
Whatever it was, it sure as hell wasn't going to wait for him to get back up and start running.
———
Jeno frantically tried to calm his ravaged heartbeat while racing his way towards his home. Spotting the humble home across the dirt path, he wasted no time bursting through the door and bolting every lock shut.
He disregarded his dog barking towards him and gently yet quickly pushed him away, racing down the short hallway where his family stayed.
“Dad? Hyung?”
He pushed his way around the miscellaneous things in the path into his brother’s room, calling out a few more times.
He pushed his way into his dad’s room as a last hope, still finding absolutely no one in the house. He groaned agitatedly and continued to run about the house, tripping a few times and not really knowing what to do next.
He shuffled his way over to the window and lifted the blinds carelessly, probably a bad idea he will later admit. He searches past the hanging clothes and can still hear the distant shrill shrieking, immediately pinpointing the humanoid outside and dropping to the floor and covering his mouth.
He scrambled up and messily grabs for the landline across the wall from him, quickly dialing a 911 call. He shakes and starts to rip at the inside of his wrist with his nails, bouncing on his feet and calling out meager hellos.
He doesn’t get anything back besides static and more of the shrieking.
He pauses and slowly shuffled to where he can see the front door, still holding the phone to his ear.
Within seconds, the humanoid figure blocks out the reflecting light on the door. He heard a slight clunk and looks to see the bolt lock sliding off of its hinge.
Simple to say that he does not wait to see what happens and rushes off while dropping the phone.
“Oh shit, oh shit!” He keeps whispering to himself as he violently pushes open the back door and rushes across the small portion of grass with his eyes closed, too frightened to find out if there might be another one of those things.
He jolts open the door and closes it with minimal amounts of care. He searches with his eyes, spotting the old beat up 223 Savage hunting rifle that was no doubt faulty and rusting, but he really didn’t give a crap at that point and brought it down and forcefully pulled the magazine out and grabbed the old Winchester boxes.
He dumped them out and pulled the bracket down and tried to shove two at a time down the double barrel, fumbling and dropping even more with little clinks.
He managed to get about six into the magazine before he eventually let out a sob and shoved it in, flipped the safety off, hoisted the much too big artillery onto the dock next to him, and waited.
For a few seconds, he heard nothing but his terror stricken pants and sobs. Then, he heard all at once the guttural growling that seemed to come from everywhere.
He looked up, shaking, until
There was nothing but silence.
—————
SEPTEMBER FOURTH, 1983
Johnny Seo wakes with a start, seemingly had a bad dream but can’t remember about what. Groaning, he turns to his side and lethargically looks down at his old wristwatch.
8:09am.
Even after seeing that he’s much too late in waking up to get into work on time, he still doesn’t make himself rush. He pulls off of the old couch and sits for a second to gather his jumbled thoughts.
Moving up and off he bums a cig from the opened package sitting in his shirt from yesterday, he steps outside of the little porch and flicks his lighter on.
Spending the few seconds he has for himself, he just stares out onto the lake and cliff sides before him, taking easy breathes filled with the nicotine.
Stepping back in after dulling the cig in a near ashtray, he makes for the shower and does quick use of it. Just doing his necessary everyday things before leaving; brushing teeth, cologne he knows is from the sixties but won’t replace, anti anxiety meds, and the momentary breathing exercises he needs to get through the Monday.
Shuffling out and haphazardly throwing on his sherif uniform, he donned his badge and handy revolver before grabbing his keys and finally heading to the station.
An hour late.
——-
Doyoung bustles around the crowded living room, “where the hell are they?”
He shoved around the room while calling out for his son,
“Check the couch!”
Doyoung just groans again, “I did already! I can’t f- oh, found em.” And sheepishly moves back toward Jaehyun who is cooking in the kitchen.
Jaehyun just looks back at his father and rolls his eyes with an exasperated look and nods.
“Okay Jae! I will see you tonight,” he gently touched his son's head, getting an affirmative from the boy.
Doyoung makes quick work of gather his bag before he looks to the empty seat at the table, “Where’s Jen?”
Jaehyun doesn’t look up and continues to make food, “oh I didn’t get him yet, he’s probably still sleeping.”
His father just sighs and brings his hand up to rub at the forming headache, “you’ve got to make sure he’s up, Jae.” And he rushes off to the younger son’s room.
The latter just tries to lift his hands and show the food he’s been making and gets a half hearted swat on the ear from his father while muttering under his breath.
“Jeno! Gotta get up now kid!” He walks down the hallway calling out for his youngest, getting to the door only to be greeted by an empty and unmade bed.
His playful jive is thrown off of his face and he goes into full panicked father mode. “He came home last night, right?” He calls over his shoulder towards the kitchen and getting a strange look from his eldest son,
“I can’t say, I was working.” And Jaehyun sets the plates off food on the table,
“you don’t know where your brother is?” Doyoung looks at Jaehyun with scrutiny in his eyes, still in an almost full blown panic. The boy can see this and quickly starts to explain,
“David asked if I could cover and I said yeah, we needed the money so-“ he’s cut off by another sharp swipe to the shoulder.
“Jaehyun we’ve talked about this, you can’t work when I am!” Doyoung starts to pace, getting more agitated by the second.
Jaehyun sets down what is in his hands and goes around the table to hold his father around the shoulders and stop his panic driven pacing, “dad it’s not a big deal, he was with the Lee’s the entire day. I’m sure he stayed over or something!”
Doyoung just moves his son’s arms off of him and goes over to the landline, which was strangely just dangling off of the hook.
Quickly dialing the Lees’ residence and waiting for the dial tone to pick up,
“Hello?”
“Oh hi, Sohye. It’s Doyoung.” The agitation is more apparent then he’d like to admit, but is soothed by hearing the kids in the background of Sohye’s line.
“Was that Jeno I heard back there?”
“ Jen? No, it’s just Mark and Sicheng.” Doyoung takes back all he said about feeling relieved.
“He didn’t spend the night?” He’s grabbing at the inside of his wrist and scratching lightly before Jaehyun gently pulls it away from him.
“No, he left a bit after eight.” She starts to sound more alert now on the other line.
“Why? Is he not home?”
Doyoung quickly tries to divert the panic and just replies with, “Oh um, I think he just left early for… for school.” He hangs up promptly after a thanks and brings his hand right back to scratching at the scarred patch.
Jaehyun is now starting to feel more worried, sending the overwhelming anxiety from his father.
They both just stare at each other for a few seconds before the elder starts to walk out.
“I’ll check with his school, you just start heading for class.”
————
The rowdy group of young teens from the previous night are making their own sort of noise again. Chenle muffles a snort once again at a stupid pun that Mark said, never seeming to run out of them.
He coasts his bike over where her and her other three friends would be, hopping off before coming to a stop, pausing once he realizes that the bike rack is empty apart from Jaemin’s, Mark’s, and his bike.
He turns back to them and sees their equally puzzled expressions, “That’s strange. Where’s Jen?” He looks around the courtyard.
Mark adjusts the grip on his bag, “I can’t remember one day where he was late or not here. Not even when sick!”
Jaemin looks between the two before trying to relieve them, “I’m sure his dad was right, he probably just went to class early again.” His voice cutting through the tension with ease.
Chenle just smiles at both and pushes them forward, “you know him, always paranoid that Gursky’s gonna give him another pop quiz.”
Just as he lets go of their jackets, another presence makes itself known.
“Step right up, ladies and gentlemen!”
The boy roughly pulls at the short strands of hair on the back of Chenle’s head, to which he just swats at him and glares.
“Step right up and get your free tickets for the Freak Show!” The boy leans straight into their personal bubble and continues to patronize them.
Looking over at the taller kid beside him, he obnoxiously exclaims, “Who’d you think would make the most money?” He flamboyantly walls straight up to Jaemin,
“The Fairy?” Punch to the shoulder,
“The Foreign Commodity?” Push from the chin to Mark,
He makes a large deal of leaning over to Chenle’s smaller stature, “or the dwarf?” And leans back to his friend.
The larger kid fakes thinking with a gesture of thought, sighing to the other.
“Hm. I’d have to say… The dwarf.” And laughs like the funniest joke of the century was just told.
Weein looks straight at them with unbothered facials, “I’ve told you a million times, I have mild dwarfism and I’m shorter at this age. What’s your excuse?”
And he finished the jab with a quick kick to the shin. The boys’ obvious kicked pride gets to them as they push their way through the group of friends, seemingly with their tails between their legs.
Jaemin quickly grabs Chenle from behind to keep him from running after them, “assholes, they are.”
Mark, still unbothered by everything just smiles, “I think it’s kind of cool! It’s like you’ve got super powers! Plus, Isn’t Black Widow foreign too?” Leaving the others a bit blinded by the positivity.
Chenle just shoves Jaemin off and turns to Mark, “I’d say more like Batman. A superhero who really isn’t super at all.”
Instantly Mark gasps at him, resulting in the light and airy giggles to burst from the boys’ mouth as the three of them start to walk back towards the gates of their school.
—————-
Winwin sighs, grabbing his books and bag from the back seat of Kun’s car. Kun does nothing more than flick his forehead when he turns to ask for help,
“Get out you big baby!”
Winwin just laughs at him when he notices how he messed up his nail polish by flicking him, causing him to glare half heartedly and grasp the keys to shut off the car.
The younger gets out and grabs both of their bags from the back and hands Kun’s to him and reached around him to pinch his shoulder. “Yah! I’m older you punk!”
He just dodged the elder student’s punch and laughed to the sky. Kun just pulls him along to the entrance of their high school and shoved him through the door before speaking again.
“So, did he call?” He wiggles his eyebrows at the boy who just frantically trips with a call to keep his voice down.
He looks down at Kun with his glasses falling down the bridge of his nose, “I told you, it’s not like that.” Only receiving a blank look,
“Okay, sure, he likes me, but not like that.” His voice gradually gaining steadiness by the end of the sentence.
He turned towards his locker and started the dial numbers, “we just… made out a couple time.” He smirks in Kun’s direction.
He just leans against the wall next to him, “hm, and who tops?” Winwin lets out a brief little screech at the silver haired male, getting a loud and boastering laugh from the older friend.
“Chengie, seriously? You’re gonna be so cool now, it’s ridiculous.” Even though the sentence was said with a massive amount of sarcasm, Winwin still snorts at the insinuation.
“Yeah right, and Marvel comics is going to surpass D.C.” and he turns back to his locker to finish.
“All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t forget me when you’re famous.” Getting a side eye from the boy.
“If you become friends with Hyunshik. Or with Jessi-“ Kun is cut off by the over exaggerated vomiting noise from the younger.
“Okay, I’m telling you it was a one time-“
Eyebrow lift from Kun,
“Two time, thing.” And he laughs with the slightly smaller male freely before fully opening the door and catching a folded piece of paper about to fall out.
He looks to Kun and shrugs, opening the paper and seeing the blue ink spell out,
“Meet me. Bathroom.
-Yuta”
“You were saying there, Chengie?”
And all Kun gets is the massive grin thrown his way as Sicheng runs off in the direction of said bathroom.
He quickened his pace, not wanting to leave Yuta waiting. He looked around the bed and saw that the bathroom corridor was empty before quietly sliding into the room and being met with soft lips on his.
Yuta gently grabs him around the waist and pulls the slightly taller boy into his chest to continue to kiss into his mouth.
The kiss is easily a very loving and steamy one, only breaking for air and a quick ‘hello to you too’.
“Yuta,” Sicheng breaks from the kiss and the said boy just drags his mouth over to kiss below the others ear.
“I have to go,”
“In a minute,”
Sicheng looks over Yuta’s shoulder to his watch before softly pushing the older boy’s arms away, giving him one last chaste kiss before the bell rang.
“I’ve seriously got to go!” And Winwin reaches down to his forgotten bag, before Yuta beats him to it and rushes over a few feet away.
“Wait! Um, let's do something tonight?” And Sicheng just looks at the other and gives him a bit of a pitiful smile.
“I can’t, I have to study for Kamisky’s test.” And he grabs for the books sitting on the sink and his bag from Yuta’s hand,
“But come on! What’s your GPA again? 3.999…” Yuta looks off a bit to the side in feigned thinking while Sicheng just giggles a bit,
“You know Kaminsky’s test are impossible.” He reaches again but the boy just moves his bag farther, enjoying the little playful game happening.
“So I’ll be around, say, eight?” And Sicheng just gapes at Yuta, “are you crazy? My mum would not-“
He gets a careless wave of the hand, “I’ll climb through your window. She won’t even know I’m there.” He pauses for dramatic affect seeing the fond smile on Sicheng’s face.
“I’m stealthy, like a ninja.”
The taller just laughs at the little mannerisms he used and just grabs for his books again while shaking his head no.
Yuta just pulls him around the middle again and lets him lean into his chest for a solid few seconds, “I have to study, I’m not kidding.”
Being met with a light laugh and a promise to be quiet he just lightly hits Yuta’s chest and leans away.
“You are an Idiot, Nakamoto Yuta.”
Yuta makes a stupid face towards Sicheng and lets him move away towards the door again with a quick goodbye.
————
Johnny sighs, pulling up to his station. He took a few seconds to collect his thoughts before slamming down on the park shift.
“Such a shame, she’s not gonna last long.” The officer puts a fond hand on the back headboard of his seat, already mourning the loss of his car.
He roughly pushed open his dented door, hearing the awful screech of metal on metal and wincing the slightest bit.
Grabbing his keys and his neck towel, he moves towards the building and buzzed himself in.
“Good if you to finally show!” The resident secretary chastises him. Johnny just lets out a nonchalant hum in her direction, shouting a good morning to the others.
“Hey chief!”
“Damn! You Look like hell, chief.” Barnes doesn’t even look up to know,
“Oh, yeah? Well, I look better than your wife when I left her this morning.”
Johnny’s sarcasm makes the rest of the room jostle our a few laughs, his assistant Jennie coming up behind him and takes out his cigarette and dulls it on the nearby ashtray.
“While you were out drinking and sleeping, or whatever you deemed so necessary on a Monday morning, Phil Larson called and said some kids are stealing the gnomes out of his garden again.” Jennie leans herself up the close window seal, checking her nails.
“Oh those gnomes again. Well, I’ll tell you what, I’m gonna get right on that.” Johnny rushes to grab one of the leftover donuts sitting on the counter and moves to walk to his office, being stopped by another interjection from Jennie.
“On a more pressing matter. Kim Doyoung can’t find his son this morning.” The overall somber tone she had used goes completely over Johnny’s head as he waves her off with another promise to get onto it.
Johnny goes to walk off again in the direction of his office with Jennie still hit on his tail, calling out the obscurity of the situation and urging him to start at the very moment.
“Jennie, c’mon we’ve discussed this. Mornings are for coffee and contemplation.” As Jennie starts again to make her claim Johnny just repeats himself with more volume and heads straight for the office.