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They've been holed up in the bathroom for the last twenty minutes, getting along, then arguing the ins and outs of piercing Will's ears right then and there. It's gotten serious: El has a half potato ready, courtesy of Argyle (and who knows how he got it— they don't ask), plus the needle itself, with a fair bit of string attached to the end. Will's sat on the toilet, staring at everything in fear, then glancing at her small hoops and feeling vaguely envious.
Will's gone back and forth on actually doing it for the past two days, but it seems like it's finally going to happen.
Maybe.
"Just hold still," El threatens. She's holding the threading needle like a gun.
"Jane, if you poke my eye out—"
"I'm not gonna poke your eye out if you hold. Still." The needle comes closer to Will's ear, and he squints his eyes closed. He doesn't want to know where the needle is— getting his ears pierced was a stupid idea and he's going to end up bleeding from a major artery.
"Can't you do this faster— auugh, Jane that hurt," Will complains. He feels bright, sharp pain and heat in his left earlobe. Then it moves, and he feels blood running down the side of his jaw.
She breathes, thin and shallow, through her concentrated expression. "Yeah, I know how getting your ears pierced feels; it's not fun." She grabs the small scissors on the sink, snips off part of the string, and ties it up. "Max helped me get my ears pierced at the mall, but they had a gun."
She leans back, admiring her handiwork, and nods at him. "It's centered." He reaches a hand up to feel the string and she smacks it away. "We've got to disinfect it first."
"Then do it?" Will bitches back.
"Well, we have to do the other side, first, Will," she snipes back. "Just— keep your hands down. I promise you can see it soon."
"Alright," he relents. Then, grinning, he rushes, "Please get it done soon, I'm so curious."
She smiles back, elated.
The right ear goes a bit better practicality-wise, but worse for Will, because he's anticipating the pain, and focuses on it when it comes.
The needle threading takes the longest, honestly. El keeps him occupied by talking about Mike's most recent letter, where he talked more about the new DM they played with, Eddie. He talked about his hair, this letter, because apparently it rivals Dustin's for volume. She keeps the conversation going when she leans in and grabs his earlobe, moving it around once, twice, thrice, and then getting the perfect angle and pushing the needle neatly through.
El's fingertips are bloody and her smile is bright when she leans back and reaches for the hydrogen peroxide.
"How does it look?"
She dabs some of the liquid onto a cotton ball, then presses it against his ear. He inhales sharply against the jolt of pain.
"Well, I think it looks fantastic." Flipping the cotton ball to the other side, she pours more hydrogen peroxide on it. "You can see it in a second, but I think the blue string goes well with your outfit."
He flushes. He's wearing a striped blue shirt and black corduroy pants. It's an outfit that would've gotten him shoved in a locker in Hawkins, but here he honestly blends in.
She leans back fully this time, beaming.
"All done," she says, excited.
Will gets up so fast he nearly gets dizzy. He turns towards the mirror, and leans over the sink to look closely at the string in his ear.
He looks good; he knows it's so stupid but he feels more himself, more adult with these tiny bits of string in his ears. He can't wait until it heals and he can move on to wearing earrings. Imagine a small diamond in one ear and a dangling cross in the other— he'd look as cool as some of the people on Jonathan's album covers. It gives him a rush of joy.
"Oh my god," he exclaims, giddy. "Oh my god! El!"
"I know! Now we can be matching!"
She grabs his hands and he squeezes back.
It heals well, all things considered. Will gets hit on less by the girls in his class, and he does get hit on by a boy who plays guitar, but he doesn't know that he's getting flirted with, so he inadvertently shuts it down.
Mike doesn't believe El's letters when they come in about Will's piercings, but they're the first thing his eyes go to when he shows up in the airport. He lets out a strangled, "they look cool," before dodging a hug and getting glared at within an inch of his life by Jonathan.
The roller rink sucks, and Will plays with his dangling dagger earring anxiously while waiting for the cops to let them go home. Mike keeps glancing at his ears then over to Jane, then down to his lap, and then back up again.
Will rolls his eyes.
They get let go soon enough.
Back at home, he leaves Mike to get ambushed by Joyce, and goes up to Jane's room, where she's brewing a goddamn storm-cloud of discontent over herself. She's changed out of her dress and into the same shirt Will got his ears pierced in: the blue and black striped white collar sweater.
"Hey," he greets quietly.
"What do you want," she asks flatly. She's picked up after Max, especially in her frustration— Max gets the point across best, so El latched on to her speech pattern.
"She kind of deserved it," he throws out. It's a peace offering.
She looks down, face drawn. She doesn't take it.
"If it helps at all, I think you're great at roller skating."
"Will—"
"No, seriously. Mike was flailing all over the place, but you had it down."
Her lips twitch at that, but then she responds with, "he wouldn't stop looking at you."
Will blinks, lungs constricting. "It was probably the earrings." Jane looks up at him, brown eyes shiny, and he continues, "he was probably so goddamn jealous I had the coolest earrings in the whole place. And I got them from you."
She tilts her head, melancholy but amused. "He wouldn't believe me when I told him you'd actually pierced them."
"I know!"
They sigh in tandem, then share a glance. She cracks a real smile this time, as Will rolls his eyes fondly.
"What an idiot," he says, jokingly dreamy. Jane giggles, kicking him lightly.
"Who's an idiot?" Mike asks, walking into the room.
"Um, no one, I have to get ready for dinner." He escapes narrowly, throwing an apologetic look over his shoulder at El, who lifts a shoulder in response, like she's saying, 'do what you have to do'. He bites down on a small smile.
He goes to his room and replaces the heavier earrings with his small silver hoops, and sighs. He just wants his sister to be happy, really. It's the least of what she deserves. His earrings bring him joy, genuinely. He can touch them like a cornerstone and remember the stupidest, fondest memory of him and El arguing over an ordeal that took less than twenty minutes from start to finish. He just wants the same for her, just something small, something she'll love. But he knows she's a complicated person; she's got more to life than being highly influenced by personal expression.
If only it was as simple as piercing ears in a bathroom on a Saturday afternoon.