Lover boy[s] // Will Byers

-chapter sixteen-

Sev had thought he couldn't breathe when he was panicking in the store, but even his throat closing up didn't compare to the thick tension and heavy atmosphere that smothered the boys in the van like a blanket of fog.

He didn't dare put his headphones on and play his Walkman, because that might look rude and he didn't need any more excuses for people to be angry at him. So, he stared out the window aimlessly at the dry landscape that rolled on forever.

Will was still seated in the middle, but he was slowly nodding off, and Sev hoped to everything he could think of that the tired boy wouldn't leave him alone with Mike, who was sending him odd looks every chance he got.                                                                                                                                      Argyle was driving, and humming along tunelessly to nothing. Johnathon nodded along to it, even though he wasn't currently high, hopefully. Maybe he thought he was responsible for the three younger boys in the back, and now that they were getting closer to the Nina Project, it was getting seriously dangerous for them all.

"Wait, so you bleed from your face, man?"

"Yes, Argyle." Sev answered plainly, exhausted with the never-ending question from the dosed-up boy, who seemed to have trouble grasping the concept he could read minds. Sev wasn't sure if he should be offended by that.

"And you can read our minds?"

Will blinked his eyes open blearily and then narrowed them at the front seat. "Leave him alone."

"If I wanted to, yeah." Sev muttered, fiddling with the zippers on his backpack, that was currently in his lap. Argyle went quiet for one blessed moment, and they all got a break.

"And you saw all the dead kids?"

"Yes, Argyle." Sev said through gritted teeth, squeezing his eyes shut as if that would in any way get rid of the awful pictures in his head. Flashes of their purple and bony faces swam into view, with bloody tears that were chillingly similar to his own. "The agents saw the coroners report, so I saw it too."

Argyle turned to Mike, taking his eyes off the road completely, but Johnathon reached out and held the steering wheel with one hand sleepily, "I wonder if it was you sister, man that would suck, dude."

Mike jolted forwards, eyes wide with realization, and Johnathon whipped around, taking his hands off the wheel and letting the van jerk around as they all turned to Sev. They were worried about their friends, Sev realized. And they figured out Sev could tell them who the victims were.

Will's eye brows were furrowed, and Sev didn't like the panicked and desperate looking way his face twisted. He gulped, "It was hard to tell what they looked like. Their bodies had gone all...purple and white, and all the bones were...snapped."

"In general, then? how- how old where they?" Johnathon asked desperately. Sev ran a hand through his choppy hair and his hand gripped the green paper cup in his hand tighter. He felt something touch his knee, and realized it was Will's hand. Sev took a deep breath and closed his blue eyes, the images of the corpses laying on metal trays permanently etched into his brain, and he knew they would never leave.

"Like, maybe our age? Or something like that." Sev fumbled for details, their faces swimming and flickering interchangeably, too fast to focus on one of the victims at a time. He gulped again, feeling the burning stares of everyone else.

"There's a girl. I think she had orange hair. In a ponytail, maybe. The other boy, he's... I dunno, kinds look like a nerd? The last guy, he's the worst. It's all wrong, puffy and kinda gross. I think he might have been in the water when he... Uhm, he's black, and I think he's older than the other two, maybe. There's a jacket in the corner, a basketball one, for a high school team?"