Chapter Text
June 28, 1985
Hey, Will?
Will rolls over, discarding his sketchbook onto his nightstand and sticking his pencil behind his ear. Yeah?
El’s voice is frustrated, and in his mind’s eye he can see the way her nose is crinkled at the paper in front of her as she chews on her pen. What’s the word for when someone is really smart? Not intelligent. The other one.
Will ponders this for a second, tucking a hand between his head and his pillow. Knowledgeable? he suggests, and he feels her whoop of joy in his chest.
Thanks! Have fun at the movies!
The movies—
“Shit!” He scrambles to his feet, dragging his blanket to the floor with him, and shoves his shoes on. His mother is in the kitchen as he bolts outside, and he says something along the lines of iamsolateforthemoviesihavetomeetmikeokayloveyoumombye! as the door slams shut behind him.
“You, good sir, are late,” Max greets him as he pedals to a stop, the neon lights turning her hair green and purple.
“Sorry,” he pants, hoisting his bike into the rack. “I lost track of time.”
Lucas shrugs. “Well, you’re not as late as Mike, anyway.”
Will frowns, casting an eye over the row of bicycles. “Isn’t that his right there?”
Before either of them can turn to examine it too closely, the mall’s doors open and Mike rushes out.
“What the hell were you doing in there?” Max asks, doing a double take as Mike approaches from the opposite of the expected direction.
“I got here early, figured I’d look around inside for a present for El,” Mike says. “Lost track of time.”
Will frowns again, because he and El have been talking a lot and El has some… opinions about all this. “I thought she didn’t—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lucas interrupts, glaring at Mike. “The point is, we gotta hurry.”
“But—”
No one hears him; Mike is already back inside, and Lucas has Max by the hand and is pulling her along as well. He sighs and chases after, narrowly dodging a few mall-goers. A steady stream of sorrys escape Will and Lucas as the four of them make a mad dash up the escalators, and Will barely manages to pull Max out of the way of a stray elbow.
“Thanks,” she says, offering him a small smile once they get to the landing. Immediately, that smile turns to an accusatory glare. “We wouldn’t have to rush to the movie if Mike wasn’t so hung up on El.”
“I am not hung up on her!” Mike insists, turning to Lucas for support.
Lucas doesn’t give it. “Hey, man, it’s been like this all summer. Oh, how can I convince El to date me? What can I get her so she’ll love me more? I should spend all my time doing that and ignoring all my friends!”
Max snorts and Mike sticks his tongue out. “I don’t sound like that. And I’m not ignoring you!”
“You’re sure trying,” Lucas jabs back. “And it doesn’t even matter, because El likes you, she’s just not gonna date you until everything’s normal.”
Mike folds his arms, and Will has a sudden flashback of about ten years of Mike pouting the exact same way. “Doesn’t mean I can’t try.” He swivels on his heel and into Scoops Ahoy, where Robin is at the counter.
“Hey, dingus!” she calls over her shoulder once she spots them. “Your children are here!”
The partition slides open and Steve peers out, already looking resigned. “Again? Seriously?” Mike just obnoxiously rings the bell on the counter a couple times before Steve lets them behind the counter.
“Hi, Robin,” Will says softly as he passes, and she grins at him.
“Hey, kid. Don’t get too scared at the movies, I hear it’s a creepy one,” she teases, handing him a spoon with cookie dough ice cream on it.
He jokingly glares at her. “I won’t. And I’m not a kid.” He follows Mike out the back door into the service passage, tossing the used spoon into the trash.
“Just remember,” Steve preaches for the fifty thousandth time. “If you get me caught—”
“—we’re dead,” they all chorus back, already halfway down the hall.
Lucas giggles. “We know.”
By the time they get into the theater, the lights have already gone down, but the movie hasn’t started yet. Lucas and Max, hands still joined, pick their way down to the fourth row, and Mike appears to spot an open space. He grabs Will by the wrist and tugs him over to the fifth row, a couple seats down from the other two, and Will sinks down into the cushy seat.
“Here,” Mike whispers, tugging a package of gummy worms from his pocket and handing them to Will. “I know you like these.”
Will can’t help but smile in the dark as he takes them. “Thanks.” Out of his bag, he digs out a couple soda bottles and other snacks, passing some over to Lucas and Max.
The booming movie voice has been droning on this whole time, but Will hasn’t been paying much attention—and as soon as he looks up at the screen, everything goes black.
A few people gasp, taken aback by the sudden darkness.
“Did the power go out?” Mike says lowly, and Will opens his mouth to respond when something like lightning hits him full force.
He knows, suddenly, that the lights are out everywhere. Everywhere. The mall, the town, every house for miles. He knows it the same way he knows that Mike’s hand is on his wrist.
And of course, as soon as he thinks it, the warmth of Mike’s fingers disappears and Will’s next breath is acidic. The worried murmuring of movie watchers fades out, and he only hears static.
“No,” he says, only it catches in his throat before he can really utter anything. The seat he’s in turns slimy and rough, and he stumbles to his feet. Everything is buzzing, like there’s electricity in his very bones. It’s not real, he thinks. Just relax, it’s not real. But then chills creep up his neck and he swears he can hear someone (something) creeping up behind him, and he thinks, fuck this, I’m out.
He feels so numb, but he somehow forces his feet to move, and he runs. Out of the theater and into the atrium, where the lights should be shining; but when he looks up all he sees is gaping blackness through the windows. Even out of the dark room, the walls seem to be closing in on him, and he moves forward once more. He’s sluggish, tripping and sliding over slimy vines, but he manages to reach the escalator—unmoving, of course—and launches himself down. He slips on the bottom step and tumbles onto his knees, catching himself with his hands, and when that sharp pain snaps through him it almost jolts him back to reason.
It’s not real, he reminds himself. El closed the gate. I watched her do it. This isn’t real.
He remembers, suddenly, something Mike told him once. He had been curled up on the floor of Mike’s basement, his knees tucked beneath his chin, and Mike had knelt beside him and whispered something until he came to his senses.
“Find what is real.”
So Will closes his eyes, because nothing he sees here can be real. But the floor beneath his feet—that’s real. The feeling of a steady, albeit fast, heartbeat in his chest—that’s real. The hand on his shoulder—
“Will!”
His eyes snap open, and Mike’s worried face fills his vision. Glancing around, he notes that the lights are back on and people are milling around as if nothing happened. A few are staring at him curiously.
“What happened?” Mike asks, even though Will knows he already knows the answer. “Can you still see it?”
Will swallows, his throat raw. “No. No, I’m good.” He shrugs Mike’s hand off his shoulder, feeling instantly remorseful at the hurt look on his face. “I… I think the lights just freaked me out. I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?” Mike presses. “Honestly, we can just leave Lucas and Max, have some ice cream and go home—”
“I’m fine, Mike,” Will insists, because while a chill lingers on his neck, he doesn’t see any flicker of the Upside Down. And if he’s honest, he’s a little embarrassed. “Let’s just go back to the movie, okay?”
Mike looks dubious, but he nods. “Okay.” He slings an arm around Will’s shoulder, and though the contact makes him shudder he won’t push him off again.
As Mike leads him back to the escalator, a voice barges into Will’s head.
Will, what happened? I felt your… fear. And…
The power went out, I panicked.
I know, it went out here too. But I thought—
El, Will interrupts her, because he’s scared to hear what she’ll say. I’ll call you when I get home. Okay? I’m with Mike. I don’t want him to worry.
Okay, she says after a beat. Be safe.
The house is quiet when he slips inside. Jonathan’s shoes are tossed near the front door, but the light in his room is off—he’s probably sleeping. His mother isn’t in the living room, either, and her own door is shut, but there’s a note on the table with her scrawl across it telling Will that there’s leftovers in the fridge if he’s hungry.
He isn’t.
It’s nights like this that he misses the way things were. Jonathan is working all the time, now. Dustin is at camp, which leaves Will hanging around Lucas and Max, who are annoyingly joined at the hip—although they’re still well-grounded and include him, which is nice—and Mike, who has been trying all summer to convince El to go out with him. It’s a tricky thing, because El has been pouring all her time into studying, so she can join the Party at school the upcoming year. Not to mention, Hopper has been very strict about who comes and goes in the cabin. Will is allowed more than the others, but it’s still not often. He’s pretty sure Hopper has racked up a fairly high phone bill.
Speaking of phone bills.
“Sorry if I kept you up,” he says into the receiver. It’s easier to call than to have a full silent conversation—Will isn’t exactly eager to turn his nose into Niagara Falls again.
“It’s fine, of course,” El says, as easily as ever despite the fact that the clock says it’s ten minutes to midnight. “I just… I thought I felt something. Something that wasn’t just you.”
And, shit, he’d hoped she wouldn’t say that. “Me, too.” He sighs. “I was hoping I was just imagining things.”
“But I don’t understand,” El continues. “We closed the gate. We saw it. What could this be?”
“I don’t know.” He rubs a hand over his face. “Maybe it’s the scientists they haven’t found yet. Maybe… maybe it’s another sibling of yours. I mean, we both could feel it when Kali made a big move in January.”
“Yeah, but we haven’t heard anything since then.”
Will sighs. “I know. But that could just mean she’s been laying low for a while. My point is, we just don’t know what caused this.”
“Right.”
“We’ll just have to be careful,” Will says. “Keep an eye out. Hopefully this won’t happen again.”
“Okay.”
“Oh. And…” he hesitates. “Can we not tell Mike? Until we know anything for sure. You know how he gets.”
For the first time, she sounds amused. “Yes, I know. That’s fine.”
After her little laugh, her voice trails off, and Will listens to her breathe for a moment. Their heartbeats are perfectly synched, and Will can feel where El’s finger stings from a paper cut.
“Will? You there?”
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “I’m gonna sleep, okay?”
“Okay. Me, too.”
Will grins, just slightly. “Actually do sleep, please, El. I know you like to check the In Between, but… just rest. We’re gonna be fine. Sleep.”
She huffs playfully. “Only because I know you’ll annoy me in my head if I don’t.”
“Goodnight, El,” he laughs. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow, Will.”
The line clicks.