Chapter Text
November 15th, 1988
Sick.
Will is sick.
Well, maybe not quite physically. However, he probably was going to be that too, soon. He felt his back shudder as he pressed it against the door, clutching his hands into white-knuckling fists at his side, trying to calm down his breathing. There was a feeling in his gut, so apprehensive and greedy, tearing at his insides, twisting and turning, making him nauseous.
He could hear hard footsteps smashing against the wooden floor, stumbling around aimlessly, knocking things over every now and again with loud bangs that made Will’s whole body tense and flinch involuntarily as he closed his eyes shut. Below, through the tiny gap between the floor and the door, locked tight, he heard mumbled swears endlessly roll on into his room, making the air only further dense. Will’s heart felt like it was pounding in his throat, begging for any other sign of life other than its inconsistent beating and pumping. The boy, however, no matter how scared, couldn’t move. He was frozen.
Will listened carefully, holding his breath, as his father broke another glass of some heavy alcohol, and judging by the very familiar sound, he smashed this one against the east wall of the living room. Will might just throw up. Thick silence hangs in the air like syrup, dripping from every smeared and ripped wallpaper in the house to the very last room; it was inescapable.
Will tilted his head back, raising his chin in an act of refusal to let the tears escape and glide down his cheek. He pressed his lips into a tight-straight line, forcing himself to take slower breaths through the nose. He spared a tiny glance, once he believed his eyes to be dry, down at the watch on his wrist. 5:15. There was a salty drop of water, which splashed recklessly on the glass of the watch, blurring the top numbers. He was wrong.
His hand tentatively reached for the key and turned it, less than eagerly, grabbing for the knob and twisting it with a quiet and slow push. Any minute now, he thought as he walked in what he hoped passed as a normal pace up to the phone near the hallway. He kept his gaze low on the shiny tip of his black loafers, but he saw his father’s shadow dancing in the corner of his eye to his right. That is not something you can ignore, but rather pretend. Just like Will’s life was none of his business, Will pretended just the same way and he learned that the more distance he put, the more likely he was to avoid situations.
Not like you’re not used to them, he scoffed inaudibly, inside his stormy mind.
The fridge door swung open with a loud creak and the hinges almost broke under the amount of force Lonnie put in the violent pull. His eyes were bloodshot and dark, terrifyingly scanning the almost completely empty glass shelves. Couldn’t they have picked a worse time for a call, Will thinks to himself as he pulls the receiver to his ear, sparing one last cautious gaze to the kitchen. But what do Dustin and Lucas know what it’s like? They have no idea.
His finger pulled the telephone wire with a weak tug and he twisted it nervously around. He wasn’t going to speak first.
“Will? Will, you there?”
Will let out a sigh and tried to block out the noises, of not just tonight, but this haunted, damned house on relatively any other night. As long as Lonnie had the intention to show up home, he would and none of the Byers brothers slept that whole night.
Will realized he’d gone silent for a moment too long and rushed to cough quickly: “Yeah, yeah—I’m here.”
“Sweet,” Dustin happily replied, clicking his tongue after some shuffling, which was probably just the boy switching the receiver from one shoulder to the other. Will’s finger dug into the plastic of the bright yellow microphone. There was a short silence.
“So… we were thinking Friday night, Star Wars marathon,” Lucas posed, cutting to the chase, “What do you say, Will? Dustin’s place.”
Lonnie shouted his name, freezing him to the bone, a chill running down his spine like a long-legged spider. It felt muffled, but even so, Will could tell it was angry, soaked in nothing but pure malice and disgusted. As if the name were poison on his lips.
“Yeah, sure,” Will replied automatically, without even processing what Lucas had said. When the two of his best friends fell into silence, Will blinked a few times and let out a shaky breath, turning his head away from the microphone for a second, “Star Wars again, huh? What is this, the hundredth time?”
The wave of relief that washed over Will as he heard the two of them laugh over the three-way line completely blocked another loud scream of his full name, coming from the living room, a bit closer, yet still distant.
“Maybe,” Dustin said jocularly, the humor heavy in his accent and exaggerated lisp. Will could basically hear Lucas’ grin over the phone as he added, 7 o’clock, precisely on Friday. Will let his fingers press into the sides of the bridge of his nose as he shut his eyes. What day is it today? Wednesday?
“We really haven’t had a good movie night, you know, just the three of us, in a while,” Dustin said sentimentally.
“I guess, no, we haven’t, no,” Will added, his voice coming out more quietly and squeakier than he’d intended it to be.
“Well, let’s bring back the good old times!” Lucas exclaimed, followed by Dustin cheering in a high-pitched wail, and a small tired, but pleased smile crept on Will’s lips. He undid the wire wrapped around his finger and he immediately felt it. He knew the moment he straightened his neck and pulled his head from the ridiculously colored phone box, he was in for trouble. A lot of trouble...
After a bit of silence, Lucas’ voice, suddenly a lot softer, slowly croaked: “Will? All’s good?”
Will hated how worried he sounded. He hated the thought that, whenever they’d speak to him, it was somewhere in the back of their subconscious mind, always, reminding them how fragile Will is. Dustin and Lucas were the most respectful friends Will could have ever asked for. It was not on them. Will just hated how his family life defined him. Always stuck to him, like some permanently attached part of him, sown to his hip and the little, most self-loathing part of his brain.
“Yeah, man, everything’s good,” he replied, with a convincing lie.
“Okay…” Lucas added, skepticism heavily laced in his tone, which made Will cringe involuntarily, “You know you can always t—“
“See you tomorrow at school,” Will cut him off, and dropped the phone in its place hurriedly, hanging up, letting his head hang low for another moment. They knew him so well, yet they knew nothing at the same time. Will loved them, of course, how could he not? Just in these moments, it felt hard to love anyone.
Will turned his back down the hallway, raising a foot to step on the dirty, old carpet and make his way to the second door, his room. Just pay no attention to him. Just ignore him. He’ll leave you alone, his brain was telling him. Will somehow knew those were all lies. His heart was in his throat again, but not because he was scared. But because he knew it was coming, and that made him excited more than anything else. What is there to be cared of?
Just because it is something wrong doesn’t mean I should be afraid.
He let out an exhale, beginning to walk off, cutting his train of thought by the images of movie night and finally some peace and quiet in a friend’s house where he was more welcome and home than in his own.
What? It’s just a fist.
“Tell your mother I need that goddamn money.”
Lonnie’s voice rang at the same time, crushing Will from both sides like an avalanche coming down a steep mountain. He felt his jaw clench as his teeth ground together in a frantic dance. The muscles in his face tensed up, his whole body stiffening and straightening as a wooden plank, before he dared to let out a breath, just as quick as he held the next one trapped in his lungs. It felt like he was endlessly falling through the brisk air, with no ground in sight.
He could feel his father’s burning gaze penetrating holes in the back of his head as he took another step forward, pretending the issue was not behind.
“Tell your mother, I need the fucking money she owes me!” Lonnie repeated more menacingly, gritting out through his teeth before the second part of the sentence, which, after a dramatic pause, he shouted so that Will had to stop in his tracks.
The anger started to bubble in Will’s chest, and slowly rise like the sea level underneath the heating sun, eating up more of the shore with time passing. He felt his ears turn red as he was grasping for control over himself and his voice.
“If you need it so bad, why don’t you tell her that yourself,” he said calmly, trying to make his voice as flat and expressionless as he could muster. He was so sick of airing Lonnie’s dirty laundry.
“What did you just say?” Lonnie asked in a high pitch, clearly indicating he heard him well, and Will couldn’t help the crinkling of the skin on the bridge of his nose in disdain at his stained and ripped wife-beater and black shorts, which were tight in all areas and wetted by some hard beverage that had an almost bleaching effect near the seams.
He knows he shouldn’t talk back. He should swallow this in silence, go to his room, play some music to sit it down and wait for the cycle to repeat in a few days. He knows he shouldn’t poke the bear, intoxicated one at that, but his pride makes his jaw shift quickly. Quicker than fear. Be quicker than fear. That was a motto to live by or die while practicing, Will thought.
“I said,” he accented slightly, shifting to meet his father’s dark, sunken eyes, ”if you need—“
Will was floating.
His feet brushed on the wooden planks on the floor, the tip of his black loafers no longer shiny and clear, as they got scratched by the old material. He was dangling only slightly, still reassuring his weight pressed as hard as he could direct it into his father’s arms, which tightly gripped the collar of his yellow button-up. He felt the two hands twist his shirt, the soft fabric at his collar balling up inside Lonnie’s fists, and yank it toward the man so their noses were only an inch or so apart. Unclipped, dirty fingernails left marks in his neck as his father gave Will a good shake, huffing sticky, alcohol-scented and hot pants of frustration into his face, which remained unreadable and put together. Will had a firm look locked onto his features as he willed all his power to keep gazing wildly into Lonnie’s bloodshot and terrific eyes.
“Listen here, you little bastard,” Lonnie’s voice dropped to a threatening whisper, as the old muscles in his arms flexed at the tension of still choking Will’s collar, never loosening the grip, “don’t you ever talk back to me again, okay? I did not ask for your personal input. Do you hear me?” Will did not flinch.
The panicked part of him wanted to pry the pale hand away from his neck. The seasoned part of Will remembered what happened last time he tried to do that.
“Don’t give me any of your shit. I’m asking one simple thing and I expect you to do it without any attitude. Do you understand?” The relaxed leisure in his tone made Will more uncomfortable than all the shouting he’d done over the years. “I said, do you fucking understand!?” Now he yelled, basically barked so close in proximity to Will’s snub little nose and slammed Will into the wall, his fingers unfolding themselves from his shirt.
His shoulder blades hit the unfinished wallpaper hard, the hurt in this vicious shove enough to send chills of pain down Will’s upper arms. He reels back up, quicker, bearing for another hit on instinct. Luckily for Will, his flickering gaze was met with several seconds of lengthy, unimpressed staring, as his pulse rapidly sped up, beating at the side of a squared jaw.
Just because it is something wrong doesn’t mean I should be afraid.
Will, of course, didn’t even try to offer an answer, because he knew his father didn’t want one. It was all his twisted and sick game. A test. A mockery. Of his own son. He found himself staring everywhere but the madman’s eyes, since he could no longer bear such a task that required him to think of all the times his brother, Joyce, his loving sweet mother, had to look at those same, wild and unhinged, getting off after attacking. He could not think of the pain that surged through his shoulder without thinking about the same reddening skin and convulsing muscles that were the victim of Lonnie, belonged to his family. He focused on the broken and crooked nose bridge, ugly on his father’s face with a long scar running down the side of it, his high cheekbones, the tiny hole in his chin or the chipped tooth he saw peaking beneath his lips, mouth hanging half-open.
He’s not angry with me, Will thinks, and in a saddened way, that brings him some sort of relief. He’s not at all angry. Disrespected. Annoyed. Maybe a little bit irritated. But not angry. Will has seen angry. It’s much uglier than this, and he knows it.
Lonnie stepped back. Will knew how drunk he was, he could smell it, see it in the wild fire in his eyes, he could feel it in the sheer burning temperature of his skin, he could sense it, yet his father did not stumble over his step at all, as he glided past his son and calmly resumed his perfected walk back to his bedroom door. Why would he stumble after all? He is experienced. In fact, drunk Lonnie was even more tolerable than the sober, more violent version of him, because just as he’d predicted, Will heard his father's heavy limbs drop into the bed with a loud squeak coming from the weak matters, and then thick silence once again.
Will stood there for what seemed like a century, shaking, before he reached up and finally straightened the crumbled part od his yellow, plaid button-up with trembling fingers. He hates himself, for a moment, for several reasons, but the most significant being his lack of adjustment.
He wants to get used to this, and part of him is. A big part of him, that no longer notices when he calls himself a slur, that no longer flinches when someone raises a hand, that no longer tries at all, is used to it. But some part of him doesn’t seem to cooperate; some part of him, buried deep down, stuck on the chandelier in his friend’s house, on the pages of some kindergarten graphic novel, behind the screen of a Christmas family movie, knows it’s not right.
In one hideous thought, Will thinks himself lucky. Lucky because he didn’t get hit.
Will is lucky.
Lucky.
November 16th, 1988
The sky was about to come down, the world is ending, Will is sure of it.
That’s how badly it pours in Hawkins. Late falls have always been torrential, before the whole town would get covered in snow and the same branded, colorful Christmas lights, but this was not something Will had seen in a relatively long time.
He lay in his bed, not asleep but not truly awake either, listening to the calming sound of the raindrops rapping against the window above his head, tapping in a rhythmically inconsistent pattern, splashing on the frame in angry sheets. The winds of the storm, in combination with the sound of water dancing to his sides and on the roof above, just perched on the ceiling he was aimlessly staring at, were so loud that they blocked out anything else, filtering through Will’s messy thoughts, which he was infinitely grateful for. His chemistry book lay abandoned on his table, completely vanishing from sight, vanishing from mind as he closed his eyes and gave himself in to the sound of the raging storm.
God, he feels like he is drowning.
Is it the air that’s making it difficult to breathe all of a sudden?
It’s probably the closet, Will thinks lavishly. He sometimes forgets that, too. His head is filled with plans of leaving this place, turning his back on it, moving away, with nothing but a few changes of clothing and just enough savings from his job a the Video Buff, that he sometimes forgets he’s at least a year and a coming out away from that.
He promised himself he would. But just the thought of speaking that aloud makes him utterly ashamed and terrified, but this closet air surely can’t be good for his lungs anymore, can’t it?
Just a little more is what Will Byers kept telling himself. Just a little bit more. But now, in the eye of this rain shower, he felt like he was at his breaking point, as if the tip of the blade was against his throat and the very first drop of blood had begun to trickle down his neck. His head was filled with only the most hopeless thoughts, losing the will to carry on, as he felt that at every corner he would turn, he’d be met with despair. There were so many things going on, yet time seemed to have stopped completely. Will was doing nothing, yet he felt overwhelmed like never before, which even he had to laugh at the absurdity of that and how it made zero sense to his already spinning brain.
Life will be better, but not here.
So get out.
Will drew his gaze away from the ceiling and rolled over in bed, groaning unthankfully.
Get out. Get out.
His mind was practically screaming, itching with desire that he couldn’t seem to relieve, to do just that, simple as it sounds. Will raised his hand to his face, but quickly remembered his watch was now broken, the glass shattered like a white dove, completely not functional. He sighed in frustration and gave up on guessing the time, it can’t be much past eight; it’s not like it mattered.
Will wasn’t exactly the most presentable. He was in the same yellow button-up from yesterday, all wrinkled and worn. His hair was disheveled and uneven, his round bangs probably lopsided, but Will couldn’t care. He grabbed a letterman jacket, pulled his vans from beneath the bed and was ready to just get out in a matter of seconds. The yellow and red letterman jacket didn’t have a hood, Will didn’t have a plan, but he couldn’t bother. Each passing second was another breath he didn’t get to breathe properly.
With a sketchbook stuffed in the inside of the jacket, he climbed out of the window. It was smooth and soundless, done in one swift jump and swoop across the wet frame, mastered legs landing at the conveniently placed large rocks below.
He didn’t know where he was going, but he was indeed going somewhere. And he was out, with the freedom to breathe at least somewhat more believable, out in the empty streets surrounded by the evening sky, the whole world drenched in rain. Just the world and Will.
The muddy, soaked road beneath his feet began to slip and wind away quicker and quicker, his pace picking up imperceptibly, before he even knew it, Will was basically on the verge of a run, speeding down into the night. Rain poured on him endlessly, seeping through his light clothes and into his skin, drenching him and crashing against his hunched-over shoulders. The air wrapped around him like vines, twisting around the bare skin of his ankles and fingers, biting them and making his lips quiver. His blood was hot, boiling, fumed by rage and pure devastation and the world, when no one else would, seemed to listen to Will and give the force in return. Will didn’t seek shelter, a destination, or a friend. He sought out a place to let out a guttural scream. And just as he’d passed Mirkwood, off the road where no sane soul wondered in this whether, he yelped a visceral and exhausted grunt, leaning on a tree trunk, placing a palm to his wet face. He knew he was crying. He doesn’t know when exactly the tears began to flow, since it was pretty hard to tell what were his tears and what was the raging rain on his cheeks, but they were long-awaited. He cried. There might not have been a single reason other than that Will was human. It was the most human sign of life his heart long needed to hear. And with the world keeping him company, he let himself breathe and exhale, cry, until, still unsure what was the rain and what were his tears, he figured he had calmed down and calmly resumed his walk.
Now Will was thinking more clearly. He was headed in the direction of the town. His head still felt light on his shoulder, his mind still a bit absent, his problems still very real, if not even more so, but the rain had, at some point, when Will had lost track of time, begun to slow down until it was only seeping. Will’s grip on his sketchbook never relaxed. His step was now slow and it could be classified that he was roaming around aimlessly.
The rain had stopped. It was late; the night was drawing its curtain over the horizon. He doesn’t want to go home. He can’t go home. Not yet. Anywhere. So he kept walking. He took his headphones, finally dry, perched the cassette on his belt and placed them cautiously on his head. The indie sound of The Cure eased Will’s posture noticeably, and soothed his ears still ringing if he were to shake his head sternly. Now that he had music and a road leading to nowhere, Will finally felt home.
The coin made a weird sound as Will’s frozen fingers dropped it in the payphone. He’d barely hit the right angle to fit the money in; that’s how stiff his slightly blue fingers felt. He leaned into the receiver, reeling his shoulder into the glass box and resting on one leg. He drove the phone closer to his face, closing his eyes, listening to it ring for a long time.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Dustin, it’s—“
“Will?” The voice that came from the other end of the phone didn’t sound surprised or shocked, not at all, maybe even the opposite—a little too expecting and a little too knowing. It just sounded worried and sympathetic, already making Will feel bad about it, having to stop himself from counting for what time this exact thing had happened in just this month.
“Yeah, yeah, sorry I’m calling from a payphone… somewhere—I’m somewhere in town,” Will frowned, shifting his weight on the other leg and freeing his shoulder from the wall, “I-I’m not sure where exactly… doesn’t matter.”
“Okay, yeah, I figured it was you.”
There was a silence that followed, where Will was expected to say something, but was simply too tired to do so. Will just hummed into the phone absently.
“Do you know how late it is?” Dustin asked. It wasn’t mad or accusatory; Will knew that. He also knew that he had no idea what time it was.
“No,” he said truthfully, opening his eyes slowly.
“It’s 9:30, Will.”
Has he really been out for that long? He didn’t even realize. He bit the inside of his cheek lightly, waiting for Dustin to add something, but there was no real need for any other comment.
“Do you need me to come pick you up?” Dustin offered, his voice suddenly growing soft and quiet, almost whispering into the line. Will’s gaze flickered on the street outside, the moonless sky and dark cars zooming past the payphone.
“Yeah. Please,” croaked Will in a hoarse voice, nudging his foot into a crack in the pavement where he stood.
Dustin’s reply was instant, because there was no debate in his mind at all, “Okay, Mugly. I’ll be there in like 20ish minutes. You know, I’m not supposed to be out too; I have to wait for Mom to knock out. Wait for me, okay?”
“M-okay,” Will replied. It was routine. Waiting for Dustin and his blue Audi at Mugly. It’s a nice little café that Will knew couldn’t be far away from where he was located right now. Just as Will opened his mouth to thank Dustin for being understanding and an amazing friend, like he always is, Dustin spoke first.
“You didn’t get soaked, did ya?” He asked, not really joking, but with a funny intonation. Will knew he was serious, and he would worry, silently, but in his own way that felt all too personal to Will.
Will thought about it for a second: “No.”
“Good, okay, grab a coffee or something, get warm. I’ll be coming in a minute,” Dustin said, in a strict voice just before Will heard him scrambling on for shoes and tripping sounds around his room over the line, cursing softly under his breath. Will couldn’t help the smile curving at the tips of his lips.
“Hey Dustin,” he called after he felt like the boy had gone away from the receiver.
“Hm?”
“Thank you,” he said meekly, playing with a loose string peeking from underneath the jacket, all yellow and long. Dustin seemed pleased. Anytime, he had replied tenderly. No problem at all. Will liked to believe that. So dry as he would get tonight, he exited the glass box and turned his heel west, uptown, heading to Mugly.
The bright lights of the neon sign came into view before the rest of the pink building did. Will’s socks were still wet by the time he stepped inside the warm café. The walk wasn’t long, yet it felt longer than all the trekking he’d done for the past almost two hours. Will hung the headphones easily around his neck and paused the Journey song that had been playing way too loudly when he fully entered inside. The warmth felt comforting on his cold-bitten cheeks and frozen eyelashes. Mugly was almost completely empty at this hour, there were just a few people scattered in booths on the furthest parts of the relatively big interior, so that nice quietness engulfed Will fully. He sat in one lonely booth near the window he could look out of, placed his sketchbook on the grey marble table, setting his pencil on top of it and letting his shoulder ease into the red velvet cushion behind him.
He suddenly felt really morose. His eyelids took longer to open with each blink, until he could fully see the pitch-black darkness every time he would do so. The café’s lights spun in and out of focus, blikering with Will’s consistent, prolonged blinking.
“Hey, Will!”
Drawing his gaze up, he was able to spot a very familiar barista, standing by him, leaning on his table with a one-sided casual smirk. Her unruly dirty blonde hair was cut by her neck, one side clearly accidentally longer than the other, slightly curly and messy. Her freckled face had a pleasant expression, with only a slight frown in between her neatly plucked, finely shaped light eyebrows, posing a friendly question at his appearance so late on a school night.
Will could recognize her by her red converse only, drawn and written on in black sharpie, the laces the color of Will’s soaked, dirty vans right now. Robin. Robin Buckley was her name. She was older than him, a few years ahead. She went to Hawkins High, however, the year Will had been a freshman, she’d graduated then. She worked here for a long time.
“Um… hello,” he’d closed his sketchbook as she approached, filled with doodles of the slightly crooked tree outside this window, and the marble tables and red chairs, booths from differing perspectives.
“Late-night coffee again? Espresso with milk, no sugar in a small cup?” she flipped her notepad closed, realizing she didn’t need it. “The usual?”
The usual.
Will hoped he remained expressionless at that. The need to contort his face at that comment and the thought that he came in so often like this, late at night all sullen and in need of caffeine, that the worker memorized and knew him and his order, like some regular, eventually won and he concluded that by the way Robin’s expression shifted. He tried not to think too hard about this being a routine of his. He won’t let it be.
“Yeah,” the tired boy made his best attempt to chuckle and straighten out his bangs and make them into the round swoop around his head they usually were best at. “That’s all, thanks.”
He saw Robin lock eyes with his temple and top of the right cheek and he immediately dropped his gaze to his hands, neatly tucked into his lap, staring intensely at his nails. Robin hesitated for a bit before returning her voice to a happy jingle.
“Of course, coming right up in just a minute,” she replied happily and let herself stare into the flushed boy's eyes, with a hint of earthly green near the brown iris, “I like your shirt, by the way,” and with that she turned around without waiting for a reply and Will watched her disappear behind the counter.
He let out a sigh, bringing a tentative hand to the right side of his face. With a soft rub, he inhaled sharply and then let his hand drop lower to hold his chin in place, perching an elbow on the cold table, resting his head in his palm. He put on his headphones and began to absent-mindedly doodle on the smudged, but successfully dry page again.
Someone barged into Mugly. The jutting of the door made Will’s head bob upwards from his doodles. He watched the figure in a black leather jacket, slick and dripping with old rain, stop and examine the terrain, scanning with two hooded eyes around the café. When the boy turned in his direction, Will’s breath hitched stupidly. The boy was so ridiculously handsome and easy-going, so absurdly relaxed, hands in pockets, the silver chain on his ripped jeans nonchalantly swinging, that Will couldn’t help but stare. His grin, which seemed permanently imprinted on his pretty face, screamed that this confident-looking boy owned the world, held it at the tips of his fingers and toyed with it when he wanted to. That was Will’s first impression in those very quick fleeting moments he skimmed over the newcomer’s appearance. The second, more alarming observation came unbidden and struck like a mad, quick flash of lightning.
Damn he is good-looking.
The boy looked around Will’s age, maybe just a bit older, not much than eighteen. His hair was unruly and the color of a squid’s heart, the color of the midnight sky with no stars, the color of Will’s leather-bound sketchbook and his own smooth biker jacket. It was long, the curls twisting around and down his neck in half-dry arches, bouncing above his relaxed shoulders. His bangs were still wet, pressed straight onto his pale forehead. Dark eyes, as mysterious as two coffee beans, flew over each table magically. His freckled face had a certain expression, vague on his sharp features and bone structure. The cheekbones carrying all those star-like soft freckles were placed high on his face and sucked in his cheeks to nonexistence. The boy’s sharp jaw was turned to Will’s as his neck cracked to the side once again. Will was breathless and he was unapologetically staring, soaking in his messy and rugged beauty, mouth hanging softly agape, pencil stuck abandoned between his fingers.
Will found it hard to pull his gaze away when he realized how unsettling this blatant gawking must look like. He caught himself thinking nonsense, how this boy must be so photogenic, how nice it would be if he were half like his brother, to just be able to take a camera and slyly photograph him from afar.
He bit his tongue sharply when his brain, on instinct, called himself a slur. He shouldn’t think things like that, one part of him would say defensively. But he also shouldn’t think things like that about a boy; that’s not normal, another part of him, he was so desperately trying to kill, would jump in just at the right time. He forced his jaw to close tight when, in the midst of having this eternal panic, he realized the strange boy who’d just burst into this café this late at night, was staring right back at him, his eyes crinkled at the corners as he performed a bare-toothed grin for Will.
The sketchbook, Will thinks. Just stare at the sketchbook. He pulls a line, all too shaky, but he realizes it does not make any sense to the beginning of the framework of the ice-cream machine in the corner he had begun sketching, and lets out an exhausted breath. His brain feels like mush and he suddenly can’t remember how to draw, only to think of the way his ears and nose must be bright red.
Someone slips into his booth easily, right across from him, before Will can even dare to look up. He is very skinny, is the first thing Will thinks in a split second before he can remember to panic. Then he, naturally, panics.
To call his frame slim would be an understatement. He was very tall; his limbs were awkwardly long and skinny. Will thought he could wrap an arm easily around the perimeter of his waist, all squished and sunken at the sides. Will doesn’t want to look up. Unsure of himself, he slowly paused his music and brought down the headphones from his ears, as he felt it in the thick air that the boy wanted to speak. Taking one good last look at his wrinkled yellow shirt he flickered his gaze up to the stranger now sitting across from him, leaning on the booth as if it were his own.
“Do I have something on my face?” he asked, completely unfazed.
Will already regretted ever acknowledging this dark-haired, mysterious person, who invited himself to Will’s depressive late-night coffee. He frowned at his bizarre question, placing two hands in front of him, splayed out on the table.
The boy’s grin was hideously charming, “You were staring, so I assumed—“
“No, no, no, there’s nothing on your face,” Will mumbled, embarrassed, eyes wavering across his features. God, was it that obvious? The boy seemed pleased. Will watched as he swiftly removed his leather jacket and neatly placed it next to him, revealing a deep blue button-up with thin and tiny, tasteful yellow stripes running down his torso and a pin stuck to his chest. Will focused on reading what the black text said, as to avoid his dark, glooming eyes. ‘Jesus loves u’.
“Oh, good,” the smile on his face didn’t hesitate, as he seemed lost in thought for a second before snapping back to reality, serious all of a sudden, “You don’t mind if I sit here, no?”
Will didn’t know how he should reply, but neither did he want to be rude to this complete unknown that did nothing wrong, no harm at all and was, maybe too passively, but alas just trying to be friendly. So he shook his head quickly: “No, it’s fine.”
The boy nodded to himself, his curls jumping happily with the merry bobbing of his head. He closed his eyes for a minute, and Will was staring again, drawn in to this outcast visitor of his, curious in his intentions. It didn’t look like he wanted to mess with Will, so why? Why is he even here?
“Mike Wheeler,” the black haired, cute boy with small dimples, seated across from Will, offered out a skinny and pale hand. Long, cold fingers locked with Will’s hand in a firm shake, and Will saw he wasn’t letting go. Their hands hung in the air over the table between them.
“Will… Will Byers,” he replied tiredly, both of them finally drawing their hands back to themselves. Mike just hummed absently in response. There was a moment when none of them spoke a thing, letting the silence of the café bear on them too. Mike was the first one to begin, looking weirdly over his shoulder. “So… Will—“
“Excuse me,” Robin accented loudly as she approached the table with Will’s usual in her hand, slipping it quietly on the table. “Espresso with milk, no sugar, and a small cup for mister Will.”
Her eyes found their way to the flamboyant Mike Wheeler, comfortably lounging in the booth, smiling back at her warmly and a little bit awkwardly, but keeping Will in his peripheral vision at all times. Robin smacked her lips and pouted them, turning back to Will.
“Anything I could get for your friend here?”
“You don’t happen to sell milkshakes, do you?” Mike asked, leaning forward, so close now Will could count the sprinkled dots on his face and smell the cheap cologne of his, equally wrinkled as Will’s, blue, collared shirt.
Robin flashed her pearly white teeth, “All day and night, sir.”
“Great. I’ll take a vanilla, thank you,” he blinked at her in a friendly manner and Robin scurried off with his order, vanishing somewhere behind the counter once again. Will followed her light step and deeply stained red converse as long as he could, just to avoid looking back at Mike.
By the time he had glanced back, Mike was now the one staring at him, his expression suddenly serious and slightly worrisome. Just the little frown you’d make if you noticed the sky was nesting some greyish clouds while you were still outside. Some minor inconvenience.
But Mike wasn’t looking Will in the eyes. He was examining Will’s right cheek.
“Hey, what’s that?” his voice was so different from the kind of annoying tenor it had been just a minute ago, immediately dropping to a softer tonality.
Will’s stomach made an uncomfortable shift, making him wiggle in his seat. He was brutally aware of the ugly, nasty purple bruise spreading from his temple over his cheekbone, like some sort of colorful wrapping paper. It still hurt and made his vision blurry in the very right corners, if he were to recede his eyes in said direction, and it was still cold and stung sharply to the touch. There were red dots sprinkled, like a rash breaking out over the plum-like top layer of his skin. He knew it was hidden, but it was there. It was always there. Will coughed to cover the thick slime of a lie forming in the back of his throat.
“Yeah, no, it’s nothing, I just—“
The cold sensations of Mike’s fingers on his bruised skin was way less startling than the fact that they were there. Mike, who was still leaned over the table, perched on his elbows on his knees on the red leather seat, took the close proximity to Will to his advantage and seized up to his cheek. It was just a little brush of the strawberry-like, frozen tips of Mike’s fingers, just a mere, tender touch, still respectful but nonetheless horrifyingly sudden for Will.
He was frozen. A lot like when his father would swing, except this time for the complete opposite reasons. Because of how soft Mike’s hand felt, how reassuring and genuine his little burrow came off as. Will stayed speechless, eyes locked onto Mike as he watched the black-haired boy suck in a sympathetic breath and murmur an ouch, as he examined the nasty bruise.
—didn’t get so lucky today.
Will swallowed hard, nipping on the inside of his bottom lip.
“That looks bad. You okay? Does it still hurt?” Mike asked, snapping Will out of his reverie.
“Yeah, I am. It’s okay, it’s fine now,” he said, thankful it wasn’t a full lie, because he wasn’t sure he could muster a convincing charade right now. Mike had pulled his hand back, but remained seated on his knees, like some impatient child at the family gathering.
“What happened?”
Will knew he wasn’t being disrespectful or pushy, just a bit oblivious and clueless, a bit fast-mouthed. He meant the best, but Will knew you couldn’t just step from rags to riches. Not from a pig’s pen to a royal bed. You don’t wish for the best when you have what Will did. So he didn’t even try to settle for a good lie.
“I fell,” he retorted shortly, resting his gaze low to where he saw Mike pull on the long, soft sleeve, navy and deep as the sea. Mike watched intensely, not offering a response at that, just nodding his head too slowly for it to pass by Will. He was just glad he didn’t pry too much into this sore spot on Will’s cheek, both physically and figuratively.
The moment this mess of a conversation passed and Will let his fingers wrap around the warm cup of coffee protectively, letting it burn his hand in a sense of comfort, he realized how dense he felt speaking to a stranger at a café, waiting for Dustin to show up and pick him up. The silence was so evident, like a witness to Will’s wounds, that it was basically tangible. Will tasted it in the top of his mouth with the hot beverage sliding down his tongue, burning it fully, sticking to him stubbornly. The both boys felt something die between them.
“No sleep tonight, huh?” Mike tried with a weak smile and a pleasant chuckle, trying to get Will’s attention, though he saw him look curiously at his sketchbook.
“What?” Will’s confusion was genuine. He bit harder into his lip and ran a lonely finger on the ceramic, white plate where his cup rested.
“The coffee,” Mike’s hand gestured broadly in the air toward Will’s cup.
“Yeah… yeah…” Will shook his head easily, much like Mike’s silver chain, shrugging while trying to subconsciously imitate the nonchalance he saw on Mike’s figure as he watched it enter Mugly. He knew he was still probably stiff and tight; Mike probably thought he had a stick up his ass. He glanced at his coffee. He wasn’t going to sleep tonight anyway.
“What are you drawing?” He really didn’t want to let this conversation die, didn’t he? Will just had to wonder why, though. This all felt odd. Marching in, sitting with him in the booth, asking him all these empty, fake but seemingly friendly questions. What was going on? Will’s eyes felt too tired to try to analyze Mike’s pretty but punchable face and figure this out. Whatever it was, he was going to have to play along.
“Just doodling… you know, things around. Nothing big,” he stuttered over.
“Cool.”
Will looked around the almost empty Mugly once again, and there was no part of him that didn’t hope that Dustin would swing open that door right then and there and wave for Will to come in the car, take him home, reassure him in silence the drive back and leave him on his own. He let out a sigh again.
“Listen, Mike, I don’t know what—“
“One vanilla milkshake for Will’s friend—“ Robin’s perfect timing struck again, as he handed him the sugary dessert in the huge glass straight into his seeking hands.
“Mike.”
“Mike, nice to see you around,” Robin placed her hands on her hips, black-polished nails a stark contrast to the white apron she probably had to wear. “Well, have a nice evening, gentlemen,” She saluted and then her cool, older-sister presence ceased with her once again.
Will pinched his nose bridge and began again, “As I said, Mike, I don’t know what you want from me… or-or what are your intentions, but can you just get it over with, because this is just weird.”
“Weird?” Will hated how honestly hurt he looked, “weird, what do you mean 'weird'?”
“What you just barge into… into some kid’s booth to what, mess with him on a random Thursday night at Mugly. I don’t get it,” Will said truthfully, matter-of-fact.
“I don’t have any intentions or anything like that, relax. I don’t want to mess with you. I just…see, I need—“
A loud bang finally drew Will’s gaze away from Mike’s rabbit-like eyes, and he realized that was the door opening. If that’s Dustin, that was sure quick. Even though he knew the unlikeliness of it, he still hoped it was his friend coming to get him. Will’s eyes, however, narrowed with disappointment quickly as he watched the person over the curly boy’s shoulder come closer and closer to their booth. It was a girl, short and fit, with big hair, and her pace was quick and mad. Will could hear it in the way her heel clanked on the floor, snapping off like hornets, and it was soon his suspicions were confirmed by the smug, angry expression on her face that came into view. Will just had a really bad feeling about this.
Mike never once looked at her, instead, dropping back down to sit normally, he whispered under his breath: “Act casual.” Instead, his fingers naturally scooped up Will’s small coffee cup, and his face winced only slightly at the burning hot ceramic touch, and drove it across the marble stone to the very farthest end of it, as long as his arm stretched out to the window. Will’s face mirrored his confusion as Mike pulled his hands back into his lap and gave him a charming smile.
Lisa. That was her name. Lisa Montgomery. Will knew her from school, and she came into his mind with all the worst associations he could think of. Her puffy hair, curly and jumping as she trotted angrily, was just a symbol of status. The bigger the hair, the bigger the income, it seemed like. She was the daughter of some rich investor in Hawkins, and the face of the cheerleading squad, the perfect tigress and the name that haunted the halls and children like Will, Dustin and Lucas were. She was bigger than everything, over the clouds, god-sent pretty eyes and a ridiculous fashion sense that seemed to rely on stacking as many accessories as her body could carry, layer after layer only getting more hideous, but just like everything Lisa, and the likes of her, seemed to own it easily. Will had a really horrible premonition stuck to the back of his neck, rising with his hairs as she stepped in front of them, completely ignoring Will and turning her fuming, bright-red, flushed face to Mike.
Mike didn’t flinch once in her direction. Instead, he kept a dreamy smile at Will. “So you got that jacket at Hot Topic, you said?”
Will opened his mouth, as if to say something, though he really didn’t know what, then he closed it quickly. He opened it again, but before he could muster to say something, Lisa’s hand banged on the table, her red, long, threatening fingernails sprawling menacingly.
“Michael, darling,” her voice was like venom, sickly-sweet and thin as needles in the face. One hand on her hip, she was dangerously hovering over the boy, shooting daggers with her long, manicured eyelashes.
Darling. Well, that makes a lot of sense, Will thought, and felt his lips curl in disdain, wishing he could just dissipate into thin air and get out of there.
Mike finally brought his gaze up to her, and Will saw the helpless thin line in his cheek suck even further inside of his mouth, until he looked like some child getting scolded by his parents. Will heard, just barely, Mike clicking his tongue as he eyed Lisa up and down, disinterest heavy in his slow manner.
“Listen, Lisa, let’s just—“ Mike said, his voice passive and cold, so unlike what Will had heard a minute or so ago, offering some sort of mutual understanding. Or at least beginning to, since Lisa was quick to snap back, startling Mike, who was growing more subtly tense by the second. It was a tiny movement, so unnoticeable, if you weren’t staring so closely at his face and the small see-through part of his bangs, where you could see his thin eyebrow, you wouldn’t have been able to notice. Of course, Will was.
“No, you listen! You are not breaking up with me. You know why, Michael?”
It took Will a second to realize Lisa was waiting for a response. Mike rolled his eyes visibly to Will.
“No, enlighten me—“ he said, poking the bear, who on closer inspection might have been intoxicated too. Will’s eyes jutted between the two, like watching a fast-paced tennis match.
Will was more startled than Mike when Lisa’s hand flashed and jutted out before his eyes to slap the black-haired boy with a serious hit. His eye had gone wide as Mike’s head and whole body spun in the other direction, layered hair swaying over his face, hiding his expression so that Will couldn’t read what he was thinking. Will felt a wave of shock pass him, as Lisa seemed to show no remorse for hitting her, seemingly ex-boyfriend, right across the left cheek. Mike straightened up, eyes completely unfazed and showing no sort of reaction at all. He pressed one hand to his cheek, which was already growing red by the sharp impact. His hand tentatively cupped the injured spot as he sank back into the booth, like nothing happened. Except it did. And his cheek was already a nasty color.
“Because that doesn’t happen. I don’t get broken up with. Just because you, you—you nobody—a loser like you wants to. You suddenly wake up one day, thinking you have the right, to call me and—“ her disbelief seemed so plausible, she couldn’t even finish her first statement, jumping from one insult to the other, “You were the joke. I took you from that cult club whatever and now you call me… saying nonsense that you--you’re some qu—“
Will’s heart dropped and he held his breath at that, like Lisa Montgomery suddenly had a leash wrapped tightly around his neck, his attention fully hers. This all felt so ridiculous, like middle-school drama. Will was uncomfortable on a deeply new level. The louder Lisa got, the harder he found it to listen to her without feeling his temples burn with soft pain.
Mike’s face had contorted at that, opening his mouth to ease Lisa’s anger and hopefully fix this mess, because he better, Will thought. To his very worst nightmare and complete misfortune, the worst case scenario laughing and mocking Will in his petrified, stunned-looking face, Lisa, stopped by something in her rant, turned to Will and he realized that something was in fact, he.
Her piercing blue eyes looked mad, that drunken flame, which Will was quick to skillfully catch, was roaring at Will. His posture tensed up, wrapping an arm around his torso in a protective manner as if a shield could block words. This was about to be really bad and Will could feel it. He was suddenly glad his left cheek was closest to her, and not his right.
“You,” she hissed with the amount of hatred that would make most people feel disturbed and attacked. Will just looked at her in pure, honest confusion, not yet catching up on what she was implying. He has heard worse.
“You-you-you,” Lisa stuttered over her tongue, searching in Will’s tired eyes for the best insult or slur she could find, but of course she found none. Will has heard worse than whatever she had in mind.
So instead she gave up on words, since they so often failed people like Lisa Montgomery, and she reached for the vanilla milkshake and dumped its contents on Will.
The cold made Will gasp, more than the shock from her actions themselves. The sticky milkshake was quick to seep through his yellow button-up and reach his prickling skin. His mouth still hung open as he watched the shake drip from his body onto the red leather. The freezing sensation sent chills down Will’s whole body, as if ants were running up and down his torso and all over his neck. He hated the feeling of the wetness and the sheer thickness of this dairy product he was now completely drenched in.
Will waited for Mike to say something witty back, to do something, but just like when he’d gotten slapped, he’d watched calmly as Lisa suppressed a shudder as if she were the one attacked and drenched in a frozen milkshake.
“Fuck you, Wheeler. You make me so sick, Michael. So sick,” she basically whispered and turned on her heel, storming out of Mugly, just like she’d entered too.
He couldn’t believe it. Will just couldn’t. This is insanity. He bit on his lip to stop the tears that were announcing it was their time to shine yet again. He wasn’t sure how he hadn’t dried his canals fully today, but he was beyond grateful for the fact that he was able to stop them from leaking, here in the middle of Mugly, in front of Mike.
It took him a minute to realize Mike was offering him tissues that were on the table, since he was staring, unmoving, at his vans, unsure of how to proceed with anything. He snatched them from his hands and murmured a frustrated ‘thank you’, and started erratically wiping his shirt. There was not much he could do to help the situation, but he really loved this button-up and wasn’t planning on letting it stain so easily, but he had a bad feeling it would. His skin was still alert, his fingers now getting dirty and sticky as well, as he let huffs of exhaustion leave his lips instead of curses thrown at whomever he could think of, but mostly him own self.
“Better than burning hot coffee, yeah?” after a long, long silence, Mike finally said, breaking the ice half-joking, half-serious, tilting his head toward the cup on the other end of the table.
Will’s gears turned quicker than his mouth and he thought for himself bitterly: how smart of you. Should I thank you?
Worst part was, he probably should. He wasn’t planning on getting burned tonight. Mike Wheeler knew what was going to happen. Will did too probably, the minute her big head of hair found herself in Mugly. The milkshake just hurt.
Will avoided his gaze and ran furiously through more tissues, until he reached the breaking point of his effort and anger and now saddened, dropped back into a dry area of the booth. Mike watched him the entire time, hand still plastered to his cheek.
“It shouldn’t stain,” he said, in that weird soft voice again, “It’s vanilla, it shouldn’t stain.”
Will was too caught up in finally understanding what Lisa had implied, what she thought and what she now thinks she knows, and what that meant for poor Will, to hear him properly. Did she really say that? Did Mike really say that? It all felt like some sick joke; both of them were in, planned to mock a closeted and scared gay kid in high school in today’s cruel world. Will looked at Mike’s sincere black eyes and for some reason, those hot coffee grains gazing back at him looked so honest and lovely, he chose to believe otherwise. He, for some reason insensible and unknown to him, he chose to think Mike had nothing to do with this.
The smoke from the coffee cup had long vanished and grown cold. Will let himself close his eyes.
“I really like that shirt, you know? I’m sorry,” he said, leaving Will without a reply once more.
I really like that cheek, I’m sorry. There was no mockery in Mike’s tone, however friendly he was being, Will just wanted him gone. He just wanted him to shut up, lose his pretty face and cool slick leather jacket and let him be alone in peace with the vanilla milkshake drying to his shirt, which gathered two compliments today funnily enough.
“Yours too,” Will added nonsensically, staring at that odd pin and blue fabric once more.
Mike reached for his sketchbook, determined, and either Will was too slow or too tired to react, he just let him snatch it away from him, wiggling the pen in his fingers. He opened carefully the last page and scribbled something on it in quick succession, closed it with a smack and returned the little book back to Will, with a warm smile. The skin crinkled in the corners of his eyes and he cleared his throat, picking up the leather jacket from his seat.
“As much as I would hate for you to think I’m a jerk… and as much as I would really love to stay, I have to go,” it seemed like Mike didn’t know how to lie, because while the wording was awful, the statement itself sounded insecure and honest to Will, who just sat there moonstruck, still crumbling the used tissues in his hand.
Mike slipped the leather jacket on, reached into its pocket and retreated it with wrinkled money he placed on the table near the coffee. It looked more than enough for the milkshake, about how much the coffee would have cost, too. With that, his back was already to Will.
“I’ll make it up to you, Byers.”
The whole ride home, Dustin and Will were silent. That’s why Will would always call him, not Lucas. Lucas would ask and insist on talking with Will and he knew he couldn’t and didn’t need to in these moments. Lucas meant the best, but Dustin knew. He did, and he didn’t push Will whatsoever. In those car rides, Will felt infinitely thankful for a friend like him in his life.
He’d asked about the shirt, his nose crinkling at the intense smell of the sugary shake; Will had said it was an accident—someone tripped. He wasn’t up for rehearsing what happened inside that café mere minutes ago.
They fell into quietness and Will watched the road zoom past him, headlight’s blinding him as they approached. There really was nothing to say. He gripped the sketchbook to his side; he didn’t yet dare to open it. He just had to get into the house, into his bed and force his mind to shut down so he could forget about all of this. About everything. About how stupidly and embarrassingly queer he felt looking at Mike and how even still, after everything, he found himself with the urge to draw that face, the picture before everything went down still engraved in his mind.
He was insecure and ashamed of the feelings that filled his mind when Michael Wheeler entered the room. And he got a milkshake splashed onto him for it. Dad would be happy to know that, he thinks.
When he finally gets home, thanks Dustin and crawls in through the window, he lets his body hit the bed, not minding how dirt the sheets are going to be. He can worry about that later. Instead, he opened the sketchbook to the very last page and there he saw, in very messy and ugly handwriting, a phone number, which looked legit and:
I’ll make it up to you, Byers, if you let me.
-M