IF IT HAD BEEN UP TO HIM, Eli would've never returned from school and faced the embarrassment and the stinging remarks from his apathetic classmates. But his even more unemotional father had given him a nasty lecture about education's importance, and now Eli was standing with his head subtly dipped into the safety of his locker.

He was afraid of the pitiful looks he would receive from teachers, or the bullies that would shove him down and call him those disgusting words. The same words he'd been labeled as before, and the same words he witnessed Will be called when they first met. He hated all of those insults, the ugly slough of words that strung together to perform a not-so-colorful sentence.

Eve had already shuffled herself off to class, and Rene was on the other side of the school for first period. In hindsight, Eli was alone and had to walk the halls that morning by himself, vulnerable to whatever targets his best friend's death had painted on him. But instead of being angry or resentful, Eli refused to blame Will and instead himself. Besides the self-hatred, it didn't help that Eli was already in a terrible mood.

"Hey, if it isn't our pencil boy," a piggish sneer sounded from the outside of Eli's locker. "Whatcha doing in there, hoping to find your dead little faggot friend?"

Troy sauntered confidently over to Eli, throwing an arm onto the locker next to the hiding boy. His amber eyes were coated with malice, and his lips were turned into an unattractive smirk that made his entire face look lopsided. "You know, he's probably in Hell now. Burning from being a little queer."

"What do you want, Troy?" Eli finally poked his head outside of his small, metallic escape. His voice was shaky, but the anger resounded clearly. The bully was alone, his slightly taller minion nowhere to be seen.

"I just want to know how you're fweeling," Troy mocked, puckering his bottom lip out and batting his eyes jokingly. "How's the little fairy without his fairy boyfriend?"

Eli was seething in fury already, and he felt too mentally exhausted to allow himself to stand there and listen to Troy's nonstop trigger of homophobic words. "My friend just died, you could have a little respect," his fingers wrapped firmly around the locker door, slamming it shut with a metallic clang. "I gotta get to class."

"Oh, wow, he speaks!" Troy chuckled lightly, striding behind the simmering Brooks boy in a jester-like manner. "Tell me, faggot, what are you gonna do without your little boy toy around now?"

"I said show some respect!" Eli raised his voice slightly, wheeling around and straining his muscles as he attempted to throw the most evil glare at Troy. His hands were encircled tightly around the straps of his backpack, his knuckles beginning to quiver furiously white.

A small sign of surprise fell across Troy's face, but it was rapidly replaced by the same grin as he resumed his jeering. "Getting all brave, are we? Who knows, maybe you'll be next, joining your freak boyfriend—"

The sentence was never finished. Because Eli had already tossed his backpack to the ground and punched Troy in his nose. Or at least, he aimed for the nose, but ended up hitting the flesh of his cheekbones right by the bridge. Pain exploded in Eli's throwing hand, and the Brooks boy came to learn quickly that he was not a fighter.

But the damage had been done, and Troy had collapsed onto the floor in a series of high-pitched, agonized cries. His hands shielded his freckled face as he squirmed on the floor violently, but Eli could see the dark red liquor that dripped between the cracks of his fingers.

Every kid in the hallway had froze, their huge eyes glued to the scene in a sort of paralyzed shock. Most kids at Hawkins Middle had never even witnessed a fight, so seeing Eli Brooks, a boy who hardly spoke in class, punch Troy in the face was the kind of unexpected explosion to their day.

Eli scanned their horrified faces, his heart racing as reality began to set in and he realized what he had done. He was not a troublemaker, and the closest he had ever come to doing something bad in school was stealing an eraser from his teacher. Now, everyone was looking at him, and he was standing over Troy with bloody knuckles.

And Mike Wheeler was looking at him.

Mike stood towards the end of the hall, Dustin and Lucas at his flanks, and all three boys were gazing at the sheepish kid in wonder. Dustin's eyes were shrunken into slits as he held back his laughter, and Lucas was even twitching as he fought a dangerous grin that was dancing on his face. But Mike was just staring at Eli with his round, dark eyes, an unreadable expression painted in those orbs. Whatever emotion it was, it made Eli's pain worsen in his unbelievably tight chest.

Humiliated and regretful, Eli Brooks whirled around and intended to march right out of the school. He was on the verge of crying, which would've intensified his embarrassment seeing as he was the one who did the punching and should at least be marveling over his work.

A giant boulder of a body blockaded his path, and the principal was glaring down at him with harsh disappointment. "My office," his gravelly tone murmured, and he didn't exchange another word with the boy as he brushed past him and headed for said office.

Eli followed suit, his face catching fire as he avoided those same brown eyes that pierced his skin.

~

Suspended. Eli was not the type of boy to be suspended. Ever.

He ended up bursting into tears once he walked into the principal's office, and was too incoherent to explain why he had suddenly attacked Troy in the hallway when normally he wouldn't even look at Troy the wrong way. Full of sympathy and consideration, his suspension was shortened to only two days and the principal made a short, motivational speech about overcoming grief.

It went through one ear and floated out the other.

Luckily, Eli's mother came to pick him up, meaning he would be spared a few more measly hours before facing the icy wrath of his father and what was most likely going to be end of a belt buckle. His mother didn't even bother to scold him, her fuzzy gray eyes suggesting she already knew her husband would take over that job once he returned from work.

What Eli wasn't expecting when he got home, was his older sister Brandy reclined on the couch, her legs tossed over the cushions lazily. She was gnawing on a cookie that was falling apart in her hand, the crumbs raining onto the brown leather.

"Brandy, please," her mother warned lightly, before maneuvering into the kitchen.

Eli hadn't moved his eyes off of his older sister, who was slouched so casually he almost didn't believe she had gone to school at all. "What are you doing home?"

"Hey, little bro," Brandy sat up, and if Eli wasn't mistaken by the stretch in her smile, she was nervous. "Can we go upstairs and talk?"

"What are you doing home?" Eli repeated himself once they entered Brandy's room, littered with empty Coke cans and rock band posters.

"Don't you worry about that, little bro," she smiled again, ruffling the curls atop Eli's head. She moved to sit on the edge of her bed, her face growing more serious. "I, um, I wanted to apologize. For what I said two nights ago, in the diner, I mean. It was out of line. I was being insensitive and, and...I'm really sorry."

Embarrassed from the sentiment of the situation, Eli felt his cheeks assume a dark maroon color. "Oh, um, it's okay."

"Hey, you don't have to do that," his sister's voice was surprisingly soft, and her eyes had warmed to a sickening affection. "You don't have to go easy on me. What I did, it—it wasn't cool."

"No, it wasn't," Eli agreed, tentatively joining her on the bed. He can't even remember the last time he had lounged on his older sister's bed, considering they weren't exactly the closest of siblings and instead preferred vast amounts of distance. Nevertheless, he allowed himself to press his back against the cool silk of her bedspread. "But I'm too tired to be mad. And you ended up being right anyway."

The last sentence left a grave silence hanging in the air for a moment.

Brandy heaved a sigh as she laid down next to him, the only sound for a moment being the soft music playing from Brandy's small stereo. "So," she pursed her lips. "I hear you punched some dickhead."

"He is a dickhead," Eli breathed, his face feeling numb from the substantial amount of tears he had spilled. "Still, I shouldn't have done it."

"He said something about Will?"

All Eli could do was nod.

"Then you definitely should've done it."

Eli looked at Brandy with wide eyes, and she was grinning brightly at him, that mischievous teenager glint in her eye. He returned the smile, and silently remarked on how grateful he was for her, despite their sometimes canyon-length emotional distance.

When he returned back to the quiet solitude of his bedroom, Eli found himself sitting cross-legged on his navy bed, glaring down at the unfinished chapter he had started the morning before he knew Will had disappeared. His brain was screaming at him to pick up the pencil and resume, but his hands remained numb and cold to any such feeling. Tears pooled in his eyes from the frustration, and his hands clawed through the messy curls nestled on his head. He decided to spend the next few hours reading, which basically meant staring blankly at pages and not retaining the text.

"E?" Eve rapped her knuckles against the open door, signifying she had arrived home. Her backpack was still hunched over her back, her eyes strained from the exhaustion and boredom from the school day.

"Hey, Eve," Eli replied as nonchalantly as he could, keeping his head low and blinking unknown tears out of his eyes furiously.

"Heard you beat the shit out of Troy."

"It was just one punch, but, yeah."

Eve fanned her arms out, allowing the backpack to plop on the floor without a second glance. She immediately rushed to her brother, hopping onto his bed and coiling her arms around him. She nuzzled her chin against his shoulder blade before resting her cheek on his skin, blinking softly against the afternoon light. Eli, overcoming his initial surprise, returned the embrace.

"I knew there was a badass in there all along."

Eli spent the last few hours of the day's golden sunlight catching up on more work. He knew Eve would retrieve the work he would miss for the next two days, but anxiety still whirled in his gut at the idea of suspension. On any normal occasion, two free days would mean plenty of writing time for him, but now he grew nauseous at the suggestion.

Sometime during his heavy concentration on his science reading, his father's boisterous, angry voice sounded from downstairs. Eli felt his heart shrivel with fear, but he forced himself to slid off the wrinkled bedspread and tiptoe to the door. Eve watched him intriguingly from the spot on her bed.

"Doesn't our children have any discipline?" Alan was growling, his thunderous footsteps pacing about the living room echoing up the banister. "I mean, two kids getting into a fight in one day? What the hell has gotten into them?"

Sandra's voice was much calmer, more sweet and assuring like a taste of honeycomb. "You have to go easy on them, Al. Eli's just lost a very good friend of his and Brandy, well, she's a highschooler."

"It's no excuse!" Alan boomed. "I will not be raising a house of uncontrollable monsters. They will be punished."

Unlike most arguments, Sandra's voice had risen. She was becoming brave, and the anger laced in her tone suggested she was also fed up with Alan's disciplinary tactics. "By what? Beating them senseless? They're terrified of you, Alan! No wonder they're starting to act out at school."

"Don't you dare blame me for this! You're the one who's around them more! I'm trying to make a living, so that this family can eat and live in a nice home."

"Well it's not so nice when all you do is terrorize our kids!"

"What has gotten into you? I need to see about a new prescription for you. These tantrums are not appropriate."

Brandy's dark figure had abruptly appeared in the slit of her doorway. Her eyes were shining against the darkness of upstairs, glistening with hurt and apprehension. Eli hesitantly made eye contact with her, silently grateful he wasn't alone in punishment.

But he also now knew that Brandy had punched someone today too.

"Brandy! Get down here!" Alan called, and Eli felt his empathy and terror for his older sister.

She simply smiled assuringly at Eli, slipping out of the doorway smoothly and heading downstairs coolly. Eli was envious at how she somehow was always so continuously casual, like nothing could truly break her.

"We need to have a talk young lady," Alan snarled.

"I know." Brandy's voice was quiet.

"You punched someone today. A girl named Carol?"

"Yes sir."

"Why?"

No answer. Their mother had to intervene. "Hey," her voice was gentle, and so refreshing in stark contrast to their father's. "She say something about Eli?"

"And Will. Eli and Will," she admitted in a barely audible volume, most likely because she didn't want him to hear.

But he did. And he was touched, to say the least.

"Well, regardless, violence is never the answer." His father wasn't remotely impressed or proud. "No car for two weeks."

"What?" Brandy hissed. "But how will I get to school?"

"Well, I guess you'll just have to ride with your brother and sister in the morning, hm?"

"But—"

"This is not up for discussion!" Alan bellowed, and his sharp voice was enough to rip the wallpaper off the walls if it was a weapon. "As for your suspension, you'll be helping your mother around the house a little more as well as keeping up with school. Elijah!"

Eli winced when he heard his name called, and he felt like he was being summoned into the spring lock jaws of a prison cell. He cautiously moved downstairs, aware of his twin's gaze burning holes in the back of his head. His hands were clasped firmly together, nearly squeezing the blood right out of them as he entered the kitchen.

His father was fire truck red, the veins on his neck bulging out of the skin and his blue eyes seemed more stormy and unpredictable than ever. Eli knew he was probably going to get whipped again, he always did. "Yes, Dad?"

A huge, iron hand lashed out and wrapped around his forearm, and Eli whimpered in pain. To his left, Brandy had shut her fists into tight balls, but didn't make a move.

"You know better than to pick fights."

"Yes, sir." It came out as a pathetic squeak.

"I raised you better."

"Yes, sir."

His father's grip had begun to constrict itself tighter and tighter around his arm, and Eli felt his hot face sag from his heavy nerves and pain. "I'll do any chores you want," Eli offered pleadingly, his eyes already wet again.

"No. You're not going to have extra chores. You're going to work with me for the next two days."

Eli frowned, but was too horrified to make any complaints. His father was an orthopedic, and worked in an incredibly boring office with gray walls and gray people and stagnant activity almost everyday.

Alan was smirking evilly down at his son, because he knew exactly what he was doing. What appeared to be a punishment of boredom for Eli to the others, was actually something much worse. He was going to have to be around his father, all day, for two days straight.

Eli knew he wasn't going to be able to handle it.

He walked back into his room after a silent, intense family dinner, with icy glazes of eyes constantly bearing into him. His head hung low in a sullen manner, and amongst the blue darkness of his room, Eli suddenly began to think of Will again. And the blazing, beautiful lights that seemed to reach out to him a day earlier.

"Um, I'm really sorry, E," Eve muttered awkwardly, because what else could she say? She apologized every time for their father's abusive behavior, despite its uselessness. An apology couldn't stop him, or place a bandage over the deeply cut wound.

"I can't make sense of it, Eve."

"What?" Eve was stunned, and unsure of what her brother was referring to.

"Will," Eli plopped onto his bed, his back still turned to her. He was crying again, although the tears slipped soundlessly down his illuminated face. "It doesn't feel like he's gone. It still feels like he's just missing."

Eve strode cautiously to his bed, hooking one leg onto the mattress. "Is this because of what you saw yesterday? In Will's room?"

"I felt him, Eve," Eli gazed over at her, his watery eyes glistening like midnight lakes. "I felt him there, and it felt real."

"I believe you," she uttered, uncertain of what to reply with. "What are you gonna do?"

"What can I do?" Eli scoffed, feeling useless. "I'm probably just going insane. His funeral is literally this weekend."

Her brother had grown so serious over the last few days, and Eve just wished she could see that permanent shadow be lifted from his face again. It was a sad thought that tugged at her heart hard enough to produce tears. "You're not going insane. You just miss him. I would too, if he was my best friend."

Eli shook his head, though he wasn't sure why. He closed his eyes, letting two fat tears slip away. "I just wish this hadn't happened."

Eve let her hand rest on his shoulder, and now both children appeared so much older than they were. Two adults grieving for a loss, one at the loss of a friend, the other at a loss of a sibling's happiness.

"We'll get through this together, E."

Eli thought this kind of thing only happened in the movies, where the protagonist misses their lost one so much they begin to hear their voice in unexpected places, or their name spoken when it was actually an entirely different word.

But in that moment, Eve hadn't said that to him. It was Will's voice he heard, and it took everything in him not to turn around and expect to see a brown-eyed boy looking back.

~

Eli had no idea why anyone in the right mindset would want to be a doctor. He had been in his father's office for two hours, possibly three, and he was growing insane with boredom. The only thing that made the day not entirely stagnant was the constant glares he'd receive from his father, his baritone voice forming all sorts of requests for his son to do for him.

He had been running around the somewhat quaint building like a mad man, transferring cryptic papers between doctors and exchanging information. Although it was a nice distraction, he still felt his anxiety ricochet through his body every time he was in the same room as his father. He was just apprehensively waiting for the moment Alan Brooks would strike his attack.

It was almost noon, and Eli was now meekly eating his peanut butter and jelly at the end of the long, gray lunch table. A few other doctors were there eating, but only one woman with friendly eyes and dark brown hair had made an attempt to hold any conversation with the quiet Brooks boy.

"Alan doesn't talk about his kids that much," she had smiled, her dapper mood radiating the room in an unholy light. "It's so nice to finally meet one of the Brooks ducklings!"

Of course their father didn't talk about them. Alan was not the type of man to be confined to a family, and Eli suspected he held no sort of pride for any of his children. It used to sting, knowing their father didn't care, but now he just wanted him out of the house as much as Alan wanted Eli shipped away to Catholic boarding school, most likely.

Eli was on the last few chips in his bag when two tall, secretive men entered the lunch room. The slightly taller, pale-skinned doctor strode over to the coffee pot, pouring himself another cup of the dark ambrosia. They seemed to pay no mind to Eli, resuming their conversation that quickly gained his interest.

"It just doesn't make any sense. What kind of boy would be wandering around the quarry and be stupid enough to trip in?" The coffee-drinking doctor grumbled, bringing the mug to his chapped lips.

The other doctor, slightly shorter and more stoutly shaped, pushed his spectacles up his nose in thought. "I'm telling you, it's not Byers's body. It's the government covering their asses."

"Why would the government be faking a little boy's death?"

The shorter doctor's glasses shined with the thrill of a theory. "Because they're using him as one of their little experiment rats."

The taller doctor let out a heavy groan, running at the wrinkled skin on his temples. "This Hawkins Lab shit again? Robert, how many times I gotta tell you? You gotta stop believing those conspiracies theories your wife feeds into you."

Robert, presumably, gasped at his friend with slight offense and incredulity. "C'mon, Charles! You're seriously buying that kid drowned? You gotta admit, that lab's been suspicious ever since the government covered up their last scandal."

The taller man, named Charles, raised his furry gray eyebrows and sipped once again on his coffee. "Yeah, that place is suspicious as hell. But hey, I mean, as long as it's not my kid, hm?"

Eli watched the two men slip out again, his narrowed eyes following their retreating figures. He was slightly angered by Charles's selfish, parting words about Will, but was too intrigued about the new discovery of Hawkins Lab to make a fuzz.

"Hey, don't worry about them," a woman that Eli had forgotten was even there, smiled at him from across the table. She donned a plaid business suit that nicely complimented her stormy eyes and blonde hair. But despite the upwards curve of her lips and generally friendly tone, Eli sensed a certain iciness beneath her porcelain skin.

"Ma'am?" He asked politely.

"Those boys don't know anything," she chuckled drily, sipping at the black, tangy liquid of her coffee. "They like to pretend they're clever little conspiracy theorists. It's just all in their head."

"Oh."

She tilted her head on its axis in sudden interest. "You didn't know the boy, did you?"

"Will? Oh, yes ma'am. We were friends," Eli began to grow anxious under this woman's unwavering gaze.

Her smile was replaced with a painfully sympathetic frown. "Oh, dear. I'm sorry to hear that."

"Thanks," Eli answered, silently pondering if a thank you was even the proper response.

She was on her feet again, giving a quick look at her watch with urgency. "You're Alan's son, yes?" She didn't wait for a reply. "Well, if you ever need, my name is Mary." She was gone quicker than she had even appeared.

But Mary was out of his mind before she had even finished her goodbye. Now that it had been pointed out to him, Eli couldn't help but agree with the two doctors. It is odd that Will drowned, especially since he hated going around the quarry in the first place. Eli tried to take him there once during one of their hangouts, and the Byers boy had insisted they stay home or maybe go to the movies instead.

So, was Will's death possibly a cover up?

Even just the concept excited Eli, and he scrambled out the lunch room in desperate search for the first available computer he could discover. He decided he would research this lab, and see what kind of scandal it was they had been involved in. If they had done terrible things, including abducting children for experiments, then maybe they had taken Will. As awful as such a circumstance would be, Eli knew it would be better than being dead.

"What are you doing, son?" A dark, frightening voice growled once Eli slid into a chair in front of one of the unused office computers. "Trying to use company property without my permission?"

Eli could hardly look up and meet the swirling hurricanes of his father's eyes. "No, sir," he lied, and forced himself back onto his feet.

"Good," Alan spat, keeping his bulky arms folded across his chest. "I have some more errands for you."

Eli followed his father in scared silence, but his mind was restlessly racing in constant loops of questions. He had just been unveiled to a new investigation, and he was eager to dig in and explore all of the contents. He had already begun to rise with the new hopes of finding his best friend again.

But he stayed in that office for a few more hours, working diligently, but with one thing on the brain.

Hawkins Lab.