The room feels sunny and bright, even with half of the lights turned off, just as Max had intended. The blue furniture feels like the ocean when paired with flowy, yellow curtains and seashell lampshades. It reminds her of the beach in California.
"I'm not sure about this, Max." Filly, sitting cross-legged on Max's bed, worries her lip between her teeth. Max had just scolded her for picking at the polish. They had spent much of the day together, and they had matched their nail colors. Both girls had blue finger and toenails to match their eyes, and their hair in twin braids. Teaching Filly how to braid hair had been surprisingly easy. "Do you think it will have the answers I seek?"
She continues to dig through the box she drags out from under her bed. "Trust me, this is what Cosmo was made for." She liked to lift the more adult issues from her mother's room when she wasn't around.
"Coz-mo?" The older girl tilts her head, the curtain of dark hair falling off her shoulders while she tries out the word on her lips. Max had been downright confused with her mannerisms and way of speaking, early on. It was much easier to understand now, knowing where the teen came from and her background. Though they only met a year ago, they had become fast friends. Max only wished it could be the same with Eleven. She doesn't have many female friends and she wasn't lying when she told Mike that El seemed super cool.
"It's a magazine. It's short for Cosmopolitan." She flips through comics, magazines, and books until she finds what she's looking for. "Superwoman, Tiger Beat, Red Sonya... Aha!" She finds the issue she's looking for wedged into the side of the box. Dusting it off before she opens it, she remembers this issue fondly.
"Is this how you knew that you loved Lucas?" Max looks up and Filly is smiling warmly at her. She blushes, nodding and busying herself with returning the box to whence it came, then planting her butt on the bed opposite Filly and mirroring her pose. She would lean against the headboard but she hates the way the rods press into the clip on her bra and irritate her back, so she scoots forward with the Cosmopolitan on her knee.
The redhead smiles confidently. Filly returns the look, both of their freckled cheeks rising high on their faces. "Okay, let's start. It's only nine questions." She cracks open the issue, finding the quiz page. Every question was a multiple choice of three answers, but Max had done it so many times with her friends in Cali that she could administer the test herself with short response answers. "When this person isn't around, do you think about them?"
"Yes." It's the first time she's seen Filly blush when Steve isn't around. She can't seem to meet Max's eyes. "I think often about what he would say if he were there, or how my choices may affect him, however accidental that may be."
"How would you feel if Ste-" Max closes her mouth before she can say it, catching the narrowed glimpse the older girl sends her. "If this person moved away and you lost touch?"
Her eyes seem colder than usual, frostier than a blizzard in Alaska. She speaks like she's holding back tears. "Lost and alone." Max doesn't think she ever considered this possibility.
The next question is almost the opposite of the last. "How do you feel when you're with him?"
Her big blue eyes hide behind her lids, the teen thinking about her answer with a small smile forming on her lips. "Like those little white, fluffy sweets that you liked to roast over the fire. Soft and warm and comfortable."
"Marshmallows?" She smiles when the other girl nods her head vigorously. Max clears her throat and returns to the magazine, consciously focusing on not calling this hypothetical person Steve. "Alright. You have a disagreement. How do you handle it?" No matter how obvious it is who this quiz is about, Filly hadn't said his name yet so she won't either. All she had said was that she needed to know whether she was in love with someone. Filly wasn't someone she wanted to push away, not when their friendship was still so new. Max treasures that friendship like a fragile yet beautiful shell, delicate and complex. Something about the group of boys seems to draw in only the coolest girls, and Filly has become someone she looks up to after that first awkward meeting.
"We did have one and I... I reacted emotionally, I will admit." She takes a moment to swallow her saliva, the black-haired girl's throat moving with her gulp. "But soon after, I confessed to him the reason that I acted that way. I apologized for my behavior, as did he, and we reconciled. I proposed a compromise and he agreed."
That sounds like a very adult way to handle things to Max. Then again, she isn't an adult so anything complex like that sounds grown-up to her. "How important is this person's happiness to you?" Max readies herself for the answer, knowing by the look in her eyes that it's going to be a doozy.
Filly's eyes open and her blue orbs take on a determined shine. "Paramount. Not only do I owe him for what he's done for me, but he is far more deserving of it than anyone seems to believe."
"Wow. Okay." Awkward. The more questions they go through, the more obvious it becomes that Filly is deeply smitten with Steve Harrington. How can a girl this in love not know she's in love? "Um, when you think about your future, does this person come to mind?"
Filly grabs her wrist and strokes it with her thumb in a self-soothing motion. "I could not imagine my future without him." Her lip is sucked back between her teeth, a nervous habit of the scrawny teen's. "I do not know what I would do."
"What type of influence does he have on you?" Though these questions weren't made with someone like Filly in mind, they mostly worked out.
"A life-saving one. He helps me with clothes and food, and he comes to see me more than anyone. Without him, I'd have gone crazy or killed myself a long time ago. He understands why I feel the need to distance myself and he doesn't begrudge me for it." Max can tell that she's being completely genuine. Filly believes everything she says, and she has no reason to lie.
"When something happens, good or bad, how eager are you to share it with him?" Every question reminds her of something she's seen the other girl doing with Steve before. When Filly is with the party and Steve walks up, you can hear in her voice how she has been waiting to tell him all of the things she does. On days that they're just hanging out, it's usually like that. Steve will, almost every day, go to the junkyard to see her and if Filly isn't there, then he'll go around to everyone's house looking for her. Sometimes when she asnwers the door, it's just Steve on a wild Filly chase.
"He is the first and sometimes the only person I tell if no one else visits me. I want to share everything with him. We could talk all day if he didn't have other obligations."
"This person shares a past mistake or regret with you. How would you most likely respond?"
"I would attempt to comfort him. It would not make me feel any differently if that is what you mean." Filly pulls the sundress skirt around her knees and wraps her arms around them. That was exactly the answer she was looking for. She had what she needed.
Filly sat still, watching Max like a hawk, hanging off her every word. "I have reached a verdict. You, Phyllis Hopper, are 100%, whole-heartedly, helplessly in love. All others need not apply because Filly's heart is totally taken." She's never seen someone go so red so fast.
"May I use your restroom?" Filly asks, looking to the left and right wondering why she felt so warm.
Helplessly in love... Helplessly in love... Helplessly in love... She repeats it in her head, over and over like a chant. What does that even mean?!
"Yeah." When she stands, Max flips a page in the magazine and starts reading. "Down the hall. It's the second door on the right."
After taking care of business, she stops in the kitchen. Grabbing a glass from the cabinet, she pours herself some water from the sink and downs it. Filly had needed something to cool her head. She couldn't stop thinking about Steve and what she would say to him. What does that mean for their relationship? Do they start hugging and - she gulps - kissing like couples do? What if Steve feels differently about her? There are so many questions running through her mind. Maybe it's for the best to just wait and see what happens.
Filly looks through the window at the forest beyond Old Cherry Road. She had just found out that was the name of this path, though she'd seen it before. Max had informed her of the things called "street signs" and how they could show you where you are. She isn't sure if she understands fully, but there are a lot of them around town and she hopes it will make navigation easier in the future. She shuffles to the sink, setting the empty glass down in it. On the counter, a yellow box catches her eye. It has some familiar blue text on it: Bisquick.
"Bisquick! Where did he run off to?" Bernadette wrings her apron in her hands. She was in the middle of preparing a delicious kapusta for dinner. Young as she was, even Filly helped in the kitchen. She was cleaning the dishes her Mama had used to prepare the food.
"I don't know, Benny, but we better keep the door shut," Saul answers his wife. The rain was coming down heavily and was blown inside by the draft, so he closed the front door. He huffs when it's shut, satisfied, but Filly can only think of how poor little Bisquick must be trapped out there, scared and alone. Her poor gray kitty is outside where her mother says the monsters are.
The next morning, he was unrecognizable. She would never forget the image of the skinless cat flayed open on their doorstep. They packed up their bags and left, never looking back. The family of three was always on the run from then on out.
"Filly?" Max finds her in the kitchen staring longingly at a box of Bisquick clasped tightly in both of her hands. Her fingers grip it so snugly that the cardboard bends and almost folds, but they loosen when she approaches. Why are her memories coming back like this?
"I'm sorry. I was... distracted by this. It reminds me of something." She lifts the box for Max to see. It's slightly open and a bit of the white powder drifts into the air. "What is this?"
Max shrugs, getting closer to her older friend. She looks at her in concern, able to tell that something has changed though she can't figure out what. Max shakes her head, confused, but answers the girl. "It's just pancake batter. What's going on? Are you okay?"
"Yes, it's fine. I just- I mean I have to go now. I'm sorry." Filly backs away from the smaller female, regretful that a good day must end like this. She was It was just like the time they went trick-or-treating. "Thank you, Max. For everything. I had a lot of fun today." The taller girl opens the front door just a fraction, wide enough for her thin frame to slip through before it clicks shut. Like a ghost, she's gone before Max can say goodbye. The redhead doesn't know what just happened, but it worries her. Filly only knows that thinking about what became of her old feline friend makes her feel nauseous.
She hadn't expected to have such a good time with Max when they first started hanging out by themselves a month ago. That almost makes it worse that she had to go and ruin it by being unstable. Delusional. Broken. She couldn't take the memories, so she ran back home to the scrapyard in the pouring rain.
He ran, his feet making a sloshing impact with the ground.
"Filly!" Eddie whisper-screams as loud but also as quietly as he can. He trudges through the mud faster than is wise, but his shoes are suctioned with every step, the air in them sucked out and replaced with liquid. "Little Filly! Come on, please be here!" His hair, normally fluffed up and curly, lays flat against his face and head. The water sticks his hair and clothes to his skin. He looks down and answers the question floating in his mind when he sees his nipples, hard as a rock, very visible through his white shirt. Great. Well, he's been in situations worse than this and who knows, maybe she's into that sort of thing? Either way, he needed a place to hide and well, he was in the area.
With each step, he risks slipping and being delayed by at least a few moments, enough for those dickbags to catch up. He'd been minding his business in the parking lot, rolling one up in his van, and three jocks from school just had to see him. Of course, he had switched all the athlete's foot powder for itching powder in the basketball locker rooms, and it had caused some chaos, but that was ages ago, almost a week has passed since then. Surely he doesn't deserve to be persecuted like this for a bit of innocent fun. He rounds the bus's front bumper, finds the door, and slips through into the dry shelter.
Eddie shrugs off his denim vest and pulls the sogging wet shirt over his head. His rings try to hang onto his hair in the transfer but he untangles them and wrestles the shirt off. His curls are longer when they're wet, and he whips his head back to get them out of his vision. An angel with blue eyes and a blue sundress stands before him. She's dripping wet, just like he always wanted her, which doesn't leave much to the imagination. He would trace his finger along her panty line if he wasn't sure to lose it.
Her nails are painted a light baby blue. He imagines her long fingers wrapped around his cock, going up and down and squeezing him tight. She'd say his name and tell him not to come until she allowed it, grabbing hold of his base and stopping him at the edge of ecstasy. Being a young man still in his teens, it was hard to silence the hormones that told his brain to focus on sex all the time, but he'd try for her sake.
"Eddie? You surprised me. Are you in good health?" Her voice, like chimes played in the melody of a voice, startles him back to attention. His eyes snap open and he hopes it's too dark for her to see the tent he's pitching.
"Funny story. Actually, it's kind of a long one but there are some guys out there that really want to kick my ass." He giggles, shaking the water out of his hair like a dog. "Yeah, it didn't look so good for Eddie. So I got out of there and now I kind of need a place to hide. Please?" He's not above begging this bombshell or even prostrating himself a little.
"Yes, of course." She makes space for him on the sideways bench. "You took a stand against your friend when he wanted to mess with my possessions." She opens her mouth again, but at the sound of unfamiliar voices, she waves him down mutely. Her eyes bulge slightly, her temples blossoming with succulent, full veins that course with red blood. She's looking far away, even though she has her nose to the wall.
Filly was right up his alley. She's just his kind of crazy, unpredictable, sweet, and easy on the eyes to boot, even if she is a little weird. He likes weird. The warmth of her body caresses his wet arm, emanating from her skin. The sound of the dumb jocks wandering through the rain gets louder before it gets quieter. They sit close, making his trouser snake more of an issue. Her fluffy hair is right next to his nose and he inadvertently sniffs it, taking in her surprisingly clean and rustic scent with high notes of bonfire and a hint of syrupy sweetness.
"...don't see him either."
"He probably...to the woods...s go."
Their footsteps grow faint and are overtaken by the deluge outside. All the while, the shorter teen's eyes look to be following them out, but that can't be. Filly is cool, but not that cool. Her mouth opens, closes, then opens again and- Oh my God, she's talking to me. To make things worse, he can't take his eyes off of her two round breasts, the cyan fabric clinging to their curves. At the top of the mounds are her clearly defined nipples, erect and obvious.
"I'm sorry?" he says, having heard nothing.
She sends a comforting smile his way, then shakes her head. "I said they are gone, Eddie. You may relax now."
Eyes. Boobs. Eyes. Boobs. Stop it! He gathers himself, saying cordially, "I don't know how you know that, but I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Filly."
"Steve?" She lets his name finally slip out. They had watched the stars for hours, and she had been chewing over how to broach the subject with him.
He hums his assent, hugging her tighter to his side. His eyes remain skyward but glimpse down to her momentarily to show he's listening. Her doe eyes look at him now, fluttering between him and the sky for a long time before she said anything.
"Hopper gave me something." She's focused, each word coming out with much intent. "My file, from the lab. I want to... tell you about what I found."
He waits patiently, nodding but not wanting to put any pressure on her. Like a rabbit, her chest moves up and down quickly, and her pulse is quick. He can see her veins beating against the moonlight that shines on her neck.
"I've never told anyone." She sits up, hiding her face from him by staring up at the moon. "I was afraid of what might happen."
At this point, he leans up on his elbows, turning his head to look at her. "Told anyone what, exactly?" She was usually so blunt in her speech. It was odd that tonight she's being so cryptic.
"I've never shared what happened while I was held captive. I did not remember most of my time there, not until I read it." She looks around the yard, sure that she heard something. Her eyes look almost swollen. He used to worry about her but it seemed that with practice came a kind of mastery. It had become easy for her to use her powers for small bouts. "Follow me." She pushes off of the warm metal, leaving a hole in Steve's arms where she used to lie.
Steve sticks to her heels, waiting in the aisle between seats when she stops suddenly and bends over to find a flashlight. When she shines it on her hand, he sees the crinkled manila folder gripped tightly in it. She slips an envelope out of it, removing a stack of photographs from the pouch and handing them over. He gulps, steeling himself before he dares to look at the photos while she flips through the file.
They're all in black-and-white like they're from a surveillance camera. It's a picture of her that he sees first, he knows even though she looks different. She couldn't be older than 10 and her head was shaved. Black fuzz covers her scalp and a large sewn-up cut is healing on the side of her neck. The next shows her at a metal table with an old man. She wears a paper gown and some kind of net of wires on her head. In another, the pair walks down a hallway, the old man's hand squeezing tightly around her upper arm. Her face, warped in terror, shows how upset she was at the time. Her mouth is open in a scream and her eyes are screwed shut as she is forced to follow him down the hall.
Another shows the same man pulling on gloves while someone else straps an unconscious young Filly onto an examination table in an operating theater.
"I did not think I would ever want to share these things with anyone, but I do, with you." When she looks at him questioningly, he nods, hoping she won't stop telling him of her past. "That man there, his name was Brenner. He wanted us to call him "Papa" but I never did. I know who my Papa is. His name was Saul and he was a scientist. My mama's family was from Poland, and she played the Suka. Brenner couldn't fool me."
"I was experimented on daily for as long as I was there. They fed us protein shakes with mashed potatoes and oatmeal, nothing that you could choke on or make a weapon from. Every simple task was another avenue for torture. At night, they would flash the lights to wake me. There were times when the security guards would lie on the radio, claim that I ran away, or that I acted out so they would be allowed to beat me. It was awful, Steve, each day more trying than the last. But there was a lot of it that I forgot." She spots the photo in his hands, a room with many children, all of their heads shaved and wearing the same paper gown. There were toys and books, a chess set, and more. Filly is the one standing in the middle of the room looking straight at the camera. "They liked to keep up appearances. Rainbows look good on camera." Evidently, the black and white stripes that Steve saw must be rainbow in reality.
"As I read, everything started to come back to me. I know what they did and it was even worse than I had remembered before. They used me and made me do things I didn't... I couldn't understand what the repercussions were. I never wanted anyone to get hurt. I didn't know what we were doing at the time. You have to believe me." Tears streak down her pale cheeks, made even more so by the white light of the moon.
Steve watches, transfixed, as the black-haired beauty lets her walls down when she's around him. They disappear and all that's left is a scared little girl who doesn't know what to do. He hates seeing her like this, looking lost and afraid, but he doesn't want anyone else to be in his shoes. She came to him. That makes his chest swell with pride, but they're just a couple of kids. How could he hold her tight and tell her honestly that he'd keep her safe from some super-secret government agency?
But he wants to. And he'd try anything if he thought it would take away her pain or keep her safe. "Of course I do, Fil."
She lets out a long, shuddering breath. "They had me spying on foreigners. Not just them, but their families, and friends. People were hunted and killed like Mama and Papa because of the information that I gathered." Her body is tense when she sits down on the sideways bench seat. "Their blood is on my hands."
"No, it's not." Steve sits next to her, taking her hands in his. "Look, you were a kid. You couldn't have known what would happen." He imagines that little girl in the picture, forced to commit the sins of her captors. He wishes he could undo every heinous thing they did to her.
"But I condemned them. I may as well have killed them myself." One hand goes up to her face, hindering the sight of her guilty blue orbs.
Steve uses his hand on her chin to make her face him, pulling her hand away and replacing it with his own, stroking her cheek comfortingly. "No. That's not true. You got out as soon as you could, right? You were forced to do those things."
She sighs, seemingly giving up. She takes a deep breath through her nostrils, and when she speaks she doesn't sound so uneasy anymore. "Maybe... Maybe there is some truth to what you say. I don't know, but I..." Filly is already making space to let him into her nest. "I don't want to be alone."
"Yes," He breathes, laying on his side and pulling her next to him under the covers. He hopes she doesn't hear him inhaling her woodsy smell. She always smelled like a bonfire and something sweet. The night breeze is cool and soft when it brushes their cheeks and hair, but they are toasty and warm beneath the blanket. "I'll be here as long as you want me."
Filly was a blessing. He holds her closer, thanking God for the woman in his arms and praying that nothing happens to her. As long as she's in his arms, he knows that she's safe.
"So," Robin begins as he walks back through the door to the front counter. Steve thinks she doesn't notice the tiny little thing that he sneaks in and feeds bananas when it's slow. "Who's the skirt?" She asks now because she'd just watched Steve usher her out the back door, giving her a tight hug before watching her walk all the way down the hall. Probably watching her round ass. That girl doesn't have a clue how gorgeous she is. They'd been working together long enough now that she could see it in his body language around the black-haired mystery.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Steve replaces the company hat atop his head. He never wears it around her. Poker faces and bluffs were, however, not his strong suit.
"You also don't know that I can hear you giving her directions to the theatre every time she leaves." Leaning on the counter next to the register, she watches the door. It's 11 am, so no one is coming to get ice cream yet. Work may be boring, but Steve provides unlimited entertainment. "I know you have a thing for her, dingus. It's super obvious."
The older teen licks his lips. "Listen, you just can't tell anyone about her. She's a good friend of mine and her parents don't take care of her. I try to keep her well-fed but she takes her privacy very seriously." He huffs, placing his hands on his hips and looking frustrated.
"Hmm." Robin hums, placing her hand on her chin and feigning a thoughtful look "Never seen you look at your friends like that before."
"Like what?" He scoffs, trying to look busy by washing his hands and looking wiping down a counter.
"Like you wanted to tear off her clothes and take her right there on the breakroom table," Robin smirks, knowing she'll be able to tease Steve endlessly about this. He almost chokes on a sip of water and she snorts.
She's so focused on the sound of the radio, that she doesn't hear anything around her at first.
"This is Gold Leader returning to base. Do you copy? Over."
While the jump rope speeds around her, she can hear it cutting through the air. The radio goes off a second time with Dustin's voice.
"This is Gold Leader returning to base. Do you copy? Over."
"Oh!" she says, throwing down the rope and rummaging through her bag for the brick-like radio. She takes a seat on a nearby stump and presses the button on the radio. "This is Black Beauty. Welcome home, Gold Leader. Over."
"Thank you, Black Beauty. It's good to hear your voice. See you at Scoops tomorrow. Over."
She's glad Dustin is home. They had planned their meet-up at Scoops Ahoy before he left, knowing Steve would have the job he applied for by that time. Having him gone for a whole month was bad. She felt the party was fractured. All El and Mike did was hang out with each other, Will always wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons, and Lucas was caught in between, trying to make everyone happy and still live his own life. Max had a tendency to drift away from the group, just like Filly. She feels like she and Dustin are the only ones who still use the radio.
Filly just wants everything to be easy like it was before.
She looks at the Casio watch strapped to her left wrist, reminding her of when Will gave it to her last year. It had been fifteen minutes and her legs were sore, meaning it was time to start practicing her bobbing and weaving. She had a rope tied up between an old pipe sticking out of a trash heap, and a tree at the edge of the property. She would duck under that rope over and over until her legs felt like jelly, then she'd do it again tonight when she felt better. Hopper was not a nice coach, but he was an effective one, and she was a dedicated student.
Thinking of him must have some kind of drawing effect because none other than the Hawkins Police Chief walks through the gate and up to her. He flat-out drops the box in his arms like he has a distaste for it and says "Don't open it until I'm gone, for the love of God."