#the p5 is not nice but i need some joy from somewhere

[presdestigatto]

that gap to max has shrunk astronomically fast🙏

[hazardworld]

SEASON. TWO. OF. MONSTER. TOWN.

Anyway, you asked, I delivered. We’re starting out the season with an unconventional (though one of my favorites) point of view, right where we left off.

Chapters will be interspersed, as I’m currently also writing a big fic on Ao3 about a summer camp for superpowers, which you can find here.

If you haven’t read season 1 of Monster Town, feel free to click these links:

WB: 1.2.3

Season 1: P1.P2.P3.P4.P5.P6.P7.P8

Let’s get into it!

——————

Claudia Henderson stress-cooked.

Being the one 1950s house making lesson her Ma taught her that she deemed legitimately useful, she turned it into a coping mechanism.

It helped that she was naturally good at it, even from the start. With a list of the Machiavelli Pack recipes and her southern Italian taste buds, cooking became chemistry she could eat.

(And of course, she was great at maths and sciences)

What was nice is that something good almost always came out of it, as if some sort of god aligned the planets so her stress coping lead to good karma. For example:

The night before her first SAT in junior year, she made a mostaccoli so dense it forced her to pass out mid-cram. (She wouldn’t’ve gotten any sleep otherwise)

She panicked so badly the night before junior prom she made a 7-layer deep dish casserole that completely distracted Pa from the skimpiness of her dress

When she forgot to get Christmas gifts for everyone she baked cookies: those cookies were then hid and scavenged for around the house for weeks

When a 12 year old almost killed her and her friends through their minds, she was able to soothe everyone with homemade pastina (a childhood favorite)

On her 18th birthday (+Pack line ceremony) most of the delicious sandwiches were made by her notion of using her sleepless insomniac night to her advantage.

She baked the best lasagna she’d ever made before opening her dream college letter: she wanted to open it over a favorite meal

About 30 minutes ago, she’d received a call from Eddie Munson, saying they apparently had Jason Carver tied up at the Byers house and needed somewhere safe to keep him.

Besides the fact that they apparently had come in contact with Jason Carver and had to tie him up—to keep themselves safe, Claudia knew the kids better than that—Joy had been over at her house when she’d gotten the call. They were discussing a death vision she got on the plane from Alaska, one about Jason Carver himself.

Claudia was smart, and so was Joy. They both knew that no matter the circumstance, the moment a banshee got a death vision, their fate was sealed within 24 hours. Otherwise, she would’ve gotten visions about Will, Max, or any of the kids in the various situations the’d been put through these past years—Claudia couldn’t really keep track at this point.

Either way, she knew Joy’s dream had to do with Jason being torn up in the Upside Down (or whatever the kids called Henry’s Realm). If that were the case, how was he still walking, talking, and breathing? It wasn’t physically possible for that to happen.

That’s when she’d gotten the call.

Joy had run off back to her house to make sure everyone was okay, while Eddie and Argyle drove Jason over to the Henderson house. As she waited, Claudia started stress-cooking.

She started with cookies: easy and delicious to many palates. She took some pre-prepped cookie dough from the fridge and rolled it into balls before putting a tray of 12 into the oven to bake. She calmed slightly from the warm scent of sugar melting.

Claudia jumped when the doorbell rang seconds after. Quickly, she moved to the front room and opened the door to a panicked Eddie and a grinning Argyle, both holding a bound, subdued Jason Carver between them.

Claudia raised an eyebrow.

"Did you sedate him?" She put her hands on her hips, and Eddie and Argyle made awkward eye contact.

"Maybe?" Eddie offered, sheepishly shrugging. Claudia laughed and yanked the ropes binding Jason to himself.

"Good. It’ll be easier to tie him to my chairs that way." When Jason got close to her, she winced at the smell. He smelled like burning, molting fish flesh.

It was awful.

Talk about bad people.

“Come on in,” she looked around, hopeful her neighbors weren’t looking through windows at the moment. “It’ll be easier to talk inside,”

“So, boys, what was the issue this time?” Eddie and Argyle made eye contact again.

“He tried to kill Lucas?” Argyle offered.

“He didn’t try to kill Lucas!” Eddie tried to cover, “He just tried to sirenspeak him!”

“John said he did that while pinning Lucas up against the wall, by the neck,”

“Wait, shit, seriously?”

“Boys!” She held up her hands in surrender “doesn’t matter. Obviously it was bad enough he needed to be tied up. Now, we need to make sure he’s secure,”

She had Eddie and Argyle help her tie the body to one of her good sturdy kitchen chairs, so she’d be safe when he woke up.

"Thank you again Mrs. Hen—" Eddie tried to apologize, but she stopped him mid sentence.

"Claudia, dear."

"Thanks, Claudia," Eddie grinned, and started to make his way back to the door.

"Bye! Thanks Mrs. Dustin’s mom!" Argyle grinned and waved, before shutting the door behind them.

Claudia let out a sigh, before looking at the unconscious body at her dining table.

The cookies beeped, breaking her out of her thoughts.

The smell of warm cookies actually evened out and made the dying fish smell worse simultaneously, Claudia noted in disgust. Something seriously had to be wrong with that child for him to smell that bad.

Jason started to wake while she was putting in her second batch. At first, he tried to undo his bondage, then bounce the chair around, and he also tried biting into the rope, but it was all no use.

“Those are extra strength for werewolves, hon. There is no use in trying to escape,” she said while still placing dough balls.

“Who…who are you?”

It occurred to Claudia they had never formerly met.

“Mrs. Henderson,” She replied formally. She’d be cordial, of course, but he wasn’t one of Dustin’s friends.

“Dustin’s Mother…” Jason said slyly. Claudia noted some sort of vocal undertone to his speech, as if it was just slightly warped in some way. His scent took a bit of a sour turn, too.

Claudia turned to the stove, poured herself a large pot of water, and set it to boil. She took out her bag of dry pastina pasta and set it aside for later.

“Is that a problem?”

“You knew my father,” Claudia snorted.

James Carver? Of course she knew him. Not only was James one of the most popular people in her high school years, but he was also best friends with her arch nemesis, Chris Harrington.

“Of course I did, he went to my high school. He was very popular, you know,” was what she told everyone unaware of her deep hatred for the two.

“And you weren’t,” Jason said bitterly. Claudia turned to stir the hot water again, in hopes of it boiling faster. “How would you like to be?”

Some sort of damp scent filled the air, moldy and mildly sour.

“Join me, Claudia Machiavelli. Tell me what you know.”

Quickly, Claudia caught on to what the scent was, and she smirked.

“I’m great, thanks, Jason. I’d prefer to keep my secrets, you know?”

She heard a growl from the corner—strange behavior for a siren—as she poured the pasta into the pot.

Small stars cooked fast.

“You’ve been tainted by the other one, haven’t you?” Jason spit, and Claudia chuckled.

“He could have…tainted me, that’s true, but it wouldn’t really matter, now would it?” Claudia strained the pasta, before moving to sit at the table. Jason’s face was hard to read, but he smelled like a mix of interest and fear. Also, something else familiar that Claudia couldn’t quite place.

Claudia actually did know Steve imprinted (or as Jason wanted to say, “tainted”) on her, and a while ago at that. She had a master’s in child and adolescent development, and due to attending a monster-inclusive school, was able to conduct her thesis on how different monsters develop and interact as young. Even if Steve didn’t explicitly express signs of imprinting, Claudia could see the nuance.

The most obvious sign (at least to her) was how easy it became for him to call her ‘Ma.’ Usually, sirens imprinted first on their parents. Because Steve had Chris Harrington for a father, it wasn’t completely unexpected for Steve to have a lack of parental figures in his life.

The second thing Claudia noticed about Steve was how her touch was very calming, almost grounding to him. Her touch meant he physically knew where she was, and that (because she was with him) she was safe.

Besides, as a species, sirens weren’t typically touchy-touchy, so anytime Steve made little gestures—hands on shoulders, noogies, high-fives, even the uncommon hug—it was a clear sign of claim and imprint.

He was also vulnerable with her—not necessarily a trait of imprinting, but it still mattered—which meant there was a level of trust there above many other people.

“Why—why would it not matter?” Jason asked, attempting to be confident even though it wasn’t working.

“You understand I’m a werewolf, correct?” Claudia asked, and Jason nodded. “Well, my father is currently our pack alpha. When he turns 70, he will enter retirement, and I—his oldest child—will take his place. Because of this, at 18, I was cursed to never be magically convinced, so all actions as a pack alpha could be my own. Do you know what that means, Jason?”

Jason shook his head, and Claudia smirked as she stood up to dish out some pastina (she’d forgotten the egg, but it’d have to do).

“It means, Jason, that no matter what has made an imprint on me, no one, not even them, can use sirenspeak on me. You will fail every. single. time,” She grinned at him. “Now would you like some food? You look like you haven’t eaten in awhile,”

Claudia sat down in front of him with his plate of pasta and a spoon. She fed him a mouthful, which hilariously he didn’t reject in the slightest. She was expecting him to be stubborn and her to have to go through a few locomotives, but he immediately dropped his jaw to receive food.

Before she could feed him a second mouthful, she received a phone call from across the room.

«Claudia?» came Jim Hopper’s voice through the receiver.

"Hello? Jim? Is everything okay?"

«Yes. Just letting you know me and officer Callahan are on our way to pick up the Carver kid»

“Wonderful, thank you so much!”

She hung up the phone and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Why doesn’t the pastina have egg in it?” Came Jason’s voice from across the room. The distortion in it was slightly stronger now, somehow.

Wait, Jason hadn’t ever had pastina before, right? Because he shouldn’t know its name, nor the fact that it was always supposed to have scrambled egg.

“What?” She asked for clarification.

“Pastina, you always made it with scrambled eggs,” Jason frowned.

Claudia had never made pastina for Jason. Even if it was at some sort of school potluck, it was never clear she brought it, and Claudia knew for certain his parents wouldn’t have told him even if it was.

Claudia caught a whiff of that eerily familiar scent once more and all the pieces clicked:

Jason didn’t know pastina or more specifically, her pastina.

Jason’s obsession with Steve and finding out her secrets related to him and the party.

Most damningly, the fact that he knew her full maiden name even when she only introduced herself under her married one.

In front of her may have been the shell of Jason Carver, and he may have been calling some of the shots, but this was not Jason Carver.

This was Henry Creel.

————

👀

S2P2!

Anyway, if you caught it, Claudia was involved in the original Vecna-ing with the Creel family. How so? You shall find out!

Also for reference, Claudia’s the principal of Hawkins Elementary. (She’s also heavily neurodivergent but that’s a topic for later)

(If you’re wondering what pastina is, it’s a dish made with star pasta, scrambled egg, and Parmesan cheese. It’s SUPER nostalgiac for many Italian Americans)

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