Chapter Text
His name is Will Byers, and he is hopeless.
He watches himself in the mirror. His face is hollow, more than a little gray, with big, black eyes and mousy hair that sweeps across his forehead. It doesn’t seem like his. It resembles the sallow kinds of faces you see in gothic paintings. He recognizes himself, but only because it’s the same face he’s had for all of seventeen years, and it hasn’t gotten significantly better, or worse — only different. Longer. Leaner. Hungrier.
His mother’s knuckles rap against the doorframe. He knows the sound of her voice, her footsteps. “Will, baby, you alright in there?”
Of course he is. His mouth twitches. “Yeah, Mom.”
She leaves him to his own devices, so he continues gazing as his reflection. Empty. Empty. Empty. Afterwards, he raises a damp, cold rag against his closed eyes, and sighs out his nose. Things can always get worse than they appear to be. He’s learned that much with experience.
He steps out of the bathroom, and he sees his brother at the stove, prodding experimentally at a cast-iron pan full of runny eggs. Since his recent acquisition of a sensible nine-to-five, Jonathan has been especially thoughtful about housework. He worries too much. Sure their mother is busy, hardly scraping by, but she insists Jonathan keep every penny of his paycheck and put it toward an education, or something of equal merit, so he contributes in other, smaller ways in the meantime. He makes trips to the laundromat. He cooks, too — just not well, as evidenced by his mess of eggs. Will tries not to wince. Still, they exchange a glance, and he proceeds into the other room. God help him, he’s almost there, nearing the living room couch where his sneakers are strewn in twos across the hardwood floor —
“Will?” Jonathan’s voice. It’s a little chirpy, overly enthused, like he’s been put to the task by their mother. “Time to eat. You didn’t have breakfast, did you?”
Will can lie. He’s even good at it, occasionally. “Had a PopTart.”
“Box is unopened.”
It’s not accusatory, merely factual. Will can’t bother to hold a grudge. He just steps into his sneakers (ratty, well-worn, well-loved), and reenters the kitchen afterward. Jonathan has dumped the eggs and started buttering toast, the likes of which is hardly golden, exactly how Will likes it. Next to it is a tall glass of orange juice.
The doctor’s words echo in his ears, like a tease: Food is fuel. You’ve got to eat, son. And, he knows. He tries. It’s tricky, but periodically throughout the day Will is able to stomach a bite or so of whatever’s around. It’s not a conscious refusal, or anything. He isn’t anything like the girls in after-school specials. Still, his mom will shoo him toward the family’s crooked scale and frowns at the number she sees. He hates it. It makes him feel more specimen than person.
Jonathan smiles, sets the toast before him, his juice. Will’s eyes fall out of focus. He realizes the meal should be appetizing, if only remotely. It’s warm. It’s buttery. It’s plain toast, speared in half, on a pearly white plate.
He has a bite. His chewing is a thoughtful process, because he can’t autopilot mealtime like the rest of society; he’s got to consciously choose when and why to swallow. It takes work. Hell, it almost hurts. He pushes past a second bite and has a sip of juice. There’s pulp, which he used to like. Now it’s like soupy bile.
He stands, spits, and pivots to face the sink so that he can cough up what used to be breakfast. It’s an arduous, stinging process. Nor is it his fault. He tells himself that much, over and over again, because his only other option is to give up and die in their crawlspace. His head throbs with every retch. Jonathan comes to his aid, resting a steady hand against the slope of his shoulders, but by now it’s a pointless gesture. They’ve done this too many times before.
“Don’t tell Mom,” Will croaks stupidly, but there’s no use. She must know — the house is so small, and the walls are so thin. The first couple of times, he cried. Now he emotionlessly rinses his mouth with the cup of warm, salty tap water Jonathan prepares. If he could see his reflection, he would hate it; even so, he can gather plenty enough about how horrible he looks courtesy of Jonathan’s pained look and averted eyes, so he doesn’t need a mirror. He just wants to go. He feels cloyed.
“Okay, buddy.” Jonathan is croaky, too. “Sure thing.”
Last year, Will would walk to school. He’d cycled before then. That was middle school, and some of the other kids stuck thumb tacks into his bicycle tires, so he stopped. This year, he’d earned his driver’s license and was a smidge proud of his ride: their old Ford, which is available now that Jonathan’s got a newer, more reliable car for himself. Will only ever skirts Hawkins, so the Ford is fine. It’s familiar. He is certainly accustomed to the vehicle’s special brand of wear and tear, and he wears it sort of like a badge of honor, even if it’s just another thing that makes him a Byers. If he could, he’d go somewhere big, loud, populous — anywhere that the name “Will Byers” is nothing. There’s great comfort in being invisible. He likes it better than being a target, anyway. In any case, he's attached to the car.
He drums the wheel to an imaginary beat. It’s cloudy. Appropriate, he can’t help but feel, since the first day of a brand new school year always tends to feel ominous. Every fall he makes use of the old, crumpled notebooks and pencils his mother pockets during her shifts at Melvald’s (on accident, so she claims, but Will can’t be so sure). His same-old backpack rolls around the backseat. It still smells like pop after he’d spilled Diet-Something on his Pre-Calc textbook. Coke, maybe.
When he arrives he parks underneath the shade of a tree and watches the school’s entrance from far away. Before, he knew everyone. Every stupid face. Now it’s a blur whether they’re new, or nice, or mean, or even people he liked once upon a time. There’s no telling. It makes him guilty, on the odd occasion he receives a “hello” in the hallways, since he never knows how to respond. Do I know you?
The windshield is fogged. As he shoulders his bag, he takes a moment to ogle his car’s tired, lonely bumper. Jonathan was way against tarnishing his vehicle with crappy decor, but Will likes color, so he placed a sticker: The Rock at 105.6 FM. He doesn’t know the station. He just likes how the letters pop, is all. Once the car doors are securely locked, he proceeds along the long, long slope of the parking lot, all the way up until he reaches the gray double-doors of Hawkins High School. The students are like flies: Buzzing. Loud. In droves. He keeps his head down, and he manages to slip past an ocean of people he’s stopped pretending to recognize: tall, or blonde, or dark, or stocky. His mind whirls. His stomach churns.
He finds his homeroom class by numerical order, wandering past C9, C11 — and, upon locating C12, ducking in as inconspicuously as he is able. As is tradition, he settles in against the first empty desk he sees. His bag hits the floor with a thump.
When asked to describe the sensation of unknowing, Will never quite understood how to go about forming a response. It didn’t necessarily feel like anything was missing. He told the doctor that much: that the world was the same as it had always been, so far as he was concerned. The hard part was realizing that something had got to be wrong. That he should know that face, that smile. That voice. That’s exactly how he feels today, hunched up against a wobbly, uncomfortable desk with a menagerie of strange sounds and expressions pinging off his skull. Round faces. Puckered lips. Scrunched eyes, and scrunched noses. Sometimes, a person will send him reeling, so that he’ll realize all at once very suddenly, That’s my friend. I knew her. I knew him.
I know him.
Roll call. Will knows his name, of course, so he likewise responds to the familiar ring of William Byers. He never bothers with the “just Will, thanks.” It’s unnecessary. Everyone knows him. They’ve known him since “Will Byers” was pasted to the walls, had frequented television, was spoken in tongues. He is no secret. Schedules are distributed, and he folds his. First up is English. Then Human Anatomy, which worries him. He hates to see gray dead things all splayed out and prodded at. It’s all very uneventful aside from a sick feeling, which he chalks up to the thought of pickled pigs, frogs, lizards, rats...
“Hey, Will.” A voice. A face. Will studies both, and his expression must be as blank as his mind, because the voice duly proceeds, “It’s Lucas.”
“I know.” He does now, anyway. Lucas Sinclair. Will’s friend. A fast thinker and learner, brave, and kind. Still, he knows he wasn’t very convincing in the moment, because their desks are next to one another and Will hadn’t looked at him, not once. Something like guilt writhes in his chest.
Lucas is polite enough to pretend Will didn’t need his clarification. “Let me see your schedule, man.”
Will slides it wordlessly across his desk. There’s a weird, awkward pause, but then it’s over, and Lucas sets it back down, nodding. “Cool. We’ve got lunch together.”
“Yeah. Cool.” His mother calls it “parroting.” It’s easier to be an echo than an individual, sometimes. It’s not so exhausting. He catches himself in the habit, though, and clears his throat in order to buy time and think of something else to say. “So, our senior year.”
“Crazy, right? It’s going to go by so fast. I mean, we’re going to have our grad caps, soon.” Lucas whistles. “You, me, Dustin — you know Dustin, he’s—”
“I know Dustin,” interrupts Will, a little bit exasperated. He does know Dustin. Dustin is his friend too. Dustin has curly hair, and he is funny. He can’t recall his face, but that isn’t relevant now. “Yeah, it’s going to be weird. Growing up.”
Lucas is embarrassed by the rebuke, but recovers fast. “Yeah.” An awkward pause. Again. Will wishes his body would just go up in flames. “...I wonder why homeroom’s not alphabetical. You, Byers. Me, Sinclair, doesn’t really—”
God must be merciful because the bell finally rings. Will jumps to his feet — stupidly, he knows. He knows, knows, that he is his own worst enemy. He is cause for the stares and hanging silences. It must be something he does. The way he talks. Fidgets. Blinks. Breathes. In an instant he’s made a beeline for the door, and the hallway becomes a blur of miscellaneous people and things.
It’s only once he reaches the end of the hall that he realizes he’s a little lost, and Lucas has his schedule, still. Most people have already found their way to class. There are stragglers, but Will would be mortified to ask for any kind of help, so instead he tries to follow context clues. He watches the doors, and he makes note of their numbers; C12 was homeroom. That was the third floor. He doesn’t remember winding down any steps, but the school’s office is downstairs, and that’s where he’d be able to retrieve a second schedule. It might just be worth the trouble. It’s a less humiliating fate than wandering around and asking about Lucas Sinclair, you know, his friend?
“Hi, I’m—” nobody cares, everybody knows already, so just maintain eye contact — “I was wondering if I could get a second schedule printed. I lost mine.”
The woman behind the desk watches him with insurmountable pity. She leans forward, and very ugly-kindly says, “Have you checked your bag, sweetheart?”
“Yes,” He replies, somewhat irritably. “I know where it is. It’s with Lucas Sinclair.”
“Well, we don’t have your things, here.”
“I know. I…” a deep breath, a smile, “I would like another copy, please.”
“Oh, we can’t do all that today.” She shakes her head. Will knows it’s won’t, not can’t, but he’s in no real position to complain. “How about you just go fetch your things yourself? Do you know where your friend is? Let me write you a pass.”
“No, I don't." He is beginning to feel slightly hopeless.
“Sinclair is Advanced Chemistry,” says another lady peering at a dimmed computer screen. "Lucas Sinclair, you said?"
Ecstatic to leave, Will wordlessly pivots around, because he knows Chemistry is upstairs. The stairwell is drafty, which he appreciates, since he’s always a little warmer than he’d like. It does occur to him (albeit belatedly) that he’s missing the start of Human Anatomy, but he figures that worse has happened. Worse will happen. So, he finds room B6, knocks, and peers inside. Of course it goes deathly quiet once he’s actually noticed by the class.
“Hi, I’m looking for…” Shit. You woke up, you threw up, you drove here... “...Lucas,” he blurts, and his ears start to burn. “Lucas Sinclair.”
Lucas stands and grins. He’s so much taller than Will remembers, but so is everybody, Will included. He's got a folded up paper slip in his hands. “I have it right here.”
Will is so deeply relieved that for once he doesn’t mull over the prospect of danger before he acts. With an apologetic sort of glance toward the teacher, he moves toward Lucas’s desk to retrieve his schedule — but from the corners of his eyes his gaze falls inadvertently upon the other students. Long, pale, wild bangs and eyes (that’s his friend; that’s Mike, Mike he used to know). Hair like a fox’s coat, chunky bracelets, freckled shoulders (he doesn’t know her name, but her face, he does).
Then, there is another girl. He knows this girl. Her expression is downturned. She’s got a healthy flush to her cheeks, which — for some violent, violent reason — upsets, angers, Will. They are locked in a stare. He has a feeling like it’s not for long, like it only feels long, and maybe it does for her, too.
He hates her. He misses her. She is somebody’s ghost.
That’s when his center of gravity shifts, and he falls down, but afterward finds that he’s still standing upright. He can’t shake the feeling that something’s off about his surroundings. The floor’s pink-and-blue tiles are cracked like cobwebs, the paint is chipping off the walls, and every desk, every chair — is empty. He coughs. Slowly, with unyielding precision, he walks toward the row of windows. Upon peering outside, he realizes — or at least believes — that he is the only person for thousands of miles. Utterly alone, honest to God. Fear bursts like a dam in his chest; the windows shatter, and he drowns in little glass shards. Wind howls. He winces, collapsing as he is whipped with furious blasts of hot air, hands trembling as he shields his stinging eyes. He can’t help it. He’s petrified, and he hates himself for the fact.
Empty. Empty. Empty. A mantra. Alone. Alone. Alone.
Don’t you want anything? Aren’t you going to try? Don't you miss love? Do you want to be loved?
I hear you. I listen. Nobody else listens.
He doesn’t think he could stand, even if he wanted to — so, he curls up, rounding his shoulders forward in a fruitless attempt to protect himself from gusts of wind and smoke. He smells fire. He smells fear, too, sweat and adrenaline, something he must address now, right now. But he is paralyzed by his own design, and even as his face is nipped with frost and his lungs steam up, he can hear things. Not words. They’re the chitterings of an eldritch beast, teeth and tongues, but his brain parses the noise with ease. Familiar. That’s what it is, is familiar.
Sweet boy. You’ll feel better, soon.
Will chokes on his own heaving gasps of air. It’s so cold, but he’s sweating and his blood feels like it’s boiling. His body is a symphony of the senses, none of which are even remotely pleasant: sore eyes, broken legs, pooling brains. He screws his eyes shut and prays to fall unconscious.
It all melts away to nothing.
He hears scraping linoleum, so he opens his eyes. There's something propped underneath his head. As he shifts, he recognizes the tough, bunched fabric to be a bookbag. He’s on his side, and as he sits up (wearily so, with the whole of the world spinning on its axis), he spots Lucas — and that’s Dustin, he knows Dustin — having an argument. The latter brandishes a wooden ruler.
“You’ve got to put something in his mouth,” Dustin explains, “so he doesn’t shatter his teeth.”
“That sounds so wrong it isn’t even funny,” says Lucas. “Did anyone set a timer?”
“Me,” says a student Will doesn’t recognize — or doesn’t care to, at least. The room falls silent as he attempts to stand. He knows he’s fragile, pale, because more than a few hands reach to steady him by the shoulders. There’s so much light today. Has the world always been a UV bulb? He winces, once more attempting to shield his eyes — but somebody is gripping him by the arm.
The offender’s eyes are black as pitch, just like his hair, and his freckles have all but disappeared under an anxious flush. His shirt is the sort of blue Will recognizes from Van Gogh’s famous oils, the teal, a teal he thinks is awfully pretty. That’s all he can stand to think about for a long time. Irises. He’s seen the collection, but only in books. Never in person.
It’s only natural that the very next thing he does is retch. Fortunately he doesn’t make a mess — thank God he already lost his breakfast — but it’s a horrible enough sound as it is, and the crowd leaps back. Mike lets go in a panic. Lucas, to his credit, scrambles for the nearest wastebasket; Will graciously accepts, flashes a fake smile, and afterward sticks his head directly inside. He could stay like this forever, and there would be no need to come out and face anybody or anything ever again. He can be quietly strange. A piece of furniture. Gray noise.
“Will,” says Dustin, touching his back. “Buddy. Let’s see the nurse, ‘kay?”
“I’m fine.” He knows how he sounds, but he somehow can’t stop himself from prattling on. “Really, I am.” As if to prove his point, he finally raises his head, and he is immediately presented with the pink-lipped, short-lashed girl. His stomach churns. He feels himself start to shake. For a moment, he thinks he is about to be launched into the empty, cold place again — but he isn’t, and instead, Dustin helps him to his feet.
“Get off.” Will attempts to shirk him off until he realizes he’s causing a scene. “I — I can walk myself, please.”
“You just died,” says fox-girl, sounding horrified.
Dustin pulls a face. “Well, he didn’t — he didn’t die, if he’d died, he—”
“God, does it matter?” Mike’s voice. Will wishes his stomach wouldn’t drop the way it does. “He’s white as a fucking sheet. Let me—”
“—I’ll take him,” interjects Dustin, and before anything else terrible can happen he steers Will the hell out of the classroom by his shoulders. Will wants to be indignant about it, but he can’t. His head is pumped full of helium. It’s all he can do just to trudge along, feeling watched. Surely he is just that — to think otherwise would be misguided at best. Still, those are worldly problems.
Better. Soon.
He thinks of the girl, and her name appears at the very back of his head in neon lights: Eleanor. But, no, that’s not quite right. Erith. Emily. Em?
“You’re dragging your feet,” says Dustin.