Chapter Text
Half-dead leaves crunch quietly under Will’s feet as he steps through the forest behind his house. He listens to the birds chirping as their little bodies fly through the branches above him. A soft, warm breeze follows the boy and the birds, kindly ruffling his clothes and their feathers.
His best friend is out here somewhere, playing some stupid prank. He’d radioed in the morning for Will to meet him at Castle Byers, and he was quite cryptic:
“Go to Castle Byers at twelve sharp! Your wildest hopes and dreams will come true. One minute late, and say goodbye to the best thing that's ever happened to you!”
Will scrunches his nose at the memory, nervous, but still curious about what he could mean. They haven’t talked in weeks! And Mike’s the reason the wooden fort was destroyed in the first place, though he doesn’t know that. He’s talking about the new Castle Byers. The one the whole party built a week after the battle at Starcourt Mall.
It had been a beautiful sunny day. The re-build wasn’t even planned – Jonathan had had an argument with Nancy over the phone and went for a walk in the forest to clear his head. Will is grateful to not have seen his face when he saw Castle Byers, all smashed up like a giant had dropped a boulder on top of it and rolled it around.
“Oh my God, Will. Castle Byers!” his brother had called to him in a panic, running straight through the back door and into Will’s room. Devastation written all over his face. Will deflated immediately, and felt like throwing up. He knew he should have told Jonathan earlier.
After a bit of back-and-forth, he told him a half-truth – his friends weren’t being good friends to him anymore, something about everyone getting girlfriends and growing up. He’d had enough of bottling things up and just needed an outlet.
“That’s it,” Jonathan snapped, running a hand through his hair. “They’re fixing this.”
Will was reluctant to call his friends because he didn’t want them to see his special place in ruins. But every single one made the effort to sound excited, and a quick swoop of hope fluttered within him.
“Oh, hell yeah. I’m coming over right now!”
“Let me grab the snacks. And Max! We’ll see you soon!”
“That sounds like fun, Will. I… I’ll be there.”
The last call was for Mike. Will thought he’d sounded a like he was forcing a smile through his words. But the truth was, Will had been acting that way too, that unending loop of “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls!” just wouldn’t stop, no matter how much Will wanted to move on.
Eventually, the whole party arrived. Dustin was first, big smiles and fist pumps. Then Mike, who leaned his bike against the wall just as Dustin, El, and Will were grabbing the tools from the shed. He was dressed in a dark blue polo shirt with thin orange and green stripes running horizontally over his stomach, and dark green shorts. He looked good. Will’s eyes darted away from him after a quick, “Hi”.
When Max and Lucas arrived, they each had one bag of food and drinks hanging from the handlebars of their bikes, and Jonathan almost ran them over when his car skidded to a halt at the back of the house.
“Sorry – got some nails,” he called through the open window sheepishly. As he got out, he shook the little box as if that made everything better.
“You’re lucky I won't put those under your tyres when you're not looking,” Max said, her face serious.
“Sure, and I won't put some under yours,” he replied. Lucas rolled his eyes but let out a laugh, and dropped the bags down in front of Jonathan, gesturing for him to grab them. Max stuck out her tongue. Will smiled; Max’s attitude was definitely rubbing off onto Lucas.
Jonathan just looked at his brother like, “these are your friends?”
They all headed to the site with their bags, tools, and cardboard boxes in hand. Will didn’t look anyone in the eye when they arrived. Memories of the rain and the whack sounds from the branches being smacked with a bat drowned out what his brother was telling the party.
It was quiet work to start with, a shock for everyone, especially for Dustin who hadn’t seen it that night. It was different seeing the wrecked site in the daylight.
Jonathan did a great job at organising everything though. Any useful original branches and wooden pallets were piled in one corner. The little bits and bobs that happened to be unaffected, such as paint tins and plastic figurines, were placed in one of the boxes, while the destroyed items like Will’s previous paintings and drawings that had hung on the walls, comic books, and splintered wood pieces were set in another. Broken nails in another small box. In the midst of all this, Will quickly found the ripped-up pieces of the photo of the four boys and shoved them into his shorts pocket without anyone noticing.
When they finally finished cleaning the site and were ready to start re-building, Dustin let out a whistle. “We’ve got a lot more work to do.”
“Yeah,” Jonathan agreed. “Let’s stop for lunch.”
“Thanks, Mrs Sinclair!” Dustin yelled, already diving for the food bags.
After munching on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and sharing some Nerds candies, and hydrating with tall bottles of water, the crew were ready to begin building.
It was a lot faster having more than two pairs of hands, and Castle Byers 2.0 ended up being larger than the first one Will and Jonathan had made. Jonathan was more than happy to boss everyone around, and teach them things like how to tie rope around the branches – “I know how to tie a damn piece of rope, Jonathan!” Mike had hissed, not realising the lesson was for mainly for El. It was a complicated knot that took her a few tries to get right, but once she did, she was delighted!
Other than being annoyed at Will’s brother, Mike had played the part of a happy friend pretty well. Will even thought he caught him looking his way a couple of times. But it must have been his imagination, because he seemed really engrossed in fixing the branches to have the correct placement in the dirt, or picking out nails from the box to hand to Max and Dustin, who had been taking turns with the hammer.
Each person had a job, and although sometimes the rhythm fell out of sync, everyone was sweating, smiling, and sharing stories. There was lots of cursing. And, after some hard teasing, from Lucas and Max especially, and other comments about him needing to get over himself, Dustin shyly sang for the group. Only a couple of short songs, and definitely not Never-Ending Story, but it was enough to boost morale even more. El grinned, her big brown eyes watching Dustin with curiosity.
He’d smiled, clapped her lightly on the back. “You’ll learn all the songs we like one day. Then you can sing with us!”
“Me? But no one else is singing with you right now,” she said, and everyone burst out laughing. Dustin shook his head, curls bobbing, cheeks slightly pink.
After Jonathan had grabbed some sacrificial sheets and blankets from the cupboard back at the house, Lucas and Mike had laid a few of them over the mini bed and chair crafted from the old pallets, and adjusted the outdoor pillows that had been saved from the massacre. The extra space would be good for Will; he could fit a decent-sized easel in there.
“Door?” asked Jonathan, holding up a sheet with Superman on the left, and Batman on the right.
“Door,” Will agreed. It was perfect – two heroes to protect whoever is inside. At one point in the day, Will had painted the new “Castle Byers” sign in big green letters, and so this was nailed above the sheet, a little crooked on accident, but he still loved it.
The last thing the wooden fort needed was a flag. The pole was ready and waiting, sticking out of the middle of the roof. The party argued about what should go on it.
“It should be the American flag. Like you had last time,” said Lucas. “I can get the one from my bedroom for it!”
“Nah, do something different! Try Spain or France. Or, or Australia or something!” Dustin countered.
“Will, you totally should just paint something.” Max smiled and pointed backwards. “Will’s flag for Will’s fort.”
“What about this?” El asked, holding up a small, old blanket with purple and yellow swirls and little green stars dancing around the edges.
His heart had never felt so full. He was grateful his friends were acting like friends, and they were all having such a fun time. This is how they should have been acting together for the whole start of Summer! He’d already squared away his breakdown in his mind, hoping to never ever re-visit it.
Will thought about what flag would do the job. He quite liked Max’s idea – Why didn’t I think of that? But El’s idea… The swirls were perfect – she was purple and he was yellow, and since she was living with them now, this could be a spot for her to chill out and do arts and craft stuff too.
He then realised that Mike hadn’t said anything yet. “What about you, Mike? Any ideas?” he asked, beaming. The other boy was already staring intensely at him. Will startled slightly. “Mike?”
“Huh?” Mike blinked and shook his head as if his head was cluttered with thoughts and they weren't clearing fast enough. “Oh, um, nothing.”
“Okay.” Will shrugged, trying not to let Mike’s stare make him nervous. He turned to his redheaded friend. “I really like your idea, Max, but I’ll do paintings for the walls anyway. I think El’s blanket should be the flag.”
Lucas and Dustin shoved each other playfully, pretend-mad one of their suggestions weren’t picked. Mike nodded slowly, as if approving Will’s decision, his arms crossed casually. Will had to break eye contact with him again. It was hard to not think about how… how pretty he looked, with his sweaty hair swept upwards from his hands having run through it earlier.
“I’ll put it up,” Will announced quickly, grabbing some nails from the box, and taking the blanket out of El’s outstretched hands.
“Try to loop it around the pole once before hammering the nails in. Might give it a better look,” Jonathan offered, let Will step onto the ladder to climb up, then held onto the sides firmly.
“Okay, thanks – oh, Mike.” Will turned away from his brother and found Mike climbing the other side.
“You’ll need some help,” he said, holding the hammer up with a small smile, and Will laughed. Duh.
Will did as his brother said, covered the pole with the edge of the blanket, held out a nail for Mike, who grabbed it and placed it down with a thumb and index finger, hammered a little too aggressively, but got the job done. For the very last nail, he’d swung the hammer with both hands as the darn thing was stubborn and didn’t want to go all the way into the wood. He’d almost toppled over, saying, “Shit!” but Will’s reflexes were lightning-fast. With his brother gripping the bottom of the ladder to steady it, Will leaned forward over the top and grabbed onto Mike’s flailing wrists.
“Thanks,” Mike breathed. Will just nodded, ignoring the nice feeling of warm skin under his hands. They smiled at each other, like it was the most natural thing to do.
“It looks so good, guys!” Lucas called from below, breaking the two boys out of the moment. They hopped down the ladder to take a look at everyone’s hard work.
A light breeze suddenly picked up, and the purple and yellow swirls with small green stars floated in place with the wind.
“It’s perfect,” Will murmured, hands on hips, eyes shining.
“You’re welcome!” joked Max, but Will turned around and hugged her unexpectedly. Lucas joined in, then El, and Dustin, all three giggling.
“Come on, Mike,” said El, reaching her arm out for him. “Join the hug!”
He still had that small smile on his face. He took her hand, and threw his other arm around Dustin, his fingers touching Will’s shoulder. Will pretended not to notice.
Click! Went Jonathan’s camera and everyone sprung apart in surprise, because where did the camera come from?
“What?” he chuckled, and then quickly, click! – another snapshot of the party in front of Castle Byers 2.0. Will’s eyes were slick with tiny happy tears.