Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Will wakes up on a hot August morning, but not just any morning, it's the first day of freshman year! Yay? No, he is anything but excited. Middle School was absolute hell, and he doubts it’ll get any better with a school 2 times bigger. But regardless of all the downsides, he gets up out of bed.

As he makes way to the bathroom, he gulps. Why is he so nervous for High School? All his friends are going to be with him, he’ll even be able to be at the same school with Jonathan! So why was he freaking out? Well it’s because of the rumors. Late last year this group of girls came up to him and one of them asked him out while the other girls giggled, soon he realized it was the same girl who he danced with at the Snowball. Diana Rose, one of the volleyball girls. His breathing rapidly increased and everything went to a haze. Apparently Mike came to the rescue and said, “Leave him alone, okay?” and don't get me wrong, it was nice of him to do but really awful judgment on the situation. Let's just say rumors spread fast, about everything in the books.

After showering he quickly gets dressed into a yellow flannel with blue jeans, pretty nice right? Well he was humbled quickly when he walked out of the room to see El in the most flowy, elegant, fluffy white T-shirt and a pleated pastel pink skirt with white converse. Don’t forget her floral perfume she's wearing with the light makeup and butterfly clips. Compare them side-by-side and he’ll look like he grabbed his things with his eyes closed, and his hair is still slightly damp.

“Will! Oh my god, I've been waiting for you! Do you think I overdressed? I think I did, especially with that look Hopper gave me!” El says rapidly with a super nervous expression.

“No, No! You dressed well, El! I like it.” Will replies back with a smile on his face.

“Thanks!” She replies back grinning.

“KIDS! BREAKFAST!” Joyce shouts, she seems just as nervous as they are.

“COMING!” Both El and Will yell back. He really hopes it's gonna be a good day.

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The whole way there Will feels like he could just start sobbing, he isn't ready to be a highschooler. He feels like it should be the first day of 7th, not 9th. Attempting to push back the tears he thinks of all the good things to come! Like he is going to be able to go wherever he wants for lunch! And the classes options are so much better, like he can do 5 different types of art classes.

As they step out of the car they are greeted by a beaming Lucas, an excited Dustin, and an extremely nervous Mike.

“Will! El! Finally, we were worrying you werent gonna show!” Max yells out at the two.

“Why would we not show?” Will asks confused.
“He's stupid, that's why.” Lucas intercepts into the conversation.

“Lucas, don't even. I will go ask Erica what's under your bed.” Dustin casually replies as a wave of panic goes across his face.

“Wait- what's under his bed?” El innocently replies, with a curious Max adding on “yeah, Lucas.”

“No, no absolutely not, we’ve already had this discussion!” Lucas argues back with a wag of the finger.

“Okay, okay enough of this! We really have to go to the assembly!” Mike exclaims out and they all nod their heads and follow.

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“-and that concludes our speech! Have a purr-some year Tigers!”

Two excruciatingly long hours later, it's over.

“Holy shit that was boring!” Max yells out when they are free to go.

“Alright, well I gotta go to algebra with El, come on!” Max says smiling as they both say their goodbyes.

“I got AP English, see ya!” Dustin says as he waves goodbye to them.

“Gym. I have to go back to that gym after those long, long hours. Pray for me.” Lucas says as he slowly walks to the gym with a frown.

“Welp I guess it's just us.” Will says to Mike, as they have AP Science together.

“Come on.” Mike says enthusiastically, he never likes the first day of school, like ever.

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“Names?” The old woman asks them. “Mike and, “-Will”

“Okay, go sit down Mike and Will.”

Luckily they got there relatively quickly and had plenty of options, but per usual they chose the very back left corner.

“She seems nice.” Will says as they put their bags down and get seated.

“Yeah, she does.” He replies back, “I can't believe we are already in highschool, like this summer went by so fast.”

This summer. God, this summer was one of the worst ones yet. And right here we have the main contributor! Micheal Wheeler, someone Will Byers could never hate, yet has so many reasons to. Like how he basically called him gay, treated him like shit, only focused on El, caused Will many breakdowns, outright ignored him, but you know still can't get myself to hate him because of that dumb so so very stupid crush. Or basically how he could never hate him because he has been madly in love with him, his best friend for years and knows he's a disgusting mistake who doesn't even deserve to be remotely happy and should really tell someone so he can be shamed for who he really is but here we are!

“Um- about this summer,” Mike says.

Noooooooo, please not right here right now.

“Mike, it's okay, I'm over it. You said sorry and I get it, summer was weird for everyone, but really you don't need to continue to apologize for it. It's my fault anyways, I was being so annoying.” Will says with a smile on his face, a very much fake one but he tries!

“What? Your fault? No, not in any way was it yours! Its mine, I was being such a El focused brat and I really should've thought about you too. Im sorry, but im glad you forgive me.” Mike says with a real smile, of course causing Will to have a real smile

Chapter Text

Two hours later and it’s finally lunch, hip-hip-hooray! He's been looking forward to lunch since he walked in. It’s just his favorite time where he and his best friends can all be together for 45 minutes without restrictions. Fortunately today lunch wasn’t bad, they had pizza with some juice and soggy carrots (there's also salad there but it's not edible). Not very filling for highschoolers but better than some food there. Although discussion was weirder than most the party has had in the past, that's for sure.

First topic of discussion was about who would win this year's Super Bowl. None of them know how this was even brought up since all of them are nerds who most definitely don't spend their Sundays watching football. Besides maybe Lucas, his dad always watched it and Lucas would never stop complaining about it. Mostly he ended up at Mike's house to watch TV, and he was lucky if Ted wasn’t hogging it. And if he was well, Lucas gave in to the game. Normally however they do talk about random things while waiting for the rest of the party to arrive.

After that boring conversation they talked about a new movie that came out next summer called, Aliens. Y'know nothing really out of the ordinary for them until Dustin brought up some weird rumor about it.

“Did you guys hear the rumors about it? They’re might be 2 men dating in it!” Dustin says happily. Dustin always hears such… weird rumors. He once said ghostbusters was really going to be a love story with humans and ghosts. Really dont take it all too literally.

“Dustin, I'm sorry but literally 1 out of 100 things you say about ‘rumors’ end up true.” Lucas replies back bluntly, but of course he said what we are all thinking.

“Oh wow, Lucas! I'm glad you showed your true colors, you're just upset there's gay characters!” Dustin sarcastically replies back, but Lucas however does not take it as sarcasm.

“Wow, wow Dustin! You think I’m homophobic because I said nothing you say is true! Well here you are further adding to the point!” He says, wonderfully interrupted by Max asking, “What the hells going on?” with many quick replies but noticeably Dustins, “Lucas is homophobic!”

As the rest of the party, (Mike & El), make their way to the table, both of them hear Dustin's accusation.

“Lucas!” El scolds him, “That is NOT okay, people can love who they want to!” she finishes with a terrifying death glare. In California, El asked Joyce about why on the news they hated them, Joyce explained in a very kind way the news are wrong and you can love who you want to. Ever since then she's been very vocal about her opinions about it to the family.

As Lucas’s eyes widen he stumbles on defending himself to the party, Max starts agreeing with El, Dustin cracks out a smile, Will is slightly smiling at his friend's terror, whilst Mike just has a shocked expression.

“OKAY OKAY! I am not homophobic! Like at all! I'm sorry! Like very very sorry, you guys are scary.” Lucas finally gets out over their yells. A face of confusion takes over El’s expression, while a big laugh erupts from Dustin's face.

“Lucas, I was kidding.” Dustin says as he explains it all to the party. Soon most of them are laughing (besides Lucas, who’s still in a state of panic.)

As the flow of the conversation goes back to normal, they make their way and finish the rest of the school day, thank GOD its over. The party made plans to all meet up after school at Mike's house for a celebration of being able to survive one day of highschool, and it's just time to do that. Walking out of the doors of Hawkins High felt so nice. The fresh air of the outdoors, and the feeling of being free. Soon afterwards the rest of the party are all together as they make their way to Mike's house, with something being slightly off with Mike.