Chapter Text
.
It’s a fast, fresh, airy day. Low clouds race across the sky, letting the warm sunlight peak through every now and then. It’s a Friday in September and El and the Byers have been back from Lenora for almost six months. She is standing outside with Hopper and Joyce, in front of the cabin, between the dirt road and the beginning of the woods. She had summer school over the course of the past weeks and during the afternoons and weekends she has started to train.
Hopper built her a small parkour, something he’s still working on as an on-going project, and he’s been supporting her. So has Joyce, especially since summer school ended two weeks ago and El has nothing else to do now but train. Chanel her powers. Focus on defeating Henry, focus on a battle she isn’t sure when it’ll arrive.
Most of her time, she spends alone. During the long stretches of her days, while Hopper is away at work, she sits in her room. She listens to records and the radio, she watches TV. She makes collages of pictures cut from magazines and messy candles out of melted crayons. She eats what she wants out of the fridge, she clambers up on high shelves and pokes through cabinets she isn’t supposed to open. She sleeps a lot.
On some days, the boredom that settles over her is so dense, so glassy and confused, that she’s unable to do anything but stare out the window or simply at nothing, as if doped.
Today, Mike and Will are coming over after school to see her. She hasn’t seen Mike in a week now and Will longer than that. The boys are planning to go get ice cream at the mall later, since it’s a warm day, almost as if summer is still lingering. El wants to join them for ice cream, but she knows she can’t. She’s glad they’re at least stopping by beforehand, for an hour, maybe more if she’s lucky. She’s trying to be content with what she’s getting, swallowing down her misery.
Joyce puts a hand on El’s shoulder as they walk to the front porch and they share a smile. El enjoys it when she comes to visit, which happens more and more often now. She feels the glow of Joyce's presence in the cabin quite warmly, even after she went back home.
The grass in front of the porch needs cutting; wind ripples through it in erratic currents. Wisteria tendrils are growing along the cabin and hang thickly over the side of the building. It was pretty enough during the summer months, when the flowers were in bloom, whites and violets, but it’s starting to look a shaggy mess now. El and Joyce sit down next to each other on the old Hollywood swing and wait for Mike and Will to arrive.
School’s been over for a while now, so it doesn’t take long. El cranes her neck and as soon as she sees their bikes, she gets up, jumping down the wooden steps.
They’re both dressed in jeans and sweaters, no jackets, and even that seems too much for the warm weather. They’re talking about something, matching smiles on their faces as they park their bikes. El skips over to them to hug them both. Her eyes and hands linger on Mike.
“I missed you”, she tells him, a grin stretching across her face, as she gets on her tip-toes to kiss his cheek.
“I know”, he says, “I missed you, too. School was so annoying this week, wasn’t it?”
He turns to Will, who steps over to them with an eyeroll.
“So annoying. Mrs. Wilson with her diagrams? You didn’t miss anything, El.”
Mike chuckles and she blinks. She has no idea who Mrs. Wilson is.
“Well, okay”, she says, grabbing Mike’s hand to pull him back towards the porch. “Come on. I made lemonade earlier – do you want some?”
“Sure”, Mike says easily, letting himself be pulled up the steps.
They greet Hopper and Joyce, while she walks inside to get the lemonade. With nothing better to do, she’s been experimenting with the receipt, adding lavender sirup and mint. She adds a cornflower to Mike's glass.
Since it’s so warm, they stay outside on the porch, standing around talking. Mike and Will are across from her now, leaning against the banister, discussing something with smiles on their faces. She watches them together for a bit, feeling slightly confused. This is wrong. Mike should be standing next to her, his attention should be on her, they should be whispering into each other’s ear, like they’re sharing secrets no one else can know.
That’s what she’s used to – the two of them walking at the back of the group, giggling to each other, leaving early to be alone, the two of them skating next to each other, holding hands. Mike’s focus on her, always. A circle of two. She’s not used to what is happening right now. She knows, in theory, that Mike and Will are close, that they’ve grown even closer since they’ve come back form Lenora, but she’s never witnessed it.
They’re leaning into each other’s space while talking and they move like magnets. When Will takes half a step back, Mike follows him automatically. He hands Will his lemonade glass and after he’s done drinking, he puts it back on the table. He reaches out to brush a piece of lint from Will’s shoulder. He leans down sometimes, curling in his shoulders, so they’re on eye level and Will doesn't have to crane his neck.
After a while Will manages to detach himself from Mike and walks over to Joyce and Hopper. They instantly put their hands on his arms and shoulders, smiling at him fondly, a picture-perfect family. El feels the strange sensation in her grow. It’s like suddenly there isn’t enough room, like this house, this town is too small for the both of them. It’s not a new thought. It’s like her and Will are twin flames, mirror images, two sides of the same coin, constantly stealing from each other.
She thinks back to the stormy, luminous spring evenings in Lenora; low, smudged clouds and golden light, dandelions and onion-flowers spangling the lawn. The two of them sitting next to each other on the steps, chins on their knees. They could be silent together for hours, lost in thought next to each other. Sometimes he had drawn something on her upper arm or her shoulder blades with his finger and she had to guess the pictures or words – their friend’s names, long-limbed animals, a flower, a cloud.
She had been grateful that he was there back then and she’s grateful he’s here now. She tells herself this firmly, but when Hopper puts his hand on the back of Will’s head, she has to look away.
She walks over to Mike instead. She cuddles up to him, her arms around his middle, her head tilted back to look up at him. He’s so tall. And warm. And he looks good – he cut his hair, so it’s curling around his ears, dark as ink.
“I don’t want you to go”, she says.
He throws a glance on his watch. “We can stay for like, another half hour?”
“I don’t want you to go eat ice cream at the mall”, she says and she sounds whiny now, childish.
A little frown appears on his face, though he is still smiling. “Well, we've already planned for it -”
“Are you meeting anyone else at the mall? Lucas? Dustin?”
“Um, no. ‘s just Will and I.”
“Okay, then it doesn’t matter if you just don’t go. We could do something else instead, the three of us.”
“Like what?”
“Um.” She thinks for a moment, wracking her brain for anything that doesn't include her being seen in public. “We could go roller skating. At the abandoned skate park close to the woods. Max showed me that place. It’s not too far from here and it’s usually empty.”
Mike hesitates, she can see it in his face. Her hands dig deeper into the fabric of his sweater, clinging to him like she’s scared he’ll slip through her fingers.
“I don’t know. . .”, he says slowly.
“I’ll ask Will and Hopper, okay?”, she cuts him off and quickly whirls around to them, proposing her idea.
Will also hesitates, blinking at her in surprise, then he shrugs his shoulders. "Uh, sure."
“I think it’s a good idea”, Joyce chips in with a smile. “El has been stuck inside all week, except for the trainings.”
Hopper sighs. “Alright. But if you see anyone, you leave. And you'll take the walkie with you.”
El is already nodding, beaming at him, before she turns back to Mike with a grin. He smiles back at her, though the faint crinkle between his eyebrows is still there.
The boys bike home quickly after that to get their roller skates and she waits for them, sitting on the windowsill in her room. This is where she sits most days, looking outside with a mix of sadness and yearning in her chest.
She isn’t sure if it’s her imagination, but Mike has been distant lately. She isn’t sure when that happened, because at first, everything was fine. Great even. He had finally told her he loved her and they were back together. She came to his house once, shortly after they were back in Hawkins, before it was decided that she should lay low in the cabin and not be seen in public.
She prepared a hot chocolate for him in the kitchen with the help of Karen, who smiled at her sweetly. She put whipped cream on it and golden sprinkles and little marshmallows. She carried the warm cup up the stairs and walked into his room, where he smiled at her, his dark eyes shining in the dim light.
“I made something for you”, she said, lifting the cup a bit. His smile deepened.
“Look”, he said, stepping closer to her, “I put it over my desk, so I can see it all the time.”
She followed his gaze to the wall, where he had hung a painting. It showed a landscape with some figures and a huge red dragon with three heads. For moment, she wanted to ask what that was, but then she recognized the figures, the art style.
“Will’s painting?”, she asked.
It must be the one he worked on for so long back in Lenora, the one he brought to airport to gift to Mike.
Mike nodded, still looking at her intently. “You haven’t seen it yet? Is it how you envisioned it?”
She pursed her lips for a moment. She hasn’t really envisioned anything - she hasn’t thought about it at all, to be honest. Will only rarely showed her what he was working on.
Not sure what Mike meant, she just shrugged. “Um, yeah. It’s great. He is very talented.”
He nodded and his eyes crinkled. “Thank you, El.”
For a moment she didn’t know what he meant, then came to the conclusion he must mean the hot chocolate she made. With a smile he handed him the cup. He took it after a second, but barely glanced at it. Instead, he leaned closer to her, until their noses were touching, rubbing them together.
“You’re welcome”, she whispered and he kissed her.
The kiss was drawn-out and deeper and sweeter than all of their kisses before. It felt hungry almost and it made butterflies stir in her stomach, set her skin on fire.
“I love you”, she whispered, after he pulled back.
He breathed in and out for a moment, his eyes flickering to the painting on the wall, then back to her. “I love you, too.”
She beamed at him, elated, and leaned in for another kiss.
So, yeah. She thought everything was fine, perfect, better than ever. She’s not sure what happened, but she went home that day and the Byers moved in and over the last six months, Mike started to slowly pull away from her. Maybe it’s because she’s here all the time, because they don’t see each other as often as they would like. It makes her all the more excited for today.
Will arrives back at the cabin first and joins her in her room.
“Mike will be maybe twenty more minutes", he says, closing the door behind him. "He has to help his mom with something real quick.”
She nods, watching him. He’s holding his roller skates in one hand and he’s still wearing his long-sleeved sweater, pushed up to the elbows.
“You’ll get too hot in this, while skating”, she says, “you can wear a t-shirt of mine, if you want?”
He agrees and she pulls open her wardrobe. Most of what she owns is second-hand. There are a few t-shirts she really likes and she digs through them, until she finds the one she's looking for. It's dark purple with a few silver stars scattered in the front, a gift from Hopper.
“Here”, she says, pulling it out, “what about this?”
“Yeah.” He smiles. “Reminds me of my D&D character.”
“Will the Wise?”
“Yeah. You sure I can wear it?”
“Of course. What's mine is yours.”
She tries to ignore the way her chest clenches as she says the words, like someone is pressing down on it, squeezing her ribcage. She watches as Will slips out of his sweater and puts the t-shirt on, tousling his hair in the process. It’s a little shorter on him than it is on her, leaving a sliver of tanned skin over his jeans. It looks good on him.
She smooths out a wrinkle on his chest, then takes a step back, cocking her head. “Pretty.”
She’s not sure if the word can also apply for boys, but he seems pleased. The corners of his eyes crinkle. “Thank you, Jane. You, too.”
Her smile turns soft. She likes when he calls her that. She likes El, because Mike gave it to her, took her number and reclaimed it, made it into something else, something that's just hers. But she also likes how Hopper and Will have started to call her Jane sometimes, casually, at random, as if it's a term of endearment.
Will turns to the mirror to fix his hair, combing his fingers through his fringe. It’s starting to grow out a bit, is more layered now. For a long moment she just stands there, watching him. Through their shared time in Lenora, she’s gotten to know him intimately, learning his moods, his habits, his interests. Sometimes she feels she knows more things about him than she knows about herself, which unsettles her deeply.
She knows his favourite color (yellow), his favourite snack (Reese’s pieces), his favourite band (The Cure) and his favourite song by them (Boys Don’t Cry), his favourite flavour of ice cream (vanilla) and his favourite Star Wars character (Han Solo) and a thousand other things, while she can never choose a favourite song and prefers chocolate ice cream one week and peach the next. It’s as if his strong, bright, immutable character shines changelessly against the vagueness and indecisiveness of her own.
“’s sad that Max can’t join us today”, he says when he’s done with his hair, fingers tugging at the seam of the t-shirt. “I visited her in the hospital yesterday, y’know, with Lucas. I miss her.”
He adds the last part quietly, almost as if he’s thinking out loud, as if he hadn’t really meant to say it. El had asked multiple times to visit Max, she had begged and cried over it, but she hadn’t been allowed. Suddenly, all the softness is gone and the bitterness is back, sicking to roof of Els mouth, to the back of her throat. She has the overwhelming urge to curl her lip back from her teeth, to snarl at Will. That’s my best friend, she wants to say, my boyfriend, my dad. Mine. Everything is mine.
Those thoughts disturb her as soon as they enter her head.
Usually, her thoughts aren’t this bitter or angry. Usually, when she would see Will interact with any of them, with Max or Mike or Hopper, she would imagine pushing him out of the way, but not with a violent yank, not aggressively. She’d imagine it softly, melting into his place like butter sliding in a pan.
For a moment she is dismayed at herself, her cruelty and spite, her lack of kindness. She lowers her gaze to look down at her shoes. She’s wearing the patent leather ones, with the star-shaped clasps, scuffing them against the wooden floor.
“I miss her, too”, she whispers. Like a limb. Like a lung.
When Will turns away from the mirror, she grabs his wrist to pull him out of her room. “Come on.”
He lets himself be dragged, then laces their finger together, swinging their arms between them. She allows it for a few steps, before pulling her hand back. They step outside onto the porch, where Joyce is smoking, smiling at them around the filter of her cigarette. It doesn’t take long until Mike is back. He also changed into a t-shirt, cornflower blue, tugged into his jeans. His face is a bit red as if he'd been in a hurry to come back. El notices the way he looks at Will, the way his eyes linger.
“You, um.” He blinks a few times. “New shirt?”
“It’s mine”, El says, while Will’s teeth burry in his bottom lip and the bridge of his nose turns pink. “Do you like it?”
“Um. I mean. Yeah. Yeah, it’s.” Mike coughs like there’s something stuck in his throat. “Looks good. The shirt.”
She steps towards him with a frown, watching as his face turns an even deeper shade of red. A bit worried now, she grabs his elbow. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. No, yeah. Are you ready to go?”
“You guys can use my car, if you want”, Joyce offers from behind them.
Mike got his licence over the summer, and a week later his parents gifted him his own car. He picked her up with it a few times to drive around aimlessly, but the last time he did was weeks ago. Joyce’s car is also nice; it’s not too fancy and pretty old, but it has a shiny olive-green color and the seats are worn and drenched in the familiar, homey smell of pine and cigarette smoke. El likes it.
She slips inside quickly, claiming the passenger seat. During the drive, she leans over the console to squish her cheek against Mike’s biceps, fiddling with the radio. The sun reflects off the dirty windshield, reminding her of the past summer days, smog-dreary and maddeningly still, heat trapped under the dome of the low white-blue sky.
El settles on a song she doesn’t know, sung by a woman in a sweet, high-pitched voice. Mike obviously knows the song, since he starts to sing along, loud and exaggerated, making her and Will giggle. His fingers drum against the steering wheel in an uneven rhythm and she buries her smile against the skin of his arm.
The abandoned skate park isn’t far from the cabin, and as usual it’s empty. Mike parks Joyce’s car at the edge of it and they get out. El breathes in the damp clean smell of dewy earth and wet leaves. They sit down on the concrete to put on their skates. El likes hers. They’re white with magenta-colored rolls and glittery laces.
She ties a double knot, then looks over to the boys. Mike is wearing his skates already and he has moved to kneel down in front of Will, tying his skates for him. He has a concentrated look on his face as he finishes with the first skate and puts it down gently to grab Will’s other foot. Will is letting him do all this without commenting on it, leaning back on his hands. He’s tilting his head back a little and El watches the green glaze of canopy light slide over his features.
She stares for a second, confused. She wonders if she missed anything, if there’s something wrong with Will’s hands, if he’s hurt in some way and incapable of tying his skates on his own. But he seems to be perfectly fine. He smiles when Mike is done and half-lifts an arm, so Mike can grab it and pull him upright.
Mike steadies him with his hands on his waist, making sure he found his footing, before letting go. Then, finally, he turns to El.
“You good?”
“Um, yes?”
She looks down at her own perfectly tied skates, then back at his face. She decides to shake off her confusion and grabs his hand.
The last time the three of them went roller skating together was on that disastrous day in Lenora, and this time it’s completely different. They’re on their own for one, noone is staring at her and she can breathe. The heavy organic quiet of the forest around them is broken only by their voices and the occasional far-off thrill of a bird.
They skate across the smooth stone-gray surface of the park. In some places it’s undulating, in others, there are flat ramps and raised sections. The edges are overgrown with moss and grass and occasionally covered with pale, deformed street art.
Another thing is different today – Mike’s attention is more on Will than it is on her. He looks for him constantly, sometimes skating over to him to tell him something in a low voice she can’t make out. It dawns on her slowly that he is making a circle of two, like always, but not with her. He isn’t ignoring her, not really, turning towards her every now and then with an easy smile. But as soon as Will says something, Mike’s attention zeros in on him like a beam from a magnifying glass.
At one point, he gently grabs Will’s elbow and she is close enough to hear his low voice. “Are you thirsty? I can get you water from the car, if you want?”
Will just shakes his head, blinking up at him through his lashes, and after a moment Mike lets him go. He doesn’t ask El if she’s thirsty.
She isn’t used to this behaviour from him and she thinks it’s deeply unfair. It’s unfair since Will already had Mike all week, is living with him now, has seen him every day, both in school and at home, while she had been waiting at the cabin, miserable and lonely. She had been waiting all week for today.
Now, Mike is skating a few feet away from them, backwards with his arms outstretched, and he’s saying something she doesn’t understand, an inside joke maybe, something about war games. It makes Will giggle loudly, a charming, honeysweet sound. Suddenly, she gets angry. It’s the same burst of anger she’d felt years ago when she’d seen Max for the first time, skating around Mike in the sports hall of the school, laughing with him. Just like then El feels her powers stir, a tang of metal coating her tongue. She can always access her powers easiest and fastest when she's angry, she barely has to do anything, barely has to lift a finger.
Before she can think it through, she has already stopped the wheels of Will’s left roller skate and he jerks to a sudden halt. He loses his balance and she watches him fall. She expects him to fall forward, but instead his body tilts to the right and he tumbles down the ramp he’s been on, landing with his hand buried underneath him. He gasps, more startled than pained and rolls on his side. His jeans are torn and bloody at his knees. She stares at him, frozen in shock and horror. She hadn’t meant to actually hurt him, not like this.
“Will!” Mike is already rushing over to him, kneeling down in front of him. He gently pulls Will up into a sitting position. His whole body is tense as he checks him for injuries and his hands are shaking. He’s frantic with worry. El has never seen him like that. “Where are you hurt?”
Will pulls his knees underneath himself and curls inward a bit, cradling his left hand against his chest. There are tears in his eyes now, clinging to his lashes. “M-my hand.”
“Let me see”, Mike murmurs in an unfamiliar syrup-sweet voice. Will shows him his hand and Mike examines it gently, barely touching. “Do you think it could be broken?”
Will shrugs, the corners of his mouth pulling downward. A tear slips free from his wet lashes, trailing down his cheek. Mike wipes it away, cradling his cheek.
“What happened?”, Mike asks, his voice low and urgent. “You fell?”
“Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. It was strange - like one of my skates just braked in its own, like it was stopped by something –“
Will falls silent abruptly, as if realizing something. Very slowly both of them turn their heads to look at El. Will’s eyes are wide and shining with confusion and hurt. Mike looks beyond furious.
“What the fuck”, he breathes. “You did this? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
She swallows, unable to answer. The world around her slowly tilts to the side. The sun is higher now, its light filtering down from the canopy in mottled green. She wants to diappear into it, wants to vanish, to dissolve. Anything to get away from the look on Mike's face.
“Huh? I asked you a question – what is wrong with you?”
He’s raising his voice now. It's turning sharp and biting, merciless. This is the tone he had used with her after they found that fake body in the water of the quarry, the one made for accusations and threats. Tears blur Els vision.
“There isn’t anything wrong with me”, she whispers, but she doesn’t know who she's trying to convince.
“Clearly that’s not true.” He is positively seething now. He looks as if he wants to get up, but can’t bring himself to let go of Will. "Why else -"
He breaks off, when Will makes a small whimpering noise in the back of his throat and pulls his hand back against his chest. Mike immediately turns back to him.
“Hey", he murmurs and his voice instantly goes back to soft and soothing. The contrast is jarring. "We’ll go to the hospital, okay? Have them check your hand.”
Will doesn’t protest, but his face crumbles a little at the words. There is a fresh wave of tears and a tremble in his chin.
“I know”, Mike mumbles, “I know, but I’ll be there with you the whole time, okay?”
Will moves his head in a tiny nod.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?"
"Just - I skinned my knees, I think. But it's fine."
"Can you stand up?”
Will nods and Mike helps him get up, steadying him an arm wrapped tightly around his middle. He doesn't let go, as he leads Will over to the car. As they come closer, she can see how tightly Mike's clenching his jaw, how rigid his posture is. Worry and anger are bleeding out of him in equal measure, so intense she can almost taste it in the air. They pass her and he gives her nothing, not even a glance. She follows them quietly.
Mike opens the passenger door for Will, putting a hand on the back of his head so he doesn’t bump it while getting in. Then he leans down, buckling his seat belt for him, fussing over him with the gentlest voice, while El quietly crawls into the back seat.
She doesn’t say that Mike is over-reacting a little. She did hurt Will and she does feel guilty. She’d take it back if she could, undo it. She wishes he could move time the way she can move objects. She wishes she could peel the seconds and minutes away with her bare fingers, until they’re back at the moment of her anger. She’d swallow it, letting it burn her like acid. Or maybe she’d make Mike fall instead - he wouldn’t have been as furious then, maybe just a little upset.
When he finally closes the door and walks around the car to the driver side, El leans forward quickly, resting her temple at the back of Will’s seat.
“I’m sorry, Will”, she whispers in the space between them. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to. I love you.”
This she knows to be true with a certainty that never wavers – through all the anger and bitterness and her ugly thoughts – and it’s the crux of it all. She doesn't know what to do with it. Hatred would have been easier. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering.
Unlike love.
.