AN: For the person who asked: yes, this fic is named after the fleetwood mac song.

I sat in the school's main office trying to fill out some sort of student council form.

Apparently if you wanted to join there was a bunch of stuff they wanted to know, like why did you want to join, were you aware of the time sacrifices you'd have to make, all that boring stuff.

I'd asked around about Hawkins High's student government, but most people either did not know such thing existed and the ones who did didn't care much for it. They didn't put a lot into organising events in the school, the only one they actually put any semblance of effort into was prom.

I figured it was about time the kids from Hawkins started living a little.

"Hey, you're Rory Hopper, right?"

I looked up to see a tall brunette girl with kind green eyes.

I put my pen down. "Uh yes, that's me."

"You want to join student council?" She asked.

I nodded.

She smiled. "That's great! It's always good to have some new people around."

"You want to join the council, Hopper?" Over to us walked Carol, a bitchy redheaded girl who I'd clashed with a couple of times in class.

"Oh is this not the form for the Bananarama super fan club? Why did no one tell me?" I said in fake-shock.

Carol scoffed at me, before rolling her eyea. "I'm actually running for president myself."

Oh motherfucker.

I tried to hide how pissed off I actually was. "Oh, isn't that just great?"

The green-eyed girl, whose name I was yet to learn looked between Carol and I worriedly, as if she wasn't sure whether to interject or not. Finally, she said, "I actually have to get going, but good luck, Rory. See you guys later."

And with that she grabbed her books and left. Way to leave me alone with the she devil.

I looked down at my form, hoping Carol would get the message and leave, but no such luck.

"You know, it's going to be some tough competition to get into the junior class council, people aren't so keen on newbies they know nothing about trying to take someone else's spot. If I were you, I'd make sure my speech for election day was absolutely awe-inspiring."

I looked at Carol. "Gee, thanks a lot, Carol."

I started on my form again and she finally left me alone.

๑ ❥ ๑

Art class was a very soothing moment for me. It was my me time, time to relax, not worry about anything, and just let myself flow within my art. I was not by any means good at it though, I would say maybe I was mildly okay, but it was cathartic.

I also liked it because it was my class with the least amount of annoying individuals. My friend Emily also had the class, and she had the tendency to brighten any room she entered, the rest of my classmates I didn't know very well, but they were all pretty friendly and pretty funny, the only exception to this was one Steve Harrington, whom I'm sure just took the class because he thought it'd be an easy A, which annoyed our teacher very much. I tried my best to ignore his existence.

This week our theme was 'home'. We had to paint something that reminded us of our home, or what we thought of as home. Which was complicated for me. I thought of myself as being American, English and Puerto Rican, so settling on one thing or one place was almost impossible but in the end I tried to make it work.

Now, I won't lie and say my painting should be in the MoMA, but I was pretty proud of it. It was one third of the Puerto Rican, American and British flags all together forming one, a string holding the three pieces together. Above it I'd written the phrase 'ni de aquí ni de allá'. I'd put a lot of effort into it, and I was very pleased with the results.

"Can I see it now?" Emily asked impatiently from beside me.

We'd said we'd wait until we finished to show each other our pieces. She thought it made it more exciting.

"Sure."

Without much preamble, I turned my painting so Emily could see it.

Her eyebrows raised. "Oh my gosh, Rory, it's so good! Is that supposed to be and America, England and... uh Cuba?."

Her saying Cuba made my blood boil, I knew the flags were similar, but surely it can't be that hard to tell them apart. I tried to remain calm. "Puerto Rico, actually."

She frowned. "You're Puerto Rican?"

I nodded.

"Huh." I could almost hear the gears turning in her head. "But... your dad?"

"He's an American through and through, but my mum was born and raised in Puerto Rico and moved to America when she was eighteen for college and then stayed here." I explained.

Emily nodded slowly. "That's interesting. Maybe it's for the best most people don't know, if you were any more interesting, people would actually start hating you instead of being oddly interested in your life."

I chuckled. "Or even worse, they could start being more weirdly interested in my life."

Emily laughed before adding a few brush strokes to her own canvas.

"Can I see your painting?" I asked.

Emily grimaced. "It's not finished yet."

"Emily! The class is almost over!" I reminded her.

"I know, I know. But I'm going to get here super early next week to finish before Miss Edwards grades it."

"Alright, if you say so."

Emily focused on her painting again, and I sat back in my chair, trying to take a peek at other people's work. I was actually thinking of getting up and go chat to someone when the bell rang, signaling the end of the class, thus the end of the this fine Wednesday at school.

I started putting away my stuff when I noticed a commotion going on right in front of my space. I looked up just in time to see Steve Harrington push into Scott Daleman's shoulder, who happened to be carrying a can of red paint to put away. And, you guessed it, Scott dropped the paint, right onto my precious painting.

It all happened so fast, before I could even react, the red paint was oozing down the bright colours of my painting and all I could think about was how much it looked like blood. And I know I was being a little dramatic but I'd worked very hard on this painting, and in less than a second it was all gone.

I could vaguely hear Scott's voice frantically telling me he was sorry. But my sights set on one big haired fucker, who had briefly stopped to assess the damage he'd done.

"Harrington! What the fuck?" I felt tears forming in my eyes and something pulling at my throat, but I forced them down.

Steve shrugged his shoulders tensely. "I'm sorry, okay? But it wasn't entirely my fault."

He did not sound one bit sorry.

My eyes widened. "Oh my god, that is absolute tosh. One of the only rules in this room reads very clearly, be careful. Scott was being careful, but you, fucking hillbilly had to come barreling down and shoved Scott like the uncivilised numpty you are."

He seemed confused for a split second before getting his upset face on. "Calm down, it's just a painting."

"A painting which has not been graded yet, not to mention the fact that I spent hours and hours working on it, and it meant a lot to me." I was now standing, frowning deeply at Steve.

"Well then maybe you should've done something simpler."

Was he for real?

I gaped at him. "This is not about that! It's about you ruining my work in a really stupid way that could've been prevented, you absolute fucking arse."

"Will you please calm down?" He said exasperated.

"Will you please fly into the sun?"

Steve sighed. "Look, I already said I was sorry, I don't see what else I can do, and I need to get going, so – "

He took off.

"Hey! Don't you walk away from me!" I yelled after his retreating back, but he was already out of earshot.

The worst part about this was that he was probably on his way to meet Nancy, and he would be the one who got to kiss her beautiful face. So even though he was the one who wronged me, he was the one who would get the reward. Life most definitely was not fair.

๑ ❥ ๑

I flipped through the radio stations in the car, but I could feel Jonathan's eyes on me begging me to just pick one, but he was too polite to actually tell me. I finally settled on a random one, just to give him some peace.

"So, this car looks nice when its rear end is not hitting me." I commented with a slight smirk.

Jonathan ducked his head. "I try."

We were currently headed towards my place, and when I say my place I mean my dad's old trailer, I went there occasionally because we were supposed to still be living there, and because it had a working phone, unlike our cabin.

I'd tried to get Jonathan to offer his place, but apparently Will's gang was going to be there so it'd be real hard to get any work done. And I figured the trailer wouldn't arise any suspicion.

As we arrived I tried to examine the place discreetly for any signs of the fact that no one was currently living there, but I'd been thorough with my check yesterday.

"Settle in, you want a La Croix?" I said to Jonathan as I dumped my stuff in an armchair.

Jonathan sat on the couch. "Sure."

Good, because it was all we had in the fridge. I grabbed our beverages from the fridge as Jonathan looked around the tiny space. There were a few pictures on the walls, but the rest of it was pretty bare. I just hoped he didn't ask to see my room, because it did not exist.

I took out my books as Jonathan popped open his drink. He took a sip and coughed, almost spitting it out.

"Yeah, it takes a while to adjust to the terrible flavour." I commented.

Jonathan carefully set his drink back on the coffee table, as far away from himself as he could.

I stared at my biology textbook blankly. "Do you have any idea how much I don't want to do this?"

"It can't be that hard." He tried to encourage.

I sat back on the couch. "Even thinking about having to do it makes my brain hurt."

"Alright, so biology."

I perked up. "Oh that reminds me, do you know the name of the middle school science teacher?"

Jonathan frowned. "It's Mr Clarke, I think."

I wrote it down on the margin of my bio book. "Great, thanks."

"Sure. What do you need him for?"

I need him to teach me middle school science so I can teach my recluse little sister. "Just to ask him a question."

"Alright. Let's get started then. How do you think we should divide our research?"

"Uh I guess – "

The phone's loud ringing cut me off. I stood up to answer. "I'm sorry, I think this is a very important call."

I'd given my friends this number and the arcade's number in case they caught me at either place, but it was proving difficult so far.

I picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Aurora?" So it was her.

I almost jumped in excitement. "Pau? No chingues, te extraño un buen, necesito contarte un chorro de cosas." Pau, I miss you so much, there's so many things I've got to tell you.

"Ya se! Yo también, me haces un buen de falta." I know, I miss you too Pau moaned back from the other end.

"Oye pero habíamos quedado en enviarnos cartas, las llamadas cuestan un buen." Hey, we'd said we'd send letters to each other though, calls cost a ton.

I could almost hear her pout through the phone. "Ya séee, pero quería escuchar tu voz." I knooow, but I wanted to hear your voice.

"Ay que bonita, pero ya apúrate a ver, qué ha pasado allá en estos días de escuela?" Aw, that's so sweet, but come on hurry up, what's been going on at school over there? I tried to rush her.

Pau then launched into a monologue about all the drama that had gone down at our tiny school back in Puerto Rico, half of it was kind of interesting, but the other half was more or less useless information. By the very end of it, Pau finally asked how things were on my end.

"Eeh, pues ha estado todo tranquilo, todo mundo estuvo pegado de mi en la escuela la primera semana, pero ahora ya nada más me estoy juntando con como dos personas. Pero sabés qué? Ahorita estoy haciendo un proyecto con un amigo, y ya me tengo que ir." Um, well everything's been calm over here, everyone was all over me during the first week of school, but I've only been hanging out with like two people now. But you know what? I'm doing a project with a friend right now, and I have to go. I explained to my friend.

She was sad to hang up, but I knew that phone call would probably cost her an arm and a leg. So we said our goodbyes.

I turned back to Jonathan, to see him looking at me with a bit of a frown.

"I'm sorry, I just hadn't talked to my friend in a while, I got a little excited." I explained to him.

He nodded. "That's okay." He looked down at his book briefly. "Was that – was that Spanish?"

I nodded as I took a sip of my La Croix. "You could tell, huh?"

"I didn't know you spoke Spanish."

"Yeah, my mum's Puerto Rican."

Jonathan seemed surprised. "Oh."

"I actually tried to take Spanish in school, I attended three classes before my dad realised what I was doing and went to the school to tell them I already knew Spanish."

Jonathan smiled lightly. "Did you get in trouble?"

I scribbled on my notebook. "Not really, they just made me drop the class."

"I'm actually very bad at Spanish, I'm pretty sure I'm failing the class." He commented.

"I can help you if you want." I offered.

"Thanks. But maybe we should focus on biology first." Jonathan nodded towards our open books.

I sighed before accepting defeat and finally starting on our assignment.

๑ ❥ ๑

"What are you doing?"

I looked up at Emily startled. I'd been trying to work on my speech all of lunch. I'd already practiced saying it do my dad and El yesterday but I still felt like I needed to make a few changes.

I looked back down at my notebook. "I'm just working on my speech."

Emily frowned. "Speech? Is it for class? I hope it's for one we don't share because I don't remember anything about a speech."

"No, it's for the student council, voting is today." I reminded her.

Her frown deepened. "But... you're not running for president, are you?"

"What? No, I'm just running for being a member."

Emily remained confused. "Then why are you making a speech?"

I finally put my pencil down, what was Emily even talking — "Do we not have to make a speech?"

"The very few candidates for the council are usually announced on the loudspeakers, and then we write or picks on a piece of paper. Then the president candidates are announced, and they do make a speech, but not until later." Emily explained.

I stared down at my notebook with hatred. "God-fucking-damit." I tore the page with my speech on it. "That fucking bitch Carol fucking lied to me, and I fell for it."

Emily gave me a sympathetic smile. "Well, look at the bright side, you found out before the voting happened."

I sighed. "I just do not understand the need to make me think I had to deliver a speech. She's so — "

I cut myself off and huffed lowly. I looked at the speech I'd been putting so much effort into, all because of fucking Carol's agenda.

I took a deep breath. "You know what? I don't care. I've worked hard on that speech, and these bitches are going to hear it one way or another."

I smiled cheekily at my friend, who gave me a curious look.

It was game time.

๑ ❥ ๑

I stood right outside the principal's office, a radio that belonged to Emily's father in my hand.

"Alright he's just finishing up the names, it's go time." Em's grainy voice came through the speaker.

"Copy that." I responded as I made a beeline towards the office door.

I burst into the room, much to the principal's surprise. He was a short skinny bald man with glasses who was always trying to socialise with the students, surely he wouldn't be too mad at me.

I mouthed an apology as I grabbed a hold of the mic.

Principal Pelton recovered from his shock. "What do you think you're doing?" He whisper-yelled. "Give me that." He unsuccessfully tried to take the apparatus from me.

I quickly clicked the button to start the transmission. "Hello students of Hawkins High. This is your candidate for junior council, Rory Hopper, and today I would like to address the junior class of this institution with a very important message." As I spoke I tried to give the principal a look that said please just let me finish. "I know at this point you don't care much about student council. I mean, what's the point anyway, what do they do? They organise the prom, it turns out okay, and that's it, right? But what you don't know, my dear Hawkins students, is that it can be so much more than that. I am not only trying to get your hopes up by saying this. We all have to be here every weekday for the next two years, I promise I will do everything in my power to make those approximately 390 days left better, be it by a bake sale, or an art showing, or a party, or an outing or anything else you might want to make it special. That is my promise to you, making the day-to-day of Hawkins High better, maybe not by outlandish activities but by the little things that will brighten your day. This school has been nothing but welcoming to me, I hope I will make it justice. My name is Rory Hopper, and I am running for junior student council. Thank very much."

Pelton had calmed down and had an almost touched look on his face by the time I finished but I did not stick around to see if the face was true to his feelings, I bolted out of the room as fast as I'd come in.

Take that, Carol.