Chapter Text
“Our friends are being mean.”
Will jumps as El lets herself into his room and drops onto his bed. She doesn't look at him, arms crossed and frowning up at the ceiling.
“Umm. Hello. I see you are upset so I won’t complain about the not knocking thing. Again.” She blinks and finally looks over at him with a small pout. “Sorry.”
He shakes his head, smiling fondly, “It’s fine. Why are our friends being mean? What did they do?”
El lets out a puff of air and returns to the staring contest she had been having with the ceiling.
“They are being rude to Steve.”
This makes Will raise his eyebrows. “What do you mean? Rude how?”
She turns to her side, looking incredulous and irritated, “Do you not hear the way they talk to him? About him? When we are all together, do you not see the way Mike rolls his eyes when Steve asks a question? Or when Dustin says he is dumb for asking a question? Even Max can be really….” She pauses to bite her lip, eyes downcast.
“...bitchy?” he finishes, laughing at El’s shocked face. “Do not say that! It is not nice!”
He keeps chuckling at her stricken expression, “But she is, El! She says it herself all the time. Come on, even you have to admit she can be pretty crude about people sometimes. Especially to Mike.”
She groans, flopping fully onto her front, face first so her voice is muffled, “He deserves it sometimes.”
Will doesn't object and instead pokes her shoulder, “But not Steve?”
“No!” El turns once more to face him, kicking him by "accident" and now has a full view of a very angry sister.
“He is very nice to me. To all of us. He will drive us places whenever we want. He will let us play in his pool, he buys us snacks and pizza when we are at his house to watch movies. He lets us watch movies at his house!” Her hands wave with abandon with each point, Will has to hide behind a pillow to save himself from "accidentally" getting hit.
“He does all these things and our friends still call him names. Or act annoyed when he does not understand things and they make it seem like it should be so easy. But it is not. I do not like the way they talk about him. It is like–” She stops again, curling into herself. Will offers up his pillow to let her hug it to her chest. “What, El?”
Haltingly, she sighs, “It is like when Angela would make fun of me, back in Lenora. Like I should just know things. That I was stupid for not knowing them.” Will’s shoulders slump, eyes beginning to burn. He wipes away at them quickly and puts a hand on her arm.
“Do you think Steve sees it that way? Like he’s being bullied?” He couldn’t imagine a cool guy like Steve caring about what a bunch of highschoolers thought about him. Will didn’t really know Steve as well as the other kids did, or even El who’s made an unexpected friendship with the older teen. He was always just Steve Harrington to him, the guy who drove them around sometimes and worked at Family Video.
El shrugs, “He is really good at hiding it. But I can tell that it gets to him sometimes. He gets really quiet. Withdrawn. Steve tried to ask Lucas about that book he had been reading to Max at the hospital and he looked really interested. And everyone just…ignored him. Almost like they did not believe him and changed the subject. He looked so hurt and sad. I tried asking about it too but Mike just said he would tell me later. I did not want to hear about it later. I wanted to hear about it right then. In front of Steve.”
Will hadn’t been at the hangout since he had art club that day but he took El’s word for it. She may not know a lot about social cues, and neither did he to be honest, but she was incredibly aware of other people’s emotions. If she said Steve was sad, then he was. “You should talk to them. Tell them to knock it off.”
“I do not think they will listen to me. Like I said, I tried to ask them about the book but they were too busy talking about something else. I did not want to embarrass Steve either. I did not want to say that I was asking for his sake. I do not think that would go well with Dustin or Mike.”
Will pinches the bridge of his nose. As much as he loved his friends, he knew they could be assholes at the best of times. They were teenagers and teenagers weren’t exactly the most considerate group. But they should be more aware when they were being assholes to someone who didn’t deserve it. And as far as he knew, Steve didn’t deserve it. Sure, he heard stories about what he was like when he was in highschool but that was ages ago. He more than made up for it when he went back to save his brother and Nancy from the Demogorgon. Or when he saved his friends from the demodogs. Or when he made sure Dustin and Erica weren’t caught by Russian soldiers. The list goes on.
His friends really needed to remember that not everyone was great at school. Hell, he was still getting C’s in Math. And as much as engineering and technology interested him, Will would never have the same level of comprehension as Dustin or Suzie.
Something clicks in Will’s head. “Oh!"
El looks up from chewing on his pillow. “What?”
“First of all, gross. Chew on your own pillow. Second, I think I know of a way to be able to confront the other guys without embarrassing Steve.” After wrestling a little to remove the pillow from her grasp, he tells her his plan and watches his sister’s face split open with a mischievous grin.
“Yes. I like it.”
He mirrors her grin. “Operation: Make Our Friends Feel Stupid is a go then."