||𝟑𝐑𝐃 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐕||

"Flo?" Joyce had been phoning the police station all morning in attempts to reach the only person she thought could help. "It's Joyce, again."

"Oh, hi, Joyce. Listen, I gave him your message-"

"He's still not there?"

"No, but-"

"Did he get any of my messages from yesterday? Did you give--"

Joyce began pacing slightly, twirling the phone cord anxiously in her fingers.

"No, no, I need Hopper. Just tell him to call me the second he gets in. Please... Thank you."

She shoves the phone angrily in its place, reaching up she grabbed the bridge of her nose, pinching it to calm her nerves. The stress was already getting to her.

She heard a small patter of footsteps approaching, and she put on a happy face.

"Hey. How you feeling, sleepyhead?" She brushed Will's bangs aside and ruffled his hair slightly. "Any better?"

Will, still groggy from sleep, shook his head with a grunt.

"Same as last night? Still weird?" She asked gently.

He took a seat at the kitchen table and she knelt down in front of him. Pushing the strands of hair aside, she felt for his temperature expecting a small fever. However, she hadn't picked up on anything and she figured she must need a more accurate reading.

She returned shortly with the glass thermometer and took a seat opposite him. Will sat patiently with the thermometer under his tongue and tried his best not to move it.

Joyce kept a close eye on the time, glancing up occasionally from her watch. Finally, she pulled the glass stick out from Will's mouth and was shocked to see the results.

She frowned as the red line stayed firmly at 95°. Will, who noticed her expression spoke up.

"Is it a fever?"

She shook her head, confusion still written all over her face.

"No. Uh, actually, it's cold. Do you feel cold?"

"No. Just a little out of it." He replied, speaking slowly. "Like I haven't really woken up yet."

She looked at him quizzically, racking her brain trying to figure out what it could be.

Will, who misinterpreted her expression grew defensive.

"You promised no doctor."

She smiled warmly, and shook her head softly.

"And I meant it. No doctor," Will visibly relaxed at his mother's words. "You know what? I'm gonna run you a nice bath and it'll warm you up and hopefully get you feeling better. How's that sound? Okay?"

Joyce reached out and patted his hand gently before standing and heading into the bathroom, missing the involuntary uneasy expression her son wore.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"Morning, Dart" Dustin chirped, having ripped off the sheet he had covered his terrarium with.

Dustin had waited until his sister left for school to talk to his new companion. Coincidentally, he didn't have to wait long, his sister seemed to be in an awful hurry to get to school early.

Taking off the lid, he sprinkled little chunks of nougat into the terrarium. Dart happily started nibbling.

"I gotta go to school, but I'll be back soon. Sound good?"

Dart looked up at Dustin, and chittered happily in agreement, crumbs of nougat falling from his face.

Dustin smiled in return. He placed the sheet back over the glass, forgetting to put the top back on and he left for school.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Dustin parked his bike in his usual spot next to Y/n's. His eyes scanned the bike rack, and sure enough, he recognized the usual models that belonged to his friends, parked in their usual spot. But where were his friends?

They were nowhere in sight, not that Dustin could see anyway. He stood, turning this way and that scanning the campus but saw only the nameless figures of his schoolmates.

Just then he heard a familiar voice drift from the ally that led behind the school.

"Stop being a baby and do it already!"

It was Mike.

Following the noise all the way on the side of the school, he heard accompanying voices grow louder, and he finally found himself at the dumpster on the side of the school.

"This is disgusting. Is this really necessary?" Max asked, leaning on a long poking stick like the others had.

"I know, it stinks. Literally, but we can't be too careful, we have to find him." Y/n said.

There stood Max, Mike and Y/n. They tore their eyes away from the dumpster, towards Dustin.

Rustling was coming from the dumpster.

"What the hell's going on?" Dustin asked.

"What do you think? We're looking for Dart." Mike said.

Suddenly, a large black trash bag came flying out of the dumpster, narrowly missing Dustin.

"Jesus!" Dustin exclaimed jumping back, rather startled.

Another bag went flying, more garbage flew out from the large metal bin soon followed by a very disgusted and very much peeved Lucas.

He grunted as he landed on his feet from his jump.

"Well, well, well," Lucas drawled, glaring at Dustin. "Look who finally decided to show up. After I drew the short straw. Real convenient."

"Yeah, where the hell were you Dustin? You said you were right behind me," Y/n asked confused, referring to her earlier encounter with her brother.

Max gagged slightly and walked over to stand in between Y/n and Dustin.

"You stink!" She said, referring to Lucas.

Dustin smirked at Max, extra friendly, clearly happy she had joined him by his side.

"Hi, Max."

She looked at him wearily and slowly responded.

"Uh, hi?"

Dustin didn't seem to notice this but Y/n and Max shared a look, Y/n was trying not to giggle.

That is, until Dustin spoke up.

"Where's Will?"

"I tried reaching him, but I couldn't get thro-" Y/n was then cut off by Mike.

"He'll be here." He said, matter of factly.

Y/n gave Mike an incredulous look, baffled and offended by his short temper with her.

'What the hell, was his problem?' She thought.

Whether he sensed the tension growing between the two friends and wanted to change the topic or he just didn't notice, Lucas addressed Dustin before anything else could be said.

"So, what, are you just gonna stand there?"

Lucas tossed an identical looking poking stick to Dustin who caught it.

"Or you gonna help?"

Y/n, who was trying desperately to put aside her growing anger, huffed and looked to her brother.

"I'm surprised at you, I thought you'd be jumping at every chance to find him. Given how much of a fuss you made,"

It came out as more of a question than an accusation but Dustin was defensive nonetheless.

"Of course, I am! Why would you say that?"

They each gave him a curious look, taken aback by his sudden behavior.

"Ok-ay then," Max said suddenly, breaking the confusing tension and silence. "Well, let's just get this over with then,"

The five children began poking at the overflowing trash backs that lay before them with each of their long sticks.

They didn't find anything in their search, aside from a cockroach that wiggled it's way out of the plastic bag.

It was heading right for Y/n, who jumped out of the way, yelping in surprise and disgust.

"All living things, from complex mammals to single-celled organisms, instinctively respond to danger."

The cockroach scuttled away in fright, having been suddenly disturbed and kicked out of his previous feeding ground.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"...Expose a bacterium to a toxic chemical, and it will flee."

Y/n sat in her usual spot, slumping slightly in her one person desk, fiddling with her worn out eraser, something she normally did to get her through class when something was on her mind.

Still half listening to Mr. Clarke, she couldn't help but think about Will. She glanced over to her right, staring sadly at the empty seat of her absent best friend.

"Or deploy some other defense mechanism."

Her eyebrows furrowed, her eyes practically burning holes into the empty wooden seat that belonged to Will, getting lost in thought.

The scene felt all too familiar...

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Will stiffly crept into the bathroom, everything in him was hesitating, his instincts screaming at him not to.

"We're very much the same."

He had already changed into a towel that hung around his waist. The steam hit his exposed skin, it felt as if it stung him.

His heart began to pound.

If he had glanced down at his chest and looked hard enough he would be able to see the subtle pumping of his heart from the blood that coursed through his veins violently.

"When we encounter danger, our hearts start pounding."

His movements grew slower as he reached the bathtub. He approached it like it was a sleeping lion that could wake up and pounce at any sudden movement or noise.

Will felt his palms grow sweaty. He could feel his hands shaking violently, though he tried to stop it.

Every single drop of water that fell from the faucet with a plink, sounded to him as loud as a gunshot.

Beads of sweat covered his entire body. Enough had accumulated at his forehead that his bangs had dampened and clung to his skin.

"These are the signs of physical and emotional state we call..."

Every muscle in his body was tense, and he was now dripping with sweat. But the most overwhelming sensation was the sharp prickling of his skin at the back of his neck, where every hair stood on end.

"fear."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"Hey, you reached Jim," Joyce sighed heavily into the phone at the answering machine she had been getting all day.

Having heard it countless times in the past hour, she slammed the button on the machine, hanging it up.

"Mom,"

Quickly she hung the phone back on the wall and turned to her son.

"Yeah, sweetie, what is it?"

"It's too hot." He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

With a slight frown, she walked into the bathroom, Will trailing behind her but stopped suddenly, refusing to enter the bathroom.

She heard the familiar deep gurgling of the bath water circling the drain.

He had already drained it.

She took a seat on the edge of the tub, testing the remaining few inches with her fingers.

It wasn't as hot as he made it seem.

"I... I can cool it down a little bit, baby, but we gotta get your body temp back up."

"No." He snapped, his tone strict and sudden.

She did a double take at her son, he had never sounded more unlike himself and she looked at him in shock.

"What?"

His stance never wavered and he only looked her dead in the eye.

"He likes it cold."

She stared at him, completely appalled and he suddenly blinked several times.

Looking as if he pulled himself out of a long thought. He blinked a couple times and then retreated into the hallway.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Hopper was putting the finishing touches on the windows.

Having spent the night in the frigid cold due to the shattered windows in the cabin. He had gotten up early and collected as many wooden planks as he could, boarding up the windows until he could get them fixed properly.

He had just turned around from the window he had just finished when he saw El peeking out from behind her green wooden door.

He stopped and met her eye. Her face still hardened into a glare, she slammed her door shut and Hopper trudged over and stood outside her room.

"Hey, kid." He didn't quite know what to say, but he knew he felt partially guilty.

Having said things he didn't mean. But he was still angry with her.

She stood directly on the other side of the door, her mask of anger gone, and she stared tentatively at the door.

Hopper reached his hand to the door, ready to knock but thought different of it. Instead, he leaned against the frame and reached for his outstretched hand and began fiddling with the familiar blue bracelet that he never took off.

"Listen, um... about last night, I, uh..."

El listened from the other side of the door, hoping he would say the words she had so desperately hoped he would say.

Hopper quieted for a moment, the words getting stuck in his throat. He panicked, and the emotions he felt at the words that were exchanged the previous night came flooding back to him and he bit his lip.

"I want this place cleaned up by the time I get back and then maybe I'll consider fixing the TV"

El turned away from the door, her heart sinking. Moments ago she would have perked up at hearing the TV - her favorite source of entertainment that got her through the days - would possibly be fixed.

And yet, as she waited to hear the retreating footsteps outside her room, followed by the front door slamming shut, El felt disappointed and... alone.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"Come in, Hop," Hopper stepped into his truck, sighing at the insistent voice that came from his radio. "Come in, Hop"

Grunting, he grabbed the speaker, he spoke gruffly.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm on my way in, and yes, I do know what time it is."

He set the speaker down, reaching inside his breast pocket for a pack of cigarettes.

"Joyce Byers has called eight times already this morning,"

Hopper faltered, eyes dropping the radio in concern.

"Eight times,"

Hopper eagerly stuck a cigarette between his lips, needing one now more than ever.

"For my sake, please deal with her!"

Sticking his keys in the ignition, he turned it roughly. The engine roared to life, and Hopper mentally prepared for the worst.