Chapter Text
Will Byers is fifteen years old and he sleeps with a nightlight.
Which is stupid. He knows it’s stupid. A little light isn’t going to stop a lily-mouthed Demogorgon, an evil shadow monster or a flesh-covered Mind Flayer from coming into his room while he slept.
(Nothing can stop them, not a gun, not running away, and certainly not asking nicely.)
But that doesn’t stop the hope that, maybe, if one slips through the cracks of the two worlds and comes for him when he least expects it, the light will help. Because the light tells him where the creature isn’t, where he can hide.
Will’s very good at hiding. Especially in the dark
Or, he likes to think so.
Will remembers being twelve, running through a forest coated in a thick layer of slime. He remembers running, sprinting over branches and rocks and hearing the roar of the monster and the beating of his own heart and the tears running down his face and the, and the, and the-
(Deep breath. Seven in, hold four, eight out. Just like Owens said)
and the monster. The monster he will never, ever forget. Even when he’s old and his mind and memories are slipping down the drain, the demogorgon will still be in his nightmares.
(It’s weird to call it the demogorgon now, since he was so used to calling it ‘the monster’ during his seven days — well, nights: there’s no daytime there — he spent in hell)
The darkness is, by far, the most vivid. The only town he’s ever known, the trees that normally brought comfort, the friends he desperately wanted back, gone. What’s left of the stores and neighborhoods — that he’s known since he could form memories — only composed of darkness, slime, and the cries of monsters. Nothing of the place he thought he knew.
Nothing but fear.
It’s a cool night light, at least.
A figurine, Luke Skywalker to be specific. Luke, standing on a little platform, his lightsaber illuminating his form — as well as the room — in green light. Luke is in his fighting stance, the one Will used to copy when he felt his lowest. Luke used that stance when he fought Vader — his own father! (Even though he didn’t know it yet) — and Jabba the Hutt, who threatened both Luke’s friends and family. Luke is a fighter, and a good one at that, but he’s also super smart and dorky and good with robots. Will thinks that if anyone could kill the demogorgon, it would be Luke. Even though Luke isn’t really able to move around and fight, Will likes to imagine that, when something attacks, Will could take the same stance and survive. Just like Luke.
He also likes it because Mike is the one who got it for him.
Will is sure that if Troy got a Luke Skywalker nightlight for his fourteenth birthday, he would probably burn something down. And if James was the one who got it for him, he would probably trap James in whatever building he chose to destroy and watch him burn while drinking a cold glass of water. Or maybe a glass of boiling water, since he’s probably a ‘hell spawn’ like Lucas says he is.
Thankfully, Will isn’t Troy, and Mike certainly isn’t James. They were as far from the two bullies as possible.
(Mike is smart. Even though his grades have been a bit static every since all the chaos started, he’s still quicker than Will at anything that isn’t sports related. Mike is amazing, even if he’s a bit of a dumbass.)
(Not that Will will ever admit that he thinks that.)
(Unless Mike needs to hear it, of course.)
The cheap pastel bag — that Mike had clearly gotten from his mom’s cabinet of old birthday bags — had been revealed three nights before Will’s fourteenth birthday.
Will hadn’t exactly been surprised by his friends choice of revealing it to him early, but he had been confused by Mike’s embarrassment.
(“What’s that?”
Mike glances up like he’s been caught doing something wrong, and Will can’t help the smile that grows on his lips.
“It’s, well, you know, your birthday present.”
Mike raises his eyebrows like he’s expecting something, his eyes darting back and forth between Will’s own. Will looks at his friend, slightly incredulous, slightly fond, and mostly something he’s not brave enough to name.
“You do realize you’re about three days too early, right?” Will asks, his eyebrows raised far into his hair and his smile stretching his cheeks.
Mike does that thing, where he scoffs and rolls his eyes at nearly the same time, and for a second Will forgets that he’s the one it’s aimed at. All he can think about is how pretty Mike’s eyes are, how his nose scrunches up in the cutest way, and how his skin catches the light just so. He looks like an angel. A sarcastic, loyal, unbelievably goofy angel.
“Yeah, I know, dude. I’m not stupid. It’s just, well,” Mike has that familiar lost look in his eyes again, the one he wears when he’s trying to explain some pop culture phrase to El that he doesn’t know the full meaning of, and Will isn’t quite sure why, “I didn’t want you to be embarrassed in front of everyone else. Not that you would be. Or that this present is embarrassing. Or childish. Because, uh, those age ranges on the side of packaging are all complete bullshit anyway. Max told me the other day that—”
Mike doesn’t need to awkwardly explain that he didn’t want to give it to him in front of everyone as not to embarrass his friend, going off about the politics of toys in the process, as Will understood. But he does anyway in the charming way only Michael Wheeler can do.
Will finds himself staring at his friend, his eyes dancing from eyes to cheeks to nose to lips. Will’s eyes snap down to the package resting in between the two on the floor, pointedly looking away from where he desperately wants to gaze at. He takes it out carefully, putting Mike—for once—to the back of his brain, so he can get a good look at what Mike deemed something too intimate for the rest of the group to see.
The first thing he spots is a gray STAR WARS at the top of the box, surrounded by a galaxy and a much smaller logo for toy brand. The packaging is excessive for the object inside, Will can already tell. He fully lifts it out of the bag, finally reading the giant EXCLUSIVE STAR WARS NIGHT LIGHT.
Will pushes down the rising panic before it can cut off his breath. This is Mike. It’s just Mike.
He’s faintly aware of Mike’s rabbles finally tapering off as Will studies the figurine.
Luke’s hair is in his face, his robes are white, and his lightsaber is green. It’s such a mixed bag of New Hope Luke and The Return of the Jedi Luke that Will is completely sure that whoever made it has never seen a single Star Wars movie before.
He can feel Mike slowly leaning closer to him, trying to pretend that he’s looking at the figurine, while glancing up at Will every few seconds. Will has grown too familiar with his friends eyes not to notice them. Will knows his best friend almost better than himself, and had figured out two things rather quickly: first, he bought this figurine at least a month ago, and has taken it in and out of the present wrapping several times—leading to it now being in a bag—because he wasn’t sure if Will would like it, so he knows it very well, and last, he knows in his heart that Will loves it, but is too anxious not to triple check.
Will finally turns his head toward Mike, intending to tease him until finally telling him he loves it, but—
Mike’s brown eyes could kill someone, Will swears. Mike’s leaning down, his lanky body looking like an action doll with how awkward his neck looks. But. The neck is sticking out just enough and. His eyes. Are right. There.
Mike’s eyes widen as the silence drags on. “Well, I, uh, I can run home and check the trash for the receipt if you really—”
Suddenly they’re on the floor, Will on top of Mike, and Will is hugging him so vehemently his arms are straining. Will can feel Mike tense as they hit the ground, and the seconds after are filled with anxiety so fierce that Will feels like his head may combust with shame. Will goes to pull away, an apology stuck on his lips, when Mike’s arms wrap around him.
Will goes slack with relief.
He can feel Mike’s cheek pinching into a smile against his hair and he wonders, fleetingly, what he would do without his friend. Mike is always there, ready to help and support him, and Will has done his best to do the same. He doesn’t think fighting monsters, corrupt government workers, and Russian Spies were what the two had expected to protect each other from, but that didn’t stop them from trying their best.
They’re always one step ahead of the other, but they’re never on the same track. It’s what makes them work so well: they can’t see the entire picture on their own, but together they can see all the pieces they need.
Will swears that Mike knows him better than he does, sometimes.)
He doesn’t want to remember the times before. Before the labs and the disappearance and the monsters. Whenever a memory pops up he pushes it far, far away, because looking back always ends with remembering the present. Comparing the two. Memories of a time when Will Byers was different.
Those memories are filled with D&D, giggles, and a time when the scariest thing was everyone finding out that the jokes Troy and James would make — fairy, gay boy, fa—weren’t completely inaccurate.
(Mike’s laugh, Mike’s hair, Mike’s hugs, Mike’s eyes, Mike’s mouth.)
Memories of when Mike and him were it for each other. The best of friends, never going to leave, always sticking together. A time before Mike had El, Lucas had Max, and Dustin had Suzie. When Nancy was just Mike’s older sister. When Jonathan was his loner older brother. When Steve was just some jock that Nancy made out with, and Robin was just a girl in high school he wouldn’t have ever met. A time when he didn’t even know Hoppers’ first name.
If he dives deep, coming out is surreal, to say the least. He will come back to Mike tapping on his shoulder at the lunch table, asking if he’s okay while Dustin desperately tries to drown out Lucas and Maxs’ teasing. To Steve telling him a joke. To Jonathan hugging him goodbye before a date with Nancy. To Hopper coming by every other week to see his mom. To Robin telling him that the movie store has movies that aren’t just things his friends tell him to watch.
Yet, if given the choice, Will isn’t sure he wants to change anything about the past. Not if it means losing the people he loves the most. The people he refuses to lose.
After Mike gets him the night light, his nights get better. Unsurprisingly, waking up from a nightmare with a light on is better than complete darkness. The number of nightmares slowly dwindle, until it’s gone from twice a night in vivid detail to once a week with vague, blurry shadows. Which is nice: the bags under his eyes start to fade, classes get a bit easier, Steve and Robin’s lame jokes get a bit less funny.
Will can admit to himself that he starts to depend on the thing a bit.
Okay, maybe a lot.
After bad nights, he takes it to school with him. Which he knows is weird —he’s fifteen, not three —yet he still brings it. Pushes it deep, deep down into his backpack until someone would have to go past two binders, three notebooks, half a dozen already graded assignments, and his 30lb math textbook to find it. It’s excessive, he knows, but he can’t take the chance of it slipping out one day in class, of everyone seeing how weak he is. They already have enough fuel for their cruelty, adding this would be lighting a match in a gasoline drenched forest.
But, even buried under all his crap, he can always find it. Can feel around the bottom and squeeze the life out of the vague lump he finds. He keeps his backpack close enough to touch at all times, so he can lean his leg or foot against it in class and let the edge of the sharp back prongs hit him.
As well as being an incredibly calming and extremely sentimental object, it’s the only thing Will has that can calm him down from a panic attack.
The party is usually able to help him, either by walking him through breathing exercises or just getting Mike, who tends to help him more efficiently. It pays to know someone so well: Mike has stopped him from clawing at his arms or hair so many times that he will grab Will’s wrists before he even tries. It’s impressive.
(Max, surprisingly, becomes Mike’s second when it comes to his attacks. She hasn’t known him for more than a decade like Mike, but she, apparently, has a lot of experience with panic attacks. She picks up the signs so fast that she nearly beats Mike, and she knows just what to say to work him through it. It’s made them closer, and, much to Will’s joy, it’s made Mike warm up to Max more)
As much as Will loves them, though, he hates depending on them like this. Hates that he needs someone to talk him through breathing. To tell him that he’s okay. He’s safe.
He should just be able to take a deep breath and move on. He should. But he fucking can’t.
That might be why he loves the nightlight so much. Because he has control over who helps him. Who knows about the panic. About his weakness. That, in some weird way, he’s found a way to help himself.
He can admit to himself that he has a slightly unhealthy attachment to a small, plastic, inaccurate figurine of a blond guy twice his age wearing a toga and holding a green stick. He can, and he’s proud of that.
Admitting it to others, though, is harder.
(Will wakes up sweaty, his breath short and a scream stuck in his throat. He's sticky enough to immediately want to jump up and leap into the shower, but he stays. Stuck. He sits in his bed for who knows how long before checking the digital clock‘s shining red lines. The morning light peeks through his curtains, casting a glare onto the black glass. Will squints, his breathing not completely level, and his eyes having more trouble than usual focusing.
5:33. He has more time, yet he can’t imagine going back to sleep.
In between deep breaths and quick glances, small memories and dark shadows cross his unconscious. He remembers snow, then fire, or maybe it was cold then hot. He remembers a house, some vines. Snails without shells and inside out slugs. Things that might be memories. Things he hopes aren’t.
In no time at all his alarm is going off, and suddenly there’s new clothes on his back and a waffle on his plate. His mother is kissing his cheek, ‘I love you’s are shared, and she's gone.
Will grabs it, unthinkingly, right before he leaves. Stuffs it into his bag and follows Jonathan’s voice out to his car. He clutches the lump all the way to school, presses his backpack against his leg during class, and draws tiny lightsabers and fight scenes on what are supposed to be his notes. Every once in awhile, a dark, familiar shape will start to join the rest of the doodles, but before it becomes anything recognizable Will scribbles it out.
Lunch happens within a blink of an eye, and Will is still spaced out. Still reliving a nightmare he can’t quite remember. The party is talking around him, and he can’t recall if they ever asked him if he’s doing okay. It doesn’t matter anyway, since he would lie.
Maybe it’s better like this, to let them be happy. Keep them far enough away so his still tainted, messed up self won’t infect them. They moved passed it all, unlike him. So he will stay back. Won’t ruin their happiness.
“Will!”
The shadow encompassing his brain finally flinches away at the sharp word. Will blinks, turning toward Lucas with an automatic passive smile. “Yeah?” He asks, his eyes taking a few long moments to focus on the scene.
Lucas points to a paper in front of him, his eyebrows scrunched in worry. “I skipped a section on the math homework and I forgot to finish it. Can I copy yours?” He asks, hesitant.
Will nods. All hesitance immediately drains from Lucas’s face, a relieved smile taking its place. Will watches Max tease him with blank eyes, the shadow that’s creeping keeping forward gaining ground every second. It maintains all of Will’s little focus, keeping him blissfully unaware of his mistake until it’s too late.
“Uhh, Will?” Lucas raises his head, his face a question Will doesn’t want to answer. “What’s this?”
Lucas pulls his hand out of the bag, and turns his palm toward the group. Will knows what it is. There’s nothing else it could be. He looks anyway, though, because if he just lets the universe cause him pain then he feels useless, and challenging his assumption is better than accepting his fate.
He can feel whoever’s next to him tense, and it takes him a second to realize that it’s Mike. Which should be obvious, since Will can’t remember a lunch where Mike has sat anywhere else.
“My nightlight.” Will responds. His voice is blank. He can see the entire party looking at him—minus El, who’s still too far behind to start freshman year with them. She wants to, though: nearly screams with joy whenever Joyce mentions the prospect. Will has never seen anyone so excited for school. He wonders what she would think of this. If she would really understand.
He’s drawn back into awareness by the feeling of Mike’s eyes burning holes into the side of his head. This is probably the first time he’s seen that night light outside of Will’s room since he bought the thing.
Lucas raises his eyebrows, but Will thinks it’s more out of confusion than judgement. He hopes to God he’s reading his friend right. “Okay,” Lucas starts, glances at Max, then Mike, before finally resting his gaze back on Will, “Why, uh, did you bring your nightlight to school?”
Will feels himself freeze, even though he knew the question was coming. His eyes shift around, his mouth rambling off an excuse before he can even think about telling the truth.
“Well—I—It’s just that Luke’s, um, hand looked a bit melted so I, uh, wanted to put some glue on it. But I couldn’t use like normal glue, so I went to find my moms hot glue gun. But it was out of sticks.”
Will inwardly cringes.
He’s not sure where the whole ‘lying’ habit started: maybe around the time his dad left, when his mom started to work more and he and Jonathan were both getting bullied, but neither would say a word. It’s only gotten worse. He’s dealt with worse. Now the crushing feeling of his dads departure feels like splinters compared to the deep and gaping wounds his yearly runs with the other dimension leave.
Lucas looks very confused, and a bit concerned, and Will is suddenly aware that he’s been keeping steady eye contact with Lucas while staring into space.
“Sticks?”
Lucas is somehow raising his eyebrows even higher than before.
“Hot glue sticks.”
“You brought your nightlight to school to fix its hand — which is completely fine — with a hot glue gun because yours was out of sticks.”
God, it somehow sounds even worse than Will thought.
“Yup.”
“And you had to bring it with you? To school? You couldn’t just grab the hot glue sticks and bring them home?”
Will can feel himself growing even more flustered. There’s a lump growing in his throat, and his hand is clutching his pants so tightly he can feel his nails starting to strain the material. He can feel the edges of hysteria on the back of his neck, and all he can think about is getting to art class.
“Oh, uh, well, Lucas, that’s a really great idea. Should’ve gone to you for the plan. Heh. Well. I, uh, need to get to class.”
Will stands up abruptly, stumbling out of the seat and walking around the table to Lucas’s side. He grabs his backpack and swings it onto one shoulder, snatches Luke from Lucas’s hand, sticks the figurine in his pocket, before stalking off. It happens so quickly, so smoothly that Will barely registers it. Before he knows it he’s walking out of the cafeteria, the eyes of his friends burning holes into his back.
“Wait, Will, your homework!”
Will doesn’t turn around.)
After that, no one brings up the nightlight. Not a peep. Not a casual joke from Lucas or Dustin. Or a well-meaning question from Mike.
Nothing.
If Will hadn’t been so embarrassed by it, he probably would have forgotten the experience by now.
But something changes, after the discovery. Will doesn’t notice it at first, too clouded with embarrassment and swamped with school work. He first sees it at Dustin’s house, two weeks after.
(Will is staring into a mitochondria—or maybe it’s the thing plants have, unless plants have mitochondria, his eyes are too blurry to tell or to remember—for the past twenty minutes or so, and he’s sure Dustin is in a similar state. He’s faintly aware of how dark it is outside Dustin’s window, and the thumping footsteps coming from the hallway, but he can’t comprehend what they mean until Ms Henderson is knocking on her son’s door and slowly opening it.
“Oh boys, you’re still studying?” She asks, looking concerned.
“It’s half our grade, mom.” Dustin mutters, barely glancing away from his notes
“60%.” Will corrects.
Ms Henderson lets out a sigh, walking into the room and snatching the two books before the boys can even blink.
“I can’t believe I have to say this, but no more studying! You’re too tired to learn anything anymore. Will, dear,” Will glances up, trying to register what to do next. Where did he put that book? It was just in front of him… “You can stay over here for the night, I’ll bring you back to Joyce’s before school so you can get dressed.”
Ms Henderson nods to herself, whispering ‘goodnight’ to the two, kissing Dustin on the forehead, and walking out of the room with the two Biology books in hand.
It takes the two around fifteen seconds to figure out what just happened, and another five to realize that they’re having a sleepover on a school night.
It seems like a great deal for Will, who’s been secretly stealing from Steve’s bottles of Jolt Cola for the last week: they taste like liquid garbage—Will now knows why all of Steve’s cans are nearly untouched—but they allow him to survive on little to no sleep, so he can deal (Even if his hands get super shaky whenever he drinks it though, which makes it hard to take notes). He’s exhausted, and Dustin actually has an extra mattress that he can sleep on instead of just sticking him on the carpet.
He’s tucked into a sleeping bag right next to Dustin’s bed, eyes shut and blissfully avoiding any thoughts of science, when he remembers why he’s been avoiding impromptu sleepovers. He bolts upright, scaring the absolute shit out Dustin, who shouts ‘oh fuck’ before nearly falling off the bed. They both sit in their respective areas, breathing heavily for different reasons.
Dustin shakes his head, his hair shining against the moonlight. They sit for a few more seconds, Dustin mutters, “why the hell did you— oh yeah,” stops abruptly, before leaping out of the bed like a fucking ninja. Which nearly gives Will another heart attack.
Dustin shuffles around the room in the dark, cursing every once in awhile when he steps on a toy or bangs into a piece of furniture. He lets out an “AH-HA!”, which, Will thinks, means he found what he was looking for. His mom shouts for the boys to quiet down and go to bed, and Dustin lets out a quieter “Ah-ha…”
Before Will can ask what his friend is doing, Dustin slams his hand into the wall, flips something else, and suddenly a white ghost with a red ‘no entry’ sign around it is illuminating the room.
“I got it a few days ago. Cool huh?” Is all the explanation that Dustin provides, before he jumps back over Will and promptly falls asleep. And Will is left looking at the ghostbusters night light in wonder, as he slowly drifts to sleep.)
It doesn’t just end with Dustin, though. Next time he goes to Lucas’s house there’s a My Little Pony night light right next to his dresser. He blames his sister for it (which makes Will raise an eyebrow, since he’s pretty sure Erica would rather die than stick any of her precious My Little Pony merch into Lucas’s wall). Even Max ends up taking her old desk lamp out from the attic when Will stays over late, even though he’s not actually sleeping over. She doesn’t mention it at all, so Will doesn’t either.
Mike, though, takes it a step further. From what Will can gather, there’s now a nightlight in every room in the house. He even got another star wars one, which he sticks right beside his bed.
(It’s Han Solo, sticking up his gun. It’s the stand that lights up, since Solo doesn’t have a lightsaber. It’s so, so cool.)
It’s El, surprisingly, that tops it all. Will has no idea how she heard about it in the first place, but, a month after ‘the discovery’, he walks into El’s room to find it strung with fairy lights. Not Christmas lights (which still sometimes give him chills), but small, pretty, yellow fairy lights. She doesn’t say anything when he gives her a big hug, just smiles.
Steve and his new friend end up finding out about it too (mostly thanks to Dustin’s big mouth). Oddly, though, Will isn’t too bothered by it.
Yes, Steve and whatever-her-name-is are older, but when Jonathan found out a few weeks before he didn’t even act like it was abnormal. And Jonathan is the only older-kid opinion that should matter, right?
(At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself.)
Steve goes the awkward route of mentioning it to him while taking him home after a trip to the arcade. It’s stuttered and convoluted, but Will understands that Steve is just trying to be supportive, in his own way.
Will thanks him as he leaves the car, tossing a smile before he shuts the door. The expression Steve greets him with is the purest definition of relief that Will has ever seen.
He isn’t expecting to get anything from Steve’s friend, but then again, his life tends to have things happen that Will can’t even fathom existing.
After the summer of 85, they start movie nights. They happen every Saturday at Steve’s house, starting at 4pm and ending, basically, whenever they want them to. At first, only Steve and his new friend, Robin, were invited. Something about shared trauma and an interest in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Will feels faint disgust at the thought of what the two might’ve been doing at the sleepovers alone together, since they were two teens of different genders. He never brings it up though.
(Actually, as far as he can tell, Robin and Steve aren’t dating. Which Will didn’t think was possible. Every single TV show and movie has the boy and the girl go on an adventure and get together. But Robin and Steve… don’t? Will might be looking into this too deeply.)
(Most romance shows and movies didn’t have ‘being trapped by Russians then killing a giant flesh monster’ as the adventure, so maybe Robin and Steve were going against the norm, just a bit.)
Eventually, though, Dustin wanted to spend more time with his friends (aka, he feels left out by not being invited to the movie nights, which makes Will want to give Dustin a big hug when he read between the lines. Dustin is the heart of their party; Will can’t understand why Dustin ever feels left out when he makes them complete).
With Dustin came Lucas, who came Max, who brought along El, who asked Will, who all worked together to encourage Mike. It was a train that eventually lead to everyone having a massive sleepover in the Harrington living room once a week while gorging on popcorn and sweets well into the morning.
That’s where Will formally mets Robin Buckley.
Robin was, and honestly, still is, the snarkiest, coolest, and chillest person Will has ever met. They didn’t speak to each other at first. Avoided being alone together and rarely made eye contact. For the first few months, the only members who spoke to her were Steve (obviously), Dustin, Lucas (oddly), and Erica (for the few times she actually came over. She generally proclaimed herself ‘too busy to be hanging out with nerds like them’, so Will didn’t see her much)
Robin and him did interact a bit, though, since they shared the same sense of humor when it came to movies. Sometimes they were the only two to laugh at a joke, and they would give each other an awkward look. Other times one would mutter under their breath about a character, causing the other to laugh. After that they would give each other a quick look, then subtly turn away and remain silent for the next hour or so.
So, yeah, they weren’t exactly close.
Will thought it was going to be that way forever, but he’s been getting used to being wrong.
(It’s mid February. Dustin recently found out Steve doesn’t know who the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are, so Dustin’s forcing him to watch some episodes. Which means everyone else is stuck watching them too.
Of all the cartoons on TV, TMNT isn’t the worst, Will’s sure, but he’s never been super interested in it. The orange one is kinda funny, and the plot is unique enough to be cool, but the fact they are all in love with April makes him uncomfortable. They are turtles, after all, and April is a sixteen year old human.
So Will is understandably bored. His legs are fidgeting and his fingers are tapping rhythms onto his knees. Max, who has been paying rapt attention since Dustin turned it on, has sent him a few annoyed glares. Even El, who is normally indifferent to the groups’ tics, has given him a few looks.
Even though Will would rather be anywhere else (and he’s pretty sure Steve, Robin, and Lucas are all on the same page as him), he can’t speak out against it. He tried to come up with other ideas when it was first getting pitched, but Dustin was too excited to listen. The only thing stopping this now is if Mike or Max jumps up and changes it themselves.
(Max is the only one who has absolute power over movies and tv show picks, since if she doesn’t like it none of them are going to enjoy the movie. Unfortunately, she’s apparently a huge fan of the turtles.)
It all leads to him leaving the living room, mumbling about getting a can of Fanta. When he gets to the kitchen he doesn’t do anything at first. Just stands in front of the fridge for a few minutes. Breaths.
Finally, after who knows how long, he opens the fridge and starts the search for a Fanta. An 8-bit achievement noise sounds in his head when finds one last can behind a bottle of ketchup. God, he’s such a nerd.
“Pass me a 7Up.”
Will nearly jumps a foot in the air, clutching the Fanta and snapping around. He’s met with thin, honey brown hair and hazel eyes: the unamused expression of Robin Buckley. Her eyes are dull, and she looks about as bored as he feels.
She raises an eyebrow. Will turns back around, grabs a green can, and quickly hands it to her. He shuts the fridge, stands there for a second, before awkwardly leaning against it.
The two stand in silence. Will memorizes the kitchen tiles as he sips his drink. Steve’s parents have strange taste. Every single room in the house seems to be some sort of cream or brown. Not counting the upstairs bathroom, which looks like Barbie threw up on it. Will didn’t even know they made pink sinks.
“You’re the one with the nightlight, right?”
Will feels himself freeze at her words. His eyes meet her own, slightly stunned, slightly confused, but mostly afraid. Robin is older, a senior to his freshmen, and, as much as he hates to admit it, she seems to carry this air of importance. Its like what he used to feel for Jonathan, when he was small. Obsessed with being like his “cool older brother”. Yet it’s different too. It’s strange for him to describe it.
She’s just… she always moves like she has nowhere to be. Squared shoulders, mellowed expression, slow walk. If Will hadn’t seen her snort so hard milks’ come out of her nose, he would’ve thought her expression was permanently stuck in indifference.
He just wants to impress her. It’s a weird feeling. When he and Jonathan were kids, he used to bring all of his drawing ideas to Jonathan, and would only draw the ones Jonathan liked. It’s crazy to think about now, but the feeling is so similar that Will is stuck replaying the memory over and over again in his mind.
Even now, just sitting on the counter with her converse tucked into the cabinet below, she looks like this is just a regular Sunday. That asking a 15 year old kid if ‘he’s the one with the nightlight’ is perfectly normal.
He slowly nods at her words, hesitance clear in his skittish expression. Robin stares at him for a long moment before shrugging.
“Nice. What does it look like?”
She says it so casually that it takes Will a few seconds to realize he’s not about to get insulted. After that he’s not really sure what to do.
He didn’t think anyone would ever ask that. In all the worse case scenarios that his brain has supplied since his first kidnapping, general kindness never showed up. How is someone supposed to respond to it?
“Hey, earth to nerd? Is it something super weird like a naked girl or slave Princess Leia?” Robin looks faintly amused by both options. Will doesn’t know how to respond to the new question either. He doesn’t really know what’s happening. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard Robin say something that not sarcastic before — not counting the frantic rambles after she first met El — and it’s weirding him out.
“You’re being nice to me?”
Robin looks momentarily stunned at the question, her ‘arms crossed, tough guy, bodyguard’ look fading. “What?” She mutters. She finally fully turns toward him, and Will is hit with the familiar expression of confusion and pity.
Well, not pity. Robin is way too apathetic to actually pity someone who’s not in her ‘circle’. Will doesn’t think he’s anywhere close to earning that.
But she’s looking at him with something. Maybe intrigue? Or just extreme confusion. He can’t dive too deep into it before Robin starts speaking in that genuine tone again.
“Of course I’m being nice to you: I’m not a monster.” Robin raises an eyebrow, and Will suddenly understands how Steve feels. “You’re not stupid, Will, and for some reason I respect you. Maybe it’s because you came back to life or fight monsters somewhat regularly, or something, but it doesn’t matter. I’m only mean to people who suck.”
“You’re mean to Steve all the time.”
“Your point?”
Will laughs a little, Robin smiles, and Will feels the swoop he gets when Jonathan tells him he likes a drawing he made. He doesn’t want to look into it. “Steve only sucks around 40% of the time.”
Robin scoffs, “Dude, I spend, like, 18 hours a day with him, sometimes more. He sucks 70% of the time, no question.”
“Agree to disagree.”
“Of course his kids are going to come to his defense.”
“We’re not his kids!”
“Says the twelve year old.”
“I’m fifteen.”
“Same difference.”
Will smiles, “You know, Mike would probably argue about this for a few hours. Thankfully, I have the ability to be mature and take a joke for what it is. Mike… not so much.”
Robin laughs, honest to god laughs, and Will feels proud. He broke that icy exterior. He broke the ‘cool’ persona that Robin somehow always carries. “Thanks for the tip,” Robin says, smiling with all her teeth, “I should go to you every time I want to annoy one of you kids.”
Will nods. A strange silence, one neither comfortable nor awkward, starts between them, occasionally interrupted by a shout from the other room or a gulp when one of them drinks from their soda. After a few minutes, Will is pretty sure he should be making an awkward excuse to head back to the group by now, when Robin says:
“I have a nightlight.”
Which surprises him enough to nearly cause his Fanta to hit the polished linoleum tile. Just when Will thinks he understands the sarcastic-nerdy-goofball that is Robin Buckley, she throws in some sudden understanding-accepting-resilient-wise older sibling vibe that Nancy and Jonathan never got quite right. They tried, certainly, but they never had the complete and total disregard for the opinions of the masses that Robin seems to have perfected.
Nancy and Jonathan see the world — the fucked, scary, strange world they live in — and want to change it. Want to try and make it beautiful again. But Robin just sees all the world's bullshit and sticks up a huge middle finger. Sifts through the garbage and finds a path no one’s ever followed before. She ignores the people who tell her she’s going the wrong way, that she won’t find anything there, and finds her own path to happiness.
And, for some reason, Robin has decided to grab Will from the trash and start talking to him about nightlights.
Will looks back at her, finding her already looking at him. Taking in his expression. She looks worried, vulnerable. Will didn’t know she could look like that.
“Seriously?”
Robin winces.
“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. I— uh, really? You—You do?”
Robin spends a few seconds looking at him before she nods.
“What, uh, what does it look like?”
Robin smiles softly, “It’s a strawberry. The whole thing glows, but the seeds glow the most. The switch is in the leaves.”
Will’s nods, oddly fascinated. “That’s so cool. How much does it light up?”
Robin’s smile is growing, starting to show some teeth. Her eyes are a bit wider than normal, almost stunned. “The space beside my bed and the path to my door,” She pauses for a moment, “What about yours?”
Will doesn’t hesitate. “It’s a Luke Skywalker figurine. But it’s weird because it has white robes and a green lightsaber, so it’s a complete mix of—”
“A New Hope and Return of the Jedi.” Robin finishes for him, “Did no one in the marketing department even watch the movie? Or just look at the poster?”
“Exactly! He’s really poorly made: he’s broken off the stand he’s on a few times and I’ve had to use superglue to keep him there. A couple of times the wires have almost broken so the green is a bit dull now. It used to light up the entire left side of my room but now it just illuminates my side table and door.”
Will stops himself from saying any more. He hasn’t ever told anyone that. Actually, he’s not sure if he’s spoken more than a sentence about how broken the nightlight is after nearly a year of having it. He didn’t expect the wear and tear of carrying it around in his backpack to have such a harsh impact.
“Why don’t you just get a new one?” Robin asks, “They’re not too expensive.”
“Mike got it for me.”
Will can tell when Robin processes his words, because her face changes entirely. The wrinkles strain away, a smirk and eyes filled with pure delight replacing them.
“Mike, huh.”
Will feels his eyebrows knitting together, “What about it?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
Robin gives him a little smile after her words. He’s seen this smile before, in Mom’s face when Jonathan first denied his crush on Nancy. He’s just never had it directed at him. Especially by someone as awesome as Robin Buckley.
Before Will’s mind can play catch up and figure out what that look means, Mike’s voice cuts off any thought.
Mike’s head peeks around the corner, “Hey, Will, you done? Dustin’s trying to order pineapple pizza and I need you to help me fight for meat lovers.” he says quickly, running back to the couch without waiting for an answer.
Will looks at the wall that divides the living room and the kitchen, where he knows all his friends are sitting, and becomes abruptly aware of how close they all are.
“I—It was nice talking to you, Robin.” Will mumbles, and suddenly he’s out of the kitchen, sitting at Steve’s feet, Mike at his side. When Robin comes from the kitchen a few minutes later, Will doesn’t glance away from his friends.)
He doesn’t know why, exactly, his conversation with Robin made him so distressed. It was positive, and she’s a funny girl. Quick witted. He sees why Steve likes her.
Yet, that’s not completely true. All he can do is replay the look she gave him when he mentioned Mike. The quirk of her eyebrow. The inquisitive look in her eye. It’s sending his brain in several differently directions, most of them leading to panic.
(A few lead to a strange feeling of kinship. Understanding. He doesn’t know why.)
It takes Will a few hours to realize that Robin totally knows he’s completely in love with his best friend who happens to be a boy and then he’s having what might be a mid-life crisis/panic attack in Steve’s really nice Barbie bathroom. How could she know? No one was supposed to know. Because queers don’t live very long, do they? Especially not in a conservative town in the middle of Indiana.
(Indiana, where gay people are strung up on trees. Where crosses are stuck into every lawn. Where homophobes are created.)
For a few weeks, Will walks on eggshells around Robin. Barely any eye contact. Passive responses to any questions or comments. Avoiding any alone time like the plague (she might kill him. She might. He doesn’t know her plan).
It’s the way he used to act around Dad, and he can tell it’s starting to make Robin very uncomfortable. Will can’t stop, though, because what if he says the wrong thing and suddenly all of Hawkins knows he likes guys. That he’s even worse than they imagined.
(He can see it in the papers now: LOCAL FREAK, “ZOMBIE BOY”, TURNS OUT QUEER. Keep Your Kids Out Of The Woods, Or They Might Come Out Tainted!)
Maybe two weeks after it happens, Will messes up. Because he’s clumsy and can’t look where he’s going and of course Robin is holding a huge bowl of popcorn and a glass of milk. And suddenly it’s all on the floor and the stupid, stinky, it’s-never-going-to-come-out-Steve-is-going-to-actually-murder-Will, milk is soaking into the nice cream carpet and Will might fucking cry.
Then Robin is in front of him, smiling, and tells him that she’ll take care of it. She cleans it up. He’s not yelled at. She never says a word about the mess to Steve. Doesn’t mention his queerness, either.
Nothing happens. Not that night. Not the next day. Not the next week.
Will doesn’t know what to do with that. It’s extremely rare for anything to go his way, and it’s still weird when it does. He’s not sure how to react anymore when people are nice.
He takes a deep breath, channels his innocent, twelve year old self, and opens himself back up to Robin. They talk about nightlights and movies and Will finds himself seeking her out when he’s in town. Makes sure to stop by the movie store and not only greet Steve, but Robin too.
Which turns out okay.
Yeah, Will sleeps with a nightlight at fifteen, but he could give less of a fuck what anyone thinks. Because he has the best friends in the entire world right next to him, and they are fucking fine with it. If he also happens to be a bit queer, his friends might be fine with that too.