Joan really felt like she was going insane.
All the conspiracy stories about Hawkins, the craziness of the 80's, and the adults in her life refusing to talk about any of it all made sense now. Fucking real life DnD monsters from a different dimension a-and Aunt El has super powers!?
"Shit." Joan let out shakily, the mall coming up in her vision and her heart started to race even more. She pulled up at the front this time - ready for a quick getaway - and got out the car to take in the scene in front of her.
A burning Camaro, a trashed mall, debris everywhere.
"...around... its turning around!..." Joan quickly reached into her car to grab the Walkie Talkie, speaking into it clearly. "What's turning around? Steve?"
"T-the monster! Joan, where are you?!"
"U-uh outside? ...Alone?"
"...Get the hell inside and hide! Find the kids and tell them the-the Mind Flayer, its coming and HIDE!" Joan didn't need to be told twice, running into the front of the mall with the hand gun in hand and the radio clipped to her belt.
The first thing she saw made her heart stop at Billy - her almost murderer - holding onto an unconscious El. "O-Oh, oh my God." Swallowing her fear she pointed the gun over at Billy and steadied her aim, feeling a mirage of feelings at everything that he had done to her.
"Alright, Jo. These things are not a joke, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, uncle Lucas. Gimmie the shiny!"
"Oi, Hargrove! Let the girl go and go fuck yourself."
Billy turned slowly, looking at Joan like she wasn't even a threat. Carefully, he set El down and walked over to Joan. "Or what, Henderson?"
"O-or I shoot." Joan snapped out, taking the safety off and hoping he could hear the action just as loudly as she did. Billy didn't make any move to calm his walk and Joan grew nervous. "I-I'm serious, Hargrove. I'm not fucking around after what you did to me!"
Billy studied Joan as if she were a specimen under a micro glass, head tilted and eyes dead to the world. It made Joan shake, trying to remember the times Uncle Lucas brought her to the gun range and his words to just breathe, stay calm, aim, and...
"Do you remember Heather, Henderson?"
A flash of a familiar face worried turned panicked. A soft question of are you okay because Heather cared about people, that's why she chose lifeguarding. Heather was a good person who ran towards the drowning 10 year old instead of freezing up like Joan did.
"I do." Billy chuckled darkly, eyes deeper than ever and voice more dangerous than Joan had heard it before. "How could I forget? She screamed so lovely." Billy let out a fake sigh of remembrance, watching in seemingly satisfaction as Joan's face crumbled. Joan didn't see the tear go down his face as she shut her eyes and tried to get the image she conjured out of her mind. "Oh, she was terrified. Called for mommy, daddy, begged me for mercy, then she called for you Joan..."
Joan could see it, Heather's face screaming out for her as if Joan would be her savior in her last moments. Tears running down her face, throat raw from screaming, and hair a mess as her last word of Joan, anyone, please he-! before that thing...
She watched in her mind in horror as the events played out over and over again seemingly forever. Kind, compassionate Heather asking if Billy was okay. Billy knocking her out and Heather waking up to a dark trunk. Terrified, she pleaded and begged, but no one heard her and she basically died in painful agony.
Oh God, Heather had been screaming in pain while right next to her and Joan hadn't done anything to help her. Instead, Joan had saw her way out and ran.
"And you - all you did was run." Billy was close enough to whisper and Joan took the shot in a panic. Billy dodged it, grabbing her by the hand and squeezing tightly until she dropped the gun with a cry of pain. He brought his lips over to Joan's ear like a lover and whispered. "But don't worry Jo, you'll join us and never have to worry about not being there again."
"Join us."
"I hope you never join us again, Joan."
Panicked, Joan punched Billy in the jaw and set to run away, but Billy fisted Joan's hair. With a cry of pain, Joan was forced back around to face a terrifying Billy. His hand shoved her head down before sending an elbow to the back of her head and Joan dropped to the ground immediately. Black spots covered her vision and she was thrown to the wall, where she watched blurrily as Billy walked back over to El.
She tried to move, tried to run, tried to speak, tried to do literally anything but nothing came out except weak breaths, snot, saliva, and a little bit of blood. Her body didn't exist and in that moment if you had told Joan her that her body was cut from her head, she'd believe it if it wasn't for the heaviness that flooded her limbs. She was both weightless and weighed too heavy to move, so she laid with her cheek pressed to the cool tile floor, clouds of self-loathing starting to settle.
Every blink seemed to fast forward time. Billy almost seemed to be teleporting and Joan had no idea how long she'd been laying there listening to the sound of static and distanced words, trying to see if there was anything she could learn before Billy came back to kill her.
Joan's breath caught in her throat.
That was the monster - the Mind Flayer.
She had a front row seat to the show, Joan thought darkly, and what a coincidence this all was. The Mind Flayer had been a monster in her first ever campaign with Hellfire with the past senior president proudly leading the three month expedition before heading off to study Computer Science at Texas A&M. How ironic was it that her character had died to it all those years ago?
Joan's eyelids soon were formed into led and her consciousness slowed down into brief seconds comprehension as she watched bright lights surround them in fear and awe.
"Dad? Can we light fireworks this year?"
"...I don't know Jo. You know how the, uh, neighborhood is with fireworks with all the veterans n' all."
"Oh, okay."
"...Maybe next year, Stinky Jo."
The next time Joan blinked all she saw was darkness. Unable to move, Joan lost all her energy to keep herself awake and her motivation to live after this sent her into a deep sleep. She'd wake up a few days later in a hospital bed with stories of a mall fire flowing out of the doctor's and nurse's mouths so casually that Joan believed them.
Almost believed them.
If it wasn't for the way her brother walked into her room with tears in his eyes or how his arms nearly suffocated her to death, Joan would have written off the events of that night as just one big dream or hallucination from second-hand smoke off of Eddie Munson.
Steve Harrington came in next, somber news following him and it took both boys holding her in a firm hug to keep the wailing teen on the bed. Her biggest fear had warped into reality quicker than Joan could have realized and there was nothing she could do to change any of it.
She really was useless, wasn't she?
She didn't save anyone, she wasn't the hero to anyone's story that night.
Instead, she was the extra baggage that had to be drug out over the shoulder of Steve Harrington who looked way worse than she did and probably had more trauma than she'd ever even be able to think about. Everyone including the middle schoolers had done something to help last night and what did Joan do?
Nothing.
She ran like a coward.
She sat front row at Heather's funeral staring through the picture grinning at her with haunted eyes in a dress that seemed blacker then anything she had ever worn. Joan sat next to Heather's mom's great aunt, the only living relative to the family, and felt like her body was on fire.
The Holloway Funeral was the last one for today, there would be more tomorrow, too many more.
Heather was mocking her, screaming at her, crying to her, and Joan could do nothing but watch a close casket that she knew didn't even have her body in it, because it had been crushed into a soup to create a monster that wanted to kill everyone she knew.
She stayed in that seat even when people got up to talk to each other and comfort one another.
She stayed in that seat when people came to her and tried to reminisce on memories she didn't even fucking have.
She stayed in that seat even when the preacher left the room.
She stayed in that fucking seat because Heather never stood a chance.
It was the moment that it got real for Joan. Her situation was now no longer fun days at the pool laughing in the sun, but now it was the constant thoughts wrestling throughout her mind that people died. Not just people, but people she knew - her friends.
The worst of it?
Heather hadn't known her.
Heather died thinking that Joan was Agatha and had possessed all the memories of their most intimate times, saddest times, and best of times. Joan was an imposter and even worse she couldn't even play like she was the good guy. She had stolen the life of another and she wasn't even paying for it at all.
"Joan?"
She didn't look up at who occupied the seat next to her choosing instead to grip onto one of Heather's scrunchies that had been left at her house from their last sleep over. Did no one understand that Joan didn't want to be made to feel better? She wanted to suffer because that's all she knew and all she deserved.
"Listen, Joan, I-I know none of this makes sense and, uh, life is crazy... now even crazier with the addition of another dimension and the realization that your brother and his best friends are somehow tangled up in it..." Steve trailed off, running a hand through his hair with a sigh. "B-but I hope you know you're not alone. You're not... alone this time."
"...Heather was alone." Joan replied quietly, fiddling with the scrunchy and staring at the portrait of the Holloways.
"What?"
"Heather was alone." Joan repeated. "He told me. I-I think he showed me."
"Told you what? Who?" Steve furrowed his eyebrows in concern, moving his body to face Joan to a point where their knees touched. "Joan?"
"Billy... the monster in Billy... whatever or w-whoever that thing thing was, it told me she died screaming for me. And I-it got it in my head. She's in there, screaming for me r-right before it..." Joan swallowed thickly, squeezing her eyes painfully shut and covering her mouth to hold in the sob. "What am I s-supposed to do with that?"
"I don't know." Steve started and hesitated. With a deep breathe in and out, he got up from his seat and squatted in front of Joan to get her attention. His hands clutched over her own holding onto the scrunchy and gave her a firm squeeze of comfort. "Look, Joan, this sucks, like really sucks, but Heather... Heather would hate to see you shell off like this. She'd want to see you living for her - live your life a-and be kind because that's what she was known for, yeah? The kind girl who smiled at everyone including the Byers kid a-and Munson. Just live."
The tears came out slowly and she couldn't hold them back after that. After the first sob, Joan fell apart in front of Steve and allowed him to wrap his arms around her shoulders, holding her close while she shook with the guilt of everything because Heather was kind. She was so kind that it was the reason she was now dead and Joan struggled with the idea that her kindness killed her.
How was she supposed to be kind when that was what killed Heather Holloway?