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“Night, honey. Wake me if you need anything. I mean it.”
“Okay. Night, Mom.”
The lights are flicked off, and the door closes behind his mom with a soft click.
It had officially been a week and three days since Will came back from what his friends had named “The Upside Down.”
When he was there, he didn’t really have a name for it, as he was too busy running from the monster that seemed to want him more than anything, but deep in his mind, under the terror and worry and pain, he thought it was Hell.
It wasn’t the Hell he heard about when his family used to go to church with its fire and brimstone and demons holding pitchforks with serpent tongues that hissed what he’s heard his whole life.
No, this Hell was different.
This Hell was cold, so very cold and desolate, with pulsing vines and lighting and floating spores that infected his lungs. It didn’t have demons, but it had tall, humanoid monsters with flower-petal mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth that chased him from trees to houses and shops to the woods and to Castle Byers.
This Hell was different from the one he always heard about, but it was Hell, nonetheless.
Despite what he and Lucas had agreed upon, that his love wasn’t bad or wrong, he still ended up in Hell for his feelings.
Yeah, he should’ve seen that one coming.
Anyway, it’s been a little over a week since he came back, and he was only allowed to come home from the hospital three days ago, but his mom has yet to let him out of her sight.
His mom has always been a worrier.
(Sometimes, Will wonders if she’s always been this way, or if she only started when she had Jonathan and was “stuck” with his dad.)
But since he’s come back, it’s just gotten worse.
Every time he moves, his mom is immediately up, asking him where he’s going and if he needs help and all sorts of things, and while he knows it’s a righteous worry, as he was gone for almost a week, it’s annoying, nonetheless.
The only time he's alone is when he’s using the bathroom, and even then, his mom is right outside the door, like he’d disappear while he’s peeing, and when he sleeps.
Well, sleep is a stretch.
Will doesn’t sleep much these days.
Sometimes, his mom gives him some pills from the lab or the hospital (he’s not sure which) and it puts him to sleep, but it’s sleep filled with nightmares all the same.
Visions of what his friends dubbed “The Demogorgon” and its long claws ripping his flesh into ribbons and vines holding him down. The horror of running but getting nowhere. The cold, cold air settling deep in his bones, in his stomach, congealing his blood.
Now, when his mom gives him the pills, he’ll pretend to swallow them, but hide them under his tongue and spit them out in the toilet, flushing them down so he isn’t subjected to those nightmares.
Tonight is just like any other.
Will is buried under his blankets, trying to warm his chilled skin, and he’s staring at the nightlight he keeps plugged in, eyes wide open, because if he closes his eyes, he’ll be right back there, running from monsters, cold and alone.
It’s just like any other night, until he hears a knocking against his window.
Will’s body seizes in fear.
It’s found him.
It’s found him, and it won’t let him get away, not this time.
He tries to scream for his mom or his brother, anyone, but his voice won’t work; it’s like something has frozen his vocal cords.
But the knocking continues, a soft rapping against his window, and it’s familiar and repeating, so Will waits for the cycle to start anew.
L.
U.
C.
A.
S.
Lucas.
Will instantly relaxes, a soft smile on his lips as he untangles himself from his blankets and bedsheets.
The rapping continues until he pulls away his curtains to reveal Lucas in his red denim jacket, holding the handlebars of his bike with one hand.
Lucas smiles at him, lifting his free hand in a wave.
The other boy quickly unlocks the window and pulls it open, the rush of cold air making his whole body to shiver.
Lucas easily pulls himself through Will’s window, then closes it behind him.
“What are you doing here?” Will whispers once Lucas turns back around.
It’s not that he’s not glad to see his friend; he is.
(He hasn’t really seen much of his friends because his mom has had him on some sort of house arrest.)
But it’s late, and Lucas shouldn’t have biked all the way to Will’s house this late at night, and he might get in trouble, or hurt, and it would be all Will’s fault and he can’t–
“I was worried,” Lucas tells him softly. “And I couldn’t sleep, so I came to check in on you.”
Will frowns, despite the warm, buzzing feeling settling in his chest from the fact that Lucas is worried about him.
Lucas’ worry feels different from his mom’s worry or his brother’s or even his other’s friends’, and part of him knows why, but doesn’t want to dwell on it.
“You shouldn’t worry about me,” Will says, looking down at his socked feet, which toe the wooden floor.
“I always worry about you.”
Will swallows hard.
He’s always thinking about me.
“Even before…”
Will knows what the other boy means, it hangs in the air between them like a noose.
Before it got you. Before you disappeared. Before you came back. Before you changed.
“Even before we lost you.”
Will looks up in surprise to find that Lucas’ eyes are warm and soft and earnest, like they always are.
The taller boy smiles in a way that makes the corners of his eyes crease, and he looks boyish and bright, like the sun, and Will’s not scared, not with him.
Will’s not scared with Lucas here, so he decides to be a little bold, like Lucas, who is impossibly bold, recklessly courageous, and unwaveringly confident.
Being bold is a rarity for Will because he only ever seems to be made bold by his friends.
“You want to stay here?” he asks. “You shouldn’t bike back home; it’s dark.”
It’s dark and scary, and I’m alone and scared and cold.
Lucas nods. “Yeah, thanks.”
So, Will crawls back into his bed, under the safety of his covers, but this time, he’s not alone, because Lucas joins him.
And as if practiced, Lucas’ warm hand grabs Will’s cold one under the blankets, twisting their fingers together.
The act is surprising, an act of sin even if it’s dark and hidden away from prying eyes.
(A sin is still a sin, even if no one can see it.)
But the action doesn’t cause Will fear like it probably should, it simply causes a soft fluttering inside his chest, like the flapping of a hummingbird’s wings, fast and mesmerizingly beautiful.
His eyes land on the lump under the blankets that their hands form, and he wonders if maybe Lucas is afraid that he might not stay if their fingers aren’t tied together, which is silly, because Will can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.
“I haven’t been able to sleep much,” Lucas whispers gently into the quiet darkness.
“Neither have I,” Will admits for the first time.
He doesn’t tell Lucas about the nightmares, about the night terrors, about the sleeping pills, but Lucas probably knows anyway because he’s looking at Will softly, the worry evident in his eyes, but it doesn’t make Will angry or hurt like everyone else’s worry.
Lucas nods. “Then we’ll fall asleep together.” He smiles softly, eyes crinkling in a way that makes Will know it’s real. “To keep all the bad stuff away.”
Bad stuff as in monsters and government agents and cold, so cold air, and death, and the smell of blood and coughing and vines tight around his wrists and ankles.
And Will can’t do much, not anymore, not now, not here, but he can hold onto Lucas’ hand tighter to keep himself from floating away, so he does.
Lucas doesn’t pull away, just holds on just as tight, and Will’s chest feels warm, and he feels so very safe and at home.
Within seconds, both boys are fast asleep, hands still wrapped around each other like they never plan on pulling them apart.