star-crossed lovers?

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

Alina Fairgrieves-Byers was beginning to learn that hiking was not her thing. Okay, it wasn't even hiking, it was just climbing a hill, but a hill that seemed higher than a mountain, stretching above her infinitely, so that no matter how many painful steps she took under the blazing sun, it would always be taller. Her hair was piled into a bun on the top of her head, wisps escaping and framing her face, and the back of her neck was soaked with sweat. She kept walking though, for Dustin, and because she was quite eager to meet whatever girl could stand being with him.

Okay, she was kidding. But she still was curious. Dustin had been trying desperately to get a girlfriend last year—from his crush on Max, one that had eventually dissolved into friendship, to all of the girls he'd tried to pick up at the Snow Ball, to his tendency to go up to random girls and strike up a conversation between classes—so Alina was happy he'd finally settled down. And even if Suzie wasn't some nerdy chic that was hotter than Phoebe Cates, she still must've been a good girlfriend, or Dustin wouldn't have wanted her to meet them.

"Aren't we high enough?" Lucas moaned now, panting. Strapped to his back was a bag of poles, and he seemed like he was struggling under its weight. Well, Alina was struggling too, and so were Max and Gabe. Dustin was carrying supplies, too, but he seemed too excited to care. The only people who weren't carrying anything were Mike and El, who were holding hands.

"Cerebro works best at a hundred meters," Dustin replied matter-of-factly. He was barely breaking a sweat. Lucas let out a sigh.

"You know," said Max, sweat glistening on her brow, "I'm pretty sure people in Utah have telephones."

"Yeah, but Suzie's Mormon."

"Oh, shit," said Lucas. "She doesn't have electricity?"

Max rolled her eyes. "That's the Amish."

Will still looked confused. "What are Mormons?"

"Super religious white people," Dustin explained. "They have electricity and cars and stuff, but... since I'm not Mormon, her parents would never approve. It's all a bit... Shakespearean."

"Shakespearean?" Max echoed.

"Yeah. Like Romeo and Juliet."

"Right."

"Star-crossed lovers."

"I got it."

"Just don't end up killing yourself," Alina piped up, tightening her bun. She felt more like Jack climbing up a beanstalk than a character in a tragic Shakespeare play, and honestly, she was also getting to be quite annoyed. "Nobody's ever worth that, no matter how hot they are." And at Lucas's startled look: "What? I like Shakespeare. It's... avant-garde."

"Can you please speak in a language we all can understand?" Lucas asked.

"Yeah," said Will. "I'm struggling over here, too."

"Me three," said Gabe.

Alina couldn't help but grin. "Maybe that was the whole point," she said.

"Hey, guys!" they'd almost reached the top of the hill when Mike's voice startled Alina into turning around. He and El were lagging behind, which was stupid considering they literally weren't carrying anything. "This is fun and all, but, uh..." he raised the wrist where a thick black watch was fastened and let his girlfriend finish for him.

"I have to go home."

Dustin's smile dropped, and he gestured to the top of the hill, which Alina was pleased to say was actually close by. "We're almost there," he said, a little crestfallen.

"Sorry man," said Mike. "Curfew." He turned to his girlfriend, his face softening, as it usually did, at the sight of her. "C'mon, let's go."

"Good luck," said El cheerfully, and she and Mike turned around, hand-in-hand, giggling as they made their way back down the hill. Alina watched them go, a frown spreading to her own face. Of course. She shouldn't have expected the two of them to stay behind, not when they were wasting valuable kissing time. Never mind that Dustin had literally just gotten back. Apparently playing tonsil tennis was more important than friends.

Dustin checked his own watch. "Curfew at four?" he asked disbelievingly, watching them go down the hill.

"They're lying," said Lucas. Will sighed.

"It's been like this all summer."

Max just shrugged. "It's romantic."

"It's gross."

"It's annoying," said Alina. "They're always together, and they nearly always end up skiving off party activities early. I mean, once Mike left the movies right after the previews because he thought he'd gone too long without talking to El. And by too long, I mean three hours. He hadn't seen her for three hours."

"Yeah, and what about that time where we were swimming at my house and Mike didn't even change, because he wanted to get home as soon as possible?" Gabe added. "It's so stupid."

"It's bullshit," spat Dustin. "I just got home." He watched them for a couple of seconds, his face tightening, before he exhaled. "Well, their loss, right? Onwards and upwards! Suzie awaits!"

The others groaned, but Alina didn't say a word. She was looking at El and Mike, her soul sister and her new friend, walking away as if they'd already forgotten about the others. She knew that El and Mike had gone a long time without each other, and were just making up for those lost days, but she also couldn't help the fear that surged through her of the party slowly growing apart. She didn't want to lose any of her new friends, not when she'd gone most of her life alone. Perhaps she was being irrational, but she had noticed that she was spending more and more time with select persons from the party (Gabe, Will, and Lucas, mostly) instead of the entirety, and the others were most likely doing the same. Was that a symptom of growing up?

She was just turning to walk up the hill when she felt it, like she had in the woods, and at the movies. Her stomach dropped, and the hair on the back of her neck stood straight up. Shivers crawled down her spine like bugs and there was this sinking feeling that somebody had their eyes on her. Alina whirled around, expecting someone there, but there was only Will, whose face had gone pale.

It was like something inside of her had stuttered yet again, bringing her back to that week. The possession, the pain, the vomiting, the swirling of her powers shuddering right back into her, the dreams. She had to remind herself that those days were over now. That everything was okay. And she had to remind Will of that, too.

"Will, Al, come on!" Dustin yelled, and Alina took a deep breath, moving towards her brother.

"Let's go," she said, and together, the two siblings made their way to the top of the hill. By now, Alina's tongue was dry as a desert between her lips, and she was looking forward to taking a few gulps of the water Lucas had brought with him. She collapsed onto the soft green grass as soon as she'd made it to the top, gasping for air.

Dustin set his bag down, sinking to his knees. "Made it!" he announced. Alina, who was still lying on the grass, her chest heaving, felt a flicker of annoyance run through her. Why did they have to climb all the way up here? And in the middle of the summer, on what felt like the hottest day of the year? Why was that the first task he wanted them to do?

Then she remembered how excited Dustin had been talking about his girlfriend, and the annoyance shrivelled away quickly, morphing into guilt. Dustin had never been in a relationship before, and he'd gone to all of these lengths in order to talk to his girlfriend. Instead of being annoyed, she should feel interest in meeting her and in the clearly complex machine he'd created. She had to be a good friend to him like he had always been to her.

She sat up just as Max snapped, "Yeah, only took five hours."

"Why couldn't we just play D&D?" Will asked.

"Or get ice cream or something?" Gabe added, dropping his bag and coming to sit beside Alina.

"I'm so thirsty," Lucas groaned, taking out the water bottle they'd packed. Popping off the lid, Lucas brought it to his lips and began to drink. But instead of taking a couple of sips and leaving the rest for the others, he kept gulping it down until, with dismay, Alina figured there was no more left.

Max seemed to realize the same thing, too. "Did you seriously just drink the rest of our water?" she asked disdainfully, glaring at her friend. Lucas's eyes widened as Alina got to her feet, moving towards him with crossed arms. Her tongue was still dry as a bone.

"Thanks a lot, Lucas," she added, attempting to summon saliva in her mouth to at least wet her tongue a little.

In an attempt to salvage his mistake, Alina's incredibly smart boyfriend spat a stream of water back into the water bottle, before offering it to Max with a sheepish smile. Energy sparked on Alina's fingers and she flicked Lucas's arm, causing the boy to let out a yelp.

"That's what you get, doofus," she said.

"That's fair," Lucas gasped, rubbing his arm. Maybe Alina should've felt bad for slightly burning her boyfriend, who, just five hours earlier, had been nearly blinded with hairspray, but it hadn't been that much energy, and as Alina licked her cracked lips for the fortieth time, she found her sympathies limited.

The party began to set up Dustin's Cerebro, connecting all of the many parts of his contraption together. As usual, they were able to decide who did what and got to work without even saying a word—they'd worked well together ever since assembling the bus and the shed last year. As the sun set, glowing orange in the background, a cool wind swept over Alina's face, and she felt leagues better. She even forgot to be mad at Lucas (which was something that never lasted long, anyway) and helped him string strange coils onto the contraption.

Meanwhile, Gabe didn't know how to take the news that Dustin had a girlfriend. Because that meant that five members of the party were now in a relationship. Which meant that Gabe was now expected to get into one too. Right? Wasn't that how it worked?

Of course, he knew who he'd choose every single time, if he were to get into one. The trouble was... well, there were plenty of reasons why he couldn't have Will as a boyfriend. But the fact remained that it had been over six months since he'd met William Byers, and he was still completely head-over-heels.

He hadn't told anybody. He wanted to, desperately, especially Alina, who he felt would definitely understand. She didn't seem like the type to stop being friends with him, anyway. But he couldn't take that risk.

This time with his friends was the best he'd ever had in his life, and he wasn't going to let that go. Even if he had to hide his feelings for Will forever.

After about an hour of near-silent work, Cerebro was assembled. Gabe had to admit it was pretty impressive, and pretty tall. He didn't really know a lot about science, but he was sure that this would allow Dustin to reach Utah. And he was proud of him for it.

Dustin raised his arms in triumph. "Pretty impressive, right?"

"Yeah," Max admitted.

"Now, you ready to meet my love?"

"Okay, sure."

"It's why we climbed up here, isn't it?" Alina said.

Practically vibrating in excitement now, Dustin dug through his bag for his radio, which he would be using to contact this Suzie. Everyone gathered around him as Dustin clicked the mouthpiece. "Suzie," he said. "This is Dustin. Do you copy? Over."

Gabe strained his ears, but all he heard from the other end of the line was static. Dustin's brow furrowed, and he looked up at his friends. "One sec," he said. "She's probably... she's still there." He pressed it again. "Suzie, this is Dustin. Do you copy? Over."

Apparently, Suzie did not.

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: okay this chapter literally took me three weeks to write and i have no idea why. maybe it's because i despise writing dialogue chapters, and this one is full of mostly dialogue. but i'm hyped because we're getting closer to the mall chapters, which were so fun to write tbh. honestly, a lot of chapters in this book were super fun to write, which is good :)

anyways stan gill and sinclairgrieves for clear skin :)) they're literally the best and i love them.

'till next time!