Chapter Text
Mike
Jonathan sits across from Mike at the kitchen table, inhaling coffee and beating his laptop keys to death. He practically lives at his younger brother’s house during exam season, and ever since the head of the arts department suggested closing their dark rooms to “shift focus away from analog”, he’s gone on the warpath.
Nancy and Mike have an agreement: when a Byers starts frothing at the mouth, whoever’s husband it is, they are Mike “the better listener”’s problem. Mike knows it’s an excuse. He’s not a better listener than Nancy by a long shot. But he is working from home, and she’s in federal court and absolutely Does Not have time for her husband’s university drama.
‘Industry-relevant skills, bullshit,’ Jonathan mutters under his breath. Mike looks up and accidentally meets his eye. Will passes the kitchen door holding the switch and Mike listens longingly to the animal crossing soundtrack as it travels down the hall. Jonathan fires up.
‘It’s art school, none of the students care about hireable skills. The board thinks we’re just there to funnel kids into advertising or interior design, they don’t give a shit about artistry or respecting the medium. Do you know how many students apply for the print photography course every year?’
Mike realises that Jonathan wasn’t asking in the hypothetical, and hurriedly says No.
‘More than there are applying for Dennis’s marketing and design theory, that’s for sure. I had to implement a waiting list for the dark rooms and he’s trying to get rid of them. Fucking marketing and design theory. Design my ass. What a shill.’
Mike makes a noncommittal noise. Jonathan knows that he’s supplementing his income with corporate and promotional writing. But Jonathan also knows that Will and Mike share health insurance and Will’s got long covid, so Mike knows the odds of him catching strays for also being a shill are quite low.
‘What’s the point of running an art school if you’re not going to devote any resources to the arts?’ Jonathan continues. His grumbling slows down when Will enters the kitchen and makes a beeline for the coffee machine.
‘Devotion with conditions isn’t devotion at all,’ Will says, deadpan.
‘Yeah,’ Jonathan says after a brief pause.
There are no further instances of minor eccentricity on Will’s part until Jonathan goes to leave after dinner. The three of them are standing by the front door making tribute to a favourite argument (Will’s career: a nonissue in his and Mike’s marriage, because the less career-oriented Will is, the more like a breadwinner Mike feels). Jonathan fishes in his bag for his keys and leans against the fence, unhurried.
‘At least tell me you’re answering your emails. I hear things through the grapevine. Squirrel Girl is practically cast, and they brought you back for the special edition covers, didn’t they? Like five times? Come on, how much did your original panels go for at auction?’
‘Comics publication and film are separate companies,’ Will says for the tenth time. Mike uses his open jacket as an excuse to wrap an arm around Will, who is shivering lightly in the early evening breeze. Will leans into him, and warmth spreads through his body like he’s sunk into a bath.
‘I know. I’m just saying, your design choices made that character. And it’s not as if you’re not known for great concept art.’ Jonathan does his encouraging half-smile, the one he’s been offering Will since they were both kids. ‘You draw great squirrels.’
Will hums. ‘When the universe contemplates beauty, it images the silhouette of the squirrel,’ he says cryptically. Then he eases himself out of Mike’s loose grip and goes back inside.
Jonathan shoots a concerned look at Mike. Mike shrugs and follows Will inside. He’s tired, and whatever it is, he’s sure it’s fine.
Eleven
‘Will this world meet its reckoning, beheld only by the lonely eyes of the damselfly?’
El, who has long since given up trying to understand what speech patterns make people most comfortable, can sense something peculiar in the way Will talks.
Most of the time he is his usual self, but every now and then, the strangest things come out of his mouth. It’s the episodic rate of occurrence that bothers her. The last time Will went through brief periods of out-of-character behaviour, it was because he was literally not himself.
She knows Henry Creel is long dead. The two facts remain that he existed in the first place, and that Will has a vulnerable mind.
‘Are you okay?’ she asks. Will raises his eyebrows, then recognises her expression of concern and smiles softly.
‘I’m fine,’ he says. ‘What about you? You missed last game night.’
There is something wrong.
She can’t tell what it is. Everything, but not. The sky and the earth and everything in between is just a little too far forward. It’s not the Everything that is wrong. Maybe it’s her, but if it’s her it’s also Will, because neither of them are really here, or meant to be.
But the sun is out, and they are sitting on their favourite bench with a view. From up here they can see downtown spread out like a blocky ocean beyond the bushes and the young birch trees, some still protected from the wind by pink plastic sheet barriers. This park was only planted six years ago, after the ground had been stable for two decades and the apocalyptic upheaval of Hawkins was but a painful memory. People even moved in, rather than out of town, these days. A mycology foundation had built a test site on top of the old pumpkin field, and the unique spores and rot that once inspired cult-like religious paranoia were having their genotypes identified by Masters students who travelled interstate to write their thesis on odd ephemeral organisms and the geological phenomena that apparently produced them.
El herself is leading a project, because laboratories aren’t so bad, she found, if you choose to be there. If there’s an ethics committee, and a coffee machine and a nearby park, and a lab assistant who brings her dog in to say hi on weekends.
Sixteen year old El would never have chosen to work in a lab, let alone spend five days a week there. Sixteen year old El …
El is a teenager. Isn’t she?
‘Something’s wrong,’ she says cautiously. Will’s forehead pinches in concern and he looks at, then through, her.
‘Yeah,’ he says vaguely. Then he shakes his head like he’s loosening dust. ‘I don’t know. What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ she says. Eventually. She pulls a leaf off the bush behind her and thinks she should stop by the post office. They ran out of disposable eyedroppers last week and have been waiting on a delivery.
Will this world meet its reckoning, beheld only by the lonely eyes of the damselfly? It was an unusual thought for Will to have, let alone to express. She doesn’t think her brother wants to think about the end of the world. They already had to live through it, once. Long ago.
Wasn’t it?