Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Diary entry - 1

How would you feel if you came back from the upside down, which is the worst place you can be on, while being only 12 years old and for people and your peers to label you zombie boy? Not so good right? To be completely ignored by your friends just because they got girlfriends now. When you are just trying to connect with them, to make them see what you went through. What I went through.

This isn’t good. I feel the Mind Flayer almost every time. I am never going to be safe from him. He is going to track me down and kill me. I want to tell this to someone, anyone but my mom. She has been through so much and I can’t see her suffer more. But what about my friends? What about Dustin, Lucas? What about Mike? Why can’t he see how in pain I am? Why is he always favoring El every time we are hanging out? What does she have that I don’t? I have known him more than he has known El and he still favors her?

I am sad. And I feel guilty, bad, pathetic for even feeling this.

Whatever.

Will stood up from his chair and threw the diary on the ground. Tears pooled around his eyes, every time he thought about what had happened to him. And what else he could think about? All those images swirling around his head, the mind flayer in him. He could not think about anything else, because he was in it, at any given time. No matter how hard he tried.

There was a knock at the door, Will sniffed, smelling the dried paint and opened the door. Joyce was standing, her mouth forming a shape of a sympathetic smile and patted Will’s arm slightly, “How are you doing, baby? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, mom, everything is fine, I am okay,” He lied.

“Honey, you should know by now that you can share possibly anything that there is with me, right? You don’t have to feel conscious or anything like that, I love you, and you can tell me anything,”

“Yeah, mom, I know, I’m fine, I promise, do not worry about me. What is it you came for again? Laundry?”

“Uh, well, dinner’s ready and El’s waiting for you. Do you want to join us?” Joyce said.

“Um, yeah, be down in a bit,” Will said feebly.

Joyce nodded and went downstairs. Will let the door shut itself and threw himself on the bed. His eyes burned, his throat itchy and his hands shaking. He absolutely hated lying to Joyce but he made a promise to himself that he would not burden anyone with his trauma because it was his fault. Not theirs. He washed his face before coming downstairs.

“Hi, Will.” El said with a mouthful of risotto.

“Hey, Jane,” Will whispered and gave Joyce a weak smile.

He slopped a spoonful of risotto on his off-white plate, making a splotching sound. It seemed like everything reminded him of his days in the upside down. He gulped and sat down.

“So, Will, anything new happening in school? Make any new friends?” Joyce asked, trying to make the dinner a little less awkward and silent.

“School’s fine, and no friends, I don’t want to make new friends. I already have them.” Will replied, taking a bite of the risotto. It lacked salt. But tasted nice. He didn’t ask for the salt shaker.

“We have a new project coming up, we have to choose someone from history to be our idol, it’s a visual aid project,” El chimed in.

“Wow, that sounds amazing, what have you got so far, El?” Joyce asked with a hint of smile in her answer. She was proud of Eleven to have been enrolled in a school and engaging herself in activities. She sometimes thought she could help Eleven the way she could’ve helped Will.

“It’s a surprise, I want it to be a surprise for Will.” El said, stopping in between words to be sure she used the correct grammar.

“Uh, I don’t care that much El, you can tell mom.” Will said, not looking up from his plate.

“Will, that’s not very nice of you to say. El, I am sure Will is excited for your project, even though he doesn’t show it,” she held El’s hand and squeezed it.

The truth was Will cared. Will cared that El would show him her project. Seeing the happiness of El was probably one of the few things he cared about anymore. She had been through so much, just like him. But he thought he would scare her away. He wanted to share everything with El but couldn’t. The Mind Flayer wouldn’t let him.

Trying to change the subject, Will asked, “Where’s Jonathan?”

“I don’t know, probably with his friends,”

“Friend. Argyle,” El said.

“Yeah,” Will nodded and the dinner turned out exactly Joyce would’ve hoped it wouldn’t. Awkward and silent.

Chapter Text

Diary Entry - 2

“The roll, it was a seven,” that’s the only normal thing I remember, before it all went to shit. I wish I could savor it a bit more before being dragged into the upside down, where everything changed and I could never be the same again.

Sometimes I close my eyes and think about the time when Mike and I used to be best friends. When he actually cared about me and played D&D with me. Now all he does is… I don’t even know what he does because he never responds to my letters. He responds to all of Eleven’s, but not mine. Does he not miss me? Does he not care about what I went through? Am I not worthy enough of his time?

Despite all of this, I am making him a present for when he comes to meet us, meet Eleven. I know he is not going to bring me anything or even acknowledge my presence, but I hope what I am thinking is not true, I don’t want to be just forgotten by him, not some just kid who he was best friends with him and suddenly stopped talking just because he got a girlfriend and the friend faded into the background. I don’t deserve that. I think.

“Okay class, we will be starting our English Year with an essay writing project. Now, you all are freshmen I expect you all to have some writing skills. But don’t worry if you think your work is not up to the mark, this is why you come to school. To learn. Do not be afraid to make mistakes. The topic of the essay is ‘friendship and what it hinges on’.” The students groaned at the title. Such a silly title for high school students. “Now, I know you all think you are big kids, even adults from what I understand by the absolute vulgar language you guys use, but I want you to think about friendship and think about how important it is in your life. A friendship is a more important relationship than a romantic one. But why is that? And do friendships evolve into romantic ones and why do they do that. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. There is no word limit for the essay as it is just a thought building exercise and you can’t put a limit on thoughts, but please, students at least write 1300 words, is that clear? The due date is three weeks from now, so I expect it to be good, work hard!” Ms. Park’s words bounced off the walls and fell into the ears of unresponsive students who idly sat in their desks fidgeting their pencils. The bell echoed and soon there was a shuffling of steps.

“Um, Miss Park?” a voice called out.

“Yes?” she looked up from her purse and saw a lanky boy standing Infront of her. “Oh, Will Byers, right?”

“Uh, yeah, I had a question,”

“Go for it,”

“Can I add a visual component to the essay? Like a comic strip?”

“Oh,”

“Uh yeah when you said that there’s no limit to thought I wondered if I could add one, but I will write the essay too, just was wondering…. if that’s okay?” Will said.

“um, I can’t see why not, Will. I hadn’t thought of that and it sounds great! I can’t wait to read your essay, have fun with it,” Miss Park smiled and Will nodded.  

Chapter Text

Diary entry – 3

What makes someone a good person? Are they born good or is it because of their environment where they live their early years, shaping them, giving them habits they can’t bear to leave? Am I a bad person? Can as insignificant as one week can shape me into a bad person? I had an okay childhood; I like to think. Aside from the fact that my father just outed me by looking at me and my clothes. Wow, I have never said that out loud before. But did he really out me? Or just insult me? That’s a tough question to crack. Let’s dwell on that after this.

SO! I have a project to do. On friendship and what it is. I am torn on what to do. Because well, I don’t have any friends in this strange place. And the friends I do have did have, they’ve forgotten me. So, what is friendship? Is it longing for your friend to send you a letter or at least give you a call every once in a while? Or is it looking out the window onto the clouds thinking about how they always used to place you first and now they don’t even think twice while doing the things with their new friends that was once sacred to you? I feel not okay. This project is going to take its toll on me. But what’s a little more?

I feel this diary is a very sorry piece of shit. I don’t feel like much to do these days. The fact that he forgot my birthday. I want to know the reason. Why. Why did he just forget about me. Was it because of the distance? Or I remind him of something he doesn’t want to see?

--

“Hey, Byers, right?” a bubbly voice called me. I slammed my locker door and turned towards the voice. A girl standing nothing but five feet wearing the pinkest sweater I had ever seen in my life.

“Yeah?”

“Hi, I am Clare, sophomore, you?” she asked.

“Will, freshman,”

She looked at me with quizzical eyes. “You don’t talk a lot, do you?”

I just nodded. I wanted to get this over with, I wanted to sit in a class and zone out not having conversations in the hallway with the most girly girl I had ever seen.

“Do you want to bunk the class? I have some great ideas on how you might want to spend this day,”

“No offence, but I barely know you, Clare, and I don’t want to bunk the class, so can I go?”

She sighed, unzipped her (very) pink bag, took out a printed page and smashed it into my chest. “Come if you want, or go to whatever boring class you are so very interested in going. God!”

She turned the other way and ran towards the door, accompanied by a few other students.

I uncrumpled the paper and it was written there in heavy cursive letters, ‘come if you dare, stay if you please but for the love of fuck, don’t stay hidden,’ as if I would go to that.

In that moment, I made a split-second decision. Something I had not done in a long time. I aimed for the door and yelled ‘wait for me!’ Clare turned around and grinned. “Run, Byers, run for your life!” she screamed.

The cabin was around a mile away from school and into the woods. I should not have trusted a total pink stranger but here I was, walking sheepishly into the woods with them, just for the fun of it. Clare had her arm around an androgynous body’s waist who was wearing a beanie with a flannel shirt and black jeans. With Clare there were almost five more people and they were all screaming and laughing as they were going. I felt like turning back but for some reason I didn’t.

I asked a boy who was close to me, “any idea where we’re going?”

“you’ll see,”

In about five minutes we reached the cabin and androgynous body opened the door. As I walked inside, I was hit with a strong scent of perfume and chips and coke.

“Welcome to our world. Where you can be whoever you choose to be,” Clare beamed. “All of my fellow friends, today, we welcome a new member to our world. Make him feel welcomed!”

And just like that, everyone started introducing themselves to me.

“Hi, I am Marie,”

“Hi, Jacob”,

“Hi, Adeline,”

And just like that, I found my people.

--

Jane looked at me weird as we reached home.

“I didn’t see you at school today,”

“Oh, but I did see you,” I lied.

“there’s glitter on your shirt,”

“Oh, art project,”

She tilted her head but didn’t say anything.

Chapter Text

Diary entry – 4

Hiiiiiii,

I am happy in a really long time today!!! Who knew that just a little chat with some eccentric people would make me feel so good!! I hope these days come often.

Clare is amazing by the way. She’s a lesbian. She told me so carelessly without feeling any shame at all. She is so amazing. She has a girlfriend too, but she lives in another county. They meet up twice or thrice a week!

When I asked her why did she ask me to come, she said that she sensed I needed someone to talk to. All the other ‘members’ of the group are ‘queers’ too. They use the term as if its really common, like girl, boy or love. They told me that they love being queer.

Who knew something that I hated being called is actually a term that’s totally normal?? Adeline says that her mother doesn’t say anything about her liking girls and boys. She says she’s been out since middle school. They are free to love whoever they want and that they do not care about anyone calling them anything.

They told me I could always come here ( the cabin=their lair ) if I felt like the walls were closing in. I felt like that was my Castle Byers. Or is it too soon for that?

Jacob and Spencer are dating. Spencer is non-binary. They say that they don’t feel like a gender. I think that is pretty cool. I don’t know much about it but I am happy that they are happy.

I feel so giddy…!!!

Haha!!! I am so happy I feel like I have just been resurrected and placed in heaven!!

I LOVE MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!

I closed my journal and hopped off the bed to have dinner.

“Good evening, mom” I said as I took a plate off the counter.

“Good evening, Will, how are you?”

“I am good, mom, really good,”

Mom smiled and served me three pieces of chicken and bread. Just as she was serving, Jane also came out of her room and smiled at us.

“Hi, Jane, how are you? How was school?” I asked her.

“Okay, how was yours?”

“Really good,”

Mom, Jane and I ate a hearty meal while mom was glancing at me and smiling. Just like she did when I was little and would come after a campaign.

“So, El, do you want to come shopping with me today? I want to pick out a few clothes,” I cut the chicken piece with my knife.

“I don’t have anything today, I could come,”

“Amazing!”

Jane looked at me. She smiled. And I felt a surge of emotions that made my lunch a lot better.

“I think Will has found some friends,” Jane said.

I choked on my food.

“Easy, Will, have you? That is amazing. Are you trying to impress someone?” Mom asked, winking at me but failing adorably.

“Kind of,” I trailed off. There was a truth to it.

--

Jane and I went to a department store called “Clothes: something you wear”. It had a big picture on the front of a boy and a girl standing really still with no poses. The picture was black and white but the clothes were vibrant green and blue.

“Pretty,” Jane whispered.

I nodded and we entered the store. The entire store was something I never imagines “Clothes: something you wear” would ever have. There was not a single dull colour in sight. Everything was coated with vibrant colours, from the walls to phones, from pants to shirts.

“Jane, what do you call this?” I asked, smiling.

“A contrast!”

I am proud of Jane.

“these are all so pretty, what colour do you have in mind?” she asked.

“something that catches people’s attention”

In the end, I bought 3-4 pink, light purple and yellow t-shirts and Jane bought a simple blue dress. She said she is lately into blues.

We walked on the side of the road while chatting about what was taught in school and I took a mental note of revising it as soon as I reached home.

“Will?”

“Yes?”

“I am happy that you are happy. Can I meet your friends some time?”

I hesitated, but said, “yeah, anytime you say,”

Jane smiled and grabbed my hand, giving it a small squeeze.