Chapter Text
Will wakes up the next morning to El’s face blocking out the sun.
It takes him a minute to realize he’s awake, blinking lazily at his sister’s furrowed brow. Will breathes in, stretches out, and is met with cold sheets - Jonathan’s spot on the bed is empty.
“Hello,” Eleven says impatiently. “Earth to Will.”
“Hm,” Will says. He feels warm.
El jerks her head towards the door. “Steve is waiting.”
“What,” Will says.
And then he remembers, scrambling upright. “Shit!”
Eleven rolls her eyes, backing away from the bed to avoid getting hit as Will struggles out of his blankets. “Joyce wanted to let you sleep, but I knew better.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Will rushes, finally standing up, “geez, Eleven -”
“We’ll be waiting in the van,” she says, promptly exiting and slamming the door behind her. If Will didn’t know better, he’d say she sounded smug.
It’s a woods day.
Will berates himself for forgetting to set the alarm while he throws on a pair of shorts and whatever shirt is closest to him, then yanks his door open and beelines for the front porch.
“Hey, Will,” Hopper says from his place at the stove, swiping a hand in his direction. “We’re not done with yesterday.”
“I know,” Will says, hand on the doorknob, peering out the screen window. “Later? I’m late.”
Hopper scoffs. “Yeah, go on. But hey -” Will stops with one foot out the door - “we will talk. Tonight. Capiche?”
“Yes sir,” Will recites, and makes himself scarce before his mom can appear and hold him hostage further.
True to her word, Eleven has kept Steve waiting in the driveway. Will pulls on the car door handle a little harder than necessary, clambering up and into the vehicle.
Steve Harrington has traded in whatever cool car he used to have for a goddamn station wagon, and it would be a joke if it wasn’t less of a mom-vehicle and more of an army transport that they might actually need to use. The flamethrower is still in the trunk - Will gets a glimpse of the nozzle as he turns to buckle his seatbelt.
“Well, good morning, Byers,” Steve says from the front with an air of pompous-assery Will has neither the time nor energy for.
“Sorry,” he says, latch clicking; he thuds his head back against the seat, exhaling hard. “I slept in.”
“I said we should just leave you,” Robin chirps, sitting shotgun as usual.
El and Mike are in the back, Dustin shoved between them. Neither of them look very pleased with this arrangement. Dustin, however, looks thrilled, one arm comfortably thrown over Mike’s shoulders.
“They’d never leave without you,” Lucas says from the seat across from Will. “Don’t listen to them, man.”
Will gives him a grateful smile. The van lurches into motion.
“And hey, we’re glad you’re back, Mike,” Lucas says, turning around to peer at his oldest friend. “Despite - everything.”
“Yeah, well,” Mike says, shrugging like it’s obvious. There’s no shred of awkwardness or hesitation as he grins at Will - relief floods Will’s head, unprompted. “Of course. I missed you guys.”
“You missed me,” El corrects, and Dustin snorts.
“Please, El,” he says. “He obviously came back for me.”
Will smiles, a little thing, as Mike rolls his eyes and tries to shove Dustin away. El laughs and leans her weight against Dustin, pressing him further into Mike.
“You’re crushing my arm, jerkwad!” Mike says with no actual fire. “Dude -”
Steve sighs, pulling out of the clearing and onto the barely-road. “Hey, as the adult, I’m the only one here who’s allowed to break Mike’s arm.”
“That’s a worrying statement, Steve,” says Dustin, decidedly not stopping his attempted violence against Mike. “Do we need to call the police?”
“Remind me why I love you dumbasses,” Steve mutters, knuckles flashing white against the steering wheel. Dustin doesn’t hear him over El’s shriek as his elbow accidentally catches her in the stomach, but Will does.
He doesn’t think he’s ever heard Steve say that out loud before. That he loves them. It’s not - bad. It’s a nice kind of warm.
Robin looks back at the Party through a pair of shades Will’s pretty sure are Steve’s and says, wonderingly, “God, what happened to us, Harrington?”
“Too much,” Steve says, and for a moment, Will hears Jonathan reflected in his resigned timbre. “Way too much, Robin.”
~
The walk to the clearing in the woods is one of the lightest memories in Will’s life.
Mike was missing from their party for four weeks exactly and in those four weeks, everything was wrong. Laughter rings between the trees like it never has before, all of them stepping on sticks and making noise with no fear of something hearing them.
As soon as they all get out of the car, Eleven breaks effortlessly from Mike’s side to bring up the rear with Will. El’s company is appreciated, albeit a little unexpected, what with the return of her boyfriend and all, but she doesn’t make a big deal out of it, letting the Party have Mike’s attention for the afternoon.
Together, Will and Eleven watch their second - or in El’s case, only - family fan out into groups, headed towards the familiar rocky clearing. Lucas doesn’t leave Mike’s side. Dustin bounces effortlessly between them and Steve and Will like his leg’s never felt better.
“Hopper says you were up late last night,” El mentions when they finally reach their destination.
Will sighs, slumps against the nearest rock, and realizes he’d forgotten to bring anything to do. “Yeah, it’s fine.”
“I think you’re in trouble,” El says. She lowers herself down, cross-legged. “Something to do with your sense.”
“My sense,” Will echoes. As though summoned, a cold breeze brushes against the back of his neck, teeth grazing the base of his skull.
El just nods. She rubs one hand over her head, fingers careful against her buzzed hair. “We can’t wait forever,” she says hollowly. “We will have to do something about it soon. They won’t be happy we hid this from them.”
“It’s not hiding,” Will tries. “I just - it’s not important.”
El frowns at him. “It is important,” she says. “It’s hurting you, isn’t it?”
Will picks at a leaf, words building up in his throat, pressurized. That, apparently, is answer enough for her.
“You promised to tell me,” she says, voice dropping down accusingly. “You said you’d tell me if it got bad again.”
“It’s just so much,” Will snaps, “okay? Having everyone poking around at me and looking at me like I’m - like I’m - like I’m going to die any minute, or I’m something evil. I don’t want to start that again. I - just want to wait as long as I can.”
“And if you wait until it’s too late?” Eleven asks.
“Then it’s too late,” Will says hotly, not looking at her. “And you do whatever you have to. Keep the others safe.”
Her silence yells across the forest. Will glances up and she looks upset.
“I’m not going to kill you,” El says. How did she know? It’s frightening, the way she can pull the meaning out of his words and still be so goddamn oblivious. “He’s not going to take anyone else away from me.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Will backtracks.
“You did,” El says.
“No, I didn’t, I - I’m telling Hopper tonight,” Will says, “they’re noticing, like you thought, so you don’t have to worry about it, okay? I think things are - I think they’re going to get worse, soon. I think we’ve waited long enough.”
Eleven sits there, watching him. Will feels all of the grossness of last night hit him all at once. He feels sticky and sweaty and his mouth tastes awful, and he’s stuck in the woods with nothing to occupy his hands except ripping up leaves.
“We’re going to figure it out,” Eleven says slowly. “Once and for all.”
“We’ve had so many once and for all’s,” Will says.
El laughs at that, which surprises him. After California, she hasn’t laughed much. “I know. But I am confident about this one.”
It feels like a joke. Will lets his mouth quirk up, content to let that be his answer.
El picks herself up, scooting closer to him until she has her back to the rock and her arm pressed against Will’s. Concentrating, she begins picking up various leaves and sticks around them with her telekinesis.
Will realizes, suddenly, that he isn’t the only one who knows what it feels like to be a rat in a cage.
“How do you deal with it?” Will asks. “Everything that’s happened to you?”
Eleven pauses in her leaf-lifting, cocks her head just a little. “I count things,” she says. “Days. Meals. The number of times I breathe in.”
Will leans into her side further, a stupid little indulgence. “Does it help?”
She shrugs, jostling him. Wind whistles through the forest. The leaves sift slowly back to the ground.
“Well,” he says. “I, uh, draw.”
“I know,” El says. And then, “Does it help?”
Will thinks about it. The painting for Mike. The shadow monster from so long ago. The rose and the door and the rainbow kaleidoscope.
“Yeah,” he says. “It does.”
She hums. “Maybe you could teach me how to draw. Maybe it would help me.”
“Sure,” Will says, the thought of trying to teach El the nuances of art already making his hands twitch excitedly. “I’d love that.”
Shouting rings through the clearing. Steve and Robin have managed to peel the kids off of their side, and now Lucas, Dustin, and Mike are splayed out in a circle on the forest floor.
“Have you taught them to draw?” El asks.
Will shakes his head. “Are you kidding? None of them have the patience for that.”
She laughs again, short, but fond. They sit, leaning against each other, watching their friends. Will’s chest aches with a distant familiarity, and he remembers burning fingers against his hand, a fight in the rain, tearing apart his childhood with his bare hands.
“You should go sit with them,” Eleven says out of nowhere, gesturing out.
“I don’t know if they want me,” Will says, then winces at how self-pitying that sounded.
It’s just that he’s the one who went missing for a reason - he’s replaceable. The red-shirt. The one who stands around and is only noticeable when something’s wrong with him.
It’s not Eleven’s job to convince him he’s important, and to her credit she doesn’t try - doesn’t wince or lace her voice with sympathy. All she does is pull him into an awkward stiff, practiced hug.
”I feel that way too,” she admits, voice rumbling against his ear. “I don’t know them very well. But I know that feelings can be wrong.”
Will’s arms come up to hold her back, his sister, his family, someone who can see right through him in a far too literal sense.
He’s twelve years old and he’s freezing to death in a fort he made with his own hands and his brother. He’s twelve and he’s starving to death while a monster hunts for his blood and his bones and his flesh. He’s twelve and he’s dying, and Eleven is a voice whispered in his ear, a hand against his wrist, his guardian angel promising salvation.
Eleven pulls back, hands on his shoulders. “I don’t lie to you,” she says. “We’re friends.” Her expression goes a little blurry. “Family.”
“Family,” Will repeats.
“Family doesn’t lie either,” Eleven says like this is something she’s figured out all by herself. “I am telling you that your friends love you. Do I lie?”
Will looks out at Lucas and Dustin, and Mike with his stupid long hair and long limbs. They’re sitting down and talking to each other, animated. Dustin catches his eye and shoots his hand up, waving - Lucas hollers something unintelligible in his direction - Mike grins, makes the universal motion for c’mon.
“No,” Will says. “You don’t.”
El looks satisfied. “I’m going to talk to Steve,” she says, patting him on the shoulder.
“Okay,” Will says - she stands, turns to go, and he catches her lightly by the hand. “Wait - I - thank you.”
She tilts her head. “I didn’t do anything,” she says simply. “Go.”
So, Will goes. His feet crunch on dead leaves that shouldn’t be falling in April. His friends cheer when he sits down, and the first thing Mike says when they lock eyes is, “Dude, your haircut sucks.”
It’s the best day Will’s had in a long, long time.