Chapter Text
“You boys had better put that thing away before you hurt someone,” Jimmy’s mom scolded, handing them each a glass of lemonade.
“We’re not gonna hurt somebody,” he said with a scowl as he accepted the glass.
“Yeah,” Chris, his younger brother, echoed, taking his own glass in both hands. While Jimmy knew what he was talking about (after all, he was whole seven years old now), he didn’t know why Chris felt so certain. Chris was still only five, which meant he was an idiot. That was why Jimmy got the baseball bat and all Chris got to hold was the glove.
“Alright, but you’re on your own if you take an eye out,” his mom said as she went back inside, probably to call her friends again. Boring.
“Uh oh,” Chris said, biting his lip.
Jimmy rolled his eyes. “She’s bluffing.”
“What’s that mean?” Ugh, Jimmy forgot how stupid little kids were.
“Means she’s lying,” he said. “Now, come on, throw the ball back.”
He chugged his lemonade, setting the glass on the porch for mom to pick up later, and waited as Chris tried to mimic him, spilling lemonade all over his shirt. Gross.
“Okay, I’m ready,” Chris said, walking back to where they’d been standing before. He stood there, ball in hand, and just stared as Jimmy held the bat.
Jimmy groaned. “Chris, you have the ball. You have to throw it to me.”
“Oh yeah,” Chris said quietly, poking his tongue out as he lifted the ball. He was terrible at throwing, which is why Jimmy usually waited until his dad was home from work to play, but his mom just wanted to talk to her stupid friends, and she told him he had to play with his brother. Chris threw.
Not entirely prepared with his distracted thoughts, Jimmy swung wildly, cringing when he hit the ball with a loud crack off to the side.
That was followed with the sound of shattering glass, and Jimmy looked up in horror to see the Henderson’s house, where the ball had gone right through the garage window.
“Crap,” he hissed. He tried not to swear, usually, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
“What do we do?” Chris asked loudly, eyes wide.
“Nothing,” Jimmy snapped, gesturing for him to lower his voice as his eyes darted around wildly for witnesses. “We didn’t see it happen. It wasn’t our fault. Got it?”
Chris nodded.
“Let’s go inside. Come on.”
The two of them raced inside, crossing their fingers that they wouldn’t be caught for their crimes.
Will didn’t even bother locking the door behind him as he rushed into Dustin’s house, slamming the spare key he’d grabbed from under the mat down on the coffee table and tossing his bag next to it. He didn’t even pause to take his shoes off, something he normally wouldn’t dream of.
“Dustin!” he yelled. His mom’s car wasn’t there, or Will would be more careful with his volume, but Dustin wouldn’t care about that. His bike was still in the front, next to where Will had thrown his own haphazardly, and Dustin didn’t usually run errands with his mom.
Ugh, he thought, poking his head through the kitchen. If only he had remembered his stupid radio. He could just ask Dustin. Then again, Mike might’ve answered, and that was the last thing he needed. And anyway, he’d left it back at Mike’s house, and there was no way in hell he was going there.
Lucas lived way too close to Mike, which meant that would be the first place Mike would go to if he tried to follow him, and Dustin was the only other person who knew, so Will had biked as fast as his legs could take him there.
“Dustin, I need to talk to you,” he begged, stopping in Dustin’s room. Empty, save for Tews, stretched out across his bed, purring. Will stopped to pet her, smiling.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where your family went, would you?” he asked.
She just yawned. Huh. Maybe he just wasn’t home?
The garage! Dustin had been working on some… science project he wouldn’t tell them about for the past few months. Something he claimed would “revolutionize the world of science”. He wouldn’t tell them any details, claiming it was “classified”, but he had mentioned the other day that he’d had to move it to the garage after it started taking up way too much space in his room.
He gave the cat one last quick pet goodbye and marched off to the garage.
“Dustin, we need to talk,” he said, throwing open the garage door and stepping in. He stopped in place, staring at the strange machine before him. It looked like something out of a comic book, only it was a real, life-sized machine pointed directly at him.
He frowned. Dustin wasn’t there. God damn it. He needed to talk to someone.
There was a beep, and Will turned back to the machine. Was that thing on? That didn’t seem like a smart idea.
A faint hum started up, and when Will stepped forward to get a closer look, he realized there was a red light coming out the front, pointing a laser. While the rest of the machine seemed pretty high-tech, the baseball that blocked the beam of light seemed far from it.
“What the hell?” he muttered. Smoke rose from the baseball, like the light was burning through it, and Will stiffened, wondering if he should maybe turn it off or something, before the light flew through the baseball and directly at him.
The air was forced from his lungs, pressure tightened around his entire body, and everything went dark.
Dustin tried not to grimace as he hauled a veritable mountain of groceries to the front door. He had agreed to go to one singular store with his mother. Not five. As much as he adored her, she could talk for hours if she ran into someone she knew (which was inevitable), and hours it had been.
Dustin, meanwhile, was antsy to get home. He really felt like he was making a breakthrough with his machine. He just needed a few more tests, and then he could test it on something real. A cockroach, maybe? Or a rat.
He went to unlock the door and frowned when he realized it was already unlocked. Balancing his bags a little better, he twisted it open nervously. He was sure he had locked it behind himself when they’d left.
Will’s bag was by the door. Oh, he thought, relieved. So someone hadn’t broken in. Or at least not someone who didn’t have full permission to do so.
He shoved all his bags on the counter, turning to leave, only for his mother to walk in with her own arms full and shoot him a look.
He sighed, turning back to put the groceries away.
“I hope you know I am never going shopping with you again.”
“That’s not true,” she scoffed. Dustin grimaced. She was right, of course, but he didn’t have to admit that. Even if he knew a few weeks from now she’d ask for a hand and he’d fall right into her trap.
“Go relax,” she told him when the bags were about half empty. “Thanks for coming with me, hon. I can finish up the rest and start on dinner.”
Dustin grinned, running to his room to see Will. Knowing him, he’d probably conked out in his bed. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened.
But his bed was empty. Dustin frowned. Maybe Will had stopped by, realized he wasn’t home, and left? And he had just forgotten his bag.
But— he went back to the front door and, sure enough, Will’s bike was tossed aside carelessly.
Maybe he was in the bathroom? Dustin reasoned, but when he walked down the hall, something else caught his eye. Not only was the light off in the bathroom, but the garage door was open.
They had a strict rule to keep it shut, lest Tews get her meddling paws on Dustin’s work, and a bad feeling twisted in Dustin’s gut. The feeling grew worse as he walked into the room and noticed the state of it.
The window was shattered, broken glass shards all over the floor. He was lucky he hadn’t bothered taking his shoes off.
Worst of all, his machine was toast. The silver front was black with ash, like the laser had been left on for far too long. When he pried back a panel on the side (which was uncomfortably warm), he saw melted wires running through. He was lucky it hadn’t burned the damn house down.
On the contrary, Dustin didn’t feel very lucky at all. Slowly, the dots started connecting in his head.
His machine had been turned on. Will was missing. Will had been in the garage.
Tews meowed, purring as she rubbed against Dustin’s leg. His breath stuttered in his chest. Will—had he—had Tews—?
He looked around frantically. “Will?” he hissed, crouching and desperately hoping his friend would appear with a laugh, telling him how he’d shown up to a broken machine and thought it would be funny to play a prank, even though Will was far from the type.
There was light in the corner of the room, from the garage door they never opened these days. Dustin tilted his head as he walked to it, watching his step carefully.
The door was sealed to the ground with a rubber segment. They always kept it shut, because his mom was paranoid of thieves, and now that Dustin had his stuff stored there he was too, but now, there was a tear in the rubber. One that Dustin was positive hadn’t been there this morning.
Frantic, he carefully walked back to his room, pulling out his radio with shaking hands.
“Code red,” he said on the Party’s channel. “We have a code red. Does anyone copy?”
“i copy,” Mike said too quickly. He must’ve already had his radio on hand. “What’s wrong?”
“Is everything okay? Is it about the Upside Down?” Lucas asked, and Dustin grimaced.
“I fucked up,” he said, heart pounding.
“Dude. Clarify,” Lucas said, his annoyance clear even with the crackling radio.
Dustin took a deep breath. “I shrunk Will.”