Chapter Text
NOVEMBER 5TH, 1985
LENORA HILLS FUCKING SUCKS1 . That's all Will needed to write down about the town. In fact, it's become something of a mantra for him. Somebody's bothering Eleven again? Lenora Hills fucking sucks. This weird chick keeps trying to talk to him? Lenora Hills fucking sucks. The teacher keeps whining about how Will is throwing away a career in the Arts to stick by his sister's side? Lenora Hills fucking sucks .
He's not sure how many times he's gotta say it before it starts becoming clear to people that he has no intentions of staying. The Byers family2 – they're going to be outta here in no time at all.
You don't lie to friends, but you lie a lot to yourself, his brain hisses. But what does he care? He's not his own friend, after all. Even if his friends haven't really been great at keeping contact, it's fine. Everything is just… fine. Lenora Hills sucks, and Will is well aware that it has been hell for El, but surprisingly not as bad for him.
Will would take El's bullying in a heartbeat, though. El's never even been to public school, and her first experience should've been everyone gushing about how cool she is, not picking on her for her understandable lack of social awareness. But it's not like they can just tell people to back off with that. As far as anyone needs to be aware of, Eleven is Jane Byers, a normal girl, with a normal mother who lost her father in a fire. Tragic.
But making sense of why you're getting bullied gets you nowhere. Will's learned that lesson. So, he spends his lunch with Eleven, glares at the people who try to insult her in front of him, and spends his time trying to rock the boat as little as possible.
He ignores the horrible smell coming from Jonathan's room, ignores the hot jealousy that fills his stomach when El and Mike spend hours on the phone, ignores the headaches that have been getting worse, and continues on with his day. That's what he has always done, and that's what he'll always do: just endure and continue on. Endure and continue on.
It makes for a good catchphrase, doesn't it? Of course, it makes sense that Eleven would ruin this careful plan he's made to never leave her alone to the wolves on this Thursday night, when she comes into his room as he's finishing up math homework.
"I know what you have been doing," she starts, walking up directly behind him. He didn't even hear her open the door and this time he wasn't even listening to music. And usually, he's good at sensing whenever Eleven comes close. Even without her powers, they agreed that there was some sort of weird, shared sense between the two of them3 .
Will keeps his eyes ahead on his homework. Friends don't lie to each other, but siblings do it all the time, so. "I have no clue what you're on about," he lied, staring at his homework like it could make this conversation vanish. He really, really does not want to talk about this.
El flops onto his bed, the plop of her body hitting the covers making Will turn in his seat to properly look at her. Her hair's growing out, but most importantly, she looks like a normal Byers. Will's pretty sure that even if Eleven never had powers, she would've joined their party anyways. He thinks about what his life would be like if he had never disappeared constantly, but he's never regretted her joining their family.
"Are you going to languish there until I agree to talk?" Will asks, already knowing the answer. For all Mike's poetic waxing about how fair of a maiden she is, El is a royal pain in the ass when it comes to what she wants. Evil incarnate, if you ask him. Her method of playing Uno simply solidifies that for him.
El stares at him. Will sighs, turning the office chair to face her. They've got money nowadays, but no one in this family has quite fallen out of their old habits, so his chair squeaks something awful thanks to it having been plucked from the side of the road. She smiles, knowing she's won. Evil incarnate, he swears to god.
"Ms. Smith said that you're dropping art," El states, calm, "to keep an eye on me?"
Will keeps his mouth shut.
Eleven takes it for the confirmation it is. "Pick it back up," she says, airly, managing to look like she's ordering Will to do it, while she's sprawled out on his bed. He rolls his eyes, trying to figure out how to make her understand.
"I don't want to leave you to those assholes, Eleven!" Will explains, keeping his voice down, trying to stay calm. El rolls her eyes, sitting up on his bed. She doesn't even wipe her feet before bringing them onto the sheets. Pure disrespect of his space. He should kick her out of his bed.
"Will," she begins, looking frustrated, "I am not – without defense. I can look out for myself."
He slumps, feeling frustrated as well. But he's not mad at her, so he keeps his voice even and level. "I know you can, El. Just because you can doesn't mean you should have to," he settles on. He remembers having to stand up for himself, which he wasn't really good at, when the rest of the party wasn't there to stand up for him. He doesn't want to make her stand up for herself.
"I have to learn," El counters, before pausing. She looks contemplative. "I want you to enjoy what you want to do. The teachers want to put me in Re…" El starts, face souring. Will holds down the need to help her, knowing that she wants to start learning how to do it herself. So he waits until she gives him a look, asking for help.
"Remedial," Will says, slowly, "ree-me-di-al." El gives him a grateful nod, before becoming serious again.
"I want to learn how they4 will treat me when we are older. When I have to face them alone, as a adult," El explains, looking impossibly sad, and it – it hurts Will that he can't protect her from this. "I can not learn if I do not fall."
Will can't help being happy with the use of a metaphor, smiling softly, letting his shoulders untense. He can understand what she's saying, why she wants to do this. And he really, really doesn't want to do this – but El isn't eleven years old. She's going to be an adult in three years, just like him, because they now share a birthday. Or, at least, her edited birth certificate says so.
"I'll stay in art while you do Remedial English," Will relents, nodding, "but don't hesitate to come to me if it becomes too much, okay?"
El lights up with a smile. That makes him feel a little better about allowing her to run off towards the rabid dogs that haunt their daily lives. "I promise," she swears, holding out her pinky finger. Will leans over, clasping it. They stamp it, before letting go.
"Is that everything?" He asks, looking at the clock. Mom's probably busy with the line for now, and god knows where Jonathan's ended up, but it's almost six in the evening, so somebody's going to have to make dinner.
Looking at the clock with him, El makes a humming sound. "Do you think they could settle with Eggos for breakfast?"
Will shakes his head, getting out of his seat. "No, El, we can't all just live off of Eggos. We need substance. We'll just order pizza." He's completely expecting the look of disgust that falls over El's face. She falls back onto the bed, making a disgruntled sound.
"Not Surfer Boys, please," she begs, looking disheartened. Will gets it. He gets up, leaving the room, hearing El's footsteps behind him. Mom's still on the phone, which is what he expected, so he starts looking towards the coupons. Places that deliver, places that deliver – huh. A new pizza joint?
El looks over his shoulder, making a curious noise. She points at the photo of the animatronics, looking interested. "What're those?" She asks.
"Robots, basically. They make metal skeletons and then put furry costumes over them," Will explains, looking towards the coupons. Two pizzas for eight ninety nine, that's sort of a deal. He was sure it would be fifteen dollars otherwise, but this place seems to have opened a month ago or so.
He looks over to see the look of wonder on El's face. "Will a robot deliver our food?" She asks, hushed and in awe. Will feels awful that he's going to have to break that dream.
"No, they're not there yet," Will sees the advertisement about how the robots can roam on their own, but there's no way those guys are there yet. He doesn't pay much attention to robotics, but he's pretty sure he would've heard about something like that, right? He'll ask Dustin about it later tonight.
El makes a sad noise, before running her finger along the restaurant name. "Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria?" Will nods, curious.
"If you want a break from Surfer Boys, we can try them out," Will offers, looking at El's excited smile. He quickly writes out a note of how much they need and what they're going to get on a notepad, tearing off the paper and ducking into the room his mom's in to deliver the message.
Mom looks up, briefly surprised at the time, and nods along with the note. Will watches as she holds the phone with her neck as she grabs her purse and pulls out a couple of bills, handing them to Will without checking.
Ten dollars and fifty nine cents. He keeps it all, so that way the pizza guy can have some sort of tip. They did say that delivery was free for a week, and the coupon in the newspaper arrived today, ergo, no delivery fee to worry about. El's ordering on the phone, before nodding, giving their address, and giving him a wide grin.
"They said that no robot would be delivering it," she announces, proud, as if she's single handedly warding off the evils of robotics. Will gives her a bright grin, and they find themselves bursting into laughter at each other's expressions.
It's almost seven minutes later, as they find themselves sitting on the couch, watching one of El's dramas5 that the doorbell finally rings. El pushes him off the couch first, as she often does, so he takes the loss and saunters over to the door.
"Hey," he starts, pulling out the coupon, "we have this, so —" and when he looks up, he's momentarily stunned.
Let him paint a picture: Billy Hargrove meets Billy Hicks meets tanned skin and a crooked smile. But, before he lets this guy achieve godhood status, there's a pizza hat with bear ears on it, and he's got eyebags so dark he might as well be wearing a bit of eyeshadow. "Yeah, eight ninety nine, that's your total. Two pizzas, pepperoni and a cheese, right?"
That's a British accent. The surprise must show on his face, 'cause the pizza guy rolls his eyes, and takes the coupon from his hand. "Yeah," Will says, sounding unimpressed, digging into pockets to grab the ten fifty nine he got from mom. It's just pocket change, five dollars, and five ones with two quarters, a nickel, and four pennies.
In exchange for the cash, Will gets handed the pizzas. And – wouldn't you have it, the name tag.
He's on autopilot as he bids the dude goodbye, setting the pizzas at the table, and calling El over. Mom wanders in, done with the phone, as he sits down and she kisses him on the head. He hears her give Eleven's hair a proper ruffling, but he finds himself glancing at the phone.
It's been, what? Three months since they moved, since Mike promised they'd stay in contact and — they've called twice. Once a month. For around an hour, max. And he gets it, alright? Things are different now. Eleven and Mike are dating, and he cares about his sister first. So he's not bitter or disappointed that his fears were proven real.
He's just not surprised.
Because, he'll give Mike Wheeler this: he's never been lied to in a more endearing way. But for that shit Mike says about how friends don't lie, that you don't break promises, Will's feeling a little lied to.
But he's not mad, bitter, or anything. He's fine.
The pizza, annoyingly, doesn't suck. It's not bad, but it's better than Surfer Boy's. Decent pizza doesn't change the fact that Lenora Hills fucking sucks.
1. A fundamental fact. (return to text)
2. Living: Joyce Byers, Jonathan Byers, Will Byers, and Jane Hopper. Dead: Jim Hopper, Bob Newby (return to text)
3. ("You two are being —" and Jonathan had stopped himself, grimacing, apparently remembering that neither of them had a good relationship with the words: weird, crazy, queer, strange, ect., and finished with, instead, "odd." In order to be proper dicks, he had, along with El, craned their necks to give him a blank stare, unamused. It gave them the effect they wanted – Jonathan now looked appropriately weirded out. "It is odd that we just – do that, nowadays," Will had broken the stand off, referring to how they instantly knew where the other was, by simply – not guessing, not really, but an instinctive knowing. Eleven had blinked slow, staring at Will, thinking about it herself. "Twinning," she had finally declared, nodding to herself. Will had not the heart to tell her that it would be impossible to tell her that they weren't twins, and seeing her beat him in Uno made him thoroughly convinced that her humor was simply like that. Jackassery.) (return to text)
4. Mouth breathers. The common people of the 80s. (return to text)
5. Introducing the new show, Growing Pains. (return to text)