Little League (Byler)

lV

(AKA "We were the dumb the wild the free.")

William Byers was now huddled up on his bed. Tears cascaded down his face as he fought to not alert his family. Especially not his mom. If Joyce knew about her emotional wrecked son, she would just stay there for hours, a warm hand on his back as he struggled to mumble anything but gibberish. And it's not that that was necessarily bad, but- it was summer. And Will was fourteen now, eventually he'd have to be mature enough to sort through his emotions without 'mommy's help.'
Will had made a promise a week before. A promise to sneak into Dustin's house when he returned from camp and scare the absolute demogorgon out of him. It's just that- now.. now Will was caught up in a hurricane of sobs and sniffles. His body now a racetrack for his emotions and worries to run over. Stampeding to the other side of a rigged game, one that none of the contestants were bound to win. But he had to be there, Dustin was coming back! Dustin, the one friend who knew about his crush on Mike. The one friend that comforted him when his best friend and El disappeared to go suck face again. And that's why this summer had been especially hard on Will, with his one comfort-friend off at camp, his happiness was a lost cause.
But Will pulled himself to his feet and started tugging his hair into a decent position, not using a brush. He really didn't think anybody but Dustin would notice his existence there anyway, so why get all dressed up? Besides Dustin was going to be wearing his camping clothes, no need to make him feel underdressed. At least, that's what Will told himself. He yanked a simple blue and gray shirt over his head and slid on some denim shorts. Minimal effort but enough to pull off that sense of put-togetherness that Will always carried around. It made him seem just the slightest bit less emotionally unstable. Which was nice because when his friend group did decide to pay attention to him, it was always with a soft baby voice. And that interaction did nothing but make him feel worse. More sick.
So the Byers brunette ambled to his bike, taking a casual seat on it. A breath and then the boy began to pedal quickly, maybe if he went quick enough he could see Max before anyone else got there. She was fun to talk to sometimes. Well- from the one time they interacted. Minus well try to get to know her more, find someone to actually talk to. The thing was, with Max, she didn't 'baby' him. She would always wave to him and try to include him in the conversations. Sometimes she was the only reason he even showed up to the hangouts. And even though they had never had a real conversation together, her simple attempts to give Will a chance to talk meant the world to the boy.
His flushed hand gripped the hand break when he glided into the driveway, casually leading his bike to the hiding spot the party had decided on one night. Will had no part in the decision. As always.
Max had a tendency to show up early on her skateboard lately, it was just a simple attribute nobody could expect just from glancing over at her. In fact, the phoenix haired girl only ever arrived past time when Billy dropped her off. She always flipped him off on those days, it was well deserved though. So when he dropped his bike in that little patch of grass hidden by shadows and a few thick trees, Will was not surprised to lock eyes with Zoomer.
"Hey Zoomer!" He honestly grinned, not just a fake one like he usually toiled with.
"Will the wise! What's up my dude!" A playful punch on the shoulder, she smiled in return.
"Not much, just trying to get by. What about you? Have you learned any new skateboard tricks?" Will really did try to understand interests. He loved listening to people, especially Mike. The charcoal haired boy always was interesting, but really anything he said Will would listen to with an enthused smile on his face. Byers bookmarked every single point of interest he heard from people, it was his hidden talent. Thats maybe why, if people payed attention, he was a very likable person. He never dismissed someone's thoughts, never interrupted.
"Oh, uh wow! People don't usually ask me about that- but yeah! I've been trying to master an Ollie for a while. It's still not perfect yet, but it's getting there." Max seemed genuinely surprised when he suggested a conversation on skateboarding, when she lit up- he couldn't help but smile. People adored talking about what they love, it was just human nature! Will did too, but somebody had to listen. That was his job. And he took that, unknown, title with pride. (If he could just take some other self-titles with pride too..)
"Wait that sounds awesome, can you show me sometime?" The youngest Byers casually responded, and the redhead was beaming.
"Yeah! Totally! Thanks Byers."
"No problem Mayfield." He smirked playfully, catching a glimpse of a smiling El tugging at Mike. Practically dragging him across the grass. And Will noticed his extremely uncomfortable posture, face pulled into an awkward frown. Lucas followed closely behind. He was smirking, dangling the spare keys Mrs. Henderson had lended them for the prank.
"Ready?" He flittered, readjusting that god-awful bandana that was a clear copy of Karate Kid, but Will wouldn't say anything about that. He thought it kind of amusing to find on Lucas. Just a tiny detail he humored as a single sign of childishness- which the party had mostly given up. The even funnier part was that Will was well aware of the fact that Lucas simply wore it because he overheard Max talking about how hot the actor for the Karate Kid was. Utter jealousy.
"You know it Sinclair." That redhead confidently said, hands crossing over her waist.
"Dustin should be getting here in around half an hour, we just need to get set up and then as soon as he walks in, BAM, El does her thing." Wheeler quickly prodded out. His tiny, unreal grin appeared. Will could always identify it, maybe nobody else did.. but he had always payed close attention to those little smiles Mike portrayed.
"Sounds good." The bull-cut-wearing kid responded simply.
"Let's get to work then." Lucas chimed in again rather excitedly, flinging the keys into the air and catching the loop on his pointer finger.
Byers couldn't wait to talk to Dustin.
***
Authors Note- This took a few days- sorry! I've got play practice nearly every day and it was just the end of a quarter so.. hahah, lots of painful project and work submissions.

Words- 1163