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He needs a minute alone after Will’s speech. He doesn’t know why. His heart’s racing in his chest and he feels sick and terrified, and he can’t even understand it. He makes some excuse, says he needs the bathroom, and goes and locks himself inside for a bit, arms wrapped around his waist, dodging his own eyes in the mirror over the sink.
Will was so brave, saying all that, but he didn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to think about why, what it means, any of it. It’s not like he didn’t know, but there’s a difference between knowing and nobody saying anything and knowing and it being all out in the air like this.
It’s dangerous. Even though they were about the safest group of people Will ever could have said any of that too, it still feels too dangerous. Like the world should end just from the words being said out loud. Like Something terrible, terrible and unsalvageable, should have happened. He’s shaking. Why is he shaking?
He feels like he wants a cigarette, even though he’s only smoked a couple of times when no one was watching and promised himself he has quit after the last time. He’d stolen them off his mother, mainly, and once off Will’s mom, which he felt guilty for because afterwards he wasn’t sure she could afford it. He hasn’t smoked since.
There have been a lot of things he hasn’t wanted to think about, and they’ve made him kind of anxious recently, but the smoking didn’t really help. Nothing really helps.
Life feels kind of like a pimple, one of those big, deep ones, that something is squeezing and squeezing at, and any day now it’s going to pop and all this gross crap is going to come oozing out. It’s not even the very real apocalypse breaking down on them that makes it feel like that.
He doesn’t want to think about it. He doesn’t want to dwell on what Will said.
What he wants is to pull El aside somewhere, to wrap his arms around her, to press his lips to hers and to feel… Something.
They haven’t been kissing much, lately, and when they do it’s just lips to lips, not even open mouths, and it’s never any more than that. He wants to resent that. He wants to want so much more. He wants his body to thrill when he lays eyes on her and for his pants to get tight when he thinks about being alone with her, but that’s not what happens.
He wants to notice her. Not notice her like, oh, look, there’s El over there, looking like one of his best friends, but notice her body, her shoulders, the line of her back, the shape of her jaw, the size of her hands, the strength of her, like she could snap him in two. Which, of course, she could with her mind, but his mind’s not dwelling on that.
His mind is dwelling places he doesn’t want it dwelling. Places he doesn’t want to let it dwell.
Will was always his best friend. Will was always everything to him, and he’s tried to make room for others, he has, and sometimes he’s tried too hard and riven Will away, and he doesn’t know what to do. El should be everything to him now, she’s his girlfriend, but it’s not really working.
They’re not really working. It’s not just him, it’s her too, he thinks. Maybe she’s just focused on Vecna, on what she has to do, but he thinks it’s more than that. They like each other, he really likes her, but it’s just not what it’s supposed to be.
He’s not what he’s supposed to be. Maybe she can sense it. Maybe that’s why whatever’s between them is failing to spark and catch light. He’s… He doesn’t want to think about what he is.
The boy in the mirror looks ugly and skinny and weird. His eyes keep catching on that. He always kind of knew he was going to end up looking like a freak, the way he feels inside. Not like Will, Will keeps getting hotter every day. Will is so hot now, it’s distracting.
Like when Will used his powers to save him. So brave, so strong, so… He can’t even let himself think about all the things he felt when that was happening. When he saw Will like that. When he imagines some other boy looking at Will and seeing him like that.
His stomach roils. There’s some boy Will has, had, a crush on, and he doesn’t even know who it is. Will never told him. Will looked at him like he should know, but he doesn’t know who it is. He can’t imagine who it is, who Will could like that wouldn’t like him back, because it’s Will.
It would have to be someone hot, because Will deserves someone as hot as he is. Except Will deserves someone who likes him back, so whoever it was, Will was already way out of their league. Will deserves the best, the best guy in existence, but he can’t quite picture who that would be, and he can’t quite reconcile what he can picture with anyone any of them know.
Except maybe Steve? Except Steve is, like, way too old, and nowhere near smart enough for Will, and he used to date Nancy. He is hot, though, really hot. Not quite as hot as Will, but almost.
It feels kind of treacherous to think, but Steve is way hotter than the rest of the guys Will spends any time with. He knows he’s no looker himself, but he feels almost bad for thinking that both Will and Steve are way more attractive than, like, Dustin, and Jonathan, and also kind of Lucas.
Of course, Jonathan is Will’s brother, so he doesn’t count, and he knows more girls than just Max have found Lucas hot, and Dustin has Suzy and all, even if he has been horrible to everyone since Eddie died, so it’s not like he’s going around thinking they’re all hideous gargoyles. He doesn't think he should have to feel guilty, even if he does, for thinking that they’re not as hot as Will. It’s just facts. Will is unbearably hot. So is Steve, kind of.
It can’t be Steve though, because he’s sure Steve and Will barely interact. He hasn’t seen them talking, or anything, and he hasn’t seen Will looking at Steve. Not looking. Just looking at him with not very interested eyes sometimes when Steve is talking, not looking like there’s anything in Steve that is sparking Will up.
He’s got to stop thinking about Steve. He does not want to be obsessing over whether Will’s into Steve, he’ll get distracted. He can’t afford to be distracted. He can’t let himself be distracted about how Will obviously doesn't trust him enough to confide in him anymore.
He doesn’t want it to be true, but it is. They’re not as close as they used to be. Things between them are falling apart, and it hurts worse than the way things between him and El are fizzling out.
He doesn’t want it to. He doesn’t want… all the things he can’t face. All the things he’s so scared of. All the things people would say. All the things his parents would say.
They almost died. Holly’s gone.
His mom is so brave.
He wants things to go back the way they were, even if he sometimes thought his parents didn't like him much. They like Nancy, they’re proud of her, they admire her, and they like Holly, because she’s always been sweet and cute and funny, but him…? Their weird, awkward, freak of a son…?
Feeling like that is ok, he tells himself it would be ok, he would take that forever, every day of his life, if he could just have things the way they used to be again. If all of them can make it through this alive. He doesn’t need more. He doesn’t need them looking at him and seeing him and wrapping him up in their arms and telling him they’ll always love him no matter what he is.
Because he knows they won’t. Because he knows they barely do now.
Because he’s afraid. Because he’s a coward. Because everything is falling apart.
No it’s not. He’s just feeling weird. Now is not the time to feel weird, or maybe it is, but only for a few minutes, then he has to leave the bathroom and when he does he has to leave everything he’s feeling behind.
It’s selfish. He’s being selfish. Because it’s all so much more than him, and he can’t risk dragging everyone down, messing something up, just because he’s freaking out. People could die. People have died, and they could die again.
Everyone he loves could die and he can’t have that be his fault.
He realises he’s chewing on the edge of his thumbnail and makes himself stop. He finally meets the dark eyes of the boy in the mirror, taking a few moments to practice his Mike face. It doesn’t look like it fits, but then it never does. He tries a smile, tries looking like he believes in everyone, that he’s sure it’s all going to work out.
His eyes are a little red around their rims. He’s not going to cry, though. Not now. He can cry when it’s all over. When they win.
Because they are going to win.
They’ll win, and then it’ll be over, and then…
And then…
And then?