Chapter Text
Will wakes up with a sob half-buried in his throat.
He's already sitting upright before he can even think consciously about it, tearing the thick comforter off of himself and swinging his legs over the side of a bed still too big for him, even despite his recent growth spurts. For a second, he expects to see his posters on the walls, his closet door open, his drawings scattered around– and he does find some of his drawings pinned to faded wood walls, but not where he expected to find them.
It takes him a minute, as it always does, to remember where he is. A comforter set that is not his. Barren walls, save for the scattering of paper hard-tacked to wood that he couldn't bear to pull off. A closet far too large for a teen, kept closed always because it had never been emptied out and none of them could stand the reminders, usually.
Today is not one of those days. Will drags himself out of the bed. He left his jeans somewhere on the bedroom floor last night; he searches for them aimlessly, stepping out of his pajamas and leaving them folded over the bed. Next, he finds one of his own dirty shirts that isn't so dirty that it reeks, and he slides that on; it's not like any of them are good at doing laundry anyways.
Finally, he stops in front of the closet. Swallows thickly. Will reaches forwards with shaking hands to open it just a crack, just enough that it reveals the seemingly endless supply of sweaters too small for him. There's a handful that he can make fit anyways. His favorite is a plush brown cardigan, one that he gently pulls out from the closet, smoothing over the wrinkles. It was long on her before, and though he's grown, it's long on him too.
"Will?" Hopper's gruff voice would've startled him if he weren't so used to it by now. "You up?"
Will doesn't respond. He rarely does; he knows Hopper will hear him moving around and make the correct assumption.
But Hopper being there at the door means he's going to be there, looking at him with those eyes full of faux concern, for the entire morning. He's going to offer Will a ride to school, and El is going to give him those big puppy-dog eyes of hers that Will still feels guilty refusing, and then Hopper's going to try and talk to him and the last thing Will wants, truly the last thing, is to talk to fucking Jim Hopper.
So instead, he waits. One beat, two. Hopper sighs, and then his footsteps echo away, giving Will the opportunity to slip out of the bedroom and slink through the hallway like a ghost.
At the kitchen table, El is eating her usual breakfast. She offers him a tentative smile when Will steps into view, but Will can't find it in himself to muster a fake smile back. Instead, he ignores her entirely, ignores the bedding set up on the couch where Hopper must have slept again, and goes to grab his backpack.
"Kid–" and there's Hopper again, stepping in between Will and the front door, giving Will that look that he hates so much. "Sure you don't want to stay for breakfast? I can drive you to school, you know."
Will glances behind him uneasily. To his newfound horror, there's a plate set up right next to El, already covered in waffles. Once again, El meets his gaze, and she gestures at the plate, her eyes big and hopeful.
His walls are being weakened, thinning. One of these days, Will thinks, El is going to win him over, and he will be sucked into the perfect little family life that her and Hopper play roles in, and he's going to be miserable and trapped. One day. It feels inevitable now.
But that day is not today. Will shakes his head, and he forces himself to look away from the table, once a place of comfort for him, to instead sidestep Hopper and shove his way forwards.
Hopper could stop him. He doesn't.
It's a routine, a song they know all the words to, a dance they have all learned. El offers a breakfast that Will never accepts. Hopper offers a ride that Will never takes. Sometimes Jonathan is here to bridge the gap, but most of the times he's already gone, long before Will's even woken up. They all know better than to interrupt the routine; especially today, because when Will checks his watch as he's pushing his way out the front door, he finds to his own horror that he's already running late.
Shit.
It isn't that he really cares about being late for school, because he doesn't. He just hates running late in general.
Will grabs his board from where he left it the day before, still propped up against the porch and untouched. It had been one of Hopper's very first attempts at placating Will into compliance; at least, that's what he would presume, except the truth is that the board had been El's attempt at maintaining a fractured friendship and then she had gifted it to Will using Hopper's name hoping he wouldn't know the difference. As if Hopper wants him skateboarding to school.
It doesn't really matter in the end. It's his.
The sky is brightening, leaving the roads all awash in a golden glow. Will pays it no mind as he takes off on the board, gritting his teeth at how bumpy the driveway is. Usually, he just walks this part, but he doesn't have time– he's late.
It takes him a few minutes to reach the actual road, the one he and his friends had dubbed Mirkwood so many years ago. Skating becomes easier here on actual pavement, and Will relishes in the way the wind whips in his hair, the forest around him blurring as he speeds along to the Randolph intersection.
Thankfully – because honestly, he wasn't sure if she would be there still – Max is still waiting for him.
She's wearing her headphones, walkman tucked into her waistband. She quirks a brow when Will skids to a stop besides her, gesturing up at his face. "Forget something, Byers?"
"I woke up late," Will admits, pausing to catch his breath. His legs feel shaky; Max says that this is normal, that the only reason she doesn't get winded or bent out of shape from skating is because of how long she's been skating. "They're–fuck, they're in my bag still."
Max rolls her eyes, but she swoops towards him, reaching for his bag. Will lets her take it, still focused on breathing. This, too, is routine–Max pulling his own walkman out, attached to the tangle of wires that make up his secondhand pair of headphones. The wiring is starting to wear out, the sound quality noticeably messed up, but they were still the best he has.
"So," he says, when he feels like he can actually talk again, "what am I listening to today?" He gives her a flat look as she takes a step back, now with his walkman actually in his hands, fingers sliding through the tangled wires with the ease of familiarity. "If it's Madonna again–"
"-jeez, I give you the best album of all time once and now I'll never live it down, will I?" Max clicks a tape out of her walkman, passes it over to him. "Kate Bush. She'll change your life, promise."
Will rolls his eyes then, too, but he takes the tape, quickly exchanging it for one of his own. "The Cure," he says, handing it over. "To set the tone of the day."
Max huffs, but as they start walking, she grins at him. Will, for the first time today, grins back.
~~
They get to school just as the first bell is ringing.
"Can you believe we have to sit through another stupid pep rally before spring break?" Max complains. The look in her eyes is hazy, unfocused, the way she always gets when basketball is the subject; and Will knows why, but he also knows better than to push. "If I have to listen to Jason Carver give another speech about his lame-ass cheerleader girlfriend–"
"-ugh, do not get me started," Will groans in sympathy.
They walk to their lockers together. Theoretically, lockers are assigned, alphabetical order, which means there's no reason why Will Byers and Max Mayfield should have lockers next to each other; however, it was laughably easy for Will to switch the locks, forcing some helpless classmate to play a guessing game of which locker was actually theirs and for Max to instead take the space next to him.
They put their boards away. Will rearranges his textbooks, then slides his headphones over his ears. He brushes shoulders with Max as they exchange a similar, exasperated look, and then – as a teacher at the far end of the hallway gives them a deadpan look – they walk towards the gym.
Will… hates the gym. As if it wasn't torture enough to endure the staring of dozens of other guys his age – trying to catch him looking, he'd guess, if the pointed slurs they whisper in his direction like he can't fucking hear them weren't enough of an indication – but he's never really been the athletic type, hates the way his breath catches when he runs now, hates the way the crappy gym clothes hug his frame.
He hates pep rallies even more. Max is right; they're basically pointless, because this is the first year in maybe the entirety of Hawkins history that their basketball team has done anything remotely deserving of the school's attention, and having so many people in such a small space… it makes Will's skin crawl. Especially since half of these people have, at one point or another, contributed to his whole "being called slurs" problem.
Max makes a face as they enter. "How about this," she says, barely audible over the roaring of the band. "We just stand here, so we can bolt as soon as this thing's over. Sound good?"
Jason Carver takes center stage. He's talking about last year. Will tunes him out, but judging by the grimace on Max's face, she hasn't– can't, because delving into the past is something both of them are all too familiar with, and though Will has gotten better at tuning the world out, Max hasn't.
So Will doesn't answer her; not directly, not with words. Instead, as Jason reminds them of all the lives lost at the "Starcourt Mall Fire" – what a fucking joke – Will slips his hand into hers, squeezes. Max inhales sharply, but she squeezes back.
~~
Finally, the pep rally ends.
For all that they had tried desperately to get their schedules to align, Will doesn't have many classes with Max. In fact, he knows already that he's not going to see her until lunch, and even that is a maybe.
"I have Ms. Kelly today," Max says, almost bitterly. "You'll be okay at lunch without me?" she says it sarcastically, like a joke, but there's an undercurrent of something else in her voice; for a moment, she almost sounds scared.
Will releases her hand, even as they walk out of the gym doors together. "Works out for me," he tells her, "I have that project for art I have to finish up anyways." He pauses, hesitates. "Will you be okay without me?"
Max takes a breath, and then gives him a shaky smile, one that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "I'll have your tape," she says, wiggling the wires of her headphones. "See you after school."
She turns, sliding the headphones around her ears as she walks away. For a moment, Will doesn't move from his spot; he just watches her, concern rising in him.
Of course, he knows that Max isn't okay. How could she be? How could any of them be? But he's pretty sure… no, he knows what he saw in her eyes, the fear there. Max isn't telling him something.
He doesn't get to dwell on this long. Will finally sighs, turning around to head to his own second period–only to very nearly run smack dab into someone he very much does not want to see.
"Hey," Lucas says.
He's smiling, something shy and uncertain and so undeniably Lucas it almost makes Will's heart ache. How long has it been since the two of them were face to face like this? Everything in Will's body, his skin, his bones, screams at him to run, but instead he freezes, blinking owlishly up into the face of someone he once considered a best friend.
"It's, um, good to see you," Lucas continues, once the silence between them has stretched into something tangible. Will still only blinks in his direction. "How are you?" he winces. "I mean, that was a stupid question. Um."
Despite himself, Will feels the ache in his chest ease up. His bones stop yelling at him to run. He relaxes, minutely. "It's okay," he manages to say, and he watches the way Lucas nearly lights up. "I'm– good. Fine."
"Good." Lucas nods. "Good! I'm– happy to hear it, man." He fidgets in place, biting at his lip the way he always does when he has something he wants to say. "Um, I just wanted– I mean, I was thinking– um–"
"-Lucas," Will interrupts. "We have class in like, two minutes."
"Right, right." Lucas fumbles for something in his pockets, and then he fishes out a slip of paper, thrusting it in Will's direction. Will squints at it suspiciously–and his stomach sinks.
It's a ticket. To the basketball game.
"I know, basketball's probably not really your thing," Lucas is saying whenever Will tunes back into his surroundings. "And you probably have… I don't know, better things to do, but I wanted– it'd be really nice. To have you there. If you wanted to come."
In a way, it almost reminds Will of the previous summer; when Lucas was following him around every corner, frantic with apologies and half-truths. Somehow, Will had managed to befriend one of the most stubbornly loyal people in the entire world; because why else would Lucas actually, genuinely, want Will at his game when they've barely spoken two words since Starcourt?
And Lucas is staring at him with big eyes, hopeful eyes, and Will… he hates making people upset, especially people he cares about.
"I don't know," he answers honestly, but he tucks the ticket away into one of his pockets. "I… can I say maybe?"
Somehow, Lucas's eyes are still shining. "Of course," he says easily, and he claps a hand against Will's shoulder; Will nearly flinches away from the touch. "Hey, I have another ticket, could you give it to–"
Before he can finish, two shadows join the hallway they're still standing in, and when Will looks up, his heart sinks again. Great. Perfect.
Mike and Dustin stare at them. They're both wearing their stupid Hellfire Club shirts. Mike's hair has gotten longer, curlier, and Will has to tear his gaze away from the stupid curve of his jawline to instead stare daggers at the floor. A whole damn party reunion, he thinks, and it elicits a small snort.
"Lucas, there you are," Mike says.
Will forces himself to look up, just in time to watch as Mike's gaze slides to him. His eyes are dark, piercing; and unforgiving, because Mike had been the first one to give up fighting for Will's attention after last summer and he knows it and Will knows it too, doesn't he?
There's an abyss in Mike's eyes, one that threatens to swallow him whole. Will inhales, and then he turns, not even bothering to take the second ticket Lucas was about to offer him; he knows exactly who Lucas wants him to give it to, and he knows probably just as well as Lucas himself does that it won't happen.
Instead, he flees.
~~
The most that Will can say about school is that it happens.
There was a time in his life where he actually cared about learning. He can pinpoint it all the way to Mike's basement, when they were still young enough to not be thrown off by the weight of the real world and instead embrace it. Mike had been passionate about learning, once, and his enthusiasm was so contagious it made Will care too.
That was before. Before demogorgons, the Mind Flayer, and the Upside Down. Before Will was stolen from his home and had his entire life changed in the span of one agonizing week. Before last summer.
Now, he moves through class after class lethargically, headphones pressed over his ears. Not even the tinny sounds of Kate Bush wailing her heart out can drag him out of the stupor he falls into. He sits at the back of every classroom, pulls out the relevant textbook, and stares at it until the words are falling off of the page. The bell rings, Will gathers his things into his bag, and then walks to his next class. Rinse and repeat.
It did not use to be this way; even after everything that happened when he was twelve, he at least had an interest in school, in learning. Sometimes, he remembers the thrill of passing notes between Mike and Dustin in Mr. Clarke's class, doodling in the margins of his notebooks, following his friends into the AV room to talk science… now, that all feels like a faraway dream.
I did this to myself, he reminds himself as the bell rings, signaling the beginning of lunch; not that he was really paying any attention to the passage of time. I pushed them away. I'm the reason I'm alone right now.
He's not entirely alone at least. He still has Max, after all; she's the only one who understands.
But she won't be at lunch, so with a reluctant sigh, Will ignores the cafeteria entirely and instead marches himself into the abandoned art room.
Art is maybe the only class he has that he actually likes and makes an active effort for these days. They've recently been working with acrylics, and Will loves it. He loves watching the colors mix together, loves the feeling of a brush on canvas; it's so different from drawing with just pencils and crayons, like he's finally going above and beyond and actually creating something meaningful. Something that will last a lifetime.
In any case, he has a project due later today, and he still isn't completely satisfied with his painting. He doesn't have any paints at home, so instead he sets his bag aside, trudges through the unlocked supply closet, and pulls out his painting and the paints he still needs, settling down at his usual easel.
The project's theme was relatively simple; they were dabbling in surrealism. Will's found over the past several weeks that he really, really likes surrealism; it makes sense, considering his history, the things he's gone through, that he would relate the most to an art form mostly popularized by the aftermath of World War I, an art form dedicated to escapism and fantasy.
For his project, he's painted… himself, except not really and he doubts that anyone in his class will understand where he's drawing from. Will stares at the canvas, mixing together some more blues and greys for the background; that's really the only part he has left to complete.
A figure, standing in the middle of a road, made up entirely of vines twisting and tangling together. Hands stretched out to either side, reaching for something he will never have. A forest looming over him, except each tree has a face–laughing, mocking, sneering. A human eye peeks out behind the vines, drenched in fear and horror. If asked, Will might talk about fear, or nightmares, and his teacher might not really understand but she'll get the gist anyways because… because…
…as Will's dipping his brush into the paint, shivers run down the back of his neck, all the way down his spine.
His canvas blurs.
And Will freezes.
It's so familiar. Familiar, because Will spent half of his summer feeling the same shivers, the same rush of fear and panic flooding into his system. The room around him tilts. There's an echo of laughter, but he can't recognize the voice.
Go away! a voice screams in his mind, shrill and feminine. Go away, go away, go away!
Will stumbles forwards, gripping onto the table with all of his might as his world spins and blurs.
His heart is pounding. This can't be happening, he thinks miserably. Not again, please, I can't go through this again it has to be over, please–
–then, it just… stops.
The shivers disappear as fast as they had came on. The laughter stops. The world stops spinning, his canvas and the entire room coming back into focus like nothing had happened.
For a moment, Will just stands there, shaking, his heart still racing as his palms sweat against the nearby table he had grabbed in a moment of panic. His breaths are coming out all wrong, his chest all tight and tangled up like his headphone wires, and though the shivers are gone, suddenly he's just so cold.
The Upside Down is back, a voice whispers in the back of his head. You know what those shivers mean, Will.
It can't be back, he thinks, as viciously as he can muster. We closed the gate, again. It has to be gone, it has to be!
Either way, he doesn't really want to keep working on his painting now. He needs to find Max.
Will packs up slowly. His headphones are still on, but like in class, Kate Bush's voice isn't enough to pull him out of his thoughts. If he listens closely, he thinks he can still hear echoes of that unfamiliar screaming. If he thinks too hard about it, he might just puke.
He checks his watch once his things are all packed and his canvas is safely tucked back in place; he has maybe five minutes before the end of lunch, which should be enough time to find Max, tell her about the crazy thing he just experienced, and maybe convince her to ditch the rest of school and head back to her place instead. It's the last day before spring break after all; who is really going to care about two missing freshmen?
It's a good plan, maybe one of the best he's had all day. With that in mind, Will takes a step out of the art room; and, for the second time that day, runs right into someone he really did not have the energy to interact with.
Because for some godforsaken reason, Mike Wheeler is standing there, taking a step back just in time to avoid a fatal collision, hands thrown in the air like he hadn't expected Will to be leaving the room.
Just my luck, Will thinks with a groan, eyeing Mike warily as he awkwardly stands in the doorway. Running into Mike not once, but twice in the same day? Something has it out for me today.
Luck is decidedly not on his side. Mike doesn't move at all to let Will pass; in fact, he shifts to the side, now completely blocking Will's path. "Hey," he says stiffly, awkwardly. "Thought I would find you here."
He went looking for me specifically? Will balks at the idea.
"Well, you found me," he manages to say, smiling ruefully. "But I was actually on my way out, so…"
It's awkward. Things are always awkward now, between him and Mike. Mike is still shifting from one foot to the other, his lips pursed together like he's still figuring out what exactly to say, and Will hates that he knows that, hates that despite all the trouble he went through putting distance between them, he can still read Mike like his favorite book.
"Listen," Mike finally says, with a deep sigh and a slump of his shoulders. "I know we haven't… really talked in awhile. And things are super weird between us– the whole party, really."
Understatement of the year, Will thinks with a snort.
"But…" Mike pauses, and then swallows, tilting his head with a newfound confidence. "I was thinking. Maybe we could start over? There's… you know Hellfire, right?"
Will knows Hellfire. He knows because he made a pretty big deal about not joining, back when their school year was just starting. He crosses his arms, raising a brow in Mike's direction.
"Lucas isn't coming," Mike continues, his brow furrowing at the words. "But this is like, the biggest session of the entire campaign, and Lucas not coming means we need someone to take his spot, and I just… I thought of you, first and foremost. I thought you might miss it– playing, I mean."
At this, Will can't help himself; he scoffs, rolling his eyes hard enough he knows Mike has to catch it. "I see," he says sardonically, nodding along to Mike's words. "You want me to be Lucas's replacement."
Mike opens his mouth, like he's going to immediately agree, and then seems to catch Will's tone, faltering instead. His brow furrows even further, somehow.
"Because it isn't enough that I was belittled, ignored, and talked down to for wanting to play last summer," Will continues, ticking his fingers with each point. "But now you want me as a replacement because Lucas has something more important to do."
Mike actually bristles, his shoulders raising defensively, his eyes narrowing. "You wouldn't have to be a fill-in if you actually came to the first session," he snaps. "You know, like I asked you to do, because I wanted you to come and you're the one who said no."
"And why do you think that is?" Will sneers. "Tell your new friends I said no. I am going to Lucas's game to support him, because he deserves to have at least one of his friends be there."
Mike raises a brow. "Since when did you start considering any of the party your friends again?" he asks wryly.
And Will… doesn't have a good answer for that. Instead, he huffs, pushing forward and shoving Mike out of his way. "Fuck off, Michael," he snaps. "Go bother someone else."
With that, he storms away, leaving Mike standing in the hallway outside of the art room–and completely missing the way Mike's gaze never leaves him, even as he turns a corner and disappears, chills running down his spine once more.
~~
He doesn't get to talk to Max until after the last bell rings.
They meet at their lockers, just like they always do when school is over. Will pulls his board out slowly, exchanging it for his school bag– it's not like he's actually going to need anything in it over the week of spring break.
"Man, you're so lucky that your session got pushed until the week after break," Max groans as she slams her locker door shut, board already tucked underneath her arm. "I am so sick and tired of Ms. Kelly telling me how to feel."
Will smiles a little at this. "She means well," he says, just to be contrary. "Not her fault she can't really understand."
They take off. Will didn't… really tell Hopper that he wouldn't be home tonight, but he doesn't tell Hopper most things about his life. Besides, Hopper knows where he is, probably; and if he doesn't, he can always just ask El. Somehow, even without her powers, El can always sniff him out.
For a while, as they walk the familiar road back to Max's place, Max is quiet. She keeps twisting the headphone cord around her fingers, her gaze cloudy, lost in thought. Finally, as they approach Forest Hills, she pauses, forcing Will to stop too.
"Today was weird," she says, when Will glances at her expectantly. "I mean, every time I'm forced into a session is weird, but it was… weirder than normal."
Unbiddenly, Will thinks about his experience during lunch, and he shivers, the wind a little too nippy for his paranoia.
"You know, I passed someone in the halls before my session; like she was coming out." Max hesitates, and then grimaces. "Then I heard someone crying in the bathroom. Guess we aren't the only ones acting a total mess in high school, huh?"
"Weird," Will agrees.
They start walking again, but now that the wind is sending shivers down his spine again, Will can't stop thinking about the art room. "I had something weird happen to me too," he says, quickly, before he can lose his nerve. "During lunch."
"Oh?" Max nudges his side playfully.
"It was… really strange." Will reaches a hand up, rubs the back of his neck. "I felt it again. Shivers at the back of my neck, down my spine. But it wasn't just that, there was also… I don't know, this screaming. I don't know who it was. And I kept hearing laughter all around me, but nothing– nobody else was there. It stopped after a few minutes, but… " he trails off. He doesn't have to explain why the experience unsettled him. Max knows, she was there last summer.
"...shit," Max says, eloquently. "Do you think… you think it was the…" she never says the name, but Will knows exactly what she's referring to, and he shudders again.
"I don't know," he says honestly. "It didn't feel the same, but… similar enough. Could be nothing though. Maybe Ms. Kelly and her preachings on PTSD just got to me."
"You didn't even get that talk today," Max huffs, but when she glances at him, her eyes are full of concern. "Still. Wanna stay the night tonight? See if it… happens again, or something?" The real meaning of her words is clear, present in her eyes and the lines of her face: I don't think you should be alone right now.
"Yeah," Will agrees, nodding. "Yeah, that sounds good."
~~
They make it back to Max's place pretty easily from there.
Although he knows that they'd figure it out on their own anyways, Will still heads for the phone first and foremost. The last thing he wants is for Hopper to barge in with his police badge, worried about a missing kid again. It'd be embarrassing, humiliating.
So he dials the familiar number of his own house, watching idly as Max goes around the trailer picking up trash and empty bottles her mom must've left out.
After a few rings, the line clicks. "Hello?" El asks, her voice tinny.
Will groans. "Hey El, it's Will," he says, stupidly.
"Will!" El's voice lights up, sending pangs of something that feels an awful lot like guilt shooting down his spine. "It is good to hear from you. You are out of school now, yes?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm– I'm at Max's place," Will takes a deep breath. "I'm gonna be spending the night, if–if Hopper asks. About where I am."
"...I see," El says quietly. Then, "how is Max doing?"
Will looks over to where Max is still cleaning up, and he grimaces. "She's good," he says, equally quiet. "We'll… we'll talk later, okay?"
Before El can answer, he hangs up, then hangs his head with a groan.
Will knows, he knows that what he's done is a little shitty on his end. He remembers last summer, how close El had gotten to Max and how much good it had done her; he doesn't remember her ever looking so bright, so vibrant, until she had befriended Max and leaned into her own style. It wasn't her fault that everything went so terribly downhill during the last battle.
Sometimes, Will thinks about this, how he essentially stole El's first friend, and he feels… strange. On one hand, it wasn't like this was a trait exclusive to him; after all, El had done it first, had managed to wrap Mike around her fingers and pull him so far away that they had grown distant long before everything actually went to shit. On the other hand, that wasn't entirely El's fault, was it?
You know whose fault it was, that terrible voice rings in Will's head, and he groans again.
In any case, what is done is done. El still has the rest of the party, and Will knows this, has seen her hanging out with Mike, with Dustin and Lucas. She lost Max the same way Will lost Mike, and it wasn't her fault but it wasn't his either. She just doesn't get it. She doesn't understand.
They stick together for a reason, Max and Will.
"Are you done moping around?" Max's voice cuts through Will's spiraling thoughts, and he glances over at her to find that she's just about finished cleaning up. Now, she holds her mom's curling iron in one hand, the TV remote in the other. "Sit your ass down, Byers."
Will snorts, but he complies.
~~
Max puts on some soap opera.
It's mostly for background noise, because neither one of them want to be alone in their thoughts. This, too, is a tradition; sometimes, they actually watch the slop that's on TV, but most of the time they just let it play for noise, so that the tiny trailer home isn't so quiet.
Will curls up against the foot of the couch, thoroughly sandwiched between Max's spread legs. Max runs fingers through Will's hair, carefully maneuvering the curling iron to add waves and curls and texture. He's been letting it grow out over the past year, and now it's almost long enough to touch his shoulders; he almost looks like Jonathan, which is strange.
"So," Max finally breaks the ice, the curling iron just close enough to Will's head that he can feel the residual heat coming off of it. "What do you really think your vision meant?"
"I don't know if it was a vision, really," Will protests, shuddering when Max's hand curls a little too close to his neck for comfort.
"Experience in general, then," Max says with a nearly audible shrug. "I mean… have you ever heard things while having the neck-tingling stuff before?"
"No," Will almost shakes his head, then remembers the very hot curling iron still hovering about two inches away from his hair, and thinks better of it. "It's always just been a feeling. Like–like dread, like I've forgotten something very important."
Then, he pauses, and his eyes widen; he did forget something very important. "Shit," he says, "I was going to go to Lucas's game tonight."
Max scoffs loudly. "Lucas is going to be fine without you there," she says, and she almost sounds bitter. "Did he… invite you?"
Will swallows thickly. "Yeah, he did," he admits. "And… I wasn't sure if I would go, not really. But then Mike cornered me at the end of lunch, right after– after the episode, so I was still pretty shaken up, and he started talking about how Lucas wasn't going to his stupid dnd club meeting and he wanted me to go in his stead and I just got so… so angry."
Max hums thoughtfully. She reaches over for something that Will can't see. "That's the Mike effect," she says dryly.
"I was just thinking like… you replaced me over the summer, and now you want to replace Lucas?" Will groans. "And Lucas… I know, I know how you feel about him. But at least he's actually trying to make an effort and be there, you know? And I thought… well, I don't give two shits about basketball, but if it were the other way around, I'd want Lucas to be there for me. You know?"
"No, I don't know, Will," and suddenly Max sounds so tired. Will winces sheepishly; he knows that Max and Lucas's relationship has been… well, rocky over the past few months. He doesn't know the details, but their falling out had been months in the making, just like Will and Mike's own fallout, with the only real difference being that while Max still hates Mike, Will doesn't know if he could ever hate Lucas. "But I can put the game on over the radio, if you feel so guilty about it."
"You don't have to–" Will tries to argue, but Max is already turning the radio on.
Turns out, it doesn't even matter; when Max tunes the radio to the right station, all the announcer is talking about is Lucas's winning shot – and Will feels something, like a swelling of pride, rise within him at the words – and the announcement that Hawkins has, for the first time in the history of ever, won a championship game. No further details. When had it gotten so late, anyways?
"Now," Max continues, and suddenly she has a comb in her hands, Will can feel the bristles of it running through his hair. "You were saying? About your… not-vision tingling experience?"
Will opens his mouth. He wants to tell Max that there's really nothing else to tell; he doesn't know what it means, doesn't know if it has anything to do with the Upside Down or the Mind Flayer, he doesn't know. Instead, he's hit with a wave of dizziness, nausea pooling in his gut.
A second later, his eyes are rolling back in his head and the scenery around him changes.
He is in a house. It isn't Max's tiny trailer home; no, he doesn't recognize this house. The walls are covered with cobwebs, there are spiders crawling everywhere, including over an obviously dead body sat upright on the couch, head turned, eyes glazed and empty.
There is screaming, and it is familiar this time, because Will heard it before, just earlier today.
"Chrissy." A voice rumbles, scarily close to Will's vision. He tries to turn his head, to follow the sound, but he can't move. He can't move.
What the fuck?
His vision progresses forward, and forward, until he finally sees the source of the screaming. There's a girl, one that Will recognizes vaguely from the various pep rallies he's attended over the last school year. Her face is frozen in fear, with tears dripping down her cheeks as she shakes her head. "No, no, no," she sobs.
"Chrissy," the ominous voice says again. "It is time for your suffering to end."
Will watches numbly, in horror, as a hand reaches out from fucking nowhere. Chrissy's eyes roll back, and she starts to float upwards towards the hand, her body shaking in air.
Then, one of her limbs snaps with a loud crack. A second. Both of her arms, both of her legs. Her jaw cracks. Her eyes suck back into her head, tears replaced by trails of blood down her cheeks.
A final snap. Chrissy's body collapses to the ground. Will gasps, shooting forwards only to find arms wrapped around him, tight and almost smothering.
"-ill, Will," and that's Max's voice, drawing him out of his stupor. For a second, Will wishes she were someone else, and then he winces at his own stupidity. Stupid, Byers, stupid. "Are– are you okay? What the fuck just happened?"
Will screws his eyes shut, takes a deep breath. Breathe. To his own surprise, the voice in his head now is Ms. Kelly's. In for four, out for four. Breathe.
He's not in that weird, messed up house anymore. There are no spiders, no ominous voices coming from nowhere, no dead bodies. There is not a dead girl in front of him, there's just Max, who had abandoned her hair supplies and now sits next to him, arms curled around him, his head pressed into her shoulder.
But it was so, so real.
And Will is so scared.
The lights above them are flickering.
"It was Chrissy," he says, when he can manage to breathe properly again. "Chrissy… what's her name, the cheerleader girl? She was… she was screaming, she was in so much pain, and I think… I think something happened to her. Something terrible."
Max pulls away from him. Her eyes are wide, Will's own horror reflected in them. "Will," she breathes, "I just saw Chrissy."
"What?" Will feels like he might be sick, his stomach churning unpleasantly.
Max nods, the movement shaky. "When I got my brush and the radio," she says, and she turns her head to stare at the window. "She was… with Eddie. He lives right over there."
"Do you think…" Will doesn't have to finish the thought. Max immediately grabs his hand, dragging him to his feet.
Together, they run out of Max's place towards the trailer that Max had seen Chrissy and Eddie go into.
The door is open, swinging listlessly. The porch lights flicker once, and then stabilize, like the danger has already passed. The closer they get, the worse Will feels. His neck is tingling, his stomach is all tangled again, and he thinks he might throw up, or pass out, or maybe both. The only thing holding him steady is Max's hand in his.
Max steps into the trailer first. Will follows, helplessly. "Eddie?" she calls. "Chrissy?"
They both step into the living space, and then stop.
"Oh my god," Max breathes.
Because in front of them, twisted and tangled on the floor, is the mangled, very dead body of Chrissy, looking exactly the way Will saw her in his vision.
Eddie is nowhere to be seen.
"Oh my god," Max says again, and she throws a hand over her mouth, turning and running. Will watches her go, and then spares one more glance over towards where Chrissy lays. He can still hear her name echoing in his head, in that strange voice; a voice that almost, eerily, sounds familiar.
He's back, Will thinks, and the horror in his veins is replaced with an overwhelming numbness. He's back.