There isn't much room for error in the Harrington family—at least that's what it seemed to be from the outside.  If one were to peel past the layers of refinement and praise, they would find that each member of the clan had their own skeletons shoved away in cupboards.  There was Laura Harrington, a well-respected woman who past the intimidating and calm, collected behavior, whose gray hairs had sprouted the moment her daughter had first exhibited her deadly rage, hid away a stash of cigarettes underneath floorboards and a keen eye on her husband.  Next came Joseph Harrington, head of a business, but devious and unfaithful to his wife and children.  Then Steve, the oldest child, who had everything—his father's business when he died, the entirety of Hawkins High kneeling at his feet, and his parent's praise—was about to crack under the pressure and had turned to throwing parties whenever his parents were out of town and the stash of alcohol in the cupboard.  And then came Alexandra (or rather, Alex, as she had dubbed herself), who had always had more freedom than Steve, but had fallen low in the social hierarchy, found her eyes lingering a little too long on Jennifer Hayes to be considered normal, and was always just so angry.

Alex had always had this anger bubbling just beneath the surface, threatening to overspill in a tidal wave of fury.  The anger bloomed until the breathing exercises her absent parents left her with (4...7...8...) were futile and ineffective; until she felt as if the Earth below her was crumbling under the weight of her wrath the longer her fists shook and the anger tore around at her insides.  Scrapes and bruises had always been something of permanence for Alex; no matter how many times they healed over, leaving seemingly unblemished smooth skin, they would never truly be gone; they had been a part of her anatomy since she was brought into the world, kicking and screaming, already so angry.  The scars that dotted her fists and decorated her elbows and knees would fester into something more rotten, fueling the chaos and mania that threatened to explode at every provocation.  Fingers curled into tight fists in an effort to suppress the rage that threatened to implode, they dug into her skin and leaving crescent-shaped indents into the soft flesh in her palms until they bled. 

She wouldn't call herself an outcast, but she wasn't at the top of the food chain either; she was left well enough alone, however, as there were other oddities and weaker prey in the jungle of Hawkins, Indiana to be feasted upon. Troy Walsh and James Dante, the school bullies made sure to stay out of her way ever since she had broken James' nose with a sickening crack.   And she supposed that she could consider Mike Wheeler, the younger brother of Steve's girlfriend, and his rowdy gang of misfits as acquaintances—that was if she looked past the fact that they never spoke outside of when they were forced to socialize with one another.  But, finally tiring of Kyra-the-Counselor's incessant nagging (because apparently, acquaintances weren't good enough), Alex begrudgingly allows Will Byers, whose locker neighbored hers and whose schedule matched hers (she knew well enough that this was no coincidence) into her life.  But when Will suddenly disappears into oblivion, Alex finds the intricate web of Hawkins' secrets and lies unraveling around her.

ALEXANDRA ' ALEX ' HARRINGTON ━━━━━━ THOMASIN MCKENZIE
SHE/HER.  12.  BARBARIAN.

kate seigel ━━━━━━  LAURA HARRINGTON
james mcavoy ━━━━━━ JOSEPH HARRINGTON
justina machado ━━━━━━ KYRA FERNANDEZ

disclaimer: stranger things, its plot, characters, location, and dialogue does not belong to me.  i am only responsible for alex and her plotlines/development along with any other characters you do not recognize from the show.

warnings: just one yesterday will include topics of racism, homophobia/transphobia, and not-so-great parenting, as well as implied verbal abuse.  there will also be intrusive thoughts, strong language, drinking, smoking, blood, gore, graphic violence, and possibly graphic death scenes.   

author's note:

*taps mic nervously* uhhh, hi, i'm back and i have two other books that need to be completed, but i'm here with alex harrington rewrite number 54558965 because my best girl deserves a worthy story!!  i couldn't keep her away for too long, i've had her for almost two years now and i had to get her story finished eventually and as a reward for completing pre-writing adventures in babysitting, i allowed myself to publish this and do her justice because i still cringe thinking about her first original story (what the fuck was that shit show?  i'm sorry to everybody who read that). 

i was honestly really nervous about posting this because my writing has developed a lot and i put a lot of effort into this so the paragraphs are way bigger and wordier than they used to be and i was nervous that it would scare people off, but i'm posting this anyway, also the first three-ish chapters were written before my writing style changed, so uhhh just ignore that.

updates are going to take longer because this book is kind of full of a lot of prose since that's just kind of the vibes of this and i'm determined to make this my best fic yet because that's what alex deserves, and i am also going to focus on my other fics a little bit more.

some things are different already: alex is my angry gal with major anger issues as well as mommy and daddy issues and probably some steve issues, really just a lot of issues (also, side note: second child, restless child by the oh hellos is literally alex's song).  i am going to be fleshing out the harrington family, and i'm excited for their dynamics.  i'm honestly just excited to build relationships with everyone.

alex did originally start off as a max fic, and maybe it still will be one, but i'm just going to see where this goes though i definitely have alluded to alex x max in my steve fic.  i'm just hoping i can actually stick to a version for once!