Chapter Text
Will POV
Will feels the sand squish between his toes. It's cold and damp. He leaves little footprints as he walks. He looks back and sees his trail, it's long, with no beginning in sight. How long has he been walking? Will looks to the sky, the sun is nowhere to be seen. Only a dense yellow fog hangs overhead.
Will is pulled forward, encouraged to keep walking. He's so close. In the distance he sees the fractal, it's about the size of a football field. It hums, sings to him. It welcomes him.
In the middle is a man. The noseless monster, who he sees almost every night. He smiles when he sees Will approach. Will’s feet meet stone. The fractal hums to life. Red sigils glow as he passes. The man extends his viney claw-like hand, offering it to Will.
“Welcome home, William.”
Will wakes with a gasp. He’s covered in sweat and hyperventilating. He reaches blindly for the bedside lamp, smacking it a few times before finding the knob to turn it on. He reaches into his hair, yanking it a little to ground himself. His breaths are coming in a little steadier.
His alarm clock reads 3:47 am.
He looks around the room to ground himself. He looks at his end table, his drawing table (a christmas gift from Hopper) and he turns to the door and lets out a soft startled scream.
El is standing in the doorway, her figure shrouded in shadows.
She rushes to his side.
She’s clad in her pink fuzzy kitten pajamas and her hair is a mess. She has brunette curls sticking up in all sorts of directions. Crap. He woke her up again.
“I'm sorry El..” Will starts, but she's shushing him. He opens his arms and she climbs into them, curling up against his side. He cringes slightly. She must feel how sweaty he is, she doesn’t comment though.
Will’s mom and Hopper moved in together three months ago. Jonathan protested, saying it was too soon, but it happened anyway. Will was nervous about it. Hopper made him a little nervous, he seemed nice enough, but Mike had horror stories upon horror stories lined up. His mom was happy though. Happier than he's ever seen her, so Will gave her his blessing despite his reservations.
An unexpected miracle to the union was El.
Will’s never wanted a sister before, but after El moved in, he kind of felt like he was always supposed to have one. He didn’t anticipate how fast he and El would bond once they lived together.
Hop and his mom even joked they were like twins, much to the secret delight of both Will and El.
El carts a hand through his hair absent mindedly. Something she picked up after once watching Joyce comfort him after a nightmare.
He doesn't know why this soothes him so much, something about her presence just does. Maybe because she understands so well. She is no stranger to nightmares either and they share a wall. Her room is right next door and the walls are thin. Will rests his head into the crook of her neck, he has to fold himself a little.
He hit a growth spurt over the last 7 months and is now a half-foot taller than her.
“Do you want to talk about it?” El whispers to him. He shakes his head. It's pretty rare that he talks about his nightmares, but she offers every time anyway. This has become a sort of routine for them. One of them will have a nightmare and the other will run to their room to comfort the other.
Between the two of them they probably get, like, 5 hours of sleep every night.
Will sighs and sinks further into El. They wake up cuddling more often than not. Will tries not to think about why their parents don’t care. He’s sure it’s because they’re practically siblings, not because they know he’s ….
Anyways El is a great sister. Will has the kindest most compassionate siblings ever.
Will sniffles slightly, he reaches his hand up to wipe at his eyes.
“Thanks El, you’re like the best sister ever.” he whispers into her neck. She chuckles but it comes out a little wet. “Go to sleep, Will.” She whispers back to him.
Will wakes up 3ish hours later with a kink in his neck. He quietly extracts himself from El. She lets out a soft noise but settles into the bed. Will heads across the basement to the tiny full bath. When Hopper asked his mom (and family) to move in, he bought a small 4 bedroom two bath house close to the edge of Hawkins.
Will and El’s room were located in the small basement that consisted of the two bedrooms, a bathroom and a small multi-purpose room. The multi-purpose room is mostly being used for storage right now.
Will has to crawl over boxes and shelves to get to the bathroom. He curses softly when he stubs his toe and stumbles into the bathroom. He hits the light and blinks when it assaults his eyes. The room is beige..well the whole house is beige really. The only exceptions are the ‘kids’ bedrooms. Will’s is yellow, El’s is purple and Jonathan’s is green.
Will turns on the faucet, he splashes cold water into his face and leans on the counter. He flinches slightly when he gets a look at himself in the mirror. His eyes are bloodshot with dark circles under them.
Will turns to the left and turns on the shower. The shower is small and the spray hits him mid-neck, so he has to duck to actually wash his hair. No chance in hell Hop can ever use this bathroom.
Will finishes in the shower and towels off. He gets dressed and quietly heads up the stairs located beside the bathroom.
It's dark and quiet upstairs. He’s the only one up.
Luckily, the basement stairs open directly into the laundry room, which is located right next to the kitchen. So he doesn’t have to worry about waking anyone up. The master bedroom and Jonathan's room are located on the other side of the house on the main level.
Will quietly starts on breakfast. He takes a quick peak at the oven clock - 6:23 am - and sighs. Everyone will be up in about half-an hour.
Will makes eggs, toast and bacon. By the time he’s done everyone is lazily filtering into the kitchen area. His mother gives him a kiss on his cheek and goes to start making coffee. He’s about half-a foot taller than her too.
Jonathan pats him on the shoulder.
“Another nightmare?” He asks quietly. Will just nods and starts plating the food. The Hopper half of the Byers-Hopper family are usually the last to show up for breakfast. Hopper enters the kitchen, stumbling slightly as he tries to put his shoes on as he walks. He siddles up next to Joyce. He places a loving hand on the small of her back and reaches for the top cabinet. He gets his and his mom’s mugs down. As he hands her the mug he places a wet kiss on her lips.
Ughhhh.
Both boys make grossed out noises. His mom and Hop just smile softly to each other.
Maybe this is why El is always late to breakfast.
He spots her hustling up the stairs, her purple backpack is bouncing slightly as she runs. She’s always so excited for school. Since mom convinced Hop to let her go, she wakes up practically oozing with enthusiasm. Her and the party spent the rest of summer (after the meatflayer incident) trying to catch her up as fast as possible. Dustin even went to Mr. Clarke to get a lesson plan.
Will knows El still struggles…it's not her fault. It’s just clear that Dr. Brenner didn’t care for his ‘children’s’ education at all. El grabs some toast to go.
Will glances at the clock - 7:30am.
They should start heading to school. Will places his half-eaten breakfast plate on the counter near the sink. He grabs his backpack and heads for the door. Jonathan follows, grabbing his keys.
Will is still not allowed to bike to school and El really isn’t allowed too. Will and El slide into the backseat - they’ve fought over shotgun before and choose the backseat to keep the peace. Jonathan glances at them periodically through the rear-view mirror.
They arrive at the high school. Jonathan splits off to find Nancy, waving a brief goodbye to his siblings.
El and Will walk into the school side by side. Will sees the rest of the party arguing by the lockers. Mike’s face lights up when he spots them. El runs, backpack bouncing, into Mike’s arms. They give each other a long kiss.
Will swallows. He loves El, but god does that still hurt.
Will waves awkwardly at Dustin and Lucas. Dustin coughs pointedly at Mike. Mike slowly detaches his lips from Will’s sister. Mike lazily throws an arm around El’s shoulders.
Will quickly looks to Lucas. “So um..what were you guys talking about?”
Lucas gestures to the other party members. “I was just inviting everyone to my game tonight.” Lucas says dejectedly.
Will perks up. “Well, of course we’ll go! Right guys?” Will turns to the others. They shake their heads. Will frowns. What’s up with that?
“We have Hellfire tonight! Remember? It’s the end of Eddie’s campaign.” Dustin argues, he throws his hands up to emphasize his point. Will looks to Mike. Mike nods along, agreeing with Dustin’s point.
“But…this is important to Lucas…isn’t it?” He directs the question to Lucas.
“Thank you! It’s the championship game! Just get Eddie to postpone.” Lucas argues back.
Mike frowns. And looks at Will bewildered. “You’d rather go to a basketball game than play D&D?”
“Well…it’s for Lucas right?” Will responds softly. Lucas throws an arm around Will and gives him a gentle squeeze. “Thanks Will.”
Lucas heads off to class.
“Son of a bitch.” Dustin blurts out. Mike sighs, his arm still wrapped around El’s shoulders. Will swallows and looks away.
He has math class right now anyway.
______________________________________________________
Lunch is awkward.
Will’s late coming back from his art class. When the bell rang he started cleaning up, but noticed a section he wanted to quickly fix. Quickly fix, turned into 15 minutes of erasing and shading.
He’s lugging around his massive 24x18 inch sketchbook through the cafeteria.
When he sees the table designated for the ‘freaks’, he makes a b-line for it. Eddie is animated. He’s going on about an article written about how D&D is a game for satan worship and cults.
All the ‘nerds’ sitting at the table are completely enraptured by him. Dustin, Mike and El sit on one side of the table and the rest of the Hellfire club sits on the other. Eddie sits at the head of the table. Mike and El are sitting as close together as possible. Mike is using his right hand to play with a lock of El’s hair.
Will sets his bag down on the other side of Dustin. Mike glances up at the noise and his eyes light up. Mike moves fast and makes grabby motions with his hands. When he grabs at Will, he accidentally pulls on the lock of hair he was playing with. Will winces in unison with El.
“What? I don’t know what …” Will pauses to mimic Mike’s hand gestures, “... means Mike.”
Mike huffs. “What are you working on? Can I see it?” He’s already grabbing Will's sketchbook out of his hands. He accidentally smacks Dustin with it on the way over. Dustin lets out a little “Dude” and ducks further out of the way.
Maybe Will should have chosen a smaller sketchbook. Mike’s an absolute menace with the 24x18.
Mike looks like a kid on Christmas as he flips open the first page.
“Careful Mike!” Will moves Mike’s food tray out of the way, so the cover doesn’t end up wearing Mike’s lunch. Will flashes Dustin a little apology smile when he gets too close in his panic to save the book.
Mike mutters a little sorry to Will, but it doesn’t deter his glee.
Will rolls his eyes and pulls his bagged lunch from his backpack. A simple ham sandwich and crackers.
‘Will….this is…” Mike starts. Will looks at him mid-chew. “Wow…” Mike tilts the sketchbook so El can get a good view of the drawing too. Will strains his neck to see which drawing Mike’s looking at. It's the drawing of the lush rainforest with the bioluminescent flowers. Will smiles around his mouthful of food. Thankfully these now-memories aren’t obviously Upside Down otherwise Mike would’ve had a very different reaction. Mike flips the page.
It’s a drawing of the desert with the yellow fog. Then Will suddenly remembers, the fourth drawing is of the noseless man - very clearly Upside Down related. Will snatches the sketchbook out of Mike’s hands, crawling over Dustin - again- to grab it. Both Dustin and Mike look startled.
“Eat your lunch Michael.” Will says, gesturing to his abandoned tray. Mike huffs, but pulls the tray closer to himself. El quirks an eyebrow and leans forward to make eye contact with Will.
Will looks away.
The rest of the Hellfire Club looks at them with amusement. Eddie is leaning back, as far as his chair will allow.
Mike elbows Dustin.
Dustin says, trying too hard to be casual, “So Eddie. Lucas has to do his…uh…balls-in-laundry basket game so he’s not gonna be able to make it to Hellfire tonight…annnnd I know there’s no way we can beat your sadistic campaign without him…so me and Mike were thinking maybe we might…”
“Postpone,” Mike interrupts.
The table is in uproar, most of all Eddie. He is absolutely offended that Lucas would dare choose basketball over D&D.
“Maybe, El could sub.” Dustin says, eyebrows raised at El. El frowns. “I don’t know how to play.”
“We’ll teach you! It’ll be fun!” El looks unsure. She’s never really been interested in playing D&D.
“Don’t you think one of us should go to support Lucas?” Will cuts in. The table turns to look at him. Will shrinks a little in his seat. “I mean it's a big deal to him.” Will finishes, but he loses confidence partway.
“You’re taken over by the darkside too, Byers?” Eddie says. Will flinches a little, that hits a little too close to home. His brain provides an image of the dead Russian doctor.
“No..” Will stammers out, “I just don’t want him to think we abandoned him.”
“He abandoned us!” Mike argues. Will looks down, it’s so hard to say no to Mike.
“I can go. You can find another sub for him.” El says. “I’ve never been to a basketball game before. It could be fun!” Will frowns. He doesn’t like the idea of El being alone either. Maybe Jonathan would go with her. Will looks around the cafeteria for his brother, but doesn’t see him.
Will barely has time to eat another bite of his lunch before Eddie is sending them out to find ‘another lost sheepy’.
Will makes a pitstop to deposit his sketchbook in his locker. Jason Carver and Chrissy Cunningham walk behind him, as they pass, Will gets a chill down the back of his neck.
Startled, he snaps his head to look at them. However, they’re already towards the end of the hallway, hand-in-hand.
Will touches the back of his neck. What was that?
Will could feel Jason's hand, as if it was on his own. Will frantically shakes his hand cause ewww.
What the hell?!
Will books it in the other direction. The last thing he wants is to feel this connection if they start, like, making out or something.
Hopefully distance works.
What did this mean about Chrissy? Was she possessed or something? Or was it Jason?
Will wanders the halls for a good 15 minutes before giving up on finding his friends. He opts to slip into the empty art classroom instead. He has a half-finished painting there -acrylic on canvas - that he needs to finish by next week.
The assignment is supposed to be a showcase of their understanding of light theory. Will chose to paint a stained glass window … in the shape of a rose.