Archive of Our Own

Eleven had been learning a lot in high school and not just from her teachers. For instance, she now, unfortunately, understood what “happy screams” were.

But this other word was new to her, and she wanted to know what it meant.

It was after school, when Eleven and Will were biking home on their usual backroad shortcut, that she finally decided to try broaching the topic indirectly.

“Will?”

Will glanced at her briefly before facing forward again so he didn’t swerve. The bikes that Joyce had finally agreed to get for them were good but “a little rickety” as Will had admitted to her later while teaching her how to ride. They had to be careful while using them because if they crashed, the bike would probably be beyond saving.

“What is it?” Will asked. His friendly tone was open and warm, but it was not sincere. Eleven could hear the lie in his voice. Running beneath the friendliness in his words was something lonely and hollow. Something weary. Sad.

Eleven wondered what he sounded like without that undercurrent of sorrow and if anyone else could hear it too. She hadn’t known Will for as long as the others, but for as long as she had known him, he’d always sounded like this. Always friendly but lonely. Open but hollow. Warm but weary. Gentle but sad.

“Why were those other boys being mean to you?” she asked.

Will’s expression twitched before dropping into a grimace. He glanced at her again, this time, with slightly pained eyes. “You saw that?”

“You were taking too long,” she informed him in lieu of confirmation. “I waited by our bikes for fifteen minutes, but you never came. I heard your voice around the corner, so I thought maybe you were talking with friends.”

Will averted his gaze. “I don’t have any friends,” he mumbled, speeding up slightly on his bike.

Eleven pedaled faster to stay next to him. “But I am your friend,” she pointed out.

“You’re like my sister, though.”

“You and Jonathan are friends.”

“Well, I mean, yeah, but it’s- it’s just different with siblings. Siblings are, like, automatically supposed to be your friends. You don’t really get a choice most of the time.”

Eleven frowned.

“Just trust me,” Will insisted. “It’s different.”

The two of them lapsed into silence as they continued pedaling down the empty road.

While she mulled over her thoughts and the question she was working up to, Eleven studied the pavement passing under her front wheel. It was cracked and dusty, covered in potholes and hardy tufts of grass. They’d been riding for almost ten minutes and had only passed one car so far, which was typical. Not many people took this shortcut, preferring less twisty, narrow, and dilapidated roads for their commutes.

Will spoke up suddenly. “How much did you hear?”

Eleven looked over at him in confusion. “What?”

“How much did you hear when those guys were… y’know…” Will trailed off, eyes flicking down to the side.

“When they were being mean to you?” she finished carefully.

Will hummed in confirmation. He wore an oddly constipated expression.

“Not much,” Eleven admitted. She recalled how the three boys had surrounded Will, all of them bigger, stronger, and very much capable of harming her brother. It was lucky that Mrs. White heard what was going on when she had. The teacher had come over and quickly broken up the brewing beat-down, sending the bullies in one direction and Will in the other. Eleven returned to the bikes before Will ever saw her. “The one boy, the big one, was angry at you,” she said. “Something about a girl?”

Will bit his lip and nodded. “Yeah, Kyle. He— We have English together, and there’s this girl named Lucy in our class. She, um… Today, she asked if I wanted to go see a movie sometime. I-I turned her down, but Kyle must’ve overheard and gotten angry. Apparently, he and Lucy used to be a thing.”

Eleven was puzzled. “But you said no. Why was he angry?”

“According to Kyle, I made Lucy upset.”

“But… they aren’t together anymore. Why did he care?”

Will shrugged as he coasted around a pothole in the road. “Who knows?” he said and then sighed. “People just don’t think straight when they’re in love, I guess.”

“Oh.” Eleven paused before shaking herself when she remembered her original question and reason for starting the conversation. “Will, what does ‘fag’ mean?”

An unexpected level of shock and mortification flooded Will’s neutral expression. He swerved, hands jerking his front wheel sideways, perpendicular to the rest of the bike. There was a metallic clang as a crack in the pavement briefly caught his tire.

“Will!” Squeezing the brakes on her handlebars, Eleven skidded to a stop and flung out a hand to catch her brother.

But, of course, her powers were still nothing more than a useless, sputtering hum at the base of her skull, and nothing happened.

Will’s bike skipped, almost tipping end over end before the errant wheel spun out from underneath him. His previous momentum threw him to the side, and he hit the edge of the ditch beside the road. His shout of surprise and pain broke off as he tumbled down into it.

Eleven stood frozen in the road for a solid minute. The searing California sun beat down on her head, and her now shoulder-length hair trapped the heat around her neck, creating a sweltering cage that had sweat dampening the neckline of her shirt.

Then a breeze rolled down the street. It chased away some of the sun’s intensity, and Eleven broke free of her stupor.

“Will!” she cried, scrambling off her bike and pushing it to the side. It tipped over with a clatter as she rushed to the edge of the pavement. “Will!”

Peering down at the bottom of the ditch showed Will pushing himself upright with a quiet groan. He’d managed to keep his backpack on, though the zipper had ripped, leaving his books and school supplies peeking out the side like shy children. Small, continuous tremors encapsulated Will’s whole body—“Adrenaline rush,” Eleven remembered her science teacher lecturing—and his movements were jerky and uncoordinated. His back was to her, but his bare arms and legs were covered in small, bloody scratches and red blotches that would probably be impressive bruises in just a few minutes. His hair was a mess of mud and grass, which accompanied the brown and green stains on his skin and clothes.

“Will?” Eleven repeated. She paced the edge of the ditch, looking for a safe way down to him. “Will, are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Eleven.”

Eleven recoiled at the unexpected anger in Will’s voice and fell silent.

When Will finally turned around, still sitting at the bottom of the ditch, he wouldn’t meet her eyes, but a large scrape on his cheekbone pulled her attention away from that detail. The scrape wasn’t actively bleeding—not like his busted lip, from which there was a red trail dripping down his chin—however, it was bruising rapidly.

Eleven’s worry tripled, and she shook off her hurt feelings. “Do you need me to get Joyce? Or Jonathan?”

Will didn’t answer as his fingers danced lightly over the scrape on his cheek. Immediately, he jerked his hand back with a hiss. Then his expression spasmed when his grimace pulled the wound on his lip.

“Will?” Eleven tried again.

Finally, Will looked up. The skin around his eyes was tight with pain. “It’s fine, El,” he reiterated stiffly. “Just help me get out of here.”

---

Will’s bike was not in good shape. The front wheel was bent, several spokes were loose or broken, and the handlebars were crooked. Will said that Jonathan might be able to fix it, though he didn’t sound very confident.

Like his bike, Will also wasn’t in very good shape. His shaking had slowed down, and he didn’t seem seriously injured, but his bruises were gaining color, and his scraped-up skin was still smeared with blood, mud, and grass stains. He still wouldn’t look at her while he went about trying to figure out how to carry his bike so they could take it the rest of the way home. His anger had yet to fade from his face; however, Eleven was no longer entirely sure it was her that he was angry with. She wasn’t even sure the emotion she was seeing was anger at all. She tried apologizing several times, but Will kept brushing her off with a few unconvincing mumbles about how he shouldn’t have gotten distracted.

Eventually, Will gave up messing with his bike. After pushing it into the grass where it wouldn’t get run over by any of the few cars that used the backroad, he turned to her, still avoiding her gaze, and said shortly, “We’re gonna have to leave it here until Mom or Jonathan can come pick it up in the car.”

Eleven watched Will for a moment. “Okay,” she said. Leaning over, she grabbed the handlebars of her own bike and pulled it upright. “Let's go.”

Will opened his mouth as if to say something more, only to close it again with a simple nod.

They started off down the road in silence.

It didn’t last very long.

“Why did Kyle call you a fag?” Eleven asked.

Will flinched as though he’d been struck. “He… He was just being an asshole. Just drop it, El.”

“So ‘fag’ is like ‘mouth breather’?”

Will flinched again at the word. “It’s not like anything,” he said, his tone gaining a slight defensive edge. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“If it doesn’t mean anything, then why did he call you it?” Eleven knew she probably shouldn’t keep pushing, but it was no longer simple curiosity powering her persistence.

She was well aware of how little she still understood about the world around her despite how fast she was learning. If such a small, strange-sounding word could cause Will so much discomfort, then she felt compelled to find out why—if only because she cared about her adoptive brother.

Will shot her a scowl. “He called me that because he’s a jealous jerk who was angry that I upset his ex,” he snapped.

“So it is like mouth breather,” Eleven concluded.

“No, it- it’s not. It’s different. It’s complicated.”

“Why is it complicated—”

“Just drop it, Eleven!” Will shouted, finally meeting her eyes after he stopped walking and whipped around.

Eleven stopped as well. She held his glare stubbornly.

A beat later, Will huffed and turned on his heel to resume stalking down the road.

Eleven watched him for a moment, taking in his clenched fists and the tense line of his shoulders.

Perhaps the emotion Will was displaying was anger; however, just like how his friendly tone concealed his sadness, she’d glimpsed something in his eyes beneath that anger.

Eleven thought it may have been shame, except that didn’t make sense. Will had been a little embarrassed about crashing his bike, but that had long since faded. Or was the word ‘fag’ really that bad?

Maybe it wasn’t shame. Fear was her next guess; however, that made even less sense.

What did Will have to be afraid of?

---

It took them a total of an hour to get all the way home.

Eleven was somewhat surprised when Joyce didn’t run out to meet them the moment they got within sight of the house; although, she soon saw the reason for that was Joyce wasn’t even home. Once they got inside, she found a note from the woman on the table saying that she’d gone out on some errands and would be back around five o’clock. The note also mentioned that Jonathan had been hanging out with Argyle that afternoon but should get home around the same time as them.

The fact that Jonathan was still not home despite Eleven and Will being almost forty-five minutes late did not surprise either of them.

“Of course, he’s not home,” Will muttered when he read the note and got to the part about Jonathan. “He’s out getting stoned like he always is.”

Eleven glanced sidelong at him before deciding not to ask what exactly he meant by “stoned”—Was he talking about the odd, spacey way Jonathan acted when he smoked the smelly plants with Argyle?

Will sighed, and his shoulders slumped tiredly as he set down the note. “I’m gonna go clean up or something,” he mumbled in her general direction.

“Do you need any help?” she asked hesitantly. Will had been in a foul mood ever since their argument, and she knew it was her fault, so she didn’t want to make it worse by being pushy again.

Will waved her off, already moving toward the stairs to go down to the lower floor where his bedroom and the bathroom resided.

When he was gone, Eleven blew out a heavy sigh of her own. Letting her backpack slide off her shoulders and thunk to the floor, she pulled out a chair from the table and dropped into it. She closed her eyes, pushing the heels of her hands against her eyelids. Colors bloomed in the blackness. For a moment, she contented herself with the simple activity of watching the blues, greens, purples, and reds furl and unfurl in response to the pressure…

The squeal of tires against the pavement outside had her looking back up, blinking the colors from her vision. Funky music drifted through the front door, telling Eleven what she’d already guessed: Argyle was dropping Jonathan off.

Eleven listened as Jonathan and his friend called out goodbyes before another squeal from Argyle’s van signified him peeling out. She heard footsteps walk up to the door, followed by the jangle of keys. Seconds later, the door opened, and Jonathan strode in looking surprisingly… normal. Focused. Centered. He still smelled bad, but it was fainter than it usually was when he came home after hanging out with Argyle. Maybe Argyle had run out of plants?

When Jonathan noticed her at the table, he blinked in surprise. “Oh, hey, El. I know I’m late, but Argyle ran out of gas, and we didn’t have any more Purple Palm— Um, actually, never mind. So how was your…” He trailed off, brows knitting as he appeared to read something between the lines of whatever expression she must’ve been wearing. “Is everything alright?”

Eleven bit her lip. “No,” she confessed.

Concern flooded Jonathan’s gaze instantly. It was at times like these that Eleven was reminded of just how much Jonathan took after Joyce. She supposed that was a good thing. Will had only mentioned his and Jonathan’s dad once, and nothing he’d said had been positive.

“Did something happen at school?” he asked, coming over and crouching down in front of her chair so they were at eye level. “Are you okay? Is Will okay?”

Eleven opened and closed her mouth. “Um. Yes, yes, and… no.”

Jonathan took a second to connect her answers to his questions. “So… Yes, it was something at school, yes, you’re okay, and, no, Will’s not okay?”

“Yes? Kind of?”

Briefly, Jonathan did a once-over of the kitchen as though he expected to find evidence of what happened somewhere in the room. Then he reached over and pulled out a chair for himself to sit in. Once seated, he leaned forward, giving her his full anxious attention. “Can you— Could you explain a little further than that? What exactly happened?”

Eleven peeked at the stairs to Will’s room. All was quiet. She felt a little bad for talking about Will behind his back, but maybe Jonathan would be able to help. He would know what to say to comfort Will, and he could answer her question about the word she’d heard.

“Well,” she started. “Um, I was waiting for Will when school ended, but I waited for fifteen minutes, and he never came. Then I heard voices, and one of them was his, so I thought maybe he was with friends. I went to go see, but… Will was not with friends.”

Jonathan’s face seemed to age at that, new creases forming as his frown deepened and his forehead wrinkled with worry. He didn’t interrupt; however, his hands fidgeted between his knees, and his gaze kept flickering to the stairs as if he was fighting the urge to run to his brother and check on him.

“There were these three boys,” Eleven continued. “They had trapped Will against a wall. One of the boys, Kyle,” she remembered, “was angry at Will. Will said that he and Kyle had a class with this girl named Lucy, and Lucy asked Will on a date. Will thought Kyle overheard and got jealous because he and Lucy used to be ‘a thing.’”

“Wait, wait,” Jonathan interjected, sounding confused. “Will’s going on a date? With a girl?”

Eleven was puzzled by Jonathan’s focus on such a small detail. She answered anyway. “No, he said he turned her down.”

Jonathan’s confused expression lifted briefly before dropping back down again. “So why was Kyle jealous if Will said no?”

Eleven shrugged. “I asked that too. Will said Kyle was angry because he upset Lucy.”

Jonathan raised his eyebrows, incredulous. “Seriously?” He huffed under his breath. “Jesus, I almost forgot how brainless some teenage boys are.” Rubbing his face, he refocused on her. “So- So did Kyle hurt Will? Like, did they get into a fight?”

Eleven shook her head and saw some of the tension ease from Jonathan’s shoulders. “Not really, but I think Kyle and the other boys wanted to. They were pushing Will around and yelling at him until Mrs. White stopped them.”

Jonathan sighed and glanced over at the stairs again. He straightened up in his chair as if to stand.

“Wait,” Eleven said. “I’m not- I’m not done.”

Jonathan looked back at her. “There’s more?” he asked, sounding pained.

“Yes. But- But not the way you’re thinking. Will crashed his bike on our way home.”

Jonathan grimaced. “How bad?”

“He got scraped up a lot,” she said, “and he busted his lip. His backpack ripped a little, too, on the zipper. And his bike got all bent up, so we had to leave it and walk for forty-five minutes to get home.”

Jonathan’s cheeks puffed out as he released a loaded breath. “Okay.” He stood up. “I’m… I’m gonna check on him, and then we can go back and pick up his bike. Thank you for telling me, El.”

Down on the lower floor, Eleven heard the shower turn on with its signature squeal. She wondered if Will had been listening to their conversation.

She pursed her lips, looking down. “Jonathan?”

Jonathan paused mid-step. “Yeah?”

“What does ‘fag’ mean?”

---

Jonathan tensed.

His father’s angry voice rang in his head, his words not directed at Jonathan but at Will. Young, frightened, little Will, who didn’t understand why he was being yelled at nor what the words their father was yelling even meant.

Will never reacted to all the shouting in a way that their father thought was acceptable. Raised voices always made him upset, and him getting upset all the time only fueled their father’s fire. Jonathan and their mom had put themselves between Will and Lonnie whenever they could, but Jonathan knew they weren’t present for all of Lonnie’s tirades.

Whenever their father was the one who picked Will up from baseball practice, for instance, Will always acted like a shadow, a wraith, by the time they got home. He wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes, his responses were all monosyllabic, and he cringed away from Lonnie anytime he glimpsed any sort of sudden, unexpected movement from his direction.

Lonnie had never outright “hit” Jonathan before. Sometimes, he’d cuff him over the head a little harder than usual or grab his arm tight enough to bruise, but he’d never struck him.

Once, after the divorce, when things in the Byers’ house were calming down, and they were falling into the new routine, Jonathan had asked Will. He’d asked if their father had ever hit him, and Will assured him that Lonnie never “made contact.”

Which meant Lonnie had still threatened to do something, and that was enough to make Jonathan’s blood boil anytime he thought about their father. That wasn’t to say he thought about their father often. In fact, the man rarely ever made an appearance in his internal monologue. However, hearing Eleven say the word that Lonnie had so often spat in Will’s direction brought all those memories rushing back.

Jonathan made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. “Um, why— Where did you hear that word?” he asked Eleven, who was staring at him in concern.

“Kyle called Will that,” she answered slowly, “when Will said he didn’t want to go to the movies with Lucy.”

Suddenly, Jonathan found himself wishing for Steve Harrington’s bat and this Kyle kid’s address.

“Jonathan?” Eleven prompted. “Is it something bad? I tried asking Will on our way home, but that’s when he crashed. We got into an argument when I asked again, and he wouldn’t answer me. He looked— He looked… ashamed or… or scared of something.”

That sent a pang through Jonathan’s chest, and his anger began to ebb. “El, it’s… it’s complicated.”

“That’s what Will said.”

Jonathan blew out a breath. He grabbed his chair again and sat back down in front of Eleven. “Well… I guess the, uh…” He threw a glance over his shoulder at the stairs. “Technically, the definition of… fag is, like, ‘a gay person’ except fag is— It’s an insult.”

Eleven frowned. “A… gay person?” she repeated in confusion. “Why is it bad to be happy?”

Jonathan blinked, his brain taking a moment to catch up with the sudden realization that Eleven had no idea what a gay person was. “Um, no, El, a gay person is— Well, it can mean someone who’s happy, but nowadays, it mostly means someone who likes people of the same gender. Like a guy who likes guys, or a girl who likes girls.”

“Why is that wrong?” Eleven asked, looking baffled. “Max and I are friends. And Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Will are friends.”

Jonathan shook his head. “No, not like that,” he said. “‘Like’ as in… well, love. Romantic love. Gay people love people who are the same gender as them.”

Eleven nodded slowly, and Jonathan could see the gears turning behind her eyes. “And since it’s an insult,” she started, “being gay is bad, right?”

Jonathan winced. “I, uh— No, it’s, um… It’s…” He continued stuttering for a few more seconds before finally settling on, “It’s complicated, El.”

Eleven looked annoyed by his repetition of the phrase. “Why is it complicated?”

Jonathan dragged his fingers back through his hair in agitation. He didn’t know how to talk about this, much less try to explain it. If other people knew what they were discussing, if they heard Jonathan not outright condemning gay people to hell like everyone else, then his family could be blacklisted. They could be ostracized by the community, and Eleven and Will would be bullied and beaten up on the daily. His mom might even lose her job if her boss was a big enough asshole.

“It’s… It’s not that the thing itself is complicated,” he finally said. “It’s that people make it complicated. They think being gay is wrong because they don’t understand it. Because it’s not… traditional. It’s new to them. Different. And people are afraid of things that are different, things they don’t understand.”

“But when I don’t understand something, I just ask about it,” Eleven told him. “Why don’t they try to understand gay people? So they don’t have to be afraid?”

Jonathan bit the inside of his cheek. “Some people do,” he admitted. “Some people try to understand, and I think, usually, once they do, they don’t believe being gay is wrong or bad anymore.”

“Do you think it’s bad?”

Jonathan hesitated, society having taught him to be automatically wary of how someone else might respond to his answer. He decided to throw the question back first. “Do you think it’s bad?”

Eleven shook her head. “No. It doesn’t sound like something bad.”

Jonathan smiled slightly, relieved. “I don’t think it’s bad either. I think it’s just love. Like any other.” He wavered. “But, El?”

“Yes?”

“You can’t tell anyone about this conversation. Or about what we think. Especially about what we think.”

Eleven’s brow furrowed. “Because other people think it’s wrong?” she guessed.

“Yes, and they will make things very bad for us if they find out we don’t think it’s wrong.”

“Bad for Will and Joyce too?”

“Bad for all of us.” Jonathan sighed. “People just… They don’t understand yet, so they aren’t very kind to those who don’t agree with them.”

Eleven was quiet for a few seconds. Then she asked, “What about Will?”

Jonathan felt his expression twitch. “What about him?” he questioned slowly.

“Can I tell him what we think?”

Jonathan relaxed a little, only to grow unsure once he processed Eleven’s question. “Um… I don’t know. Maybe just— Maybe just don’t mention it right now, okay? Just… not yet. One day, but not yet.”

“Why? Does he think being gay is bad?”

“No, no, I don’t think so. It’s just…” He trailed off, glancing to the side as he floundered for the right thing to say without exposing what wasn’t his to expose.

“Complicated?”

Jonathan looked over to see a strangely… knowing expression on Eleven’s face. He nodded. “Yeah. Complicated.”

Suddenly, Eleven perked up. “Is that Joyce?”

Jonathan frowned and tilted his head to listen. Sure enough, he could hear the rattle of his mom’s car in the driveway. He stood up and looked at Eleven. “I’ll help her carry the groceries in and tell her what happened. Why don’t you go put your school stuff up in your room, okay?”

“Okay.” Eleven grabbed the backpack at her feet and rose from her chair while Jonathan headed to the door to meet his mom.

Stepping outside, he immediately saw the disaster waiting to happen.

“Mom, let me help you with that,” he called quickly, meeting her halfway to the door.

Joyce peeked around the wobbling mountain of grocery bags in her arms. “Oh, Jonathan!” She smiled sheepishly and laughed a little. “Thank you. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to the door.”

Jonathan returned her smile with amusement as he took four of the bags from her. “Yeah, I don’t think you were either.”

They finished walking into the house together and set the bags down on the table before stepping back outside to grab more.

“Where’s El and Will?” his mom asked while they reloaded their arms.

Jonathan made a split-second decision.

“They’re in their rooms,” he told her. “They got home late. El said that Will crashed his bike on the way back, and they had to walk most of the way.”

Joyce looked up from her bags instantly. “Is Will alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, no, he’s fine. El said he just got a bit banged up.”

“Are you sure?”

“...Yeah.”

Jonathan didn’t particularly enjoy lying to his mother, but he knew she’d been second-guessing her decision to make them move ever since they reached Lenora Hills.

Hopefully, this bullying thing would blow over, and it was just a one-time occurrence. Jonathan knew Will had gotten bullied a lot in middle school, but that was middle school—everyone got bullied. High school in a town where no one knew them was supposed to be Will’s fresh start.

While Jonathan would love to return to Hawkins and be with Nancy—and he’s sure Eleven and Will would come in a heartbeat too—he didn’t want his mom thinking they had to go back for their sake. Plus, at the end of the day, it was healthier and safer for everyone if they stayed away from that town. The bad memories there outweighed the good.

---

“Will! Dinner’s ready!”

Will glanced at his door, through which the shout from the main floor had come. He sighed and answered, “Be up in a minute, Mom!”

His hair was still damp from his shower, but he’d managed to wash off all the mud, grass, and blood. Beneath the grime, he was pretty bruised up. His lip was a bit swollen too, and it bled a little more anytime he stretched his mouth too wide. Other than that, all of his cuts were mostly superficial, so none had needed anything beyond a bandaid or two. The scrape on his bruised cheek was shallow enough that it hadn’t needed any bandaging at all.

Small blessings.

Now, Will just had to make sure his mom didn’t go into cardiac arrest when she saw him. He’d heard Eleven telling Jonathan what happened—though he hadn’t stuck around to eavesdrop for long. Maybe Jonathan will have already explained everything to their mom, so Will wouldn’t have to.

He stalled for another minute or so before finally resigning himself to his mother’s inevitable worry. Taking a deep breath, he left his room and began trudging up the stairs.

Joyce must’ve been listening for him because as soon as he stepped onto the main floor, she turned around. On her face, she wore a concerned smile that made his cheeks burn with embarrassment.

“Jonathan told me that you crashed,” she said, already coming over to hug him. “Are you alright?”

Will’s brow furrowed as he returned her embrace. He’d thought his mom’s first statement would’ve been about Lucy or Kyle or whether he wanted her to call the school.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he mumbled distractedly while peeking at Jonathan over his mom’s shoulder.

His brother was leaning against the kitchen counter sipping on a glass of water in a failed attempt at looking casual. Will was both surprised and happy to see that he, for once, didn’t appear to be stoned.

Then Will narrowed his eyes, remembering himself.

His best guess was that Jonathan had chosen not to tell their mom about Kyle. He wasn’t really complaining—he didn’t want his mom to actually go through with her threats of keeping him swaddled in bubble wrap forever—but he couldn’t help wondering why.

Joyce pulled back from their hug to take stock of him again. Eyes landing on his face, she hissed in sympathy. “Yikes, you need to get some ice on that cheek, mister.”

Will laughed awkwardly, only to wince when his expression pulled on his busted lip. “I should probably just take a full ice bath while I’m at it.”

Eleven came downstairs then, and Will glanced in her direction. Their eyes met for a second before he looked away. Suddenly, the atmosphere was ten times more uncomfortable. Or maybe that was just him.

He knew he should apologize to Eleven for being a jerk earlier, but he didn’t want to do that with his mom and brother’s eyes drilling into his skull. He’d have to pull her aside later.

---

Midway through dinner, Joyce spoke up. “Oh, Will, Jonathan said that you and El had to leave your bike. Why don’t we go pick it up after dinner?”

Will was about to reply when Jonathan cut in. “I could take him,” he offered and then hastily added, “I mean, you’ve already been out for a while today, Mom, and you just got home. Besides, I can help load the bike into the car. It’s no problem.”

Will frowned at his brother.

“I— Are you sure?” Joyce asked, looking faintly confused.

Jonathan waved her off. “Yeah, definitely. And, anyway, it’s been a while since Will and I got to hang out, you know?”

Will frowned harder at his brother.

Their mom gave in. “Oh, alright.” She smiled at Eleven across the table. “Maybe El and I can have some girl time while you’re gone then.”

Eleven returned her smile. “That sounds nice.”

“Great! I’ll see if I have any nail polish laying around…”

---

As soon as they got in the car, Will turned to Jonathan and demanded, “Did El put you up to this?”

Jonathan huffed slightly as he started the engine. “Straight to the point today, huh?” he muttered.

Now, it was Will’s turn to huff. “Did she?”

Jonathan twisted around to see out the rear windshield and began backing out of the driveway into the street. “No, she didn’t,” he said. “This was all me.”

“Why didn’t you tell Mom about Kyle?” Will asked next. “I heard El blabbing about it to you, so I know you know everything.”

Jonathan shot him a disapproving look. “Hey, she was worried about you.”

Will started to retort, only to hesitate and then slowly slump back in his seat. “I know,” he mumbled reluctantly.

Jonathan sighed. “Look, I didn’t say anything to Mom because I didn’t want her to worry,” he admitted.

Will raised his eyebrows, dubious. “She’s always worried.”

“Yeah, but you’ve seen how she’s been second-guessing herself about the move. It wouldn’t be right to make her think we need to go back to Hawkins because of some immature assholes at the high school. We both know she’d move us back in a heartbeat if she thought we needed to, but she… Being there again, after Bob and Hopper, wouldn’t be healthy for her. Besides, I figured you could tell her yourself if you wanted to.”

Will was silent.

Jonathan let him think for a moment while he drove them out of the neighborhood. “How much did you hear?” he eventually asked. “Of what El told me?”

Will glanced at him warily. “Just the stuff about me crashing and those other guys being jerks because I turned down Kyle’s ex. Why? What else did you talk about?”

“Well… El also mentioned that you two got into an argument about… something one of the boys called you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jonathan saw his brother stiffen.

“Oh… That.” Will cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. He wasn’t looking at Jonathan anymore, instead staring out the window in a show of searching for his bike.

“Yeah. That,” Jonathan echoed. He eased his foot a few inches off of the gas pedal, allowing the car to slow down as they entered Will and Eleven’s shortcut. He let out a heavy breath. “Will, you know you can talk to me, right?”

Will peeked over at him. “Yeah,” he said, his voice pitching slightly higher with some combination of embarrassment, defensiveness, and agitation. “I know.”

“Then you know I’m not going to judge you for anything,” Jonathan said earnestly. “Anything.”

Will looked away again. “Jeez, no need to be dramatic,” he mumbled. “It was just a stupid fight. No one even got hurt.”

“You did.”

“What? No, El told you. I crashed my bike. I didn’t—”

“No, not like that. I mean because of what those boys called you. I-I know Dad never supported you drawing or playing DnD, and he used to… he used to call you that too, but he was— They shouldn’t—” Jonathan groaned in frustration, fighting for the right words to convey what he was getting at without calling Will out entirely.

Meanwhile, Will wasn’t even pretending to look for his bike anymore. His gaze was fixed on his lap as though it would reveal the answers to all his problems if he just stared hard enough. The stillness of his figure in Jonathan’s peripheral told him his brother was listening intently for his next words.

So Jonathan took a breath and tried again. “Will, just don’t let Dad and those boys define something for you, okay? Don’t let their words tell you what’s good or bad. They’re idiots. They were all probably dropped too many times as babies or something. In fact, I bet you ten bucks that Kyle and his friends will end up having to retake their senior year just like Dad did.” He leaned toward his brother, trying to catch his eye as he bumped Will’s shoulder lightly with his arm. “You can’t let people like that get to you, okay?”

A beat passed before Will glanced up. “Did Dad actually have to retake senior year?” he asked.

That pulled a surprised laugh from Jonathan’s mouth. “Seriously? That’s what you got out of that?”

Will’s expression softened a tad, becoming almost pensive. “No, I, um… Thanks, Jonathan. Really, I… I needed to hear that.”

Jonathan smiled at him. “What are big brothers for?”

Will’s mouth curved in a small, shy grin. “Buying ice cream for their little brothers after they wreck their bike?”

Jonathan made a face. “You are taking unfair advantage of the situation, you know that? You’re exploiting me.”

“I’m not hearing a ‘no’.”

With a dramatic sigh, Jonathan gave in. “Alright, fine. We can go get ice cream, but we have to find your bike first.”

---

After her brothers got home later that night, Will pulled Eleven aside to apologize for how he acted earlier, and she apologized in kind for being pushy. They shared a tight hug before saying good night and going their separate ways.

Will seemed much better now. Whatever emotion had been concealed behind his anger that day appeared to have eased slightly, making Eleven glad that she’d chosen to confide in Jonathan. She may not have known Will for as long as the others, but for as long as she had known him, he’d always sounded so sad to her. She still hoped that one day she would get to hear what he sounded like without that undercurrent of sorrow.

Perhaps when things were no longer quite so complicated.