Chapter Text
Will Byers is moving on. Moving on from Hawkins. Moving on from the atrocities from whatever happened between years 83-87. The Upside Down bridge, Dimension X, the Demogorgons, the Mind Flayer, Vecna, his unrequited love. All of it. He can’t stand it.
Yes, he knows he made so much memories there. Some not so good, but some not so bad either. And God knows that he will never forget what happened two nights ago when-
No, you’re getting off track Byers, Will mumbles to himself. Will looks around. God, if they see me muttering to myself they’re going to think that I’m crazy—not like my classmates in Hawkins High didn’t already think I was crazy…but this is a fresh start.
Will is moving on. No more wormholes, demodogs, Vecna, no more truama snd torture…
Yeah, he did talk about how he feels with his family and his friends, but it’s hard…but he’s looking for someone to talk to. A therapist, perhaps.
Will laughs to himself at the thought of telling a future therapist about other dimensions, superpowers, and living (well, at least not anymore) monsters that they named after DnD characters.
DnD, Will thinks to himself. I hope that when we all visit for the winter break that I get to play DnD with Lucas, Max, Dustin, and Mi-
Mike. As much as Will, the queer boy in a homophobic town, mourns the fact that his crush is his T*mmy and is straight, he still likes that the both of them are friends once again and that Mike has apologized for his past actions. Just friends, how pathetic Will. You should just— Will drowns out the negative thoughts inside of his head with his own new thoughts. No, best friends. That’s what he said. That’s what Mike said. He cares about me. He does.
Then why doesn’t he like you. Nobody will her—
“Hello, uhm…Excuse me?” Will Byers taps a girl on the shoulder and she spins around in surprise. “I seem to be a bit lost. I’m looking for my dorm.”
“Ah, yes! What’s your name so I can help you look for your dorm room?”
“Oh! Yeah, sorry. Of course! My name is Will Byers.”
“Nice to meet you, Will! My name is Irene Miller!” The girl says as she opens up a book with all of the names and dorms and moves her finger until she reaches a certain point into it. “Will Byers? That would be the building over there!” Irene points to the beautiful (and tall) two story dorm complex with tons of windows with black frames. The painting job on the complex for first years is a bit chipped, but it’ll do for Will. He’s used to dingy places by now. His original home before he moved, the Upside Down…
“Wow, you get those things?” He points to the book.
“Yup, I am helping around the campus for money to be able to afford to stay here and live in those dorms over there!” The girl points to a more, well built, huge dormitory complex with white walls and brown doors and an up-to-date paint job.
“Thanks!…Say, it’s, uh, my first time in college. I mean, it’s my first day and I’m not confident in myself on finding my way through this place.”
“Gee, couldn’t tell!” Irene ruffles with Will’s hair and she chuckles to herself. “Of course! A tour would help you in becoming more familiar with this campus. Who knows, maybe it will introduce you to some new potential friends!”
“That’s good! Where to first?”
-
While Irene’s tour poses a good distraction from his internal thoughts, and as an informational tour, he can’t help but have a few thoughts seep through into his brain every now and then when Irene stops talking to make sure he’s listening along. Just because I’m quiet doesn’t mean I’m not focusing.
He can focus. And he will. He will. He is. Nothing is wrong, it’s a fresh start.
Amidst the past trauma, other than what happened when he was sleeping on the plane with the noise cancelling headphones to tune out all distractions and crying toddlers last night,he’s doing fine, nonetheless. He's away from Hawkins. They all are. Well, at least not until Christmas break.
That's four months away. That's fine.
He's fine. Will is fine. It's not like anything could happen. Will is fine. It's not like shadow particles could come out at any second and engulf him with its treacherous visions of monsters. That has definitely not happened for the first time yesterday. He's fine. Will Byers is fine.
“Hay, earth to Will!” Irene snaps her fingers in front of Will to get his attention, he jumps.
“Oh, yes! Sorry!”
“Dude, you good?” Irene worries.
“Yeah, I’m alright. I just…” Will tries to talk but his voice gets caught in his throat. He doesn’t know what to say…what he can say! It’s like strings are controlling him and he’s the puppet. He wishes he could man up and be the puppet master. Be better at standing up for himself and talking about his emotions rather than bottling it all up.
“Zoned out?” She questions with a concerned look in her eyes.
“Yup. Couldn’t find the right word, thanks! I’ve been trying to work on it, and I’m way better than I was years ago. It’s just hard to be in a new environment with no one you knew from before.”
“Years? Geez. That makes sense! Well, now you know me. And here’s the number for my dorms home phone in case you need someone to call. You can count on an upper-class-man—wait, does a sophomore count as an upper-classman?”
Will chuckles. “No, I don’t think—well, maybe upper for incoming freshman. Wait, you’re a sophomore? You look like a senior!”
Irene laughs. “Yeah, I do get that a lot! Well, we have a few more stops to get to before the tour comes to an en—“ she stumbles backwards and the book she’s holding makes a thudding sound as it drops to the floor.
“Oh, shit! I’m so sorry, Irene! Let me help you up,” a short blonde haired boy stumbles over his words, sighs, helps up the girl and picks up the book and hands it to her.
“Thanks!”
“You both know each other?” Will asks, curiously. “I mean, no offense but you look a little young to be a college student.”
“And you look a little forgetful, taking a tour aren’t we?” The man leans in with a smirk, his eyes lighting up.
“Relax, he’s just joking. He does that. A lot. Anyways…Chris, this is Will! Will meet Christopher!”
“Christopher?” Will asks.
“Hah, yours truly,” Chris bows. Flustered, Will sighs and chuckles, “my apologizes. I realize how rude I just came across.”
“No worries. I get that a lot, I look 13 when I’m actually 18.”
“Oh, so you’re a freshman too?”
“Yup! And I was just going to ask my girl right here if she could give me a tour. Looks like I’m not the only one who’s forgetful,” he winks to Will. A silent exchange. Will pauses for a minute and shrugs. “Yeah, guess so. How long have you both been together?”
“Say, what year was it again?” Chris grinds his teeth together, questioning yet thinking with a smirk while Irene huffs in annoyance at his games.
“Kidding. Kidding. 1983, kid,” Chris laughs.
“O-oh! Cool!” Memories flash into Will’s brain at the mention of the year, of the night. The night in the rain, the night when his bike light flickered off and he crash landed into the woods, running straight through his house, pointing the gun into nowhere just to turn around and be engulfed by a strange bright beaming light. The rest is a Hellish-nightmare shitload of history. It can’t be the same exact night he went missing, although can it? He doesn’t want to ask, but he’s curious. He won’t ask right now as that would be weird, so he’ll ask later if he remembers. Speaking of remembering…
How strange it is that he doesn’t understand how he doesn’t remember what happened exactly after the light brightened too much that he had to shut his eyes rightly closed, and a few hours later he ended up in the bridge called the Upside Down. How strange how when he shut his eyes tightly he felt the rush of air and the ground pave way below him. How strange how what he heard was chatter and glasses clinking with cheering echoing and pounding throughout his ears shortly after it. How strange how he doesn’t remember the taste of his speciality favorite shake from—Melvalds! That’s right!
How strange how Melvalds is now a convenience store—how strange how they don’t sell shakes there anymore, how strange how no one corrected him when he mentioned the shakes from Melvalds when he came out to the full (and I mean full) party. Must’ve thought “getting milkshakes at Melvalds” applied to some other friends or some other Melvalds or they would have berated him about it and he would’ve sooner have spilled the beans about his recently realized “unstable alternate dimension behavior called amnesia, presumably.” He doesn’t know why he even mentioned milkshakes at Melvalds in the first place. His brain won’t think.
“You good, man?” Chris wonders as Will jerks back from his thought process.
“Sorry, just thinking,” Will sighs.
“He does that a lot, he’s trying something such as self-therapy.”
“Shut up, am not,” Will groans.
“Are too.”
Chris laughs, “well, if it makes you feel any better I am actually talking to a therapist myself. I can recommend this therapist if you want.”
“Really? That would be great, thank you so much!” Will sighs in relief, a weight falling off his shoulders. He didn’t realize how shaky his breathing was, he didn’t even realize that he had been holding it for a second.
“Hey, no problem,” he writes down the number to his therapist. “And, while we’re talking about numbers I’ll give you mine too!” He exclaims as he also writes his down as well as his initials next to his form phone-lines number to differentiate the two numbers on the thin few slips of crumbled paper that he gave Will. “Thanks.”
“No problem. I do like to keep things tidy and organized but unfortunately these few thin crumpled papers are all I have right now. The rest of my papers are still in my dormitory along with all of my other stuff which is in the same building as your dorm! Exciting, right?”
Will nods to that answer. His mouth feels like glue and his hands like jelly. For how grateful he is to have Chris do this for him, he doesn’t know what to say to this therapist once he meets with him or her. Maybe he can talk to—nope, they’re all back in Hawkins. He needs to figure this out on his own.
“Now, my therapist is out on maternity leave but she’ll probably be back in, give or take, a few months?”
“Well, at least I have an option in case the other ones I potentially go to suck, thanks again.” He’s afraid. Afraid to talk about Hawkins, about wormholes, about Dimension X. You thought you left it all behind with that stupid bowl cut—
“No-“ but Chris stops, giving Will a puzzled yet intrigued look. Will frowns upon his friend’s glaring look.
“Boys, keep up! We’ve got a tour to finish before classes start soon!”
“On it!” The two boys yell back.
“So, what are you majoring in?” Will asks Chris.
“Dang. Putting me on the spot like that are we, Will “bowl cut” Byers! I’m ashamed!” He laughs. Will frowns.
“I never mentioned that I had a bowl cut before this, I mean…not that I know of.”
“You were mumbling to yourself. I overheard, sorry. What’s that about alternate Dimensions and powers-“
Will laughs a little too loudly at that one. You’re ruining it, Byers, he nags himself. “Oh no! That’s just a joke. All of it. It was a part of a campaign me and my friends were a part of-“
“Campaign?”
“Yes, that’s just—wait, sorry! We’re getting off track. What did you say you are majoring in again?”
“Ahh yes, psychology! The human brain is very…interesting. And the way people think, it’s fascinating! Irene says she’s majoring in English to get her BFA degree! What about you, Byers?”
“Oh, cool! I’m going to major in fine arts to also get my BFA degree!”
“That’s cool-“
“Oh, and” Will turns to Irene. “Sorry for interrupting” he mutters to Chris (in return, he whispers “it’s okay, don’t worry.”) “Irene, that’s super awesome! One of my childhood friends is writer and is going to (hopefully) go for that major too!”
“Oh, what’s his name? Maybe he goes here too!”
“H-his name is Mike Wheeler! I kind of doubt that. That would be weird.”
“Why? Didn’t he tell you where he is going to college?”
“Oh, no,” Will’s face grows hot at the thought of Mike rambling on and on for hours about his campaign ideas and Will drawing them and telling him about which college he would potentially be going to. “Unfortunately not, I didn’t think that he’d apply yet. He hasn’t mentioned it, but the summer went by so fast that we barely had time to talk.”
“Barely had time to talk?”
“Well, kind of. We all mostly just stayed in the basement playing DnD and-“
“Oh, I love that game! It’s the one with the-the dolls, the dice, and the—the”
Will giggles, “it’s okay, Chris. You don’t have to pretend to know how to play. But I can teach it to you if you want.”
“Ehh,” Chris tries to protest but then thinks for a second.
“I mean, I guess. It wouldn’t hurt to try!”
“There you go! That’s the spirit!”
“Come on, slow pokes! Less talking and more walking!” Irene shouts from down the hall. Chris and Will burst out with uncontrollable laughter.
Eventually the two catch up to Irene and she mocks them. ‘There you go, that’s the spirit!’ what are we eleven years old now?”
Eleven. 011.
Images of Eleven’s death flash into Will’s brain. It’s not true, he reassures himself, she’s not dead. Just gone. Somewhere over that rainbow with three waterfalls.
Will knows that El isn’t dead. Heck, if you were to ask him he would tell you that he’s always had a hunch. He knew that she was still…somewhat alive but—
“Hey,” Chris bumps his arm into Will’s own arm to give him a nudge back to reality.
“Ow! The hell was that for!?” Will shrieks, yet more startled than hurt in response to Chris’ nudge.
“Sorry, but you were breathing heavily and I didn’t want you to spiral in that mysterious brain of yours and have a panic attack—plus, we’re on our last stop, look alive Byers!”
His dorm room.
“Ah, thanks! I almost—did, although he is too embarrassed to admit—forget where his dorm was located. He’ll remember eventually, it just takes a bit of orderliness and time to adjust to his new surroundings. This isn’t Hawkins, he reminds himself.
As much as he dislikes the idea of staying in Hawkins, at the moment, while he’s still healing, he does miss it. He misses the familiarness of his surroundings, the people. Everybody knew everyone.
Though, if Will was honest, that’s kind of the problem. If word got out to the wrong person that he is queer then it would’ve been over. He’s glad he can trust his party. The (again) full party.
Albeit the boy was not to pleased that he had to come out to eighteen-ish people simultaneously, what’s done is done. At least Vecna couldn’t use him being gay against him anymore.
He still doesn’t understand why he mentioned milkshakes at Melvalds of all things and places.
“Thanks Irene, thanks Chris!” He turns to face the two.
“No problem, if you need me you know what numbers to dial!” Irene shouts with her hands cupped to her mouth, trying to create an imaginary loud megaphone so that Will can hear her as she walks away and her boyfriend tailing after her as he facepalms and walks back to the building that Will stands by.
“Irene, we need to hurry. We only have fifteen minutes left,” he yells back, racing through the door of the building which the two boys dorms are located. Will moves out of his way to avoid getting ran into.
“Right, good luck you both!” Irene says.
“Thanks, you too!”
“And good luck to you too, Will,” Chris stops speed walking and turns around to wish him good luck on his first day.
Will quickly turns from Irene to face Chris and thank him but he’s already gone. He’s gone. Damn, he runs fast. He’s about to ask Irene if he always does this but before he can get the chance to ask her she’s also gone off to her first class of the year.
Will smiles faintly as he thinks about the short-lasting but meaningful conversations and bonding time he just had with his two newfound friends. As long as you count a quick, half-assed tour before classes commence “bonding.”
Will sighs, a knot forming in his chest as he braces himself for what’s to come as he opens the door to the interior of the building.
When the dark brown wooden door creaks open he finds huge beige carpeted floor with long hallways and multiple doors. White popcorn walls and dark wooden desks with plug-in heat lamps. He looks straight ahead and sees the door to his (and his roommate’s) dorm room and he begins to feel a mixture of relief that he’s made it this far, hesitation because he doesn’t know what or who will be behind that door, nervousness because he doesn’t want to screw anything up with his roommate—let alone get into a fight—and fear. Most of all, he’s excited to have a roommate other than his brother for once in his life. A potential friend—maybe more, if it’s a boy, his brain thinks.
Ashamed at the thought, Will once again thinks to himself. No, that’s not what I have to worry about right now. Introductions are for later. Right now I have to get ready and look presentable for my classes.
Yet Will can’t help but gab at the thought of who it could be. He knows that he knows no one here, (except for Irene and Chris) and he knows that the two of them are definitely not his roomates as Irene is a sophomore and Chris would probably have mentioned it earlier if they were roommates. Unless he surprised him by not telling him that they were roommates. If Chris likes surprises, at least. Will will have to ask Chris if he does the next time he sees him.
He wonders what type of personality his roommate has, as well as what types of hobbies he or she has.
It’s hard to tell exactly what Will is thinking right now. It’s somewhere along the lines of “Please don’t be a rowdy, pothead roomate like my brother,” “Please be a social butterfly so I don’t have to do all of the work every single time to start a conversation and keep it going,” “Please be someone of the same or close enough to the same interests or please make it easy for us to understand one another so we can easily become a compatible duo,” and “Please be an attractive guy.”
However, as Will opens the door he looks around he sees two beds. One, his, that still needs to have a sheet, pillow, and blanket be put in. He groans when the realization hits him that due to the much-needed and well-appreciated tour of the campus, he won’t have time until he gets back from his (hopefully not) boring and long classes to get started on getting everything set up. He at least wants to put the stuff onto his bed so it’s one less extra step for later. Hw drops his heavy backpack which hold his books onto the ground and immediately takes out and puts the sheet, the blanket, and the pillow onto the bed and then nearly leaves his room to rush to his first class (which Irene pointed out to him while on the tour) yet stops in his tracks when he looks at his roommates bed.
Will frowns upon the messy comforter and pillow on that bed. Okay, Chris wouldn’t leave the bed all messy like this, he would make it neater.
Will comes to feel agitated at the realization that it is too quiet for a college campus on its first day. He comes to feel agitated with the time he has wasted.
His roommate was also late to their classes, Will figures as he begins to open the door to his dorm, but it’s stuck.
“Come on you stupid door, budge!” Will mutters to himself, letting out a sharp breath as he grinds his teeth together and tries at the lock until his arms become too sore and his palms too sweaty. He just hopes he isn’t late to his first class of the day.
“Thank goodness Robin gave me a spare Bobby pin.” Will thinks back to the time he and the party watched a movie of Robin’s choice and it showed the art of unlocking a locked door with a Bobby pin.
Will once again, soon comes to realize that it was too silent in this room. The knot in his stomach only grows tighter. Feeling unnerved, he quickly begins to work at the door by unlocking it with said Bobby pin. Who knew such small things had huge power?
He opens the door. To his surprise, what he sees is not the wall and door across from his room, and he does not expect to set his eyes on a large black gooey, monster with some dark-red substance oozing from its skin. If that even is skin. No, it’s blob flesh? What even is that!?
Will is going to scream. No, he would scream if he didn’t cover his mouth with his hand to muffle his unheard screams of terror. Will is going to throw up. If not, he’s going to die here. Alone. With no lover, no friends, and definitely not some random roommate walking in and seeing his dead body dripping with blood on the floor.
Scratch that thought. His roommate will be either scarred for life or they will shrug, switch dorm rooms, and start a party and annoy their next roommate.
He really hates surprises. The bad ones, at least. He hopes that Chris, Irene, or his unknown roommate has the ability to actually like them, even the bad ones.
Then, out of nowhere, a sound emerges from an unknown device which the blob’s attention. Will hears a familiar alarm emerge from a familiar ear-piercing alarm clock which he cannot remember because he’s currently scared out of his dang mind.
Will does not hesitate, as he grabs this opportunity to unplug the alarm clock and chuck it into the corner of the blob monster’s eye. The monster screeches in anger as it disappears and everything turns back to normal. The alarm clock smashes into a million pieces as it hits the ground. He hopes it’s replaceable. He hopes his roommate doesn’t mind either and that he can come up with a good excuse on why it’s halfway across the room and shattered.
Will was too distracted by conversing with his two new friends and perplexed by their sudden, yet assumed normal disappearances to realize the shift in the atmosphere. There is much more clamor now. Yet, there is still no roommate of his in sight.
Will doesn’t waste this opportunity. He bursts out of his dorm room and never looks back. He’s made a vow to never let his guard down. Monsters are still out there for him, and for others, and he needs to find out what they’re up to and stop them.
-
Will Byers, against his own will, speed walks back to his dorm room. He doesn’t care who his roommate is at this point, he just needs sleep—and company to keep the monsters from getting to him. They seem to avoid him until he’s alone. He needs to wake up tomorrow and realize that what he saw earlier was just a dream, like what he dreamed of last night before he arrived here.
Other than the monsters, his day was good. He was way more talkative today and his professors, as well as classmates, were amazing and kind.
The monsters, right, Will thinks to himself. He just wanted a new beginning, a break from all this crap, but the universe told him to screw off and of course gave him a new challenge.
‘What? Growing up and college? A challenge? No, wait until you see what I have in store!’
Will puts his hand onto the door knob and he trembles for a second. Does he really want to go back in there? Does he want to face it again? What if his roommate is in there? What if he or she thinks he’s a freak? He knows he cannot deny what he saw earlier to be true but he’s tired of the monsters finding a way to escape the grim reaper and come after him. Maybe it’s just his wild imagination, maybe it’s just the ghosts of all the monsters haunting him “one last time,” as Vecna said, one last time (which was a million times.)
Will knows better. If these were ghosts Will doesn’t understand why a blob ghost is haunting him, which is a monster that he has never seen before in his six years of encountering this kind of stuff.
Maybe this is your trauma. Maybe this what you deserve. Maybe you should call that number.
He holds up the crumpled piece of paper to his face. Yeah, maybe it is his trauma. Or maybe his trauma is still here because these monsters won’t leave him alone. He knows what he saw, he knows these are real. Yet, he can’t tell anyone. He can’t tell the therapist, they’d all give him crazy looks. He needs to talk to someone he can trust. He drops his right hand, which holds all three numbers on two pieces of crumpled paper, to his side.
But there’s no one… Will thinks to himself as he paces back and forth. It’s a habit he picked up from his childhood friend. Annoying as it is, he’s glad he picked up a trait from his best friend. It always reminds him of Mike even in the stressful times.
Will Byers is looking anxiously at the doorknob. He’s trying to get and keep his shit together, but he feels he’s going crazy with mixing up all these memories he has and memories that are someone else’s. At least, that’s what he thinks. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t even want to know. He doesn’t want to think about the slightest chance of the gate and Dimension X being open anymore. He wants to forget about what happened last night. But he can’t. Part of it he doesn’t want to forget, but he knows that if he were to remember part of this “dream” that he had he were to remember the rest. That, somehow, Dimension X still exists—and for some reason, it is still seeping into this world without the activeness of the gate, the Upside Down—since its bridge has fallen down.
As he crosses his arms, Will repeatedly taps his shoulder with his pinky finger, fidgeting. Would anyone even believe him? If his therapist found out the wrong thing he would be done for. His friends, his family, his dreams, his whole life would be done for.
Other than the monsters, at least he doesn't know anyone here and he can start fresh. At least no one he knows will get hurt. They’re all safe, back in Hawkins. It's not like someone he knows, loves, and dreads all at the same time is on the other side of his dorm room. He will find a way to get into contact with someone from the party back in Hawkins soon, but for now he needs to make his bed and take a well-deserved nap, and hopefully he has a chance to inform—
He quickly, once again, breaks out of his spiraling thoughts before his breathing can get any worse. This’ll all be easier if I just calm down, breathe, and rest.
He goes to grab his key to the dorm but realizes that the door is already unlocked, so then he goes to turn the handle but it swings open before he gets the chance to open it.
Oh wait.
“Hi, sorcerer.”
Holy crap. There’s no way this is real, this has to be another one of these visions. Will takes a quick step backwards and fumbles with this loose piece of cloth on his jacket.
It’s actually him and Will knows it, yet his roommate doesn’t understand why he looks so relieved yet scared out of his wits at the same time.
“MIKE!?”
Yeah, he'll be fine.