Chapter Text
Clack, clack, clack.
The steady rhythm of the computer keys filled the guidance counselor’s room as the woman at the desk — Ms. Wilks, her name plate read — finished typing and looked up at Hawkins High’s newest student with a bright smile.
Dustin Henderson sat across from her in one of the room’s velvet armchairs, fidgeting with the rings adorning his fingers.
Hawkins, Indiana, was new to Dustin, but no more interesting than any of the last nine towns he had lived in, all of them such brief occurrences that he had never really had any best friends.
His mother’s desire to always be on the move was one of the only sure things about her, and so, as he sat in the unfamiliar office of his newest school, his mind strayed not to the new faces he would come across, but to wherever his mom would draw him next.
He was hoping for someplace West, maybe even California…
The loud clap of Ms. Wilks’ laptop being closed drew Dustin’s attention from his thoughts as she turned to face him with a warm smile.
“So, Dustin,” she said, peering down at the name bold and printed atop the folder closest to her. She picked it up and slid a yellow sheet from within. “Here you go.”
Dustin eagerly took it, hoping to speed up the process he was all too familiar with, murmuring a polite, “Thank you.”
“Nine schools in ten years,” she commented, eyes never leaving the folder as she stood from her seat. “My, my. Move around a lot?”
“Yeah. My mom—” he began.
“That’s enough,” she cut him off, glancing back up at him.
He sank back in his seat, eyebrows raised in surprise. Adults were usually interested in his traveling stories. In fact, most of them envied the lifestyle.
“I’m sure you won’t find Hawkins High any different than your old schools,” she said dismissively, pushing her curved red glasses up from where they’d slipped to the tip of her nose.
Dustin let out a surprised chuckle at her brazenness.
“Same little asswipes everywhere,” she added, just as a splatter of something Dustin couldn’t put a name to was thrown at the other side of the window by her head.
She didn’t even flinch, instead letting out a high chuckle as her point was proven.
“Excuse me?” Dustin let out with a little sound of surprise. “Did you just say…?”
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Am I in the right office?”
She came around the desk, a sharp smile on her lips and an amused lilt to her voice. “Not anymore, you’re not. I’ve got deviants to see. Now, scoot.”
Dustin was too surprised to move, only sinking further into his seat.
“Scoot!” she repeated in a hiss.
He cleared his throat, moving quickly to stand. “Okay,” he said, stumbling backwards, hitting the hat stand behind him. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
He clutched the yellow sheet to his chest and turned around towards the door, almost running straight into a boy that he hadn’t realized had entered the room.
Brushing himself off, he peered up at the figure standing in the doorway — a tall, lanky boy with dark, round eyes and black curls framing his face. He looked blankly down at Dustin, seemingly undisturbed by having almost run straight into him.
Dustin nodded at the strange woman, grimacing, and then at the boy, before shuffling nervously out of the room.
Weird, he thought, shaking his head.
—
“Michael Wheeler,” Ms. Wilks said, her voice shrill, as Mike trailed reluctantly into her office. “I see we’re making our visits a daily ritual.”
Mike offered her a tight-lipped smile, tilting his head. “Only so we can have these moments together. Should I, uh, hit these lights?”
She returned his sarcastic smile and said through a sigh, “Oh, very clever. Says here you started a fight in the cafeteria?”
She clicked her tongue in disapproval as she read along.
Mike scoffed, throwing his hands up dramatically. “I didn’t start it,” he said. “Chance Lawson is an asshole! He was being a jerk to my friends.”
“Language.” Ms. Wilks clicked her tongue, adjusting her glasses to peer down at him better.
Mike scoffed. You’re one to talk, he thought.
“Anyhow, this is only strike one, so no detention, but keep your hands to yourself, Michael, or I’ll be calling home,” Ms. Wilks said sharply, walking back to her desk, placing on it the folder she’d been carrying around.
He lingered in the doorway a moment longer, opening his mouth to argue further, until she had to shrilly say, “Scoot!” as though he should have known to leave.
Letting out a loud huff, Mike turned on his heel and left her office.
—
The moment he left the odd guidance counselor’s office, Dustin Henderson was met with the eager face of a boy about his age.
He was wearing a green and orange striped jacket with “HAWKINS” written across it, which Dustin had seen worn by a couple of basketball players out front, marking him as one of them.
But, unlike the burly, cruel jocks that Dustin was well familiar with — mostly via their fists — from his previous schools, this boy wore a kind smile as he approached him.
“Hey. I’m Lucas Sinclair,” the boy said, stretching a hand out. “I’m supposed to show you around.”
Dustin took it with a shake, relieved at finally having his first normal interaction of the day. “Oh, hi. Thank God. I don’t know where anything is.”
“Well, it’s a pretty small school, luckily.” Lucas rested his hand on Dustin’s back, guiding him forward.
As they weaved through a horde of students flowing in the opposite direction, Lucas reached into the pocket of his jacket, fumbling for a piece of paper.
“So, uh… Dustin,” he said, putting it back away after a quick glance at his name. “Here’s the breakdown…”
He glanced around the full hallway before settling on a group of older girls leaning against their lockers, all of them tall and gorgeous.
“Over there, you’ve got your basic beautiful people,” he told Dustin. “Unless they talk to you first, don’t bother.”
“Is that your rule or theirs?” Dustin asked, amused.
Lucas seemed to take it as a challenge, his eyes brightening. “Watch me,” he said, his voice low.
He turned to glance at the girls, lips stretching into the same friendly smile he’d given Dustin.
“Hey, there,” he tried.
One of the girls, a pretty blonde, spared him a brief glance that turned quickly into an annoyed glare before turning back to focus on her friends.
“As if,” she muttered to the other girls.
Lucas raised his eyebrows at Dustin, more amused than bothered by their reactions. “You see that?”
Dustin nodded, having to pick up his feet and speed up as Lucas walked swiftly, efficiently, through the crowd.
“You’re a basketball player,” Dustin commented, tilting his head. “Aren’t you popular enough to hang around them?”
Lucas laughed, as though even the thought of that was ridiculous. “No, definitely not.”
Dustin opened his mouth to ask further, confused, but Lucas picked up his pace, forcing Dustin to rush quietly after.
He led him to a set of double doors at the end of the hallway, pushing out through the crowd into the warm, late summer air.
“To the left, we have the coffee kids,” Lucas continued, keeping his head low as he pushed past a group of sophisticated-looking boys holding cups of, evidently, coffee.
As he brushed past one of them, the dark liquid spilled over the top and onto the ground.
“That was Costa Rican, butthead!” the coffee drinker called angrily.
Lucas glanced back at Dustin, who immediately quickened his pace to ensure he was keeping up.
“Very edgy,” he joked. “Don’t make any sudden movements around them.”
He took hold of Dustin’s shoulder, moving him along quicker.
“These guys…” he began, nodding forward towards a group of boys wearing cowboy hats and swinging lassos.
Dustin grinned widely. “Wait, wait, let me guess...”
“Cowboys?”
“Yeah,” Lucas said with a dismissive wave of his hand, “but the closest they’ve come to a cow is McDonald’s.”
Dustin chuckled.
Maybe we’ll go someplace with cows next, he thought bitterly to himself, before he was forced to rush after Lucas again.
“These are your future MBAs,” he said, pointing to the next group — a table full of girls and boys in polos and pleated skirts gathered around textbooks. “They’re all Ivy League accepted.”
Dustin nodded, eyeing their stacks of neatly done homework with interest.
He turned forward from where he was ogling the table in the hopes of being able to guess the next group, when his eyes snagged on a girl weaving her way through the crowd.
He halted to a stop in the middle of the walkway.
Before he knew it, he was letting out a breathless little, “Oh my God.”
Dustin had seen plenty of beautiful girls in his life. He had had plenty of passing infatuations with ones at his previous schools.
But this girl.
This girl made his heart stop beating in his chest.
He took her all in at once, almost overwhelmed by the sight.
She had long brown curls that were draped over her shoulder, one side pulled back with a purple heart clip, bangs sweeping across her forehead, almost dipping low enough to get in her warm brown eyes.
She wore a simple pale purple dress covered with little white lilies, though decorated with an assortment of random necklaces and bracelets.
In her hands, she held tight to a few notebooks, keeping them close to her chest as though she feared someone stealing them.
There was a warm, polite smile on her lips. She looked kind. Fun. Sure of herself.
Time seemed to stop as she walked forward, her eyes brushing over seemingly every student but him. His eyes trailed over her as she brushed right on past him towards the doors he’d exited, having not so much as glanced at him.
On her way, she joined a group of a few other girls, linking arms with them, letting out a brilliant little laugh at something one of her friends muttered to her.
Dustin trailed behind her absent-mindedly, like a lost puppy, before Lucas managed to grab his arm and reel him back in.
“What group is she in?” he asked breathlessly.
“The ‘don’t even think about it’ group,” Lucas said, voice faintly amused.
“That’s Jane Hopper,” he said, casually, as though she wasn’t the most beautiful girl on planet Earth.
Dustin thought he had to be insane not to be just as obsessed.
“She’s… wow,” Dustin said softly, letting out a little, wondrous sigh.
Lucas rested his hand on his shoulder, looking at him with sympathetic eyes.
“Listen, forget about her. Incredibly uptight father. It’s a widely known fact that she and her brother aren’t allowed to date,” he said gently.
But Dustin wasn’t looking at him. He was barely even listening. His eyes were on that beautiful girl, Jane Hopper, as she disappeared into the building.
“Uh-huh,” he murmured, dazed. “Yeah. Whatever.”
—
Mike Wheeler didn’t enjoy school much.
He didn’t care much for the social aspect; he stuck by his only two friends, Lucas Sinclair and Max Mayfield, and, on occasion, Max’s best friend, Jane, never bothering to branch out into different circles.
He had never dated anyone, never taken much interest in such trivial things.
He had only ever participated in one after-school activity — their school’s D&D club, Hellfire, which was an interest shared between him and Lucas.
Everything else held no such significance to him.
Except for maybe English class.
His love for writing and literature began with D&D, when he started DMing for his and his friends’ campaigns. From there, it had grown to a love for novels, branching off from fantasy into other genres.
Reading and writing had become his greatest passions and had inspired his dreams for the future. He planned to major in Creative Writing and to, with luck, someday become an author.
While every other class at school felt like a chore, he thoroughly enjoyed his English homework — even when it wasn’t a particularly good story or author, like the one he’d been last assigned.
Which was why, when the bell rang, he sat straight up in his seat at the back of the classroom, his attention immediately snapping to Mr. Quinn at the front, fingers tapping eagerly over the cover of the novel he’d been tasked with reading.
He was eager to get his opinions out. His teachers and fellow students often complained that he was full of them. And, sure, he could admit it could sometimes be annoying, but he was a passionate person. What was wrong with that?
As the bell finished ringing, Mr. Quinn began, “Okay, then. What did everyone think of The Sun Also Rises?”
Mike grimaced down in distaste at it. He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off before he could let a word out.
A girl a few desks away piped up dreamily, “I loved it. He’s so romantic.”
Mike’s brows furrowed in confusion at the girl. That hadn’t been true at all.
“Romantic? Hemingway?” Mike let out before he could stop himself.
With a scoff, he continued, “He was an abusive, alcoholic, misogynist who squandered half his life hanging around Picasso trying to nail his leftovers.”
The boy behind him — Chance Lawson, one of the dumb jocks who often terrorized him and his friends — bit out a laugh. “As opposed to a self-righteous asshole who has no friends?”
Mike turned in his seat to glare back at the dark-haired boy. How stupid, Mike thought. He knows I have friends.
The self-righteous, asshole part, though? Well, he couldn't deny that.
“Pipe down, Chance,” Mr. Quinn said, frowning.
The boy fell silent, rolling his eyes.
“What about Sylvia Plath, or Charlotte Brontë, or Simone de Beauvoir?” Mike suggested eagerly, thinking only of the precious books that filled his shelf.
Those authors couldn’t compare to those of his favorite modern fantasy stories, but they were far better than The Sun Also Rises.
Mr. Quinn cut him off before he could continue listing names, “Michael, I want to thank you for your suggestions. However, they aren’t needed. The ones I’ve picked will do just fine.”
Mike let out a loud, exaggerated scoff. “I doubt it.”
Mr. Quinn raised his eyebrows, seeming to take that as a challenge. “Go to the office, Michael. Maybe that will teach you to be less disrespectful.”
He let out a huff of surprise. “What? Mr. Quinn, that isn’t fair—”
“Now,” the teacher said sternly.
Chance let out a mocking chuckle behind him.
Mike stood reluctantly from his seat, slinging his bag over his shoulder.
He let his books hit Chance in the chest on the way out, before weaving around the other desks and slamming the door behind him.
—
“So, I hear you were terrorizing Mr. Quinn’s class again,” Ms. Wilks said as Mike entered her office for the second time that day, looking up at him with disappointment.
Mike sighed, flopping down into the nearest armchair. “Expressing my opinion is not a terrorist action.”
He continued, insisting, “English class is important, you know; Mr. Quinn should be assigning the right authors.”
Ms. Wilks sighed down at him, slipping her glasses off to further her stare.
“Michael, this is your second time in my office today,” she said, lips pursed. “I’m sure you’re aware that people perceive you as somewhat…”
“Honest?” he offered. “Opinionated?”
“‘Stubborn asshole’ is the term used most often,” Ms. Wilks said with a click of her tongue.
Mike frowned, muttering under his breath, almost inaudibly, “I’m not stubborn.”
“Well, you might want to work on the asshole part,” Ms. Wilks suggested.
She paused, then let out a shrill, “Thank you!” as way of goodbye.
Mike let out a loud sigh.
“As always, thank you for your excellent guidance,” he muttered, sliding from his seat and leaving the room.
—
Chance stood outside, leaning against a bench, eyes flitting lazily over the other students as they moved from building to building.
Beside him, his teammate and friend, Andy, nodded to the side.
“Virgin alert. Your favorite,” he said through a snicker.
Chance followed his gaze eagerly, eyes settling on two girls, one of them a redhead that he knew to be his teammate Lucas’ girlfriend, and the other a pretty brunette that he knew, faintly, but had forgotten the name of.
His eyes trailed over her, slowly, a look that she caught and quickly turned away from, flushing pink.
“Lookin’ good, ladies,” he said, almost to himself, as they were already out of earshot.
Andy snickered. “Oh, she’s out of reach, even for you.”
“No one’s out of reach for me,” Chance argued.
“You wanna put money on that?” Andy suggested, raising his eyebrows with intrigue.
“Money, I’ve got.” Chance grinned, entertained at the thought of a challenge. “This I’m gonna do for fun.”
Andy just scoffed in disbelief.
—
A few feet away, Dustin, who had noticed the way the basketball players had been eyeing the girl, was still being shown around by Lucas Sinclair, only half listening.
Tilting his head at the boy, Dustin asked, through a scoff, interrupting whatever Lucas had been saying, “Who’s that guy?”
Lucas followed his gaze, happy at having been interrupted in the middle of his boring, first day of school instructions.
“That’s Chance Lawson. He’s a moron. Not too bad at basketball, though.”
Dustin chuckled. “You’re not his friend?”
“No, no,” Lucas insisted, grimacing. “I’m not really friends with any of the basketball players.”
Dustin raised his eyebrows, wondering how that came to be for a guy like Lucas Sinclair of all people — nice, good-looking, athletic.
He opened his mouth to ask, but was quickly distracted when his eyes found Jane again, now talking enthusiastically to a red-haired girl whom Dustin had yet to be given the name of.
“Man, look at her…” Dustin trailed off dreamily.
“Max? Or Jane?” Lucas asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Oh, Jane, of course,” Dustin said, smiling softly to himself as he watched their inaudible conversation. “Who’s Max?”
He glanced back at Lucas, who was grinning ear to ear as he watched the girls. “The redhead. That’s my girl.”
Dustin watched, as if on cue, as Max looked up, catching sight of her boyfriend, and raising a hand in a silent wave.
Lucas waved back, smiling harder than Dustin had ever seen him smile, and then motioned to her that he’d only be a minute.
And then Jane followed her friend’s gaze to the two of them, her eyes briefly meeting Dustin’s.
The steady warmth of them caught him off guard, even as she looked away just as quickly.
“Oh, wow,” he said. “Man, look at her! Look at the way she smiles, and look at her eyes. She’s totally pure.”
Lucas shrugged, his gaze too focused on Max to pay her any mind. “Yeah, I guess. She’s a nice girl. I’ve known her since we were little. Small school, y’know?”
“But you should seriously forget about it, man. Trust me. She isn’t allowed to date.”
Dustin shook his head profusely. “I can’t forget about it.”
“Uh, well, wanna take a shot? Be my guest,” Lucas said, shrugging. “She’s actually looking for a French tutor.”
“Are you serious? That’s perfect!” Dustin exclaimed, hope blooming across his face.
“Oh, do you speak French?” Lucas asked.
“Well, no, but I will!” Dustin declared with too much confidence for a guy who knew nothing past Bonjour.
Lucas bit off a chuckle, brushing a hand through his hair. “Good luck with that.”
—
Will Byers had had a long, frustrating day, like he found most days to be. Boring and long, filled with the desire to be home.
On this particular day, the tip of the iceberg had been his sister, who had insisted, despite his pleading, that she ride home with Chance Lawson of all people.
Will didn’t hate people, as most students assumed. He refused all social events not out of any arrogance or dislike, but out of a simple preference to be safe and alone with the mundane.
In fact, Will rarely even disliked people.
Except for Chance Lawson. He hated him.
And, even more so, he hated the idea of his sister getting caught up with him.
But Jane hadn’t listened.
She had let herself into the back of his shiny black car and had ridden off into the sunset with him, ignoring all of Will’s warnings about his cruelty.
Even the reminder that one of her friends had only just gotten into a fight with him this afternoon — which Will had observed quietly from his lunch seat in the corner — hadn’t been enough to draw her away.
Jane had a tendency to see the best in people, and fierce determination instilled in her that made her unmoving when she set her mind to something, and so Will knew that there would be no convincing her that there wasn’t some goodness buried in Chance.
Will sighed, shoving his keys in his old red car. It rumbled to a start, and he began pulling out of his parking spot.
In his tired, worked-up haze, he almost turned straight into a couple of boys crossing the parking lot, having to slam on his brakes to avoid them.
They — one of them being a basketball player that he knew as Jane’s best friend, Max’s boyfriend, and the other being a curly-haired boy he didn’t recognize — rushed to get out of his way, giving him little apologetic waves.
Will nodded to them before pulling forward out of the parking lot, worrying only about his sister and Chance Lawson.
—
Lucas Sinclair, having already said goodbye to Max at the end of the day, leaned against his car at Dustin’s side, watching Will Byers’ old red car pull out of the parking lot.
“That’s your girlfriend’s brother,” Lucas teased.
“That’s Jane’s brother?” Dustin asked, eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Well, stepbrother,” Lucas said, nodding. “The loner himself.”
Dustin furrowed his brows. “Loner?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Keeps to himself, mostly. Jane invites him to hang out with us, but he never comes.”
Lucas hadn’t learned much about Will Byers in all of the years he’d been friends with his sister, only that he was quiet, reclusive, and had few friends, all of whom had already graduated from Hawkins High and gone off to college in other states.
Jane seemed especially protective of him, revealing only that he and their older brother hadn’t had great childhoods before Jane’s father married their mother.
Despite respecting the boy’s reclusiveness, Lucas couldn’t help the curiosity he had always had towards him, especially with Jane’s refusals to divulge further.
“How come?” Dustin asked, curiously staring after Will’s old, beat-up car.
“I don’t know the specifics,” Lucas said, shrugging.
Dustin let out a thoughtful hum.
“Well,” Lucas said, patting his new friend on the back. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Dustin nodded. “See you.”
And, then, Lucas heard him mutter something that sounded a lot like, “I’m gonna go learn how to speak French now," as he walked off.
Lucas let out a low chuckle.
Poor guy, he thought.