🚲Behind That Fake Smile💔ZodiacTheSpringer

Twenty-two

Mike's POV

Throughout the week I had noticed that Will hadn't been showing up to school. It was his fourth day in a row today.
I was starting to wonder if maybe Will was trying to avoid me since the kiss or that maybe he wasn't prepared to go back to school after being vecna'd.
It was lonely at school without him. I mean.. sure I had Lucas and Dustin, but it wasn't the same without Will. I had gotten so use to hanging around him that I expected to see him everyday.

After school I told Nancy to drop me off at Will's house.

"No. Mom and Dad are expecting you to be home by 4:30 and there's no doubt you'll end up hanging around his place till 6." She had told me.

"I'll be quick! I promise! You can wait for me at the front to make sure I leave." I suggested.

She had agreed and now I stood in front of his door waiting for an answer to my knock. After a while of nobody answering, I tried again.

There was no answer.

They must be home. I saw the car parked in the driveway.

I turned to face Nancy. I gave her a shrug to symbolise that I didn't know if they were home.

Nancy shrugged back at me from inside the car then tilted her head towards the seat beside her for me to get in.

Will's POV

I hadn't left the house since the night I was grounded. I was following my Mom's demands.

Even when we had gotten a knock on the door (which was clearly Mike. He was using his signature knock), Mom whispered to me to leave it alone. That he will go away soon enough.

I was disappointed in myself for obeying the order but I wanted to prove to her that I could still be a good son.

I was sitting in bedroom with my body facing away from the door.
I sat with my legs hanging off the side of my bed as I drew on the paper in front of me.

I had gotten back into the habit of drawing again. I was drawing at least six sketches a day along with two coloured pieces.

My floor was covered in paper now. I hadn't been bothered to pick it all up and shove it somewhere where I wouldn't remember.

I pressed the pencil hard against the paper so I could outline the main shape of the sketch I had drawn.
It was my DnD character: Will The Wise.

Music was playing through Jonathan's boom box that he hadn't noticed I had taken.
The music was playing quietly so that the rest of my family couldn't hear it, or me humming.

Once I had finished: I chucked the drawing onto the ground with the rest before I sat up from my bed and went to get another piece of paper to draw on.

There was a stack of plain white paper on the desk in my room. I grabbed the one that was on top and sat back down on my bed to draw.

I looked down at the paper. I couldn't think of something to draw. Or it at least didn't come straight to me.
I had drawn my DnD character enough times today and this week so I figured I should try and draw something different this time.

I tapped the end of the pencil against my chin with my lips pressed out in thought.

I started to draw an outline of a human laying on the floor.
At first I knew I was drawing somebody laying on their back, looking up at the stars.
But my mind floated of somewhere and when I finally came back to focus to the world: I noticed what such an unpleasant thing I had drawn.

It was the figure of a dead person, laying head towards the ground with a small sketch of a pistol close towards they're head where they were bleeding out a small puddle of blood.

I was astonished of what I had drawn. Mainly aimed towards me though.
I never knew my hand could create such violent things...

Vecna...

I suddenly realised how likely it would be that it was Vecna who had made me draw this.

Even so... Wouldn't you have felt him close to you? And why would he waste his time making you draw unexpected things!

I scrunched up the piece of paper and threw it into the small trash can that was placed close to the side of my bed.
I got out another piece of paper again and begin to draw the only normal thing I had been  drawing lately: Will The Wise.

El's POV

I had been chilling out in my room when Dad knocked on my door which made it swing a little since it was already a few inches open.
I poked my head out the door to see what it was that he wanted.

"Joyce would like to speak to you." He told me, completely relaxed.

I wasn't expecting my father's girlfriend to want to speak to me.
I grabbed the phone from my Dad's hand and put it to my ear to listen in to whatever Joyce had to tell me.

"Hello?" I asked into the silence of whatever was happening on the other side of the phone.

"Hello, El." Came the response.

"What was it that you needed?"

"It's about Will..."

"What about him? Is he okay?"

"He hasn't really been interacting very much recently. I've recently grounded him and he hasn't talked to me much since then. I was wondering if you could in courage him to be more social?" Joyce explained to me.

"You want me to come over to help Will?" I tried to clear up what she was saying in my own words.

"Yes, yes! That's right!" She told me.

Dad was watching me from the corner of the room. He was waiting for me to finish the conversation.

I said a quick see you soon to Joyce before I trotted cautiously over to Dad as though he was an eagle that was guarding my most prized possession that I needed back immediately.

"What'd she want?" He asked me with the tip of his fingers tapping against the wall of our cabin.

"Joyce was wondering if I could come over." I reported.

"What for?"

"To help Will.."

Dad stopped tapping his fingers against the wall and placed his two large hands on my shoulder.

"Look, El. I understand that you've probably already told Joyce that you were coming and that you want to help Will; but I feel like you'd be a lot safer around here. With me."

"But Joyce says that she is concerned for him." I responded.

"I know, darling. But until we are sure that Will is fully over from whatever is happening: you stay here."

***

Obviously I didn't listen to him. I needed to help a friend in need and if anybody can help: it's me who can do it.

I stuffed a bunch of stuff into a backpack and hung it over my shoulder before I slid open the window and jumped out.
I landed on a pile of crunchy dead leaves and was straight away prepared for the sound of Hopper coming outside to see what it was.

He didn't end up coming out so I continued my long trip to the Byers house to help my half brother who was in need.