Chapter Text
“Not planning to get any drinks?”
Will doesn’t look up at first, thinking the question is being directed at someone else. He has been sitting empty-handed at the bar counter ever since he got here, trying his best to fit in and not get overstimulated from the crowd and the music. He feels stupid for thinking that there won’t be a crowd considering this was supposed to be a party to celebrate the 6th anniversary of the university’s Science Magazine club Will is a part of as an illustrator. The team has only 15 members. But of course, no one would rent out an entire club for a night to host 15 people and their few friends.
Not to mention, the music they are dancing to is awful. The DJ is doing a good job in creating the hype, but it all sounds like noise in Will’s ears. He dare say even Mike has a better taste than this.
“Um, hello?” He feels a tap on his shoulder.
Startled, Will looks up from staring at his joined hands, discovering a boy sitting next to him, smiling with a questioning look on his face. “Oh, you’re- you’re talking to me?”
“Yes!” He laughs, his eyes scrunching up to crescents. He has black, curly hair, the kind of curls that bounce a little when he shakes his head. “I saw you sitting alone and was wondering what you’re up to. Waiting for someone?”
“Oh.” Will blinks, finding it a little hard to believe that someone is here to talk to him. But maybe he was standing out, even in his desperate attempt to fit in. He looks around and sees everyone is either dancing or are huddled in groups, chatting and laughing and having fun. Everyone is doing something, something that’s not sitting at a corner like a loser. He turns his attention back to the boy. “No, no, it’s just me. And I, uh, I don’t drink.”
“Hmmm.” He nods understandingly. “Any particular reason or just a preference?”
Will doesn’t want to relive those days his father used to come back home at night drunk, and the smallest things could tip him off until Will would be on the floor wailing and Jonathan would be shielding him with his body. “Both, in a way,” he replies vaguely. “Also, I’m going to Montauk tomorrow. Early train.”
“Ah, is that where you’re from? Although I don’t really sense that kind of accent.” He holds out his hand. “I’m Liam, by the way. Liam Carlton.”
Will shakes it. “I’m Will, nice to meet you. And no, I grew up at a small town in Indiana, actually. My parents moved out of there recently, all the way to Montauk.”
“Cool!” He says it in a way that makes it seem like he really does find it cool. “Montauk’s not too far. You can go visit often. Me? My parents are aaaall the way back in Cali. Wouldn’t say I miss them though.”
“Oh, Califonia? I actually lived there for a few months, back in my first year of high school.”
“Really? For what?”
“Umm . . . long story.” Will tries to laugh, although memories of California are nothing fond. The only fond thing about it is the little moments of happiness he got to experience together with El.
“Gotchu. Some other time, then.”
Some other time. Will there really be another time? This person here is seemingly quite social, and their conversation seems to be flowing very naturally so far, which is not very common for Will. Will does not go approaching people by himself, but if they approach him first, he is moderately good at keeping up the conversation. That’s the only reason why he ended up becoming friends with Maria. All of the friendships in his life, starting with Mike, happened because the other person talked to him first. Even Max. Will’s first proper conversation with her outside the supernatural being haunting his life, was about how he reminded her of her best friend back in California.
Maybe it’s time Will becomes a little more proactive than just nodding his head to ‘Do you wanna be friends?’ So he keeps the convo going. “Which department are you from, Liam? If you don't mind me asking.”
“Certainly nowhere near an artist!” He raises his hands in surrender. “I’m in Physics. I’m not in the club, though. I’m actually here as a plus one of a friend who is acquainted with your club leader.”
“Wait, how did you know I’m from the Art department?”
“Seriously?” He jerks his chin towards Will’s hand. Will looks at it and notices for the first time how his fingers are smudged with paint. Purple, green, brown.
“Oh.” Will chuckles, and Liam shares it.
His face takes on a thoughtful expression. “You must be a great artist, Will. I get that vibe from you.”
“Really?” Will leans forward slightly, interested. He loves being perceived as an artist more than anything else. “What kind of vibe?”
Liam does not immediately reply. He blinks at Will for a few seconds, looking slightly surprised, before saying, “Well, for starters, I heard good artists tend to be good-looking as well, so that checks out.”
Will sits up straight. A blissful hope blooms in his heart. “Is . . . that so?” he asks.
“Sorry, that sounded so fucking stupid.” Liam aggressively runs his hand through his hair. “Was that weird? I didn’t mean it in a weird way, I just meant in a . . . I meant, like, ummm, the fashion and everything! Like the style, the way you carry yourself. I mean, the way you’re sitting! Here. In the counter. Like an artist sits in front of a canvas. It’s like very, um, very artsy? I mean, of course you’re good-looking too. Of course, really good-looking. But I meant that as a normal compliment. Like a dude to dude thingy-”
Will bursts into laughter, throwing his head back. “You-” he tries to say in between his laughs, “you remind me of my best friend.” This specific kind of tumbling-over-words-when-nervous is such a Mike Wheeler thing to do. It's one of the very few traits of Mike that has remained consistently unchanged over the years, and has always been one of those traits Will used to find the cutest-
Wait.
Will's laughter abruptly comes to a halt. He is not supposed to think about Mike!
“Do I, now?” Liam asks, rubbing the back of his neck, looking shy but also kind of accomplished.
Will smiles, nodding. He tries to bring his full focus to this interaction. Mike has already ruined his day, Will can't let him ruin his night as well. “Oh, that was hillarious. But thank you.” He feels strangely confident all of a sudden, so he looks Liam in the eye. “That’s a- that’s a really nice compliment. And no, I don’t think there is any rule that every good artist is also good-looking.”
“Of course there isn’t,” he says, then mutters under his breath, still loud enough for Will to hear, “because I just made that up.” He takes a sip from his glass of beer.
Will feels his face heat up. He bites down on his bottom lip as he examines his paint-stained palm on the counter. Is he dreaming? Is this really happening to him? Is he perhaps misunderstanding something? Reading too much into things?
Could this guy be someone like him?
If he is, he would be the first queer person Will has encountered in New York. First queer person other than Robin and Vickie that Will has ever talked to.
“Hey, why don’t you get a drink?” Liam asks, voice returning to the previous composure. “A non-alcoholic one, of course. Maybe a lemonade or a cola.”
“Hmm, I guess I’ll have a lemonade, then.” He raises his hand to call the bartender.
“Wait, I’ll buy it for you,” Liam interrupts, then calls the bartender himself.
“Oh, you don’t have to!”
The bartender comes up to them. Liam dismissively waves at Will as he asks for a glass of lemonade. “Think of it as a commemoration gift for our newly formed friendship?”
“Hmm, we’re friends now?” Will asks, grinning.
Liam’s smile drops. “We- we aren’t?”
“I’m just joking, of course we are.” It was so easy that Will almost finds it suspicious, like the universe is going to play another cruel joke on him. It seems to love doing that. Will can’t help but feel a pit in the bottom of his stomach telling him something will go wrong in this newly blossomed friendship with this cheerful person. It was the same when he became friends with Maria. But he tries his best to ignore it as he says, “Thank you for the gift.”
Liam smiles wide, his prominent dimples reminding Will of Max. Will receives his glass of lemonade, and they decide to clink their glasses before Will takes the first sip. It is sweet with just the right amount of tanginess to it. He half-turns around in his barstool and regards the rest of the club. “Do you attend parties often?” he asks.
“Often? No. But I have before, a few times. You haven’t?”
Will shakes his head. “This is my first one.” The second one he has been invited to, after Stacey’s party, which they never ended up going to. He has a feeling Dustin, Max, and Lucas wanted to, but kept it shut just for Mike. Instead, they had a sleepover in Mike’s basement, with Max getting the couch privilege. Will was fine with either, as long as he got to be with his friends, so he didn’t mind not going.
“Wow. Not many parties where you come from?”
“There are but, I’ve never been a part of the party-going crowd. Me and my friends, we used to be labelled as the nerds and freaks. We were the outcasts. It sounds a bit silly saying it like that now that we’re older, but it’s how it was.”
“Really?” Liam looks very interested as he turns his body to face Will. “And why was that?”
“I don’t know. I guess we were all different in some ways. And people don’t like different.”
“Different how?”
If Liam didn’t look genuinely interested, Will probably wouldn’t go into the details. But who doesn’t love talking about their friends? “Hmm . . . for example, one of my friends, Dustin, has this by-birth condition called Cleidocranial Dysplasia. Basically, he doesn’t have collarbones, and his teeth did not properly come out until we were like, 15? So you can imagine how he stood out. Another friend, Lucas, who is- well, my town was predominantly White. Lucas’s family was one of the very few Black families there. So he faced a lot of racism, even though he was so smart and athletic. And, um, the one I mentioned, who you reminded me of . . .” There he goes, having to think about Mike again. “He just has a somewhat unconventional-looking face, I guess? That’s how people saw it, at least. Used to call him Frogface. I mean, I find him beautiful . . . but apparently they didn’t.”
“They, as in bullies?”
“Yep. All four of us got bullied pretty bad for most of our childhoods.” In retrospect, Will doesn’t mind it all that much. Maybe because at the end of the day, he had his friends by his side.
“And what about you?”
“Hmm?”
“What made you different?”
The question is like a sudden punch in the gut for Will. He turns away from Liam, thoughts going wayward.
What made him different?
How can he tell this person that what made him different is going missing for a week and his dead body being found, only for him to come back to life? How can he say that he lived years with an other-worldly being eating away his brain like a parasite? Will this stranger believe him if he said that this other-worldly being, who used to be just a kid like him once upon a time, psychologically tortured him for hours with visions of the future where everyone he loved turned away from him because of his sexuality? That the being made him do terrible things, including killing people and digging an entire network of tunnels under his hometown?
Who would possibly believe that?
“Hey.” Liam waves a hand in front of Will’s face, snapping him out. Will looks at him. “You okay? I’m sorry, did I overstep?”
“No.” Will shakes his head, trying to ground himself back to reality again. “No, um . . . not at all, Actually, to answer your question . . . it’s another very long story.”
“I see.” Liam smiles, and Will can see kindness in it. “It’s okay. Things are better now, I hope?”
“Yeah.” Will shrugs. “As better as they can be.”
“Then that’s all that matters, really.”
Will nods and lets out an exhale, relaxing. “That’s all that matters.”
The two of them settle into silence. Will drinks the lemonade to drown the thirst that came with thoughts of the past. It’s still a little hard to believe he is sitting here having a conversation with someone who approached him first. And this person might actually be . . . interested in him.
No, that’s not possible. He shouldn’t get his hopes up. It’s too embarrassing, even to himself.
“You know what we should do, Will?” Liam suddenly says, sitting up straight.
Will mirrors him. “What should we do, Liam?”
“We should dance.” He gets off the barstool.
“No,” is Will’s immediate, instinctual response. “No, no, absolutely not.”
“Why not?” He scoffs. “Let me guess. You’ve never been part of the dancing crowd?”
“Exactly. You've hit the nail.”
“Come on, you’re at a party!”
First Jonathan, now this person he just met. Why is everyone pushing his boundaries today? “Liam, I really can’t. I don’t know anything about dancing and I’ll make a fool out of myself.”
“Okay look, just give it a try for five minutes. If you don’t like it out there, if you can’t get in the groove, we’ll come back and continue with our drinks. How about that?”
Will’s brain racks for excuses. “It’s- it’s too crowded. I don’t like crowds.”
“Hmm.” Liam stands up on his tiptoes and scans the whole scene. “Okay, found a less crowded corner. Come on now.” He holds out his hand.
Will stares at it, then looks around hesitantly. Should he really hold hands with a boy in a public place?
“No one’s watching, Will,” Liam says, as if reading his mind. “And even if they are, this is New York. No one gives a fuck!”
“Really?” Will asks, still a bit unsure, but almost convinced.
“Trust me, I’ve explored a lot more than you.”
“Okay.” Will decides to trust him and finally lets himself smile, and takes Liam’s hand.
Liam does not take him straight into the center of the dance space. Rather, they go around it, with Liam muttering excuse me’s and apologies to clear the way, just for Will. It’s such an awfully nice gesture that Will finds it hard to believe that it’s being done towards him. That too, by someone he just met. They find a spot where people are not grinding against each other and there’s enough room to breathe.
Will looks around him in bewilderment, shocked at how he is no longer an external observer of this scene, but rather a participant in it. The music is louder here, speakers blaring, bodies moving so in synch with the beat that it feels cinematic. Girls and boys sway to the rhythm, eyes closed, skins brushing, bottles clinking, losing themselves to the moment. It feels surreal. He wants to paint this.
And he is still holding Liam’s hand.
“Okay, just try to feel the music!” Liam yells over the song, then starts to bob his head to the beat, followed by his shoulders, and then the hand holding Will’s. He's a natural. It all comes to him effortlessly. Will looks down at their joined hands, and then he looks around, discovering that really, no one’s watching. It’s like everything he has learned to be so afraid of his whole life, doesn’t exist here at all. None of it. It’s a new world, one where he doesn’t have to hide, because he can just become one with the crowd instead.
“Will?”
Will turns back to Liam.
Liam leans closer to Will’s ear. “Are you okay? Shall we go back?”
Will shakes his head. “This is better than I thought!”
Liam’s face lights up. “What did I tell ya?” He slaps his own chest. “Come on now, dance! Throw some moves!”
Will makes a face that should tell Liam he has no idea how to ‘throw some moves’.
“Just imagine you’re listening to music all alone in your room!” Liam provides.
That’s quite a difficult thing to imagine, considering this place looks nothing like his room and he is nowhere near being alone. Still Will tries, and he pictures himself not in the room at his apartment, nor the room he had in California, nor Mike’s basement. He pictures himself in his room back at his old house in Hawkins, a house that no longer exists. A house that contains his best memories and also the worst. He pictures himself sitting on his bed in front of the radio, Jonathan sitting next to him. And in his eyes, there is no cooler big brother in the whole world. He pictures the two of them sitting there and discovering new music together. Or rather, Jonathan introducing his favorite bands to Will and Will falling in love with them immediately. And the song would always be loud enough to drown out the screams and shouts of their parents next room, and together the two of them would bob their heads and sway their shoulders and look at each other and laugh and Will would forget about his father’s abuse, the bullies’ taunts, the townspeople’s subtle judgements, and the growing realization that his feelings towards his best friend are not normal.
And before he knows it, he is dancing. Not full-on throwing his limbs around, but feeling the beat in his body and letting it guide his movements.
“That’s it!” Liam encourages, laughing so happily that Will can’t help but find it endearing. “That’s how you do it!”
“Do I look stiff and lame?” Will asks over the music, but doesn’t let the doubt stop him. If he has decided to try on something new, he should go all the way with it. This really isn’t smalltown Hawkins, there’s no one here to judge him in a way that matters. They will look at him once and forget about him two minutes later. He will hardly ever be a topic in their dinnertime conversations. He has nothing to worry about here.
"You look amazing!" Liam replies, and Will wants to believe him.
For one, blissful minute, Will lets himself loose. He holds the hand of a boy he just met and dances to Sonic Youth’s Teenage Riot at a club, drunk in lemonade and the desire to see what more this life could hold for him.
But as always, it all comes crashing down in a moment, reminding him that he can never truly be normal again.
The song switches, and with the switch, comes flashing lights all over the room. The rapid on-and-off blinking of the lights freezes Will with his arms mid-air, and suddenly he is not 19-year old William Hopper, an art student in New York. He is 12-year old Will Byers who biked home from his best friend’s house only to realize something foreign, something inhuman is chasing after him, and no one is home. No one is home to save him. And the blinking lightbulb in the shed was only the beginning of the horrors that would unfold on him for the next four years.
The club goes momentarily dark to build suspense for the next song. But amidst the cheers and whoos, Will falls down to his knees, seeing the blue darkness of the place that looked just like home but was anything but. He can still feel the coldness of the place on every inch of his skin, the emptiness that seemed to have a throbbing presence of its own, and the hunger. The hunger and thirst rotting him away from the inside while he ran from one familiar place to another, a shotgun half his height clutched to his arms like a lifeline.
The music disappears. The people disappear. The club disappears. But he is not in his bedroom listening to The Clash with his older brother. He is in Castle Byers, hugging his own freezing body for some semblance of warmth, just waiting. Waiting to die, waiting to be saved, waiting for that thing to find him again. And he is slowly but certainly losing hope. He might be a wizard in the D&D campaigns he builds with his friends, where a single fireball is enough for him to win. But in real life, he is nothing but a small and helpless child. He has no power, no magic, nothing. And he is going to die in here, cold and freezing.
I’m going to die I’m going to die I’m going to die--
“Will? Will!”
The lights have already come back on, now red and purple. Will’s vision is blurry, chest so tight that it feels like there are bags of sand pressing down on his ribs. I can’t breathe, he realizes, horrified. In his blurry vision, he sees Mike. Dark, curly hair, and shoulders wider than him. But that voice does not belong to Mike. It belongs to a complete stranger, someone who has no idea of what Will has been through.
“Will! Oh God, what’s wrong? What’s happening to you?” The person tries to put his arm around Will and pull him up, but Will shakes away out of his grasp, stumbling back only to bump into something else. Someone else. What is this place? He looks around and sees a blur of moving limbs and more flashing lights and an ugly cacophony of laughter and clinking wine bottles. It’s messed up, everything is messed up. He needs to get away. He needs to get away right now. He needs to breathe or he is going to die. He is really, truly going to die.
He bumps into more people and hears obscenities muttered towards him as he somehow manages to find his way out of the club. Frantic, he looks around and runs behind the building where a narrow alley lies. Finding it empty, Will crashes down to the ground, back against the wall, hugging his knees to his chest. His breathing is so loud in his own ears, but not loud enough to express just how out of air he feels.
Nails digging into the concrete ground, Will tries to breathe. But he can’t. It’s like there is a thick vine wrapped tightly around his neck. He dares not open his mouth in fear something is going to be pushed into it, and he would once again feel it go deeper and deeper inside his throat, pumping foreign things into his body, changing him permanently. Lips sealed tightly shut, he tries to grab air through his nose, all in vain. His ribs feel like they’re cracking open. And throughout it all, the images keep rushing to him in flashes. All blue, all dark, all cold. He is going to die. He might really die tonight.
“Will!” Someone grabs hold of him, but Will’s eyes are completely unfocused. “Will, oh God, oh Jesus, what should I do? I don’t- oh my God.”
The person’s panic doesn’t help. It only further reaffirms that Will is really dying, and there’s no one here to save him. He lifts his heavy hand to his chest and punches it, hoping that would somehow help him get some air. All it does is make him feel like his whole body is about to be ripped apart.
“Hey, hey, hey, hey, calm down, okay?” The person says. “Just try to breathe. Hey. In, out, in, out. Oh no, it’s not working. Wait, I’ll get you help.” He begins to leave.
“No,” Will says, but he is not sure if he actually says it out loud. Don’t leave me alone. Please don’t leave me alone here. His hands reach out to grab the person, but it misses.
No no no no. He left. The guy just left. Will is going to die alone here. In whatever place this is. He is going to be choked to death. How could he just leave? How could he-
Mike.
The name comes to him suddenly, almost like an epiphany.
Amidst all the dark images bloating his mind, a single beautiful memory peeks through.
“If we’re going crazy, we’ll go crazy together, right?”
Halloween, 1984. That night, it was Mike’s voice that pulled him out of the episode. That night, Mike didn’t leave Will’s side, not even for a second. Dressed in their Ghostbusters outfits, surrounded by candy wrappers, the two of them fell asleep in the Wheeler's basement.
That night, Mike belonged to Will, and only Will.
That version of Mike, if he was here tonight, surely he would not have left Will alone.
In a way, it’s God’s twisted sense of humor. Will came all the way to this random party in an attempt to not think about Mike. And yet, his mind’s constant affinity to thinking about Mike, is what helps push away the darker images a little to the back, and remind his body how to breathe again.
But by then, it’s too late. Air feels foreign in his lungs, but Will gasps to let as much of it in at once as possible. But it’s too much. His body is already broken. He hears footsteps running towards him, a very concerned voice saying “He’s over here, please help him!”
Before they reach him, Will’s whole world goes dark.
------------------------------
“It was a panic attack,” the doctor announces what Will already knew.
Will nods, feeling extremely uncomfortable that Liam is here to hear all this. He wanted to be a completely new person here in New York, carrying no fragment of his past, so that he could be whoever he wants. But he has already failed miserably at it.
“Are you medicated?” the doctor asks.
“Um, no, I’m not.” Will can’t really meet his eyes.
“You should be. You’re a student, aren’t you? Seek out help from your college’s psychiatrist. The ER can’t really do much beyond this.”
“I understand.”
“He’s fine now, though, right?” Liam asks. Will can’t look at him either. What a fright that must have been.
“He’s alright, don’t worry. Most of the things during a panic attack, it’s just all in your head. You just have to control it.”
The doctor’s voice isn’t very kind. There is a subtle undertone of judgement in it. The kind of judgement that is typically thrown towards people deemed mentally unstable. Will balls his hands into fists.
“Well, that’s very dismissive of you to say that,” Liam says, an edge in his voice. It makes Will is surprised enough to look at him, finding him glaring at the doc. “I saw how he was like when it was happening, and it didn’t look like it was all in his head.” The doctor opens his mouth to reply, but Liam cuts him off. He gently grabs Will’s arm and says, “Come on, Will, let’s go. I’ll take you home.”
They walk out of the hospital. Liam grabs a taxi. They get in together. After Will says the address, he tells him, “I’m really sorry, Liam.”
As soon as he says that, Will gets the urge to burst into tears. His eyes go blurry, a lump forming in his throat. It takes him every bit of effort to not let it flow out.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Liam pats his shoulder. “It’s not your fault, you know? Besides, I’m the one who should be sorry. I totally fucked up. Not only did I force you to dance when you clearly didn’t want to, I also worsened your panic attack by panicking myself. The nurse told me the first rule when someone is having a panic attack is to stay calm. Stay calm, my ass! I was anything but!”
The last bit makes Will let out a chuckle. He shakes his head. “It’s fine, you couldn’t have known. And it had nothing to do with dancing. It was just . . . the lights. I just- I got reminded of something bad that happened when I was a kid.”
“I see,” Liam says, and luckily doesn’t do a follow-up on what the bad thing was. “Well the doctor was right about one thing. You really should visit a therapist or something.”
Will shrugs. “It doesn’t happen too often.” What he really means is that he can’t afford it.
“But still, it’s quite a big deal. What if it happens when there’s no one around to help you out of it?”
“Then I guess I’ll just die,” Will says sarcastically, but notices Liam’s eyes widen a little, clearly taken aback. Will’s smile drops. “I’m joking,” he says, biting down on his lip.
Liam probably thinks Will is a freak now. He has already ruined his chances of creating a meaningful bond with this guy.
“Okay,” Liam replies, and Will tries to desperately look for signs of discomfort. “Regardless, you need to go to a doctor. Seriously.”
“I know.” Back when he used to have those episodes that he called now-memories, Dr. Owens had initially thought that it was PTSD. Will had taken medicines for it, and all it did was make him sleepy. And he is already taking sleeping pills for his insomnia. “I’ll think about it,” he says, but he knows he won’t. He already knows what’s going to happen. He will be referred to a psychiatrist, who will tell him that the best cure is to unfold the root cause of the trauma. What will he tell them then? I got taken to an alternate mirror dimension of my town infested with monsters when I was 12, and a girl with telekinetic abilities saved me and became my sister, only to eventually sacrifice herself to find true freedom’? He will be sent to a ward for sure.
He wishes Dr. Owens was still alive. He would understand. He was the only one who ever wanted to genuinely help Will and El.
“Good. Anyways, you feeling okay? Still having a hard time breathing?”
Will shakes his head. His chest is still hurting, but he can’t tell if it’s the aftereffects of the pressure he put on his chest or something emotional. “Better now. Thanks.”
“Great.” Liam smiles.
“I’m really sorry I ruined your night. You could’ve been having so much fun . . .”
“I was-” He looks out the window, suddenly not meeting Will’s eyes anymore. Clearing his throat, he finishes, “I was having fun with you.”
Will blinks, heart pacing up. "Oh."
“Trust me, Will. It doesn’t- uh, it doesn’t mean anything weird, okay? I’d do this for anyone. I just consider it a responsibility. So it’s fine, you don’t have to feel guilty. We’re okay.”
Will decides to not fight it anymore. He doesn’t want to make a far-fetched assumption, but one thing he can be sure of is that this guy enjoys Will’s company, and Will enjoys his. “Okay.”
The rest of the taxi ride is quiet, the air slightly thick with unspoken tension. Though they talked a lot earlier without any awkwardness, Will doesn’t know what to say now since Liam isn’t saying anything first. He glances at the other boy from the corner of his eyes and finds him still looking out the window, fingers fiddling on his lap. Will can’t predict what he is thinking or feeling. All Will feels is worry about whether Liam thinks he is weird now.
They finally reach in front of Will’s apartment.
“Thank you so much, Liam,” Will says as he opens the door, smiling. In the back of his mind, he wonders if he will ever meet this guy again. They do study at the same university, but their departments are nowhere near each other. “It was really nice to meet you."
“You’re welcome! And same here.” Liam gets off after him, which Will didn’t expect. He turns to the driver and says, “Just give us a minute, please,” before turning back to Will.
“So,” Liam starts.
“Yeah?” Will raises his brows, anticipating.
He looks nervous, but Will can’t imagine it’s because of him. Why would he of all people make anyone nervous? “I, um, meant what I said earlier. I had a lot of fun talking to you today.”
Will shoves his hands into the pockets of his coat. “Except the last part, I assume.”
“It was scary, but hey, at least now I know what not to do when someone is having a panic attack. It was an educational experience.”
“Educational experience, right.” Will hides a smile by looking down at their shoes, the tips of which are facing each other. He notices Liam’s sneakers are worn off, old and overused. Maybe they’re more similar than he thought. “I also had fun talking to you. Thank you for approaching me.”
“It was one of the few good decisions I took this year, actually.”
Will chuckles, face heating up. There’s no way. Isn’t this called flirting? He can’t really wrap his head around it. There’s no way this is happening to him.
“Look, I, um,’ Liam shakes his head, “you are going to Montauk tomorrow, right? So, um-” He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out a pen. Then slowly, hesitantly, he reaches for Will’s hand.
Will lets him. Lips pursed, Liam writes down a phone number on Will’s hand. Will watches in idle fascination.
“You can call me if you get- get bored?” Once again, he can’t meet Will’s eyes. This is the kind of thing Will used to do when he was in love with Mike. “No pressure, though. I am not going home, this is actually my aunt’s landline number. I’ll be staying over at hers. But again, no pressure. Just- if you want. It’s not like I’ll be waiting for it or anything. But like, it . . . would be nice.”
Will blinks a few times at him, then nods. “Okay,” he replies lamely.
“Yeah.” He looks around, as if searching for something that is not Will’s face. “Yeah, okay. I’ll go now. Bye!” He hurries back in the taxi without waiting for Will’s response.
“Wait!” Will calls without thinking. He can’t just let him go like this.
Liam looks out the window up at him.
“Thank you . . . for everything,” Will says, heart beating too fast, too restlessly. “Have a great Christmas. I’ll definitely call you.”
Finally, a big smile blooms on Liam’s face. He is handsome in a pure and innocent way. “You too, have a great Christmas! See you around.”
Will watches the taxi leave, then looks at his palm. The phone number scrawled across it feels unreal. The tingle on his skin, the warmth on his face, the restless pacing of his heart, all of it feels unreal. Jonathan was right. Nothing ever happened to Will, because he let himself believe nothing could possibly happen, so he never even tried.
He truly made himself believe there can be no one else for him but . . .
Mike.
Will feels the smile disappear from his face. Once the name enters the forefront of his mind, it blows up to a mammoth size, occupying every inch. The name that saved his life just an hour ago, now suddenly becomes a sharp stab to his chest. Will lets his hand drop back to his side. With Mike, returns the memory of his old life. The life that began by saying ‘See you tomorrow!’ to Mike, and ended saying ‘Still best friends?’ to Mike.
The life he keeps trying to desperately run away from, before it catches up to him again and again.
Suddenly the world feels cold again, freezing. Will trembles from somewhere deep within. The images that haphazardly flashed across his mind during that episode now come back to him in slow, clear stills. He tries to swallow but fails. Hugging his arms to his chest, he walks back to his apartment, opening the door with the key, all while those images continue to blur his vision of reality.
I can never escape, he thinks, and it’s the only thought ever. Any semblance of normalcy is nothing but pretense.
He closes the door behind him. The apartment is dark.
“Jonathan?” he calls, and his own voice sounds like the voice of his twelve-year old self. It’s a child’s voice--the child he couldn’t be.
No response comes. The house is empty, just like it was that night.
Once again, he feels in his bones a gnawing need for Mike. Not Jonathan, not his mom, but Mike. It’s the same every time he has one of these episodes and the world feels like it’s ending all over again. Because ever since his life went to hell, Mike was really the only person who never made him feel broken, even though that is exactly what he was—-is. Broken.
Mike has made him feel a lot of negative emotions. But Mike has never made him feel like he is weak.
But Mike is not here right now. Mike hasn’t been here for a while. And he won’t be there on the other side of the phone. And even if he is, the line will be disconnected.
The Mike Will had fallen madly in love with when he was 9 no longer exists.
He takes a deep breath and walks over to his painting room. The room that was supposed to be Jonathan’s bedroom, but he gave it up for Will to sleep in the living room. ‘I don’t stay home much anyway’, he gave the excuse when Will vehemently refused. He is surrounded by so much love. Why, still, is there so much pain?
He opens the door to the room and enters it. Right in front of him is a massive painting. A 20x60 canvas, his largest painting yet. It is still not fully finished, but it’s close enough for the viewer to be able to tell what it’s about.
Will sits down in front of the painting, and then lies down on his side facing it. Facing El. Eleven. Jane. His sister. Jane Hopper. The only one in the world who truly understood him, even when he could not fully understand her.
“I hope you’re happy now, El,” he tells her, a drop of tear rolling down the corner of his eyes.
The painting smiles at him. Will took great care into drawing that smile, closing his eyes and zooming in on her image until it became crystal clear to him. He didn’t see her smile often. One of the only times she would when they were in Lenora, was when she would get a letter from Mike. After Max went to coma, she never did smile properly ever again.
“It’s my fault,” she once told Will, the distant look in her eyes telling him that nothing could convince her otherwise. “From what happened to you, and now to Max. It’s all my fault.”
No matter what Will told her, she did not smile again.
“I hope you’re free now,” he says. “Because I don’t think I can be, until I join you.”