#fans of TIAL and LtLi

[pearlypairings]

November Writing Goal :) 400 words/day

Day 14:

I was feeling v stuck today with my wips and barely putting a sentence together. Miss Losty (@1lostsoul0fishbowl) encouraged me to do a writing exercise instead and I used a prompt list made by schoolofplot from Instagram (schoolofplot.com) as inspo:

I picked day 16's prompt and went with a minor character in There is a Light that Never Goes Out and Let the Light In, Eric who works at The Hawk with Jonathan.

Wrote over 500 words and clearly unstuck myself (thank you all-knowing losty). Here's my unedited/not proof read snippet for the exercise:

There was one thing Eric knew better than anybody else at The Hawk: the one, the lonely, the cynic Jonathan Byers.

And he was proud of that seemingly impossible feat.

Jonathan moped and mopped, he mostly kept to himself as he worked diligently to whatever ends their manager requested. Which was total bullshit by the way. Everyone knows their first job as a teenager is supposed to be easy peasy ladies-please-me. His coworker worried him with how serious he took this menial job.

But after a year of working together, Eric had broken through the weird gothic books and all the melancholy music and ultra-focused facade into the real brick and mortar that made up Byers. He had seen him SMILE, laugh even!

There was a real dude underneath all that loner armor, because Eric had seen him flirting with Hawkins High’s It Girl, Chrissy Cunningham. At first, he thought maybe he was having a fever dream or maybe one too many shifts in a row. But no, sweet little cheerleader Chrissy was leaning over the concession counter for a hush conversation with his quiet friend.

That was certifiable per any popular kid’s understanding of the world, but Eric always believed Jonathan had it in him.

Though that mysterious conversation was months ago, Jonathan hadn’t offered much of an explanation except a few witty retorts and hints of more smiling (could he be more obvious?). Despite his best efforts, Jonathan was terrible at keeping secrets from him.

OH. He needed the theater to himself and an alibi? Sure, definitely nothing to do with the newly single most eligible seniorette.

Hmmm, he’s making eyes at the gaggle of cheerleaders and their popcorns. Totally a coincidence Chrissy is batting her eyelashes at him in morse code.

But today? Today Eric couldn’t pretend to ignore the very real affair Jonathan had been poorly hiding. It was too obvious—he was slacking off on his responsibilities. The broom sat in the corner untouched with the tile floor collecting popcorn like a magnet. His rag hung over the lips of the sliding door to the candy, bone-dry, while the counter screamed with a thick layer of syrupy pop overflow.

There was trouble in paradise if Jonathan Byers wasn’t on his way to being Employee of the Month for the 8000th time in a row. Eric sped through the ticket line post-haste for the sake of his friend (even mumbling through a sale for two of the hottest chicks in the junior class, a waste of an opportunity not to charm them). After the last two groups of ticket sales, there’d be a lull between movies and he could finally meander his way to Jonathan without any more demerits from their manager*. 

Jonathan handed over the last Coke and nachos like he was offering the customer his last kidney, his face sullen and barely recognizable from the more encouraging guy he’d seen the past few weeks. Closing the register, Byers looked totally checked out as he stared off at the ceiling.

Eric locked his register and cubby, before hopping over the booth counter toward his dearly depressed friend.

“Byers! What’s going on man?” he greeted him, tapping the counter. “You look like my grandma tried to kiss you.”

Humor. Humor was the key to all breakups, rejections, and screwups. Eric would know. He was no stranger to the last two.

[pearlypairings]

Chapter 7: Long Time Coming

Summary: Chrissy is ready to fight for herself finally. She has what she wants.

🔗 Ao3 link

Start from TIAL || Start from chap 1 of LtLi

Sneak preview of ch 7 below:

Chrissy kissed him hard, before he said goodbye, disappearing behind the Byers’ front door. The drive home would be worse than this whole day of adventure and obstacles. Because her destination wasn’t a peaceful, loving escape. No, it was Laura Cunningham and her insatiable taste for making her disapproval of Chrissy known. Entering her home was by nature its own quest to avoid (rather than slay) a blood-thirsty dragon. Chrissy slipped off her jacket and hung it properly in the coat closet, careful to close the door so the locking mechanism wouldn’t give her away. She tiptoed through the kitchen to grab a glass of water for her bedside and backtracked back to the staircase, taunting her with every potential for a creaking step. With practiced technique, her feet found their safe places on the beige carpet overlaying the stairs and flew up the stairs to her room. Closing the door behind her, Chrissy let out a dreamy sigh. Jonathan was her boyfriend. Finally. Seriously! She wrapped her arms around her waist in a giddy embrace, joy bubbling up that had been trapped under the avalanche of “wrong” for so long. Jonathan had looked just as happy as she felt when they said good night, the corner of his lips cemented in an undeniable half-smile. Will was probably teasing him already—those brothers let nothing go unnoticed between the two. The worst part was she missed him already. A small void of her heart that ached for him, just his presence, his nearness. A comfort that seemed she’d crave forever whenever they were apart. The thought was so ridiculous she giggled. It hadn’t even been fifteen minutes! Chrissy flopped on her bed and stared at the eggshell-white ceiling above, following the billowing shadow of her ceiling fan and her lamp light. Her mother was going to stroke out when she found out she was dating Jonathan Byers. Good, she thought, rolling over to squeeze a frilly decorative pillow to her chest. About time she dealt with the daughter she had, not the one she wanted.

Read the rest on ao3...

https://archiveofourown.org/works/56207218/chapters/163827652