Chapter Text
I would break down at your feet and beg for forgiveness
Plead with you
But I know that it’s too late
And now there’s nothing I can do
So, I try to laugh about it
Cover it all up with lies
I try to laugh about it
Hiding my tears in my eyes
‘Cause boys don’t cry
30th of October, 1989.
The sky is clear this morning. The birds are chirping. The weather is warm for an October day. And Mike Wheeler doesn’t know what the fuck he is doing in New York.
He’s sitting at the wooden table his dorm came with. Is way too small and his legs don’t really fit in the space between the chair and the wall. He’s working on a literature history paper he’s been postponing since the moment the teacher assigned it. Lately he hasn’t been able to concentrate at all, and he doesn’t even know why.
The campus is nice and the classes are mildly interesting, enough to keep him hooked, but something feels off. He wasn’t even planning on going to New York for college, he applied for it just in case. But when the moment came to fill up his registration, he changed the envelope. He doesn’t really know why. He just kept thinking that Will was here and hey, everyone talks wonders of New York, that is the best place to go when you want to be free and all that. He thought maybe that’s what he needed after years of fighting monsters. But it doesn’t feel like that for him, New York is not that cool, he hasn’t really talked to that many people, and he hasn’t seen Will since the beginning of the year.
He sets the pen down and closes his notebook, he’ll deal with it later. He gets up and takes the shoebox he has hidden under his bed. He opens it as he sits on the floor, the radio is on in the background. He recognises this one, Pictures of You by The Cure. Will showed it to him.
He looks at the inside of the box, a tight feeling in his chest. He pulls out a picture. With Halloween approaching, he guesses he’s been feeling… nostalgic. It’s the first one that he won’t be spending in Hawkins and without his friends and Will. The last few years they obviously didn’t go trick or treating, but they still dressed up and walked around town and judged people’s costumes. He looks around the box and finds an old polaroid of Will in his Ghostbusters costume. That tight feeling sits heavier in his chest. Mrs. Byers gave him that picture by accident. She gave him an envelope with a few pictures of the party, and Mike and Will alone that Jonathan had taken on his last birthday, but slipped that one without knowing. He never gave it back. Mike still remembers the bike ride back home, how the polaroid sat heavy in his pocket, not sure what to do with it.
He looks at the other pictures but sets that one aside. It’s all more pictures from that Halloween night, Graduation pictures, some from all the nights playing DnD in his basement and a few pictures of him and Will from when they were little, all taken by Jonathan, playing at Castle Byers or inside Will’s house. And some letters, letters Mike never sent.
He gets up. It’s too much. He closes the shoebox and puts it back where it was. As he gets up he sees Will’s polaroid, he stops. His breathing is short, as if something was sitting heavy in his lungs. Mike tries to wash it off and takes the picture in his hands. His fingers brush over it, careful. And even though his mind is telling him to put the picture back with the other ones, and he knows it is what he should do, he walks over to the corkboard that is hanging above his bed.
Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.
He should. What will his roommate think? Will he even notice? But if he does, wouldn’t it be weird to have a picture of another guy above his bed? It isn’t like it’s some celebrity, Will is his best friend. He has his paintings all over his room, here and back home. But this is different, is a picture. The way El had pictures of him in Lenora. But it doesn’t have to be like that, right? It can just be him, having a picture of a friend. Nancy has always had pictures of Barb and her other friends in her room, and that wasn’t weird. God… If his dad saw this. He already hated that he always hung Will’s drawings.
Fuck it.
He takes a yellow pin and hangs the polaroid in the corkboard.
Mike takes a step back. It looks good. Feels good too. He still can’t fully breathe, but that’s probably because he hasn’t gone out all day. So, he takes his jacket and crosses the small dorm to close the door behind him.
The moment he steps out of his dorm, he runs into a girl from his Russian literature class. Sophie maybe? He’s not sure.
“Hey! Michael right?” she says.
“Just Mike is fine.” He replays, aware that he sounds a little harsh.
“Oh! Right, sorry. I’m Sophie, I think we're in Russian literature together. Anyway, I’m organizing a Halloween party in the local campus bar, so I’m trying to let everyone know, here’s the flyer.”
He takes it, it’s got a badly cut picture of a carved pumpkin in a plain background and the letters are all handwritten.
“It’s not costume mandatory, so no need to stress about getting one last minute!” she adds with enthusiasm.
He thinks about it for a second. Everything’s been shit lately, he hasn’t been to any college parties yet and this would be way better than staying in his dorm all alone. Even Will might go.
“Okay, I’ll see if I can go.”
⇟
Will Byers is ecstatic. New York is everything he imagined it would be and more. The classes are amazing, in only two months he has learned so much and he has noticed his painting skills improve a LOT. Jonathan has been a huge help, showing him around the city, introducing him to his NYU friends… It has certainly made the experience even better.
But even without Jonathan’s help, Will has made (and he can’t believe he’s saying this) so many friends. Everyone in the arts major is so fun and so open. Not even in the second week, he had already been invited to a party.
With everyday that passes he is more and more sure that this was the right choice. He misses Hawkins, obviously, his friends, his mom, El… And Mike, too. But New York is just so different. He isn’t zombie boy anymore, he’s just Will. And there is no pejorative subtext attached to his last name. No one knows how he “got lost in the woods” when he was twelve. No one here has been affected by an “earthquake” that split their town in four pieces or knows what a demogorgon is.
Will is smiling ear to ear trying to fight it back so he doesn’t look crazy to everyone else on campus while he leaves his dorm to go to the library.
Because it’s his first year, he has to take an art history class. At first he thought it was going to be a pain in the ass, but it’s been rather interesting. He had no idea of all the artistic subtrends that hide beyond general knowledge.
So now, he’s heading to the library to work on a paper on the gothic plastic arts evolution. As he gets there, he sees a few people from his year and waves at them. Will sets down his books on the first free space he finds and heads down to the art department to look for the books he needs.
Gothic. Gothic. Gothic. Gothic. Gothic…
As he keeps looking, something catches his attention. Right past the reading tables, walking by the window. A familiar set of dark curls… Could it be? He’s not fast enough to find out, or rather, they’re fast enough for him to not see their face completely.
He brushes it off with a slight shake of the head. It can’t be. Mike is far away on a different campus. Although, he never did tell him where he finally applied to. No, but it can’t be. If Mike was here, Will is sure he would have seen him by now. And he would have told him, right?
It’s best for him to not let himself be tempted by the thought of Mike being here, close to him. It’s been hard enough to stop thinking about him every single day, he’s not going to let all that effort go to waste. So, he keeps looking for his books.
After lots of vertically reading all the spines of the different books, he finds them; three books on gothic plastic arts. Will goes over to the table he had chosen for himself and sets down the books. He starts reading “Gothic sculpture was born closely linked to architecture—as a result of the decoration of the great cathedrals and other religious buildings—but it eventually gained independence and started to be worked as autonomous art...” he writes down a few notes, flips a few pages. “On the other hand, the ancient classical pagan tradition, which provided essential elements for the formulation of the new faith, was fully in favor of the representation of gods, and both currents remained in constant friction throughout the Middle Ages…”
Will takes a deep breath and sets down his pencil. This isn’t working. What if it was Mike? Could he..? No. He would’ve run into him if it was. It’s been two months. Mike would have had to be avoiding him on purpose to not see him in that much time. And he doesn’t have any reason to avoid him, right? Right? He acted fine with him after his big coming out press conference, he even said they were still going to be best friends. And after everything ended, they were still close. He wasn’t imagining it, was he? Maybe he was… Maybe Mike’s disgusted enough that he can’t even bear to see him now that they’re in college. Maybe that’s why he didn’t tell Will where he applied to. Maybe-
“Hey, you!”
Will jumps back, startled out of his own thoughts. He looks to his right and sees Carlton right next to him. He gives him a slight tug on the arm, subtle, but enough for Will to understand.
“Oh, hi Carlton.”
“Hi” he chuckles a bit. “Are you ok? You looked almost spooked.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, you just startled me, I was… I was just really focused on this paper.”
“Oh, okay. Listen, there’s going to be a Halloween party at the local campus bar tomorrow. A girl from the literature major is organizing it. I thought we could go.”
“Oh, right! Halloween.” Will keeps his eyes away from Carlton. He’s been feeling a bit sensitive over Halloween, nostalgic, being the first one out of Hawkins. The first one without seeing Mike… “Sure, let’s go.”
“Great!” He tugs his arm a bit harder this time. “It’s not costume mandatory, but my mom sent me this vampire cape, so I think I’ll wear that.”
“Cool. Uhm, I don’t have any costumes.”
“No no, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” He waves a hand to brush it off as he gets up. “It’ll be fun either way. Alright. I’m gonna get going. I’ll see you later tonight?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Cool. Bye Will.”
“Bye.” He waves as Carlton leaves.
Halloween… If Mike is here… He might go to this party. No. No. Stop it. Paper. Gothic arts. Middle Ages. He picks up his pencil again, hoping this time he’ll be able to finish it.