Chapter Text
Summer.
Summer was a time that was always complicated for Will. When he was younger - too young to be left home alone, even in a time like there's - it meant long days spent at the Wheeler house with Mike as Nancy played the occasional babysitter even as Jonathan could have done the same at theirs.
But back then being anywhere but home had been for the best.
(With the shouting and the blows and the bottles shattering against walls and the way that there wasn't even school to run to)
When they were just a bit older, only the summer after, his house was placed as a summer spot as well. The monster that had been hiding within it was gone.
Soon, their numbers would double, even in the summer, as their party grew from two to four, and summer would be nothing but brightness and laughter.
It would hold none of the fear that it once did.
Only sunlight and lakes and dice rolled across a table as cheers filled the air.
Right now summer meant warmth.
He'd hated the winter. The cold. Even the fall before it had been something pained, the chill biting at him in a way that had reminded him of the Upside Down.
The winter had been torture though, every moment without warmth eating at him as if his body was still filled with smoke.
(He likes it cold)
Even spring, with all the beauty that it held, had hurt more than he ever cared to admit to anyone outside of his own mind.
Maybe that's why when the others complained about the summer heat, he was the only one silent, living within it.
But there was a different sort of cold, the kind that didn't bite at your skin but at your heart.
"Curfew!" Mike called back as he and El ran through the woods - away from the rest of them - using the excuse for the third time that week even as all of them knew that it was bullshit. That El didn't have to be home for hours, especially not when they were in the woods and nowhere near the rest of the town.
It seemed right then as if friends not lying didn't apply to half truths.
Will sighed as the three of them watched the pair run between the trees, their form growing smaller with each step, it was no question what the two were running away to do.
It made him feel nauseous to think about, though he always ignored the reason why.
(He hated himself in the moments that he didn't)
Max gave him a smile that showed her own frustration at it all right then, something that he knew that the girl tried to shove down when she could, excusing how the two acted by calling it romantic.
Even she got tired of it every now and then.
"Those two are the worst sometimes," Lucas said, speaking what all three of them had been thinking.
"Agreed."
"Definitely."
"You know," Lucas continued, laughing a bit at the antics of the other two even as he had been the one to start it, "if we leave now we can catch the next showing of The Goonies."
"Might as well," Max agrees, shrugging as she does, but they all can see that her mood was lighter than before, "friends never say die and all of that."
She tried to sound uncaring of it, but they all knew the truth. Will laughed with the other boy, both of them knowing that Max liked the movie just as much the rest of the party did.
"That good with you, Will?" Lucas asked, and the boy in question tried not to force himself to start at the fact that he was being asked.
That Max was looking at him just as expectantly right then as Lucas was, neither of them seeming as if they were just waiting - hoping - for him to say no so that they could be alone the way that El and Mike would have had it been them. If they had asked at all.
They looked as if they genuinely wanted him to come.
Will couldn't be blamed for the smile that slipped across his lips right then at the thought as he nodded.
"He said yes!" Max whooped, even as Will hadn't said a word at all. He hadn't needed to. "Last one to the bikes pays for snacks!" She declared, her voice free in the way that everyone's should be during the summer, even if it was a bit jumbled at the end as she began to run before she had even finished her sentence.
"Hey!" Both of the boys yelled, their feet pushing quickly against the ground as they ran to catch up.
Still, they were smiling as they did.
—-
"You only beat me cause you had a head start," Lucas grumbled as they walked into the convenience store and made their way to the snack isle.
"Oh yeah?" Max started, still smiling from her victory even then, "then how come Byers here beat us both, head start and all?" She asked, making Will blush at the second hand praise, not used to receiving any anymore.
"That," Lucas starts as he grabs sour gummies, Bottle Caps, and M&Ms without even having to ask for either of them, "is because Will is fast enough that if our town wasn't filled with so many assholes then he would be on the track team."
There was pride in his voice as he spoke, as if he truly believed that Will would have done well on such a thing if it weren't for those around them.
"If our town wasn't filled with so many assholes then I wouldn't need to be fast enough to be on the track team," Will retorts without thought, and just a bit of venom, as they walked out of the isle.
He wants to take the words back as soon as he says them, seeing in real time how they ruined the other two's mood, but he doesn't get the chance to as they each take one side of him and bump their shoulders against his.
It was a quite reassurance, understanding, something that didn't need to be said.
But was heard all the same.
There was a chill in his chest, something that didn't go away even as they rode through the hot summer sun to the new mall, but right then it was just a bit warmer than it had been all summer.
—-
"Your kids are here, Dingus," the girl at the counter - Robin, Will thought her name was - called over her shoulder as she saw the three walk into the ice cream shop.
He could see her writing something on a white board as they got closer, tracing it over in red and black in a way that looked like a chart.
Max can't help but burst out laughing when she saw what it said.
"That uniform is not doing him any favors," the skater remarked, mirth in her voice nonetheless at the thought of Steve suffering, just a bit.
"Nope," Lucas agreed, capping the red dry erase marker for Robin as Will handed her the black one once more.
"Not a one," Will nodded along.
"I'm hearing three very ungrateful teens right now," Steve remarked, the side door opening as he stepped into view and waved them through it all the same. "What, no mini Wheeler?" He asked when he noticed that they were two idiots short, though one of those couldn't be helped for the rest of the month.
He missed Henderson already.
"Too busy with El," Will answers, keeping his voice as neutral as he could.
"Again," Max added on with the frustration that Will wouldn't let himself voice, the red haired girl missing the only other girl in their group, the pair of them having grown on each other like weeds over the last few months despite the initial dislike.
"Well, have fun anyways," Steve said as he waved them through the second staff door as well, as if they didn't know the way.
His voice was much softer when he spoke this time, sympathetic to the three. He'd had friends in the past that struggled to divide their time as well and knew the look of it on another's face when that was the case.
At least Sinclair and Mayfield seem to know how to do so, for Byers's sake at the least, he couldn't stop himself from thinking as he watched the hurry down the hall, Sinclair passing off the snacks to the other two.
The three sat in the back of the movie theater, whispering to one another as it played. An advantage of having seen a movie before was that you could always make fun of it the second time around and not miss a thing. So that's what they did, ignoring the looks that got sent their way from time to time just from their presence alone.
The glares and whispers of others didn't matter right then when you could feel nothing but invincible with friends.
Not even the name Zombie Boy being thrown around just loud enough that the speakers were sure that Will could hear soured his mood right then, not when Lucas leaned down and whispered some remark that Max had whispered to him and he was adding onto just for Will.
The warmth in his chest grew just a bit more.
---
They stopped outside of the mall with their bikes after the movie had ended, looking up at the sky as the sun started to show the tell - tell signs of setting, something that meant that their actual curfew was coming quick.
"The three of us should hang out again tomorrow," Max offered as they set off, swerving around the other people that had just left the mall as well on her bike, the boys following her lead.
"We could go to the elementary school and skate on the outdoor basket ball court like you've been wanting to do," Lucas throws out there as if they had both already agreed and that was that.
Maybe it was just as simple as that.
"The before school planning doesn't start till next month," Will adds when he sees the little uncertain twists to Max's lips, a look that was so similar to the one that Mike would wear that he knew that they would both kill him if he were to point it out, "so it should still be cleared out."
"Alright," Max agrees, a smirk growing on her face as she does that has both boys tensing for what she might say next, "but if one of you fall and break something then you better be ready to ride your bike to the ER and lie through teeth about where it happened."
Lucas laughed at that, enough so that his bike swerved just a bit, but they both knew how serious she was.
"I've been set on fire," Will says with his own laughter, forgetting for a moment how dark the sentence was, "I doubt one broken bone would hurt much after that."
He didn't forget when the pair looked at him that same way that they had earlier in the convince store.
"I ever tell you that you're the strongest person I know?" Lucas asked as they rode, genuine as he did so, meaning every word and smiling softly as an embarrassed sort of blush broke out on the other boy's cheeks for the second time that day.
Will shook his head as he rode between the pair, not having noticed when that happened, ducking his head as best as he could to hide from their knowing gazes.
"Well, you are," Max agrees, even after she was only there for half of it.
It was enough to know that it was true all the same.
Those words were a slight high that Will rode all the way back home and into the night when he laid down to sleep.
It was only in that place between thinking and sleeping that he realized that not once had he felt out of place with the other two.
For the first time all summer he didn't mind that Mike wasn't going to be there the next day.