Chapter Text
Chapter One: Will
When Nancy Wheeler suggested we all stay at their house, I nearly threw up in her kitchen sink (which happens to be where we’re all gathered—me, Mike, Nancy, Jonathan, El, my mom, and, weirdly, Hop—he refuses to go back to his cabin just yet).
“Um…really? Is that a good idea, what with El and all?” My eyes dart back and forth between her and Mike, whose gazes seem to be purposefully looking anywhere but at each other. Ever since we’ve returned to Hawkins, something’s been a little off with them. I can’t quite figure out what it is. Post-love confession, I’d assume everything’d return to normal. Or at least, as normal as it could get.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mom responds, hurrying over to where El sits at the Wheeler’s dining room table. She puts the back of her hand up to El’s forehead, as if checking her temperature.
“Did something else happen? Since we got back?” El shakes her head a little, a swift no, while I rush to cover up what I meant.
“No! No. I just meant that she’s still recovering and it might be nice for her to get to rest in Hopper’s cabin. Since that’s where she used to live, she might be more comfortable…” my voice trails off as everyone looks my way, uncomprehending. Jonathan raises an eyebrow at me before wrapping a hand around Nancy’s waist.
“I think what Will’s trying to say is that it’s a very generous offer, but…there’s so many of us. El needs to rest, and we’d kind of be a lot of people to put up. We don’t want to put that on you or your parents.”
“Yes!” I nearly shout, relieved. My hands fiddle with the hem of my button-up. Then, quieter: “that’s all I was trying to say.”
“Okay, well, that’s ridiculous,” Nancy interjects. “You wouldn’t be a burden at all, and plus, in case you don’t remember—Hop’s cabin has a giant hole in it. I don’t think that would be too habitable.”
Mom looks at me, then at Hop, who lifts his chin. “I can find a hotel room for me, if you’re really okay with hosting Joyce and the kids. El and I will figure something out eventually.” He looks fondly over at his daughter, then glances back to Nancy. “You’d have to check with your parents first, though.”
“Of course,” Nancy nods, then turns to El. “You can stay in the basement. Jonathan, you’ll stay in my room—”
“Nope! Not happening.” My mom gives Nancy a glare I’d hate to see directed my way. Mike’s sister only rolls her eyes.
“Fine. Holly will sleep with me, and Jonathan can stay in her room for now. Joyce, you can take the guest bedroom.” Then she turns.
“Will, you’ll stay with Mike.”
My face flushes and I clasp my hands into fists at my sides, hoping against hope that red isn’t creeping into my cheeks. Amidst everything happening—Max’s comma, the literal holes in the ground outside that descend into smoke—sharing a room with my supposed best friend should not be the thing that causes anxiety to snake around my ankles and up my calves. And yet, before Nancy said that, I wasn’t rooted to the ground. Right now, on the other hand…
I sneak a look over at Mike, who’s softly clapping his hands against his thighs and looking around the room—at the dining table, at the toaster, at the carton of milk left on the counter—anywhere but at me. Finally, his gaze lands on Nancy.
“Cool.” He nods.
“All right, then. El, follow me. I’ll show you where the bedsheets are. And you can borrow some of my clothes…though I’m pretty sure you know where my closet is.” El smiles softly, and I think back to the way the party described her when they first met: sopping wet, and in a yellow t-shirt that seemed to swallow her whole. Whenever Mike talks about the blonde wig and pink dress she borrowed, he always smiles. My life started that day we found you in the woods. I smother the urge to strangle Mike, the same urge I always get when I think back to the way he said that, to the soft look in his eyes. The very same day I thought I was going to die, hell, the day I thought I was already dead—that’s the day his life began. I swallow the coal in my throat. Since his confession, I’ve been trying to keep my distance. For a moment in that van, when he was unrolling my painting, I thought there was a small, minuscule possibility he felt the same way I did. Now, I hear his voice: I love you El. Do you hear me? I love you.
I sigh, thinking about the fact that we’re about to spend the next couple nights in the same cramped room together. So much for keeping my distance.
El looks my way before following Nancy around the corner. She knits her eyebrows together, as if to ask, you okay? I nod slightly and she disappears.
Once the others begin to disperse—Jonathan to Holly’s room, mom and Hop to the guest room—Mike finally looks at me.
“Alright,” he says, before getting up off his chair to start towards the stairs. I stand for a moment, unsure where to step without cracking the awkward tension building up inside my bones, when Mike turns around at the base of the banister. “You coming?”
I nod, too fast to be normal, but if he notices he doesn’t say anything. He just starts climbing, and I shuffle towards him. We walk to his room in silence, and when we get there, he just flops himself on his bed and asks if I could shut the door behind me. I do, and then I scuffle over to where he lies, sprawled out over the comforter. I sit on the edge, ever-so-aware of my body, or rather, its proximity to his.
Mike takes a ball off his bedside table, the kind that’s made entirely of rubber bands. He starts tossing it up into the air, then catching it again. Toss, catch. Toss, catch. He’s wearing a blue pull-over, the same one from our cross-country road trip. I’m not sure how—I want to burn my clothes from that god-awful pizza van. He doesn’t seem to mind, though. The hem of it is riding up with each toss, exposing a strip of bare skin just above his jeans.
I try not to stare. The silence stretches between us, thick and tangible and god I just need to say something. Anything, really. But he beats me to it.
“Hey, can I ask you a question?”
“What’s up?”
“Well, you know how you said El commissioned that painting you made? The one of the dragon, and my shield, and…everything?”
“Yeah?” My heartrate spikes.
“Well, I asked her about it.”
Ah, shit.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, and it’s funny, because she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.” The blood rushes to my face, heating my cheeks and my ears until I get the vague feeling that this is how Vecna must have felt post-upside-down flambé. Absolutely on fire.
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.” Mike stops tossing the ball in the air and sits up, propping himself into a seated position with his elbows. I stare at my shoes. “It’s weird, because when we first talked after her fight with Vecna, I told her how much the painting meant to me. How her seeing me as the heart gave me the courage to tell her how I felt.”
I’m silent.
“And then she said…well, she didn’t so much say. She just asked me, what painting?”
Oh. So that’s why I haven’t seen them talking too much after Mike told her he loved her.
“And then I tried to explain, I said, the one you commissioned from Will. And she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.”
“That’s weird.” I say, weakly. “Maybe she forgot?”
Mike searches my face with such intensity that for a second I think he’s going to reach out and touch me, the way he did in Hop’s cabin. I feel my shoulder tingle, as if the ghost of his hand is still there. He doesn’t touch me, though. Instead, his voice grows hard. He looks directly in my eyes.
“Why would you lie about that?” I freeze, stumbling over my thoughts in an attempt to find an answer that might make sense, other than, of course, the truth. He’s staring at me, his eyes scrunched together in a look that I can’t decipher. Is it anger? Or…no, it wouldn’t be concern. It can’t be.
“Boys! Hopper’s leaving!” All of a sudden, I hear my mom’s voice coming from downstairs. “Come say bye!”
“One minute!” Mike hollers, before I can respond. He scoots a little closer to where I’m at the edge of the bed, lays his fingers down next to where mine are pressed down for stability on the comforter. Our hands are one, maybe two inches away from each other. He lowers his voice.
“I just…I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t you tell me, if it was something you made yourself? Why say El made it?”
“I thought…” I pause, then sigh. “I didn’t want to make things weird.” I turn my head away, looking towards the door.
“Why would that make things weird?” Mike asks, and his voice is so genuine. His hands rise to my shoulder, hovering there, and I can feel the warmth emanating from his wrist. Then, as if re-thinking, he lowers it back onto the bed. But when he does, his pinkie lands on mine. It could be a mistake, just an accident, but every nerve in my body is focalized on that one spot where his skin lays against me. I wish I could tell what he’s thinking.
I have no idea how to respond, but thankfully I don’t have to.
“Boys!” My mom calls. “Now!”
I take one last look at Mike, shrugging vaguely, before standing up to head downstairs. He sighs.
“Alright, but this conversation isn’t over.”
I walk out the door, pretending not to hear.