Chapter Text
This should start like this:
One night, a portal between the dimensions of Earth and the Upside Down opens beneath government labs in the sleepy town of Hawkins, Indiana, where the most exciting thing to happen in the last decade was an owl landing on a woman's head because the thing thought that her hair – whose hairstyle was awful, it's worth noting – was a vacant nest. While the laboratory staff is trying to control the situation – which, by the way, had already killed at least a third of the underground research team that couldn't run in time –, Research Subject 011 got up and fled, making its way through the installation until it exited and disappeared into the woods.
This was on May 17, 1984, the same night Will Byers disappeared after leaving his friend Mike Wheeler's house, where they and two other boys – Lucas Sinclair and Dustin Henderson – spent about ten hours and twenty minutes in a tight match of Dungeons & Dragons.
The next day, while looking for Will in the woods where they keep a small castle of twigs and sheets, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin find a little girl. After that and a lot of help from people like Mike's older sister Nancy, Will's older brother Jonathan, the disgraced High School King Steve Harrington, and Will and Jonathan's mother, Joyce Byers, and Chief of Police Jim 'Chief' Hopper, Will Byers is found and rescued from the Demogorgon within a week.
Nobody knows yet, but he doesn't come back from the Upside Down alone.
And because of that, things would get progressively worse until it all ended up with the sleepy little town of Hawkins, Indiana, being broken in half at the end of a trail of bodies left by a nightmarish creature whose sole purpose was to destroy and consume the world.
But things turn sharply to the right when Eleven Jane Hopper wakes up screaming for her brother on a hot July night, a month after the thing with the Demogorgon ended.
The thing is, she doesn't have any siblings, older or younger.
But given how prone she is to having precognitive visions and feelings, Jim Hopper just sits down with his daughter and soothes her until she can talk without spiraling into panic again.
There's a boy – El's older brother, goddamnit – lost in the woods.
Fuck, it was happening again.
Billy Hargrove arrives in Shitsville, Nowhere, United States, as if he owned the place. And with his midnight blue '79 Camaro, his gold mullet, his Californian tan, and his charming ocean blue eyes, he was the most exotic thing the female redneck population had ever seen.
They were on all fours for him as soon as they saw him doing his shopping at the local supermarket.
Bitches and cows. All of them, but especially Mrs. Wheeler.
Of course, despite the copious amount of redneck females descending on him, Billy Hargrove was first and foremost a guy who, until recently, was the king of Cali. Leaving California to move to the middle of nowhere didn't do either his ego or his temper any good. And having to move to this ass of the world with his bratty not-sister just made Billy even angrier about it all.
At least he didn't have to deal with Neil and Susan. Still.
So since he would have to suffer this indignity for the foreseeable future or until Maxine graduates, it wouldn't be unfair for Billy to take over the top of Hawkins High's food chain, after all, high school in Shitsville sure as hell wasn't that different from high school in San Francisco – hot cheerleaders, a football/baseball/basketball team, a club or two for the nerds, a completely out of tune band, packs of disgusting hyenas sniffing around for the next gossip that will launch them to the groups at the top of the chain, beer keg parties every weekend, a jock and a smart hottie to rule them all. The usual. The only thing that would change at Shitsville High is that there was a new big dog on the block, and Billy was going to take down the ruling mini poodle or die trying.
What was impossible to happen because Billy Hargrove was too charming not to have an instant unshakable reputation.
Heh. Those assholes wouldn't even see him coming.
"Maxine! Bring your skinny ass over here or I'm leaving you!" Yells Billy, pulling on his jacket and throwing his backpack over his shoulder before fumbling in his pockets for the Camaro key. "Maxine! Hurry up, damn it!"
"Can't you wait a fucking damn minute, asshole?!" Complains the insolent little thing who was Billy's not-little sister, walking out of the house and slamming the door behind her so hard the windows in the house shook and the shit lock probably locked itself. "I had to get my skate and my bag."
"I don't fucking want to know. If you're late when I pick you up, I'll make you walk back without your damn skateboard, got it?" Billy doesn't look at Maxine, busy starting the car at the same time that he lit a cigarette. "Get your fucking belt on, brat. I'm not scraping you off the fucking windshield."
"Well, I wouldn't have to worry about that if you weren't such a bad driver, bastard," Maxine replies, fastening her seat belt after placing her backpack and skateboard on her feet. "Satisfied?"
"No," Billy replies, blowing a cloud of smoke out the window and being recalcitrant just because he could. He easily swung into traffic and headed toward the school district, barely bothering to stop at the traffic lights because there wasn't any traffic to speak of. "What the fuck, ABBA? No, that kind of shit is forbidden in this car, Maxine. Take it off."
"Fuck you, Billy. I like that." Maxine replies, apparently determined to be a fucking brat this morning. "And watch the road, moron. I don't want to die today."
"Oh shitty little sister, it's not going to be a fucking beat on a fucking light pole that's going to kill you if you don't change the fucking music." Growls Billy, chewing on his cigarette sponge before spitting it out through the window, not worrying about where the butt would land. Slowly, he stepped on the accelerator. "Switch. The. Damn. Music."
"Billy. Billy, you're going too fast. There's a closed intersection up ahead." This only makes him accelerate faster, much to Maxine's dismay. "Billy, damn it! Damn, you fucking psychopath!" She yells, hitting the radio and switching the station from ABBA to Scorpions. Billy slowed to a stop at the light, just behind a BMW filled to the brim with what looked like children and a black Honda Goldwing that made its driver's skinny jeans ass look great from this angle. "Fuck you, you petty asshole. Fuck you, I hope you're fined." She grunts, shaky and looking like she might cry. "I hate you."
"Well, I hate you too, Maxine," Billy replies, taking advantage of the stop at the red light to light another cigarette. "Was it that hard?"
"You could have just asked please." She replies, and they spend the rest of the trip in silence.
When they arrived at the school – which catered for all grades except kindergarten and elementary – Maxine immediately gathered her things and got out of the car, barely stopping to close the door before running inside the building without looking back or saying goodbye, which Billy didn't care about. He then turned off the car and went to sit on the hood, putting another cigarette between his teeth while also putting himself on display for the rednecks – the sooner they got the word out about him, the easier it would be for Billy to establish his reign over them later.
Smoking a cigarette as he looked around and flashed his most charming fake smile at a few giggling girls nearby, Billy couldn't help but notice the same BMW from earlier pulling up nearby. The first door that opened was the hitchhiker's door, releasing a chubby boy whose cap looked like it was going to fly off his head at any moment due to the copious amount of curls his hair had. Close behind him came a tall, thin, big-nosed boy, a black boy a little shorter but somehow more gangly, and another one smaller than the first three, pale as death and looking too sick to be around other people. They're talking too loudly for that time of the morning, and the three biggest ones gesticulated a storm, the smallest just watching the discussion with an exasperated and a little exhausted look. It doesn't take long for the driver's door open and a guy around Billy's age with the most glamorous hair he's ever seen since Cali steps out, backpack falling off his shoulder because his hands were filled with a pile of brown paper bags, probably the lunch for the brats.
Billy couldn't help but have war flashbacks of those soccer moms – the ones who flocked to raise their kids because their husbands were too busy or too drunks to help – trying to control their feral children in Cali.
Billy felt exhausted just looking at them, especially when the guy started handing out the food and bullying everyone to go inside, paying special attention to the sick kid – which was great, because it looked like a breeze could blow the kid away.
Huffing out a laugh to himself, Billy takes the cigarette butt out of his mouth and drops it onto the asphalt of the parking lot, stepping over to finish off the embers as he tosses his backpack over his shoulder, casually checking to make sure none of the ash from the cigarette had gotten on his shirt as he hopped off the hood of the car and headed for the front door with confident steps and sway of his hips that he knew he'd get the attention of every redneck female within a six-foot radius of him.
Now he just needed to establish himself as the new king of this shitty little place, and he would be done for the day.
And from the gossip he could already hear circulating, he'd bet he already knew who the sucker he was looking for was, after all...
The glamorous hair was unmistakable.
Jim 'Chief' Hopper didn't apply to be a dad, at least not after the first time ended up with his little girl dying of cancer and his wife divorcing him because it was so much easier if the two went their separate ways as they dealt with grief and pain than staying in a relationship that was already on its last legs, daughter seriously ill or not.
Hopper then buried his daughter, signed the divorce papers, and returned to Hawkins, Indiana, to be the chief of police in his hometown where the most emotional thing that ever happened was an owl landing in the hair of one of his former schoolmates instead of remaining the head of the Indianapolis Police Homicide Department. He would have been content to disappear in Hawkins, smoking and drinking and stuffing himself with antidepressants mixed with cheap alcohol in his cabin in the woods until he didn't show up for work anymore and one of his rangers went to check him on Flo's orders and found him covered in vomit and rigor mortis in his bed. Hopper wouldn't have minded one bit if that happened sometime soon, and in fact, he was even a little looking forward to it.
But then Will Byers disappeared and the girl's sudden entry into his life hit him like a damn wrecking ball.
And suddenly Hopper was no longer on his merry path to self-destruction because if he died, the government and the demonic dogs from another dimension would get the girl and the Byers kid.
And when he went to see it, Jim 'Chief' Hopper was the father of a little girl again and he hadn't been drinking or meds or too many cigarettes in a month and counting, and as a bonus, he now had a permanent supply of frozen waffles and real food in the fridge and a daughter to take care of. And that... That was liberating.
But then Jane woke up screaming one night – not that anyone but he and his new daughter know –, and now, apparently, Hopper had taken in his dead British cousin's son.
Harry James Potter, born in a village in Wales, moved with his parents to Scotland for his mother's work, completed the first two years of high school by correspondence after graduating early from middle school, recently orphaned due to the death of his parents in a car accident, he moved to Hawkins, Indiana, because Jim Hopper was his only living relative, and the boy still couldn't fend for himself even though he was partially emancipated.
Fifteen-year-old Harry Potter, born July 31, 1981, in the village of Godric's Hollow, Wales, to James and Lily Potter during a civil war, was orphaned at fifteen months old because his family was murdered by a Dark Wizard who failed to kill him, proof of this being the Lichtenberg scar on Harry's face, a lace net that ran from the roots of his hair to his cheekbones like silver war paint over his golden brown skin. Harry Potter, was an honest-to-God wizard, who broke into a magical government building in 1995 to save his godfather from a Dark Lord, which was a trap to make him pull out a prophecy of all things because only those mentioned in the thing could pull the orb off the shelf, and the Dark Lord didn't want to spoil his triumphant return from the dead going to get the thing himself, after all it was much simpler to trick his prophesied enemy into doing the work for him, wasn't it?
It turns out – and Hopper banged his head on the table when he heard this – that the Department of Mysteries is a maze, and when Harry ran from Voldemort's Death Eaters – and seriously, what the fuck was that name – he broke away from his friends and ran through a door that opened into a… A pocket dimension or something, Harry was too busy running to pay attention to the landscape, and the only things he remembered clearly was that everything was cold and red and gloomy, covered in ash and a creepy sense of wrong. He didn't stop running and didn't look back, pausing only to close the door as he passed before moving on, not stopping until he tripped over a root or something and fell into a bottomless hole, where he fell and fell until the world took a turn and he was spat into a forest where he had never been before. Exhausted and confused as hell, Harry stumbled through the bush until Jane found him and took him home. And Hopper and El know the rest.
And the prophecy.
He with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... Born of those who challenged him three times, born at the end of the seventh month... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have a power that the Dark Lord does not know... and one of the two must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord will be born when the seventh month ends...
"I won't let you die." Says Jane, baring her teeth at the offending crystal ball, furious at the very thought of someone trying to murder her brother just because a crazy woman said so. "I won't let this Voldemort kill you. I'll kill him first if he tries."
"I know, honey, but I guess since I'm here and he's there, the prophecy is technically no longer valid." Says Harry, after he's taken a couple of deep breaths and got his temper under control before his unbridled magic brought the ceiling down over their heads. "Which is… pretty good, if you think about it."
"I'm not drunk enough for this shit." Grumbles Hopper from where he still had his head on the table. But then he wasn't drunk enough when Joyce and the girl told him and proved to him that Will was trapped in another dimension, and he took it like a true champion. And if he could handle monsters from another dimension, he could handle a baby wizard. Easy-peasy. "Okay, kids. Here's what we're going to do, so pay attention and don't interrupt me."
Tommy Hagan was an idiot. All these people were idiots, and Billy is surprised they had two brain cells to rub, especially Hagan's Carol girl. For God's sake, it hadn't even been three hours since he'd been at Hawkins High and he'd already been invited to three different parties, one of them being that same weekend at a cheerleader's house.
It was ridiculous, and Billy didn't even blink when Hagan took the opportunity and, like the parasite that he was, latched onto Billy, whose purpose was to gauge how much of Harrington's reputation on the school was left so he could calculate how much effort he would have to put in to replace the unlucky asshole. And Billy had to admit, Harrington was taking Hagan and Carol's insults like a champ as he tried to escape where Billy had him pinned against the lockers.
Not that he was going to escape Billy.
"Excuse me, but you're blocking my locker."
Billy turns around, a sharp retort on the tip of his tongue, but freezes with his mouth half open before he can say anything because the guy was... Stunning, beautiful, like one of the elves or faes described in Billy's mother's books. He was small, barely reaching Billy's chin, with pitch-black hair in a mess of ruffled curls, skin golden brown like fresh honey, and eyes greener than the fire made with dry logs encrusted with salt back in Cali. And as if to make the boy even more exotic, there were lightning scars on his forehead, an intricate weave of silver threads that started at his hairline and ended at his cheekbones, running along his eyelids and the bridge of his nose. And holy shit, that raised eyebrow should be considered a weapon of mass destruction.
"Harry," Harrington says, practically sighing and making heart eyes at the boy, apparently forgetting that Billy and Tommy Hagan were cornering him against the lockers. "Hi."
"Potter," Says Carol, turning to the boy with a sneer and a wave of her hair before he could greet Harrington back. "We're busy, so I'm sure you won't mind coming back later."
"Your condescension and derision are appreciated as always, Caroline, but I need to get to my locker and I'm sure Steven would certainly love to have his personal space back." Retorts the boy, his British accent and white, adorable smile only accentuating the fiery sarcasm of his polite response. "But I'm sure that acting like a babbling silly baboon with your rude boyfriend and the newcomer is more important than the convenience of others, so surely, go for it. Carry on. I'm sure Mrs. Yale will understand why we're all in her office at this time of the day."
"Oh, you little..."
"Careful Caroline, or the little me might bite your ankles." The boy's smile widens, the pearly, sharp whiteness of his teeth against his dark skin making him suddenly seem more dangerous than adorable. He then looks back at Billy and Hagan, dismissing Carol as if she was nothing but a minor inconvenience to him – which, if Billy stopped to think, she was. "Thomas. Newcomer. If you would please let Steven go and get out of the way?"
"You can't hide behind Chief Hopper forever, Potter." Says Hagan, stepping away from Harrington to loom over Potter, clearly trying to intimidate him with his larger size. Potter doesn't even blink. "One day that attitude of yours will come back to bite you in the ass."
"How terrifying, Thomas. I'm shaking all over my boots." Potter says this with such a flat face and such a dry voice that Billy is surprised that Hagan didn't immediately burst into spontaneous combustion. "I'm totally, truly intimidated right now. Panicking. Now can I get my stuff?"
"One day, Potter!" And with that, Hagan and his girl – with a final sneer – walk away, blending into the crowd in the crowded hallway until they disappear, both vocally throwing insults over their shoulders, leaving Billy alone with Harrington, the cute Brit and a vaguely awkward silence between them, broken when Potter huffed and turned fully to them with an expectant look.
"Hmm... How are Hopper and El today, Harry? Well, I hope. Ah. Hahaha. Uh."
"How eloquent, Harrington." Billy scoffs with a huff, leaning back against the lockers and crossing his arms over his half-naked chest. He then turns his attention back to the other boy. "Billy Hargrove. And you, England?"
"Harry Potter and I'm from Wales. And get out of my damn locker now, dammit." Harry replies, rolling his very green eyes, clearly annoyed with him, and just for that Billy smiles and leans his back on it even more, which earns him another raised eyebrow. "You're a total bastard, aren't you?"
"My parents were, unfortunately for all of us, married," Billy replies, running his tongue over his teeth as he looks Potter up and down. He was small and thin, and the baggy T-shirt couldn't hide his sharp collarbones or the beginning of his chest or his slim waist thanks to the wide collar, the biker jacket he had strapped to his hips, and the tight jeans.
"My God, you're disgusting," Harrington says, shoving Billy with his shoulder hard enough to push him away from Potter's locker. "His eyes are higher, asshole."
"It's all fine, Steven. He's not the first to do this, and he certainly won't be the last." Says Potter, advancing to his locker and getting between the two of them before Billy could smash Harrington's perfect nose into the fucking lockers. "To answer your question, Hopper and El were having breakfast when I left. Real waffles with whipped cream and fruit for El and a full English for Hopper."
"The frozen ones finally run out?” Harrington laughs, reaching over and taking Potter's mailbag and slinging it over his shoulder as if he did this every day, which he probably did. Billy tried not to growl in jealousy, but he couldn't stop himself from scowling at them. Did they forget he was still right there?
"Yes, finally. Honestly, if Hopper wanted to keep her well fed, at least he could have made real waffles instead of further adding to El's addiction to the industrialized ones." Potter complains, closing the locker and slamming the padlock into place. "At least now she's having fruit for breakfast and the whipped cream is homemade instead of the sugared one. And the less sugar in that girl, the better for all of us."
"Is that El your sister?" asks Billy, tired of being ignored since, apparently, he wasn't going to rip off Harrington's crown today.
"My little cousin actually, but sister is much more accurate," Potter replies, taking a step away from Billy thanks to Harrington's hand on his elbow. He still had Potter's backpack over his shoulder. "My parents died, and even with my partial emancipation, I couldn't live alone while I finished my studies, so I came to live with my father's relative. I think you've seen him around, he's the city's chief of police."
"Hmm. Maybe." Billy replies idly, grinning shamelessly at Harrington as he gives him a dirty look when he notices him peeking into Potter's tiny cleavage. "What is it, Harrington? Jealousy?"
"From an asshole like you? Not in a million years." Harrington retorts, lifting his chin as he guides Potter through the crowd of nosy, chatty, gossiping students heading to their respective classrooms. "Don't you have anything better to do than follow us around?"
"Aside from kicking you off your shitty perch, King Steve? Nah." Billy's smile is all teeth, and it only widens when Harrington grimaces even deeper. "What about you? Don't you have anything better to do than be a stupid packhorse?"
"If both of you will continue to bickering, I'm going to kick both of your buttocks. And you know me enough to know that I will do this, Steven." Potter interrupts, once again preventing Billy from breaking Harrington's damn perfect nose. "And if you don't have anything constructive to contribute to the conversation, Hargrove, keep your tongue behind your teeth before you bite it off."
"You're a cheeky, mean little thing, aren't you, England?" Billy asks, following Harrington and Potter into the classroom as the second bell rings. "I like that about someone like you."
"Oh? Good for you then, Hargrove. 'Cause I don't like people with attitudes like yours, much less bullies and social climbers." Potter replies, smiling adoringly at Billy, every inch the elven lord of Tolkien's stories that he was. Or the fae prince of the Seidhe Cohorts. At this point, it was difficult for Billy to settle on one or the other, because Potter was walking perfectly balanced on the fine line of being downright polite or insultingly rude. He can hear Harrington stifling a giggle somewhere behind him, and Billy swears he's going to beat him into submission sometime in the next few days. "Nice to meet you and welcome to Hawkins High, by the way. You will love this here."
"Soooo... I heard from Chrissy who heard from Thammy who heard from Lloyd who heard from Kelly who heard from Maggie that you roasted the new guy not ten minutes after meeting him." Harry doesn't even choke on his iced tea when Eddie Munson clatters his backpack onto the table and sprawls on the bench next to him, so eager to hear the gossip straight from the source that he not even minded of say hello. "Tell me everything, pretty boy. Don't forget the juicy details!"
"It wasn't a big deal, I don't know why everyone is making such a fuss about it." Harry replies, putting the can on the table and fishing a paper bag out of his backpack, handing it to Eddie, who made an ecstatic noise when he opened the package and found the big roast beef sandwich, the apple, and the water bottle Harry had prepared for him because he knew Eddie would 'forget the lunch money' again. One day, Harry would still catch the bastards who were stealing Eddie's money and make them pay dearly, but that day, unfortunately, wasn't yet today. "Thomas and Caroline were being an asshole and a bitch to Steven as usual, the only thing out of the ordinary was that the new guy, Billy Hargrove, was with them."
"Aaah. Going by your face, the new guy is a social climber and a bully." Eddie says, and his ease with quickly following Harry's train of thought is one of the things he likes most about him. And if that only makes Harry miss Hermione even more, it's nobody's business. "What an idiot. And then?"
"Well, I made Thomas and Caroline leave – not before Thomas threatened me again, but nothing new on that –, Steven made Hargrove finally get out of my locker, and the two gone bickering between them until we entered the classroom. That's when I put an end to it and called Hargrove on his bullshit. That's all."
Eddie hums, his mouth too busy with the roast beef sandwich to respond, and Harry can't help but smile nostalgically, because Ron did the same thing when they were eating and Hermione was on one of her homework rants™.
Damn, but Harry misses them.
"How is Mr Munson, Edward? The government guys keep giving him a lot of trouble?" Asks Harry, because if Wayne Munson wasn't a brunette with black hair and from another dimension altogether, he would have sworn that Eddie's uncle was Arthur Weasley's long-lost brother. He also worked at the Hawkins Power Company, which was the cover – according to Hopper and El, at least – for the government labs El had escaped from earlier in the year. "Or did he finally quit?"
"He is fine. The government guys are still sucks, but he likes his job too much to quit because of them." Eddie replies, licking his sauce-stained fingers. Hmm... Barbecue... "But after that explosion in May, he kind of wants to look for something that won't kill him. So he'll probably either change jobs or finally retire."
"Doesn't he have that government pension? The one for the Vietnam vets?" Asks Harry after drinking the last of his tea. He considered eating some more, but he was still working on his churning stomach – not thanks to the constants nightmares and visions with Voldemort or the stress of dealing with Umbridge, her bitchness, and her Inquisitorial Brigade –, so Harry didn't want to force himself to eat more only to throw up afterward.
"Yeah, and he technically wouldn't need to work, but he never liked being idle for too long, other than he had to feed me. So if he didn't have this job at the company, we wouldn't even have the trailer." Eddie replies, placing the sandwich on Harry's tray so he can open his bottle. "Damn government ."
"Cheers." Harry taps the side of his empty can into Eddie's water bottle with amusement, both of them laughing because almost everyone hated the government, even the government itself. "Are you going to do anything later?"
"It depends. What were you planning?"
"The boys were planning to take El and Will to the arcade. Steve asked if I wanted to go along, and I asked if it would be okay to bring someone else. He said yes, so I'm asking you." Harry replies, shrugging his shoulders. He could feel the back of his neck slowly turning red. "And besides, those kids are pretty crazy about Dungeons and Dragons, and since you keep complaining that nobody wants to join that club of yours, well..."
"Awwwn pretty boy! I knew you loved me!" Eddie exclaims, grinning from ear to ear with excitement. "I would love!"
"Excellent! Meet you in the parking lot after class?"
"Are you going to give me a ride on that badass bike of yours, Potter?" Eddie wags his eyebrows suggestively at Harry, smiling in that way that did things to his stomach and heart, and Harry briefly considers the fleeting thought of possibly getting sick. "Hmmm?"
"Only if you finish your lunch." Answers the Brit, pushing the sandwich back to Eddie. "Will you get in trouble if you arrive late?"
"Nuh-uh. Or at least not if I don't skip my homework.” Eddie gnaws on his sandwich and swallows before continuing. “Uncle's glad I finally made a friend and asked to say you're welcome to the trailer whenever you want."
"Oh! Thank you." Harry can feel the tips of his ears getting hot like his neck back, so he busies himself picking up his garbage so he has an excuse not to look at Eddie – or wish, not for the first time, that Vernon Dursley was to him what Wayne Munson was to Eddie. "I would love."
Eddie smiles again, chin full of crumbs, dark eyes gleaming with playful glee, and Harry can't help the blush from spreading across his face as he hands Eddie a napkin.
Heck it.
Will always thought the arcade was fun. Of course, he and Mike and Lucas and Dustin much preferred a good D&D campaign to the noisy arcade most of the time, but that was before anything that happened between his kidnap by the Demogorgon and Eleven's arrival and his rescue. Now the red glow of most games the loud noise bad general lighting and the heat of too many people in the same cramped space just made him nervous and scared instead of excited and happy. He could have said he didn't want to go and Steve would take him home but then Mike and Lucas and Dustin and El would go with him and this was El's first time at the arcade so he didn't want to spoil it because he was a weak sissy.
He wanted to vomit.
"Are you okay, Will?” A bony, cold hand not much bigger than his own carefully pulls him away from the huddled group at the game where Max and Lucas were yelling at each other for the first place, Harry's friend Eddie cheering and teasing the two along with the others, and soon Will is gratefully hiding his pale, sweat-damp face in Harry's biker jacket, the strange scent of leather, ozone and forest that seemed permanently clinging to Harry calming him down as fast as one of Will's mother's soft, warm hugs. "Want me or Steven to take you home?"
"Yes, man. If you're not feeling well, I don't mind making everyone finish early and drive you home. Or would you rather I call your mother?" Steve asks, running a hand through Will's hair. It's not as great as when Jonathan did it, but it was just as good. "Will?"
"It's okay, Steve, Harry. It's just the noise of this place. Too loud," The boy replied, his voice muffled by Harry's ribs. "I'll be fine, I just don't want to disturb others."
"They're your friends, Will. They'll understand if you want to go," says Harry, putting his arm around Will's shoulders in a half-hug and boxing him between himself and Steve. "You want to go?"
He wanted to, but...
"No, it's fine, I swear it." He replied, carefully taking two steps away from El's brother and smiling at him and Steve, who took the opportunity to put his hand on Will's forehead to see if he had a fever. Steve's hand was hot enough to burn his sweaty skin, so Will pulled back a little farther from him too. "I'll go back to the others, okay?"
Steve and Harry look at each other, Harry frowning and Steve grimacing, and not for the first time Will wonders if Harry is more like El than they first thought.
"You're the one who knows, man. But if you change your mind, just say so, got it?" Asks Steve, and Will nods, fleeing back to his noisy friends before one of the teenagers can change their mind about that or call him back.
Will knows they only want the best for him, even more so after his time wasted in the Upside Down and the Demogorgon, but...
The lights flash. Ashes rise from the ground and everything is abruptly muffled, as if Will has dipped his head into a bucket of water. There are fleshy vines, sticky darkness, and a layer of red in absolutely everything as if something or someone had wrapped the world in plastic wrap as red as fresh blood and shined a flashlight on top as if the planet were an egg.
With a shudder of horror, Will recognizes this place. This world.
But then Will's head pops out of the water and the clatter of the arcade hits him in the face with the force of a sledgehammer, and Will staggers at the sensation of an abrupt, disorienting change in volume.
Everything is fine. He is fine. He's at the arcade with his friends and his adult escorts, and he's not back there.
He can't.
Will taked four more steps before it happens again. Red blood. Ashes in the air. Paralyzing cold. Storm clouds and white and red and a little green lightning ripping through the sky.
Will looks through the front window.
The monster looks back at him.
And then Will can't remember anything else.