I've never written for Stranger Things before, but this little bit popped into my head after watching Season 4. Hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
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The first night they're all in Hawkins again, they eat dinner on the floor of Hopper's cabin in the woods. There's still no ceiling and a thin layer of debris covers some of the areas the kids missed in their cleaning, but none of them seem to care.
Murray goes to the next town over to buy them the basic groceries. Considering Hopper is supposed to be dead and the Byers have long since left for California, they don't want to draw attention to themselves - not when the town is already suspicious of satanic worship - so Murray offers to go for them. The electricity isn't on, so it's the basics: peanut butter sandwiches and carrot sticks, no dip. He'll get more in the morning once they can figure out some sort of refrigeration. Hopper isn't thrilled, but it reminds Will of childhood.
Over the next few nights, they make due with the cabin. There's only one bedroom and it's El's. Hopper doesn't really want to disrupt that but El insists the kids can all share. They're her brothers, or so the story goes. So Will and Jonathan have makeshift beds on the floor while Hopper and Joyce share the couches in the living room with no ceiling.
And Argyle, of course, is still there. Argyle, who sleeps in his truck and looks for mushrooms during the day and makes Hopper's face all types of red every time he speaks. When Murray gets groceries, he takes Argyle too.
"Still have no idea who he is," he mutters as the two leave.
Finding a house with a roof is surprisingly easy. Hawkins isn't exactly prime real estate and Joyce manages a good deal on a house near their old one. The current owners think they're nuts for returning now, but Joyce forces a joke about not much can beat this earthquake and they buy the joke - because they don't know - and Will hides his discomfort knowing how far from the truth it actually is. But, it gets them the house that they need. It's not anything big and fancy, but it's enough. There's a room for the boys and one for Joyce and a smaller room that's not really a bedroom but an old nursery that Joyce reserves for El - whenever she needs to get away for a bit, Joyce tells her with a wink, but really it's because they've all gotten used to living with El and the idea of not having her around hurts them all.
The Hoppers spend most of their time at the house anyway. And, for a minute, with Vecna still injured and the town stably unstable, it almost seems normal, like this was how it was supposed to be all along. Sometimes, Will even imagines what it might have been like if they were all just Hoppers.
He draws pictures in his sketchbook, scenes really, of his imagination. All the baseball games that Lonnie promised to bring him to growing up, he thinks Hop would have actually brought him to, would have taught him how to hold his glove and catch a foul ball. He imagines Hopper ruffling his hair like he did to El when it was growing back. Hopper wouldn't have called him names like Lonnie either. He would have just been Will - not fag or queer or weirdo.
And Jonathan…Jonathan would still be quiet and almost reclusive he imagines, but he wouldn't have had to be Will's father figure. He could have had a childhood. Maybe he would have had some friends, or a friend. Maybe Nancy and Barb would have absorbed him into their group or maybe someone else. Someone who wouldn't have minded Jonathan Hopper, the sheriff's son, rather than Jonathan Byers, the quiet kid with the camera who always has to run off to father his little brother.
And maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have lost Mike to El so quickly if El was just Will's sister. Maybe she would have been like Erica, the annoying little sister, or Nancy, the annoying older sister. He likes to imagine her as his twin sister though, a sister who he has a good relationship with and who cares about him and who joins their group D&D games in the Wheeler basement occasionally but also has her own friends.
But regardless, El would have just been El. She would have just been Will's sister, which automatically would have made her someone just there in Mike's orbit. Not some special superhero to hold on a pedestal. Just Jane Hopper. El. Will's sister. Maybe eventually she and Mike would have still connected, but it wouldn't have been so abrupt. He wouldn't have come back from the upside down only to have Mike completely lost because of a girl.
But, of course, it's all just speculation. It's all just dreams. His reality is that he is Will Byers, the kid who vanished, the freak connected to Vecna. Zombie boy. But sometimes, sometimes, it's nice to imagine a life where things actually went his way.
Hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think.