Chapter Text
"Knock knock.”
El's door is wide open, the upbeat sounds of ABBA echoing through the hallway. She doesn’t spare him a glance, her focus fixed on the magazine before her with intense interest. Will winces as he sees her attempt to browse through it: a difficult task when trying not to hit a fresh coat of nail polish. The smell of chemicals is overwhelming.
“Knock knock,” he tries again, this time knocking lightly on the doorway to her room. The paint covered wood is littered with glittery stickers and lines tracking the height of “El Hopper-Byers” which is mysteriously increasing each time.
(Will is pretty sure she’s standing more and more on her tip toes each time Joyce comes by with the ruler.)
The second attempt seems to do the trick as she steers her attention towards the noise. At the sight of her brother she lights up.
“Password?” El asks with a smug smile, well aware of having changed it thrice since yesterday. Will give her the best horrified look he can muster, clutching his sketchbook to his chest in a dramatic gesture.
“Are you seriously making your favourite brother need permission to enter your room?” he asks, scoffing as he crosses his arms and leans against her doorway.
El smiles sweetly at him before going back to her magazine, her tongue immediately peeking out in concentration as she tries to turn the page, managing with only light damage taken to the fresh coat.
Glancing around, Will takes in the amount of Muppets themed merchandise scattered around her room. He counts three- no, four posters stuck to her walls, a drawing of Gonzo he faintly remembers sketching whilst they were watching “Muppets take Manhattan”, and their shared project of a homemade sock puppet resembling his sister.
“Something to do with the Muppets,” he concludes.
El gives him a look before rolling her eyes in response; Will is pretty sure he feels a physical wave of sass roll over him.
“I’m not giving you any hints,” she says sternly, picking up a Gonzo-themed pen and circling a muppet themed blanket in her magazine. “That’s cheating.”
Will nods seriously. “Right, password is definitely not Muppets themed,” he says, thinking back to his own nerdy passwords. ‘Radagast’ has always been one of his favourites, lasting at least a month before The Party had held an extremely cool DnD session, and he’d just had to change it to ‘Fireball’.
He doesn’t tell her any of this. That means she’d get to tease him, and they need to even out the current score of 7-13 before he lets that happen.
Instead he racks his brain for his limited Muppet knowledge, cursing his lack of attention when watching the movies, before it hits him.
“Peoples is peoples?”
El cheers, “yay!”, before throwing the magazine into the air in celebration. The pages turn rapidly in the air, and it lands back on the ground in complete disarray, any circled pages long forgotten. She doesn’t spare it a glance, instead scrunching her nose in discontent as she inspects her nail polish: her now very, very chipped nail polish.
Will walks in, dropping his sketchbook beside him before crouching down to sit crisscrossed before his sister. “Do you want me to do it?” he asks, already reaching for the polish remover.
It’s practically routine for them now. Before Will has reached the end of his sentence, El’s already scooted towards him; closing any remaining distance, and stuck out her hand with a nod. “Please,” she says.
They sit in silence for a bit whilst Will begins rubbing the nail polish off El’s fingers. The smell of chemicals starts attacking his nose again and he groans.
“We should really open up a window. This cannot be good for you,” he says, pressing the cotton pad into El’s hand before walking towards the window beside her bed. Getting close enough to open it proves to be a challenge. Will is faced with a good amount of plushies (and of course, a sock puppet) forming a shield around it and blocking his path.
Will turns around to give her a look. “Can you even sleep in your bed?” he asks incredulously. Turning around he picks up one of the plushies: an incredibly fluffy, brown, bunny with floppy ears and a light pink nose.
“Do you like sleeping in a war zone?” Will questions, completely serious as he stares deeply into its eyes. He twists the bunny’s head towards El before shaking it ‘no’ lightly. “There’s no denying that. I can see a deep sadness in his eyes.”
“It’s a girl,” El replies; adding a scoff at the end that sounds suspiciously like a ‘duh’. “And she’s incredibly happy about daily sleepovers with her best friends.”
El stands up, their abandoned nail polish project falling to the ground, and sits on the bed beside Will. She picks up a plushie of her own: a light yellow duck with deep black eyes and a red blush.
“I love it soooo much,” she says, voice pitched in what Will assumes is supposed to be a duck-voice. “Every night we watch the amazing muppet movies and do each other's nails. Do you want me to do your nails, Will?”
“No,” Will laughs whilst shaking his head, “no, I don’t do that.”
El tilts her head alongside the newly-named Mrs. Duck. “Why not?” she asks, or maybe it’s Mrs. Duck, Will’s not too sure: her voice is lacking the puppet-goof she’d enriched it with earlier.
The question makes Will pause, and for a moment he’s reminded that El doesn’t know. She doesn’t know of all the unspoken rules of being a man: what that means. But Will does. Will remembers all of it.
“I’m a man,” he starts, voice slow but steady. These words aren’t new to him, they’re calculated and practiced: the kind of words you whisper to the mirror before bed; the kind of words your father makes sure you never forget. “Men don’t wear nail polish or dresses. Not like you do. That’s a girl thing.”
El blinks at him. “But you’re a boy,” she says, dropping Mrs. Duck into her lap. “Just like I’m a girl, not a woman,” she stresses.
“It’s not the same,” Will defends, his voice fighting its way to his mouth. There’s a certain feeling associated with any thought of Lonnie; barbed wire digging its way towards freedom from inside his throat. It brings an unfamiliar rage to surface that he’s never truly meant: a guarding anger that laces his words without certain intent, attempting to protect something he doesn’t wish to hold onto. “It’s- it’s different with me.”
When faced with a lack of immediate response from El, Will raises his head; the sight of her is blurred with unshed tears, he’s barely able to make out the soft yet pondering look on her face - he’s quick to wipe away any remaining wetness.
“Sorry,” he says, sounding unsure whilst biting his lip in an attempt to keep any unwanted sobs caged. “Sorry, I, I didn’t mean to dampen the mood.” He looks down at Mrs. Duck laying forgotten in El’s lap before picking her up, and giving her a wobbly smile, “sorry missus.”
There’s a moment of silence where Will stares at the plushie in his hands, guilt swallowing him whole from ruining their moment. He sits quietly, pondering how to continue their light banter before El puts a stop to his racing thoughts-
“I don’t think Papa ever saw me as either,” El mutters, voice distant but not unaware; like the words have been constantly lingering in her mind but never spoken aloud. “I don’t think he saw any of us that way; not girls or boys, especially not women and men.” Her gaze falls to her wrist, uncovered by her sweater. She traces the number with gentle fingertips before looking up at Will.
“I’ve never told you much about Papa,” she says, her voice distraught as if her lack of story-telling is rooted in unforgivable malice towards her brother; something Will doesn’t quite know how to handle.
“I’ve never told you anything about Lonnie,” he counters, hoping it’ll bring her a sense of relief. Will feels the barbed wire begins to take form in his throat; the prickling sensation threatening the appearance of tears.
He swallows harshly whilst blinking rapidly.
El doesn’t seem to take his words to heart, her face contouring into a mixture of raw confusion and frustration before settling on determination.
“I trust you,” she says instead. “I want to tell you things.” El gives the surface of her bed a quick once-over, grabbing the nearest blanket; grass-green and fluffy, before shuffling closer to Will, seated hip to hip, and encasing them both in it.
In this moment, everything feels soft and tender, the warmth in Will’s body sourced from the action rather than the heat emitting from the blanket. He snuggles closer to El, turning slightly until her face comes into view. “I trust you too,” he says quietly; his voice nearing a whisper.
It takes a moment before it fully registers what he’s agreeing to share - scarring words hurled from the mouth of the man whose supposed to guide you, moments shared with his brother that they’ve quietly decided never to speak aloud; beliefs taking shape in sharp, shattered glass and barbed wire that Will can’t seem to let go of despite the pain it brings. The uninvited anger surges to the top, a sudden snark taking place in his mouth-
Will looks up at El; a third of his soul; his sister, whose gaze is gentle and comforting all at once; who’s looking right through to his heart and whispering sincere “i know”’s; who’s holding his faults as tightly as she is his rights.
“I’d tell you anything,” he whispers.
El scoots a bit closer at his confession, accidentally knocking their knees together. Both of them dissolve into light giggles at the contact. The small mistake doesn’t shatter the moment, rather it strengthens the current understanding of just being and feeling.
“Do you wanna-”
“Would you like-”
They speak in unison, the giggles quickly turning into uncontrollable snorts as Will leans against El for support. As their laughter dims, he stays resting his head against her own, seeking comfort in each other.
“I don’t think my life started ‘till that day in the woods,” El suddenly whispers, voice muffled to his covered ear. “I don’t think I was considered a girl, maybe not even human. I was just…” she trails off before starting anew. “I found a good man, someone who just wanted to help. I found you, and then I found The Party. I- I got to help someone, and someone helped me - and I messed up, and they messed up, and the world didn’t end. I got to be so… human, for the first time.”
“The feeling of suddenly being free was exhilarating,” she says, voice suddenly light and giddy, her smile sounding clear through her words. A sudden reminder of later events causes the amusement to fade as she continues, “but then- I remember Mike showed me pictures his mom had taken from his childhood. It made me wonder how much I’d missed out on- being a girl… how much I had left of that before it’d be gone.”
Her words bring back memories of their starting conversation; stressing the difference of being young and older suddenly weighing a lot heavier on his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Will says. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean it like that.” He places his hand on her back, rubbing lightly against her sweater. “We’re all here for you, you know? To make up for lost time. We’ll take horribly awkward first-day-of-school pictures and hold plushie tea-parties…” he trails off, unsure if that’s something girls actually do outside of movies. “Whatever girls like you do.”
El turns her head towards him, making Will immediately faceplant into her shoulder with a muffled groan. She flicks him lightly on his head before leaning on his shoulder. “My turn,” she whispers, “thank you.” He sends her a soft smile before locating the bunny he’d been questioning earlier, placing her on his lap as he starts fiddling with her ear.
There’s a lot of unspoken thoughts about Lonnie plaguing his mind, always lingering in the backseat whilst he goes about his day. Will thinks of El’s confession; how personal it was. It’s only fair he follows.
“Sometimes,” Will begins, “I don’t know if-” He chokes on his words; voice rough and unsure as he cradles the bunnies face in his hands, staring deeply into her beaded eyes as if searching. “I’m not sure if I should be mad at Lonnie for- for everything. He wasn’t a father by any means, but he wasn’t- wasn’t wrong.”
“Wrong?” El asks softly, her head moving against Will’s shoulder as she talks.
“Lonnie-, he called me a lot of horrible things. Some of them I didn’t understand back then, but I- I knew that to be them, that was wrong,” Will says, cursing himself when he begins to stutter: he’s always admired how strong El is in her words. “The problem is that he was right. The reason why he didn’t want to- to stick around was me... And he was right about it. Everyone was right about it.”
The words lay heavy in his heart, but light on his tongue; as if finally being spoken aloud meant being set free. Will feels himself relax with a sigh, the weight of his sister against his shoulder grounding.
El lets out a hum whilst considering her words. “I was wrong too,” she says, “about… everything. I never truly did anything right in their eyes, and when I did, I’d done something horrid in everyone else’s.” At the end of her sentence she moves to sit upright, maneuvering around until she’s sat crisscrossed before her brother.
Will stops fidgeting with the bunny in his hands, letting his gaze switch to El instead; his focus falling on the strawberry hairclip holding back her bangs before trailing down to her determined gaze.
“I don’t believe in wrong,” El says, a tough look in her eyes that leaves no place for arguments. “What Papa considered right, Hop considers wrong. What Hop considers right, Papa would have considered wrong.”
She takes Will’s hands in her own, nodding firmly at her own words, “whatever Lonnie considers right, Hop would consider wrong.”
For a moment, Will feels stunned. There’s a guilt lingering in his heart at being comforted rather than being the one comforting, yet there’s also a soft gratitude that’s taken place within him. Any adoration he’s held towards El always seems to double tenfold during interactions with her.
She continues staring at him, her eyes challenging him to object; to dare deny them both of mercy.
“Yeah,” Will finally agrees, although he isn’t too sure of her words. He’s never heard Hopper speak ill of queer people, but he’s also never heard him speak kindly about them either. For a second he considers pointing out the difference to El: that a monster and a sorry excuse of a father don’t quite compare - but the look she continues to survey him with erases it in an instant. “Yeah,” he says instead, “I’m sure he would.”
El rewards him with a smile, satisfied with their conversation. She turns back towards their room, her eyes locating their abandoned nail polish project in the middle of her floor, before turning to face Will again.
“Hop isn’t that kind of father,” she says, voice final. She crawls over her mountain of plushies with ease, successfully opening her window. El looks back at her brother. “Hop’s a good dad, he doesn’t care which of his kids is wearing nail polish.”
Even with his uncertainty towards Hopper's opinions, Will is quick to nod in agreement at his sister's words.
She slides off her bed, walking past the scattered magazine and pulling on her designated nail polish drawer beside her desk; browsing through her many, many, different options.
Despite the rough exterior, Jim Hopper has been kind to the Byers. After permanently moving back to Hawkins, the two families had decided to join forces: the Byers-Hopper household living together in a home not too far from their old one. It’d been.. a difficult beginning, having a new man in their home had proved to be terrifying.
Guilt had Will grasped tightly in its grip; he couldn’t help but see a man strong enough to cause damage, and smart enough to argue - despite having heard nothing but kind words about Hopper from his mom. Her words of reassurance hadn’t helped. The guilt he’d felt had grown sharp in his stomach whilst thinking back on the last kind man she’d loved.
Will shakes the thoughts out of his head. A moment passes before El’s words fully register.
He doesn’t care which of his kids is wearing nail polish.
Which of his kids.
An embarrassed blush rushes to his face as he thinks back to his immediate agreement.
His kids.
Will would be lying if he said he hadn’t pictured it.
He’d read stories with fathers who taught their children how to protect themselves - it’d remind him of shared gun practices, Hopper standing beside him with an awkward but kind grin, always willing to give a helping hand.
He’d watch shows with fathers so full of life and humour, walking into the kitchen with a mug full of coffee - he’d be unable to stop thinking about making dinner alongside his mom, Hopper stopping by to ask if they need help before brewing a pot of coffee, never leaving before cracking a dumb joke in hopes of a smile.
He’d watch movie after movie with fathers who care, love and protect their children, and be unable to think of anyone but Jim Hopper.
El appears before him, knocking him out of his thoughts as she knocks lightly against his head, mimicking his words from earlier: “knock knock.”
Will blinks up at her. His face still feels hot, his redness surely lingering. El ignores it in favour of holding her hands out before him.
“Pick one,” she says, holding out two different nail polishes before him; a shiny gold glitter, and a light yellow. “We can also do both.”
It’d be so easy to play pretend; to tell her she’d look good in either and ignore the pull at his heart. He could shake his head in disapproval before picking up his sketchbook; he’d steer her attention towards their new project of making a Will Byers sock puppet, hoping she would ignore his dejected look.
It’d be so easy to say no; to continue suffering from unhealed wounds he doesn’t know how to treat, to continue ignoring her attempts at bandaging their shared hurt.
Will gives her a hesitant smile before taking them both in his hands. “I like them both,” he says, “maybe you could try making a heart with the gold?”
El lights up at his words, immediately turning back to her desk before picking up a book titled: “Twenty Easy Nail Designs For Beginners.”
“I’ve wanted to try this one out,” she says, turning to a bookmarked page. Turning the book around he’s greeted with the sight of small hearts and stars. It’s pink, shiny and beautiful; something for girls who do each other's nails, a sacred ritual before turning old enough to get them done at a salon.
There’s no rage rising to the surface as Will takes the book from her hands - no barbed wire or blood stained shattered glass. There’s a distinct lack of a man yelling Will’s name, his hot breath smelling of alcohol as he hurls unforgivable words Will’s way. There’s no stern man ripping the nail polish from El’s hand, dragging her along as he tells her to stop wasting precious time.
It’s all fresh air, birds chirping ‘hello’s as they pass the window. It’s Jonathan’s music attempting to overthrow ABBA from down the hallway, David Bowie serving as background music whilst he writes a letter to Nancy. It’s Hopper and Joyce in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner as they flick water at each other between laughter.
It’s mundane, it’s human, it’s right.
Will points at a picture showing stars painted alongside round dots. “Can we do this one?” he asks, showing it to El who quickly nods, sitting back on the ground as she pats the spot beside her. Will doesn’t waste a second before getting up and joining her.
It’s everything they’ve ever dreamed of.