Chapter Text
October 31st, 1983
Mike had always been Will’s best friend, Lucas knew this. The two met before Lucas moved to town in the first grade and formed a bond that was unshakeable. They had several years of a head start at getting to know and be there for each other. But that didn’t mean Lucas couldn’t be Will’s best friend too, because he was. Maybe not in the way that Mike was, but in other ways that felt just as important to Lucas.
Will was always a little more reserved than the rest of them. Where Dustin was bubbly, Mike assertive, and Lucas outspoken, Will was gentle in nature; not in a way that was weak, but in a way that required one to be level-headed and understanding in their interactions with him. Lucas never had that problem of meeting Will wherever he was emotionally. In fact, he welcomed it. Embraced it, and felt a sense of pride every time he was able to be an emotional beam in a sense.
Over the years it was something that he would say became their thing. Sure, Will may have opened up to Mike occasionally, but it was always after seeking out Lucas first. There was a trust level that he and Will built throughout the years with each other because of it. When Lonnie and Joyce first separated, it wasn’t Mike who Will sought comfort in, it was him. He remembered the day that it happened.
It was rainy and cold, and the party had rescheduled their DnD campaign because of it. Lucas had secluded himself into his room reading comics with pages that were worn around the edges from frequent use. He was deeply immersed in the fight between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin when his mother knocked on his door stating that Will was downstairs waiting for him.
When he got downstairs, he saw his friend standing on the welcome mat of the front door, his raincoat drenched and his wet hair plastered to his forehead underneath the plastic hood. Despite the cold weather, Will’s cheeks were ruddy, as though he had biked all the way over. When he got close enough, he could see that Will’s eyes were red around the edges, as if he’d been crying, and his lips were chapped, like he had spent the bike ride chewing on them in between sobs.
Will, whose eyes had been concentrated on the floor until then, lifted his head to meet his concerned face and without hesitation closed the short distance between them. Lucas remembered wrapping his arms around him as Will openly began to sob into his neck. In between cries he managed to make out that Lonnie and Joyce had a huge fight that ended with the former leaving the house with a pack of smokes and a duffle bag. He somehow managed to get Will out of his raincoat between his sobbing and hung it on a hook beside their door before leading him upstairs to his room.
Once the door shut, he guided Will to his bed and offered him the Star Wars blanket that he brought over for a sleepover years ago that never managed to leave. Will had calmed down enough by then to talk, the occasional hiccup interrupting as he did. Apparently, his parents’ crappy relationship had finally imploded after Joyce found out Lonnie had drained their savings account on his gambling addiction. She had thrown him out in a fit of rage and without batting an eye, Lonnie left without a single goodbye to either son. It broke Lucas’ heart seeing the way Will’s face crumpled as he recounted it to him; so much so, that he had to fight back his own tears.
Lonnie may not have been what Lucas, or anyone for that matter, would say was a great dad. But he was the only father Will had known, and the idea of that being ripped away from him so young must have been traumatizing. He couldn’t stand to see Will like that—shaking with a face blotchy, eyes filled with sadness—and he never wanted to see him like that again. It took months after for the forlorn look in Will’s eyes to disappear. Because Joyce had to take on the bulk of the bills, her work hours had increased, which didn’t leave her much time for her two boys. Lucas had asked his dad one morning over breakfast if they could give Will a ride to school. That continued up until Jonathan was old enough to get his license and take over.
Lucas did his best to take Will’s mind off things at home and was extra attentive whenever Will would quietly withdraw himself from the group when he didn’t think anyone was paying attention. He made sure to include him in conversations by asking for his opinion, and he would offer Will some of his lunch when he noticed he didn’t bring any. He never made it a big deal. He would just casually slide half of his sandwich over or offer whatever snack his mom had packed that day in between conversation. Will always thanked him with the tiniest of pink settled on his cheeks, and it made Lucas feel happy, as though every time Will accepted half a PB&J or a sliced apple from him, that he was also accepting his care.
His attentiveness eventually paid off. By the next year Will was back to engaging more with the party, and openly joining in on their ribbing. He still would sometimes come to school without lunch, but that was okay. Lucas didn’t cast judgment, as he knew being the son of a single parent sometimes meant Will couldn’t afford the same things as the rest of them. Instead of bringing any attention to it in front of Will, he talked to his mom about his concerns. The next day when he went to grab his lunch off the kitchen counter, he noticed that there were three lunches instead of two—one for Erica, one for him, and one for Will. When he questioned his mom about it, she simply smiled and told him that sometimes it takes a village.
He wasn’t particularly sure what it meant at the time. All he knew was that when lunch time came around and he wordlessly placed the brown bag in front of Will’s surprised blushing face, that it had to mean something good. It became a routine for him to come to school with an extra lunch just for Will. Dustin and Mike never commented on it, and Will, who initially would react with surprised eyes, eventually began to subtly smile whenever Lucas would try to discretely pass him his lunch.
After a month of this, one day after school when Lucas opened his locker, a folded piece of paper tumbled to his feet. Curious, he glanced around the hallway that still had kids loitering around before he picked it up. On it, in Will’s handwriting was a note:
My mom wants to know if your family wants to come over tomorrow for dinner. She wanted to thank your family for the lunches and so did I.
— Will :)
He smiled the entire bike ride home, feeling warm and fuzzy inside. The first thing he did when he got home was show the note to his parents, who had sounded more than happy with the idea. When he called Will to tell him, he was so excited that he didn’t think to filter his words, saying the first thing that came to mind.
“It’s a date!”
It was the silence on the other end of the line that had reminded him of how his choice of words could come off. He started to stammer out an apology when Will interrupted, the smile evident in his voice as he spoke. “It’s a date.”
The next day, the Sinclair's went over to the Byers household for lunch. He made sure to pick a seat next to Will so the two of them could giggle to themselves while their parents interacted. That was the first time their families had lunch together but it wouldn’t be the last. Joyce and his mom had gotten along very well, as did his dad with Jonathan, with them both bonding over their love of old cars. Their families would get together at least once a month to have lunch or dinner, which only made Will and Lucas naturally grow closer.
Fast forward to now. It was Halloween night, and the two were holed up in Will’s room with all their collected candy poured out between them on his bed. Lucas’ overnight bag was somewhere in the closet, as he had dropped it off earlier knowing that he’d be spending the night after they came back from trick or treating. Right now they were dividing the candy with each other, each boy picking out their favorites and setting aside the ones they didn’t like with the intention of giving them to Dustin, who wasn’t as fussy with candy.
“Another 3 Musketeers?” He complained when Will held it up to him, his thick brows furrowed in annoyance.
“Your favorite,” Will joked and set it in the ‘Dustin’ pile.
“Not even close. Now this—,” he held up a king-sized snicker bar that they got from going to the rich side of town. “—is a proper candy bar. Chocolatey, rich in flavor, and it has caramel,” he gushed with a toothy grin, making Will giggle on the opposite side.
“Did you bring the book?” The smaller boy asked, his dough eyes swimming with anticipation. Lucas, already knowing what he was referring to, got to his feet and made his way over to the open closet to unzip his bag. Sitting at the top, was the book in question—issue #173 of the latest X-Men comic. Lucas had gotten a copy earlier in the week from his dad that he promised Will he would bring for their sleep over. He retrieved the book and waved it in the air as he walked back over to Will with a shit-eating grin. “Yes!” The other boy shouted, scooting closer to grab the book, candy between them forgotten as he started to flip excitedly through the pages.
“Cool, huh?” Lucas bragged, watching as Will flipped back to the first page, his fingers brushing along the pictures, eyes mesmerized. That was Will’s favorite part of the comics, Lucas quickly learned. While Lucas most looked forward to reading the latest installment, Will always was more excited to see the drawings and how the action was depicted in color across the pages. He would hyper-focus on the stylistic choices, often ranting to Lucas excitedly about something new he would notice about the newest issue before clamping his mouth shut in embarrassment once he realized how long he’d gone on a tangent for. Lucas would always reassure him that it was fine. He liked seeing how excited Will got. He always looked more youthful and wide-eyed when he got excited. It was endearing.
Will nodded eagerly at Lucas’ question, and scooted to rest his back against the headboard behind him, crossing his legs to rest the comic in his lap. Wordlessly, Lucas pushed the candy to the bottom of the bed and climbed over Will to lounge on the other side of him. He laid on his stomach and folded his arms under his head on the pillow beneath, angling his head in Will’s direction to watch his friend’s eyes scan the page in his lap.
Lucas smiled to himself at the sight. It was easy for Will to get distracted with the things he liked. He was the same with his art, sometimes drawing in the middle of class if he finished his work early, which was more often than not. His room reflected his passion—the walls covered in sketches. Some of them relating to their campaigns, others more personal, like individual portraits of his mom or Jonathan. Most recently to join the collection was a sketch of himself, Mike, Dustin, and Will in what looked to be the science lab at their school experimenting with potions.
“When did you draw that?” He asked, waiting patiently for Will to finish reading a particular line before his eyes flickered to Lucas who pointed to the image in question. “Oh. Earlier this week. I think after gym class,” he answered, his attention already back to the comic in his lap.
“You’ve gotten so good at it,” Lucas absently complimented. Will had developed his own art style over the years. His lines were clean and gentle, like him. Soft around the edges. Balanced. Very Will in nature. Will’s eyes shifted off the paper and in his direction, a tiny smile lingering on his face. “Thanks,” he said, voice gone slightly shy.
“I overheard my mom on the phone with yours talking about our families doing Thanksgiving together,” Lucas shared, now gaining Will’s full attention. “I was thinking that you could spend the night after and we could watch Knight Rider or something.”
“Yeah,” Will agreed, an eager smile settling on his face as he looked at him. “That’d be awesome. Maybe we’ll still have some candy left over that we can sneak and eat away from Erica.”
Lucas chuckled at that, the thought of sneaking treats behind his sister’s back without her knowing tickling him. “Yeah, right. She’s gotten so nosy. I wouldn’t be surprised if she found our stash and ate it all before we could.” Will agreed with a chuckle and nod of his own and shrugged before saying, “We’ll have fun either way.”
“Without a doubt. I could probably convince my mom to bake extra brownies for us too. She’s a sucker for my pouty face,” he contorted his face into the pout in question which elicited a giggle from the other boy. Lucas smiled at the sound, subconsciously tucking the sound into the part of his brain he reserved for memories of Will.
It was a few days later that Will had gone missing into what they would later call the Upside Down.
November 10th, 1983
Four days. It had been four days since Will never made it back home after they’d left Mike’s house, and Lucas was a wreck. At first, he didn’t want to believe it. He had just seen Will—they’d spent the night together at his, and had biked over to Mike’s the next day for the campaign. They’d spent the entire day together and only separated to go home. There was no way Will had gone missing in such a short time away from him.
But then the cops had gotten involved and he, Mike, and Dustin were pulled out of class and being questioned by Hopper. Things became a lot more real after that. Lucas was scared and worried. But regardless of how he felt, he knew that the other boy had to be just as scared if not more. The three of them had come up with a plan. They would find Will. Together after school. That night, they had ended up in the woods at the exact location Will had allegedly disappeared. It was dark, cold, and they had only been out for roughly 20 minutes before it started to rain.
Dustin had grown apprehensive about their plan, no longer sure that they should be out against Hopper’s wishes. He and Mike were going back and forth when the sound of rustling leaves could be heard over the fall of the rain—momentarily silencing them as their frustration shifted to anxiety. They had drifted closer together, with Lucas prepared to defend them with his wrist rocket. That’s when Eleven appeared looking lost and confused, her hair cut low, and her eyes flickering between all three boys anxiously.
Lucas could admit that he didn’t have the nicest reaction to El’s appearance. He was naturally a skeptic at nature and couldn’t shake the odd feeling that the strange girl was connected to Will’s disappearance. It didn’t help that the longer she stuck around, the more distant he felt them drifting from their mission to find Will.
Mike had clearly taken a likening to the girl, much to Lucas’ annoyance at the time, and the development had caused friction between them that ended in things getting physical; the two boys physically coming to blows that only ended when El had used her telekinetic powers to literally throw him to the wayside; he had woken up concussed and even more angry, determined to get away from them.
The fight with Mike was the cherry on top to finally get him to break as the feeling of helplessness washed over him. It had been days since Will had gone missing, his friend group was fractured, and he had wasted so much time depending on a weird girl they picked up from the woods; Will was probably dead. He was probably dead and it was all his fault. He had cried when he got home after locking himself in his room. He felt the anger in him build and build, the heat of tears wetting his cheeks as he stood in the middle of his room dry heaving.
His eyes roamed around his room: from the crumpled up Star Wars blanket at the edge of his bed that he’d been sleeping with over the last few days to feel closer to Will, to the heaps of drawings that were pinned on his walls from times Will had spent the night and sketched as he read their favorite comics out loud next to him. Lucas felt his face scrunch in anger and stormed over to his desk to angrily shove everything to the floor. He kicked at a pencil box that had clattered near his foot and watched as it hit the wall, its contents spilling out and falling to the floor.
Distantly he heard his mother’s voice in the background entering his room as he fell to his knees, curling over, his palms on the floor adjacent to him as his body shook with his sobs. He could feel arms wrapping around him from behind and his mother’s voice in his ear, attempting to calm him down through tears of her own. The pain he felt in his chest was all consuming and almost unbearable. He could only grip his mother’s arms as he cried, his throat raw from how guttural it was.
He barely registered her helping him to his feet and guiding him to the mattress. She had curled behind him and held him close to her as he cried. He cried hard enough for his voice to grow horse and his eyes to swell. It felt cathartic by the time his sobs had quieted to sniffles and shaky whimpers. Even after his cries had stopped, his mother stayed with him. He fell in and out of sleep in her arms for the next several hours.
During one of the moments he came to, he had opened his eyes to find Erica tucking a blanket around them both. His bleary eyes stared up at her quietly. When she noticed his eyes on her, she squeezed his shoulder, as if to say that it was okay and that she was there before she silently left, shutting the door behind her. He had closed his eyes seconds later. It was the first time since he was five years old that he had slept with his mom at his side.
The next morning, he woke up to his mom gently stroking his forehead, and telling him to head downstairs to eat breakfast before his food got cold. He had been clearing the table of dishes when there was a knock at the front door. When he opened it, he wasn’t even surprised to see that it was Mike and Dustin. He mentally noted that El was missing, but didn’t say anything. He was still upset with Mike, and by extension Dustin, so when Mike held his hand out to apologize, Lucas glared, declaring that he wouldn’t continue the search with them if it involved El before shutting the door in their faces.
He didn’t need them. He could find Will on his own. He would find Will and he would bring him back home. He marched upstairs after doing away with the dishes and put on his camo gear. He told his mom that he was going to Mike’s so she wouldn’t question his whereabouts, before leaving the house and setting on his solo mission to find Will. He had ended up in the woods, scouring the lab from the treetops with his binoculars. He’d been there for at least three hours when he saw military men getting into white vans and driving in the direction of their neighborhood. That was when he pieced things together and had quickly climbed down to hop on his bike, warning Mike and Dustin through his walkie talkie about the bad men.
The three of them, and El, had met two blocks away from their street on their bikes. Lucas barely had time to greet them before the white vans appeared and they had to take off in the opposite direction. After witnessing El pull the coolest move ever by flipping one of the vans to protect them, he had decided that he’d been wrong about her. When they were away from danger, he apologized to her, admitting that he was just scared about Will. El had apologized too, which prompted Mike to apologize to him. He accepted his apology this time and the four of them hugged it out.
By now they had ended up at the school to hide out from the government who were now looking for El, and by extension, them. They had set up a self deprivation tank in the gym as a last ditch effort to help her locate Will. This is how Lucas learned that he was alive, which had lessened the ball in his chest slightly. At least now he knew that he could still save him. But then the government had found them and they had to temporarily abandon that helpful piece of information to keep El from being taken, or worse, killed.
He tried to use his sling shot to keep her safe, but it was no match for the huge Demogorgon that cornered them in the classroom. He watched in horror as El sacrificed her life for them. It was an act so selfless and courageous, it made Lucas sad at the fact that he didn’t spend more time getting to know her. Not only did he mourn the potential loss of a relationship with her, but the option of finding Will also went away with her. She was the last tie to him that they had. And she was gone. Lucas didn’t know if he should laugh or cry at the cruelness of it all.
The three of them walked out of the school feeling numb. Mike in particular was quiet, a ghostly look on his face as he got on his bike. Even Dustin, who usually couldn’t shut up, had kept quiet. The three of them biked away from the school with heavy hearts and cloudy heads. How were they going to explain to Joyce that they had come so close to finding her son but let him slip through their fingers? They couldn’t. Lucas couldn’t. He could feel his eyes stinging from the tears that threatened to fall. When they got close enough to their street, Lucas broke the silence by telling them he’d see them later and biking even faster to put some distance between them.
He didn’t want to pretend that things were okay or that they ever would be again. He just wanted to be alone.
He had been home for maybe an hour, tucked away in his bedroom, crying silently when he heard a knock at his door. He turned away from the sound, burying his face further into his pillow in hopes that whoever was on the other side would take the hint to go away.
“Lucas? Honey?” He heard his mom’s voice as she pushed the door open. Lucas didn’t respond, instead opting to pull the blanket over his head to block her out. He felt when she sat down on the bed next to him. “Sweetie,” she tried again. After a wave of silence he felt her hand rest on his back. “Joyce just called. She’s at the hospital,” she started carefully, and Lucas squeezed his eyes shut, a tear trailing down his cheek. The last thing he wanted to hear about was Joyce. He felt sick enough about letting her down. But then his mom said something that made his eyes shoot open.
“They found Will.”
Lucas had never moved faster in his life. The moment he was able to process that Will was alive, he had thrown himself out of bed and urged to be taken to the hospital to see him. It didn’t take his parents much convincing. They had quickly loaded into the family car and driven to the hospital. Lucas was holding Will less than an hour later, his broken heart slowly stitching itself together the longer his eyes laid on Will; the knowledge that he was really there bringing him a sense of peace he hadn’t felt since he’d gone missing.
“You’re never biking home alone again, do you hear me?” He voiced, dead serious. He had forced Mike and Dustin to go get them snacks from the vending machine so that he could have a moment alone with Will. He loved them both, but he had gone days without his best friend, literally worried himself sick over him. He didn’t feel like sharing his reunion with him, he just wanted him to himself. Even if it were for five minutes. Will looked tired and pale. He could barely speak without coughing, but he still looked at Lucas with bright eyes and a warm smile.
“A little unrealistic, don’t you think?” He croaked, his voice weak.
“Tell that to your mom. She’s the one that said it, I’m just letting you know that I agree with her. You’re never ever, ever, ever being let out of my sight again, Byers.”
Will managed to roll his eyes, though his smile remained. Lucas didn’t care how overbearing he sounded. He was not letting anything else happen to Will if he could prevent it.
He got to spend an entire year with Will once he was released from the hospital before the curse of the Upside Down took him away again.