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The Byers home used to feel warmer. Even through the darkness and despair that Hawkins had brought down on them, Will could definitively say that he looked forward to coming home to his mother’s hastily thrown together meals and his brother’s music blaring from his room.
Things had changed since moving to California. And he would never, ever in a million years say that El had anything to do with the change, but he couldn’t stop the intrusive thought from prying into his mind at night when he lay awake, staring at the ceiling and thinking of all that he had lost and all that he would never get back.
It wasn’t El, no. It was his own rotten luck. It was because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, alone and uncertain and afraid. It was because he had never been strong enough to fight things on his own.
It was because no matter how many times they tried to run away, there was nowhere on Earth they could run to that would be far enough. Tragedy would always find them, and he was almost certain it would drown him.
He couldn’t lie to himself, he couldn’t blame others, only the sick, twisted consequences of circumstance. But no matter how many times he assured himself that he had a brother, a mom, a newfound sister to ground him and remind him he was alive, he couldn’t help but fall backward, landing on the very real and very painful thought that he was utterly and completely alone.
As he sat on the couch flipping through an old comic book that he had read perhaps twenty times since unpacking, he felt a strange pang in his chest as he looked around at what he was supposed to call home now. Though there were other bodies inhabiting the space, he still felt like he was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by unfamiliar surroundings and unsure of how to escape. In the few weeks since they’d been there, his mom had found a job, which meant she was on the phone nearly all of the time and barely had any time to herself or to him. El stayed in her room a lot, mostly agonizing over school books she was not very good at reading and too embarrassed or ashamed to ask for help, so she locked him out. And Jonathan…well, Jonathan had been gone for a while now. Sometimes he wondered if Jonathan could see right through him, if he hated him for the person he was and the person he was becoming. All he cared about was getting high now. Will could smell it on his clothes when he came home, see it in his eyes as he lazily tried to hold a coherent conversation with him before crashing.
Things were not the same as they once were, and with another startling ache in his heart, he wondered if he had ever had anyone to truly lean on, anyone that would one hundred percent accept him for who he was, or if he had imagined all of the warm, joyful times in his life when things seemed to make sense.
He heard his mom hang up the phone with a frustrated sigh, and then her footsteps crossing the kitchen and the refrigerator opening. He imagined that she was grabbing a beer before making her next call. She had actually been drinking a lot less since moving, now that she didn’t have to stress out every time one of her kids was thirty seconds late getting home. He should have been glad that he didn’t have to look over his shoulder so much anymore, worrying that some monster was following him or some government official was studying him from afar, but he just felt…empty.
“Will,” his mom said, leaning against the doorframe with her beer in hand and a soft smile on her lips. “You hungry?”
He flipped the page in his comic book and felt the breath rush from his lungs. A picture was wedged in the middle, one that was taken a couple of years ago and was still one of the most important things in the world to him. He’d put it away instead of hanging it up in his room, trying desperately to be less…himself. He didn’t think it would go over well if what he thought was happening was actually the truth. If his good-for-nothing father had been right about him all along.
He ran his finger over the surface of the picture, leaving a smudge in its wake, and he swallowed back the tears that were welling up inside of him. He honestly thought that the end of summer would tear away the fantasy that he had been living in, but the distance only made the yearning that much stronger.
“Will, sweetie?” Joyce took a hesitant step toward him, then ruffled his hair slightly. She looked down at the picture, and she sighed sadly. “I’m sorry. I know you miss him. You’ve practically been friends since you learned to walk.”
Will exhaled a laugh and placed the picture back in the comic book, closing it. “Not quite that long.” That was easier to say than all of the other thoughts running through his mind, easier than letting his mom know exactly how bad he was aching. But still, the worry that had gnawed at him for weeks couldn’t help but escape his mouth. He needed someone – anyone – to talk to. “He hasn’t replied to my letter yet.”
He felt rather than heard Joyce’s sharp inhale, and he knew she was puzzling over what to say to him. She couldn’t ever understand how badly it hurt, knowing that Mike had stopped choosing Will first the moment El walked into their lives.
It’s not her fault it’s not her fault, he reminded himself. He loved El like she was his own sister, as if he had known her his entire life. It was just cruel fate that they were both in love with the same person, and only one of them ever had a chance to begin with.
“Well, school just started,” Joyce reminded him. “Things are probably a little hectic for him right now. Just give him a little time. He’ll get back to you.”
He looked up at his mom, at the slight quirk of her lips and that maternal gaze that had always made him feel better when it felt like everything was falling apart. Tonight, he felt nothing.
“What’s for dinner?” he asked, swiping at the single tear that had escaped and rolled down his cheek.
“You tell me. Why don’t you go get El and we can all decide together?”
Will sucked in a shaky breath and nodded, placing the comic book and the picture to the side with care. He wasn’t sure if El would even want to come downstairs. For whatever reason, she liked to be by herself in the evenings, and he didn’t like to bother her. He knew she was struggling just as he was, though in very different ways.
As he rose from the couch, the phone rang, and he heard Joyce exclaim happily as she rushed to get it, probably hoping that it was someone calling her back and deciding to purchase from her after all. They absolutely needed it. He ignored her and walked up the steps, quietly, hesitantly, wondering if El would even want to see him. No matter how much he tried to support her, to help whenever anyone pushed her down, he was not much better off than she was, so the bullying continued, and she remained absolutely heartbroken.
Of course, Will was heartbroken too. She had already received several letters from Mike, while he was still left waiting. He was a postscript at the end of a sappy love letter, a simple, “Tell Will I said hi!” and nothing more.
It wasn’t fair that he was the one that stayed up late at night wondering how he had gotten into this situation, why he had let Mike affect him the way he did. It wasn’t fair, because he knew that while he was up at night thinking about Mike, there was no chance that Mike was thinking about him.
He raised his hand to knock on El’s closed door, but stopped when his mom appeared at the foot of the stairs with a soft, knowing smile on her face that made something flutter in his stomach that he couldn’t explain. “Someone’s on the phone for you,” she said. “You better take it. Don’t worry, I’ll get El.”
Of course, Mike had called a few times, but he usually stayed on with Will for maybe ten minutes before asking to speak to El, and Will sat patiently for half an hour, an hour, maybe longer, waiting to see if he would ask to speak to him again. Usually, it was too late by the time El was done talking, and they were being rushed off to bed.
He knew by the look on his mom’s face, by the sly way she spoke, that it was Mike on the phone, but he couldn’t allow himself to get his hopes up. This wasn’t going to be any different than their other phone calls. And Mike still had not given any sort of hint he’d received Will’s letter. There were secrets in there, inside jokes that only Mike would understand, things that he didn’t care to talk about in front of his family no matter how lighthearted or innocent they might be because it was his and Mike’s, no one else’s.
He took a steadying breath and walked back downstairs to the phone in the kitchen. It lay on its side on the table, next to the discarded junk mail and bills his mom had tossed aside today. With a shaky hand, he picked it up, bringing it to his ear and listening to the sound of Mike’s voice on the other side, screaming something unintelligible to Nancy.
“Mike?” he said, which was enough to catch the other boy’s attention.
“Will! Hey. I would’ve called sooner, but we had a Hellfire Club meeting, and it was kind of chaotic. But I had to tell you before I forgot! I – are you okay?”
Will frowned, adjusting the phone in his hand so that it rested more comfortably against his face. He leaned on the wall, hoping that his legs wouldn’t give out on him. He didn’t think hearing Mike’s voice again would have this sort of effect on him, but here he was. “Y-yeah. I’m great. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine.” He pictured Mike sitting at the kitchen table with D&D manuals and notebooks spread out in front of him, finally interested in playing the game again now that Will was not there and there was no El to distract him. He talked a lot about D&D, about the Hellfire Club, how much he thought Will would have enjoyed it, how much he would have liked their new DM Eddie. It was…sad, to say the least. Where was this Mike when he had been begging him all summer to play a game with him? Why did he have to wait until they were thousands of miles apart? “Are you still having nightmares?”
Will sighed. This was not a conversation he wished to be having, not in this state of mind. Still, he nodded, then realized that Mike couldn’t see him. “Yeah. I never thought moving away was going to solve that.”
“Yeah…hey, but I’m here if you need to talk, you know? I still have nightmares too, sometimes. And I always want to help you, no matter what. We’re best friends, remember?”
Will clenched his fist and leaned his head back against the wall, letting out a slow breath as he closed his eyes. “Yeah, best friends.”
The conversation felt stilted, and he didn’t like it. At least when he was in Hawkins, he had something to distract him from all the intrusive thoughts he should not be having, at least he could be content in being close to Mike and nothing more. But now…now he felt like Mike was barely there, someone he had dreamed up, an illusion that would disappear at the first sign of light. He hated it, hated not knowing what was happening to him, what had been happening to him for some time. Most of all, he hated that he had to endure it alone.
He couldn’t resist asking. It had been long enough that it was starting to become unacceptable. “Why haven’t you responded to my letter?”
There was a long moment of silence. So long, in fact, that Will would have thought Mike hung up on him if he couldn’t hear his soft breathing. He bit the inside of his lip, waiting, counting the seconds by his heartbeats, and finally, Mike said, “Sorry! It was really long, and…well, there were some things in there I wasn’t sure how to respond to. But I’m thinking about it, okay? Just be patient. I’m gonna send you a really good, long letter.”
There was something in Mike’s voice, something that sounded almost playful, almost childlike, and despite himself, Will smiled. He didn’t think he sounded so miserable and drained, like he had aged ten years from all the nightmares they had to endure together. It was…nice. It made him feel warm, and for the first time since moving to California, he thought he felt genuine happiness. “What’s hard to respond to?” he asked. “I thought it was all pretty straightforward.”
The letter was not a confession, not by a long shot. But anyone with any common sense could probably read between the lines and feel the hurt, the sadness laced through the words. Someone on the outside looking in would probably make some very fair assumptions about Will’s inner thoughts. But Mike…
Mike was not stupid, not even a little bit. But with things like this, he was pretty dense, and Will could tell because he was absolutely sure he was not hiding his feelings very well over the summer. He twirled the phone cord around his finger, then let it go with a sigh.
Of course, it was hard to see the world around you when you were so caught up with your girlfriend. Maybe that made sense.
“I just wanna make sure I address everything you talked about, and sometimes I get distracted, but I’m working on it, I swear. Don’t think I forgot about you.” His voice dropped to almost a soft whisper, and goosebumps tingled along Will’s arms.
He didn’t mean to do it; he didn’t want to sound rude or jealous. But the words spilled out of him anyway. “You’ve written back to El.”
Mike didn’t hesitate with his response this time. “Yeah, but El is my girlfriend. I have to write back to her.”
Will kicked at the leg of the table, frowning. “Don’t make her sound like she’s a chore.”
“She’s not! Listen –”
“What did you call to tell me about?” He changed the subject before they could get in a fight. The words from their last fight still stung like open wounds, and sometimes, late at night, he replayed it in his mind and cried and then got mad at himself for crying. He didn’t want to add more fuel to the fire.
“Oh. Yeah.” He doesn’t think Mike is over what he said, but at least he’s willing to move past it for now. “I wrote a new campaign, and I was thinking of running it with the Hellfire Club, but I kind of wanted your opinion first.”
Will’s heart leaped into his throat. Finally. Finally something felt normal. “Yeah, totally. I just wish I could play in it.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll write one specifically for you when you come to visit.”
God. He felt warm from his head to his toes, and he had no idea why. Writing a D&D campaign for someone wasn’t exactly the definition of romantic, but it still made him feel special, cared about.
As Mike set up the scene of the world he was building, Will listened intently, enraptured by the way Mike’s voice sounded. He had always been the best DM. Despite what Mike said about this Eddie person, Will didn’t think he would ever get over the way Mike ran their games. That’s why he would never be able to find a group here. Who could possibly hold his attention the way Mike did?
He swallowed hard, shaking his head a little to dismiss the thought. He knew why Mike held his attention so well, and he still for the life of him could not admit it, not even as a whisper in the back of his mind. It was just a feeling, one that he would not put a name to because it was too dangerous, too strange, too –
“Hey, is that Mike?”
Will’s head shot up to see El standing in the doorway of the kitchen, her brown eyes alight with joy he hadn’t seen in a long time. It was hard for her to be happy when they were at school, when they only really had each other, but now she looked like she could explode from all the happiness bubbling up inside of her. It was a nice look on her.
“Y-yeah,” Will stammered, and he knew that his time with Mike was drawing to a close. Whatever El had to say was much more important, anyway. And she was the girlfriend, so obviously she came first.
He wasn’t resentful of that. They were both happy, and that was all that mattered.
“Can I talk to him?” El asked, her hand already reaching for the phone, and Will nodded numbly, saying a quick goodbye before handing it to her and disappearing into the living room again. He didn’t want to stick around to listen to their conversation. Not tonight.
Still, he could hear the sweetness of her voice, the relief that came from familiarity and love, and he felt very happy for her. Joyce came back downstairs and went to the kitchen, not even casting a glance at him, but there was no malice to that; she was just in a hurry. After dinner, she would probably make some more calls before going to sleep.
He flipped open the comic book, careful to avoid the page where he had stuffed the picture, and stared at action scenes that blurred before his eyes before he realized that he was crying. He covered his mouth to stifle the sob building up in him, then blinked away the tears before it drew someone’s attention. He could not possibly explain to anyone what the problem was. Not without risking everything, without losing everything he cared about.
He had spent an entire week in the Upside Down by himself just trying to survive, and even counting that, he couldn’t quite say he had ever felt as alone as he did now.