THE MOON HAS GONE.

▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅

STARCROSSED (book one).
°• CHAPTER ONE •°

" MY LITTLE BROTHER DIDN'T
COME HOME LAST NIGHT. "

▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅

CRYING IS A FUNNY THING. Not in the sense of amusement, of course, but that the body could be overcome with such sorrow that it brings the eyes to leak tears because something you went through was so emotionally painful that it just hurts. And the only way to relieve yourself of that pain was to sit down and cry. Elijah was lucky, unlike most of the men in Hawkins. His father taught him the most important thing was to let himself feel things deeply. He wasn't ashamed to cry or wear his heart on his sleeve and wouldn't apologize for it. The only thing Elijah was afraid of was how badly his peers reacted when Steve outed him because he wasn't just the school's joke. Elijah's life became a threat all because he was a boy who liked other boys and that wasn't allowed, was it?

So Elijah cried sometimes. Usually when he was alone because he didn't want anyone else to see. His father, Tobia Wolfhart, worked long and hard at a pharmacy for over forty hours a week. He didn't need to see that. Then, Nevaeh Wolfhart, the little sister he was responsible to look after when their father was at work, seemed to have the habit of their mother. She already locked herself away for days on end, sometimes even missing school, long enough that she wouldn't have time to see Elijah shed a tear. He had no idea what she did in her room but he had a hunch they weren't too different.

This morning of school was no exception to his little rule. Elijah, under the stream of warm water becoming colder with every minute from the shower's hose, sat at the bottom of the porcelain tub with his teeth biting onto his knuckles to keep the sobs in. It wasn't only the despair of being alone because Hawkins was full of really horrible people. It was also the stress because although Elijah was smart, his grades had been slipping. It was the stack of bills in sealed envelopes he watched pile on the kitchen table that he noticed his father either ignore or was too afraid to open. Elijah wanted to help with their financial situation, had tried submitting application after application to various spots, but he knew the chances of being employed soon were slim. He was still in school after all, and there wasn't one person in Hawkins who didn't hear what dirty deeds "he" did to Steve Harrington in the dark and no one wanted the dirty little homosexual touching their merchandise.

When the water suddenly felt like frozen cubes dragging across his skin, Elijah gave up. He felt just as numb at the cold when he sucked it up and got dressed to at least warm some of his skin enough to move his limbs to make his own breakfast. He made a pit stop at Nevaeh's bedroom door and gave a few gentle taps to the maple wood. "Nevaeh?" There's no response. What a surprise. Elijah huffed at that and considered kicking open the locked door for a moment. His sister always looked to be an empty shell of herself on the occasion that he saw her and he maybe felt that she saw him in the same light.

He gives the golden knob a jiggle but it doesn't budge. She must have locked it. "God dammit, Nevaeh," Elijah hissed through sudden gritted teeth. Anger was masking as frustration. "Open the fucking door."

The very same rage growing started to wither away when Elijah hears the wooden floorboard creaking. At least she's awake, he thinks, until the door swings open and he meets her very dull gaze. There was a time, many years ago, that the Wolfhart siblings grew up playing in sandboxes, screeching with joy or terror when Elijah dug up a worm and chased her with it. They were happy children. Then the real world hit them. And Nevaeh was an outcome of it. Her dark eyes were sad, sunken in, her curly hair swept into the messiest of all buns, and she was unstable on her feet. She was either trembling or swiveling, Elijah didn't know. But this wasn't the first time he's seen her like this and he still couldn't figure out what was wrong because all Nevaeh did was insist she was fine.

"We have to be at school in an hour." They don't greet each other anymore and Elijah's throat is dry as he forces himself to speak. "If you hurry, I can make you breakfast and give you a ride."

"Hurry and do what?" Nevaeh demanded in offense. Her own voice is raspier than his and he frowns tightly, mumbling a quiet, "nevermind" before disappearing from her doorway. Maybe she was just tired, grumpy, anything but... He doesn't want to think about it, not the fact that the little girl he taught how to build sandcastles thought she was so alone that her mind craved something else.

They mostly try and stay out of each other's way, so the breakfast Elijah prepared as he waited for her to join him was eaten in mostly silence. He feels a twinge of guilt when he noticed Nevaeh had pulled her hair free of the bun and let the tangled curls drape over her shoulders from a poor attempt of trying to brush the knots free. Elijah keeps his thoughts to himself, but he can't ignore the way her eyes glaze over as she slowly drags her fork across a plate of syrup like she was in a trance before she finally snaps and worsens the tension.

"Alright, if you won't say shit, then I will." Elijah's head shot up at the nastiness in her tone as Nevaeh slams the silver utensil on the table. She's not so tired anymore and he can see her cheeks flushing with anger and her eyes like two golden flames. He flinches at that but Nevaeh doesn't back down. Her voice only drops as her words worsen. "What is your problem with me?"

"What are you talking about?" Elijah shot back, attempting to match her rage, even though he knows exactly what she means. He just can't admit it - not to himself.

"Don't dismiss me or talk to me like I'm a child," Nevaeh says venomously. Elijah can taste the poison on his tongue. "You're treating me like a stranger. I'm your sister and you're looking at me like - like I'm - I don't know, worthless! I'm good enough - I help dad with the bills, who cares how it's done?!" Her palms are next to meet the table with a loud slap so harshly that it shakes the top. Elijah doesn't know what to say or how to defend himself and this only makes it worse. "You know what - forget it." Nevaeh snatched her school bag, a ratty old one with a single strap. It was their late mothers. "I'll get a ride from Shane Lewis. He at least treats me like a person."

The name repeats in Elijah's mind a few times - Shane Lewis, Shane Lewis, Shane Lewis - before the gears start moving and it clicks for him. Shane Lewis was a name known in Hawkins as much as Elijah Wolfhart was because they were both equally the scum of the town. He's never seen Nevaeh with him before because... She's using him for attention. She's lashing out because that's what they do. They go for the lowest blows when they're hurt. It's petty, it's childish, but Nevaeh is hurting. She wants him to feel it too.

"Nevaeh," Elijah chokes on her name. "I'll give you a ride, you don't have to see him - " Him, Shane Lewis, the student who was repeating his senior year because he was expelled after being caught with what he sold to his peers under the gymnasium's bleachers. The thought of him roping Elijah's little sister in his games makes his blood boil and gives him the urge to rip his hair out while crying at the same time.

But she doesn't listen. Elijah is out of his seat to stop the stubborn girl who may be on something he doesn't want to know the name of at the same time he hears the front door slam. There's no chasing after her. He can feel his baby sister slipping through his fingers and there's not a damn thing he can do. Not when he very may well be at the lowest part of his life too.

How could Elijah possibly save his sister from the possible destruction of her life when he can't even keep himself above water?

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

It doesn't help to smoke and Elijah is well aware that each inhale he takes through the filter that fills his lungs is worsening the organs as well as clouding his mind. But he likes it. Each time he breathes in, he can feel the weight on his shoulders lifting ever so slightly. Everything Nevaeh said before she left was still lingering in the air with the swirling smoke. Elijah is mostly glad he hasn't run into Shane Lewis with her in the high school's parking lot, otherwise, he'd unleash every dark thought that's been building up to allow his fists to take control. He truly doesn't know how his problems could get worse, but when Elijah is sitting in the junk car his best friend helped - or, watched - him fix, with a cigarette propped between his pointer and middle finger, he can at least pretend his problems don't exist.

Steve Harrington helped him pick the car out. Then, Jonathan Byers took over and at least tried to assist him when Elijah was left alone to do so. Obviously what Steve let happen to him was fucked up in every way possible, but it also left him with a deep scar on his heart that he covered up poorly with a bandage. The best thing to do for an injury like that was to leave it alone and protect it at the same time so no one could make it worse. And Jonathan didn't try to poke at it. He respected Elijah's boundaries and never pried even when he was curious as to what really happened.

Elijah's heart skips a beat at the same time it leaps into his throat when there's a sudden fast tapping at the window because Jonathan doesn't always respect his boundaries. He scowled as he calmed his racing heart so he can roll down his window and glare at his friend who's faintly smiling back. "You know, I'll happily smash your car window if you ever do that shit again - "

"Easy," Jonathan calmed him. Elijah fought the urge to blow a ring of smoke in his face because he knows how to make him tick. "I need to talk to you. It's important."

There's something bothering him. So Elijah, knowing Jonathan hates his habit, takes one last drag before he stabs the cigarette butt out on his steering wheel to simmer the ashes and unlocks the passenger door so Jonathan can join him, slamming the car door shut behind him before settling in the seat. "Don't keep me waiting, tiger," Elijah instructed. "We have maybe ten minutes before the first bell rings."

Jonathan's holding back like what he wants to talk about is scaring him straight to death. And although Elijah was a little pushy at first, he waits because he knows what it's like to need relief so you can breathe again. Then Jonathan's next words are like a blow to his chest. "My little brother didn't come home last night."

Will Byers was, without a doubt, the sweetest kid Elijah had ever met and Elijah hated kids. They were annoying, snot-nosed brats with lollipops they liked to stick everywhere and cry until they got what they wanted. Then he met little Will the first time he visited the Byers's household and his heart softened just a bit because he was a shy, kind, soft-spoken boy that somehow wormed his way into his life and became the first kid that he ever cared for. Elijah is at a loss of words again because he's so shocked that all he can do is sit there like a dumbass, mouth gaped, only able to wonder what he was doing last night other than wallowing in self-pity when Will Byers disappeared in the middle of the night.

"Shit," Elijah finally breathed out. "I'm - I'm so sorry, Jonathan." God, he wished he could come up with something a little better because that was one of the most pathetic things he ever said to his friend in sorrow.

Two hands dragged down Jonathan's face as he tried to hold himself together. He won't meet Elijah's eyes and only stares out of the windshield, watching students pour into the open school doors. "I don't know what to do," he mumbled. "I shouldn't have come to school, but I told my mom I would because... Because I - I hoped he'd be here, but he's not and I - "

"Hey," Elijah whispers in the softest voice he can muster in hopes to keep Jonathan calm before he burst into worried tears. He really wouldn't know how to react then. "Screw school. Let's blow it." He's already putting his keys in the ignition. "Let's go find your brother instead."

Elijah and Nevaeh Wolfhart were well-known for their short tempers. But anger wasn't all there was to the siblings. Nevaeh was a sad soul that he couldn't fix, but maybe he could help Jonathan find his brother because loyalty was important to him. Friendships meant the world to him. It's about the only reason why he hasn't ratted out Steve to the rest of the students, that, and no one would believe him anyway. Jonathan knows this and his eyes turn even sadder. "You don't have to," he tried to dismiss. "Not for me, I - "

The sentence dies as Elijah turns the engine on and listens to the machine cough and splutter before the wheels will move. "You and me," he says like a promise. "We'll find your brother and he'll be brought home safe." Because Nevaeh was stubborn but she was no match for her brother. If she wants to be with Shane Lewis, Elijah can't stop her. He can't find the person she used to be, but he can help his friend find his brother.

"You and me," Jonathan echoed. His smile is faint again but Elijah can see he's grateful as he safely buckles in. "Thanks, Eli."

Elijah only holds one hand up dismissively. There's no need to thank him for being a decent person, even if it means blowing off school. There's no fixing his grades anyway and a missing kid he cared about was more important to him. The first time Elijah met Will crosses his mind as he leaves the high school behind him and drives into the road.

He'd hate to admit it again, especially out loud, because it seems like such a cruel thing to say, but Elijah has never liked kids other than when he was one. Even the little twelve year olds such as Will Byers could get on his nerves and they didn't even have to say anything. That little rule he lived by didn't change but he made a small exception because he adored this one.

It was such an awkward silence the first time Jonathan left Elijah alone for a second in his house so he could run and retrieve something that he forgot at work. Will was as oblivious to his guest's discomfort, sat upon the kitchen table's chair, swinging his legs back and forth as he worked on something for a Science project or whatever. Elijah knew it was mean that he didn't care one bit - at first, that is. It started to change when Will spoke up for the first time since he had spent so long humming under his breath to focus when he hit a brick wall.

"Elijah?" He shyly spoke up and Elijah realized he had to force himself to look in the kid's direction whose head was tilted towards him, his eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement. "Jonathan told me you're really good at Science." He held up what looked like a globe sculpted from clay that was poorly painted as Earth. Hey, at least he gave it his best effort. "Is Earth between the sun and Mercury, or Mercury and Venus?"

And, no, Elijah still didn't like kids but there was one thing he was good at - and that was meaningless facts about space. "Actually, Earth is between Venus and Mars," he had corrected in best efforts to not sound bored and scare this one off. He could be a dick sometimes but he had never been downright cruel or made a kid cry. At least, Elijah tried not to, but hey, these things could happen on accident.

Will's sighed as if Elijah supplied him the answers to his entire project and he felt stupid not to know any better. "Yeah, I guess if we were any closer to the sun we'd all burn up, huh?" He rearranged a few pieces of his project to correct them. "Do you think you could look at this for me? I don't want anyone laughing at me for being dumb." Will's little admission made his cheeks flush a faint shade of red and Elijah knows what he means. It sucks having your classmates laugh at you.

He was speaking softly as if he had been on edge and waiting for Elijah to snap at him to get lost all because he asked for help. But what Will didn't know at the time was that he hit that special spot in the other boy whose head was often lost in the stars. Elijah loved space. He always felt as if there were some parts of him born from the stars and made of stardust. But Will didn't need to know that. All he needed was the information Elijah could supply him with to complete the project correctly. He didn't take control so Will could learn a lot which truthfully surprised him. He was even more astonished when he found himself laughing with the kid without having to force it.

When Jonathan came home that day, the pair didn't shoo Will away as he expected to be. Elijah accepted the kid more warmly into his life and loved to spend time with him, and he knew his friend appreciated having someone that didn't mind when his little brother tagged along on their little adventures. But Will was gone now. And they had to find him.

"If you're ever lost," Elijah remembered recommending the kid, "let the moonlight guide you home."

Will laughed at that and Elijah ruffled his hair. He wonders as he drives with a turn of the steering wheel if he was thinking about that.

They drive around town for as long as they can in hopes Will only got lost last night in the dark with only the moonlight to guide him because Jonathan informed Elijah that his mother, Joyce Byers, was already at the station submitting a missing person's report. He slowly felt worse the longer they spend searching with no such luck and it truly breaks his heart to have to watch Jonathan deliver that news to Joyce when she returned from the police station. She was such a great mother and sometimes made Elijah long for his own because she was so welcoming and lovely as any parent should be.

However, now she's much more frantic. And Elijah can't imagine an inch of how she feels because there surely must be a growing hole in her soul that could only be filled with the discovery of her son. "Did you find anything?" Joyce questions the teenage boys helplessly as soon as they step out of Elijah's car and onto the lawn.

Although Elijah offered to be the one who told her, Jonathan does. "No," he mumbles to her sadly. Joyce makes the most wounded noise Elijah heard with the tips of her fingers pressed to her lips as if that will somehow keep her fragile frame together.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Byers," Elijah quietly apologized.

But Joyce shakes her head. She doesn't want Elijah's pity, and he understands that. He shouldn't be handing it out in the first place. "You boys should be at school," she says quietly but he knows her worry isn't placed with the two not attending their classes for the day.

Elijah presses his lips together tightly before finding the words. He's good at taking charge and the lead when no one else is stable enough to do so, not that he blames them, of course. "He's out there, somewhere, and we can find him. We won't leave any stone unturned. No one deserves to be this afraid." Not Jonathan, not Joyce, and not Will.

The shuddering breath Joyce draws in makes Elijah think he said something wrong, but then she takes his hands into hers. "Thank you, Eli," she whispers with as much genuineness that her son used with him first. Joyce gave a sarcastic sigh as she thinks back to her earlier adventure. "You're much more help than the police."

Elijah suddenly scowled. He didn't like many things - kids, the sun, cereal when it gets soggy, Nevaeh's attitude, Shane Lewis - but cops really took the cake. They were nothing but destructive pigs that caused more chaos than any criminal he's ever known. He didn't expect them to have been any help. "Yeah, that station is a whole fu - " Elijah stopped at the disapproving look on Joyce's face before correcting himself and finishing with; "... Fudging joke." He winced and gave a shrug.

"Anyway, we don't have to waste our time on those pigs. No more smelling bacon, yeah? Let's do this ourselves. Where haven't we looked yet?" Elijah questioned, glancing from Joyce to her son. He's doing everything he can to remain calm for the sake of the small family. They need at least one person not panicking.

There's a heavy beat of silence that Elijah allows to give Jonathan and Joyce the time they need to think. It takes a minute or two, but then Joyce perked up as if a memory freshly hit her. "The little - um - " She takes her hand away to snap her fingers as she tries to think and place her words together like they were a puzzle. "His, shoot, his clubhouse - "

Jonathan's eyes lit up. "Castle Byers," he finished for her.

Elijah doesn't know what he was expecting from their description of Castle Byers. But it's a small hut built in the woods close to their house put together with logs of split wood. They decide to leave their cars behind so they can search between the trees better, hoping Will was lost without the moonlight because the sun was too bright to tell where he should be led home. Castle Byers is probably the dream of any little kid who wants the feeling of independence. It's full of different magazines and other various trinkets any kid Will's age would love to play with. There's even a pile of blankets and pillows that make a bed.

It's awful to see how desperate Joyce is for her baby to be there and the shattering expression she carries when it's completely empty. Elijah hopes she doesn't notice when she rips away from the shelter as he places the palm of his hand over the blankets after crouching to feel them. They're not warm at all. The chill of November's air wouldn't have been enough to keep them cool if Will had slept here last night. Elijah doesn't have the heart to announce that. He only frowns and pulls away so he can exit the hut as the two remaining members of the Byers family calls out for their lost one.

Elijah gazes at the rustling tree branches. He wonders if Will is there and can hear them, scared, desperate to come home. A chill passes through him from the chilly fall air at the terrible image, but sometimes, when you're in the worst position possible, you think of the most awful thoughts. So Elijah pushes those useless pictures to the back of his skull so he can focus on cupping his hands around his mouth and shout for Will until his voice became hoarse in hopes that he wasn't too late and the moonlight was just behind the sun, waiting for it's time to shine on the missing boy.

━━━━━━━━

author's note:

alas, i could not resist. elijah wolfhart is my sun, my moon, and all my stars, and just when i think i lost inspiration for his story i realize i have not one bit.

i know steve wasn't in the first chapter but do not fret - the angst is brewing. and it's creeping slowly but surely. hope you're prepared. ❤️

thank you for reading!!!

- koda

.•° ✿ °•.
WORD COUNT:
4.1k.
°•. ✿ .•°