𝐩𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐮𝐭

v. JUST FRIENDS

  

     The next morning, Charles went by at Will's house to check up on Joyce and Jonathan. And so he sat across from Joyce who was looking at him. "Alright mom, Charles, breakfast is ready." Jonathan said and Charles simply smiled at Jonathan, who was kind enough to offer toast and eggs to him. He sets down the plate for Charles, then his mom, who grabs the paper, "no, be careful of the poster." She said making Charles look at her.

"Yeah, okay, alright.." Jonathan said as Charles looks at the paper. "I can't eat.." Joyce said. "I want you to eat, mom." Jonathan says as Charles looks at Joyce. "Listen, listen. The Xerox place opens in, like, thirty minutes." Joyce says. "Yeah.." Jonathan said as his mom looks at her watch. "And I don't want you to go alone.." "No, I know, I told you, I got it." Jonathan said to her right away.

"I'm gonna have Karen take you, cause I should be here." Joyce says. "Okay.." Jonathan says as she looks at the paper. "We need to make, what, 200, 300 copies? How much is a copy?" She asked her. "Yeah, okay." Jonathan says, glancing at Charles. "Ten cents?" She says as Charles stands, "I-I can help with that.. I-I have money.. Okay, Mrs. Byers? I wanna help.." He says, finally looking at the poster again. "I want to find Will.." He says as Joyce looked at him. "You would do that?" She asked and he nods, stepping over. He reached out, grabbing her shoulder, "say what, I'll even hang up posters around our school and at places we always go to." He says, nodding at her and she nods, sighing.

"You're a great kid, Charles." She says and he simply smiles at her, looking at the poster, which he grabs. "I just want to find my best friend.." He whispers then there was a knock at the door. Joyce sets her cigarette down, rushing over and Charles follows as she opens the door.

Joyce sighs, Hopper walking in, "we've been waiting six hours." She says. "I know. I came as soon as I could. Kid, why don't you head on off to school?" Hopper says as he looks at Charles. "Yeah.. No." He says and Joyce looks at him.

"Hop is right, Charles, you should get going." She says and Charles sighs. "Alright, Mrs. Byers.." He says before leaving the house as Hopper closes the door behind him. He gets on his bike, staring at the ground before heading to school.

At school, Charles sets his bike into the bike rack before looking up at the school. "Hey, morning." Dustin said, appearing beside him. "Hey." He says before he heads into the school, Dustin walking side by side with him. "I went by Will's this morning.. Joyce is a mess and I can't blame her.. I can't eat either.." Charles mumbles the last part as they walk down the hall. "You can't what?" Dustin says and he sighs. "Nothing. I said nothing.." He says and Dustin looks at him, scoffing.

"Be more honest with me." He says and Charles raises his hand, waving him off. "Shush, Dustin." He says as they continue to head to class. They meet Lucas on their way there and they walk in, taking their usual seats and looking to see Mike wasn't here. "Oh, this is weird." Dustin says and Charles sighs when he looked over.

"He's never this late." Charles says as he looks at Mike's empty seat. "I'm telling you, his stupid plan failed." Lucas says and Charles looks at him now. "I thought you liked his plan." Dustin says and Lucas looks at him right away.

"Yeah, but obviously it was stupid, or he'd be here." He says and Dustin sighs. "If his mom found out a girl spent the night—" "He's in deep shit right about now." Lucas cut off Charles. "Hey.." Dustin whispers, leaning over which Lucas and Charles do the same, "what if she slept naked?" He asked and Charles rolled his eyes. "Oh, my God, she didn't." Lucas says, also rolling his eyes.

"Oh, if Mrs. Wheeler tells my parents.." Dustin says as he holds his hand to his forehead. "No way. Mike would never rat us out." Lucas said to him, trying to convince the worried boy. "I don't know." Dustin says and Charles sighs. "All that matters is, after school, the freak will be back in the loony bin." Lucas says and Charles nods.

"Wrong word to describe her but at least then we can focus on what really matters, which is finding Will. That's why we went out there anyway." Charles says and Dustin sighs.

In the hallway after the bell rang for lunchtime, Charles stood at his locker, taking out his lunch, and putting away his books. "Hey fairy." Troy's voice caused him to sigh, he closes his locker then turns to face the two older bullies.

"Troy, if I hadn't known better, you were gay too and clearly suppressing some feelings for Charles to hide by bullying him." Poppy Morgenstern. Charles smiled widely as he looks behind him, over his shoulder at the ginger haired girl. "Whatever, whore.. You're only defending him in hopes he'll date you because other guys won't." Troy said then both he and James chuckle at that.

"Get lost or I'm telling everyone you tried to kiss Jennifer Hayes but she said your breath smelled bad." She said, stepping forward. Troy scoffed but walked away anyway. "Thanks, Poppy.." Charles says as he turns to face her and she smiled. "Have lunch with me." She says and he follows her.

In the back of the school, Charles sat side by side with Beverly on the stairs. He's taken back when she takes out a pack of cigarettes, "you smoke?" She says and he shakes his head right away. "Okay.." She says and it kind of doesn't surprise Charles that she did. She is fourteen, so she must've got them from older teens like her friends from the high school that was close to their middle school.

"Your friend's the one that's missing, isn't it?" She says and he sighs before nodding. "Tell me about him," she says, flicking her cigarette to flick off the ashes. And that's when Charles started, telling Poppy everything, about his friendship with Will until he looks at her, finished.

She started to smile, "you like him. Not just as a friend." She says and he scoffed immediately. "That's ridiculous! I'm-I'm—" "no need to say I'm wrong and that you're straight, because I will still believe otherwise." The fourteen year old said as she grinned up at him again. He sighs. "Will and I are just friends." He says right away.

"For now." He rolls his eyes.

authors note poppy is gonna be such a badass but she is a side character so she won't be in all of the chapters or anything, just in some