Chapter Text
The sound of the party dulls as he moves along the beach, following Mike’s footprints in the sand. It doesn’t take Will long to find him. Mike’s sitting with his feet buried in the sand, the nice shoes and socks Nancy had forced on him discarded somewhere down the beach. His tie is hanging loosely undone around his neck, his suit jacket long lost, and the sleeves of his button-down are rolled up, despite the cold. Will stands back for a moment, taking him in. The arms clutched around his legs. The wind going through his hair, his face turned into it, eyes closed. The tear tracks Will can barely see in the moonlight.
He’s still the most beautiful boy Will has ever seen.
This time, Will sits in the sand next to him, and he decides not to say anything. He understands it better now. He knows that the words will come out wrong, that anything he wants to say isn’t what Mike needs to hear. That he probably hurts in the same way Will does, but he doesn’t know it yet, and neither does Will.
So in this dream, Will just sits there. Grabs Mike’s beer where it sits in the sand next to him, takes a drink and pretends not to hate the taste. Mike opens his eyes, and when he sees it’s Will next to him, he moves closer and leans his head on Will’s shoulder, and Will moves his arm around Mike’s back.
They sit like that, passing the beer back and forth, watching the waves, and grieving all of the same things.
Will comes out of the dream slowly, blinking as his eyes adjust to the darkness of the room. It’s early, probably night still, the sunlight not yet peaking through the blinds. He scrubs his hands over his face and groans before getting out of bed anyway. He knows he won’t be able to go back to sleep, he never can after dreaming about Mike.
He’s been dreaming about Mike again a lot recently.
He doesn’t sleep much at the moment.
Will pulls on a sweatshirt he left on his desk chair and flips on the overhead light. He pauses for a moment to look at the pictures on his desk. One with his family, the day of graduation. The party as kids on Halloween, posing in their ghostbusters costumes. A polaroid from a couple of years ago, taken at Central Park, from when Dustin, Lucas, and Max had come to visit. And the last one, one that Jonathan had taken years ago in Lenora.
In this picture, Will and El are sitting on the swings at the park down the street from their old house. El’s in a tank-top and jeans, her skin showing its first ever tan from the California sun, and her hair is the longest it ever was. Will’s turned towards her, telling some story he doesn’t remember now, and El has her head back laughing.
Will knows she wasn’t happy in Lenora. That she was grieving Hopper, and struggling to fit in, and missing Mike and her friends back in Hawkins. But for this one moment, in this one picture, she was happy. Will was able to give that to her, by telling her some silly little story.
Will picks up the picture and moves toward the easel in the corner of the room, hidden away with a sheet thrown over it. He props the picture up on a windowsill so he can look at it as he works, going to grab his paints and his Walkman. He grins at the cassette tape still inside: Kate Bush, a gift from Max on her last visit. In case he ever feels stuck in his own head, she had joked.
He puts on the headphones and carefully pulls the sheet off of the painting. This one isn’t a part of his senior portfolio—he’s already completed all of that. All he has left to do now is walk that stage at the end of month, and he’ll have his nice fancy fine arts degree from NYU (and no idea what to do with it). No, this painting is only for nights like this; it can only be worked on when the rest of the world is asleep.
He dips his brush in the paint, and works on adding more details to the brown hair, before moving on to the rushing water. He paints for hours, after the sun has risen and started to warm the room, and the sounds of New York coming alive in the morning have started, and his roommate Carlton has wandered in in his boxers, eating a bowl of cereal and watching him work.
Will nearly jumps out of his skin when he notices him.
“Don’t look!” Will yells, pulling the headphones off of his head and throwing his arms out to block the canvas.
“Why?” Carlton shrugs, still eating his cereal. “Is it dirty?”
“What? No.”
“A naked man? If so, you have to show me.”
“Dude.”
“Your latest lover?”
“Ew.”
“Is it really bad? Embarrassing? Will they take away your degree if anyone sees it?”
Will crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow at Carlton, not even dignifying that with a response.
Carlton just shrugs. “So what is it then?”
“It’s just…” Will trails off, searching for a reasonable explanation, words for all the things he’d rather just paint about.
“Just?”
“It isn’t unfinished,” Will explains.
“Jesus Christ, you’re dramatic,” Carlton mutters, shaking his head and turning to leave the room. “By the way, it’s after noon. Aren’t you supposed to meet your brother soon?”
“Shit,” Will swears, finally glancing at the time. “You couldn’t have led with that!?”
He’d moved in with Carlton a couple of years ago, after their freshman year at NYU. They’d hooked up once, December of Freshman year, when Will’s thoughts had been taken up by the holidays and the fact that he wouldn’t be spending them in Hawkins. Will had been getting more comfortable with his sexuality, finally living in a place where it didn’t feel like a death sentence, and he’d wanted an escape. And Carlton had been cute and funny and smart and obviously interested in him. Will hadn’t needed Robin’s help to decipher those signs.
So Carlton had come back to his place one night when Jonathan was out, and Will had started making out with him, and before he knew it, Will had started to cry. Carlton had pulled away when he felt the tears on his own face, asking Will what was wrong. Will had broken down then, sobbing out an old story, about a little boy who had fallen in love with his best friend, and apparently never gotten over it. Carlton had held him through it, kissed his cheek when he’d finished crying, and declared that it sounded like what Will really needed was a friend.
And they’d been friends ever since.
But now, Will was going to have to rethink that friendship, because he was running late to his monthly dinner with Jonathan, and Nancy and Steve and Robin were all supposed to be there tonight and he absolutely refuses to show up with his paint in his hair.
Also, how did he get paint in his hair?
He quickly covers the painting again and goes to jump in the shower, washing away the paint, and memories of waves, and dreams of a different lifetime.