Chapter Text
CHAPTER 1: you’ve got mail
Saturday the twenty first of August 1999;
I woke up, yet again, to the picture I stuck to my ceiling, that Will painted over ten years ago. He said El had commissioned it, and I believed him. At first. Though, I’m really starting to doubt if El did commission it, since she went missing, it was all I could think about.
Usually in the mornings I talk to my sister, Holly, because she always stays locked in her room for most of the day, and I really don’t think thats good for her. But today, I just lay there on my bed, for who knows how long. 20 minutes? 30? An hour? At this point I don’t know or really care.
“MICHEAL BREAKFAST IS READY”, right on time my mom, starts screaming about how Nancy dropped a plate of toast on the floor, and Ted mumbling something along the lines of “kids these days”.
Even though I’m 28, I still live in my parents house which I find pretty ironic, since most of- well, all my friends, even Will who apparently has a boyfriend now, Carlton, have their own apartments.
Anyways, I get up and pull on a pair of sweatpants from my closet and then pull on a random t-shirt, of course it had to be the shirt I borrowed from Will years ago but never gave back, great. Thats just great.
Then as I started to head downstairs, Holly decided to run full speed down the corridor and bump straight into my back, making both of us fall down the stairs.
“AGH- HOLLY WATCH WHERE YOUR GOING”
God, I sound just like my dad, what happened to me.
Nancy then looks up at me from where she’s working on a newspaper article and smiles, its sympathetic. I don’t need sympathy.
I just need to talk to my old friends again.
Where they are… that I have no idea about, the only thing I know, is that Will is now living in New York with his… boyfriend. Carlton.
Now that I think about it… I kind of feel… jealous? No thats not the right word for it…
Covetous.
I feel. Covetous.
I feel covetous. For Will.
I feel resentment towards Carlton, he shouldn’t be in this narrative, it should’ve been me.
Still, I haven’t contacted Will to ask how he was doing since April.
APRIL.
The only reason I know Will has a boyfriend, is because of Robins insightful (if you could even call it that) monologue on how she still talks to Will a lot. Robin is nice, but i find she hasn’t been giving me good advice lately.
I grab a plate of the table and a singular slice of toast, im not actually that hungry today, then spread on some butter and take it upstairs to my room.
Ive been working on writing a book recently about how me, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max and everyone else managed to defeat Vecna, but with a slightly altered storyline and different names for the characters, I don’t exactly want to be hunted down by the government again, that wasn’t fun.
And I would 10/10 not recommend.
As I sit down and open my computer and wait for it to boot up, because apparently it takes at least ten minutes just to connect to the internet, I eat my toast, because, there is literally nothing else to do.
And then just after my computer booted up, I decided to check my emails.
Why. Why Micheal. Why would you check your emails.
As I click onto the icon, the screen flashes open revealing an email from Will.
“You’re invited to my wedding!”
I then stop dead in my tracks because, no, this cant be happening, i must be hallucinating.
But I check again and as it was before, the message is still there, clear as day.
As I sit there silently, I wonder why the universe has decided to play this cruel joke on me.
If you look at it from another perspective, if I hadn’t been so oblivious, me and Will would’ve had a chance. We could’ve been together. But no. Instead this. Cruel. Cruel. Joke.
I read the email over, and over, and over.
It doesn’t change.
Each time it feels like a sword has been stabbed through my heart, and gets pushed in a little deeper every time.
In the book I’m writing it switches from the real world, to Dungeons and Dragons then back to the real world, in D&D the paladin and the cleric are lovers, and in all our campaigns me and Will were always the paladin and the cleric.
The paladin and the cleric are together in the every universe.
The sun and the moon.
The north to the south.
The land to the sea.
The oxygen and the atmosphere.
The stars and the moon.
The light and the dark.
The yin and yang.
And the paladin and the cleric said they’d be together in every universe.
Well. Clearly not this one.
But. Then again. I find myself aching to respond.
I have to reply.
I can’t not reply.
But i don’t want to.
Because it hurts too much.
I start to type a reply.
“Dear Will,”
…