Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

July 4, 1985

The siren sounds weren’t piercing through Will’s skull as strong as they should have, in fact, he almost hadn’t heard the military showing up, not even when medics had taken him by the arms, carrying him towards an ambulance and asking him a million questions to which his only response was the frantic movement of his pupils, trying to make sense of the situation. There was fire everywhere, but still he was shivering, not from the cold from his soaked clothes or from the slight chill of the summer night, no, it all came from the goosebumps of his neck, or more specifically, the lack of them.

The portal was closed, that much was clear given the situation they were in now, surrounded by paramedics, militants and the fire caused by the massive destruction of the shopping mall, courtesy of the enormous flesh monster they had fought against and won. Except it hadn’t been him, he had not made nothing more than throw some fireworks and being scared as hell even though he had been at a safe distance from the monster. He had been useless, if it weren’t for Billy…

Who would have thought that Billy would end up saving the day? He didn’t know him at all, but from what Lucas has told him he wasn’t a really nice person, but Will couldn’t help but wonder if he deserved dying like that, if any of them deserved anything that had happened to them, not just that summer, but the year prior also. Since he had gone missing everything had just been catastrophe after catastrophe, and he had been the catalyst of it all, his disappearance had been the butterfly’s flapping that started the whole chain reaction of traumatic events in which everyone in Hawkins had been caught up on.

Maybe he shouldn’t have been found, maybe he was meant to have stayed missing and never come back. That way Eleven wouldn’t have lost her powers, Max wouldn’t have lost her brother, Bob would still be alive, and his friends would have normal lives. Nothing wouldn’t have changed much, this summer had been the proof of it, he had been invisible all summer to all of his friends, just like if he had disappeared again, but this time they didn’t bother to look for him.

If he went missing again would they look for him again?

“Mike did” some traitorous part of his brain whispered. Mike had gone to his house to apologize, but that had just been because he had blew out at him, if he had stayed silent Mike wouldn’t have noticed him, just like it had been all summer; Will had been invisible, eclipsed under the shadow of Eleven.

He took a deep breath and decided to instead focus in whatever the medics were saying to him, he couldn’t think about Mike or Eleven, he would not do that to himself, not now, not ever. The portal was closed, they had won, the upside down was just a thing from the past, he should be thinking about that instead. The universe must hate him because as he wrapped tighter around him the blanket a seemingly lost Eleven appeared in his field of vision.

She was walking in circles around the Starcourt parking, frantically searching for someone in the crowd of survivors from the “fire”, as that was what they were calling it now, just a mall fire. She had a bandage plastered on her forehead and her eyes were vibrating with hope. Will looked around him too just in case he spotted the persons both him and Eleven where waiting for. His mom and Hopper had yet to appear. Will wanted to think it was because they were being interrogated by the military, it had to be that, there wasn’t any other possibility, at least not one that he liked.

Just when he could feel himself spiraling into a pit of anxiety again he saw her, his mom. He suddenly got out of his shock state and threw the blanket off himself, immediately jumping to his feet and running towards her. He couldn’t help the smile that appeared in his face, it if someone where to look at his expression they wouldn’t think nothing bad had ever happened at all.

His mom enveloped him on her arms, holding onto him like he was going to evaporate at any moment. He hid his face on her neck, for one moment he could almost pretend he was a child again, in his mothers arms he was safe from the mind flayer and the upside down, in his mothers arm he could shield himself from his feelings; from his shame and his fears.

Unlike him, his mothers face wasn’t on his neck like it normally would be, almost like she was looking somewhere else, her body was embracing him, but her mind was fat away, and when her body started trembling on his arms he realized she wasn’t just happy because he was alive, she was holding onto him for dear life, like she was afraid he would evaporate, because…

Hopper wasn’t with her.

She started to sob.

Behind him he heard someone’s breath catching.

His mother detached from him, Will didn’t want her to leave him yet, but there was someone who needed her more than he did at that moment, he would be alright. He folded his arms in himself and watched how Eleven’s body and his mothers merged into the same grieving entity, collapsing into the ground, like there was nothing that could hold them except each other. He couldn’t distinguish their sobs from his own, he didn’t even know why he was crying.

“Are you alright?” Jonathan’s voice broke him out from his pitying state, but it was like a crime scene, he couldn’t tear his gaze away.

“I think I’ll be.” He answered, voice small, not even looking back at him. He felt so disconnected from his body that in his mind he sounded so far away to the point he couldn’t even recognize his own voice.

A shiver ran down through his spine, starting from the nape of his neck.

~
July 6, 1985

Will laid wide awake on Jonathans bed. His room was occupied by Eleven at the moment as the girl was staying with them for now, and she needed space, so of course Will lend her his bedroom, it wasn’t like they would make her sleep on their rusty couch, plus, Will had thought that by sharing the bed with Jonathan he wouldn’t feel as scared when going to sleep.

He was proved wrong when his eyes flew open in the middle of the night after reliving one of the many bad moments on the Upside Down. His hearth was beating so rapidly he could hear the blood pumping on his brain, he was afraid the sound would wake Jonathan up, although realistically he could only hear it on his own head. Still, he slowly got up from the bed and walked to the kitchen, he needed a glass of water and to clear his head before trying to fall back sleep.

Who was he kidding? There was no way he would get any more sleep that day, just like he hadn’t got any sleep yesterday or practically any day since that day. He was just starting to consider stealing some of his mothers Valium that he knew she kept hidden somewhere when he heard it; crying. It was silent, the person clearly was trying to muffle the sound with their pillow. Will would know, he had done the same too many times to count.

It was obvious the broken sobs belonged to Eleven since the sound came from his room. Will stood frozen with the glass of water in his hand, he was usually the one crying, never had he been put on the position of having to console someone, he wouldn’t know what to do.

He didn’t even know anything about Eleven, which was crazy given the circumstances, but the reality was that as ashamed as he was to admit it he had avoided as much as posible any interaction with her. He didn’t only mean in the last few days she had been in their house, because basically every person on his family had kept to themselves, his mom always outside smoking a cigarette, his brother most of the time over at Nancy’s, Eleven kept the lock of his room on and he had been hiding on Jonathan’s room, praying the loud music would somehow swallow him whole.

No, he meant since they had been introduced to each other formally for the first time after the Snow Ball last year. Not once had they had any conversation where other member of the party wasn’t involved, and it was mostly because Will had avoided it. Just meeting each other had been awkward, how was he supposed to act with the girl who had saved his life without even knowing him? The girl whom he had lived for a year in the shadow of, because when he came back her absence had haunted Mike so much that it might as well had been a presence. And to make everything worse, she was Mikes girlfriend, he didn’t consider himself to be the jealous type, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t jealous…

“Why would you be jealous?” His hand griped the glass. He shouldn’t feel jealousy, he couldn’t. Feeling it would entail that what he realized that day he destroyed Castle Byers was true, and it wasn’t, it couldn’t be true. He had spent years denying those accusation from the bullies, from his father. They couldn’t be right, he wouldn’t let them.

He was not jealous of Eleven.

He took a small sip of water, maybe it would make swallowing the lie easier.

“Doesn’t she also deserve nice things after everything she has gone through? Her father has just died, stop being so selfish.” Will quickly drank all the water, almost choking on the process, he wished it would somehow drown his thoughts.

Another sob startled him, it was louder than the others, like Eleven couldn’t contain them anymore and not even the pillow was able to muffle the sound of her heart breaking.

Will’s hand hovered over the handle of the door, he just had to push it down. On the other side awaited something that somehow scared him more than the monster from the mall.

Another sob. His own heart broke alongside hers. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t open the door, he couldn’t face her. Eleven’s cries were the background music that marked his walk of shame back to Jonathan’s room, and they echoed in his head all night like his own soundtrack of personal torment.

~

July 7, 1985

Will was already awake when his walkie came to life, he had almost forgotten it was an object he possessed with how silent it had been for the last few days.

“Guys, this is Dustin,” Will lazily reached for the walkie and threw it into the empty space in bed where Jonathan slept, but of course he was over at the Wheelers, so Will had the room and bed all to himself. “I think we have already done too much sulking, it’s time to hang out!” Dustin’s exasperated voice filtered through Wills ears, from his tone it was obvious he was bored out of his mind and Will couldn’t blame him, he hadn’t done much for the last days. “We have all summer ahead of us! Over.”

Dustin was waiting for an answer, and so was Will, but he wasn’t about to make his presence known before anyone else did it first.

“It’s so hot, what do you even want to do?” At the sound of Mikes voice Will’s heart skipped a beat, he ignored it in favor of sitting up straighter.

“We could go to your basement? Over.” Dustin remarked that last over, trying to remind Mike of the proper radio etiquette that Will knew he knew, but didn’t use it because he liked to infuriate Dustin.

“Why does it always have to be my house?” Mike groaned.

“You have an AC. Over” Will joined in the conversation. He felt a sudden dread at the prospect of hanging out with his friends again, with Mike more specifically. Maybe Mike didn’t remember it, but they had had a fight, which had lead to Will destroying Castle Byers and to have a total breakdown where all the truths about himself he had tried to keep within the deeps of his mind had come back to the surface at full force with every of the bat swings towards his childhood castle. He wasn’t even mad at Mike, not anymore, he couldn’t ever be mad at him for too long even if he tried. All the anger was directed at himself, but it still reflected on their relationship.

“Okay, fine.” Will could picture Mike rolling his eyes. “But im not giving you any of my ice cream.”

“I was craving some popsicles actually. Over.” Will commented before he could second guess anything.

“Well, you can have some if you want.” Mike answered and Will took that as a sign that maybe their friendship wasn’t doomed after all.

“Of course Will can have ice cream but we can’t.” Lucas voice joined in the conversation. Will ignored that comment as he didn’t know what it was supposed to mean. “Can Max come too?” He asked. “Over.” After a second of silence he added like he had just remembered he had to say that.

“I guess, if she has stoped conspiring against me.” Mike half joked. Max was a fragile topic to touch right now, the last time Will had seen her had been after the battle, and she had been a mess, he still could hear her screaming for Billy. He hadn’t heard from her since.

Just when he was about to leave the house he was reminded of the ghost that also lived there. Eleven was standing on the kitchen with a half eaten cookie on her hand and a far away look on her face. Mike hadn’t mentioned Eleven, but maybe he had just assumed she was coming with him. Will should probably ask her if she wanted to come, it was the least he could do since he had heard her crying that night and had done nothing about it.

“Eleven?” He called awkwardly from the door. Once her eyes were on him he didn’t know how to continue. “I’m, uhm, we are hanging out at Mike’s house.” He hoped she would somehow understand the message he was trying to say, but she just kept staring at him with slightly furrowed eyebrows. “Do you want to come?”

Eleven blinked once, then twice, she tilted her head, it was like she hadn’t expected that interaction at all. “I don’t have a bike.” She stated, eyebrows still furrowed.

“Oh, don’t worry, you can ride with me.” He offered. He hadn’t carried someone with him on his bike in years, he prayed he wouldn’t drop her.

Eleven nodded slowly and made her way outside. Will still found it surreal that she was living with them, she looked so out of place in their small home, not like she didn’t fit in or that he didn’t want her there. Just that he would not have expected this, not in a million years. It had always been his mother, his brother and him. Long ago it had also been his father, but that memories were so repressed in his mind that they might as well never have happened at all.

Will begged his shoulders to relax when Eleven placed her hands on them. It was weird to have her leaning onto his back when they hadn’t even shared a handshake before, but Will would have to make an effort to bond with her. During the ride he tried not to think about the uncomfortable silence they were basked in, instead he tried to think about what things Eleven liked, maybe they had something in common.

“Do you know how to ride a bike?” He found himself asking. It was the most stupid question he could have asked, obviously in the laboratory she was raised in they didn’t teach her to ride a bike.

If Eleven found the question stupid or weird, she didn’t comment on it, instead she shook her head.

“Do you want to learn?” Before she could reply he nervously started to ramble. “We still have Jonathan’s old bike somewhere, so maybe one day I could teach you to ride it and Jonathan now has a car, so he doesn’t need the bike anymore, it’s all yours.”

Eleven didn’t say anything for a few moments, Will drowned in the silence.

“It looks difficult.” Eleven murmured.

“It really isn’t, I promise.” Will smiled to himself, he was making a successful conversation. “It’ll come naturally.” At least to him it had, after a few atemps where he had ended up on the floor, but he had been five, he supposed Eleven had a little bit more of coordination now.

“Jonathan wouldn’t mind that I used his bike?” She sounded genuinely worried, which was funny, she really was preoccupied that Jonathan would be mad at her if she used a bike he probably didn’t even remember was his when she had saved their asses more than one time. Jonathan would probably buy a new bike just for her if he had the money.

“Not at all.” He replied.

“Then I would like that.” Will’s smile grew. This was progress. “It sounds fun.” She said, and it sounded like she was trying to picture what “fun” was supposed to mean. She probably hadn’t had many funny moments in her life.“Thanks Will.” She added. Will realized that she didn’t murmure, she just talked in a low voice all the time, like she didn’t know she was allowed to talk higher above that.

“It’s nothing.” They now had something to look forward to.

~

July 9, 1985

Will was running so fast that he felt his legs would detach from his body. He was scared, full body shivering, teeth clashing together in between whimpers. He felt like a little kid again, and he was, at least in his nightmares he was always twelve again, twelve and lost in the Upside Down, twelve and running away from a demogorgon, twelve and almost dead, but somehow coming back to life, like a zombie.

The demogorgons claw was getting closer to his coat, almost clawing it, grasping at Will, he wanted him and Will was afraid he would get him. He stumbled upon a fallen tree branch, as he was about to meet the cold, dump ground his eyes flew open.

“You’re alright.” He tried to remind himself. He sat up in bed, drawing his knees towards himself trying to hide his face on them. Somehow the darkness created by hugging himself tightly with his eyes closed was less scary than the one that surrounded the bedroom. “The demogorgon didn’t get you.” Except it had, maybe not at that moment, but at some point it had happened, and it had changed him forever. His heart beat wildly at the memory of claws inching closer.

It looked like it was going to be another sleepless night, he already had his next steps memorized; slowly get up from bed so he wouldn’t wake up Jonathan, gently turn the handle so the door wouldn’t screech and alarm his mom, little by little walk to the kitchen and get a glass of water, then stare to nowhere in particular for as long as his eyelids would remain open.

He felt back in his nightmare when he came face to face with another figure standing on the kitchen. “Jesus, Eleven.” He gasped when he realized who the person was. She was always so quiet, truly a ghost living in his house.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you coming.” She apologized, her voice lower than ever, and that was saying something because every time she spoke it felt like a whisper.

“What are you doing here?” He whispered back. It really wasn’t his business, but his alone time on the kitchen every night was his ritual, he needed his time to dissociate so even if he wasn’t sleeping, he still wouldn’t think about nothing at all. It was the only moment where his mind was really silent, no nightmares, no life changing realizations. Just him holding a glass in a way that grounded him, to remind him that even if his mind was somewhere far away, his body was still there. He was real.

He walked towards Eleven, with the soft light emanating from the lamp he could see the remains of tears on her face. “I couldn’t sleep.” Was her reply. Will gave her a sympathetic nod.

“Yeah, me neither.” Eleven was wearing a flannel button-down shirt, it probably wasn’t very comfortable to sleep in. He wondered if she even had any clothes to begin with, he hadn’t payed close attention to what she had been wearing the last few days, maybe he should have, she was their guest after all.

“Do you want one of my old pijamas?” He asked after a few beats of silently evading each others eyes. “I don’t know if you have any clothes…,” Eleven interrupted him before he could start full on rambling.

“I do have clothes, I think.” And what did that even mean? “This is from Hopper.” She added, her eyes going slightly red. Now Will felt like an idiot, bringing up her dead father, even if it hadn’t been his intention.

“Oh,” he blinked, thinking of a way to respond. “Im sorry by the way.” He hadn’t even gave her his condolences, five days living together and she had been grieving each of them and he hadn’t even bothered to check on her.

“Why?” She tilted her head in a way that reminded him of a confused puppy.

“Because, you know…,” how was he supposed to say this? He didn’t want to say aloud the sentence “because Hopper is dead”. Eleven probably wouldn’t like to hear that. “Hopper…,” he stumbled with his words, he really was making a fool of himself.

“It was not your fault.” She looked him dead in the eyes, her eyebrows furrowed like she was trying to comprehend what he was saying.

He gulped. Indirectly it had been his fault, he should have stayed gone. “No, it wasn’t.” He exhaled, this was going to be a weird conversation. “It’s something people say when someone dies, they give their condolences.” Eleven was listening attentively to every word he said the same way he would listen to Mr.Clark explaining something in science class.

“Condolences?” She parroted back the word. It sounded weird coming from her mouth, kinda like she was trying to decipher its meaning by tasting each syllable. She gave him a puzzled look, begging him to explain her the meaning.

“People say it to show that they are with you in your pain and that they understand your suffering.”

“But they don’t.” She said determined, shaking her head. She wasn’t getting it, but she was so right at the same time; they really didn’t. No one understood her pain or her suffering, it was something that only Eleven was experiencing in her very unique way. Just like when he came back from the Upside Down and people keep saying they were sorry about what had happened to him, like the would understand it, no one truly did, he was alone, they were alone.

“Yeah, it’s stupid, I know.” Now Eleven looked even more confused than before. “But people will say it to you a lot and you’re supposed to say thank you.” She took the words in, nodding slowly as a sign of understanding.

“Thank you.” She immediately replied, still with a confused face, but it sounded genuine. Will couldn’t help the small chuckle that escaped him, this was an interesting conversation he had never expected to have.

There weren’t any signs of sadness on her face anymore.

“And I would like some of your clothes.” She looked at him, an unrecognizable expression on her face that he interpreted as an attempt at a small friendly smile. Will gave his own smile back.

He went back into his room and began searching through his boxes of old clothes as silently as possible, he had to have something that Eleven could wear.

“What are you doing?” Jonathan’s sleepy voice startled him.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.” His eyes landed on a yellow t-shirt with some logo that had faded ages ago, it was too short on him now, but it probably wouldn’t be on Eleven.

“It’s okay, don’t worry.” Jonathan stifled a yawn.

“Im searching clothes for Eleven.” He replied, cautiously folding his finding and setting it aside, he hoped he could create a pile of shirts.

“That’s so nice of you.” His brother answered, but he sounded too far away, he had already gone back to sleep.

Will clutched another yellow t-shirt in his hands. Was he really? Would Eleven think the same? Would she still think it if she knew the truth?

“What truth?” Some voice somewhere in his head questioned him, some oblivious, naive and in denial voice.

“You know what the truth is.” Another sick, twisted, horrific and scary part of his brain answered back.

Will liked it better when he was still ignorant, when he could pretend everything bad his brain thought about him wasn’t actually true and just words people used to hurt him so his brain would throw back at him. But there was not denying it anymore, was it?

He still could pretend though.

Chapter Text

July 10, 1985 

"What does blank makes you crazy mean?" Eleven asked him out of nowhere. Thay had been basking in a semi-comfortable silence since Joyce had gone out to meet up with someone, that someone probably had been sent by the government to talk with her, and Jonathan, unsurprisingly, was spending time with Nancy, again. It was honestly getting gross quickly. Eleven and Will were in their own separate worlds; Will trying and failing to draw a landscape as each time he picked up the blue pencil to color the sky his mind would short-circuit and fall back into that night at Castle Byers, it was starting to haunt him. Eleven was reading a comic he had lent her, but it was obvious by her scrunched nose she was just looking at the pictures. It was actually the first time he saw her out of the bedroom for something other than eating. 

"What are you talking about?" He looked up from his drawing. She was already looking at him. 

"Mike told me that something made him crazy, that's why he was acting strange and I dumped his ass." 

Will quickly turned his head down towards the table, the unfinished drawing mocking him back. He remembered that day, the doomed day where Eleven had broken up with Mike, and it felt like a weight had lifted from Will's shoulders. He had thought it was because he would finally have his best friend back, but after their fight he realized it was for another dreadful, selfish reason. Now Mike and Eleven were on good terms again, probably had already gotten back together, but he wasn't about to ask. Sometimes it was better not to know; ignorance was a bliss. 

What he didn't know couldn't hurt him, even if it already was. 

His knuckles were going white from how hard he was clutching the blue pencil, holding onto it like a lifeline. "Love makes you crazy." He whispered under his breath, eyes blinking rapidly. Maybe if he shut them hard enough, he would disappear. 

Mike loved Eleven. He already knew that, Mike himself had screamed it on everyone's faces in the cabin. "I love her and I can't lose her again." The words echoed back in his head; it was the only thing he could hear. Mike's voice gradually getting louder until it felt like it was taunting him personally, trying to engrave the words into his brain. 

"What?" The snapping of the blue pencil brought him back to reality. Eleven was looking at him with a tilted head like she hadn't heard what he had said. 

"Love makes you crazy." He said, a little louder this time. He hoped his tone didn't show what he was feeling. 

Eleven made a humming noise of understanding. "I don't get it." She closed the comic and aggressively tossed it aside. "Isn't love a good thing?" She asked. Will did not agree with her; love was a weapon and at that moment it was stabbing him. "How does it make you crazy?" She pressed more; she was getting really hung up on that whole love thing. Will was hating every moment of that conversation; he wanted out, but it looked like Eleven would keep him hostage. 

He took a deep breath; he was starting to dig his own grave. "When you love someone so much that it consumes you, you overthink every single interaction. Your mind is so occupied with the other person that it doesn't leave space for rational thinking, and you start acting different, weird, not like you usually would." He exhaled; he really needed to stop talking now. He was really saying all this bullshit about love, explaining it to her like he had ever experienced it, he hadn't. At least not the requited one, and that was the one she was asking about. It should be the other way around, Eleven telling him about how wonderful and marvelous being in love with Mike was while he died inside, although he already felt like dying with this conversation. 

Eleven's mouth was slightly parted, her eyes wondering all around the room; she looked like she was putting the pieces together. Maybe Will had just helped her realize she was madly in love with Mike and they were made for each other and should be together forever, till death — or alternate dimensions and supernatural monsters — tore them apart. He would be happy for her if that was the case. If someone deserved to feel what real love was, it was her. 

"I love Hopper," loved, he couldn't help but autocorrect in his mind. "But it doesn't feel like that, I can act just normal while still knowing I love him." 

"This is different, we are talking about romantic love." He couldn't blame her for not knowing the difference between romantic and familiar love. He was surprised she understood what love was at all, but shouldn't she know there was a difference in the way she felt about Hopper and Mike? 

"What's the difference?" Why wouldn't the earth just split in two under his feet? 

"Eleven," He sighed; this was going to be a long and complicated conversation. Why was he doing this to himself? "There are different types of love, like; familiar, romantic, platonic," he started to name. Eleven was listening to him attentively. 

"Platonic?" She repeated. Will understood that this was his cue to start explaining. 

"The love you feel for your friends, like when you want to protect them, you trust them with anything, you enjoy their company and having fun with them." Eleven was nodding along his words, really thinking them through. "Think about when you're with Max." He settled in the best example. In the last group hangout, he came to notice how the two girls were always sitting together, whispering things in each other's ears and giggling like two normal girls. They both had lost someone, but they had found each other in return. 

"I like Max." She smiled at the mention of her friend. "She taught me about superheroes, and she always makes me laugh." 

"That's platonic, friendship." He concluded just as Eleven returned to her confused face. 

"But that's how I feel about Mike too." She questioned. Will's head was twirling, Mike and Eleven were not platonic, they loved each other. 

"No." He was quick to reply, maybe to quickly going by the way Eleven's head tilted. "That's different because you want to —" his next words were uttered with so much care, like they were a bomb about to explode. "—kiss him." He flinched at his own words, a cruel reminder about his feelings. Because he had thought about that, about kissing him, and once he did, he could not think about anything else. The image had been so clear in his head, unable to push it back anymore, so horrifying, yet so beautiful at the same time. Except it wasn't, two boys kissing was disgusting, wanting to kiss another boy was nauseating, repulsive, vile. 

Eleven stared at him for a few moments without saying a word. The way her eyes were locked somewhere above his head made him feel like he was being dissected, his palms were sweaty, he felt she could see right through him. Worried she could somehow enter his mind and find The Secret, but she didn't have her powers anymore, he should be safe. 

Eleven's mouth formed a perfect o shape. "Okay." She said, not sounding really sure about it. Will felt the walls he had built around him stabilizing; he could breathe again. 

"And how I feel about you then?" The change of topic gave him whiplash. It was true they couldn't say they were friends, not yet at least, maybe acquaintances, stepsiblings would maybe fit better, except it also didn't because she did not have a father and even then, Hopper hadn't been related to his family in any way. Also, she was just living with them, it wasn't like they had adopted her, although he wouldn't be surprised if that were to be the case. 

Would he survive that? Living with his savior, yet his doom? 

"I- I don't know," he answered. "I can't tell you that." 

She nodded and went back to her long-forgotten comic book. "Thanks, Will." She gently smiled at him. He felt guilty smiling back, she didn't know the war that she unwillingly had started on his head. He had to get a grip soon, she didn't deserve that, he didn't deserve her kindness. 

July 11, 1985 

“Do you even know what video games are?” Will asked Eleven while they rode to the Wheelers. He didn’t mean it as an insensitive question; he was just curious about how much she knew about the real world and being a teenager, because he had just found out that day at breakfast that she didn’t understand the concept of going to school. 

“You control little people on the screen.” She ended up saying. Her description wasn’t entirely wrong, just really vague, but it wasn’t like Will was going to explain to her coding and technology. 

“Something like that.” He sighed, carrying Eleven on his back was proving to be more tiring than he thought, as soon as the streets stopped being completely plain the extra weight started to be a problem and add to that the constant paranoia that he would somehow end up throwing Eleven straight into the asphalt. It was a valid concern; she looked so fragile. 

“We are going to play Kung Fu Master, we are having a tournament.” Will excitedly explained. He wasn’t the best at video games, he left that to Lucas, but he couldn’t help but grin at the prospect of spending time with his friends. It was almost like he was having a second chance at summer. There was a before the fire, where he had been nothing but miserable and alone, now there was an after, and he wanted to enjoy it as much as he could, because he knew it wouldn’t last forever. It was only a matter of time until Mike got obsessed with Eleven again, and Dustin and Lucas also went back to being with their girlfriends. Will would get what he could. 

“How?” She asked. Will had never heard a girl being so interested in video games before. But what would he know? He didn’t talk to girls at all. Maybe Eleven could end up liking video games. 

“We take turns fighting against each other in pairs, whoever wins the most battles wins.” He felt like such a nerd at that moment, and he wasn’t even going deep into the games mechanics or their tournament rules, he was barely explaining the basics. For some reason he didn’t want her to think he was weird. He focused on pedaling. 

“But, how can two people play at the same time?” He could picture her confused face; the same one she made some nights ago when they talked on the kitchen. Lately whenever they talked she had that same face, like she was learning something new from every conversation, and they hasn’t even interacted that much. Still, he preferred to see her confused than sad. 

“Mike has two controls.” Because originally, when they used to be only Mike and Will, Mike had asked his mother to buy another control specifically for him. Will’s shoulders tensed even more than they already were. He should focus on cycling. 

“Controls?” Eleven repeated the word. Her hands slid from his shoulders until they were left hanging loosely at her sides. 

“Yes, like a TV remote we use to control the characters.” He could feel her thinking about his explanation for some moments. 

“How does that work?” She caught him there, he really had no idea. Dustin would be more suited to answer that question. 

“Honestly, I don’t know.” He sighed. She really was curious. Will usually didn’t think too much about how things worked or why they were the way they were; an apple was an apple. Eleven would find a way to question why the apple was green and not yellow and why it came from a tree. There were things he just couldn’t explain to her. 

It was tragic that a fourteen-year-old had to teach her — wait, how old was she supposed to be? — the most basic facts of life, like why waffles don’t qualify as breakfast, lunch and dinner. He had grown out of his curious phase where he asked how Santa Claus could know where he lived when he was eight. It seemed like Eleven was just entering it. He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to grow reclused in a laboratory and then discover that there were so many things outside of it that she had been missing on. Game controllers were just the peak of the iceberg. 

“So, it’s like magic?” It sounded more like an answer than a question. Maybe it was easier to let her believe whatever she wanted. It wasn't like magic was such a farfetched answer. After everything they had gone through magic was very much real. 

He chuckled. “You could say that.” He started to pedal uphill, he really hated this street, the going up was already tiring enough when he was doing it alone. “You should hold onto me.” He warned her. If there was a moment where Eleven could be sent flying off the bike, it was definitely now. 

“You were tense,” Will tensed more on reply. “I thought I was making you uncomfortable.” Her tone of voice wasn’t letting show her emotions at that moment. Will couldn’t decipher what she was feeling, was she weirded out by him? Did she find him weird? 

“No, it’s not that.” When Eleven’s hands came back to rest on his shoulders, he tried to relax them and instead grip tightly the bike handles. “Sorry.” He couldn’t help but apologize. Eleven was actually wearing one of Will’s shirts that he had left for her at the door of his bedroom. He really was trying to make an effort to talk to her, it just didn’t come naturally like it would with any of his other friends, maybe he just had to try harder. There was something holding him back, a big wall between the two of them, and he kept covering the cracks Eleven made, trying to contain the wall from coming undone. The wall needed to stay; it was safe. 

An awkward beat passed. "I can play videogames too?" She asked. Just last year Will was wondering if girls even liked playing videogames, but meeting Max had answered that question. She always beats them at almost any game. 

"Yeah, of course." 

Will brake in front of the Wheelers house. Eleven excitedly got off the bike and ran towards the front door while he mentally prepared for the lying —mostly to himself— he would have to do that day. 

They both entered the basement after having a short, polite conversation with Mrs. Wheeler, who thought Eleven was Will's distant cousin who was staying with them for the summer. Everyone was already there, even Max, who instantly lit up when her eyes landed on Eleven. She ran downstairs to sit next to her on the floor with their backs against the couch. 

"Just in time, Will, dude, I'm about to beat your ass." Dustin greeted him. Lucas patted him on the back, and Max sent him a wave with her free hand; the other was lost in Eleven's hair checking her roots. Mike scooted over, making space for him to sit next to Mike on the couch, then he looked up at him expectantly with a little smile on his face that he did not find endearing at all. He didn't want to sit there, but at the same time his heart fluttered at the prospect. Their knees knocked together when he sat down; neither of them moved. 

Will beated Dustin quickly, he hid his laughter behind his hand when Dustin frustratedly sent the control flying straight into Mike's face. Meanwhile Max and Lucas weren't as nice and started full on laughing on his face. 

"Ouch!" Mike yelped. He dramatically hid his face behind his hands, clearly exaggerating how much he had been hurt. "That hurt like hell!" Dustin flipped him off. 

"Liar." Both he and Eleven spoke at the same time. All sound was sucked from the room, everyone turning their heads towards them in shock. 

"What?" Will chuckled nervously. Mike was staring at him weirdly; his neck then did a full turn towards Eleven. 

"Only a week living together and you two are already connected." Dustin joked. Without even realizing it, both he and Eleven locked eyes. "See?!" Dustin pointed between them like he was accusing them of something. "Connected!" He repeated for emphasis. 

"They are connected when it comes to call out Mike's bullshit." Max added with a wicked grin, both girls started laughing. 

"Stop conspiring against me." Mike muttered while he picked up the controller, but the comment lacked his usual snark towards Max, as if his mind were somewhere else. 

"Can I try?" Eleven asked, taking the controller from Mike's hands. 

"You are so on." Lucas snatched the controller Will offered him. This was going to be an interesting fight. 

Mike nudged him on the elbow. "He's going to crush her." He whispered for only him to hear. He felt his insides squirming, maybe from the butterflies, maybe from his gut contracting. 

"I don't know, maybe she has a hidden talent." Lucas and Eleven had started trash talking, and Eleven was enjoying it a little too much, even if her insults weren't as mean as she thought they were. At least she was having fun. 

Mike smirked at him, his gut contracted tighter. "You want to bet on that?" 

Will turned his face and bit the inside of his cheek to prevent it from turning red. "I beat your ass!" Eleven exclaimed triumphantly; saving Will from further interacting with Mike. 

"It looks like I won't need to." He couldn't help the grin that appeared on his face. Eleven turned to look at him with a big smile as if this had all been thanks to him, like she was searching for his approval. He had just introduced her to the world of videogames, not a big deal. 

"Men, I died." Lucas dejectedly sat back on the couch, both Dustin and Max patted him in understanding, although Max did it in a more mocking way while Dustin looked like he really was grieving with him. 

“Condolences.” Eleven spoke, the smile left her face. “I understand your pain.” 

“What?” Lucas looked up at her in utter confusion. 

“Oh my God,” Will couldn't help but to burst out laughing, of course Eleven remembered their talk and of course she would use it wrong. “Eleven this wasn’t the exact situation for that.” He said between laughs, he could feel Mike's stare, but he wouldn't turn to look at him. He kept his eyes on Eleven. 

She looked like Will had told a joke and she was trying to understand it. "But you said—." 

He cut her, already knowing what she was going to say. "Only when real people die Eleven!" He tried to compose himself once his laughter died down, everyone else looked between them trying to understand what was going on. 

"This connection thing is weird." Max was the first to speak. 

"I'm telling you, is twin telepathy." Dustin signaled between them. "They even look alike if you really think about it!" He exclaimed the same way as if he had just discovered a new scientific law. 

"I kind of see what you mean." Lucas brought a hand to his chin; he really was thinking about it. Will felt like he was being studied under his three friends' gazes. 

Mike made a strangled noise. "Shit, they do." He muttered, but the rest didn’t catch it. 

They finished the tournament, Lucas had won despite his defeat against Eleven, but that was probably because Max hadn't participated, which was weird, she never passed an opportunity to brag about how better than them she was. 

Eleven was holding onto him on their way back home, for once his shoulders weren't tense. "You know you can call me El, right?" She mentioned, she had already noticed how he avoided calling her by the nickname everybody else used. He didn't think he had the right to call her that, like he hadn't earned it. 

"Yeah, I know." He breathed out. They really were starting to become friends, weren't they? 

"I prefer it," she continued. "Eleven reminds me from the lab." It sounded too close to a confession, the same way he used to talk to his mother about his nightmares. 

"Sorry, El." He hoped she knew he hadn't done it on purpose, now he felt like an asshole. 

"Don't worry." She let more of her weight rest against his back. "I'll just call you William." 

Will let a disbelieving laugh out. He had never thought El had it in her to joke. 

"Please don't." Both laughed together. El had made a crack on the wall, and right now he didn't care to cover it back up. 

Chapter Text

July 12,1985 

The sounds of the not loud enough music coming from Will's —now El's— room filtered through the walls of Jonathan's bedroom, but that was not the only thing Will could hear. He knew that eavesdropping was wrong, but Max and Eleven weren't being exactly silent —they were, that's why the music was on, but the Byer's home walls were thin as paper—. They were talking about him; they were basically begging him to listen. What was he supposed to do? To knock on the door and tell them; "Hey, girls, if you're going to talk about me lower your voice." Then they would now he had been spying —not spying, more like listening to the sound of the environment around him, which happened to be their conversation— and they would freak out, and it would all get weird. 

Yeah, he was a little bit curious about what the girls had to say about him. Sue him. 

"How do I know if Will likes me?" El had asked Max at some point of their girls hangout, and Will had been locked in on their conversation since then. His heart squeezed at the thought of El having doubts about their relationship; he had been having the same ones, but that was all on him, because he was weird. On the other hand, El shouldn't be worrying about him, she was basically a superhero, everyone loved her. To think she was worrying about whether he liked her or not, which of course he did! It was just a little complicated for him at the moment, but he had been trying to get better, really. 

 "What?" Max replied; sounding totally perplexed. "You think Will doesn't like you?" Her tone of voice was of pure shock. 

 "No." El was quick to say. "He acts weird, I think I make him um- umcomf—" she was finding it hard to say the word; she had a lot of trouble pronouncing some things. 

"Uncomfortable." Max cut in, saving El from her struggles. "I don't think that's the case; Will is the nicest person I know." A small smile scaped him, it was great to know Max liked him. Sometimes he had these horrific thoughts that all his friends hated him in secret, but that was just his brain playing mind tricks on him. 

"I want to be her friend." Will could practically hear El pouting. He was a shit person, maybe he didn't deserve El at all. 

"The other day it looked like you were getting along," Max said in confusion. He also thought that, he had let her in, but it seemed like El had seen through all his layers of lies. "What makes you think he doesn't like you?" He wished they would stop saying he didn't like El; that was a wrongly made accusation. 

"I thought that too." El agreed. "But he sometimes looks at me weirdly, like he's afraid of me, like I have hurted him." She dropped her voice. Will almost didn't catch it. He didn't think he did that, at least not intentionally. He did sometimes get lost in his thoughts regarding El and realized too late he was staring at her like some kind of creep. He just found her so interesting, not only because she had —used to have— superpowers, but also because even though she had suffered all her life and had been treated horribly, she still found the strength to feel love, to be kind, gentle. She kind of reminded him of a lost puppy that had been rescued after being abandoned by her last owner. 

He wondered if she felt alone too. 

"Maybe he's not used to having you here yet," Max supplied. That was partially true; he still found himself being surprised every time he entered a room and El was already there. "He was also weird when I first joined the party," mind you, he was possessed at that time, even then he hadn't minded it as much as Mike had. ", maybe he just doesn't know how to interact with girls." Will's pulse spiked. Did Max know? 

Both girls giggled like Max had just said something really funny, just a silly joke instead of the fuel of his nightmares, the secret that could ruin his life. 

"Just give him time," Max adopted a gentler tone. "I'm sure you'll be great friends." 

El sighed. "I hope you are right." Will had thought that letting the wall crack had been enough, but he needed to destroy it. It shouldn't have even existed in the first place. He had to stop hiding, at least from El. She had been alone since Hopper had died, and he had let her think that he hated her for his own selfish reasons. He had to fix this. 

 He softly knocked on the door, although it was already open three inches. The girls heads turned towards him. 

 "Hey." He smiled awkwardly. He hoped his face didn't show that he had been listening to their conversation. "I'm a little bit hungry," El had a small smile on her face, Max's eyebrow shoot up in encouragement. "Do you want to make some waffles? 

"We don't have waffles." El reminded him. Good thing he had all planned. 

"We are going to make them!" He grinned. He was a decent cook, he just hoped they wouldn't burn the kitchen or his mother would genuinely kill him. 

"We can do that?" El muttered to herself while Max dragged her up by the arm smiling excitedly. 

"Have you ever cooked?" Eleven shook her head. Will started walking towards the kitchen, he hadn't thought about what he would do if they didn't have all the ingredients.  

Turns out they did have all they needed. Now the real challenge laid in teaching El how to cook and make her know he liked her. 

"Let's get to work!" Max hung her arms around both of them and clapped them in the back. 

 El stared with wide eyes how Max and Will threw different things into a bowl. "Can I try?" She gently took the bowl from Will's hands and started stirring the mixture, slowly and unsure at first, as if she were afraid the thing would come to live and jump into her face. After a few minutes her expression was full of determination, stirring with all her might like it was the most important task in the world. 

"We have to add the flour." Will searched for said flour among all the mess of things on the table. "Where is it?" He swore he had seen it earlier. 

He felt someone tapping him on the shoulder. When he turned around, he was greeted with a puff of flour in his face, courtesy of no other than Max. 

He blinked; he hadn't been expecting that. Max was smiling, looking really satisfied with herself. "Oh, you—" He was cut out by more flour being thrown into his face. 

El smiled innocently, bag of flour in one hand, the other hiding her laugh. 

He now knew what Mike felt when he said the girls were conspiring against him. They were a menace. More like Max was a menace and was influencing El, but he was not one to comment on that. El seemed like she was fully enjoying it; cackling like a maniac alongside Max, probably laughing at the astonished face he was making at that moment. 

As El threw more flour onto his face, he wondered if this was what he had been missing out on this whole summer; having fun with his friends. In some alternate universe Will Byers had spent his summer messing around with Max Mayfield and El. In that universe he was not afraid of embracing El completely, they were just kids having fun together. 

In that same universe El had got to grow up like a normal girl. He could picture her and Max terrorizing the school halls, a power duo never to be separated. Would they even be friends if nothing of the Upside Down had happened? Would El be normal? 

Would he get to be normal too? Had he ever been normal? 

“Are you having fun bullying me?” He ducked under the kitchen table. At some point their peaceful attempt at making waffles had turned into a whole battle royale of flour throwing, with Will being targeted as the girls main enemy. 

Max huffed. “Damn sure I am.” She took a handful of flour from the bag that ended up staining the table. “Are you having fun El?” Max made the mistake of turning around to face El. Will was agile; he was able to snatch the bag from Max’s hands. 

Will meet El’s eyes. Her face was lit up, the corners of her mouth turned upwards, crinkled eyes from laughing, and cheeks flushed pink from running around the kitchen. It was the most carefree and joyful he had seen her the whole summer. In fact, it was the biggest smile he had ever seen on her face. 

Maybe they didn’t need alternate universes; they could be normal in this one. 

El opened her mouth to reply to Max, Will tossed a handful of flour onto her face. 

El started coughing out the flour, coughs quickly turning into manic laughter, the kind where you have to hold your stomach. “I’ll kill you!” For the first time it wasn’t a threat directed at some monster. It was a phrase she had probably picked up from Lucas after battling against him in the video game tournament. She really had enjoyed trash talking. He should make sure she didn’t learn any more bad words, or his mother would kill him. 

The sound of the front door opening busted their little fantasy bubble. Time seemed to slow down as Jonathan walked in into the crime scene; Max was about to jump into Will to try to snatch the bag from his hands, El was bent over still doubling from laughter, her whole hair was white now, and so where all their clothes and surroundings. 

“What the hell happened here?” Jonathan’s eyes skimmed around the kitchen wildly, taking in all the flour scattered around the floor, cupboards, and their clothes.The three of them shared a look; they had been caught red-handed. There was no way they were getting out of this one without getting an earful. 

 “Uhm, we were making waffles.” There was no point in lying to his brother. Jonathan’s heavy gaze landed on him; he just hopped he wasn’t disappointed. 

Jonathan shook his head and crossed his arms. “Did the waffle machine explode or something?” El chuckled at that, and it seemed to make Jonathan’s posture relax, his gaze softening. 

He exhaled. “Look, just tidy up before mom arrives.” It seemed he was done with them. Will smiled gratefully; he wouldn’t snitch on them to their mom. “The kitchen better be spotless when I come back or you’ll sleep on the garden tonight.” He warned Will, pointing menacingly at him with his finger. Will nodded ferociously although he knew it wasn’t a real threat; Jonathan would never do that. 

“And no more ice cream for you.” His finger now pointed at El, who gasped audibly. 

“You would not dare.” She fixed him with a glare that would send shivers through his spine. Ice cream had suspiciously been disappearing from their fridge overnight since El had moved in with them; the pieces were not difficult to put together. Nonetheless, no one had bothered to call out El on her thefts; she deserved some ice cream. 

 Jonathan laughed at El’s reaction. She probably thought he was being serious as most jokes tended to not land on her. “Then you better have made some waffles for me.” He ruffled both their heads and acknowledged Max with a nod and a smile; he then disappeared down the hall into their room. 

El accommodated her hair with a small, satisfied smile, her laughter had died down, but her joy was still visible. 

“Your brother seems cool.” Max stared longingly at the place where Jonathan had just been standing. All humor left Will’s body; Max had lost her brother —stepbrother—, and as shitty as he may have been, he was still her family. 

Will could understand that. His dad had also been shitty, but he still found himself missing him sometimes. Maybe Max and him were some kind of masochists. 

“Jonathan is cool.” El answered. She hadn’t caught on Max’s somber expression as her face had already morphed into one that resembled happiness, but Will had seen it; the hurt in her eyes. “He could change his music taste though.” She added as an afterthought. 

That peaked Will’s interest, he and his brother had similar music taste, Jonathan had taught him basically all he knew about music. To him, he was a musical expert. 

 “What’s wrong with his music?” He asked. 

 She shrugged. “It’s sad.” She looked sideways towards Max; she had been awfully quiet. “Madonna is better, right Max?” Max looked taken aback by the sound of her name, like she hadn’t been entirely present for the last five minutes. She made a confused sound and Will stepped in. 

Jonathan could kick El out of their house if he knew she liked Madonna. He liked to claim that pop wasn’t good music; one of the few things Will disagreed with. “Don’t let him hear you say that.” He warned her. “We should clean this mess.” 

They didn’t exchange a single word as they worked their way neatening the kitchen, each lost in their own thoughts. They would get their mess cleaned more easily if they did it together, but no one dared to disturb the silence they were drowning in. Each of their heads hung low while they moped. Th sound of Jonathan’s sad music echoing through the hall only added to the melancholic —or nostalgic— ambience. 

July 12, 1985 

Dinner that day was unusually weird. Well, dinner at the Byers home had always been weird; unsettling silences and the loud noise of cutlery scraping against half-eaten plates when his dad was still around, so no one could say the wrong thing —that way dinner wouldn’t transform into a screaming match between his parents—, reheated plates of pasta shared between Jonathan and him while they waited for their mom to come back from work, the weird taste of ice cream melting on his mouth —his dessert after a lonely dinner this summer, when no one was around home anymore and he couldn’t bring himself to meet up with his friends— accompanied by the static of his brain and the chirps outside. Lately dinners had been considered weird in the sense that El was there now, and so was mom, so the table was full again, and there was always some conversation going on about summer and plans, and Will could almost believe they resembled a normal family. 

No, this dinner was weird because his mom had yet to open her mouth, she was always the first to ask them about their day and fill the room with too loud —and sometimes too forced to seem genuine— laughter, and although one part of Will was relieved as it meant she hadn’t notice anything weird about their kitchen, he also felt a sense of dread. 

“I’ve been thinking,” his mom started, and there it was again the familiar feeling of his stomach closing on itself. Good thing he had already finished his waffled, they had worked hard on making them after all. “And the other day I was talking to Owens and he gave me some hush money from the government,” she wasn’t forming a coherent sentence and her eyes were fixed on Jonathan, not on him or El, the younger ones, which meant that whatever she was about to say was serious. “A lot of money actually,” she chuckled. A joke she could only understand, a sound too calculated and forced to be real. “I think I’ll be good for us,” she closed her eyes; she probably realized she wasn’t making any sense. Will wasn't getting all this build up, were they finally getting a new car? Were they now rich or something? As if being rich would erase all the trauma they had gotten from the Upside Down, but at least it could help them live under a false sense of freedom. 

Her eyes skimmed over all three children, as if she were evaluating if they would be able to digest what she was about to say. It only made Will’s nerve worse. “Good for you,” his mom continued with her rambling thoughts. The sound of El munching on her waffle was distracting enough for him. “If we moved away.” 

The news landed like a bomb, slapping him in the face almost as hard as “Is not my fault you don’t like girls.” or ”Zombie boy” did when he first heard them; he couldn’t believe they were true words being said to him, but no matter how hard he dug his nails on his skin, the pain didn’t make him wake up from the nightmare. The real nightmare was that he could not run away from those words. 

It felt like all air had been sucked from the room —or maybe Will was just holding his breath—. The sound of Jonathan’s fork falling to the ground was the only proof that time hadn’t stopped. 

“What?” It almost sounded like Jonathan was laughing, as if the idea was so imaginable to him that he could not help but find it funny. Them moving out of Hawkins? Ha! As if they could ever run away far enough from all the monsters that somehow always found their way back to them. Running only bought them more time, there was no escaping from the eternal burning flames of Hawkins hell, and even if it was hell, it was the hell he had been raised in. “You have to be joking.” Jonathan’s eyes full of disbelief stared down angrily at their mother. 

 “Moving out? What does that mean?” El hastily swallowed the last bite of her Waffle. She seemed lost, but she was lucky the weight of the situation hadn’t downed on her yet. She still had a few seconds of grace before her world shattered. 

“She wants us to go live somewhere outside of Hawkins.” Will filled her in. He wasn’t surprised by the harsh tone on his words, but it wasn’t directed at El, it was all towards his mom. What did she think? That if she put enough distance between them and that dammed town she could pretend nothing had ever happened at all? That Hopper’s ghost wouldn’t follow her all the way to wherever they were moving? That they could just pretend? 

He was being and hypocrite; he was the first one who liked to pretend. He had mastered the art of pretending. Pretending there was nothing wrong with him, pretending his heart didn’t ache for someone he couldn’t have, pretending the dark didn’t freak him out… but he still lived through his whole act, he didn’t pull the curtain closed and turned away from the play. 

“You can’t do this to us!” Jonathan’s rage was cracking through his voice and making itself known by slamming his fist down the table. It was almost uncanny how much he resembled their dad at that moment. He blinked twice; Jonathan could never know that, or he would hate himself forever. “Everyone we love is here, mom! Our whole lives are here! You can’t expect us to be okay with throwing it all away!”  He was desperately searching for a flaw on their mom's face, a signal that she could be convinced that she could still retract from this. 

 “I’ve already made up my mind.” Now it was her turn to slam her hands on the table, although more gently than Jonathan had been, more frustrated also. “This town is cursed, I won’t stay here waiting for something to happen to my kids again, I won’t risk losing you!”  

“You didn’t even ask for our opinion on this!” Will stood up from his chair, leveling up with Jonathan and mom. He would not stay silent on this. Now that he was standing up, he took notice of El, her gaze hadn’t been lifted from her plate, and she looked like she was trying to curl on herself. She was small. 

She shook her head; it seemed like she needed a cigarette. “It was Owens idea; he has already bought a house for us.” Jonathan was already opening his mouth to protest, but his mother kept talking. “He also gave me El’s adoption papers, everything I had been sorted already.” At the mention of her name El snapped out of her trance. She looked up at Joyce like she was a lighthouse, and she was following her flare, then a shadow took over her face. 

“I do not want to go.” She refused, shaking her head, not letting any word his mom could say get through her ears. “I have to stay here.” She pleaded. 

“Sweetie, the government is after you.” She put a conforming had on El’s shoulder; she just glared back at her with a numb expression. “And you’ll be able to go to school on Lenora, you can have a normal life.” 

 Jonathan and Will looked at each other with matching expressions of disbelief. "You want us to move to Lenora!” Jonathan exclaimed. This whole thing was getting ridiculous. Lenora was in a whole other different state. They weren’t just moving to some other small town near enough he wouldn’t have to be preoccupied about keeping in touch with his friends. They were going overseas; she really wanted to start a new life. 

The look their mom sent Jonathan shut him up completely; she was focused on El now. Even her tone had lowered down, laced with sweetness like she was trying to coax a child into a deal she wouldn’t like. 

“Hopper asked me to take care of you.” She added with a squeeze on her shoulder, accompanied by a smile; a symbol of solidarity; they were in this together, for Hopper. 

El wasn’t having any of it. Her face resembled the one she had before going into battle.  

“Do not bring him into this.” To everyone astonishment El got up from her chair, Joyce hand falling of her shoulder from the harsh movement. “I am not going.” She stated like an ultimatum. She stormed out of the room, her hand doing a strange movement on her way out, as if she had tried to slam the door with her powers before remembering she didn’t have them anymore. If Will weren’t so shocked, he would have applauded her. 

 “I’m not going either.” Jonathan was the next to storm out of the room. His mom stared at the hall with wide eyes and an open mouth; she really couldn’t believe their outburst. 

She turned towards him; an apologetic expression with furrowed brows. Her gaze locked onto his; pleading. “You understand why I'm doing this, right Will?” For a second he felt like Jonathan, burdened with the responsibility of an older brother. Except it wasn’t that it was the weight of growing up; his mother expected him to be wise by now. You’re not a kid anymore, you have to take decisions, you have to understand. 

Will tried to not be angry at his mom, he tried to emphasize, he really was trying to think why on earth she had thought this would be a good idea. She was doing it for them, like everything she ever did. He would never think of calling her selfish; she was their mom first, Joyce Byers second, and Joyce Maldonado didn’t exist anymore. She just wanted to protect them; he got that; he wanted her to be safe too. But this was taking it too far. 

They couldn’t just play pause in the video tape of their lives and restart it back in Lenora, pretending that everything before that had just been a bad horror movie that had been accidentally recorded over their live film. 

 “I don’t think I can agree with you now, mom.” At least he didn’t sound mad anymore; the least he wanted was to lash out at his mom. She had already had enough screams directed at her tonight; he wouldn’t add one more. 

 A loud sigh scaled her lips. “I thought you hated this place.” He couldn’t look at her anymore. 

She was right; Will hated Hawkins, and Hawkins had made it pretty clear it hated him back. Every corner of the town was stained with his misery; every step he took on the school halls was followed by an echo of his name —or nicknames— accompanied by cruel laughter. The forest mocked him on his ride back home, taunting him with shadows of monsters that he knew were real. Then, even in the safety of his house, the spirit of his father still lingered around, haunting every small place where he had ever hidden from him. 

Hawkins was Will’s own personal torment; eternal and inescapable. 

At least that’s what he had thought, until now; he could break the chain and change the prophecy. 

But there was something holding him back; flour scattered around the kitchen floor, Max laughing at him —with him—. Her distant eyes and how he wished he had the courage to tell her she wasn’t alone. Strands of red hair found on his clothes. A shared glance when Lucas did something really stupid, or really funny. Passing each other snacks on the cinema, racing on their bike and skateboard simultaneously. 

Exchanging comics with Dustin, working together on new inventions —more like he watches fascinated while Dustin does all the intellectual work, but he only cared about spending time with him—. More bicycle races which he always won, but never teased Dustin about even when he was insufferable about it in the rare instances where he did win. Making their toys battle against each other; Dustin would always lend him some as he had an enormous amount of them. 

Sharing jokes with Lucas in every class —except science; that was their favorite one—, trading lunch at school as Lucas loved the food Will hated, trying and failing to play basketball (for Will), trying and failing to learn to draw (for Lucas). Battling against each other on video games and letting Lucas get away with cheating. Giving him advice every time he fucked up with Max and cheering him up with shared ice cream. Cracking at his stupid one-liners in the middle of a campaign. 

Blue and yellow swings. Do you want to be friends?” A ray of hope, the sun to his loneliness. His first real friend —best friend—, the boy whom he learned about Dungeons and Dragons with; a secret language they could only understand. The first person to show him that there was more to the world than his older brother. Tight hugs, shared looks, countless sleepovers, fighting and shaking their hands to make up, wrapping each other on their arms when the only monsters they knew were angry parents. Laughing together, crying together, growing up together, breaking him out of possession, breaking his heart… 

For every corner of the town where he had been called names, there were five other memories of cycling around with his friends. For every time he had been bullied at school; they had been bullied with him, and other times they had even defended him. He almost never cycles back home through the forest anymore because every time Nancy is around, she always offers to drive him back. The only loud sound that can be heard nowadays at the Byers house is the music that’s always coming from Jonathan’s room. 

Hawkins, in some twisted way, had also been his saving; it had gifted him his friends. 

He couldn’t change what had happened to him, but at least he had always been accompanied by his friends, his party, and they had promised to stay together —to be friends— forever. They were freaks, outcasts, but birds of a feather flock together, and they were damn bonded until the end of time. 

Will would not leave his friends even if it meant sacrificing his own chance at escaping. 

There were teas threatening to spill from his eyes. “There are also a lot of good things here.” He replied to his mom. Going by her dejected face she had been expecting him to side with her at least a little bit. 

 “I’m really sorry,” she looked down shamefully, like it was just now downing onto her what Hawkins meant to her kids, and how big of a change moving away was. How scared they were. “But it’s already done.” She looked back up; she had already made up her mind; she was not changing their plans. It didn’t matter how much Will looked at her with puppy eyes. It was really happening; they were going to leave. 

He nodded slowly; he was not going to involve himself in a fight he knew he wouldn’t win. The war was already lost, and he hadn’t even got a chance to fight. 

He could feel his mother’s eyes bored into his back as he made his way to Jonathan’s room. As he passed through his old room —door opened three inches—, he could hear quiet sobs from El. He hadn’t heard her cry since last week, and even though he wasn’t scared to comfort her now, he had the sensation she wanted to be left alone. 

He also wanted to be alone.