Chapter Text
It’s January 10, 1988, and Will Byers is depressed.
It’s been more than three months since that fateful November 6th when the Upside Down was finally gone for good, but it had taken his sister with it. Christmas came and went, so dismal that it made Ted Wheeler look like the jolliest guy at the function. Immediately after that, the Byers had officially moved out of the Wheeler home and into Hopper’s cabin, where they had an even worse New Year’s celebration. They’d played the countdown on the TV and welcomed each other into ‘88, but they’d promptly fallen asleep right after, dinner left unfinished on the dining table.
Will Byers lies in his room, formerly his sister’s, too lethargic to do anything but stare at the ceiling light.
He doesn’t know how long it’s been, but the lights seem to flicker in front of him. He blinks, his eyelids feeling heavy despite him not feeling tired at all, and stares ahead again. The lights are fine. His vision might just be getting worse.
Then they flicker again, and Will begins to think something might be off. They might be living in the middle of nowhere, but the electricity supply’s always been stable to minimize false alarms (not that they need it anymore). Still, he sits up, watching the light for one, two, three seconds…
Nothing happens. He lies back down. He doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed.
A week passes, and Will Byers is still depressed.
Classes resume tomorrow, which Will thinks is bullshit considering the town almost got destroyed again. If anything, it just shows that Hawkins High is the most tenacious thing in the country. Still, he hasn’t been doing much of anything for three months, and his body is practically begging for a distraction. His mother resumed work as a telemarketer, his brother’s finalizing his application to NYU, and Hopper’s at Melvald’s General. He’s the only one who hasn’t taken up something. He might as well go to school.
His things are packed and the night is young, but Will just wants to sleep. Tomorrow can’t come quickly enough.
He lies down and pulls the sheets up to his ears, and counts down from 100. When that doesn’t work, he inhales deeply and forces all the muscles in his body to relax. He waits for two minutes in perfect stillness before tossing and turning in his bed. He lied, actually; he is 100% anxious for tomorrow. Dustin would never intentionally miss a class, and Lucas promised he would be there, so it’s not like he’ll be alone. He’s not counting on Mike being there, but honestly, that might be for the better.
It’s just… he doesn’t feel ready. Going back to school means going back to people, people who don’t and will never understand what he’s been through, why he still acts like their town’s a living nightmare waiting to scare him, why he’s nauseous of the smell of alcohol and cigarettes, why he’s mourning a sister they won’t know he ever had.
Whatever. Spiraling has never done him any good. Maybe he’ll grab a glass of water and pray sleep takes him soon enough.
He opens his eyes. He… opens his eyes? He’s pretty sure he’s blinking right now. Why is it still so dark?
He flexes his fingers; he can move, at least… that’s good. Carefully, he positions his hands behind him and pushes himself into a sitting position.
And he’s face-to-face with a girl he’s only seen in his nightmares.
Her hair is longer, falling in messy waves past her shoulders, and she’s wearing a strange combination of scarves over a patterned dress. But he knows those eyes. He knows that face.
“...El?”
And her eyes widen, and she backs away just as he reaches out to her, and the blackness shatters around him, and he’s in her old bedroom, sitting up on his bed, reaching out for the door and nothing else. For a second, nothing happens.
The doorknob clicks and turns, and Will’s heart beats with anticipation.
“Honey?” Joyce calls, opening the door just enough to peek her head in. “Oh, good, you’re awake. Well, breakfast’s ready, and then Jonathan’ll take you to school.”
He stares at her, putting his hand down slowly. What? Was that just a dream?
“What… What time is it?”
Joyce furrows her brows. “It’s 7 in the morning. Are you okay? Do you feel sick?”
Will feels like he’s only been asleep for 30 minutes. “No, I’m fine,” he says instead. His mom accepts it easily, and she leaves the room to let him get changed. Breakfast is simple but delicious as always, and he kisses his mom on the cheek goodbye before he leaves. The ride to Hawkins High is silent, but he makes sure to tell Jonathan he loves him before leaving.
That’s another thing that’s changed. When they lost El, he and Jonathan became much closer, promising to tell each other how much they cared no matter what. He definitely needed it, especially after coming out, and he thinks Jonathan needs it just as much after breaking up with Nancy. If nothing else, they have each other, and that’s more than enough for Will.
Classes pass by in a blur, and before Will knows it, he’s at the lunch table with his best friends. Dustin is great at providing the sense of normalcy Will craves, cracking jokes and explaining his grand plan to graduate as valedictorian. Lucas is mostly the same, a little mellowed out but still sharing updates on how he’s moved up to first string on the basketball team, or how Max is doing at physical therapy. Will tries his best to share something of his own, but he comes up short; even his art’s been sloppy recently, and he’s barely inspired to draw anything at all. His friends don’t push him about it, though, endlessly understanding in their own ways. It makes Will feel a little more complete, although there’s a space in his heart that’ll never truly be filled again.
Still, it doesn’t stop Will from glancing over at the empty space that Mike usually occupies. He didn’t expect Mike to come in today, but he still feels lonely without him.
As opposed to that morning, the rest of the day passes endlessly slowly, and Will’s never felt so relieved to hear the final bell ring. Jonathan’s right there just as he leaves the building, timing immaculate, and he drives him home. He asks some surface-level questions on how his day was, and Will gives him surface-level answers. He thinks the lack of sleep is finally hitting him, because the scene he’d dismissed earlier as a weird dream pops up more insistently in his head.
Surely, it’s a dream, he thinks, watching the houses roll by. But what if it wasn’t? If that was… If that really was El in the void, then that means she’s alive. He almost can’t bring himself to believe it, but he’s surprised at how much he wants to. He thought he’d accepted her sacrifice, lived his life mourning her like she wouldn’t be coming back, but just seeing her face in his mind is enough to shake him.
If there’s even the smallest chance that she was alive, then, well, he’d be a fool not to take it.
If she’s… alive, and she used her powers to spy on me, then how’d I see her? As far as he knows, the only time someone had detected her in the mindscape had been when… she’d spied on Billy, who was possessed by the Mind Flayer. It makes his blood run cold, the thought that it might be the same for him.
The gate is closed, and the Upside Down itself is destroyed. He’s sure of it. It has to be. He’s had no health problems so far, and he hasn’t felt any goosebumps along his neck in a long, long time. But if not that… then what’s the reason he can sense her in there? He may have had powers for a short time himself, but those were linked to Vecna, and he’s dead and gone.
The car slows down next to the woods, and Will hastily remembers where he is, gathering up his things before exiting the car.
“Tell Mom not to wait up for me,” Jonathan says. “My shift at work today’s until 1am.”
Will checks the time on his watch; it’s almost 4:30. That’s, what, an eight-hour evening shift? “Are you serious? Does Mom know about this?”
“Yeah, it was hell to get her to understand,” Jonathan admits. “But we need to start raising money. You get it, right?”
Right, college. Jonathan’s starting later this year, and Will will go the following year too. And if the late-night conversations he overhears are any indication, his mom and Hopper are planning to move right out of Indiana as soon as he graduates. It’s rough, having to focus on scraping up money immediately after the most traumatic event of their lives, but the world keeps turning, and shit’s expensive. He sighs.
“That job better be worth it, Jonathan.”
“Don’t tell Mom, but it’s twice what she makes.”
Will whistles. “Damn. Just… come home safe.”
“Yeah,” Jonathan says, smiling. “Love you, Will.”
“Love you too.”
When Will gets to the cabin, he opens the door as quietly as he can and tiptoes into his own room, giving his mom a small wave as she chats on the phone to her next customer. He puts his things in his room, then begins cleaning up around the house. He throws empty beer cans outside, sweeps up dust and cigarette butts, brings the meat out of the freezer to thaw, pretends his heart doesn’t ache at the sight of the month-old box of Eggos in the corner. He checks on his mom, who’s still writing down phone numbers and citing referral codes at her client. At this rate, he’ll have to cook dinner himself.
It’s fine. He’s used to it.
Dinner is a quiet affair. His mom thanks him for the fried chicken even though he knows it’s only half as delicious as hers is. He tells her that Jonathan’s working late tonight, and her face scrunches up in disapproval before seemingly giving up with the argument in her mind.
“Alright. At least he informed me this time,” she says, lighting another cigarette. “It’s just… he’s growing up too fast, I think. And some of it’s my fault, but I wish he could just be like any other teenager.”
“We couldn’t be normal if we tried, Mom,” he says, and he really meant for it to be reassuring, but it comes off a bit too sharp. He winces. “Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry too,” she says, taking a drag of her cigarette. “I know it’s been hard for all of us. Hell, Hop barely comes home anymore, not like I can blame him.” She laughs humorlessly. “But you, honey, you just do your best. Don’t worry about our grown-up problems.” She kisses his cheek. “I just want you to be happy.”
Will smiles weakly, and doesn’t respond.
He goes through the motions: clearing the table, washing dishes, packing up the food for Hop or Jonathan to eat later. When he finally enters his room, freshly showered and no less tired, he’s suddenly hit with the realization that perhaps, he’ll enter the void again tonight, and he can make sure if he was simply imagining things or not.
He goes to sleep, wakes up, and pretends he isn’t devastated.
Okay, he’s not giving up. Screw that. If El won’t find him, he’ll just have to find El.
His mom’s not home when he comes back from school, so he sits in the living room and tries to make the TV go static. It takes a few tries, and he’s this close to hitting the damn thing in frustration, but he gets it, white noise filling his ears. He even ties a blindfold around his eyes for good measure, and relaxes his whole body while he thinks of his sister.
El… El, where are you? I want to find El. Hello? El? Jane? It’s me, Will.
Nothing. The void of empty space doesn’t open for him after ten minutes of trying, and desperately, he goes for ten minutes more. He stops counting the minutes until he hears the crunching of dead branches underfoot and knows it’s a lost cause. He tears off the blindfold and shuts off the TV, and all but slams the door before his mom enters the cabin.
He flops on his bed, ignoring the tears welling up in his eyes. So stupid. He doesn’t have powers anyway, so he doesn’t know why he expected that to work.
And yet, when it’s time to go to bed, he turns the static on the radio, just in case.
“Holy shit.”
Will’s sure he fell asleep in his bed five minutes ago, but now he’s more awake than ever, back in that strange, empty place. That confirms it; he’s not dreaming. He’s reached the void.
“El?” he speaks out, but it echoes back at him like a taunt. Frowning, he tries again. “El! Can you hear me?”
I don’t know what mysterious power this is, but take me to my sister. Right now.
And like something akin to magic, a solid form materializes a few feet away from him.
It’s her, he thinks, feeling half-crazy with elation, it’s really her.
He runs up to her, placing his hands on shoulders only for them to phase through her like sand. Still, the touch seemingly alerts her, and she looks around herself, confused. Then, seemingly reaching a realization, she closes her eyes and suddenly, she’s solid and real and staring at him like she’s just seen a ghost. He thinks he has a similar look on his face.
“Will, what?” she says, looking him up and down like she can’t believe him. “You can’t be here.”
“I searched for you,” he says, tracing the shape of her arms with his hands. Holy shit, she’s real. “I didn’t know you survived. I’m so glad–”
“Stop.” She pushes him away, eyes angry and cold, a look he’s never felt directed at him before. It gives him shivers just seeing her. “Stop looking for me. I can’t ever be found. And you can never tell them I lived. Do you understand? They can never know.”
Then she flicks her chin upwards, and he’s launched backwards, and he falls, and he wakes up on his bed. The room is dark and cold, his blankets flung off the bed, and he feels like he’s just been doused by a bucket of water, but now he has hope. He has a thread, a meager connection between the one he’d lost, and he’d die before he ever lets go of it.
The next day, he can barely focus on class, too busy thinking of what he’ll say to El the next time he sees her. He all but rushes home, giving his mother a hasty greeting before he shuts himself off in the room, blindfold in hand. He adjusts the radio controls until static fills the room, ties the blindfold around his eyes, and waits.
Take me to El.
And he’s there, in the void, staring at her figure. He laughs, still not believing that this is working at all. She’s chopping vegetables now, albeit very clumsily. Her slices aren’t even, and the way she holds the knife is a little off, but Will’s just happy that she seems to be doing well enough by herself.
“El?” he says, watching her furrow her brows in his direction.
So she can hear me, but can’t see me unless she’s in the void too.
“El, I know you can hear me.” This time, she deliberately looks away, focusing on her spring onions with such an intensity that he thinks she might explode them with her mind.
“I know you’re ignoring me,” he says, circling around her. “You know, now that I figured out how to do this, I’m coming to see you every day.”
She huffs, pouring the chopped vegetables into the pot.
“I know you said not to look for you, but I can’t do that. Not when I know you’re alive after all.” He wraps an arm around her shoulders, except it’s more like hovering when he’s incorporeal and she’s in the real world, cooking a stew. Still, he can feel her warmth, and it’s enough to reassure him. “We’re family. I can’t leave you alone again.”
She sniffs, then swats a hand in his direction, and he’s flung out of that subspace, albeit a softer landing than last time. He unties the blindfold, breathing heavily, and feels something wet dripping off his mouth.
He rubs at it, and sees red staining the edge of his shirt. Blood. And ugh, his head hurts. He was only in there for like, two minutes. How was El not having major headaches the whole time?
“-ill? Are you there?”
Will damn near jumps out of his skin when he hears the voice from his walkie. He thinks for a split second that it’s El, willing to talk now, but the voice keeps going, and he realizes it’s not her at all.
“Is he even home right now? Lucas, you sure he doesn’t have an art club thing going on?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Just give him a moment.”
“I’m here, I’m here.” He changes the frequency of the radio, changing it from static to some old tune his mom’s fond of. “What’s up, Max?”
“Hey, Will,” she says, voice clipped. “Wanna come with me to the hospital tomorrow?”
“Yeah, always,” he replies, trying not to let the sudden worry slip into his voice. “Do you want me to come with you or see you after your session?”
“After. See you.”
She clicks off quickly, and Will can’t help but feel something’s off. Outside of their family and Mike, Max had taken El’s sacrifice the hardest, and it got to a point where Lucas was calling Will and Dustin almost every day, worried that she would shut herself off again in guilt and self-hatred like she had with Billy’s death. By Christmas, at least, things started to get better, and Lucas’ calls became less frequent, usually just updating them that Max, thankfully, has been opening up to him.
Maybe he’s overthinking things, and Max just wants to see him. The last time they saw each other was at Max’s therapy at the beginning of the year, where she’d been practicing on holding objects up. Soon enough, she said, she’ll be back to skateboarding in no time, and Will had cheered her on. She had been smiling at that time.
So why does she sound so distant this time?
“I just miss her so much.”
Will literally just got here, but he puts the gift basket aside and makes his way to Max’s side, rubbing her back comfortingly. Her physical therapist had seen him and immediately sent him to a private room where Max was sobbing; he guessed she couldn’t take it anymore, and the therapist had sympathetically decided to give her some space.
“Shh, it’s okay,” he says, holding her arm gently. “I miss her too, all the time.”
She sniffs, weakly wiping her tears with a tissue. “Sorry, I was just… I was watching a show yesterday and I thought, ‘Oh, El would love this’. And it’s not like I haven’t… had those kinds of thoughts before, I mean, Lucas took me to the supermarket and I saw a magazine with Ralph Macchio on the cover and almost killed myself but…”
She picks up another tissue, but her grip falters, and it falls to the ground. “Fuck!” she curses, and it just seems to aggravate her overflowing feelings, and Will, politely, grabs another one for her.
“I just, there’s so much stuff she hasn’t gotten to experience, and it’s got me so fucked up. I miss her everyday. And Lucas, he’s great, but there’s stuff I can’t even tell him. I even lied to him yesterday. I said my session was cancelled, so he could go to his stupid basketball tryouts. But that’s only because he got me a hairclip that ‘matched my eyes’, and the first thing I wanted to do was dial Hop’s cabin and tell her about it. And I can’t. I’ll never be able to.”
Will lets her cry herself out. He won’t pretend that it’s not incredibly overwhelming for him, having never comforted someone before, much less Max Mayfield, who he’s gotten used to seeing as nonchalant and effortlessly cool. Now she’s sobbing in front of him, and her words feel like pressing into bruises he’s learned to ignore. If this were him a week ago, he’d cry with her, hug her, talk about how much he misses El too, how he feels like he’s forever lost another half of himself he’d never truly got to experience.
Instead, he feels himself frozen as the weight of his actions settles itself in his stomach like lead.
Really, he should pretend like everything’s normal. But he’s never been a good liar.
How can he act like he doesn’t know his sister’s alive when the very mention of her name is an open wound in everyone he knows?
Max’s cries eventually turn to reluctant, almost embarrassed sniffles, and she lets herself lean on Will’s shoulder, eyes puffy and exhausted. Will, finally, remembers how to act like a normal friend and gives her a small, genuine hug. She sighs, relaxes into his hold.
“Sorry you had to see all that,” she murmurs. “I knew this was going to happen, and Lucas is great but he’s kind of useless when I start crying.” She laughs tiredly. “But you’re good, Byers. You’re always good.”
“No, don’t apologize,” he says, hoping that she can’t detect the guilt in his voice. “I’ll always be here for you.”
“Mhm.” She wipes the last of her tears with another tissue, and puts on her glasses. It’s red-framed with thick lenses given the degree of damage that Vecna’s attack had done, but she pulls them off nicely. It still takes Will some getting used to, but he’s glad Max has reclaimed this from the curse. Soon, she’ll get most of her mobility back too.
Max sighs, distracting him from his thoughts. She looks at the door, a light blush of shame coloring her cheeks. “Ugh, and I can’t face my therapist again. We were just testing my upper arm strength and then Madonna came on the radio and I broke down in tears. God, you must think I’m super lame now. Dustin’s the only one still believing the illusion.”
“She’ll understand,” Will tells her gently. “And personally, you’re still the coolest person I know, Max.”
“You’re sweet,” she says, a small smile on her face as she sits up in her chair. They’d gotten a lot closer since the final battle, and for that, Will’s glad.
Then, she considers him properly for the first time. “You look… better.”
Will tenses. “Yeah?”
She nods. “I’m definitely calling the kettle black here, but you looked like a ghost when I saw you around. And I get it, I mean, look at me now.” She motions to her unkempt hair and red-rimmed eyes. “But you look… like you won’t just keel over, I guess.”
“Thanks?” Yeah, because now he’s going insane trying to get his sister to talk to him, still half-convinced she’s a contrived figure of his imagination. “It’s been easier, I guess, with school starting. Sense of normalcy and all that. It’s way less depressing than staying at home all day.”
Max nods. “Yeah, school. You think I should go back?”
Will shrugs. “If you want, Max.”
She hums. “Maybe just to get my diploma. College sounds like a load of shit, anyway.”
“I’m pretty sure Lucas is going to college out of state. The rest of us too, honestly.”
“Even Mike?”
The name stings almost as much as El’s does. “I’m… not sure.”
Max huffs. “He’s still holding himself up at home, isn’t he? He wasn’t like this when I first met him.”
That’s because he was radioing her every night, convinced she was out there, listening. And now… not anymore. “He’s having a tough time. Mrs. Wheeler hasn’t forced him to attend classes yet, so…”
“I see,” she says, accepting it quickly. Despite them pretending to hate each other, Will thinks she might understand Mike’s grief the most right now.
“Well, thanks for coming. You didn’t need to bring a gift basket, really.”
He’d almost forgotten about it. He picks it up from the floor and places it on his lap. “No, I insist. If you really want, take it as a late Christmas gift from the Byers.”
“If you say so, sorcerer,” she says goodnaturedly. “Anyway, my PT canceled the rest of the session for real this time, so do you mind walking me to the lobby? My mom’s parked there.”
“No problem.” And as he wheels her out of the room and to the elevator, he remembers something.
“Hey, what’s the name of that show you think El would’ve liked?”
“Hey.”
He’s back in the void again, sitting across El who’s on a comfy-looking bed, attempting to read a book in a language he doesn’t recognize. He can tell she hears him, because she turns over away from his voice and flips the page, though her eyes remain stuck on the corner.
“I’m checking on you, like I said I would. And… I saw Max today.”
El’s shoulders tense, but she doesn’t react otherwise.
“She’s doing physical therapy. I don’t know if you’ve checked on her recently, but, uh, she can move a bit now. She complains about how slow it’s going, but Lucas thinks she secretly enjoys how much he’s taking care of her. She also has glasses now, so she can see better. She hated them at first because she thought it made her look nerdy, but Max is the kind of person who can pull them off. Anyway, if she’s a nerd, she’ll fit in with the rest of the party. I hope the five of us can get together soon.
She also misses you, very much.”
El’s grip on the book tightens.
“She was watching a show and thought you might like it. It’s the Golden Girls. Mom likes that show too.”
Will watches her hesitate for one, two, three seconds. Then she sits up, grabs a stray sheet of paper, and writes the name down in her messy, honest handwriting of hers. Will says nothing more, and leaves with a smile.
It’s Friday night. The first week of school is over, and yet he already has a small pile of homework he needs to accomplish. When he gets home, he wrinkles his nose at the smell; the living room stinks of beer, and he sees Hopper nursing a can as he watches TV.
“Welcome back, kid,” he says, giving Will a one-off wave. Will tries not to grimace as he greets him back.
He knows they’re nothing alike, but the smell of alcohol alone brings bad memories.
He knows it had been worse in the early weeks; that’s the whole reason why it took them so long to move out of the Wheelers’ in the first place. He knows that once his mom got herself together a little, she’d made him cut down on his alcohol to only two nights a week, but it’s still prominent enough to make both Will and Jonathan uncomfortable.
Still, it’s Hopper, the man who went through hell to find him and who raised his beloved sister. He’d rather hear his grief-ridden cries from the other room over the yelling he’s grown used to.
He does half of his homework, simple problem sets or one-paragraph essays that don’t require much brainpower at all. Then he eats a quick dinner in his room, takes a shower, and gets ready for bed. As per usual, he turns on the static, turns off the lights, and drifts off with thoughts of El.
He sees her in the void in front of a TV, and before he even comes closer, he knows what she’s watching. It still warms his heart when he sees the faces of Sophia, Blanche, Dorothy, and Rose on the screen, with El paying close attention.
“El?” he whispers, and for once, she doesn’t remain stone-faced. She closes her eyes, and all too quickly, she’s solid and real and hugging him like her life depends on it. Belatedly, Will hugs her back, and realizes she’s crying.
“I miss you all,” she says, burying her face into his neck. “So, so much. It’s just too dangerous. We put in so much work to… to end the cycle. They can’t know I’m alive. And you…”
She pushes him just enough to meet his eyes. “They can’t find you either. I don’t know how, but you’re like us. Like Henry. If they know, they’ll take you away. I can’t let them do to you what they did to Kali. To me.”
And it scares Will, yes. But more than fear, he just feels an indignant will to live despite it all. He holds her gaze as well as he can.
“We’ll find a way, El,” he says, and his heart breaks at the way she shakes her head, like she’d already denied this future for herself. “You belong here. With your family. With the Party.” He holds her hand. “With me.”
“I don’t know, Will…”
“Trust me, El,” he pleads, more desperate and more confident than he thinks. “At least… just promise you won’t shut me out.”
El hesitates, before nodding slowly. “Okay. If it’s just this much, I can handle it.”
“Good, good.” Any progress is good progress. “Just… let me know. You’re safe? You’re healthy?”
“I’m okay, Will,” she says, finally smiling. “Kali is with me.”
“Oh!” What a pleasant surprise. He’s glad she’s okay, too; any sister of El’s is family of theirs too. “Good to know. Just take care out there, both of you.”
He hesitates, then says, “I love you.” He’s never directly told her before, not even when they were living as siblings, but he feels like he has to now. He promises to keep the vow he made with Jonathan with his other sibling, too.
El smiles wider, and gives him one last hug. “I love you too.”
It’s January 23, 1988, and Will Byers wakes up happy for the first time in months.