Chapter Text
"Well, kids, what do you think?" Joyce Byers neé Maldonado asks, holding tightly onto a moving box.
Her youngest son, William Jacob Byers, climbs down from the moving truck that his older brother Jonathan Byers was driving slowly, as if he had a heavy weight on his shoulders. To be fair, Will Byers did have a heavy weight on his shoulders - one that grew to be heavier and heavier with each traumatic event, of which there were plenty in the young man's life. Ever since he was a young child, fortune had not smiled on the boy, instead giving him a life full of hardships and sorrows. He always kept a brave face and pretended that he was fine, but, to Will’s shame, that mask had slipped as the Byers were leaving the only home that they had ever known and the place that held all of the people Will loved within its borders, leaving him silently crying in the passenger’s seat as they drove across the country. His tears had dried around Colorado, and he had reinstated the mask that kept everyone from worrying about him.
“It looks really nice, Mom.” Will responds with a smile, going over to help his new sister out of the car. However, Eleven, AKA El, AKA Jane Hopper, superhero (though she doesn't like to be called that), teenage girl, and former lab experiment had already opened the door and grabbed the box that had been riding with her in the backseat of the car, walking over to stand next to Joyce silently. Though Will had been through his own share of hardships (more than anyone should have to endure), he felt that El had gone through more and was determined to help his new sister adjust to normal life. She had never had time to get used to people, going straight from a lab to living in a cabin in the woods with her adopted father Jim Hopper, and then only leaving said cabin to be with the Party, whom she feels sorrowful about leaving behind, as does Will. "Do you need any help, El?"
"No, I am good." El says disjointedly. Will winces to himself; the Byers family will have to teach El how to make her words flow more easily. That's going to get her teased. He may not know much, but he knows that kids are mean and are going to be looking for anything - any flaw, any oddity, anything - to use against the Byers siblings, and God knows there are plenty.
To be perfectly honest, Will was scared - he was starting a new school without his friends for the first time. Ever since kindergarten, he had always had Mike right by his side on the first day, and as they got older, they gained more Party members, meaning that if Will needed someone, all he had to do was look around, as his friends were always there if he needed them (even if he never took that offer up - his issues weren’t - no, he wasn’t - important enough to bother his friends with). But now? He had moved across the country with only his mom, Jonathan, and El. No Mike. No Dustin. No Lucas. No Max. Nobody who had the capacity to help him if he asked. His mom was starting a new job, and was too busy juggling work and three kids to be with him all the time. Jonathan was working through his own stuff, which meant that he was lost in his own head more than he was with Will, and El needed someone more than he did, meaning that he needed to be the supporter, not be supported. He was separated from most of the people he loved, having to step up and be a big brother to a girl that he honestly didn’t know how to help care for, and being thrown into a school with what felt like a target on his back.
Of course he would be picked on at this new school, he had no doubt. They were moving in the middle of the fall semester. He’s gay (he thinks - he’s only ever been attracted to, AKA deeply in love with, one person, who happened to be a boy, and he doesn’t know what that makes him. Is he gay? Or does he like girls too and just happens to have fallen for a boy and that makes him think that he only likes boys? Will has no idea) and it feels like it’s pretty obvious that he’s queer, even though he tries to hide it. Not to mention, he’s a quiet artsy nerd who is associating with someone who is very… Developmentally behind? Will questions the terminology. He doesn’t know what to call her mental state and lack of knowledge about the world. All he knows is that it’s hard on her (even if it’s not her fault that she was treated more as a lab rat than a human child, including the lack of social interaction and education, she still beats herself up over missing social rules and not having the right words to express herself. Will knows how hard it is to be so angry at yourself, and he’s decided that he’s going to make her life good for her no matter what it takes, including destroying his own chances of having friends), and that it’s going to get even harder when the kids in this town, who are surely horrible, see that El is vulnerable and swoop in like a pack of vultures. Will shudders at the thought of what could happen.
Will doesn’t have many strengths, but he sure is good at imagining the worst things that can happen. Forget about being an artist - what job requires you to think of every single negative outcome and have a panic attack over it? Because that would be a job that Will would excel at.
He snorts at the mental imagery of an office that is entirely made of people hyperventilating into paper bags in their cubicles, which earns him a strange look from his mother. “Will, honey, are you okay?”
Will can feel his cheeks flush. He didn’t mean to laugh out loud at something so stupid. Besides, his mom probably thinks that he’s insane now for laughing at things in his own head. “Yeah! Yeah, just thought of something funny.”
She smiles at him and nods towards the moving truck. “Alright. Do you want to help unload the boxes from the truck or unpack them inside?”
Will thinks for a moment. He doesn’t really want to leave Jonathan out here to take out the boxes himself, but if he were to work on the inside, he could familiarize himself with the house, and if he could convince El to stay inside with him, he could teach her some English while they organized. Besides, organizing sounds kind of fun. He knows that he’s weird for him to like to clean, but he finds the repetition calming.
But, deep down, Will knows the real reason that he wants to clean and organize this new house. It’s so stupid, but the reason that he wants to look in every corner is to make sure that there aren’t any monsters. At 14, he should have outgrown his fears of monsters and the dark ages ago, but he knows that monsters are real, whether malignant beings from another dimension that are trying to kidnap, possess, and/or hurt and kill him, or mean, drunken fathers that shake the house with their rage. And when you know that such horrible, evil things like the Upside Down exist, it’s hard not to be afraid.
“I’ll clean and unpack inside of the house. El, do you want to work with me or help unload the boxes?”
“You.” El says quietly, still gripping the box tightly. Will knows that she’s sticking to him because he’s the one that she knows the best out of the Byers. They have a bond that nobody else could ever understand. She saved him from the Upside Down - not once, but three times - and he’s been trying to save her right back, both from the Upside Down (during the Starcourt fight with the Mind Flayer) and from other people. He knows he can never truly repay her, but he can damn well try.
“Alright, cool. Are you both going to be okay?” Will says, turning from El to shout over at the truck, where his mom and Jonathan have started unloading the truck. His mom flashes a thumbs-up at them, and he thumbs-ups back before turning back to El. "Ready to go inside?"
El nods, and he nabs the box from her and they go towards the steps up to the house. He counts one, two, three as he goes up the steps, memorizing the number of steps up the path, amount of steps there are up to the door, loose bricks and how many there are, and how big each step is. If he needs to escape in the middle of the night from a threat inside the house, he won't have time to waste on tripping.
And for his family to escape from a threat, too, Will adds as an afterthought. He's embarrassed about how easy it is for him to only think about saving himself when he has his family to protect. Honestly, he knows that if it came down to it he would die to protect them, but in the scenarios that he creates, he usually is alone (just like he was when the Demogorgons - and later the Mind Flayer(s) - were hunting him), so he only has to worry about himself. But, like he said, if it came down to it, his priorities are his family first, him second.
Will remembers years ago, when he was his own top priority. He was… four? He thinks? But even if he was young, he's still so ashamed of that. He knows that other people are far more important than him; it's been drilled into him over the years, and he didn't used to believe it, but now he knows it for sure. It's a fact of life. The sky is blue, grass is green, and Will Byers is worth nothing unless he is serving other people in some way. Water is wet, and he is everyone's last priority, including his own. Sometimes it makes him sad, but everyone gets sad about things they can't change, like the death of a loved one. it's your fault Bob died. he's dead because of you. your fault your fault YOUR FAULT-
Will shakes his head as they go through the front doorway, as if to get rid of the thoughts. They’re always there, in the back of his mind, but sometimes they get so much louder. Will knows they're just thoughts, but he also knows that they're true, which makes it sting.
"Are you okay?" El asks earnestly, looking at him in concern. Great, Will thinks, another person worried about me because they see how crazy I am, reacting to things in my head.
"Of course, El. I'm fine." Will says quietly, smiling softly at her. "Are you?"
She looks down to fiddle with the bottom of her flannel. "I miss Hopper and Mike."
Will's heart twinges at the mention of the boy he's been in love with for years - his best friend. And his sister's boyfriend.
Another way he feels ashamed. It's not bad enough that he's gay (probably), he has to be in love with a boy who is not only straight but dating his sister? God, if Mike knew how Will feels about him - if anybody knew how Will feels about Mike - he would hate Will even more than he probably already does. If anyone knew the secrets Will kept, they would see how disgusting and wrong he is. Will used to think that maybe his friends would accept him. Hell, Will's even fantasized about how his confession would go before - Will tells Mike that he's gay and in love with him, Mike says he feels the same way, and they kiss and live happily ever after.
But after last summer?
'It's not my fault you don't like girls!' Mike spits. Will stares at him in wide-eyed shock. Wasn't Mike supposed to be the one person that would never hate him, even if he was gay? Mike sighs and starts talking again, and Will expects an apology, even if Mike isn't wrong, but he instead says 'Look, I'm not trying to be a jerk. But what did you think, really? That we were never going to get girlfriends? That we were going to sit in my basement and play games forever?'
Will feels the sadness, disgust, and self-loathing curl inside him, rearing its ugly head, but above all there's anger and pain. ‘Yeah. I guess I did. I guess I really did.’
The part of him that he’s buried down deep - the part of him that’s angry and vengeful and hurt, the part that he’s scared will turn him into someone like Lonnie - feels a grim, sick sense of satisfaction at the hurt written across Mike’s face. Good. Let Mike hurt for what he’s done, for ignoring, belittling, insulting him.
But more than anything, he’s just so, so hurt. He knows that this will be one of the emotional scars that runs deep, right next to those that Lonnie left years ago. His emotions are in such a scramble that he doesn’t know how to put them into words or even feel and process them, but he's realized that if he told Mike that he was right, that Will really was a queer, he couldn’t be sure that Mike’s reaction would be positive anymore.
That Mike was safe anymore.
Never. He can never tell Mike unless he’s ready to lose him forever.
“Alright, let’s take a look around. Want to call bedrooms?” he asks El, going over to the kitchen area and setting the box down on the counter.
“Okay." El agrees.
"I can have the smallest one, I don’t mind less space. Do you want to go find the bedrooms and assign them?"
"Assign?" El says quizzically.
"Um, assign means to pass something out and decide who gets what." Will tries to explain. He’s not great at teaching El things, but he’s trying his best to help his sister.
While he isn’t too pleased at the circumstances, Will is thrilled to have a little sister to take care of. (Well, not so little. They think that she’s only a few months younger than him). When he was little, he had always wanted another sibling to be an older brother to. He had always loved little kids. He had started begging for a little brother or sister when he was little, but he stopped after he realized that a new Byers would be subjected to a life of not-enough (another reason that a third sibling wouldn’t have been plausible - they just plain couldn’t afford it) and Lonnie. It wouldn’t be fair to have another little kid put through that. Jonathan and Will having Lonnie as a father was bad enough.
But now, when El being taken in by the Byers was feasible and she wouldn’t be in any danger from Lonnie? He bets that younger Will would be overjoyed at having El in his life, even if they were too old for Will to share toys and play games with her like he had imagined when he was a little kid. But instead of sharing toys, he can share knowledge about the world and look out for her, so that’s what he’s going to do.
“Okay. I will… assign… bedrooms.” El says slowly, rolling the new word around in her mouth like she was memorizing everything about it. She probably is, Will thinks to himself.
“Can you remember what I’m going to tell you?” Will asks carefully.
El nods earnestly, a serious expression on her face.
“I would like the smallest bedroom. You can choose which bedroom you would like, and Jonathan can get the last one.” Will says slowly, watching El to make sure that she soaks up the information.. She does, spinning away to go up the stairs. He watches her cautiously; he can be a little paranoid about stairs. Ever since he fell down a set when he was six and ended up in the hospital, he's been worried about people falling and getting hurt. Well, he’s always worried about everyone else getting hurt, but especially in certain scenarios. Like stairs.
After El is safely upstairs, he turns back to the kitchen. He did not think this through. There literally aren't any boxes to unpack yet.
He decides to go through and familiarize himself with the kitchen in the meantime. He counts ten double-door bottom cabinets (eight empty, two with shelves), sixteen drawers, and ten double-door upper cabinets. Will does a quick runthrough, looking carefully in each one for issues. He finds none, but he does find a lot of storage space. He's already mentally placing where each cooking tool will go when he's startled by a loud 'thunk'.
He jumps, whipping around only to see Jonathan dropping a box on the floor. He relaxes, but the adrenaline rush that comes with loud, unexpected noises doesn't fade, leaving him short of breath and with a racing heartbeat. "Jonathan! You scared me!
"Sorry!" Jonathan throws over his shoulder as he goes back out to bring more boxes in from the driveway.
Will exhales heavily as he tries to catch his breath from the jumpscare-that-shouldn't-have-been-a-jumpscare before going out and helping his family bring in some of the boxes. After his heart stops pounding quite as hard, he jogs out, only slowing to go the one, two, three down the steps before picking back up again. He grabs the box closest to him, and sees that it's labeled as 'Jonathan's Bedroom'. He goes back into the house and slowly goes up the stairs, balancing the box on his hip as one hand grips the railing. Once he's up, he braces himself before loudly saying "El! Where are you?"
She emerges from the second bedroom to the right. "This is my bedroom." she says confidently.
"Alright, awesome! Which ones are Jonathan's and mine?" he asks.
"Yours-" she points to the bedroom farthest from the stairs. "Joyce-" she points to the bedroom closest to the stairs. "Jonathan." she gestures downstairs. Will internally groans at the fact that he went upstairs for nothing, but he smiles at El instead.
"Thank you, El. I'm going to put this in Jonathan's room and then I'll come upstairs and you can show me around?"
"Yes." she says, disappearing back into her room. Will shrugs to himself. Sisters are weird, he supposes.
He goes back down the stairs (ugh) and looks around through the different doors. It takes a minute, because he accidentally opens the door to the basement instead of the door to the bedroom. Finally, he finds what he thinks is Jonathan's room, and places the box on the floor before looking around it. It's nice, he thinks to himself. Not Jonathan's style, but they can change that. Maybe Jon and Will can hang out and redo their bedrooms to their tastes? He hasn't been hanging out with Jonathan as much, and he misses his big brother, so he'll take any chance to be around Jonathan one-on-one again like they used to.
He makes a mental note to ask later. In the meantime, he can just bring in more boxes. Well, after El shows him around.
He goes back upstairs to find El, and she's sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for him. "Sorry for keeping you waiting, El. I got lost." he says.
She nods. Will offers his hand to help her up, and she looks at it confusedly. "So, when you're sitting down and someone offers their hand, it means they want you to take it so that they can help you up." he explains. A look of understanding dawns on her features, and she reaches out and grasps his hand, which he uses to pull her up. "See?"
Eleven nods sagely, as though the secrets of the universe have been revealed to her. "It also means that they like you. If you don’t like someone, you don’t offer them a hand, and if you offer one and the person doesn't take it, it means they don't like you."
"Why wouldn’t someone like me? Why wouldn’t I like someone?" she asks puzzledly.
"Well…" Will tries to think of how to explain that people suck. "Sometimes that's just how it is."
"But why?" El asks as they get off of the staircase and stand in the hallway instead.
Damn, why does she have to ask the hard questions?
"Because some people are bad people. And even if you try to be nice to them they can still be mean."
"Like the Bad Men?" she asks, looking very concerned.
"No! No, no, no!" Will hurriedly says. He doesn't think that it would be good for El to think that there are a bunch of people out there that are just like her… abusers? Captors? He'll just use the name Bad Men. "Like…" He tries to think of terminology that she might know. "Like mouthbreathers!" He says, remembering that Mike told him that he had told El that before Will and El had ever met in-person. "They aren't really dangerous, they're just mean and annoying."
"Oh, okay." she says. El pauses. "Are there a lot of mouthbreathers?"
"Well…" Will stalls. "I don't know. There were a lot in Hawkins, and a lot of the people that weren't plain mean weren't nice, either. But it might be different here. We'll figure that out soon, okay?" he says.
She nods and starts walking. El turns to the door closest to the stairs and opens it, walking inside as Will follows. It's a good-sized room, with light brown walls and beige carpet, an ensuite bathroom and closet, and a large window. "So this one's Mom's room?" Will asks. El nods. He'll have to teach her some other forms of non-verbal communication. "I think she'll like it. Can I see your room?"
El leaves and goes into the next room over, and Will follows. It's smaller than his mom's, but still a good size, and with the same brown walls and beige carpet. "Do you want me to paint your room later, El? We can make it more like you want it." Will offers. She lights up and nods. Will may not know much, but he knows that making or customizing something for someone is a surefire way to say 'I love and care about you, and I'm here for you', which is the message that he wants to send his new sister. Plus, it's a good way to help her with her… autonomy? He can't quite place the word he's looking for. A good way to help her learn what she likes and show her that she can make decisions for herself. There we go.
She opens the closet, and Will can see that it's pretty large, almost a walk-in but not quite. "Nice! Is that why you picked this one?" He asks.
"Yes. But I like this too." She says, pointing to the slight alcove under the window. Will blinks; he didn't notice that when he walked in. His observation skills must be dropping. He needs to refine that.
"That little space would be perfect for a desk or a dresser." Will muses, trying not to show his dismay at his lack of awareness. "You and I can make this perfect for you, El, I promise."
She smiles, seemingly put into a good mood for the first time since leaving Hawkins by Will's offer. "Let's go to your room." El says, grabbing his hand and going to pull him out the door.
He wasn’t expecting her to touch him, let alone move quickly and grab his hand, and much to Will's chagrin, he flinches. His first instinct is to yank his hand away and step away from her, be ready to run if need be, but he reminds himself that it's just El and she's not going to hurt him.
As she pulls him out into the hallway and to the room that's going to be his, he chastises himself. Get a freaking grip, Byers. Not everyone is going to hurt you. You're being stupid. Besides, you could have hurt her feelings by doing that, you idiot. Calm down and be a good brother, for once in your life.
"This one is your room." El says. He opens the door to the smallest one. It's a bit larger than his room in the Byers old house, and Will finds himself missing the smallness. It has a window on the exterior wall, and a double-door closet. It's the first bedroom color variation that he’s seen so far, with yellow walls and the beige carpet. It has plenty of room for a bed, desk, and dresser (to be honest, that's all of the bedroom furniture that he can think of), and he can decorate it later.
"I love it, El," he says half-truthfully. He's sure that he will after he fixes it up a bit, but right now, it just feels so foreign. He feels bad about lying for a moment (friends don’t lie, after all), but the look of pride and joy on her face is worth it.
"I picked it because of the yellow. You like yellow." El says seriously.
Will nods. "I do. Good choice! Plus, it's a great size and right next door to your room."
She beams at him, proud of making a good choice, before leaving and going back to her room. He looks around 'his' room again and feels his emotions turn into a knot in his stomach. He can't really tell what a lot of them are, but he knows that they aren't good, even if judging by nothing else but the fact that he wants to throw up. This place isn't home.
He's sure it'll be fine once he changes some things around. Brings in his stuff, redecorates, just makes it his room instead of a blank, yellow canvas.
Yeah, he likes yellow, but not this much. There’s a lot of it on the walls. It looks like the inside of a mustard bottle, and so much bright color is almost distressing.
As he leaves to go downstairs to help unload the boxes, he questions what to do. If he paints it, he might hurt El's feelings, but if he doesn't, he might lose his mind.
Maybe he can paint part of it (like, one wall) a very light yellow? It shouldn't hurt El's feelings as long as it's still yellow, and it wouldn't be quite as bright and stressful.
He'll ask Jonathan and El if they can all redo their rooms together - as the Byers siblings - this weekend. He'll ask tomorrow before school, maybe at breakfast.
Ugh. The thought of food makes the knot in his stomach tighten. He grabs a few boxes, this time from a pile that says 'Will's Room', and takes them up to the yellow bedroom. He makes several more trips alongside his mom and Jonathan (the original Byers gang) until the driveway is empty, the boxes and furniture are in the house, and he's soaked in sweat (eugh). El's still in her room, and has been occasionally creeping out to take some boxes in from the stair landing. She's acting odd, but it’s probably because she misses her dad and their friends as well as the anxiety about starting school. Will's been going to school since he was five, and he’s still terrified of tomorrow, so he can't imagine how going to school for the first time ever must feel.
He decides to check in on her after his mom decides that they’re having pizza for dinner. She’s quietly sitting on the floor, back to the door, rereading Hopper’s letter for the millionth time. “Hey, are you okay?” he asks quietly. He doesn’t like to change the volume of a room (if it’s loud, he’ll be louder than normal, and if it’s quiet, he’ll be quieter), so he’s going to speak quietly unless she starts being loud.
“I miss Hop.” she says, turning around to reveal tear-stained cheeks and a watery voice.
“Oh, El, I know. I get it.” he says, walking over and sitting on the ground to hug her. “I lost someone who was basically my dad, too.”
She wipes her eyes and looks up at him from his embrace. “Who?” she asks softly.
His throat tightens. “His name was Bob. He died because of the Upside Down, when I was possessed."
“Do you miss him?” El asks.
“Yeah. Every day.” Will says. He goes to tell El about Bob, but before he can open his mouth, there’s a call of ‘PIZZA! COME ON, KIDS!’ from his mom in the kitchen. He gets up and offers El his hand, and she takes it quickly. At least he’s taught her something today.
They both go down the stairs (Will first, so that he can catch El if she falls) and into the kitchen, where his family is sitting at a folding table with four chairs, a box of pepperoni pizza open on the table. Jonathan has three pieces on his paper plate that he’s staring down at, and his mom has two on hers. El takes another two, and Will hesitantly takes the last piece. “Honey, do you want one of mine? You’re a growing kid, you need more food.” his mom says, worriedly looking at his single piece.
“No, I’m okay. I’m not very hungry.” Will says. It’s true; just looking at his plate makes him feel sick.
It’s always hard for Will to eat. Sometimes, he puts some pasta or something slightly slippery into his mouth and all of a sudden all he can think of is a slimy tentacle forcing itself down his throat as he gags and struggles to breathe, and he has to spit it out and can’t eat for a while. But this is different. When he looks at the piece of pizza, all he can think of is how disgusting it would feel on his tongue and sliding down his esophagus to sit in his stomach. If he tried to eat it, he’s sure that he would start gagging, and that would be gross and embarrassing and overall unpleasant.
“Actually, I think that I’m going to go upstairs and unpack my room. I like cold pizza better anyways. Could we leave it out until I’m done and get hungry?” Will asks. He feels bad about lying about liking cold pizza, but he just doesn’t want to eat it, and he just wants to get out of it.
His mom stares at him, and he worries that she saw through the lie, but she nods. “Okay. Make sure that you eat it later, though, okay?” she says, taking a bite of one of her own slices.
“Okay. I’ll be back down in a bit.” Will says, pushing back his folding chair and leaving his family to eat in silence. He goes up the stairs slowly, and goes into the yellow room before sitting down on a box and putting his head in his hands. He's so tired, and he just wants to go home, but he guesses that he doesn't really have one to go back to anymore.
He wishes Mike were here. He'd make Will smile - he almost always does.
Will picks himself up and dusts himself off, wiping his cheeks in case any tears fell. He unpacks some art supplies and sets them up in a corner of the yellow room as well as putting the mattress and bedding on his bed. He sees that it's 10:18 on his watch, and decides that he's done enough unpacking for a night and to just go to bed.
He brushes his teeth harshly and quickly before changing into a pair of pajamas. He frowns at his reflection. He can't quite place it, but there’s something wrong with his appearance.
Will shrugs it off and goes to bed. He lies in the dark, underneath six blankets (he likes it cold, after all, and Will wants him to be as miserable as possible in Will's body - maybe that way he'll be safe) and wishing that he had unpacked his nightlight. Will knows he's too old to have something as babyish as a nightlight, but he's still scared of the dark after the Upside Down, and sleeping in new surroundings isn't exactly helping him feel comfortable.
After a few minutes of lying curled on his side, he slips into the depths of sleep, and after a few peaceful minutes of rest, he’s pulled into a dreaming state.
He’s watching Bob die over and over again in different, horrible ways. The first way is that he’s ripped apart by the Demodogs, just like he was in real life, but this time the dog has a grisly mixture of the dog's and Will’s own features. The next way he dies is being hit by a moving truck. He watches it happen six more times before it's the other people he loves being killed. His mom, Jonathan, El, Dustin, Max, Lucas, but worst of all, Mike. He watches Mike die four times before he runs out of oxygen. The Upside Down-poisoned air has filled his lungs and he's not able to breathe anymore.
He sits up with a panicked gasp. He can't breathe. Oh God, why can't he breathe, what's wrong with the air, is it poisoned, why is he shaking, help help help!
He slides off the bed and leans against its side, forehead against his knees that are drawn close to his chest, arms wrapped around them. He takes as deep of breaths as he can until he stops feeling like he's dying, with only the shaking in his hands, tear tracks on his face, and tremor in his voice to prove that there was anything wrong. He rubs his hands down his face, trying to finish calming down, but when he pulls them away, they're damp and sticky.
He looks at the blood on his fingers and almost breaks down again. He realizes that it's from his face. Will rushes to the bathroom, at which point he turns on the light and sees tracks of red coming from his right nostril and dripping down his face, all the way down onto the neckline of his shirt. He hastily grabs some toilet paper and wads it up before using it to wipe up the blood and press on his nose until the bleeding stops.
Once it does, he looks at the watch that matches Mike’s. It's 3:06 AM on the dot. He sighs and decides that he'll just draw until it's time to get up in the morning.
He turns on the light, sits on his bed, and starts sketching, trying to take his mind off of the nightmare and panic attack. He'll be fine. He just has to make it to the morning and then he'll be fine.
Right?
---
Meanwhile, in Hawkins
Mike puts down the pen after writing several letters. He rubs his eyes, wiping the tears. He had watched his best friend, his girlfriend, and his best friend's family drive away a few hours earlier, and after he had looked back at their house, gone home, and hugged his mother as tightly as he could, he had holed himself up in the basement. Mike pushes his chair back from the table where he and his friends had played D&D for years (he should've played with Will last summer. Why was he such a dick? Why did he say what he said?) and stretches before getting up and going over to the phone. He immediately puts in the number that the Byers' left and lets it rings through.
Nobody picks up.
He frowns, rings it again, and it does the same thing.
He does it again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
On the sixth try, he slams the phone back into its hook with a strangled shout. Is it too much to ask that he gets to talk to Will? Even if it's only been eight hours, he still misses Will. The sound of his voice, the gentleness of his personality, the way that he would hug Mike, the way that he would be so focused on his drawing that he wouldn't be monitoring his facial expressions and would have more genuine emotion on it than faux cheerfulness, which was rare in Will. He needs his best friend.
That's it!
It's only been eight hours. They probably only got there a few hours ago, if they're there at all. Besides, he didn't account for the time difference. It's probably later, and it's better if they're asleep. He knows that Will doesn't sleep well, and he doubts that El does either. He hopes that they're okay.
He should probably get some sleep himself. Mike goes over to the couch where he and Will would sleep over all the time and lays out all of the blankets, putting together a sleep-nest of blankets and pillows.
He goes to get in it before he realizes that he's still wearing his polo and shorts and isn't ready for bed.
Mike runs upstairs, puts on pajamas, brushes his teeth, and goes back down, grabbing Will's stuffed bear (Will started keeping it at Mike's when they were six and he kept sleeping over - and when Lonnie tried to get rid of it along with the rest of Will's stuffed animals, saying that it was making him weak) and the binder of Will's art before climbing into the blanket-nest on the couch, tucking the bear under his chin and burying his nose in it, inhaling what's left of Will's smell from it as he cracks open the binder and gazes with reverence at all of the drawings that he's both been given and stolen when Will went to throw them away. As he drifts off to sleep, he wonders if Will's asleep too, and he hopes that if he is, he's having good dreams.