9 August 1985

Hawkins, Indiana

There were some stories that were better left untold to the world and Joan was prepared for this to be one of them. The dread that filled her stomach was heavy and her body was already starting to heat up in an anger that had her fists clenched tightly over her knees. Was Joan a She's All That victim?

"A dare?"

Steve winced, holding up his arms defensively. "N-not like that, but-but remember when we were at Jason Carver's party and we all played Truth or Dare?" He spoke quickly as if he only had a few seconds left to live - perhaps he did - before taking a pause to look at Joan in expectation. Joan shrugged her shoulders noncommittal, but Steve took it as a yes and continued. "Jason dared me to play 7 minutes in heaven with you."

"Riiiiight, and you just decided to date me for a while and then drop me because...?" He flinched and Joan felt bad for saying it so rough and accusatory. She hadn't meant for it to come off so aggressive, but something about it all made her feel icky for Agatha. "Sorry, go on..."

"Not exactly. You know I had just gotten out of a relationship with Nance, and I was drunk, and you were infamous for knocking me down a peg in the past... we didn't even hold hands in the closet, just whispered stories from years past and giggled at ourselves." Steve shrugged, his hand running through his hair as a gentle smile appeared on his face at the memory. "I liked how you made me feel - alive."

"Oh."

Perhaps the one syllable word said in a surprised tone wasn't the correct reaction for something like this, but Joan Destiny Henderson wasn't known for her social skills back home. Steve let out a baby of a sigh, a whisper in the wind with the weight of a thousand lives behind it, looking down in contemplation.

"But Joan, I know you've been happier lately, or at least before that night..." he tried to hide the comment under his breath, but Joan heard and winced at what he was referring to. "-but you... you worried me. A lot." Steve's eyes were so very sad and Joan had to look down to escape the worried gaze, unsure where it came from or why. "I-I know I probably shouldn't have addressed it the way I did, but... shit, I'll say it again, Joan you really need to see a-a therapist or a counselor. And not for what happened at the mall."

The conversation both proved useful yet only created more questions about that break up.

"Why... why do you say that?"

"Joan, don't make me repeat what I said that day." Steve was so quiet and caved in on himself dejectedly.

"Steve." Joan said seriously, reaching over the table and grabbing one of his hands in both of hers in encouragement. "Please. I need you to say it again."

He hesitated, looked anywhere else but her, bounced his legs a few time, before giving in with a heavy sigh laced with trauma and guilt. Steve's other hand covered her own and he leaned forward to whisper it out to Joan.

"I... I read your journal. Your poems."

What was she supposed to do with that? Were her poems about another guy? O-or were they embarrassing? Steve refused to elaborate any further, apologizing for how he realized too late that he was using her as a rebound and that was why he cut it off. She deserved better and all that jazz, blah blah, she really didn't care.

A couple more I'm sorry's followed with increasingly sterner It's okay, Steve and then a mutual statement that there was no romantic interest between either of them, and then... that was it.

Joan needed to find that journal.

Her room was in shambles and so was her brain.

She had looked everywhere she could think of in her room for that dumb book and there was no sign of the leather-bound journal anywhere. Under the bed, in her drawers, inside her closet, in her vanity... that pesky little book of answers was no where.

Soft knocks on her door grabbed her attention and Joan frowned. "Uh, Jo?"

Joan jumped off her bed and went to open her door to a nervous looking Dustin fidgeting with his hat. "...What's wrong?" Dustin didn't answer and Joan's concern deepened, opening the door with a sigh and walking off. "Come on, dork." He wasted no time in walking into the room, closing the door, and taking up his normal spot on Joan's bed while Joan sat at her vanity.

"...Dustin?" Now she was truly worried. Dustin loved to talk even when he didn't want to talk the kid had something to say about everything, but right now he almost seemed speechless - so far in his mind that he was disconnected from his mouth - and Joan didn't like that. "Oi, Dust-bin. Wakey-wakey, what the hell's in your head, nugget-brain? Steve won't let you rent ghostbusters anymore?"

"...No." Dustin replied with a sigh, before thinking about it. "I mean, yes that, but also something else. So, high school starts next week, y'know?"

"Right." Joan nodded slowly, looking to the side in confusion. "You're point?"

"I-I'm scared that the party will fall apart." Dustin finally let the the dam open up and the words ran free, quickly and growing more anxious by the letter. Joan's eyes increasingly got bigger throughout his speech, trying to listen to everything, but only hearing very little. "-and now that Will and El's gone, I can already see the beginning of the fall of Rome, b-but worse! We don't talk like we used to, there's no campaign going on anymore, a-and I really don't want to lose my friends, Jo!"

"Dustin-"

"I look at you and I see how much you changed when you went to high school and I know you'll probably beat the shit out of me or something later, but I don't want to change! I don't want things to change. The party is dying and I can't do anything about it!" Dustin wasn't crying, but he had been speaking with such a heaviness in his voice that Joan started to tear up herself watching her brother loose his mind over something that had seemed so trivial to her. "How did you and Heather stay friends for so long? How do I keep the party together?"

Question, why was Dustin coming to her for help when she was a bitch?

Aside note, Joan was feeling a plethora of emotions. At the reminder of her best friend's death, she was sad and regretful, but she was so deeply honored that Dustin felt like Joan was a safe enough space to spill his anxieties to that she pushed away the tears for him.

"Look, Dustin, these anxieties your feeling? Normal." Joan tried to grab from whatever advice she had received in the past - or uh future? - and that weird self help book she had once attempted to rad, but this was something she wasn't quite used to doing. "And sometimes friends fall apart, that's how life works. You grow up and sometimes apart, gain new interests, its good to grow."

"But they're all I have." Dustin whispered and it broke her hear to the heartbreak laced inside the tone of his voice.

"No, they're not, Dusty." Joan took the few steps to sit next to Dustin, pushing away old books to sit next to him. She wrapped an arm around Dustin's shoulders, bringing him into her side comfortingly. "You've got me, the coolest bestest big sister around." It was teasing and Dustin chuckled, leaning into his sister in acceptance with a calm sigh. "And just because you grow up and apart, doesn't mean you guys will forever be away from each other. It's just a little commercial break, yeah?"

"Yeah..." Dustin trailed off. His body had visibly relaxed, his thumbs slowly rubbing the brim of his baseball cap, and Joan felt her own shoulders drop. "But what about the party though? Is DnD just... dead now?"

Joan chewed on her cheek while looking down at her brother who looked up with saddened eyes. "...You really wanna play DnD?"

"Uh, yeah?" Dustin scoffed, pulling away from Joan and looking at her as if she was the weird one. "It's, like, the best game to ever be invented in the history of man kind."

"I hope you cleaned out your console.

Shitty conformists don't deserve their ears blessed."

Joan let out an aggressive sigh followed by a groan as she realized what she had to do - or rather who to talk to. She bolted up quickly, because if she didn't continue moving she would lose her nerve, looked over at Dustin seriously.

Dustin had shot up at the sudden movement, scared by the look in Joan's eyes, and kept a mental note of how far the door was if he needed to run away. He could throw the box down behind him, tripping her, and-

"First day of school, I'll drive you and there and home. If your nerd friends want a ride, they better be at our house by 7am. There's someone... someone that you should meet." Joan pinched the bridge of her nose, already dreading the moment Eddie saw her again after her public rejection of the guy. After the whole monster night ordeal, Joan and Eddie had bumped into each other and began a... friendship.

A friendship that she totally flushed down the toilet.

"What does this have to do with me playing DnD?" Dustin's eyebrows furrowed in deep thought, before they lifted up in surprise - once again worrying Joan. "Are you going to start DM-ing again?! Because-!"

"No, no!" Joan shut that down immediately. There was no way Agatha would do such a thing and Joan-Destiny was not about to change everything, no matter how much she just wanted to get behind the folder with a pen and story in front of her, speaking in different pitches, and watching the world come to life with just a few-.

Joan shook her head to get rid of the train of thought, looked at Dustin firmly and repeated herself. "No. But, I know someone who does."

"You know someone who plays Dungeons and Dragons?" Dustin asked in disbelief, snorting and leaning back on his hands with a small shake of his head. "Yeah right, Ms. Cheerleader."

"Just... just do what I said, got it?" Joan sighed, rubbing her face before starting to shoo her brother out. "Now get out. I don't want your nerd-weirdness rubbing off on me, dork."

"Rude, rude, rude!" Dustin repeated while Joan shoved him out of his room. The door closed shut and Dustin let out a scoff, setting the cap on his head firmly and flipping off the door.

"Rude!"