Adolescence, m. mayfield

017. close gate

After everyone had done their part in helping set up the shed, Hopper took Will out and tied him to a chair in the centre. A few of them stayed there but Tom went back with the others into the house, he was pacing around for a while but stopped when Max called him over.

"Pacing and thinking about it will only make it worse." she said from where she was sat on the floor in the corridor. Tom bit his lip unsure and looked at her, Max nodded her head to the place on the ground opposite where she was sat, "You want to sit?"

"Okay..." Tom said quietly and went over, sitting down against the wall and smiling at Max when she did.

They both went quiet and Tom was still nervously thinking about what might happen if the plan went wrong but one of those dull headaches was starting up again as well. He sighed and hung his head, eyes looking over his shoes. "Hey, we're matching." Max nudged her foot against Tom's.

She wore green converse, noticeably a lot more beaten up that Tom's, there was even a price of duct tape on the left one. Tom smiled and looked up at her, his smile growing a bit more, "Cool."

"Yeah." Max agreed with a nod, a smile pooling onto her face and lighting her eyes up.

Tom continued to look on at her, Max's eyes fell away after a few moments, trailing through the house and looking at everyone. She took a deep breath and turned back to Tom, and found herself feeling a bit more settled at the gentle look he was giving her. She smiled at him and really liked the way he smiled back at her. Her expression faltered and she felt worry creeping back into her head. "If... he finds out where we are... will he send those dogs after us?"

Tom hadn't expected the question and knew who she was talking about by the edge to her voice. He shifted in his seat. Not looking away from her eyes, Tom thought about what to say— but then he became confused. "How would he find us?"

Max furrowed her eyebrows and looked at him for a while, trying to gauge what he meant. "Through Will." she said but Tom still looked confused, she shrugged, not all completely sure about it herself. "That's why we were making the shed look unrecognisable. So the mind flayer can't use him to find out where we are."

"It can see through Will?"

"Yeah... I guess so. Well isn't it like in his head, possessing him." she glanced around the room to try and think of how to explain it. "It's controlling him I think, and if Will sees or feels something, then so does the mind flayer. That's what Mike said, at least."

Tom's brows furrowed now as his eyes unfocused, looking off into space. Was he not possessed too? That's what he thought, that was the only way to explain what he was experiencing. But if that was true, and the mind flayer could see through Tom's eyes, then it would already be here to attack them.

Then he thought back to the visions he'd been having, how whenever he vividly saw the mind flayer— it was never looking directly at him. It was always just there, looking over the town, and sometimes way far off in the distance. The other visions, it was just like Tom was back in the upside down, without the mind flayer there.

The only time the mind flayer had been right over Tom and looking at him, was at the field with Will. He had only found it because Will did too. And the voice was always at random times, and never said anything to the likes of knowing where the boy was. Maybe Tom wasn't exactly experiencing it the same as Will. He didn't say anything to Max though, no one knew he had the visions, and Tom wanted to keep it that way— to keep everyone else safe.

"You okay?" Max's voice pulled him from his thoughts, her foot tapping against his.

Tom attempted a smile and nodded at her, hands coming to pick at the fraying hem of his tshirt. He looked up at her, and wanted to keep talking to her. He thought back to the day at school, when he first met her, and remembered the board she was holding. She smiled when Tom asked her about it, "It's called a skateboard and it's totally awesome."