Chapter Text
March 9th, 1986
Destiny. That’s what Will calls the feeling when he finally gives the long-awaited explanation to Richie, even if the word isn’t exactly right. It’s too fond. Too…heroic.
Will being the one that the Mindflayer had taken is the only path that makes sense, looking back on it as he tends to do - now that it’s started to feel like pink scar tissue as opposed to the open, bleeding mark it once was. After all, things might have gone very differently if anyone but Will Byers had been declared missing in Hawkins, Indiana on November 6th, 1983. If it were another kid’s bike found in the woods, or another body pulled out of the quarry, that might have spelled the end of the world.
“I used to wonder why it chose me, but I really don’t think it had a choice,” he says softly, watching the landscape race past outside the passenger window. “We’re all just playing our part.”
“That’s present tense, Byers,” Richie points out, squinting through the glare of sunshine on the windshield. Will looks into the side mirror, feeling that the horrors lurking behind them are not far away enough to be contained to the past.
They're not so far away at all.
Two Months Earlier
“Assigned seats?”
After taking a glance at the chalkboard and the desks for a seating chart, Will shakes his head.
“I think we’re good,” he says, leading her to an empty pair of desks near the middle of the room. It’s fortunate that their only class together this semester lets them sit as close as they like, Will exhaling in relief as Eleven takes the seat to his left. Even without her powers, El still radiates strength. Will is all too happy to let the force field shelter him as she aligns a few carefully sharpened pencils at the top of her desk.
He digs into his bag and finds the yellow binder he decided to use for history, smoothing a hand over the first loose leaf page and scribbling with pens in the margin to see if any of them still have ink. New semesters usually mean new beginnings, but even as the final warning bell rings for the first class of the new year, he feels no different than he did before winter break: out of place.
Different.
Exceptional, his mom might say, but Will would say unique to a taste so specific that he hasn’t found a single person outside Hawkins who gets him. He’s not the smallest in his grade, so bullies haven’t caught on to his simple insecurities yet, but not being mocked daily doesn’t mean you’re liked.
The buzzing mass of students in the aisles begins to dwindle, most returning to their desks in preparation for the last bell. Will’s fingers twitch against the working pen he found, absently mimicking the pattern of pencils drumming on a desk somewhere to his right - another restless classmate waiting for the school day to start.
Ba-nuh-na-nuh-na-nuh-na-nuh, Will works out, pausing as the pencil drums change, playing faster and louder. Should I stay or should I go now?
Will reels from the gut punch to his memories, trying to shut the song out as it viscerally worms its way into his head. His body refuses to fight its sinking stomach, insides going cold and writhing with a deep sense of wrong.
Unable to ignore or flee the issue - to stay or to go, his mind bitterly jokes - Will becomes a puppet to his sick curiosity, turning to face the inevitable. He catches sight of makeshift drumsticks first, bony hands curled tight around the lower half of two pencils. The drummer has a bowed head of dark, messy hair, headphones firm over the ears with wires trailing back to a bookbag.
STOP must be visibly written across Will’s forehead by now, but the drummer doesn’t lift his gaze to notice.
Jonathan had been the most disheartened by Will’s aversion to the song following his narrow escape from the Upside Down. He'd encouraged Will to push through the fear and listen.
That place took enough from you, Jonathan had said. Don’t let it take this.
Will tried. They worked together to reach the point where he could listen without shivering for hours after hearing the gritty electric guitar intro, but that’s as far as Will’s sanity would allow. It wasn’t a song to be played for entertainment ever again. The original mixtape is gathering dust in the garage and the song had left public radio rotation over the years. Will thought he was safe. He thought they’d run far enough.
Turns out that being dead only gives the song permission to haunt him.
Rotting and earthy, the stench of sour fear burns Will’s nose as the florescent light over the drummer’s desk flickers. Pencils slow to a stop. The guy looks up and his hair falls away from his face.
His profile mellows Will’s rabbiting heart, the glasses he wears breaking up a typical view of Mike’s sloped nose and dark eyes, which squint at the lone strobing bulb. The light resumes its steady buzz upon being observed, but the drummer’s familiar gaze continues searching their oblivious classroom.
Will’s ears ring in phase with the last bell when their eyes finally meet, the resemblance being too complete to comprehend all at once. Mike’s features twitch before a crease appears between his eyebrows, the clearest sign of confusion becoming hidden when he pushes up on the bridge of his glasses.
A white-gloved hand closes around Will’s arm. He traps a scream between his teeth, turning sharply to see Eleven’s concerned stare. Her bare fingers retreat.
“You okay?”
Will swallows, lips dry and parted. “What?”
“Your hand,” she whispers. Will takes inventory of his limbs, lifting the unconscious grip on his own neck. The pebbled skin withdraws. He inhales slow and holds tension in his chest before letting it go, remembering the coaching on breathing techniques in times of distress. Eleven is watching him when he opens his eyes again, but before he can reply, her gaze slides away, toward Will’s object of interest.
“He just…looks like Mike,” Will hedges.
“Yes,” she replies. “Mike doesn’t wear glasses though.”
Will’s exhale is close to a chuckle, mental overload dispelled by Eleven’s obvious nature.
“Nope,” he says, getting a brief smile as her attention snaps back to the teacher.
Even with the cold sweat still clinging to his back, Will risks another glance at quasi-Mike. The prescription lenses make big eyes bigger, and he’s put away his headphones in the last minute, hair mussed like Mike’s after a sleepover.
It’s only because Will’s staring that he catches the guy’s full-body twitch at the beginning of roll call as the teacher, Mr. If-you’re-using-my-last-name-I’m-using-yours-too, calls for Byers.
“Here,” Will offers, peeking around his raised arm to see the guy’s hunted gaze dart to him. Pale fists are clenched around the pencils, which rest flat on the desktop. He’s leaning as far away as one can in a single square-foot seat.
Paralyzing fear looks wrong when formed by Mike’s features. Mike is a person of instinct. He’s the reaction to Will’s inaction – he shouts out the warning trapped in everyone else’s head, he drags people out of the way, he chooses fight or flight, but never freeze. It shakes a deep support in Will’s chest, seeing Mike numb with panic.
No one has ever been scared of Will like that, only for him.
It’s new.
It’s uncomfortable.
“Thank you, Mr. Byers.” A wave of relief crests over the retired drummer and he slumps back into his chair, happy to be pummeled in the wake. Their teacher moves on, none the wiser. “Carroll?”
Will ignores a timid reply from his classmate, his focus fully on this strange interloper that could be his best friend’s twin.
Evil twin, as Dustin would say, his voice low and incriminating. Ultraman type shit. Will considers relaying the situation on their upcoming weekly call to make the current situation less unsettling.
The guy is cautiously smiling back now – a reflection of Will’s unconscious expression at the thought of Dustin’s clarification – and it doesn’t falter, even once Will loses his amusement. Instead, the grin widens, almost too big for his face and definitely too big for Mike’s usual range of expression. His eyebrows rise above the rim of his lenses.
“Hopper?”
Eleven’s hand flies up, arm bumping into Will’s shoulder on its eager way. He rips his concentration away from the bright teeth and brighter eyes, hand returning to his neck to find it warmed dry. Will goes back to scribbling with his pen.
Another coping mechanism: art. Draw, paint, whatever you want, his mom had suggested. Even the stuff you don’t want others to see. Especially that stuff.
Will keeps stock of his periphery, noticing the drummer raise his hand for Mr. Tozier before roll call ends. Having a name makes the guy less intimidating.
The teacher starts laying out the plan for their class in earnest and Eleven pays rapt attention, as she has in all the classes they’ve shared since moving here. Will listens with the mild absentness of someone who’s been going to school for over a decade - he knows there are scarier things to face than a pop quiz or missed homework assignment.
Inevitably, Will’s thoughts drift to his friends, who are stuck in the same situation in Hawkins. If one scrape with a dangerous, incomprehensible alternate dimension wasn’t enough, going through it twice more told them exactly the kind of life they could expect to have - not normal. Never that.
Will’s hand slows in its careless sketching, pen dropped from his trembling fingers and rolling to a shaky finish on the page. He frowns, flexing the digits and keeping them stretched until the tremors stop. Odd, he thinks reluctantly. His body doesn’t act out like that unless he tries to draw monsters and the like. Even basic D&D related stuff makes Will feel stiff and cold, so he avoids it on purpose. He must have slipped up.
Will’s glazed eyes refocus on the doodle he had made while his attention was states away, the gaps between his fingers revealing a red balloon.
Will blinks and the color is gone, dark ink smudged on the stark white page.
Mike’s double is looking forward when Will’s gaze floats to him in muddled distress, wishing he didn’t feel so suddenly alone. Like the thought was heard, he’s given brief eye contact, the corner of Tozier’s mouth quirking. He must be entertained by Will’s hot and cold behavior at this point.
What’re you staring at, freak?
The demand is hissed in Will’s head, giving him the sensation that he’s lit a torch in a dark cavern only to find himself in a bed of vipers. He recoils to his comfort zone, sinking into the unforgiving plastic of his chair and staring at the teacher intently.
Always run. Don’t read into it. You’re only as crazy as other people say you are.
Will waits until they’re asked to pull out their textbooks to tear off the page corner containing the balloon, ripping it free and starting fresh on his notes for the day. He drops the crumpled paper to the floor, desperate to get some distance from the sketch and the state of mind he was in while creating it.
Even once it’s out of sight, the balloon leaves red clinging to the inside of his eyelids.
*------*
Will had hesitated to join a club when they entered their new school in mid-September. It felt too close to betrayal, too soon to graze the bruise of leaving behind the only club he’d ever known. There had been no conflict with his Mom’s afternoon work schedule, now that Eleven was around to keep him company at home, so there was no pressing need to keep himself out of extracurriculars.
It was loneliness, in the end.
Will likes Eleven. He enjoys helping her catch up on standard teenage knowledge for both her academic and social life. She’s fun, and spending time with her helps soften the blow of leaving everyone else behind - Will is sure it does the same for her. Still, one person is rarely enough. A lot of his conversation with Eleven is one-way. If she teaches him anything, it involves difficult-to-comprehend ideas about survival and her lost powers that leave Will confused or trembling in turn.
Will misses being surrounded by a tight-knit group with similar interests. There’s no AV Club at Lenora Hills, but there is an art club run by Mr. Patricks, who had looked critically at Will’s drawing after seeing a piece for the first time in class. He’d stared at the rough sketch paper while Will’s classmates were distracted by their own chatter. His gaze had been kind with its scrutiny.
“You have a keen eye,” he notes, fingers reaching out to pull the paper to himself, tracing the heavy lines around each fruit in the bowl. “Do you know what that means?”
“Sort of,” Will says. He’s heard it used before, but that’s different from knowing. Mr. Patricks nods to himself, accepting the verbal shrug.
“You see the world very clearly. You see it in a way all your own. For some artists, it takes a lifetime of practice to find their point of view.” His fingers gently tap the work, sliding it back. “It seems you are ahead of the curve, Will.”
When Will had turned in the club application after class in October, Mr. Patricks gave him that same nod of acceptance.
Eleven sits in the back of the art room and studies on the days that Will stays after, her invisible silence turning out to be highly compatible with the atmosphere. Sometimes, Will catches her and Mr. Patricks in staring contests, a silent comprehension passing between them before they return to work.
Watching them is almost as entertaining as getting to use the school’s wider range of supplies, a benefit that Will didn’t consider until he was sitting before a blank easel and asked to pick a medium.
His primary reason for joining a club remains making connections, and Will does his best to follow through on that purpose as he steps out of the lunch line and navigates the crowded cafeteria. His fellow club members are sitting at a table across the room, absorbed in conversation. He wouldn’t call them friends yet, but they don’t taunt him for liking art and it’s better than eating alone. Loners get picked off the high school food chain fast.
Will’s body jerks to a stop as he passes the first row of long tables, food sliding on his tray from transferred momentum. He tries to take a step forward, but his feet refuse to move, glued to the floor by unseen means and turning him into a struggling involuntary mime.
Panic swamps around Will’s ankles and it shows on his face, head low to avoid making eye contact with the stream of people that are forced to move around him. He’s staring down at his equally uncooperative arms when the goosebumps begin to bloom across his skin.
Don’t do this, he pleads, not sure who he needs to hear him. Once was bad enough, but twice in one day was a problem. Twice was an episode.
Will looks to his destination, hoping none of the other kids have noticed his moment, but his eyes get stuck like his feet. A table away sits Tozier, chewing a slow mouthful as Will returns his stare.
Suddenly operational again, Will’s sneakers squeak under a choppy step, his short walk ending at the wrong table of interest. Getting a closer look corrects Will’s first assumption - Tozier would look exactly like Mike if Mike was a few years older. The lingering traces of baby fat have fallen away from his face, and his limbs better fit into his height.
Tozier’s hand comes up to pull his headphones down to his neck, which might be a good sign if Will was trying to make conversation. As it is, he would prefer to be ignored until his rationality returns and sends him running in the other direction.
No such luck.
“Can I help you?”
His voice is lower too. Will's trance breaks and he averts his eyes, hands shifting to line the top of the tray.
“No, no. Sorry.”
“Jesus, relax. I’m not gonna hit you for making eye contact.”
I’ve gotten worse for less, Will thinks, clearly broadcasting the thought if the beat of awkward silence says anything.
“I won’t even charge for an autograph,” Tozier eventually adds, dry enough that Will can smile without feeling like a fraud. “Are you sitting, Byers? My neck hurts staring up like this.”
Will is halfway on the bench before he realizes that his name was used, trepidation making him pause before looking up. He takes in the faded band t-shirt and dark jean jacket, the leather and plastic bands around a thin wrist incongruous to the bulky glasses and unstyled hair. Tozier’s fashion taste is some bizarre mix of Dustin, Jonathan, and Billy. The natural feeling of trust that the first two give Will collides with the crippling fear of facing down the latter, and Will grows faintly queasy trying to sort it out.
“It’s Will,” he corrects.
“Willie,” the guy accepts. In his voice, it’s not earnest like it would be from the Party or taunting like the goon squad at Hawkins Middle. Will’s nose still wrinkles.
“I don’t think so.”
“Not a fan of nicknames, Steamboat?”
“Not when they’re bad.”
The kid’s teasing aloofness blooms into a grin that Will doesn’t recognize, surprised that Mike’s face can manage such a mischievous arrangement of features. His enlarged eyes survey Will with fresh interest.
“That decides it then. I’m Richie, but you can call me the worst mistake you'll ever make.” His hands reach across the remains of his bag lunch, clasping Will’s palm and forcing it through a series of movements that might be a secret handshake if they were reciprocated. He abandons the effort soon after, but the chill of Richie’s fingertips lingers in Will’s hand.
Will picks up his plastic fork, trying to give his buzzing fingers an outlet.
“Where are you from, Richie?”
“A backwater town in the asscrack of nowhere called Derry,” he says, the rest of his words barely a hum in the back of Will’s mind as his body ices over.
Bad place. Unlike the scratchy, stretched minute of discomfort after he saw Richie, this feeling blinds Will like static through his bones, busy with nothingness. The lights in the cafeteria grow brighter in strobes until they create colored formations that remind Will of riding the Round Up at the fair, body pressed to the outer wall as he’s spun sick.
“Earth to Will.” A hand snaps in front of his face and the light show flickers out. “Come in, Will.”
“Sorry,” Will inhales, face pale. He presses his fork down into the mountain of mashed potatoes on his tray, white curls streaming up through the tines. “Zoned out.”
“That sounded like asthma,” Richie says, digging for the truth while giving Will a chance to shut him out. “I knew a guy who got worked up like that. He’d go quiet right before he passed out.”
“I don’t have asthma,” Will assures. “And I won’t pass out.”
“Good, because you’re not light enough for me to carry you to the nurse’s office. Might be able to drag you by the ankles though.”
“Thanks,” Will says, maybe too genuine given that Richie glances at him again, unsure if he’s about to keel over.
Will accepts Richie’s offer to finish lunch together – it’s not like the art club table will miss him. Avoiding the topics of their hometowns and medical ailments, Will listens intently as Richie rambles about the California heat and the city’s size. They stumble onto their mutual adoration of comic books just as the bell rings and Richie demands that Will walks him to class.
“This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” Richie says decidedly. “I need to know if you have any taste at all when it comes to these things. It’s serious stuff.”
When Will agrees to play along, Richie slings an arm around his shoulders. Will wears a slight smile through the interrogation. Richie’s unflinching use of language reminds Will of Dustin, his fast tongue a lot like Lucas when he was on a roll, and the view from this angle is so obviously similar to standing near Mike that Will feels immediately welcome just hearing him talk.
Everything else about Richie is new – and for the first time in a while, new is fun and exciting and not life-threatening. Will can take bouts of dizziness if it means getting to experience the rest of whatever this is.
“You think Issue 32 is better than Issue 14?” Richie asks, arm slipping away when Will nods. “My instincts were wrong about you, Byers. I want a divorce and I’m taking the kids.”
They click. Just like that, Will finds the person who turns out to be his first real friend in California.
*------*
Richie knows that their school is overpopulated, but even so, he was sure he’d caught a glimpse of every other student at least once.
Then he noticed Will Byers staring at him, and his theory was toast.
Will Byers has a face that Richie is sure he’s never seen before. He would remember - and not for the reason that the football meatheads might think. No, Will is unquestionably new to Richie’s eyes because he doesn’t have the dour, exaggerated look of your average miserable high schooler. His face doesn’t scream this is the end of the world or my life sucks because I have to be here. It doesn’t say homework? ugh, barf me out.
For some reason that endlessly interests Richie, it says, you too?
Richie drives to school with the music way up, hands drumming on the wheel. He can’t remember the last time he was excited to abandon his car and get to first period, but he practically skips today, entering the room a full ten minutes early to find Will talking to the person seated beside him.
Richie saunters over, dodging a pack of giggling Valley girls and a pair of jocks that lost interest in taunting him after sophomore year. He swings his backpack off his shoulder as he comes to a stop.
“It’s dark under your eyes,” Will’s seat partner says, tapping her own face to illustrate the area to Will. Richie checks above the gentle slope of Will's cheekbones and finds that she’s right - there are definitely shadows. “You are having nightmares again.”
You too? Richie wonders.
“I stayed up to work on my painting,” Will argues. It’s a weak excuse from where Richie’s standing. He can sense the need for a rescue coming on.
“What painting?” Richie asks, dropping backwards into the chair in front of Will and startling the duo from their private bubble. As Will does his best impression of a deer in headlights, Richie surveys the girl on Will’s left. “Hiya.”
She stares. A chill runs up Richie’s back, warning him off as effectively as finding a knife held to his throat. Interesting.
“Um- Richie, this is Jane. She’s my sister.”
“Twins?” Richie asks, figuring they look about the same age.
“Step-siblings,” Will says. Jane continues to stare at him. Through him?
“So, you’re a painter,” Richie says. “Let me guess, figure art?”
Will stalls out. “I mean I draw people, but not that kind of thing.”
“No nudity in the old portfolio?” Richie drawls, getting another panicked look before Will catches on, rolling his eyes.
“No, Richie. Even if there was, it would be anatomy studies.”
“Right,” Richie says, winking.
He reels Will into a conversation about his actual art, getting stilted responses at first, like Will doesn’t remember how to answer questions about his hobbies. His eyes dart to his sister often - for reassurance or pacification, Richie doesn’t know - but eventually Will’s going on full tangents about a book he read on color theory and pose construction that lets Richie listen in peace, only dropping the odd joke to push Will further along in his thoughts.
Genuinely making friends has never been Richie’s forte, but he’s making an effort here. He wants to know why Will’s eyes are older than the rest of him.
“Class is starting,” Jane says, seconds before the warning bell rings. Will stutters to a stop.
“Oh.” Will blinks like he forgot where they were. He starts digging through his bag and Richie swivels in his seat to face the front, pencil eraser tapping against his jaw.
“Why do you not go to your desk?”
Richie glances over his shoulder, Jane’s eyes cutting into him. He smiles, then faintly writes his name on the light wooden surface of his desk, brushing away the excess graphite.
“This is my desk. See? It’s got my name on it.”
“You just wrote that.”
“Duh. How else would it get there?” Richie twists to put his arm across Will’s desk, writing Byers in the upper left corner. He moves to graffiti Jane’s name, pencil blocked by her hand slamming down and curling around the edge of the desktop. She gives him a look that could kill a man, but Richie feels practically immune. He’s been stared at with that much irritated disgust before, but he can’t remember when, or who he teased to the point of nuclear detonation.
The unfinished memory is still bothering him when the final bell rings, forcing him to face the front. Richie waits until the teacher has settled into the lesson to pull a scrap of paper from his bag, writing carefully in the center.
Give me your class schedule.
He folds the paper into clumsy squares, then drops it over his shoulder. A crinkle of noise and a long pause comes before feather light fingers graze his collar, waiting for him to reach up and retrieve the note.
Why?
Richie writes back. Stalking purposes, obviously. I’m not too proud for shortcuts.
He feigns fixing his glasses to toss it back. The wait is much longer this time, but when the paper returns, it’s a crisp page with a cramped list of classes and their locations filling out the first few lines.
Richie does some mental math, marking in the connecting tissue of their days to every spare minute. He knows he could ask why Will looked at him like that yesterday, but he doesn’t want Will to see his reaction, in case it reveals too much in return. Like any detective that’s up to snuff, Richie will work it out in his head first, just through observation over time. He’s better at seeing people than being seen.
Richie slips the annotated schedule into his folder as the teacher makes a lap of the room, giving him a thin smile when she notices him taking proper notes.
The gaze Jane keeps on his back is practically burning a hole through his shirt at this point, but Richie mulls over ideas without real interruption, trying to fit Jane’s behavior into his working theories like a new puzzle piece.
*------*
Will finds him for lunch again, smile shy as he takes the same seat across from Richie. His expression grazes a jagged hole in Richie’s chest.
I did that.
A tide of Voices compete for the honor of making the smile stay with a cheap joke, but Richie bites his tongue against them. There’s no reason for Will to stick around if Richie annoys him to oblivion on their first day as tentative friends.
“You like music?” Will asks, gesturing to the headphones hanging around Richie’s neck.
“Oh no, this is the tape that keeps me brainwashed for this cult I’m in,” Richie says. “You want to listen?”
Will shakes his head, bemused. “Does your cult have a name?”
“Well, most teachers call it dreaming. When my mom thinks I’m out of earshot, she calls it unrealistic.” Richie reaches into his bag to turn off the Walkman. “I want to work in radio. Turns out it’s harder than it looks, even though Hollywood is practically next door.”
Will brightens. “Really? What kind of music would you play?”
“Only the hits, Steamboat. Rock of the last quarter-century with some alternative for taste.”
“You sound like Jonathan.”
“The listening public would be better off if everyone in charge of radio sounded like Jonathan, who is…”
“My brother.”
“-your brother, exactly. The older and wiser Byers - he goes to school here?”
“It’s his last semester,” Will confirms, softly discouraged.
“Lucky bastard. They’ve got me for another year.”
“You’re in eleventh grade?” Will tries stabbing the glazed fruit on his tray, giving up when Richie offers him the tangerine from his bag lunch instead. “Why are you in a freshman history class?”
“Credit nonsense. I transferred here last year, and the schedule was flipped at my old school. You don’t have a California accent, so I’m guessing you’re new too.”
“Not completely. We started in September.”
And yet he’s alone unless his sister’s hanging around. Like an animal identifying its own species, Richie figures that Will’s used to being an easy target. If you avoid people altogether, they can’t know enough about you to make fun.
“Well, my vast experience of six more months in this desert means I know what assholes you should avoid at all costs.” Will tenses and Richie’s suspicion is confirmed. "What was your spawn of Satan called?”
Will takes a slow breath in and out, his faint tremble coming to a stop. “There were two of them. Troy and James.”
“Ouch, a tag-team. My school had Henry Bowers.” Will looks up in surprise. “Yeah, Bowers, not Byers. Almost shit myself when I misheard your name during roll call.” He takes a beat, waiting for the joke to loosen the line of Will’s shoulders. When he remains stiff, Richie pushes on. “Are they the reason you didn’t sleep last night?”
Will’s throat twitches, vacant gaze staying on Richie without seeing him. “Is that what most people have bad dreams about? School bullies?”
“Most,” Richie mutters, stepping over the tripwire. “Not all.”
They silently agree to move on.
For the rest of the day, Richie tries to recall the nightmares that have his head jerking up from the pillow, a scream just behind his lips. He can’t remember anything of substance, even right when he wakes up, but he knows they’re bad. He knows they’re not always about Henry catching up with him.
Nothing rises from the blank corners of his mind, but every time he finds Will for a few minutes between classes, Richie recognizes the muted chill behind the eyes. He knows it from the bathroom mirror, when he drags himself free of sweaty covers and dampens his neck with cupped water from the sink, staring into his own terrified face and wondering what got him there.
*------*
Yesterday, Will would have said Richie was indulging Will’s uncontrollable staring out of the kindness of his heart, but that was yesterday.
Today, Richie has taken every opportunity for them to even catch a glimpse of each other. Will can’t pretend to be disappointed, equally invested in spending time with Richie to fully experience a budding friendship. With Eleven and Max, it was like they’d always been in the Party. Will blinked, got possessed, and woke up to a world where two of his friends were girls. There was no small talk. It was osmosis, not intentionally getting close to another person.
Richie’s the first person that Will’s choosing to befriend since he was in fourth grade, which is just as daunting as it sounds.
“Benefits of being a junior: I get to drive myself home,” Richie says, his side pressing into Will’s shoulder as they navigate the end of school day exodus. Will is starting to get used to Richie’s habit of dropping into a conversation without a preamble, and he’s hardly surprised that Richie found him again, now that they’ll have more than five minutes to talk. “If you grovel enough, I might even give you a ride to spare you from the monstrosity they call a school bus system.”
Will elbows him lightly. “Oh, thanks, but my brother’s friend beat you to it. He’ll be here any minute for me and Jane.”
“Jane and I.”
“No, it’s me and Jane,” Will assures, furrowed brow relaxing at Richie’s crooked grin. Something he’s learned about Richie in their (one day) acquaintance is that he’ll play dumb to manipulate people into responding. Will is especially gullible about it, turned around before he can think twice. The purposefully bad grammar is probably meant to cheer Will up – which only works until Will realizes that Richie must know how out of it he feels today. Complete strangers aren’t supposed to read each other so well.
They draw to a stop by the stretch of road leading out of the student parking lot, arguing about using the term “quad” for the grassy courtyard at the center of their school buildings when it’s so clearly divided into more than four sections.
“If anything, it’s a duodec because of the…”
Will follows Richie’s diverted gaze over his own shoulder, Eleven planted behind him like his shadow. Will subtly tips his head, eyes flaring wide, and though Eleven notices the effort, she can’t interpret it as be cool. She resumes her brutally intense and one-sided staring contest.
“I think that’s my cue.” Richie takes a step back, bouncing his car keys on his palm. “I expect you to have a better counterargument by tomorrow.”
“Like I didn’t have enough homework already,” Will says, trying to slow the steep drop into awkward territory.
“Uh-huh,” Richie says, the suggestion of a smile crossing his face as he glances between Eleven and Will one last time. He’s only a few yards away when Eleven breaks her silence, just loud enough for Will to catch.
“When did you meet?”
“Yesterday. We ended up at the same table for lunch.” Total coincidence, definitely. Will checks his watch, a light wind whipping away the anxious sweat that threatens to ruin his performance. Argyle is usually pulling around by now.
“He looks like Mike.”
“Mike doesn’t wear glasses,” Will replies, heart pounding in relief as he sees the pizza delivery van veer out of the lot before jerking to a stop against the curb. A lightly sunburnt arm beckons through the open window. Will adjusts his backpack and hurries toward sweet escape, letting Eleven climb in first.
“How was school?” Jonathan asks, tone practiced but not completely disinterested. Eleven says nothing.
“Fine,” Will replies cheerfully, slinging the wide door shut. The backseat is usually the quieter half of the car, so when neither of them say a word to each other, it goes unnoticed. Will’s reflection in the window nods along to the music as he suffers an uncomfortably long ride home.
It’s all downhill from there. For two weeks, Richie shows up at the end of every school day, accompanying Will to the parking lot or the entrance of the art room. They have a scarce amount of minutes to talk about nothing before the terror begins.
Will can compare the sensation to entering a haunted house: you go in expecting to be scared, but you have no way of knowing where in the house they’ll get you. Even though Will is positive that Eleven doesn’t have her powers back, she once appeared beside them during their mutual flinch as a locker door slammed nearby, reflexively-shut eyes opening only to get startled again. Eleven usually lingers at Will’s shoulder until Richie’s best attempts to salvage the conversation are ruined. He departs, tail between his legs.
Then Will and Eleven move on with their day and don’t speak to each other unless absolutely necessary.
Will tries his best to work it out. He segues into topics that Eleven enjoys when she shows up - Richie lets him, openly addressing Eleven’s arrival, greeting her and making physical space to have her join as she pleases. El is just impossibly stubborn about the silent treatment. Will thought he had seen her act coldly around Max, for those months after her return before they mysteriously bonded, as girls tend to do.
This is nothing compared to that. Will would ask her to cut it out if they were on better terms, but Eleven isn’t exactly talking to him when he’s alone either. It’s exhausting to balance the relationships.
The stress has already started to take its toll when Richie uses their moment of calm before the storm to propose a change of plan.
“Why don’t we catch a movie?” he suggests. “If we go now, we might get the half-off Monday matinee.”
Will feels their time slipping away already, so he wants to agree, but-
“I have to go home,” Will says, hands clenched around the straps of his backpack when the hopeful lift to Richie’s eyebrows falls behind his frames. “I’m not just saying that. It’s my mom. She worries about me if I’m not back on time.”
“It’s three in the afternoon,” Richie points out.
He’s right, obviously. It’s weird and Will knows it’s weird, but sharing part of the embarrassing truth is better than letting Richie assume that Will is dodging him on purpose.
“Damn,” Richie says. “Here I thought my eight o’clock curfew was stiff.”
Will exhales, finding enough genuine relief for a smile. “You too?”
Richie pauses for a moment, then tucks his hair behind an ear, running the hand down to his neck. It’s a nervous gesture, not quite suited for Mike. Richie goes quiet where Mike would start spewing nonsense until his point had been made, but it’s similarly transparent and endearing. Will waits him out.
“I could drive you home instead? Unless your mom expects you to teleport, it would get you home around the same time as your sister.”
“I can ask,” Will says, trying to rein in his immediate excitement. The thought of getting to talk to Richie without Eleven staring, even for one afternoon, sounds too good to be true. It might be a hard sell to his mom, but he’s prepared to cut a deal. He’ll do the dishes, he’ll wash the car, he’ll sweep the driveway, anything.
Anything except letting his mom meet Richie.
“Is that really necessary? I’m almost fifteen.”
Will cuts her off when she stoops to pick up a shirt from his bedroom floor, throwing it with his dirty clothes and retrieving the full hamper. She turns to leave, forcing Will to assist her by following.
“Being fifteen means I can’t know the people you’re spending time with anymore?” Joyce scoffs, amused at Will’s attempt to draw a line in the sand – about this, of all things. “That wasn’t in the parent handbook.”
“You don’t ask to meet all of Jonathan’s friends!”
“Jonathan has more than one friend?”
“Mom, come on.”
“Why haven’t you mentioned him before? I don’t even know his last name, Will.”
"It's Tozier," he supplies. Joyce doesn't miraculously change her mind. They reach the top of the stairs and head for Eleven’s bedroom, retrieving her laundry bin. His mother swipes a jacket from the bedframe on their way out.
Will changes tack. “Can’t you just trust me?”
“I trust you, sweetie, I do, but I don’t trust a complete stranger behind the wheel of a car with you in the passenger seat. Why should I?”
“Richie’s not a stranger to me. I trust him.”
“You trust him,” Joyce says, head swiveling back to squint at Will as she hefts Jonathan’s basket onto her knee, pulling it up to rest under her vacant arm. Her expression says that she would sooner believe Will if he told her that Richie is an alien from outer space.
“Yeah. He’s…nice.” Unable to let the uncomfortable silence sit while Joyce shuffles sideways though the narrow doorway, Will digs his heels in. “Whatever, it’s not important. This is just a ride home. Why do you suddenly have to meet him before we can hang out?”
“For the record, this is only sudden because I didn’t know Richie existed until ten minutes ago. It shouldn’t surprise you that I’m curious about him, Will. Any mother would be.”
“You’re hovering,” he complains, guilt bubbling in his stomach when his mom’s face scrunches up. Will doesn’t like playing this card, but the odds of success are highly out of his favor if he backs down now. If she recognizes Richie, it’s all over. “You promised that the fresh start would mean letting up.”
Joyce waddles to the broom closet that houses their washer and dryer set, dropping both baskets with a hefty sigh. She stares down at the bundled garments for a moment, then sets the back of her hands on her hips. It’s not a great sign.
“I’m not seeing the issue,” she says finally, focusing on Will’s distressed, pleading face. “I know you don’t have the coolest mom in town, but I’m not trying to embarrass you by meeting your friends. I just don’t want to be caught off guard if anything happens to you. I want to know who I should be talking to in an emergency, Will.”
“There won’t be any emergencies.”
“When have we ever gotten to decide that?” Joyce asks, softly sad for him. She knows it’s a pain, but she can’t help it. She worries. She’ll worry for the rest of Will’s life. He’ll be sixty and his mom will worry about him getting to bed on time.
Will’s fighting fire goes out. “But-”
“No. My answer is no. I don’t want him or anyone else giving you a ride home until I’ve looked them in the eyes. That’s all. It’s not that difficult, not if you really want this to happen.” She gauges Will’s reaction to the response as she pulls down the detergent. “If Richie is a nice boy, then he won’t care about meeting me first. I don’t bite.”
You just worry, Will thinks, shoulders slumped in defeat. He drops his laundry and sulks back to his room, turning up his music as an audible Do Not Disturb sign. It was nice while it lasted, but there's no way his mom will have nothing to say about the resemblance. At worst, she'll decide Richie's part of some conspiracy and demand they be moved to a new, safer location. At best...
Will stares up at his bedroom ceiling and crosses his fingers.