Chapter 3
A/N: I got carried away the last chapter which is why so much happened in it, in reality all of that should've been read over three chapters. Also thankyou to all my reviewers, your feedback does help me a lot and keeps me motivated. Enjoy!
Luke stormed out of the house, the stars being his only companion in the desolate woodland, onwards he ran, not knowing where he could or should go. His fourteen year old legs picked up a rhythmic beat, the raising of one leg coinciding with the wet thump of the other hitting the dirt ground. Eventually he came to a road, which road it was, he was unsure of which one exactly it was but he had a rough feeling where he was so he followed the empty road towards the town. The clear summer night was cool; the breeze disturbing a few dried leaves on the roadside but other than that it was silent. Luke came to a small one storey house, the lights in it warm and inviting. He strolled up the pathway painfully aware of how tired he was. With a gentle rapping he knocked on the door and a boy, no older than him opened the door.
"Hi, can I help you?" Will asked, looking at the stranger in the doorway who was equally staring right back at him.
"Yes, sorry." Luke replied, breaking out of the trance "can I use your phone please, I'm new to this area and I've gotten myself lost" His face grew red, not from the cool wind but from something else as his heart – rate quickened.
"Yeah sure come in" Will replied, not oblivious to the stranger checking him out, clearly visible by his equally blushing cheeks.
Will guided him to the phone on the side of the wall and Luke dialled his brother.
"Hi matt, its Luke, I need to talk to you immediately. Something's come up, I'm at the Byers'" household Luke said, taking note of the sign on the door. He hung the landline up, heaving a sigh of relief as he joined Will on the couch.
"What's your name?" Will asked, offering him some popcorn from the bowl, not looking away from the movie.
"Luke" He replied, caring to leave out his surname.
"When did you move up here?" Will asked, still watching the movie attentively.
"Last week, we came from the Falklands originally" Luke revealed.
"That would explain the accent" Will replied; still looking at the movie.
"Why did you move up here?"
"Our mother died, she had been very ill for a long time and our only living family lives here, so we had to move up?"
"Who are you living with?" Will asked.
"My father" Luke let out an embittered sigh he didn't know that he was holding in.
"Is he abusive?" Will said, sensing the distaste from the other boy.
"You could say that" Luke replied, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
Sensing the conversation was at a close, will patted the other boy on the shoulder, owing him a side glance.
"I'm Will Byers; I live here with my mom and brother Jonathon"
"Nice to meet you" Luke said sincerely.
As if on cue, Joyce came round the corner with a book in her hand, seeing the second head on the sofa she froze.
"Will? Who is this?" she asked.
"Oh he's just moved to here, he's starting at school next week" Will replied, still looking at the screen the whole time trying to hide his embarrassment in front of the boy.
"Oh okay" she replied, and continued to carry on with whatever she was doing in the kitchen, every so often casting a glance at the two on the couch.
"What do you guys do for fun around here?" Luke asked; quick to distract himself.
"We mainly play card games and board games, but we also go to the arcade from time to time" Will replied; leaving out the events of the past two years. "If you're free, you can join us one day you know" Will said, hoping the new boy would play along. "I would have to check with mike first, but I think he'd be cool with it.
"Is this the wheeler kid?" Luke asked, fearing the worse.
"Yeah, why?"
"I don't think he'd very much like to see me again, never mind become friends with me"
Before Will could ask any more questions, a loud horn at the front of the house made Luke get up.
"Thankyou for having me will, if you see mike before I do, tell him he's right" Will looked at the boy confusedly before he darted out the door.
Hearing the door shut Joyce got up from the kitchen table and sat down with her son.
"Don't think I didn't notice" she said, sipping her mug of tea.
"Notice what?" will exclaimed, turning away from the screen for the first time. She just shot him a knowing glance, making his face go a deep shade of crimson.
"What's the news?" Matthew asked as his younger brother jumped into the car.
"It's true, I found some files that showed me everything" Luke stated.
"You're joking!" Matthew replied, still paying attention to the road, Luke just shook his head in response.
"So what do we do now?" Matthew asked, his fingers tapping at the wheel as he thought.
"I don't know, just carry on as normal. He isn't doing it now and he thinks I agree with him. Another thing is; Edward's sided with him." Luke sighed before leaning back in the chair, watching as the lamp posts whizzed by.
"Well that's complicated things" Matthew said still attentive on the road.
"Let's just start school; he does do an honest job after all. What's in the past is in the past" Matthew said wisely. "If he doesn't pay in this life, he will in the next. I don't know exactly what he has done, but if it is as bad as you say then he has quite a big cheque to make up for" Matthew said, eliciting a snort from Luke.
"Come on, let's just forget about this for the time being, worrying only means you suffer twice after all" Matthew sent him a side glance.
"Yes, but I did just beat the crap out of a kid for telling me the truth" Luke said, rubbing the bridge of his nose yet again.
"Your problems not mine" was all that Matthew responded with.
"A second ago you were some wise philosopher and now you're just an arse" Luke said, smacking his brother on the arm.
"Comes with being a middle child you know? Best of both halves"
"Which half am I then?" Luke asked, already knowing the answer.
"You're the youngest, of course you're the arse" Matthew said, ruffling the boy's hair.
"Thought as much" Luke replied, gazing off into the dense woodland.
The ambulance bumped and shuddered going down the dirt track, an unconscious Mike Wheeler groaning and wheezing with each rock, twig and branch that the van drove over. One of the paramedics in turn injected Mike with a syringe, and like that he was out.
Mike awoke to a pressure against his arm, seeing eleven grasp his fore arm desperately, as though she was frightened to let go.
"Why are you here?" he asked, still groggy from the morphine.
"We saw the lights" she replied, a dark look of fear in her eyes. "And the sirens"
"What happened kid?" Hopper asked his presence now being noted by mike for the first time.
The flood of memories came back, the fuzz from the morphine gone as the realisation hit him.
"Brenner's alive" was all that he could muster as hopper picked eleven up by her waste and half ran out of the hospital. Heart pounding he drove around in circles trying to throw off any potential leads whilst a very white and pale eleven crouched in the foot well away from sight.
"Papa died, mike's wrong" she said, still frozen and very pale.
"I still don't want to take any risks eleven" Hopper said, his head twisting and turning, on the lookout for any suspicious cars.
"Please don't let me go back" She said, now visibly shaking.
"Don't worry baby, I'll take care of you. They will have to get through me first, and as you've been making so many Eggos I don't think that will happen" Eleven seemed to relax at his crude form of humour
"And beside, after me they will have mike, and I already know how much that kid loves you" He continued, El smiled weakly at the thought of mike.
"Drop me off here" Luke said, pointing to the hospital.
"Why?" Matthew asked, confused.
"I need to make peace, wait out here I'll be max five minutes"
Luke shut the door behind him and half ran into the hospital, as Matthew pulled into the car park. The bustle of A&E caught him off guard at first, the screams and moans from the injured momentarily taking him back to that field, to the bombed blockade with the burnt men sprawled out on the road, He shook his head, suppressing the dark memories as he stormed through two great swinging doors. He found him lying behind a curtain, barely conscious. Mike saw the boy, still in his dark felt trench coat, rank slides on each shoulder, and started to panic. Was he here to tell him they had captured El and thrown her back into torture? The very thought made his blood boil.
"Here to finish the job?" Mike asked, never taking his eyes off of his assailant.
"If I wanted you dead, you would be in the morgue" Luke replied darkly.
"What do you want then" mike asked; his voice croaky and hoarse.
"To make peace" was his response. "I don't know how you learnt that stuff about my father, but I quite frankly don't care. I found some... Evidence that made your accusations fact" Luke said, rubbing his hands together as a bad habit when he was stressed.
"Either way, I'm sorry for what I did, and hope we can start afresh" Luke said, he knew he was pushing it, but still.
"I'm in a hospital bed, because of you, and you have the guts to say that" Mike asked, his voice still croaky and sore from the pounding he received.
"I've had the guts to do worse" was the boy's dark reply.
"I'll do you a deal, I keep you updated on every detail I find out about him, and in turn we act as though this never happened. I suspect you know one of the patients of the lab" this made Mike's heart rate quicken "But I will do everything in my power to keep him from finding her, or them from finding her. I will be your spy"
Mike snorted, throwing back to a few months ago when a very similar situation presented itself. "I've been burned by using spies before, how do you know I can trust you?" Mike asked feebly.
Luke took out a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. "The file in question was destroyed by my brother, unfortunately he seems to side with my father, but I managed to save this sheet" He handed mike the paper.
Subject 011 – Hawkins lab, DOE.
Subject's powers increase in strength when subjected to pain. Particularly electroshock therapy...
Mike read the sheet, growing sicker and sicker as he went down the sheet, eventually having to stop and vomit in a nearby cardboard bowl.
"I will see you at school" Luke said, taking the sheet of paper and leaving mike alone in the room. He clambered into his brother's car and they sped home.
"Want to talk?" Matthew asked, after a while of silence in the car.
"Not really" Luke asked, rubbing his eyelids out of habit.
"You were there weren't you? In that field" The unspoken understanding of what the field was hung heavy between them.
"It was just the loud noises, it was only brief" Luke said, not wanting to admit to his weakness.
"I go there quite often, whenever there is a firework, that's what really gets me. One time when we were home someone shut a car door quickly and I ended up in a ditch screaming for cover." Matthew said, slightly shuddering at the memory.
"The past can't hurt us" Luke said, dodging the silent question.
"But it can haunt us."
A/N so I slowed it down with this one and took my time trying to focus on the relationships within this chapter, particularly on the one between Matthew and Luke as that's important in the story, or at least the current version of it. Please Review because even though I had an inkling chapter two was too fast, I didn't know for sure until one of you confirmed my suspicions so Thankyou!
