Chapter Text
Will. They were looking for Will.
Dustin kept up the mantra in his head, trying to drown out the other, somewhat louder, part of him that was screaming this was a bad idea.
It wasn't that finding Will wasn't important-- it was. It absolutely was.
But the problem was that this was a Bad Idea.
It objectively was, okay? It was the middle of the night, in the pouring rain, and in the middle of nowhere in the very woods where Will went missing in the first place.
But they just wanted to help. They wanted to find Will so badly. He was a member of their party, their best friend. Of course, they weren’t going to just sit around and wait for someone else to find him, not when they were perfectly capable of searching too.
Then again, what could they do that half the town’s adults couldn’t?
Oh fuck, it was a really bad idea to go out, wasn’t it?
It was raining-- storming, to put it more accurately-- and dark, and there was nobody out there.
Well, that last part might not be true. There was somebody out there, but it wasn’t Will. It wasn’t him, instead it was--
… A girl? A kid, at the very least. Probably their age, maybe younger, if Dustin had to guess. They were small and shivering and only wearing a large T-shirt that completely engulfed their frame.
She wasn’t Will.
Then again, there was something about her that did remind him of Will. Maybe it was the eyes, how they were both so innocent yet full of unimaginable horror and pain. Maybe it was their statures, how they hunched over and appeared smaller than their already small frames suggested. Maybe it was just because they found a stranger in the very woods that Will got lost in. That they were looking for him, but found someone else instead, their brains making random connections that were purely coincidences.
The party (minus Will, of course,) took the stranger back to Mike’s house-- because it was getting late and they couldn't just leave the kid in the pouring rain-- where they debated on what to do with the stranger (as well as get some dry clothes and blankets for them, because that's the least they could do at this point.)
(They weren’t monsters, okay? They knew some basic hosting skills… Maybe.)
The stranger (Dustin really needed to know what their name was) seemed to be super sheltered-- like, not knowing what privacy was and trying to change in front of them. She (he was like 88% sure she was a girl) tried to get naked in front of them for crying out loud. Naked!
She was so weird.
Lucas thought she must’ve been from Pennhurst, and while Dustin didn't know if he agreed with that or not, he definitely wanted to tell Mike’s mom about it. But if they told her, she’d tell their parents too, and then they’d be stuck inside and grounded.
And that meant they wouldn’t be able to look for Will.
So hiding the girl in the basement for the night was their best option.
The girl hardly spoke, but that worked for Dustin. They could get her help in the morning and then look for Will, and the whole thing would be over and done with. They’d never have to see her again.
…
Okay, so about that.
Dustin lied. Well, he didn’t realize he was lying at the time, especially because Mike said he’d get his mom to help the girl-- whose name turned out to be Eleven, apparently, but Mike said to call her El for short-- in the morning, but apparently he didn’t do that. Instead, he kept her a secret, telling them that she said (or implied?) that “bad men” or whatever were after her. Which totally wasn’t concerning at all (note the sarcasm). Also, apparently, she knew Will? Or at least knew what happened to him.
So maybe that’s why Mike agreed to help her out. Because he always did crazy things when Will was involved.
Maybe.
Or maybe Mike just had a huge crush on the first girl who ever talked to him without making fun of him.
… Gross.
Except maybe his theory of “El could get them to Will” held some water, because El totally had superpowers. Like, legit superpowers, where she closed the door with her mind. And wasn’t that super cool?
Lucas was a little more hesitant on the idea, which was totally fair, except this was Superpowers they were talking about! That was like. Instantly cool.
She was awesome.
But, more importantly-- at least, according to the other boys-- she could help them find Will.
Hopefully.
She said that he was hiding. That he was hiding from the Demogorgan, and he was in danger, but she could find him.
And for some reason, Dustin couldn’t help but believe her.
El led them to Will’s house, which was ridiculous and couldn’t help them. Not when he was missing. Because the fact that he was missing really heavily implied that he wasn’t home. That’s like, the one place they knew Will wasn’t.
But then there were sirens. Loud, blaring noise that led them down passed the Byers’ home, down to the quarry.
The water was dark. It was like standing at the edge of an abyss. An empty void. It was terrifying, even from a safe distance away, tucked behind a firetruck.
Adults rushed the scene, wading deeper into the depths of the black, endless water, waves rippling out from their legs as they sliced through the ink.
It was hard to make them out, their forms only visible from the red and blue lights flashing around them, a haze of blue and red and blue and red.
It wasn’t purple. Just blue and red and blue and red.
They were talking. It was clear that they were, though none of the party could make out what was said as the adults reached down and grabbed--
They lifted something out of the water just then, placing whatever it was onto a floating board, carrying it back to shore.
Carrying a body back to shore.
Dustin felt his heart rate pick up, his fingers curling into a fist, his blunt nails digging into his palms.
“No…” he heard Mike mumble. “It’s not Will. It can’t be.”
The adults pulled closer, and a familiar vest came into view.
Oh.
Will was dead.
Will was--
Mike threw himself off of the back of the fire truck, his face pinched up into a scowl. His eyes were watering-- well, all of theirs were, but still-- and El reached for him.
“Mike--”
He slapped it away. He yelled a few choice words, ones filled with palatable grief, as he grabbed his bike and ran away.
Dustin didn’t really remember the rest of that night. He just couldn’t get the image of the body-- Will’s body-- out of his mind. Of how Mike screamed and shouted at El, who didn’t deserve it, because she had lied.
She lied.
Dustin didn’t know how to feel about that. It wasn’t her fault, he knew that, but he couldn’t stop the bitter feeling in his chest, the one that had hoped she could actually find Will. Find him alive, that is.
You were supposed to find him alive!
So much for that.
Lucas, despite his reservations about El, offered to bring her back to Mike’s house. Neither of them could hide the girl in their own homes, after all. And despite Mike’s words of anger, of grief, they knew he wouldn’t turn her away.
So they silently agreed on it. Lucas would take El to Mike’s on his way home, and then they all would go home and pretend like they didn’t just see Will’s dead body.
…
“Night, Lucas,” Dustin had managed to get out. He threw his bike down on his lawn, grimacing slightly as it crashed into the ground. He’d pick it up later.
The three of them had walked back from the quarry in silence, taking the long way around in order to avoid Mirkwood, slowly dragging their bikes alongside them. The walk was almost peaceful, if not for the heavy cloud of grief hanging above them.
So yeah, totally peaceful. Real nice. Yeah.
Dustin turned to El. “Goodnight, El,” he added, trying to put a little bit more energy into his voice for her.
The girl frowned at him-- it was a slight downtick of her lips, but still a frown. Dustin grimaced.
“It’s not your fault,” Dustin continued to talk, staring down at his feet. “You didn’t know he would be…” he trailed off.
El curled her arms around her chest. Lucas shut his eyes and looked away.
“It’s not your fault,” he repeated.
El slowly nodded, nearly imperceptible. Even still, it didn’t look like she believed it.
Lucas sighed. “Goodnight, Dustin,” he said, his voice heavy with fatigue. His grip was shaky around the handles of his bike, but he managed to pry one of them off in order to gently lead El by the arm. “We should go before it gets dark.”
They all ignored the fact that it was pitch black outside already. It got dark pretty early around this time of year, so it shouldn’t have surprised him. Shouldn’t have made him so nervous.
But it was eerily similar to that night just a few days ago, when Will had split off from him in a race he clearly cheated on, and laughed on his way home.
It had only been a few days since then, and now…
Now Will was gone.
Dustin sighed, staying out in his front yard as he watched them go. He might have argued more about it, about making Lucas and El stay, if not for the fact that he couldn’t hide El here. Not when people were looking for her, and she needed to go back to hiding in Mike’s basement, where she wouldn’t be found.
Besides, after everything that happened, Lucas needed to go home too. To his parents. To his family.
The only thing easing the pressure on his chest was the fact that El was with Lucas, too. She could protect them. He knew it.
It was only when they were out of sight that Dustin went back inside, beelining his way over to where his mom was.
He could really use a hug, right about now. They all could, really.
And as he sank into his Mom’s embrace, he thought about how Will would never get to hug his own mom again. That no one could ever hug Will ever again.
Dustin cried himself to sleep that night, just as he had since he found out Will never made it home.
Will was alive.
Dustin didn’t know if it was a sick joke or not, but he hoped to a god he didn’t believe in that it wasn’t. He hoped to everything there was in the world that Will was alive.
They just needed to find him.
Or, at least, find a way to contact him.
And El could do that. She just needed a radio.
And Dustin knew exactly where they could get one.
But first, El needed a disguise. She needed to change, because the bad men were still after her, and they would easily recognize a small twelve-year-old bald girl breaking into the local middle school, wouldn’t they?
So yeah. A disguise would be good.
El stepped out into the hallway, wearing the blonde wig and pale pink dress they picked out for her. The make-up Mike had put on her was surprisingly well done too, making her look so…
Dustin didn’t finish the thought.
“Wow,” he said instead, trying to ignore how his heartbeat sped up. “She looks--”
“Pretty good,” Mike cut him off, sounding nonchalant, which Dustin could not stand for.
“Pretty good? JUST pretty good? Dude, she’s stunning! Do you not have eyes, man?” Dustin complained, gesturing toward the girl with his arms. He flailed and smacked Mike in the arm.
Lucas raised an eyebrow at him. Dustin ignored it.
Okay, that was exactly what he meant to say, but also exactly what he was planning on not saying, because that was weird and all. They barely knew her, she was a stranger, and he didn't even mean it.
(That was a lie. And yeah, friends don't lie, but that didn't mean he couldn't lie to himself. Just a bit.)
Eleven ignored them as she walked up to the hallway mirror, Mike following behind her. She stared at her reflection blankly. “Pretty,” she mumbled.
“Yeah,” Mike repeated, a smile ghosting his face. His voice was soft, not quite like it was with Will, but something adjacent to that. “You really are.”
Dustin sighed. Mike totally was in love with her, wasn’t he?
(Yet another reason to ignore whatever his chest may or may not have been trying to say. There was the bro code or whatever. Dustin couldn’t like El, not when she and Mike were clearly in love.)
(Or at least whatever middle school version of love was.)
Dustin was so caught up in his head-- and from staring a beat too long at El-- that he completely missed the shared looks that Lucas and Mike gave each other.
Whatever.
Good news: Will was alive. They heard him. He was alive.
Bad news: Will was in serious danger, and there wasn’t anything they could do about it.
Well, nothing that they-- Lucas, Mike, and Dustin-- could do. But El could do something. Maybe. The only thing they could do is go to a bullshit assembly, a bullshit funeral, and--
And ask Mr. Clarke how to access another dimension.
A magnetic field disruption, huh…
Compasses point to the magnetic north pole, but the ones they had on hand didn’t, and based on what Mr. Clarke said, well. Maybe they did have a way to find Will.
And they actually stood a chance of rescuing him from that alternate dimension, considering they had El on their side. El, who was so cool and had superpowers. El, who could help them find the gate to get to Will. El, who made Troy piss his pants in front of the whole school (which was so awesome).
She was just El. The girl who was lying to them.
…
Oh.
She was lying to them.
El was… she lied. She tricked them.
But she probably had a reason for that. To make the compass point away from the gate. To lead them around on a wild goose chase. To lead them away from Will.
… Right?
Dustin didn’t know. He just knew that Lucas and Mike were angry and butting heads, and all this arguing wouldn’t help them find Will.
But then El tossed Lucas into one of the broken down cars, and Mike started yelling at her, and Lucas left, and El--
She was gone.
Great. Just great.
So it was just Mike and Dustin then.
They could do this. They could find Will themselves.
…
Well. Lucas refused Mike’s (admittedly terrible) apology, and he went off on his own to find Will. Which was Fine, really. They would be fine. They just needed to find El first, right now, because she was on her own, and then they could… do… something.
He didn’t really know. But first things first: find El.
So here’s the thing: they couldn’t find her. Not yet. Instead, they found someone else--
Or, to be more accurate, Troy and James found them.
“Don't do it!” Dustin heard himself plead, desperately trying to break the hold around him without getting hit. “Seriously, man, don’t do it! Seriously-- don’t!” He cried out, screaming out anything he could think of, pointedly ignoring the blade pressed against his cheek as he stared at Mike’s back, watching his friend move closer to the edge of the cliff.
“Five!” Troy taunted, his arms locking Dustin in place. The knife came dangerously close to nicking his chin. “Four…”
“Mike, don’t do it!” Dustin tried again. “I don’t need my baby teeth anyways!”
Troy jerked the knife closer to Dustin’s face. “Do it, Wheeler!”
“MIKE!” Dustin screamed. He wanted to flail. To kick and scream out of the hold Troy had on him, but the knife was so close to his mouth. One wrong move and he could get knocked into it, even if Troy didn’t actually want to cut him-- though the jury was out on that front, considering the fact that Dustin wasn’t actually sure if the other boy could actually do it.
But before he could even do anything, Troy’s countdown got to one, and Mike’s shoulders trembled in a way that was barely noticeable to anyone that wasn’t a member of the party, and he stared down the edge of the cliff, and everything was so loud, and Dustin really hoped Mike wasn’t actually stupid enough to--
He jumped.
The world fell silent.
Troy’s grip on him disappeared, and the three boys didn’t even look at each other. They just stared. Stared at the empty space in front of them, where Mike once stood, because Mike actually jumped.
Mike actually jumped.
Suddenly reality crashed back down on them, and they all rushed to the cliff’s edge, desperate to see what happened. It must have only been a few seconds since Mike had stepped off, but it felt like decades, and Dustin didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what the two bullies’ were thinking, just that his own mind was screaming one single thought on repeat.
Mike. Mike mikemikemikemikemike--
They reached the edge.
Dustin didn’t know what to expect when he looked down. Maybe Mike was still falling. Maybe he had already hit the ground and there was another dead body in the quarry, this time a real one. Maybe he disappeared into thin air and Dustin will never know what happened to him.
He didn’t know what to expect.
He didn’t know which option he was hoping for.
What he really didn’t even suspect to be a possibility was the fact that Mike… was floating?
Mike was floating.
“Holy shit.”
(Did he say that out loud?)
And then suddenly he lifted up and up and up, flying up passed their heads, and plopped right down into the ground a few feet from the edge.
They were all stunned in silence for a moment, Mike included, unsure what the fuck just happened.
And then she appeared. Like an angel descending on them, like a hero emerging from wreckage and ruin.
El.
She walked up to them, but there was power in each of her steps. She was like a storm breaching past the horizon with thunder and lightning echoing in her every move. Blood trickled down from her nose as she jerked her head to the side and--
Troy cried out in pain.
Dustin whipped around to stare at him, and how his arm had twisted in an unnatural way. He dropped the knife.
Good.
Dustin couldn’t even bring it in himself to feel bad, not after he pressed the knife to his cheek, not after making Mike step off the quarry edge. No, if anything he felt vindicated. Troy deserved it.
So Dustin really didn’t feel bad as the boy ran away, James following along with him. He didn’t feel bad even though the two bullies had radiated fear.
Instead, he taunted them.
“Yeah, that’s right!” he cheered, pointing his finger at their retreating forms. “You better run! That’s our friend and she’s crazy!”
And Dustin was so fucking proud of her.
She was awesome.
And then she collapsed, and tearfully admitted that it was her fault-- that she opened the gate. She let the Demogorgon out. She was the reason Will disappeared, the reason he got taken.
But that was stupid. She was a kid-- they all were-- and it was an accident. It wasn’t her fault. She saved them, saved Mike from certain death.
She was a hero.
I’m sorry. I opened it. I’m the monster.
Dustin knew Mike and El’s little hug was like, probably some big romantic moment for them or whatever, but he just watched Mike step off of a fucking cliff, and if El wasn’t there…
Well. It was a good thing she was.
So yeah, he didn’t care if he was interrupting something, because Mike was alive and El came back, and she broke Troy’s arm, and- and--
It didn’t matter. What mattered was Dustin flinging himself forwards and wrapping both of his arms around the two figures huddled on the ground. He didn’t care if he was interrupting them. He was just so fucking glad they were okay. That they were alive.
Holy shit, that was so terrifying.
At least the worst was behind them, right?
… Okay, that might have jinxed things.
The bad men were chasing after them.
(He totally jinxed things.)
After Dustin got a frantic call from Lucas, who already had the bad men on his tail, he interrupted whatever the hell was happening between Mike and El in Mike’s basement, all three of them running out of Mike’s house and onto their bikes.
His legs were on fire by the time they reunited with Lucas, cutting through yards and down hills and passing streets that held the suspicious repair company vans. And while the moment might have been touching at another time, they had more pressing matters to deal with.
Like the vans currently chasing them. Like the van turning down the street in front of them, blocking them in.
Dustin was pretty sure he was screaming.
And then the van flipped, soaring over their heads like it was doing a somersault, crashing down behind them, but in front of the other vans chasing them, effectively blockading them on the opposite side of the street.
Holy shit.
That was awesome.
Less awesome, though: the helicopters searching for them. Which would’ve been cool if not for the fact that it was searching for them.
Dustin managed to point it out in time-- or at least, hopefully in time-- forcing them to stash their bikes under the abandoned bus in the junkyard before climbing into the vehicle themselves.
It was a long few hours hiding in there. Or maybe it was just a single hour or two, but the adrenaline crash really made it seem like forever before the call came in. Nancy seemed to have used Will’s Supercom to contact them, and while it may have been a trap, they were forced to trust it when Jim Hopper of all people spoke up. And honestly good thing, too, considering the police chief saved them from the bad men that showed up to capture them.
And then suddenly they’re all there at the Byers’ house. The party (minus Will, but plus El,) Nancy and Jonathan, Hopper and Mrs Byers. It was a whole thing apparently.
Hopper had broken into the lab and saw the gate himself, and Nancy and Jonathan found a temporary one in the woods after seeing a glimpse of the monster-- the Demogorgon-- themselves. It had taken Barb, and it tried to take Nancy, and then they were planning on hunting it (whoa) when they saw a mini-gate in a tree. Meanwhile, Mrs Byers had been communicating with Will through the lights in the house (also whoa) and El might be able to contact Will again, but better, with a bath. She could find Barb, too. They just needed a bigger bath.
Or, more aptly, a sensory deprivation tank.
They just had to call Mr. Clarke. He would know how to make one. Probably.
Thank god for him and the curiosity voyage.
Now all they needed was salt. And a lot of it.
Which meant that the ragtag group headed to Hawkins Middle with a bunch of hoses and the Byers’ kiddie pool in the trunk of one of their cars.
Sounds like the start of a really bad joke.
Mrs Byers was nice.
Nicer than El deserved, to be completely honest.
She was soft-spoken, her hands moving slowly and carefully around El, not making any sudden movements when near her. She never raised her voice, not to her, never glared or shot dirty looks, or even blamed her for Will’s disappearance.
She was wonderful.
Mrs Byers made her a makeshift blindfold, and held it up to her as if El’s opinion mattered to her. Like her comfort and safety mattered more than using her powers to their benefit. She even thanked her for helping. Like it wasn’t El’s entire fault it happened in the first place.
But Mrs Byers didn’t blame her. She didn’t care that it was El’s fault. Instead, the older woman gently cradled El’s hands within her own, and promised to be there for her. That she would be right next to El the entire time, that she would be there if El ever got scared.
And somehow, it comforted her. It was so different from how Papa treated her. Papa never held her hands like that. Never comforted her like that. Never promised to be right next to her as she got into the tank. He was always so far away, in another room behind another glass window, as if she was something to fear.
Mrs Byers wasn’t afraid of her.
That scared El the most, to be honest. She wasn’t used to people not being afraid of her. Even Lucas and Mike were afraid of her, at some point. Even for just a moment.
(Not Dustin, though. He never looked at her like he was afraid. El didn’t understand why.)
The bath was different, too. It wasn’t upright, and she wasn’t lowered in the same way. She could stand in the bath, could feel the water splash against her shins as she waded into the middle of it and laid down, could feel the dress soak up the water and cling against her legs. It was a strange feeling. This entire thing was strange.
It was a different bath in a room full of different people. It was a familiar action, to use the bath to find who they were looking for, but it was different. Not in a bad way, but… these people weren’t Papa. They weren’t the scary doctors in white. They weren’t the bad men with guns.
They were nice to her. They didn’t hurt her.
She wanted to help them. And this was the only way she knew how.
El laid back, closed her eyes, and entered the void.
…
Oh.
Nancy-- the pretty girl from the photo in Mike’s house-- had asked her to find her friend, Barb. And she tried. She really did.
But all El found was a dead body.
…
She could still find Will. She could still fix this. She could find him. She could save him. She could fix her mistakes.
El knew he was alive. She wasn’t sure how, but she did. It was Will. From all the stories Mike and Lucas and Dustin shared, he was smart and brave and clever. Of course, he was alive. He made it this far, he could make it a little farther. He survived much longer than any of those bad men ever did, after all.
And after a few more moments, she did. She found him. He was alive.
He was weak, though. Very, very weak. He was barely moving, when she found him curled into a ball, tucked inside a fort titled ‘Castle Byers’.
‘All Friends Welcome’, the sign said, and she hoped that included her.
(She’s not sure how she knew what the sign said, really. She didn’t read it, hardly sparing it more than a glance. She wondered if one of the boys told her about it, before getting into the bath. If she was told afterward, even. She wasn’t sure. She still isn’t.)
The walls were decaying around them, and El wondered if the entire thing was going to collapse if she touched it-- not that she really could, not in the void. Not that she really understood the rules in place, of what she could or couldn’t do in the void. It was confusing.
Even more confusing: Will.
He was small, like her. He was also really pale, and really cold. She could feel the chill as she placed her hand into his, as his fingers attempted to close around hers. She brought her other hand over to hold onto him, to grasp his hands into hers like Mrs Byers had only minutes before.
“Will,” she whispered, calling out to him.
She could hear Mrs Byers gasp from outside of the bath.
“Will,” she repeated, her fingers rubbing into his hands, trying to mimic how Mrs Byers did it.
Mrs Byers pleaded and begged Will to hold on, asking El to pass on the message.
“You tell him-- t-tell him I’m coming. Mom-- Mom is coming.” Mrs Byers’ voice echoed around her.
El curled in closer to Will. “Your mom… she’s coming for you.”
Will barely moved, unable to do anything other than shiver every few seconds. He lifted his eyes ever so slightly to blink up at her. His lips soundlessly spoke for a moment, only for a single word to finally be thrown out:
“H-hurry,” he muttered. “Hurry…” he said again, lips turning a darker shade of purple.
“J-just hold on,” El said, Mrs Byers’ voice echoing around her once more. She couldn’t make out what she was saying, her head growing foggy. “A little longer-- Will. Will!” she cried out, feeling his loose grip disappear from under her hands. “Will?” she repeated once more, as the world turned to smoke around her. “Will!”
He was gone from the void.
Mrs Byers left with Chief Hopper, heading to the lab to go to the gate and save Will. El hoped they would succeed. They told them all to stay put in the school, but Jonathan and Nancy left soon after, saying that they were going to draw the monster away from Will to buy Mrs Byers and the Chief some time.
Which was fine, because it would help them have a better chance at saving Will. El wished she could help more, though.
But she couldn’t. She was weak and tired from the bath, unable to do more than sit there, leaning heavily on Mike because she could barely even sit up. Leaning on Mike was nice, but it wasn’t the same as the feeling of Mrs Byers’ arms wrapped around her.
Maybe… maybe she could have another hug. After they find Will.
Yeah. That sounded nice.
But first, they had to wait. And an excellent point was made to get food in the meantime, so the group made their way to the cafeteria, because apparently there was something El just had to try.
“MIIIIIKE!” Dustin screeched, from the school’s kitchen. “I found the chocolate pudding!”
“OKAY!” Mike screamed back, his body angled toward the door. He turned back around in his seat to face El, the two of them sitting at a random cafeteria table waiting for Lucas and Dustin to come back. “Are you feeling any better?” he asked, his voice softening. Comforting.
She nodded, slowly. “What’s ‘putting’?” she asked, carefully pronouncing the new word.
Mike laughed-- but not at her. He was a little mean at times, but he wouldn’t laugh at her for not knowing a word, she knew that much. “Pudding,” he gently corrected, “it’s-- it’s this chocolate goo you eat with a spoon. Don’t worry, when all this is over, you won’t have to keep eating junk food and leftovers like a dog anymore. My mom, she’s a pretty awesome cook. She can make you whatever you like.”
El perked up at that, her face lighting up. “Eggos?”
Mike blinked at her, probably in surprise, before his mouth spread into a smile. “Well, yeah, Eggos, but real food, too,” he said. “See, I was thinking, once all this is over and Will’s back and you’re not a secret anymore, my parents can get you an actual bed for the basement. Or you can take my room if you want, since I’m down there all the time anyways. My point is, they’ll take care of you. They’ll be like your new parents, and Nancy, she’ll be like your new sister.”
That sounded nice. Sounded like… a family, even. She smiled. “Will you be like my brother?”
Mike shrugged. “I guess? Maybe. I don’t know, I already have two sisters and they don’t think I’m very good at it. I mean, Will would probably be better at it,” he paused, “he’s a lot better at most things than me.”
El noticed that conversations tended to circle back to Will when talking to Mike. It was sweet. “So you both can be my brothers?”
Mike jerked back, his eyes widening in shock. “What? No, gross! That’d be so weird-- just-- no.”
She frowned. “Why ‘no’?”
His face was bright red. “B-because Will and I can’t be-- it’s different! We’re best friends, not brothers.”
El’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. She didn’t get it. “Why is it different?”
Mike sighed, slumping down. “I mean, I don’t know, I guess it’s not. It’s stupid.”
“Not stupid,” El said, poking him in the shoulder. “Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“Friends don’t lie.”
Mike looked at her, his eyes filled with some sort of look that El couldn’t understand. It was frustrating, not knowing things. Mike helped her know things. So did Dustin. Lucas, too. It was overwhelming, having so many nice people in her life-- having friends. She liked it.
“Well,” Mike started speaking, shuffling his feet on the ground nervously. “I was thinking… um, I don’t know, but I was just thinking about how I would want to, like, go to the Snow Ball. With him,” his face burned red. “With Will,” he clarified, though that was obvious. It was always about Will when it came to Mike. El couldn’t wait to meet him again.
“‘Snow Ball’?” she asked. She didn’t know what that was.
“It’s this cheesy school dance, where you go in the gym and dance to music and stuff,” he explained. “I’ve never been, but I know you’re not supposed to go with your brother,” he continued, making a face of disgust.
She tilted her head to the side. “No?”
“I mean you can, but it’d be really weird. You go to school dances with someone that, like, you know. Someone that you like.”
“A… friend?”
“Not a friend. Uh-- umm… you go with someone, like a--” he cut himself off with a shake of his head, his face bright red. “I just-- sometimes I think about asking him to go with me, as… um, as more than friends, but I know that boys don't usually go together so it’s just stupid--”
Light shone through the windows, cutting him off. Car headlights, specifically.
Mike’s face lit up, embarrassment clearing off his face. “Nancy,” he muttered to himself. “Okay, hold on, I’ll be right back. Stay here.” He stood from his seat and ran over to the doors opposite the kitchen, exiting the building.
In the meantime, Dustin emerged from the kitchen, his arms piled up with pudding that he dumped on the table in front of her.
El thought back to her conversation with Mike, feeling as though she was missing something important that he was trying to tell her. She didn’t know what it was though.
“This will charge your battery right up, I’m telling you,” Dustin said with a grin, displaying one of the puddings proudly. El felt herself smiling widely. Dustin always made her smile.
She barely got to have a lick of the very taste pudding before Mike burst back into the room, shattering the moment.
“Guys! Guys!” he shouted, panicked.
“What is it?”
Mike’s face darkened. “They found us.”
So the bad men came for them.
Papa came for them. For her.
El wished so badly that they did not.
She fought so hard, tried so hard, to get them to leave. To make them go away. But the blood attracted the monster. The Demogorgon.
Her fault.
She was too weak to run, too. She had to be carried by Dustin. It felt selfish to enjoy the feeling, to feel safe in his arms. Protected. Especially when they were in so much danger.
She let herself be a little selfish. Just for a moment. She quietly admitted to herself that it was nice. She liked it.
The boys then barged into a classroom, and her head narrowly avoided hitting the doorframe.
“Sorry,” Dustin muttered to her, pulling her closer to his chest as best as he could. “Hold on, we’re almost there. We’re almost there,” he continued in an attempt to reassure her. She tried to give him a weak smile. “Come on. Come on,” he panted. “Help-- Come on, help me get her on the table.”
The others rushed forward at his request, assisting to lift her up, gently laying her on top of the wooden surface. She groaned.
Mike reached for her hand and she turned to him, their fingers interlocking. Dustin held her other hand, and both boys rubbed soothing circles into her palms. It was a good feeling. She tried to smile, but it hurt too much.
Lucas stood in front of them, placing himself between them and the door. He was trying to protect them, after she failed to do the same. She wished she had another hand to hold onto his. She wished she was stronger so she could protect them better.
“Just hold on a little longer, okay?” Mike said, sniffling. His eyes were red, and he looked as though he was about to cry. “He’s gone-- the bad man’s gone. We’ll be home soon, and my mom--” he sniffled again, his free hand wiping at his face, “she’ll get you your own bed. You can eat as many Eggos as you want. And- and you can finally meet Will, again, for real this time-- and he could teach you to draw much better than I could, okay?”
That sounded nice. It sounded really nice.
“Promise?” El said, her voice so weak it was barely audible. She knew he could hear her anyway.
Mike leaned forward, their foreheads touching. “Promise.”
A scream echoed from the hallway, and Mike’s grip tightened.
On the other side of her, Dustin let go.
She really wished he didn’t, but she understood why.
She failed them.
She would not fail again.
(She would do anything to save them, even if-- well. Even if.)
They were gonna die.
Dustin knew it, Mike knew it, Lucas and El did too. They were going to die-- being eaten by the same monster that kidnapped Will. The same monster that killed Barbara.
Hopefully, Mrs Byers and the Police Chief got to Will in time to save him. It would suck, having Will be rescued and brought back to their dimension where they were all dead, but they had a good run. They really did.
Dustin wasn’t ready to die.
Oh God, he wasn’t ready to die. He was terrified, trapped in the back of their science classroom-- Lucas used to joke that Dustin would live and die in the room if he could, but Dustin didn’t think he meant it like this. The rocks weren’t doing much, either, and El was totally out of commission.
They were all gonna die, but at least they had each other. And Mike-- well, Mike got to have his grand confession-monologue-whatever to admit his undying love to El, which was… great. Super great.
Good for him. Them. Whatever.
They were perfect for each other. The superhero girl and the lead boy in a comic book. The hero girl and the leader boy. It made sense. It did. It would be silly for the main girl to even look in the direction of the comic relief background character. It made sense this way. Yeah. Totally.
God, he was so fucking stupid.
It was definitely Not the time to be agonizing over his one-sided baby crush. He knew he didn’t stand a chance, but jeez, he didn't think it would hurt that much.
He didn’t realize it could hurt even more.
Because while the rocks didn’t do anything, El did. Of course she did. El always came through. She came in and rescued them like the superhero she is-- except the thing was, she was just a girl. Just another kid, like them, who happened to have awesome, physics-defying superpowers.
She was amazing.
But she was also human.
El stood in front of them, her hand outstretched towards the Demogorgon, but her head turned back to them.
“Goodbye,” she whispered to them, in her soft way of speaking. Like she didn’t want to be heard. But Dustin could hear her, he always could, even if he didn't want to, he could never not hear her.
And all they could do was watch her. All of them: Lucas, Mike, and Dustin. They were all crying, and frozen in fear. They couldn’t move a muscle, not as she turned around, her back toward them.
Not as she faced the monster.
“No more,” El asserted.
The lights flashed.
The Demogorgon lifted up one of its limbs, stretching it out toward her, almost grazing the top of her head. Her hand shook and she screamed louder, the monster screaming alongside her.
Dustin’s hands flew up to cover his ears, and he noticed Lucas and Mike doing the same alongside him.
The Demogorgon screamed even more as it disintegrated into a pile of black dust particles, swirling in the air and encompassing El entirely.
One moment she was there, but the next--
Well.
El had said goodbye for a reason, didn’t she? She knew that this would happen. She had said goodbye to them all, but Dustin couldn’t help but feel like her stare was burning into him like a bullet wound to his chest, like the hand she used to kill the Demogorgon was ripping out his heart along with it.
And El was gone. No body, no nothing. Just gone.
Like she never existed in the first place.