Time After Time (a Stranger Things fanfiction)

On the Dark Side

"On the Dark Side"

The dark side's callin' now, nothin' is real

- John Cafferty

Will couldn't fall asleep that night. He lay in bed shivering, frightened, afraid to close his eyes, afraid of what he would see, afraid he wouldn't wake up. So Joyce lay next to him until he was too tired to stay awake, holding him as he cried, singing songs with him, telling him old stories from when he was a baby. By the time he dropped off she was afraid, too, afraid that if she left him he wouldn't be there in the morning when she woke up.

She had called Hopper several times last night after bringing Will home from school, and she started calling him again first thing in the morning, but apparently he hadn't checked in at work in all that time. Was he sick? If Hopper was sick and couldn't help her ... She left an emphatic message with Flo that Hop needed to call her the second he got in, and slammed the phone back on the cradle.

Will was up by that point. She didn't like the dark circles under his eyes, or the fact that he didn't immediately notice how late it was and complain that she had kept him home from school, the way he often had as a child when she thought he was too sick to go.

Joyce ruffled his hair, checking his forehead. No fever. "Hey! How you feelin', sleepyhead? Any better?"

"Mm-mm."

"Same as last night, still ... weird?"

"Yeah." Will sat on one of the kitchen chairs and Joyce knelt in front of him, checking his forehead again.

"All right." He felt ... strange. Not feverish, but just the opposite, his skin cool to the touch. "Hm. Stay here. I'm getting the thermometer."

Will sat patiently with the thermometer in his mouth while Joyce timed it on her watch. She used to make a game of it with him, to see if he could count the seconds as accurately as the watch could, but he wasn't up for that today.

When the time was up, she checked the temp. Ninety-five. Ninety-five? That was so odd.

"Is it a fever?" Will asked.

"No. Uh ... actually ... it's cold. Do you feel cold?"

He thought about it, answering slowly. "No, just a little ... out of it. Like I ... haven't really woken up yet."

Joyce frowned at him, not sure what to do with this situation. None of the tried and true responses of parents to sick children fit when your child had the opposite of a fever.

"You promised no doctor!" Will said, alarmed by her look.

He had nearly had hysterics yesterday when she suggested calling Dr. Owens or going to the lab. Promising she wouldn't bring them into it had seemed easy then—she wasn't sure how far she trusted them anyway—but today ... Still, she had promised, and what were they going to do? They hadn't believed her so far, why would they believe her, or tell her the truth, now?

"And I meant it," she assured Will. "No doctor." Treat the symptom, then, she decided. "You know what? I'm going to run you a nice bath and it'll warm you up and hopefully get you feeling better. How's that sound?"

He nodded, going along with the plan even if he wasn't enthusiastic about it.

Joyce went into the bathroom to run the water into the tub, hoping it would be this simple, but terribly afraid it wouldn't be. Leaving the tub full of warm water for Will to get into, she went back to the phone, trying Hopper again, this time at home, and getting his machine. Like always.