Chapter Text
When Will first shifted to New York for college, he felt akin to a Bambi walking into a concrete forest.
Everything was so bright and fast, rushing past him in a blur of yellow cabs and towering brick facades. What surprised him most, though, was how much the people here seemed to just not care. They walked with their heads down, brushing past each other without a glance.
It was completely overwhelming, and during those first two weeks, Will genuinely thought he was going to be friendless for most of his college life.
Everyone in his freshman batch seemed so fiercely extroverted, so loud and entirely sure of their place in the world compared to him.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
It happened three weeks into the semester, in their professor's printmaking class, right after they were given their first major assignment: an interpretation piece titled 'The Future of America.'
The professor, Dr. Vance, was a total bigot who made subtle, nasty jabs at Marisol twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He targeted her constantly, either with snide remarks about her skin color or passive-aggressive stares at the small pink, purple, and blue bisexual flag pinned to her canvas bag.
Will had only avoided making a total fool of himself on their very first day because he actually knew about bisexual people—mostly thanks to an old article about Elton John he'd stumbled across a year ago. But when Marisol had casually mentioned the flag while they were washing ink off their hands at the studio sinks, Will hadn't taken the revelation as gracefully as he would have liked.
"Woah," Will had blurted out, the word escaping before he could filter it. "So... you like girls and guys? Like... at the same time? Isn't that kind of exhausting?"
Marisol had just laughed, leaning against the porcelain sink and looking at him with amusement. “It just means I have double the options to be disappointed by."
Will had immediately gone entirely crimson, his hands tangling in his oversized flannel shirt as he started to panic.
"I—I didn't mean it like that! I just meant... me too. Not the girls part! Only just—" He cut himself off, his throat completely seizing up as his face exploded into a hot, furious blush.
Marisol’s smile softened, her dark eyes turning incredibly gentle. "Just boys?"
And Will had never said that part out loud. So, he just nodded.
Marisol had been his first friend, and from the moment she sat next to him in the basement art studio, she made him feel safe. But whenever he actually managed to voice that gratitude to her, though, she made a point of reminding him that it was actually the other way around.
“You’re the one who makes me feel safe, Byers,” she’d say with a sharp, protective nudge of her shoulder.
Marisol always made him feel entirely like himself.
One afternoon, while watching her fiercely clean a lithograph press, Will realized why he felt such an intense, instinctual bond with her. It wasn't just because they shared the same heavy secrets; it was because her presence reminded him so much of Lucas. She had that same grounded, unshakeable loyalty. And maybe he really had a deep soft spot for her because her sharp, witty personality was so incredibly akin to Max.
-
That was exactly why, when the professor started spouting his usual bullshit during a morning lecture, Will hated it with every fiber of his being.
Dr. Vance had stopped right in front of Marisol’s drafting table, tapping his clipboard against her workspace with a cold, condescending sneer.
"Miss Martinez, I suggest you spend less time focusing on your... alternative street politics and more time on the foundational curriculum.” He spat out, “ This is Tisch, not a Greenwich Village rally. We value traditional American excellence here, I’d hate to see your scholarship jeopardized by a lack of discipline."
Will had kept his eyes glued to his sketchbook, but his knuckles were white around his charcoal pencil. He didn't know Marisol perfectly well back then, but he knew with absolute certainty that she did not deserve this.
"He shouldn't talk to you like that," Will told her later that evening, his voice tight with an unfamiliar, protective anger as they packed up their supplies.
"He shouldn't," Marisol agreed quietly, the usual fire in her eyes dimming just a fraction as she stared at the floor. "But I can't just cuss him out and risk losing my funding. The administration already wants people like me gone from Tisch. They’re just looking for an excuse."
Will understood what she meant more than he would like to admit it. Dr. Vance was a bully and Will has never been good at standing up to bullies. Hell, he wasn't even able to do it when El was being bullied in Lenora.
He thinks back to it now and feels a sudden, sharp wave of guilt and self-criticism crash over him. El had only been in this world for sixteen years, and even in that, she was unable to experience life without the ugly.
If only Will had been strong enough to stand up for her then.
Will didn't say anything else as he listened to Marisol talk on their way out of the building, but something permanently shifted in his chest.
He didn't want to make the same mistakes again.
-
Will Byers submitted his 'Future of America' assignment the next day. It was exactly three weeks into his dream college—a spot he had barely secured even with the ample amount of government hush money provided him. Let's hope this stint didn't get him kicked out of it.
He submitted a stunning, massive mixed-media portrait of a proud Latina woman, her features rendered in breathtaking detail, completely surrounded by a vibrant, overlapping sea of rainbow flags and pink triangles.
It was beautiful. But also... subtle as a brick.
"Will!" Marisol had hissed when she saw it, her eyes wide, utterly astonished and terrified for him as they stood in the hallway. "Are you insane? You can't just provoke him like that!"
Will had smiled nervously but not wavered. "I didn’t break any rules in the syllabus. The prompt was completely subjective."
When the critique day arrived, Dr. Vance completely lost his mind. His face turned a deep, dangerous purple as he stared at the easel, openly threatening to fail Will on the spot and demanding an immediate meeting with the department board.
But Will had just press down on his trembling hands and tried to play it entirely dumb. He stood by his canvas, his hands resting in his pockets to hide how sweaty they were and choked out: "Is there a problem, professor?"
Looking Dr. Vance and the director dead in the eye with a calm later, he tried to portray an unyielding confidence he didn't even know he possessed.
“The woman is beautiful,” He had said: "I think the future of America is beautiful, professor. Won't you agree?"
The head of the department had looked over Will’s respectable technical execution for someone in first year and explicitly told Vance to let it go, give the piece fair assessment.
Will let out a sigh of relief.
-
"No Way!" Marisol exclaimed later, when he was recounting the story as she tossed a french fry at Will across their usual diner booth. "I knew I recruited you into my life for a reason, Byers."
True to her word, Marisol had immediately integrated him into her wider circle. She introduced him to Josh, a sweet dance major, also a freshman, who she swore up and down was just her friend.
But Will had noticed a very familiar bisexual flag hanging on the wall of Josh's dorm room just a week later. From what he knew of Marisol, he knew there was a very strong chance she was secretly hooking up with him.
Josh, in turn, had introduced Will to his best friend, Carlton—a theatrical, effortlessly charming sophomore who seemed to operate on a completely different wavelength than the rest of the world.
Marisol kept teasing Will about him, constantly repeating, "Will, he was absolutely charmed by you! He literally told Josh it is his life mission to know you."
Will genuinely did not understand it. Why is this random city guy so intensely interested in knowing him?
But as Carlton caught his eye from across the table and offered him a warm, lingering smile, Will felt that familiar, concrete forest of New York starting to feel a little less intimidating, and a lot more like home.
-
Now two months in, Will suddenly feels some of that nervousness creep back in though.
The adrenaline of the club had faded leaving Will sitting on the edge of his bed. It was the next day, and he had a sketchpad on his lap and Julian’s napkin resting on the mattress beside him.
His heart was doing that annoying, erratic fluttering thing again, a tight knot forming in the center of his chest.
He’d never called a boy before.
He’d never had a boy's number to call.
“Jesus Christ, you are overthinking this!” Marisol shouted from her perch on Will's window sill, tossing a crumpled piece of sketchbook paper at his head. “Just call him already!”
“I just—ugh! No!” Will groaned, burying his face in his hands, his silver earring brushing against his knuckles. "No one’s ever flirted with me before, Marisol. What if I call him and mess it up?"
Josh let out a loud, bark of laughter from where he was leaning against Will’s drafting table. “Yeah, sure they haven’t.”
Will dropped his hands, narrowing his eyes into a flat, confused stare. ”What?”
“What?” Josh repeated, his grin widening as he looked at Will’s entirely blank expression. “Are you actually being serious right now?”
More staring. Will didn't blink.
“Will!” Marisol chimed in, throwing her hands up in the air. “You literally get hit on by people everywhere we go! Each time we go out to dinner, someone is trying to talk to you!”
Will’s brain blanks at that, what?
Then he thinks some more, maybe they are talking about the girls?
“By women, yeah? But that doesn't count,” Will shot back, rolling his eyes. Girls used to flirt with him back in Hawkins, and a few had tried in California, too, but that hadn't suddenly made him like them?
“Men too, dumbass,” Marisol said, leaning forward and poking his knee.
Will blinked, completely derailed by the claim. “Huh, no? Like who—”
“Uh? Like our dear friend Carl—”
“Mari—No!” Before Marisol could finish the name, Josh suddenly lunged across the small space between them.
His hand clapping over her mouth as he made loud, frantic “shush” noises right into her face.
Marisol rolled her eyes, but laughed sweetly, biting his palm until he pulled away. The whole thing immediately dissolved into some weird, private back-and-forth flirting of theirs through eyes alone.
Will turned away quickly, a familiar, fond amusement flushing through him, and looked back down at the telephone resting on his nightstand. Will really wanted to experience that as well. He wanted to be that close with someone.
He looked at Julian's napkin again.
The city outside his window was loud, fast, and entirely wide open—and all it took was picking up the receiver to finally step into it.
Taking a deep breath, he picked up the landline phone in his apartment, dialed the digits before he could talk himself out of it, and pressed the receiver to his ear.
It rang three times.
"Hello?" Julian’s voice was lower over the phone, slightly raspy, stripped of the loud club music.
"Hi—uh, Julian? It’s Will. From the club last night," Will said, his voice pitching up slightly. He gripped the plastic cord tightly. "The guy from Indiana?"
Marisol and Josh immediately shut up, looking at him with bright smiles, and giving him a thumbs up.
A warm, easy chuckle came through the line.
"Will! Hey. I was hoping you'd call. To be honest, I thought your protective friends might have made you throw that napkin away."
"No," Will said, smiling softly as he looked down at his sneakers. "They actually encouraged it."
"Good!”
A bit of awkward silence. Shit! Should Will be saying something else—”
“Listen, I'm actually about to grab a coffee and head down to Washington Square Park to sketch for a bit.” Julian continued. “Want to join? No pressure, just a casual afternoon."
Will smiled and sighed.
-
Two hours later, Will found himself sitting on a stone bench, the late October breeze rustling the trees of the park.
Julian looked effortlessly chic in a vintage leather jacket, his sunglasses pushed up into his dark hair as he stirred his coffee. Will had brought his sketchbook along like a protective shield, and for the first forty-five minutes, the conversation was remarkably easy.
Julian was pleasantly surprised to learn that Will was an artist, his eyes lighting up as he asked to see a few pages. He was a Sophomore at Pratt, majoring in graphic design so his insights were genuinely interesting to Will, who was just learning to experiment with different mediums.
They talked about art, about New York, and how different the light was here compared to the Midwest. Julian was attentive, handsome, and completely open about who he was.
Will was kind of just… underwhelmed by the whole ordeal, though.
He sat there, sipping his soda, waiting for the lightning bolt to strike. He didn't have many reference points for romance except, well… except Mike. But his feelings for Mike had been a devastating, consuming wildfire that had burned in the dark for years. This didn't feel like that at all. This felt safe, quiet, and entirely ordinary.
Was this what normal dating was supposed to feel like? Maybe it was just supposed to be this calm?
Will looked at Julian’s easy smile and felt a tiny, anxious knot form in his stomach.
He liked talking to him, he really did. And Julian genuinely was a good guy.
Maybe Will should just mentally pull his shoulders back, and just try harder?He needed to put in the effort, to force himself out of his shell, and if he just tried harder to like Julian, the spark would eventually happen. Right?
The conversation drifted, Julian leaned back, crossing one leg over the other. "So, you mentioned last night that there were no other queer people in your town? What was that like?"
Will felt the familiar knot of anxiety tighten in his stomach. He traced the edge of his charcoal pencil.
"No—there probably were. One of my best friends, Robin, is a lesbian." He clarifies. “But, Hawkins was just... a small town. It wasn't safe. Honestly, for a long time, I thought I was entirely alone in the world. Or that there was something wrong with me."
Julian sighed softly, a look of profound understanding crossing his face.
"It was pretty similar in a big city too, to be honest.” He smiled sadly, “The classic queer experience! Did you have a crush on a teacher too, or was it a best friend?"
Will froze, his eyes widening at that. "How did you—"
"Oh Will, it's the universal rite of passage! " Julian said with a knowing smirk. "Let me guess, hmmm. Straight but completely oblivious? Probably loved you a lot, just not the way you wanted him to?"
Will let out a shaky, breathless laugh, looking down at his lap.
Bang on, he thought. Except the interdimensional stuff, you missed that. If only Julian knew that Will had literally gone to hell and back with Mike, his head would spin harder.
"Yeah," Will whispered. “Mike. We were my best friend since kindergarten. It... it practically tore me apart for years. Watching him fall in love with someone else, and just... hoping he’d look at me differently."
"It only gets better from here," Julian said gently. “I can say from experience.”
"You too?" Will asked, looking up.
"Oh, absolutely.” He said “His name was Marcus. High school quarterback, totally straight, used to call me his brother," Julian chuckled, though there was a faint, old melancholy in it.
Will looked at him in awe, the way he was talking about it was…so carefree and detached. Like he had truly moved on to greater things in life. Will wonders if that could ever be him. He feels a little mean even thinking about it, but he really wants to leave his crush on Mike in the past now.
Julian must see something in his face, because he continues talking.
"Trust me, Will. Probably half of that club yesterday has the exact same story as you. We all start out pinning our hearts to those who show us kindness,” He says, “because we already live in a world that shows us so little. It’s natural to fall in love with the feeling. Just because our love is different, doesn't mean it's wrong."
Hearing it put so plainly, so normally, made Will feel like he could cry. Like it wasn't a unique, tragic curse meant only for him.
Julian smiled, his expression turning decidedly warmer, more intimate.
"But you don't have to pine from the sidelines anymore." He reached across the small space between them on the bench, his fingers sliding forward to gently rest over Will’s hand.
Will jumped, his hand flinching backward instantly as if he'd been burned.
Julian blinked, pausing with his hand empty on the stone.
Will mentally smacked himself. Jesus, a boy was just going to hold his hand! And he just flinched away from it?
He wants this, what was he doing?
He looked up, Julian didn't look angry—just highly amused. A slow, perceptive smile crept onto his face. "You're very shy, aren't you?"
"I—I'm sorry," Will stammered, his face exploding into a furious, bright red blush. He tucked his hands between his knees. "I just... I'm not used to... this."
Julian studied him for a long moment, those deep blue eyes narrowing slightly, though not unkindly.
He hummed softly. "Hmm. Totally... but maybe it's not just that?"
"Uh…It's not?"
"No," Julian said, tilting his head. "Are you sure you’re into me like this?" He gestures between both of them.
The question hung in the air, stripping away all of Will's defenses.
He opened his mouth to lie, to say No, I do! You're gorgeous!, but the words trapped themselves in his throat.
Because it wasn’t really the truth.
Looking at Julian, Will felt flattered.
He felt safe.
He felt a rush of excitement that a beautiful man was paying attention to him.
But he didn't feel that specific, agonizing, electric pull in his chest. He didn't feel a spark.
But Will didn't even know what that spark was supposed to feel like with anyone else.
For his entire life, "romantic feelings" had meant exactly one person: Mike. Mike’s messy dark hair, Mike’s loud voice, Mike’s hand on his shoulder. Will had spent so long loving one specific boy that he didn't actually know how to build a romantic connection from scratch.
A wave of panic hit him.
Am I doing this wrong?
Is there something wrong with me? He likes me!
I wanted to experience this.
I have to try harder, make it work!
"I—I can be!" Will said, his voice cracking slightly, his chest heaving as the anxiety spiked. "I mean, I want to! I'm just... I'm completely new to this, and my brain is kind of short-circuiting, and I really want to experience dating and everything, and I probably just need to try harder to like—"
"Hey, hey, breathe," Julian interrupted smoothly, lifting his hands in a placating gesture. His voice was kind, completely devoid of any hurt pride. "Will, stop. You don't have to 'try harder' to be attracted to someone. That defeats the whole point of being free out here."
Will stopped, taking a ragged breath. "I just... I don't want to mess this up."
"You aren't messing anything up," Julian said, shifting back on the bench to give Will his space, his posture turning entirely relaxed and casual. "Look, you're a great guy, yeah? So adorably cute.”
Will blushed at that, Julian just smiled at that and continued: “But if the chemistry isn't there, it's not there. No biggie. Right?”
“...Right” Will said, kind of feeling relieved, but still guilty at the words. “You're not mad?"
"Mad? Please.” He flipped his hand out: “My ego was bruised for maybe two seconds, but I'd much rather have a cool new artist friend. "
Will smiled at that, and shyly said: “Me too.”
Julian offered a bright, genuine smile back. "New York can be lonely if you don't have people who get it. Let's just be friends."
The relief that washed over Will was so intense he felt like he might float away. "Yeah. I'd really like that. Friends."
"Good," Julian said, leaning back and looking out at the park. "Because now that the pressure is off, I can actually show you around the city properly! It’s been a while since I could play tourist!”
Will laughed at that. “Yeah sure, I would love that.”
“And next time we go to The Monster, or The Roxy, or anywhere else..." Julian turned, giving Will a wicked, conspiratorial wink. "...Maybe we can actually find a guy who is your type this time."
Will blushed at that again, but nodded. He looked at Julian, then down at his sketchbook, feeling a completely different kind of warmth bloom in his chest.
So…maybe he hadn't found a boyfriend today. But as he looked around the bustling, sun-drenched square, he realized he had found something just as important: a community.
And for the first time, he felt like he belonged right in the middle of it.