1985
Joan snorted out a laugh as she watched Eddie try to cartwheel at their spot deep in the woods. They had a little argument on their way to their spot about the skill it took to be a cheerleader - someone record this for Brynnyn - and his exact words were.
"It can't be that hard to flail your limbs around and do a jump with a girly little cheer for the boys."
"Yeah? Then why don't you do it?"
After some more antagonizing on Joan's side, Eddie had thrown his hands to the ground in a poor imitation of a cartwheel while throwing his legs over his body, and landed each time on his back with a crooked grin her way.
"Not that hard, huh?" Joan teased as she leant back on her hands and crossed her legs politely. She had just came from practice when they snuck off to meet at their spot, so the green skirt hugged her legs kindly. "You make it look so easy, Munson."
"Yeah, like you could do any better, princess." Eddie teased back as he dusted himself off. The metalhead wiggled his eyebrows and gestured to the open clearing before them. "I could give you a lesson."
Against better judgement, Joan stood up and nearly skipped over to the chain-wearing teen. With hands on her hips she looked up at him expectantly. "Oh great cheerleader, teach me thy ways."
Like a great storyteller, Eddie shot off with words and terms that made no sense nor had any rhyme. He gestured wildly and ran circles, flipping over the ground messily and once again landing on his back before nodding seriously to Joan.
"I think you're ready."
With a snort of disbelief, Joan humored the boy by throwing her arms up and doing a few flips into a cartwheel, finishing up with a Y to the sky and a standing spilt, and sealed the deal with a bright grin to a barely blinking Eddie.
"...how'd I do?" It was smug, but there was an honesty in the question. Somehow his opinion made her nervous because even though she knew she was good - better than Eddie - him acknowledging it would be... stellar. "Eddie?"
"I-oh." Eddie shot up off the ground and nervously brushed the leaves from his hair. "I, that was... beyond anything I've ever seen before."
"Oh shut up." The blush on her face was visible - a curse from her mom's side of the family - and she tried to rub it out. "It's not like you haven't seen this before."
"Well, it's not every day you get your own private cheerleading show." The crooked grin sent her way had her heart lurching in her chest. The closer he got the more she thought her chest might explode until the familiar smell of weed and tobacco wiggled into her nose not unpleasantly. "You do this for all the metalheads?"
"Mmmm, only the ones with long hair and a sick ride."
"So you and Hargrove...?" He was teasing she knew that, there was no way he wasn't, but the name sent the lurch into a painful discomfort at the grim reminder of who she had lost only months ago.
"I hope you never join us."
It was strange how attached she had gotten to the blond after only a basketful of conversations. In the public eye he was either aloof, flirty, or a bully, but there were those rare moments when he was with his cigarette and car where the stress of life didn't seem to wear him down... and he was almost pleasant.
"Oh, shit, Joan. I-I ruined the mood, didn't I?" Eddie frowned and took a few steps away from the cheerleader, leaving her frowning even deeper at the loss of proximity. "I, damn. I should never have brought him up after... after what you guys..."
It was always assumed that Heather, Billy, and Joan had been hanging out at the mall when the fire happened. With no other explanation and even though the three had never actually hung out before, the community clung to the rumor like it was a lifeline and Joan neither confirmed nor denied it... it felt easier that way. It wasn't hard to tell that Eddie had some pretty morbid thoughts running through his head.
With the amount of times Joan jumped at the slightest of noise or the way unannounced flames, including a lighter, would send mind into a blank state... Eddie definitely imaged she saw them dying a gruesome death in the flames of the mall.
Unfortunately, he wasn't too far off.
"Joan?"
Joan blinked back to the present to look at Eddie who held a firm hand on her shoulder in an unintentional grounding method. It worked bringing her back to him, a skill he had started to pick up around her.
"..." All he did was hold up her camera with a soft smile and Joan's heart melted as he set the camera on top of a branch in a rather crooked way, but the significance was there.
Distract, distract, distract.
He wasn't able to stay quiet for long as his mouth started moving to talk about the time he and his Uncle took a family photo a couple years ago - it was just a single Polaroid taken by their neighbours - and that it hung happily on their fridge. It had been the last time Eddie had willingly thrown himself into a normal photo besides in the yearbook.
Until she came along.
The self timer was set and Eddie made a scene to jog over to Joan, catching sight of the grin on her face just in time to wrap an arm around her waist as he stumbled over a root. A squeak of surprise left her and her hands pressed into his chest softly as she was dipped backwards just enough to stay balanced. The camera flashed and out printed a photo that she kept safe in the drawer of her desk, with the scrunchies from Heather.
But unfortunately that photo would soon be ripped in half for Joan to look down upon in misery because those moments were honest... and that made them more beautiful than anything she had ever been apart of.
And for Eddie, it wasn't much different.
1986
"Okay, okay." Steve repeated as he thought over the situation to calm himself down. "Nance and Robin are infiltrating, a new-scooby-gang-gone jock is hot on our tails... we need to get to the school-."
"And get my sister." Dustin interjected with a cross of his arms. "I'm still lost as to what the journal has to do with anything."
"Look, Dustin, I'm not sure if this is something she'd want her brother to know about-"
"Is it the one with the hand holding flowers?" Dustin asked quickly, his hands folding over his lap as the theories flew across his mind quicker than he could voice them.
"Uh, yeah... the creepy old leather with the wilting flowers a-and there's also a foot on the back cover I think..." Steve mumbled mostly to himself as he tried to remember the journal from nearly a year ago. "It felt wrong picking it up..."
"Well, yeah. Of course it's going to feel weird reading a girl's private diary." Max pointed out. "I hope you felt something akin to remorse cause that's pretty messed-!"
"No, no, no." Steve denied with a blush on the back of his neck creeping over him. "N-not like that, well... yes, that, but also not.. it just... it just felt like heavy-"
"So it's made out of really thick leather-?"
"-like it was... a lot." Steve continued, ignoring Dustin's comments with an expertise only Steve Harrington had with the boy. "It felt like... have you guys ever snuck into school over break and just felt this sensation that you don't belong?"
"Steve, I'm a nerd and even I don't go to school more than I nee-"
Max gave a small whack from the backseat and looked over at Dustin with a warning. "He means have you ever felt out of place?"
"Oh, I mean every time I see some kind of weird monster in our supposedly monster-free world."
"Yeeah. It just, I don't man, it feels like it shouldn't exist." Steve finished lamely and stopped at a stop sign. If he went left he'd be at the Henderson household in 5 minutes. Going straight would bring them to the school in 8. "I don't think it's a good idea for her to have it."
"So you read my sisters personal thoughts and were freaked out by them? What, did reading about Patrick Swayze marriage proposals and love notes to boys scare you away?"
Steve's fingers drummed anxiously on the steering wheel as he through about it, because yes there has been an occasional love letter in the beginning... a weird gooey mess of mushy high school romance that had him rolling his eyes and playfully gagging. But as the pages turned...
"It was so much darker. Dustin I really don't think you want to-"
"Just tell me-!"
"Seriously man, it's not pret-"
"Stop being a pussy, Steve and just tell us!"
"I'm not-! Max is here!"
"Oh is it 'cause I'm a girl?"
"What? No! Just, you guys are kids and-!"
"I'm a man now, Steve-!"
"What?! N-no, no. Absolutely not You literally-!"
"How can we help if we don't-!"
"Just tell me, dam-!"
"Your sister talked about suicide and murder!" Steve finally shouted angrily after being verbally scoffed by the boy. There was a shocked silence and Steve slammed his hand against the steering wheel with a huff. "Shit."
"I-I, what?"
"Look, man. I'll spare you the details, but Ags was writing some dark thoughts and poetry about... what I just said." Steve swallowed as he remembered the way Joan's eyes flashed at him when they broke up, fists clenching in a way that made him fear her. "I remember one page where she talked about how much Patrick meant to her and then the next h-how much she loved messing with some guy named Gareth-?"
"From hellfire?!" Dustin interjected incredulously. "That guy really doesn't like her, so if she did something..."
"You don't know?" Steve asked curiously, still wondering if he should hightail it to the Henderson household and burn that journal to dust. "She pretended to go out on a date with the guy, invited him to a party, and uh humiliated him in front of a lot of people."
"How do you know?" Max asked in the stillness of the car, a frown as she thought about the sister of Dustin Henderson once being so cruel.
"Well, I wasn't always a babysitter." Steve said dryly as he looked in the mirror to smile stiffly at the redhead. "Used to be King Steve and apparently being King means being in the action."
"You were there?!"
"It was at my house."
"Oh."
Imagine one of the self-proclaimed nonconforming outcasts showing up to a high school party with a cheerleader giggling in his ear about how much she loved his style. How grateful she was because he didn't leave her to be alone with those god awful humans who treated her like dirt behind closed doors.
Her knight. Her paladin. Her hero.
But even though he firmly said no to alcohol, Patrick had spiked his drink at the request of the basketball captain because what better entertainment than a drunken fool?
He kept drinking, they kept providing until he was wobbling outside and ranting about how much he loved this one girl from band, admitting that he wished she would notice him, but too chicken to do anything. He wanted to scream her name at the top of a mountain and show her his love right then.
In an act of drunken love he had taken a marker and tattooed it on his forehead at a jock's suggestion.
His mouth loosened more and more spilling secrets to the school's popular crowd - the bitches, the jocks, and jerks. It turned into the world spinning for him as the alcohol became too much and fear started to settle on from being too drunk, and he tried to run away from the laughing crowd, but accidentally landed in the pool.
A photo was taken, perhaps two, from a Polaroid and Steve only laughed with his buddies as Gareth tried to stumble out of the pool. The water had sobered him up enough to realize what had happened, staring in shock at a giggling Joan underneath a neutral Patrick's arm. If he blinked, he thought he could see an ounce of regret and shame on Patrick's face, but the kiss on the lips distracted the basketball player enough.
The photo was shared at school and Gareth's crush no longer spoke to him.
It was unbearably cruel.
————
A/N: need to break up the drama with some fluff but not too much. we are full speed ahead to a conclusion and i think the mystery behind Joan's appearance is starting reveal itself.
thanks for commenting and interacting! It fuels me to finish this story. Seriously!!!!!