THE LAST GOOD DAY
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in which caleb moore's blossoming friendship causes a war between friends and a secret about his home life is revealed to the party
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uncertain smile | trick or treat, freak
〖 a broken soul stares from a pair of watering eyes, uncertain emotions force an uncertain smile 〗
↬•↫
CALEB KNOCKED on the front door of the Wheeler's house that morning, fingers tapping a restless rhythm on the side of his leg as he awaited permission to enter the house, having left his spare key inside the day before.
There was a muffled yell from behind the front door and the shuffling of footsteps before it was pulled open, revealing Mike's confused frown as he pulled the other sleeve of his beige jumpsuit over his shoulder. Caleb was suddenly made aware that it was, indeed, October 31st and that he had forgotten about Halloween completely.
Whoops.
"Caleb? Thank God, I thought you were still pissed at me, I was going to come over to your place before school. I'm so, so sorry about last night, I shouldn't have made you do that-"
"Mike, it's fine." Caleb dismissed him, shifting on his feet with an impatient jitter in his hands. "Is your mom here?"
"Wha - yeah, but..."
Caleb stepped into the house without another word, closing the front door behind him and peering into the livingroom, where he found Karen adjusting the straps of Mike's toy proton blaster. "Mrs. Wheeler?"
"Oh, hello, hon." Karen smiled, placing the blaster on the floor and pulling him into a quick hug, careful not to touch him for too long before pulling away to tut at him. "We were so worried about you last night, running out like that."
"Sorry, I had a curfew." Caleb mumbled, scratching his arm nervously.
Karen frowned at the bandage wrapped around his hand and took his wrist in her manicured fingers, looking over the white fabric with a worried crease in her brow. "What happened to your hand, sweetheart?"
"Oh, I uh - I slipped in the shower last night, cut it on the tile." He lied horribly, pulling his hand out of her grasp and hiding it behind his back. "I just stopped by to thank you for yesterday, sorry for freaking out on you like that."
"No, no, sweetheart, it's perfectly fine. And if you ever want to talk about it, I'm here for you." She raised a hand to his cheek, running a thumb over the small scar below his eyes that was of unknown origin. "You know that, don't you?"
"Yeah. Thanks, Mrs. Wheeler, really. I just wanted you to know that I'm okay, and I'm - I'm sorry that you... went through what I did." He stammered, keeping his voice low so that the boy watching them from the doorway wouldn't overhear. "You didn't deserve that."
"Honey, nobody deserves it. You didn't deserve it either. We'll talk about it some more another time, okay?" Caleb nodded and Karen stepped away from him with one last smile, picking up the proton blaster and walking towards her son. "Caleb, would you get my camera for me, sweetheart? It's on the kitchen table."
"Yeah, sure." Caleb cleared his throat, rushing to grab the bulky device for her before strutting back into the dining room area and placing it on the endtable next to the front door as she adjusted the straps on Mike's proton blaster before stepping away with an awed sigh.
"Look at you!" Karen cooed, hand raised to her mouth to conceal her prideful grin. "Oh, Caleb, doesn't he look amazing?"
"Yup, he sure does." Caleb drawled, shooting Mike a teasing smile as he took a seat on the dining chair closest to him, but his eyes lacked the right amount of amusement.
Mike pulled a sarcastic face at him over his mother's shoulder as she fussed over his outfit, stepping back to begin her mini-photoshoot. As she began lining her son up for the 'perfect shots' and angling the camera in seven different ways, Holly sprinted into the room and jumped into Caleb's lap with a gleeful shriek, immediately diving into a very detailed ramble about her Halloween costume.
Mike let out a deep sigh, gradually becoming more and more irritated with every flash of his mother's Polaroid camera. "Can I go to school?"
"No, no - just one more, I promise. Say 'who you gonna call?'"
"No!"
"Oh come on, Mike, it's Halloween!" Caleb grinned, his amusement only growing as Mike narrowed his eyes at him.
"Ooh, Caleb, let me get one of you two!" Karen widened her eyes in glee at her own idea, ushering him into the foyer with a giddy smile.
Caleb shook his head adamantly, holding his hands up in defiance. "No. I don't like taking pictures any more than he does, no thank you."
"Oh come on, Caleb, it's Halloween!" Mike mocked him, smiling a little at the sight of the boy's annoyance.
"Shut up, Mike." Caleb glowered, lowering Holly to the floor as she made grabby hands for her toy cat ears on living room coffee table.
"Come on, Caleb, just one!" Karen pleaded, her brown eyes widened in entreaty. Caleb groaned, but he knew he would feel bad for letting her down after everything she had done for him, so he begrudgingly stood to his feet and shuffled over to Mike, nudging his friend with his elbow when the boy smirked in triumph. "Oh, I just realised that you're not wearing a costume - do you want to go home and change into it before we take the picture?"
"Oh, I don't really dress up anymore." Caleb smiled tightly, tugging at the sleeve of his sweater anxiously. He had lost all motivation for the holidays a long time ago, eventually he just got sick of pretending and stopped putting as much effort into costumes or traditions.
"Oh, but you can't go to school without a costume!" Karen refused, lowering the camera to pout at him.
"I'll... go as a mummy?" Caleb suggested unsurely, raising his bandaged hand.
Karen rolled her eyes fondly and brought the camera up to her eye again, gesturing for him to move in. "You're not in the shot, honey. Okay, there, that's good. Now, smile!" Caleb and Mike managed weak grimaces and Karen frowned, narrowing her eyes at them. "Smile like you mean it or I'll force you both into the matching police costumes we got for Mike and his cousin last year."
Caleb wrapped his arm around Mike's shoulder and they smiled wide, the absurdity of the situation causing Caleb to let out a genuine giggle. Mike snickered just as the flash went off and Karen beamed proudly, shaking off the Polaroid and shrieking in joy. "Oh, it looks great! Okay, okay, you can go to school now. Have fun, you two!"
"Bye, Mrs. Wheeler! Bye, Hols!"
The two rushed outside quickly, mounting their bikes in unison. Mike faltered just as they were about to kick off, looking at the boy from the corner if his eye. "Are you sure you're not still mad at me?"
"Yes, Mike, we're okay." Caleb chuckled, peddling out of the driveway with the boy hot on his tail. "There's no way you could have known that I would freak out like that, it wasn't fair to blame you."
"If you're sure..."
"I am." Caleb persisted, starting to peddle faster. "Now come on, the matching nerd costumes won't have the same impact if you guys don't show up at the same time!"
"Hey! You're just jealous because you're so anti-social that you're missing out on all the fun!"
"Oh, you're so right!" Caleb called behind him sarcastically as Mike struggled to keep up with his long-legged cycling. "What I wouldn't give for my own supersonic nerd blaster!"
"It's a proton blaster, just because you're not good at science doesn't mean that you aren't a nerd, you went to see the movie with us!" Mike argued. "You're a nerd by association!"
"You can't be a nerd if you have less than a C average in 8th grade biology!"
"You can be if you own every Happy Days figurine known to man!"
"That was confidential information, Wheeler! I was ten!"
The pair laughed, coming to a sudden halt as they neared the large house at the end of Maple Drive. "Don't you need to change your textbooks?"
"Uh... no, I left all my stuff in my locker." Caleb swallowed the lump in his throat, forcing the truth from the very depths of his chest. "And... well, I guess I should tell you now before you find out the hard way - I actually... don't live there anymore."
"What?" Mike laughed, looking at him like he had two heads. His face fell when Caleb just raised his eyebrows at him. "What?"
"Yeah... I haven't lived there for about six months now, actually."
"Caleb, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Oh, look, there's Lucas!" Caleb waved over to their friend as he cycled out of his driveway a few doors down, ignoring his other friend's shellshocked expression. "Luke, over here!"
"Wha - Caleb, you can't just get out of this that easily!" Mike yelped, throwing his hands around wildly and almost tipping over the side of his bicycle as Lucas rode up to them.
"Get out of what?" Lucas asked, looking between them with a suspicious frown.
"Caleb just said that he doesn't live here anymore." Mike scoffed, gesturing to the large house in front of them.
"What?" Lucas chuckled, looking to the boy with an amused smile, "Bullshit!"
"We should really get going, don't want to be late for school!" Caleb spluttered, peddling away from them as they objected loudly, hurrying to put a stop to his swift getaway.
"You can't just... ride into the sunset!"
"Since when do you care about school?! You're failing English!"
↬
The three friends arrived at Hawkins Middle soon enough with Dustin now flanking their side, the three of them vocalising the Ghostbusters theme while Caleb gave an apathetic and poorly-timed 'who you gonna call?' every few seconds. It was getting fucking old.
"Okay, you guys can shut up now-"
"Da na na na na na - nananananana-"
"Guys, seriously-"
"Na na na na-"
"I'm gonna fucking stab one of you-"
"Who ya gonna call?!" They all screamed in unison as they cycled towards the bike racks, each of them grinning as Caleb visibly grew more annoyed.
"A fucking ambulance."
"I don't think those are the words." Will beamed from behind them, causing the three boys to let out a simultaneous cheer as they ran towards him while Caleb just rolled his eyes, offering a small smile and pulling the boy under his arm when their group hug disbanded.
"How's the head, Byers?"
"Still stable." Will smiled weakly, and Caleb just gave a satisfied nod before stepping back and adjusting the strap of his messenger bag.
"Wait - why are you Venkman?"
"Because I'm Venkman."
"No, I'm Venkman."
"What the fuck is a Venkman?" Caleb groaned, lost as to why Mike and Lucas were arguing in the first place.
"Ignore them." Dustin rolled his eyes, fed up with his friends' bickering before it could even begin.
Caleb turned to Will in the meantime, an awkward look on his face. "So, I should probably tell you something. Uh, Melissa ran off to Utah, and Tim couldn't afford the rent without her income so I've been living in a shitty bungalow on Riflin for the past few months and my parents are getting a divorce so it looks like that's going to be a permanent situation. Oh, and my cousin in Maine called to tell me that my grandma died a few days ago but that bitch fucking hated me so no love lost, you know?"
Will blinked at him, his brows furrowed as he struggled to process the overload of information he had been given. "... Okay."
Caleb nodded and they tuned back into Mike and Lucas' argument - which had apparently turned into a race war - only to be torn from it by Dustin's incessant yelling a moment later.
"Guys! Why is nobody else wearing costumes?"
↬
After a mini-breakdown and half a quarter-life crisis from Dustin about the fact that they were the only ones who had dressed up for Halloween that year, the Party shuffled into the school together, eventually breaking off towards their respective classes.
Mike stuck by his side as they strolled through the orange and purple decorated hallways, ducking his head suddenly and leaning close, the feeling of his warm breath on Caleb's ear causing the boy to stiffen. "I know you won't tell me what really happened to your hand. But if you get bad again today, come find me, okay?"
Caleb blinked himself back into reality and nodded, his face flushed as he forced a wary smile and did his best to ignore the hammering of his pulse and the strange feeling in his stomach. "O - okay."
He watched Mike hurry down the hall to his morning class for a moment too long, forcing his gaze away from the Wheeler boy as he hurried to his locker and tore it open, shoving his face inside of it to hide his crimson cheeks from his peers and try to regain his composure. What the fuck is wrong with me?
Caleb sighed, stepping away from his locker as he turned to open the flap of his messenger bag, only to chuckle at the sight of the girl standing two lockers away from him. He let out a low whistle, shooting the girl an artificial flirtatious wink as she placed her skateboard in her locker, rolling her eyes at him with a playful smile.
"Keep the lover boy eyes for all the hot chicks youre gonna score with those dinosaur band-aids, Moore."
"Jealousy looks hot on you, Mayfield." He smirked, giggling when she aimed a playful smack to his shoulder, "You should wear it more often."
Max snickered with an amused shake of her head, blowing a mocking kiss over her shoulder as she strolled down the hall towards her math class.
Caleb grinned to himself as he returned to his previous activity, rooting around in his locker for his history textbook and startling when his locker was suddenly slammed shut by a familiar dark hand. "Uh, can I help you?"
"Give up the innocence act, Moore. How do you know Max?" Dustin demanded, crossing his arms over his chest as Lucas mimicked his position, leaning against Caleb's locker with narrowed eyes.
"What the fuck are you guys talking about?" Caleb sighed, forcing Lucas out of the way to retrieve his textbooks for his morning classes.
"It's obvious you know her!" Lucas yelled, rolling his eyes at him with thinly veiled annoyance. "Just admit it!"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Caleb scoffed, turning to them with an incredulous expression, "I've barely even spoken two words to her."
"So you've spoken at least one word to her!" Dustin said accusingly and Lucas let out a yell of triumph, the two of them pointing their fingers at him expectantly.
"Do you have any idea how insane you guys sound right now? And that's coming from the clinically psychotic one." Caleb looked at them blankly, shutting his locker with a little more force than necessary.
"You can't lie forever, Moore." Dustin glared at him, stepping closer in what Caleb guessed was supposed to be an intimidation tactic but the fact that Dustin was two inches shorter than him made that difficult. "We're going to break you eventually."
"Looking forward to it." Caleb gave them a mocking salute and marched off to his U.S History class, feeling his friends' juvenile glares on his back the whole way there.
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Caleb settled into his assigned seat as their class waited for their Social Studies teacher to show up, smirking when his friend finally arrived to their second period class. "Try not to cuss out the teacher this time, Wheeler."
"That was your fault, asshole." Mike rolled his eyes, sliding into the seat next to him and nudging the boy's textbook with his elbow so that it fell to the floor. "Whoops."
"Hey! It's not my fault you're a protective bitch." Caleb retorted, leaning down to pluck his textbook on the floor, dropping it back on the table with a loud thump that caused a few people in the front row to look at him curiously over their shoulders. He scowled, doing his best to push aside his confusion as a girl sitting diagonal from him blushed scarlet when his eyes skimmed over her. "You guys keep staring at me and I'm gonna start charging viewing fees. Turn the fuck around."
The majority of them obliged with a roll of their eyes at his rudeness, but the girl merely giggled and turned to face the front with a wide smile. Caleb pulled a face at her, wondering what on earth could be so fucking amusing.
He turned back to Mike, who was biting back a smile at his friend's oblivity, and tilted his head towards the girl in question with a peeved expression. "And they call me fucking crazy."
"You're not fucking crazy." Mike frowned, all amusement quickly drained from his features.
"It was a joke, darling, relax." Caleb breathed in exasperation, widening his eyes dramatically in a way that made it impossible for his companion to not crack a small smile.
It used to be so rare for Caleb to be in a good enough mood to use exaggerated petnames and engage in his usual snarky humour, but as time went on Mike noticed that it was becoming a permanent state for the boy, and he couldn't help but feel a little proud of his friend's accomplishments over the past few months.
Mr. Kowalski finally arrived after a few minutes of room-spread chatter and the occasional neanderthalic yell from the group of boys in the back of the class, muttering something about an emergency in the staff room as he set his materials for the class on the mahogany desk at the front of the room. He informed the class that they would be continuing with their pair work from the day before and bustled out of the room again, leaving the group of young teenagers to themselves.
The room immediately descended into chaos, but Mike dragged his table over to Caleb's instead and pulled out their worksheet from the day before, placing it on the desk between them before dragging his chair even closer. "Let's just get it done now so we don't have to finish it for homework and we have more trick-or-treating time."
"Y - yeah, okay." Caleb stuttered, the skin beneath his jeans where his thigh was pressed against Mike's suddenly feeling very hot. He cleared his throat and shifted away slightly, swearing under his breath when he felt the warmth of his own cheeks.
Caleb did his best to ignore the rapid beating of his pulse and the hitching of his breath whenever Mike brushed against him or let out one of his dorky laughs for the rest of the period, but he failed miserably and he made yet another mental note to talk to Owens about the side effects of his new prescription.
He was pretty sure he was going fucking crazy all over again.
↬
"Your friends are nerds." Max stated casually as she stood next to Caleb at the end of third period, a class the boy had spent being glared at by Lucas and Dustin the entire time. "Ghostbusters, really?"
Caleb shrugged, throwing his social studies textbook into the steel container carelessly. "Yeah, but they're my nerds. We usually match costumes, by the way, so if you're gonna judge them, judge me too." It was a lie because he never wore costumes anymore, but if his friends were going down, then he was going down with them.
"Aw, how sweet. Do you guys braid each other's hair and give each other mani-pedis too?!" Max asked with wide eyes, smiling sarcastically as she placed her history notebook into her locker.
"Well, not until after our chick-flick marathon, of course." Caleb mocked her expression and Max laughed, reaching into her locker to get her book for English while Caleb turned to follow suit, but startled at the feeling of someone's breath on his neck. "Holy shit! Lucas, what the fuck, man?!"
"Back off, Moore." Dustin uttered out of the side of his mouth, nudging Caleb behind him with his elbow and looking to Max with a toothy smile. "Hey, Max, I'm - I'm Dustin and this is-"
"Lucas."
"Yeah, I know." Max said sassily, looking them up and down with a wry smile. "The stalkers."
Dustin and Lucas froze, turning to each other and stammering nervously. "Uh, no, actually... uh-"
"We weren't stalking you."
"No, we - we were just, uh-"
"Concerned! Because, you know, you're new and all."
"Y - yeah, for your safety."
"Mhm, there are a lot of bullies here." Dustin smirked and Max nodded in overexaggerated enthusiasm, looking over Lucas' shoulder at Caleb who just shrugged helplessly.
"So many bullies, it's - it's crazy."
"Is that why you're wearing proton packs?" Max looked at them in mock interest and Caleb clamped a hand over his mouth to silence his snicker.
"Well, these don't function." Dustin laughed, as if they were sharing an inside joke, reaching behind him and fumbling with the contraption on his back. "But... I do have this handy-dandy little trap here. And look! It even opens and closes. Look, look, look-" Dustin snapped open the toy ghost snatcher and Lucas held his hand out like they had just presented her with the most miraculous thing on earth, the two fo them grinning proudly. "Voilà! It's cool, right?" Max blinked at them and Dustin's excitement fell from his face. "No? Okay. But, um... so we - we were talking last night, and you're new here, so you probably don't have any friends to take you trick-or-treating, and you're scared of bullies-"
Caleb clenched his eyes shut tightly, tearing up when the urge to burst out laughing became more than he could bear and he had to bite down on his bandaged fist.
"-so we were thinking that it would be okay if you come with us!" Dustin proposed with a wide smile and Lucas nodded eagerly.
Caleb frowned. "Did you guys run this by Mike-"
"Silence, peasant." Dustin glowered at him, turning back to Max with a neutral expression. "Ignore him - our Party's a democracy, and the majority voted you could come!"
"I was never asked for my vote-"
"Silence." Dustin hissed, narrowing his eyes at him.
"I didn't realise it was such an honour to go trick-or-treating with you!" Max beamed mockingly and Caleb nodded, poking his head over the barrier Dustin and Lucas had created between himself and Max.
"Oh yeah, big honour. You haven't lived until you've been escorted through Hawkins' finest estates by our merry little band of rebels." Caleb smirked sarcastically and Lucas elbowed him in the ribs, effectively winding the boy.
"What Caleb means is that we know where to get the full-sized candy bars." Dustin chuckled cockily, shooting her a suave wink. "We figured you'd want in."
"That's presumptuous of you." Max frowned playfully, taking her English book and stuffing it into her bag.
Dustin and Lucas faltered, the two sporting calculating looks as they struggled to place a definition to her statement. Caleb had to admit, he couldn't even spell that word if he tried, let alone understand it.
"Yeah, totally." Dustin stammered, face lighting up hopefully. "Uh, so, um... you'll come?"
Max rolled her eyes, slamming her locker shut and pushing them apart so she could get to Caleb. He looked at her with faux sympathy. "What'd I tell you? Irresistible."
Max snickered, shaking her head at him and linking their arms together. "Come on, we have English now, right?"
"Yup."
Max pulled him along as they hurried down the hall to their class, ignoring Dustin and Lucas' shellshocked expressions.
"W - we're meeting at the Maple Street cul-de-sac at seven!" Dustin called after them pathetically, he and Lucas staring after their friend and the new girl longingly. "That's seven on the dot!"
"Yeah, don't be late, Mayfield." Caleb smirked as they turned down the hall and entered their classroom, dragging himself to the back of the room and placing his materials on the scarred desk.
"Wouldn't miss it." She rolled her eyes, taking her seat next to him as Mr. Hemford started the lesson.
↬
"You're killin' me here, kid." Hopper sighed, reaching across the centre console of the truck to remove the classic hits tape from his radio. "You don't like Jim Croce, you don't like Stray Cats... what the hell do you like?"
Caleb just shrugged, sinking further into the passenger seat as they waited for his friends to finish packing away their beach towels and buckets. It was his fault - that Hopper had to come and pick them up.
He would have preferred Steve, or even Jonathan, but his friends had panicked when he had his panic attack because they couldn't manage to calm him down no matter what they did - and Jordan, who had been accompanying them on the order of his caretaker, was too busy sneaking off with his summer fling to assist in any way - so they had commed the police station instead and ordered Hopper to come get them at once and to bring Joyce.
And now he sat in the passenger seat of the infamous Chevvy truck with Jordan's hoodie zipped all the way to his chin as he watched the frail woman aid the boys in their packing.
They were laughing and messing around as they gathered their things, smiles ever-present on their faces - but Caleb knew that despite their current happiness, he had ruined their beach day once again. He had begged them to go without him, but they had insisted. Look where that had gotten them.
"Alright, well, this is the last tape I've got, so just... enjoy it, for fuck's sake." Hopper grumbled, placing another cigarette in his mouth as the old 70s mixtape whirred and clicked inside the cassette player.
It didn't take long for a jagged rhythm to fill the space between them, and Hopper let out an appreciative yell, cranking the volume up to an ear-shattering level as Caleb watched him from the corner of his eye, a small smile threatening to break through his taut demeanour.
"Lookin' back on the track for a little green bag," the man sang, an odd accent twisting around his words that almost forced a chuckle from the young boy's throat, "gotta find just the kind or losin' my mind."
Caleb shook his head, burying his head into the dark fabric tucked under his chin as he fought off his amusement, not wanting to let the man succeed in brightening his glum mood.
"Outta sight, in the night! Outta sight in the da-ay," Hopper bellowed, causing the boy to startle slightly, eyes wide with mirth, "lookin' back!"
Caleb couldn't help the laugh that escaped him as that strange accent deepened, and he didn't even have it in him to be bitter when he saw Hopper's small smirk. Instead he rolled his eyes with a paltry grin, nodding along to the beat reluctantly as the man's enthusiasm increased.
"Lookin' for some happiness, but there is only loneliness to be fou-ou-ou-nd. Look to le-e-eft, turn to the right! Lookin' upstair-r-rs, lookin' behind-"
"Oh God, please make it stop." Jordan groaned as he pulled open the back door of the Chevvy, ushering the four teenage boys inside and forcing himself in next to them, creating a human sandwich. "If he's gonna sing the whole way, I'm jumping out of the fuckin' car once we reach the highway."
"You don't like my singing, Jo?"
"No, I don't like your singing-"
"What's wrong with my singing-"
"- it doesn't even sound like you're singing-"
"- I think I'm pretty alright at it actually. The kid agrees. Don't you, Caleb-"
"- it sounds like a hyena going at it with a pigeon-"
"-see, Caleb likes my singing-"
Caleb snorted as the pair's bickering continued, glancing up at the rearview to catch his friends' eyes with the intention of sharing a secret smile. Instead, he let out a startled gasp and twisted around in his seat frantically, causing Hopper to lose his focus and go veering off the road, almost hitting a wooden lamppost.
"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, KID-"
"IS EVERYONE ALRIGHT?! WILL, ARE YOU OKAY-"
"Caleb, what happened-"
"Aw, my head-"
"Jordan, I'm fine, get off me-"
Caleb forced the passenger side door open, tumbling into the dried grass they had driven into and untangling himself from the seatbelt that he should have been wearing but wasn't, which was probably why his temple was throbbing and his skin felt warm.
But he didn't care - in that moment, he didn't care about anything but convincing himself that he wasn't going insane.
He staggered to his feet, pressing a hand against the side of the beige truck to stable himself as he stumbled around the other side of the large vehicle, running straight into the centre of the road with little care for the possibility of being hit by a car.
Caleb panted, chest heaving and eyes wide as he stared at the road behind them in search of the girl he had seen in the truck's mirror - the girl with the buzzed hair, still dressed in Mike's navy rain jacket with blood trickling from her nose and dirt splattered on her pale cheeks. The girl who wasn't there.
"Hey. Caleb, look at me." A soft hand on his cheek turned him around and Caleb blinked, focusing on the familiar dark eyes in an attempt to ground himself. "What happened?"
"I thought..." Caleb breathed, turning back for a moment to glance around, the last of his hope fizzling like a watered candle in his chest. "Nothing. Shit, I didn't mean to - is everyone okay?"
"Lucas and Dustin bumped heads and they won't stop groaning about it, and I'm pretty sure Jordan just had a stroke because he thought Will broke a finger - but other than that, we're all okay." Mike chuckled, pressing the corner of the towel wrapped around his bare shoulders to the side of the boy's head. "You hit your head off the open window, though. You didn't feel it?"
"Guess not." Caleb muttered, watching as the pristine towel became soddened with crimson.
"Come on, Jordan insisted that we needed ice cream to soothe us after our 'traumatic event' so Hop's bringing us to Carly's Cones." Mike smiled, encasing the boy under his arm and guiding him back towards the truck where they could hear their friends arguing with Hopper about his music choice.
Caleb looked back once as they walked, and he swore that he could see a dark-haired figure darting behind a nearby tree, but it was gone before he could even open the passenger side door.
↬
Caleb struggled to keep up with a skateboarding Max as they exited the school building, the two chattering back and forth about the catch-up class she had been placed into that he had been the only member of since the beginning of the school year when the new principal decided that he needed to start participating in school seeing as he had been out of an institution for around six or seven months at that point.
It was basically just the two of them in a class with either Mr. Clarke or Ms. Levenson for the last class of the day doing revision work in the guidance counsellor's office and watching the clock tick by painfully slow.
Max stopped talking suddenly, clamping her mouth shut in the middle of her sentence and slamming her foot down on the back of her board to bring her to a stop. She turned to Caleb with a tight smile, hoping that he mistook the nervous glint in her eyes for sincerity, "You should go catch up with your nerds before they go ghost-hunting without you. I'll see you later, okay?"
"Uh, okay." Caleb murmured with a small frown, but the girl had already taken off towards the high school parking lot. "You're gonna be there tonight, right?!"
"Maybe!" Max called back over her shoulder, sending him one last teasing smile before getting lost in the crowd of middle schoolers rushing home to begin their trick-or-treat haul.
Caleb shook his head at her in vague amusement, any and all humour draining from his face when he realised that he was now standing in the centre of a large crowd all alone, and he had no fucking idea where his friends were. In his panic, Caleb decided that the best idea was to run back into the school like a fucking idiot and hide in the AV Club until he calmed down enough to comm them, and he strolled through the double doors of the west entrance to do just that when it happened.
The door opened, and suddenly the world was dim and the hallway was empty. He didn't even have time to register the goosebumps on his arms or the fact that the air he was breathing felt stiff and left his throat scratchy before his attention was drawn to the wall right in front of him - or more specifically, the large crack running down the centre of it, growing and festering like an incurable disease until the wall toppled completely and a dark limb barrelled out of it, the jagged shadows aiming right for his head.
Caleb screamed, throwing his hands up to protect himself as the force of his actions sent him sprawling onto the floor, his elbows knocking off the stiff tiles painfully as he screamed again, and-
"Caleb?"
His hands fell away and he sat up quickly, glancing around wildly as his chest rose and fell with every struggling breath. He was sat in the middle of the bright hallway, the walls around him undamaged and a concerned blonde leering over him that he vaguely recognised, though her name didn't register in his mind until she spoke.
"Caleb?" Mindy said again, crouching down in front of him with a worried expression. "Are you like, okay?"
"Where... where did it go?" Caleb stuttered, shifting away from her when she tried to raise a hand to his reddened forehead.
"Where did what go?" Mindy frowned, standing to her feet and glancing around at their surroundings in confusion.
"Nothing." He breathed, staggering to his own feet and clearing his throat awkwardly, his voice hoarse from screaming and still scratchy from the stale air he had inhaled. "I - I have to go."
"Are you sure you don't need to go to the guidance counsellor's office-"
"Goodbye, Mindy." Caleb said, tone clipped, and promptly turned on his heel just as his friends stepped into the school building with small frowns on their faces as they muttered to themselves, no doubt questioning his whereabouts. "Thank fuck!"
The Party looked up at him simultaneously, each of them sagging in relief as Caleb ran towards them, almost barreling into the double doors if Mike hadn't caught his shoulder, peering at him with an unreadable expression. "You alright, Cay?"
"Positively dandy, darling." Caleb rolled his eyes, pushing them towards the door with a little more force than necessary
"C'mon, let's go. Where's Byers?"
"Jordan's driving him again. Joyce won't let him go anywhere without a ride now since he's having so many episodes." Lucas replied stiffly, he and Dustin both giving him the cold shoulder despite the concern that had hung over their features only a few moments before.
"Good." Caleb nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat as he cast a wary glance over his shoulder at the now empty hallway. "That's good."
↬
"But everyone dressed up last year!" Dustin cried as they cycled towards Mike's that evening, where they planned to meet Will so that they could discuss their trick-or-treating plan for the night.
"That was seventh grade, Dustin."
"So?!"
"So, they're not eleven years old anymore!"
"Shut up, Caleb, your opinion is invalid."
"You're invalid!"
"Shut up, the both of you!" Mike snapped, putting an end to Dustin and Caleb's childish bickering. They had been at each other's throat all day - Lucas included - and it was beginning to drive him insane. "What the hell is wrong with you guys today?"
"Why don't you ask Moore-"
"They're being idiots-"
"Since when are you Mr. Ladies' Man anyway?" Lucas interjected, a deep scowl on his face, "You barely even went to school until this year and suddenly all the girls are all over you-"
"What girls-"
"Don't act like you don't know!"
"I don't!"
"Shut the hell up!" Mike hollered once again, but any further lectures that he could give were drowned out by the sound of a roaring engine and a pathetic whimper of 'Uh, guys...' from Dustin. "What the fuck is that?"
"Wango Tango." Caleb breathed as that same Camaro that had tried to ram into his heels in the high school parking lot the day before trundled down the street towards them, the familiar rock song blaring from its open windows.
"Guys... I don't think he's stopping." Lucas said nervously, prompting a traumatic yelp from Dustin.
"Move, move, move! We need to haul ass! He's gonna fucking kill us-"
"He's not gonna kill us." Mike rolled his eyes, though his unease grew even more as the sleek automobile grew closer and closer.
"Yes he fucking is." Caleb growled, tightening his hold on the handlebars of his bike as he brought it to a halt, jerking his head to the side so that his friends lost control of their tires and went veering into the plot of grass on the side of the road.
They yelled out in unison, but the only one to suspect him of anything was Mike, who stared at the boy in alarm as his friends went tumbling to the ground. He watched as Caleb refused to move off the road, his eyes widening as the Camaro increased its speed. "Caleb, get off the fucking road! He's not stopping!"
Caleb ignored him, facing their pursuer with a challenging glare as his eyes hardened and he glowered dangerously, feeling a warmth beneath his nostril that was becoming very familiar as the murderous Camaro approached. Whoever was behind the wheel had attempted to hit his friends with a fucking car - which, believe it or not, peeved him to a certain extent.
He was an overprotective bastard, that much had been established - and it was a charming trait to have, according to his friends. But it was in moments like these that his excessive tendencies were more of a burden than a compliment to the group of young boys, and it wasn't until after he had sprained his hand on a bully's cheekbone or bloodied his fist from an antagoniser's fractured nose that Caleb would understand the weight of his actions and why it may have been seen as an overreaction to some people.
When those moments occured, however, he would simply shrug and let out a monotone 'whoops' or say something else as equally apathetic, finding no fault in his behaviour.
In this case, Caleb wouldn't realise how irrational he was being until the bonnet of the car was wrapped around his frail torso.
Again, protectiveness was a charming trait to have, but a lethal one when in the hands of a mentally ill teenage boy who held no limits to his rage.
And rage was what Caleb felt in that moment, for two very distinct reasons.
The driver had refused to stop despite the fact that there was a group of thirteen year old boys stood in the centre of its warpath, which made him angry. And Max Mayfield was sat in the passenger seat, screaming and frantic and attempting to pull the car to the side of the road, which made him fucking vengeful.
He stared at the headlights of the vehicle with a wrathful glare, and he watches in intrigue as the lights flickered on for a moment before dis-illuminating once again.
The Camaro stalled, the mechanisms in the brakes pulling together forcefully as the tires let out an ungodly screech, the car coming to a stuttering halt. And then there was a hand on his shoulder and Caleb released his hold over the contraption, not even realising what he had done until he was cycling away with his friends at a speed that should have set their tires on fire.
"What the hell was that?!" Dustin screamed as they peddled even faster, even though their attacker had paused his pursuit for the time being.
"MADMAX!" Lucas yelled over the sound of the wind whipping through their hair, looking over shoulder and receiving no relief from the fact that the car was still parked in the centre of the road.
"It wasn't Max, it was her psycho fucking step-brother!" Caleb corrected, wiping at his nose hurriedly before his friends could see.
"Why did he only stop when he saw you?!" Dustin frowned, the events of the past few minutes starting to piece together on his mind.
Caleb stammered, barely even managing to arrange a proper sentence in his head by the time Mike had replied, "He probably wasn't going to actually hit us! He must have realised that he was gonna hit Caleb if he didn't stop and just... gave up whatever sick game he was playing!"
"I don't know, man..." Lucas trailed off uneasily, his voice barely audible over the sound of the air snapping at their ears, "the look on his face... dude's totally crazy!"
"Don't put me in the same category as that fucking sadist!" Caleb shrieked, turning to him with offence written all over his youthful features as they neared the Gregor Street turn-off.
"Not that crazy, the other crazy!" Lucas defended himself, going into further explanation when his friend responded to him with an incredulous glare. "There's 'we all go a little mad sometimes' crazy, and then there's 'I killed my pet dog when I was three' crazy!" He argued, struggling to catch his breath as the sign for Donner Road came into view, "Maybe you should ask your new friend if she's lost any childhood pets recently, because that guy is totally 'I killed my pet dog' crazy!"
"If one more of you fuckers compares me to Norman Bates, I'm fucking suing!"
↬
"Why do they shock us?" A nine year old Caleb asked quietly as he sat opposite the woman with a cigarette hanging from her mouth, scratching a bizarre attempt of a drawing into the pavement of the patient courtyard with a sharp rock he had found next to the flowerbeds.
"They think it will fix us." Courtney replied, taking a lengthy drag of her cancer stick and blowing the plume of smoke out the side of her mouth so that the vile toxins wouldn't infiltrate the boy's young lungs.
"Are we broken?" Caleb pulled a face, stalling his movements to glance up at her with a perplexed expression.
"Apparently." Courtney replied airily, stubbing out her cigarette on her forearm before tossing it into soil of the potted plant she was leaning against, staring up at the pale blue sky and letting her eyes fall shut after a few moments. "On the inside, at least. Don't tell me you've never felt a little broken, squirt. They didn't take you out of the kid's ward for nothin', you've obviously got some bad shit going on with you."
"I mean, I guess." He shrugged, going back to his drawing with a crumpled frown. "But I don't feel broken. My head's just loud sometimes, and I think things that make my mom sad. How are you broken?"
"Dunno. Just am."
"Why do they call you that?" Caleb asked the second intrusive question of the morning, nodding towards the group of screaming old men sitting together at a bench on the other end of a courtyard. "What's a Jap?"
"Me, I guess." Courtney shrugged, her eyes still closed and her head still tilted towards the sky.
"Is that like Japan?"
"Uh huh."
"Are you from there?"
"Nope."
"Where are you from?"
"New Jersey."
"Cool. I'm from India."
"I think you mean Indiana, kiddo."
"Oh yeah." Caleb smiled sheepishly, flushing in embarrassment. "I always forget the second part. Why do they call you Jap if you're not from Japan?"
"Because my parents are Korean."
"What?"
"My parents are Korean, which means that I look Korean - so they call me Jap."
"... That doesn't make sense."
"It doesn't, does it?"
"They're stupid." Caleb decided, scoffing under his breath with a roll of his brown eyes. "They should be calling you Jersey instead - they're supposed to be adults with jobs n' stuff, but they don't even know geometry. Frickin' idiots."
"Geography, kid."
"Oh yeah. What does your ankle say?" He inquired, prodding at the darkened skin above her Van sneaker.
"Leila." Courtney smiled for the first time since he had met her at the beginning of the week, running her hand along the cursive ink without even needing to open her eyes.
"Is that a name?"
"Uh huh."
"Who's name is it?"
"A... friend's."
"A friend-friend or a special friend?"
"Depends on what a special friend is."
"Like... a mom and dad but not married." Caleb informed her, leaning back on his hands as he awaited a response. He wasn't usually this chatty around new people, or even his closest friends, but the medications they had him on made him so hyper that he had abandoned all of the trust issues he had built up over the years so he could interrogate his new friend about her personal life.
"Then yeah, she's a special friend."
"Cool. I have friends too - they're not special friends, but they're still really cool." He babbled on, uneffected by the woman's sinful admission. "They don't care that I'm broken."
"That's good. Keep 'em around."
"... Okay, I will." He said dutifully, nodding his head with a serious expression on his youthful face. "What does queer mean?"
"What?" Courtney demanded, sitting upright and finally opening her eyes, narrowing them at him warily. "Where did you hear that?"
"My friend Will's dad. He calls Will that all the time, but we don't know what it means - just that it's bad." Caleb huffed in annoyance, going back to his drawing once again. "We tried to ask Nancy once - she knows everything - but she just told us to never say it again and walked off. Useless bitch."
"Well, it doesn't - it's not - it's not bad. Alright? It's just a word that people use to try and make it seem bad." Courtney stammered, her suave demeanor crumbling as she struggled to word her thoughts properly. "It's - queer isn't a bad thing. Your friend's dad is an asshole."
"Yeah, that's true." Caleb nodded, barely even paying attention to her words as he scratched the last line of his masterpiece, throwing the rock to the side with a wide smile. "Finally, I'm finished!... What the hell is it?"
Courtney chuckled softly, leaning forward to view his drawing and laughing once again. "I have no idea. Is it supposed to be a horse?"
"What the heck is a horse?" Caleb scrunched his nose in confusion, taking his eyes away from the mess of scribbles between his legs to frown at her.
"You don't know what a horse is?"
"Would I be asking you if I did?" He crossed his arms over his chest, arching sarcastic brow.
"You're a sassy little asshole, aren't ya?"
"Don't know what that means either." Caleb said easily, brushing a few crumbs of cement away from his drawing as if that would make it more distinguishable. "I think it's supposed to be a Christmas tree."
"How do you see a Christmas tree?"
"With my frickin' eyes, you idiot. And I don't know, I've never seen one before!"
"You've never seen a Christmas tree?"
"Nup. Haven't had a Christmas yet. But Mikey and Luke talk about it all the time, and it sounds fun." He tilted his head at her, swatting a stray curl out of his eyes. "Have you had a Christmas yet?"
"Yeah, a few." Courtney answered dryly, considering ending the conversation with the chattering boy there and then before her curiosity got the better of her. "How have you never-"
"How many Christmases?"
"Uh... twenty three? But listen-"
"Twenty three?! Holy crap, that's like... a big number!"
"... You don't know your numbers?" Courtney deadpanned, "You're like, ten, don't they teach you this shit in kindergarten?"
"Nine." He corrected. "What's a kinner-garden?"
"Were you raised in a fucking cult or something?"
"What's a 'fucking cult'?"
"No, don't - don't swear, that's not good."
"What's a swear?"
"You did it before - when you called that girl a useless bitch?"
"Ohhh, you mean the no-no words. Mike taught me about them - but he said the small ones are okay as long as I only say them to my friends." Caleb brightened, a wide grin spreading across his chubby cheeks, "And you're my friend, so it's okay!"
"I wasn't aware that we were friends." Courtney replied, a small smile teasing her rosy lips.
"Well... now you are?" Caleb shrugged, unsure of what reply she was expecting from him.
"Christ, she would've loved you." Courtney muttered under her breath, a far away look in her eyes as the smile slowly fell from her face.
"I... I didn't mean to be broken." Caleb spoke up after a few moments, tears lining his eyes. "I didn't mean to. I don't want them to fix me, it hurts. I didn't mean to be broken. I just wanted it to be quiet, I didn't mean to be broken. I don't wanna be here, I wanna go home."
"Hey, it's okay. You'll be outta here soon, kiddo." Courtney attempted, though she knew nothing about the circumstances of the boy's stay or how much longer he would be trapped in their white-brick purgatory. "Listen, do you know what an imagination is? Yeah? Right, well... when they're shocking you, just - try to imagine something else. Something better."
"Like... like what?" He sniffled, angry at himself for crying. Lonnie had struck Will for such an action more times than Caleb could count on one hand, so it must have been a bad thing to do.
"Like Christmas trees." Courtney smiled, tapping the marked cement ground between them, feeling herself relax when the boy managed a coy smile. "The hurting always stops eventually, kid. Nothing lasts forever, not even whatever personal hell you've found yourself in."
"I think I've been to hell before." Caleb said quietly, recalling the words Chief Hopper had used to describe his appearance when they found him at the side of the road last year. "To there and back, apparently."
"Oh yeah?" Courtney hummed, bemused, "And what's hell like, then? A bit humid, I imagine."
"It's cold." He said airily, his throat dry as he stared intently at the arrangement of scribbled lines in the cement beneath him. The look in his eyes must have made his friend uneasy, because she shifted away slightly and her breathing got louder. "It's cold and dark. You can't get out. And the voices hurt your head, they make you scream things. But Papa never listens, he always says that he will, but he never does."
Courtney felt her eyes grow warm with tears and she frowned at herself, wondering when the unfamiliar sadness had her gripped so tightly. It wasn't like the sadness she experienced in the midst of her bad weeks, or the sadness that she felt after they shot her up with 1,500 wattz of electricity to try and make her love the 'right' kind of people - it almost felt as though it wasn't her sadness at all.
It was reminiscent. Childlike.
"You know what, though?" Caleb broke from his trance, taking the shard of rock in his hands once again. "I don't think it's such a bad place."
"Wh - what d'you mean?"
"Hell." The boy said easily, his juvenile mind attempting to reason with itself. "It's a better place to be than here sometimes. The cold's not so bad, and you get used to the screaming eventually."
Courtney sat, shellshocked, her mind still whirring from the feeling that had taken hold of her only moments before.
"You know what? I think it looks more like one of those hot-air balloons." Caleb grinned, scratching away at his drawing once again. "Up, up, up and you're gone forever! Right, Jersey?"
"Sure, kid." She tilted her head towards the sky once more. "Up, up, up."
↬
"Byers, you will not believe what just happened!"
Dustin and Lucas were already relaying the events of the day to their friend before he could fully remove himself from Jordan's car, forcing him inside the Wheeler's front door as they babbled on and on, providing him with an extremely detailed and slightly exaggerated account of the past twenty minutes.
Mike and Caleb lagged behind, setting their bikes upright against the wall and turning to enter the basement through the side entrance of the house. "Now do you believe that you can do more than you think?"
"I didn't do anything, Max pulled the wheel." Caleb shurgged his friend's hand off his shoulder and the boy threw his head back with a frustrated groan, following him down the basement steps as a small scowl graced his face.
"I give up. I fucking give up."
They spent the next hour or so lounging around discussing which neighbourhoods they would be venturing to that night and where to get the best candy from, each of them finding their respective places on the couch, the armchair or - in Mike and Will's case - the chairs in front of the D&D table.
And Dustin and Lucas had been glaring at him the entire fucking time.
Caleb got sick of their incessant sneering eventually and let out a resentful sigh, plucking the orange-flavoured lollipop he had taken from the bowl of Halloween candy at the Wheeler's front door from his mouth as he turned to Lucas, who was sat on the far end of the couch next to Caleb's outstretched legs. "What?"
"Are you and Max dating?" Lucas said without hesitation, eyes narrowing as Caleb spluttered and choked on his falvoured sweet, the hand that had been gripping his dogtags boredly coming up to encase his throat as he fought to regain his breathing.
"What the fuck?! No! No, ew, why would you think that?! God, I barely even know her, we're just friends!" Caleb exclaimed, leaping away from him in disgust at his accusation. It wasn't like he had anything against Max, she was quickly becoming one of his favourite people to be around, but... well, Caleb didn't know why he felt so repulsed at the idea of being with her. She wasn't whiney and problematic like the rest of the girls at his school, he actually really liked her.
He just couldn't see himself being with her, or any girl for that matter.
Maybe he just didn't like the idea of being with a-
Oh.
Wait. No. No, no, no. Oh God. Pause. Pause. Hold the fuck on-
Oh shit.
He didn't need this, he didn't need yet another thing to alienate himself from his peers and friends. First he gets diagnosed with several mental disorders and illnesses, and now he might be-
I can't catch a fucking break, can I?
But it would explain everything, wouldn't it? He could be. Oh God, he could be.
"Then why were you guys being all flrity and touchy and stuff?" Dustin sneered and Caleb blinked, breaking himself from his thoughts, though they continued to spiral as he tried to act like he even remembered what their conversation was about.
"Huh?"
Apparently, acting wasn't for him.
"You guys kept joking around and then you were like, holding each other's arms. And then you defended her after her brother tried to hit us with his car!" Lucas crossed his arms over his chest, his words finally catching the attention of their other friends.
"What are you guys talking about?" Will frowned at them, ceasing his attempts to set up the gameboard in hopes that they could squeeze in one quick game before they left.
"Caleb and Max!" Lucas and Dustin exclaimed at the same time, eyes wide and expressions exasperated.
"MADMAX?" Will scrunched up his face in confusion, the noirette sat next to him following suit.
"Yes! They're totally dating or something!"
"We're not - woah." Caleb stumbled to his feet, holding his head as a sudden spout of nausea hit him. He would have blamed it on his medications, but the uneasy feeling in his stomach told him differnet. "I - I have to go to the bathroom. And - and Max and I are not dating! We were just... joking around."
Lucas and Dustin called after him angrily but Caleb just waved them off, staggering towards the basement bathroom and falling against the door once it was closed, sinking to the tiled ground and breathing heavily.
After a few moments the uneasy feeling in his gut grew unbearable and he lurched across the compact space to empty the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl. If Mike heard, he would be furious and he would probably barge in and make the most outrageous accusations-
But that was the last thing on Caleb's mind as he rinsed his mouth out at the sink, glancing up at his reflection with a vacant look in his eyes that fucking terrified him, because he couldn't recall the last time he had looked so defeated.
Fuck.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
He was. He definitely was.
Was he?
↬
a/n :
nobody :
caleb in mike's bathroom rn :
*giggles like spencewuah when he's recording a good daily scream* something bad's gonna happen next chapterrrr hehehe
ik half the readers' anxiety-infested brains just went "~~~"
and i apologise for nothing😌
that's all for now, darlings x
- satan