1983 || Stranger Things

ɴɪɴᴇ | ʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴛʏ

      "You're supposed to hit the cans, Jonathan. Need some help?" Julie called, walking towards the teen who was yielding a gun. Nancy was next to Julie, and Julie was holding her newly finished barbed wire bat.

      "No, actually, you see the spaces in between the cans? I'm aiming for those."

      "Nancy chuckled. "If you say so."

      Both girls set their bags down on stumps, and Julie sat on a stump, twidling with her bat. She didn't want to shoot, so she wasn't needed for now.

      "Have you ever shot a gun before?" Jonathan asked Nancy, getting it set for her to shoot.

      Nancy and Julie chuckled. "Have you met my parents?"

      "Have you met her parents?"

      "Jules, have you ever shot?" Nancy wondered aloud, turning to the girl behind her and Jonathan.

      Julie nodded, surprising both Nancy and Jonathan. "When?" Jonathan asked.

      "Back home. I didn't kill anything. Just some wood planks." she explained, leaving Jonathan and Nancy still confused.

      "Context?" Nancy said with raised eyebrows.

      "There was a very large, probably poisonous spider in our backyard, and my brother was too scared to kill it. So, I shot it." Julie said nonchalantly, smiling at the memory of her and Billy at age eleven. That was one of the few times Billy was civil.

      "There was just a gun laying around when you were that young?" Nancy said, mouth wide.

      Julie nodded. "When my step-sister was eight, she picked up a gun and it almost went off, but the safety was on. My dad hid it after that."

      "Did you kill the spider?" Jonathan asked, and Julie chuckled.

      "God no."

      "I haven't shot one since I was ten." Jonathan said. "My dad took me hunting on my birthday. He made me kill a rabbit." he said, and Julie frowned. She loved rabbits.

      "A rabbit?" Nancy clarified, hands dug deep in her pockets to keep warm.

      Jonathan nodded. "Yeah. I guess he thought it would make me into more of a man or something. I cried for a week."

      "I would." Julie muttered, kicking the grass with her feet.

      "Jesus." Nancy said.

      "What? I'm a fan of Thumper." Jonathan joked, and Julie smiled.

      "I meant your dad." Nancy said.

      "Yeah. I guess he and my mother loved each other at some point, but... I wasn't around for that part." Jonathan said while he cocked the gun to shoot again, but Nancy held her hand out.

      "Just, uh, point and shoot. There's no spiders this time." Julie joked, and Nancy's stoic face broke into a light grin.

      "I don't think my parents ever loved each other." Nancy said.

      Julie stood up to stand beside Nancy, leaning her weight on her new favorite object. "They must've married for some reason." Jonathan said.

      "My mom was young. My dad was older, but he had a cushy job, money, came from a good family. So they bought a nice house at the end of the cul-de-sac... and started their nuclear family." Nancy said, aiming the gun for the cans.

      Julie rolled her eyes. "Screw that." Jonathan said.

      "Yeah. Screw that." Nancy agreed, finally pulling the trigger and hitting the middle can perfectly, causing everyone to chuckle at her.