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Joyce announces that they’re returning to Lenora three months after El sends Vecna to whatever hell he belongs in and closes the gates to the Upside Down, for good this time. Logically, Will knows why they have to: for one, all their possessions are still in the shot-up house left deserted from two years ago now. As much as he loves living with Mike, it’d be nice to have some of his clothes and art supplies back.
Secondly, both him and El are quite a bit behind in their schooling.
Not to belittle the importance of a high school education, but quadratic formulas and doing line-by-line analysis of Shakespeare’s Macbeth hadn’t really been at the forefront of his mind when Hawkins was split down the center by a jagged portal to hell. It had glowed bright like blood from a vivisection deep into the earth, and all his focus had been on the flesh-eating creatures that could climb out at any second.
Now, with all that solved, he supposes that they’ve moved down to the next level on their pyramid of teenage obligations: getting a diploma (quite a large step down from “surviving the apocalypse”, Will muses). Unfortunately, “closing an evil portal to the underworld” doesn’t look quite as good as it sounds on a college application.
Neither Will nor El are happy about returning to Lenora, but Hawkins High is currently nothing but a sunken pile of rubble and sticky black slime. Will knows it isn’t fair to say “you kind of did this yourself” to El when she’d brought it down while literally saving the world, but, well. She kind of did this to herself.
The Byers’ move is temporary; they’re going back to clean up, sell the house, and retrieve their things back to Hawkins. Because of that, most of the pre-move moping isn’t about the separation of their party, but rather the time Will and El have coming up in high school.
During the true peace they had after defeating Vecna, for what feels like the first time since Will was 12, he’d had time to really sit, and think, and talk a little. And he’d thought a lot—about his new relationship with Mike, about what his life will be like moving on, and now that they’re going back to school, about bullies.
Will has loaded and aimed a gun at a Demogorgon, has stood his ground and yelled at the mind flayer, has had darkness invade his mind and trap him inside his own body over and over again, and still nothing makes him freeze up like someone his age spitting slurs or shoving him down.
He feels stupid for letting some bullying get to him when he tells himself it doesn’t matter (and he knows it doesn’t matter) but when he’s in the moment and surrounded by judgmental, insecure teens, who dress better than him and can act less awkward than him it all bothers him so, so much.
Still, he knows that going to high school in Lenora had been a hundred times worse for El than it had been for him, and so most of his annoyance is on her behalf. She was especially mopey the first couple days after Joyce had announced that they were returning to Lenora, and for good reason—the last time El was there she’d bashed a girl’s head in with a skate and gotten arrested. (Will’s actually rather proud of his sister for standing up for herself).
During a sleepless night a couple days later, when they both knew the other was awake and sought out each other’s silent comfort, El confessed that she was scared of other teenagers because she didn’t know why they were mean to her. They were huddled in a haphazard blanket fort in Will’s room, just big enough for the fit to be cozy instead of claustrophobic.
It was easy enough for her to fling trucks and snap necks with a flick of her hand, but talking to another girl? It was like asking for the impossible.
Trapped in a lab since birth and then a relationship after she was barely free for a year, El has only recently started growing into her own person. El knows that she likes comics and ice cream, wearing colors that pop and clash, and collecting shiny rocks and bright flowers. She likes painting with her brother, and watching TV with her parents.
She doesn’t want to change, and she doesn’t’ even want to fit in, not really—she wants to not be stared at like a freak, to not be purposefully excluded or whispered about. She wants to be liked, just like everyone else, but for who she now knows she is.
And so actually, maybe no—she’s not scared because she doesn’t know why the other students at school are mean. She’s scared because she does know why they’re mean, and the only way for them to stop is if she peels off every layer of what makes her El.
El has always been brave. She’s the mage of their party, the one who always saves the day and throws everyone behind her at the barest hint of danger. But she doesn’t have to be brave anymore, and maybe she should never have needed to be in the first place. But what’s gone and done can’t be changed, and maybe just this once, moving forward, Will can be the one to protect her.
It’s their first day back at school, and things already aren’t going too well.
It turns out that getting arrested for cracking someone’s skull open like a fresh-steamed crab and then your whole family disappearing after a shoot-out in front of an entire street of spectating neighbors encourages all sorts of rampant rumors.
They’re being dramatic, will huffs crossly after he hears someone whisper loudly that they’re fake children of Russian spies, and it gets a little smile out of El.
She’s a little more confident than she was last time they walked these halls. A part of it is that fighting in the frontlines of an apocalypse that’s haunted you for years really puts everything in perspective, and another part is that El has her powers back.
With the journey that’d come with getting her powers back, she’d also gained a new sense of independence; she’s grown a core still soft and molten but undeniably solid on the inside. It’s her, equally unchangeable as it is shaped by everyone’s she’s been touched by and has touched in turn.
She’d simultaneously gained her powers back while at the same time grown out of them.
Some snot-nosed boy driving a car bought with daddy’s money doesn’t seem quite so scary when you’ve got the power to turn someone inside out if you really wanted to.
Nevertheless, Will can tell that El’s uncomfortable under everyone’s curious stares. It was a little funny at first, when the first couple people to recognize them from freshman year did a double-take so fast it was as if they’d seen a pair of ghosts. But as they entered the schoolyard and past the front doors, the number of students, their proximity, the noise, the glaring fluorescent lights— it was all a little much.
Some of the students look as if they don’t know whether to make fun of her or ask her what happened. (They find out the answer rather quickly when someone tries to trip El on their way to first period, and she casually steps over the extended foot. Will internally sighs; it’d be a story much too long to tell, anyway).
Luckily, Will and El have most of their classes together, because their sophomore year’s almost over and all they need is to be there for show while the government forges a year and a half of report card records.
Will had been rather annoyed and asked why they needed to go back to school at all if the government could just forge their records, and he’d honest-to-god thrown up his hands in frustration when the reply was “so if the other government investigates there’s evidence you were here.”
“Aren’t you all the same government ,” he’d cried in exasperation, and the agent had simply given him a pointed look. He thinks of the two factions who fought over El last time there were in Lenora and okay, fair enough. Bureaucracy has never been particularly efficient anyway.
The first three periods go well, everything considered. Will and El stick together like two peas in a pod, one never far from the other. Their first class apart is fourth period, where Will has honors English and El remedial writing. Will walks El to her class first, despite her insistence that it’s fine, Will, I’m not twelve.
“Wait here for me after class and we can go to lunch together, alright?”
“Yes, mom, my gosh. You are going to get wrinkles before the day ends.”
Will knows he’s being a little overprotective, and he knows it’s the exact way he’d hated being treated back when he was fresh out the Upside Down and everyone stepped around him like glass.
But he’s never been one to take his position as older brother lightly, and despite El’s exasperation, there’s a smile on her face. His protectiveness is more coddling and fussing than controlling, and he’d never once crossed any boundaries. She’s never felt like his concern came from a lack of trust, and she finds it rather endearing.
After arriving at his own classroom, Will spends the next hour alternating between watching the clock and doodling in his notebook, trying to convince himself that not watching the clock will make time go faster.
When the bell finally rings, he’s the first to grab his bag and speed out the door. He power-walks all the way to El’s classroom, and his slight trepidation turns to full-blown dread when he sees that the doors are closed, the classroom empty.
He double checks the room number and peers inside, and then jiggles the locked handle even though he knows the classroom is empty. It’s just his luck— the teacher must have left early and shooed everyone out. What he doesn’t understand, and what concerns him most, is that El isn’t waiting for him nearby, and he hadn’t seen her going to find him on his way here.
He turns when several people suddenly brush past him as they run out to the schoolyard, and he immediately knows where his sister’s gone.
Will hurries through the front doors of the school, and his heart sinks when he sees her standing alone in the center of a crowd of students. No—not alone.
It’s like a sick parody of the last time El was here, holding onto her painstakingly crafted diorama and helpless against the very bullies standing in front of her right now. Even from his place on the steps of the main entrance, Will easily recognizes Angela’s crimped blonde hair and the arrogant sneer of her lips.
The only stark difference, one which he remembers the origin of very clearly, is the jagged scar running down the center of her forehead, indentation deep and prominent even under layers of makeup. Her bangs just barely cover the evidence of El’s angry breakdown, and Will can see where the scar ends just above her nose bridge.
He can’t hear the words passing between them, but El must have said something because Angela’s face suddenly twists with anger. She jerks her head at the boy standing next to her, and he stalks forward while cracking his knuckles.
Fuck fuck fuck.
While telling them about their school arrangements, the government agent had also made it explicitly clear that El wasn’t to use her powers at all— not just out of decency to others, but to protect her identity.
Will looks at the way El stands, straight-backed and chin raised in defiance. He can’t see her face, but he knew in that moment that she wouldn’t use her powers. She was never one to listen to authority, but she was also never one to do anything that might harm her family.
Will hates the way his feet feel frozen to the ground, always so useless, just like before, and it’s like he never battled Vecna, never stood up to the mind flayer, and he’s suddenly back to being the scared little child who couldn’t get up without Mike’s help even after his bullies had left.
The boy in front of El raises his fist and El doesn’t move and he’s going to hit her god, El, no no NO-
Will lets out a shout of fear and reaches toward El uselessly, too far, too slow, and suddenly the boy flies backward as if hit by a giant invisible bat. The students standing in his trajectory jump away in panic, and he lands on the pavement with a sickening crack that echoes across the entire schoolyard.
Everyone is stunned silent.
The silence is cut seconds later when the boy starts wailing in pain, clutching his elbow; even from his place outside the crowd, Will can tell that it’s bent at an unnatural angle. The students around him let out horrified gasps when his trembling hand comes away bloody.
Everyone in the schoolyard rushes to surround him in a wave that leaves a careful berth of distance around El, who doesn’t move. She turns around, amidst the sea of people parting around her, and their eyes meet instantly.
He sees, shock, and concern, and relief. He doesn’t know what to feel, what he does feel, but he knows he has to get to El. Now alone, the two siblings run toward each other, and when they meet in the middle Will wraps El in a tight hug.
“I was so worried, El, and-and you weren’t fighting back and I didn’t want it to be like last time—“
“Will, thank you.” El interrupts, and she holds Wills hands tightly in hers. Her warm brown eyes are full of understanding, and it calms down the approaching wave of hysteria Will feels crashing at the brink of his mind.
The split moment of calm is ruined by shrill screams calling for someone to call an ambulance, and the familiar beat of anxiety starts up again in Will’s chest.
“We should get out of here first,” he says, and without another glance back they start running for the parking lot. It feels painfully familiar, the feeling of escaping from a mess and fighting to make their way to a getaway car. Will doesn’t know how Steve had the mental fortitude to be their apocalypse chauffeur and watch six kids for so many years, especially when they’re buckled in and speeding home and the weight of what he’d done finally hits him.
“Oh god,” he whispers, trying his best not to go into full hysterics on the road.
“Will-”
“El, I just broke someone’s fucking arm. I know it was me, I felt it.” Will lets out a strangled laugh and yep, here it comes.
“How did this even happen? God, El, what do I do? What do I tell mom? What if someone figures out what happens and who did it and they send those people after us again—”
“Will, breathe!” El wraps a firm but gentle hand around Will’s arm, grounding him, and when he turns to glance at her she’s looking at him with a concerned frown.
“Whatever we do next, we will do together, okay?”
When Will doesn’t answer, she gives his arm a pointed shake and he lets out a startled yelp when their car swerves to the side.
“El, I’m driving! Are you trying to kill me before mom does?”
“Will.”
Will let’s put a harsh sigh. “Yes, okay, I know. Everything we do, we do together.”
“Good,” El states. She doesn’t let go of his arm, and Will’s secretly glad for it.
“Nobody saw you, and we can just say it was an accident. Mom is here this time, and we will be leaving soon anyway.”
“Maybe we can leave even sooner now,” she adds thoughtfully after a beat of silence, and Will can’t help laughing despite the joke being at his expense.
He spares a quick glance at her again to offer a thankful smile, and she returns it with one just as gentle. El finally removes her hand from his arm, and they spend the rest of the short ride home in silence as Will slowly calms down.
Neither move to get out of the car when Will finally parks on their driveway and pulls the keys out, despite undoing their seat belts. They turn to look at each other, and Will cracks a weak smile.
“Looks like I have a lot to tell Mike when we call tonight,” he says, and El rolls her eyes but she’s smiling all the same.
“I think you should be calling Dr. Owens first.”
She reaches over the center console to place her hand over his, and he can feel a thin current of power flowing between them, crackling like electricity and fluid as water. The power feels warm and comforting; it’s like nothing he’s ever felt before and something as familiar as the blood in his veins. Neither shy away from the touch. Will can’t help but be relieved that El was the first to find out, and that she was with him the entire time.
Even now you’re the one putting on a brave face and protecting me, Will thinks wistfully. Some big brother he’d promised to be.
As if reading his mind, El shakes her head.
“We protect each other, Will. Always.”
“Yeah,” he says, taking a deep breath. “We’ll fix it, together.”
This was all a lot, for a first day back to school. He’d prepared himself for some bullying, for maybe the occasional shove and spitball. He hadn’t woken up today thinking he was going to suddenly manifest psychokinesis and immediately break someone’s arm with it, but he supposes that there’s a first for everything.
A deep, dark part of Will’s heart doesn’t regret it. He wishes it hadn’t ended in violence, but the other boy had been ready to hit El, who had done nothing to fight back; the thought hardens his resolve into a flinty stone, and the look in El’s eyes soften him again. Despite it all, Will can’t think of anyone he’d possibly want as his sister more than El.