Chapter Text
“Lucas, if you forgot your key again, you’ll just have to dig a tunnel because I’m not getting up,” Will’s muffled exasperation floated out from underneath his pillow.
The incessant banging on their shared door only continued. Will had stayed up late trying to “capture the essence of existential misery” for one of his art courses, and now he felt like he should start over and paint this instead.
Rooming with Lucas was mostly great. It was like a permanent sleepover, and Will didn’t have to pretend to enjoy the quiet company of a total stranger who would probably judge him for his desk full of half-finished drawings and wall covered in nerdy references. It was also kind of like rooming with Max too because she was over all the time. “I’m not here for you,” she’d scoff in her teasing way and breeze past Lucas to plop on Will’s bed for the latest update on Art Department interpersonal drama. Will loved having built-in best friends to soothe the anxiety of college life in a brand new city…usually.
Right now, however, with the room appearing to seismically shake from the force of Lucas’s fist, Will wondered if he’d prefer uncomfortable silence with a stranger if it meant having silence at all.
He slithered out of bed in a practiced way that kept his feet from hitting the ground the longest and dragged himself to the door, “You’re not going to like what I draw all over your jersey after this–wait, you’re not Lucas.”
Confused brown eyes blinked back at him, “Neither are you.” The hand that had been acting as a battering ram lowered, the other gripped a basketball at his hip.
Will blinked back at Not Lucas, “Right. Glad we cleared that up.”
“Does Lucas at least…live here?” the brown-eyed stranger who was decidedly Not Lucas asked, looking unsure of himself now despite the knocks Will thought had sounded pretty damn sure when they ripped him from unconsciousness.
Will mimed thinking really hard, “Yes, but I’m starting to reevaluate that.” The squeak of well-loved sneakers rang out like the door assailant didn’t believe in standing still. “He’s not here right now. Obviously.”
“Oh, good, I haven’t totally lost it. One too many concussions, and you start to doubt your own memory.” Will nodded, pretending to relate. “I’m Chance, by the way.” He held out the hand that had been keeping the basketball in place, and they both watched as the ball dropped to the linoleum and skittered a couple doors down. It came to a halt only after ricocheting off a bag of trash outside someone’s room.
Gutting betrayal shaped Chance’s expression, and Will smirked, “You know, I kind of zone out at sports, but that’s not what the ball does when Lucas has it.”
Chance’s lips parted in mock offense and a little bit of genuine shock, “Wow, you think you know a guy after standing in his doorway for five minutes, and then he wounds you like that.” He snapped his fingers close to Will’s face.
“You probably shouldn’t put your trust in people who only got two hours of sleep and are kind of annoyed about it,” Will challenged, eyes narrowed pointedly.
Chance’s face gained a little color at the scrutiny, or so Will thought. It was probably just a fatigue-induced hallucination. The hallway was quiet for a beat other than the distant creak of pipes that signaled occupation of the communal shower.
Chance ran a hand through loose black hair, looking up from his sneakers finally, “You’re Will, aren’t you?” Will raised an eyebrow. “Lucas mentions you a lot. Says you’re–and I’m directly quoting here, so don’t shoot the messenger–‘kind of a diva.’” He held his hands up as if to stop a premature reaction, “but he always says it with fondness. Like the kind of appreciation you’d have for a sassy cat that sort of scares you. It’s all making sense now.”
Will couldn’t help the little laugh that escaped, and Chance grinned a bit lopsided like he’d done something right. “It’s good to know my legacy precedes me. May the gymnasium where you all do whatever it is you do shiver at my mere mention,” Will declared as if speaking to a much larger group, possibly with a wizard staff. He didn’t have the clear-headedness of a good night’s sleep that would’ve allowed him to feel embarrassed over his theatrics. “But yeah, I’m Will. Best friend and prisoner, at times, to Lucas.”
Chance’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly, amusement and something else moving across his features, “Well, it’s good to finally put a face to a reputation. Consider the whole team terrified, especially me. Once I tell them I was almost smote live and in person, you’ll be an even bigger legend. There will be banners–”
“HEY!” Chance’s rambling was cut off by a shout down the hall. They turned toward the source of the booming unpleasantness to find Rick, the dorm’s RA, holding Chance’s basketball like an illegal substance, “Does this belong to you?”
Chance hesitated, “...yes?”
Rick began his march toward them, the ball held at a distance like the ooze of collegiate athleticism would rub off on him. Will could tell he was mumbling something in the style of a Scooby-Doo villain inconvenienced by “those meddling kids.”
Bottom lip between his teeth to keep from giggling, Will whispered, “Sorry in advance.”
Chance looked at Will like he had the basketball just a few minutes prior–like he’d been betrayed again, but this time he was giddy about it instead of humiliated.
When Rick’s dramatic advance down the empty hall finally came to an end, they all stood in triangle formation–Will with barely contained glee, Chance with slight apprehension that waned at the sight of Will’s smile, and Rick with the exhaustion of someone who had been patrolling the dorm for 40 years instead of two. “Here,” he barked, shoving the ball into Chance’s chest with distaste. “I don’t know who you are, or why you’re bothering our precious Will, but I better not see this ball leave your hands in this dorm hall EVER again. The tripping hazard! The paperwork! You athletes want me to gray before I even make my directorial debut in the spring. ‘The artistic process aged him,’ they’ll say, but I’ll know better.”
Will choked down a laugh, “Rick, go easy on him. Not everyone that plays basketball can be Lucas.”
“Ugh, so true,” Rick sighed, throwing a hand over his forehead in a withering kind of way, “Sweet Lucas would never do this to me.”
Chance piped in, “Hey! Look, sorry, man.” Rick made an affronted face at the informality. “I was expecting Lucas at the door…but Will was here…and somehow the ball escaped me. Doesn’t happen often, I swear.” Chance looked sincere, like Rick’s lasting impression mattered for reasons that were unclear to Will.
Rick pursed his lips, “Oh, I see, very interesting…” He glanced between Chance and Will and nodded to himself, “You’re forgiven on the condition that you keep the sporting equipment…wrangled.”
“Done,” Chance assured, miming a salute, and the ball teetered dangerously like it might make a run for it again.
Rick looked to the ceiling for mercy. “Don’t think because you can’t see me, I can’t see you,” he warned cryptically, giving Will a gentle pat on the shoulder and Chance a suspecting appraisal before he turned to leave. Will thought he heard him muttering about buying box dye on his way back down the hall.
“Sooo, that was Rick,” Will sing-songed, face plastered with a grin that said he knew what would happen the moment Chance failed to retrieve the errant ball.
“That,” Chance emphasized, finger pointing accusingly toward the ghost of Rick, “was a set-up. What if he secretly hates me forever, and I get tackled every time I try to come back? That would be terrible.”
Will’s cheeks warmed at the thought of Chance wanting to visit again. He’s not here for you, he’s here for Lucas, his brain supplied with the delicate approach of ice water being dumped on his head by surprise. His mood soured, and his defenses rose up, “Would it?”
Chance looked actually wounded this time but wiped it away in an instant, “Well, yeah…how else am I going to gather tales of my bone-chilling encounters with Lucas’s elusive roommate?” His hands rose up to form a picture frame over Will’s face. “If we’re going to really cement the legend, we’ve got to give it legs to stand on. It’s not just a one-and-done.” His eyes were hopeful, peeking through the curtain of dark bangs that had swung down from his last attempt to push them back.
Will suppressed a small smile, “I suppose. So they talk about me for centuries, or whatever.”
“That’s the spirit!” Chance clapped his hands in triumph, basketball bouncing off the ground again and into Will’s shins. “Shit, sorry. Quick, make sure Rick isn’t lurking.” He retrieved the ball with graceless desperation and stood back up, stick-straight, cheeks red for sure this time.
Will felt the nerves creep back in, persistent as ever. He was smiling too broad, gazing too long, reading into everything too much. He’s Lucas’s friend. He’s on the basketball team. Don’t get crazy. Redirect this. “Okay, well…the coast is clear, and I’m sure Lucas will be back soon. I think I’m going to try and salvage whatever sleep I can before my afternoon class.”
“Oh, yeah, Lucas. I’ll just…wait for him then,” Chance replied lamely, one hand ruffling the hair at the back of his neck.
“Great! Bye!” Will moved to close the door and take refuge under the covers once more, but it didn’t budge.
“Wait! I meant, like…inside,” Chance laughed, a tan arm braced against the door. Will by no means noticed the way the muscles in his forearm tensed with the effort. He wasn’t a pervert.
“Right, sorry. Be my guest,” Will relented from their tug-of-war at the dorm entrance and motioned toward Lucas’s side of the room, “Make yourself at home. Over there.”
Chance wandered over to the side of the room that definitely wasn’t Lucas’s, basketball deposited onto Will’s bed like he owned the place, “A Star Wars fan, huh?”
Will watched as Chance turned his attention from The Empire Strikes Back poster to the scattered arrangement of polaroids next to it, “Was this last year’s Halloween?”
Realizing Chance was staring at him, Will answered, “Yeah, Lucas was Han, Max was ‘the little green freak’ as she put it, Jane was Luke, Dustin was ‘The Force’--don’t ask, I was…Leia, and Mike was…well, he didn’t get the memo, so he came as a vampire, obviously.”
That was their last Halloween before tight-knit, smalltown comfort turned into big city uncertainty and tennis matches of “Sorry I missed your call” and “Are you coming home for the holidays?”
Will still had Lucas and Max, of course–the ragtag group of NYU hopefuls all received scholarships as if the universe knew they still needed each other in this next phase of life. Jane somehow convinced Joyce and Hopper to move to California, parroting the latest mantra she picked up from Max that they needed to “find themselves.” Dustin conveniently received full-ride offers from every prestigious engineering college in the West Coast, and Will had spared him and Jane the question of whether or not that was a coordinated effort. And Mike…well, Mike stayed in Hawkins.
Whenever Will thought about Mike now, he no longer wondered if–or hoped that–Mike was thinking about him too. The lifetime of adolescent yearning had slowly been replaced by figure drawing deadlines and navigation of the New York City subway system and newfound curiosity about Lucas’s basketball teammate–no, definitely not the one that was still doing a perimeter sweep of his dorm room…a different one. Yeah.
Glancing at Mike’s stupid plastic fangs in the photograph, Will’s only hope for Mike was that he would figure out…whatever had been going on with him…and get out of Hawkins some day. Change was hard for anyone, but Mike especially was the type that clung to the fading vestiges of the past with a death grip and never let go, which was how he ended up still living in his childhood home and attending the local community college while the rest of the party scattered across the country. Will was confident that Mike would, in Jane’s words, find himself, but he didn’t feel responsible for helping him do that anymore. He had to march forward in the direction of his own aspirations and the possibility that someday he’d meet someone who didn’t wear shame on their shoulders and could love him in that big, proud cliche way he’d always daydreamed about.
“Good choice, Leia’s hot,” Chance remarked with a crooked smirk and an offensive accompanying dimple. He had a twinkle in his eye that Will imagined was what happened when straight guys thought about half-dressed women in the Star Wars franchise. “I know Lucas and Max, but what’s up with Luke, The Force, and Dracula?”
Will quickly recovered from the brutal reminder that guys like Chance were not into, well, other guys. “Jane’s my sister,” he moved closer to the visual aid and traced a finger over it, Jane’s smile contagious. Chance shuffled from one foot to the other, probably from boredom rather than anything else. “She’s in California with our parents and Dustin. She thinks her and Dustin are slick, but everyone in the party knows they’re dating. And then there’s Mike–”
“Wait, sorry, the…party?” Chance interrupted, hand raised as if to stop traffic.
Will’s eyes closed for a moment, and the realization dawned that he was about to reveal an even deeper layer of dork culture to a jock who liked scantily clad women and probably cars–fast ones with, like, racing stripes or something–and almost certainly didn’t have the capacity for nuance that Lucas did.
“Yeah…the party. Our D&D group?” Chance tilted his head, expression carefully blank. “I’m surprised Lucas hasn’t mentioned it before, honestly,” Will started, walking over to his desk with some reluctance to pull out his old D&D book that he couldn’t bring himself to ever throw away. He flipped it open to a character sheet of Will the Wise, complete with his own rendering of the design and feverishly scribbled notes in the margins. “I’m going to give you a bare bones overview. Otherwise we’ll be here all night.”
Will ignored what must have been the friction of Chance’s jacket moving and definitely not him mumbling “that wouldn’t be so bad…” because that would be ridiculous. And Will was clearly at the stage of sleep deprivation where he was hearing things.
“You’ll want to look at this, for reference,” Will prompted, book held out for Chance to take.
Chance didn’t take it.
Instead, he moved to crane his head over Will’s shoulder, standing close behind. Chance was quite a bit taller, Will’s brain logged unhelpfully. “It’ll be easier if you can, like, point at what I’m supposed to look at…and stuff.” Will didn’t think that made much sense, but the warmth of Chance’s body in the space left between them shut down any threads of logic. He made eye contact with the drawing of Will the Wise as if to ask, Am I dead right now?
“Um, okay,” Will shifted slightly–a grave mistake–and his back bumped into Chance’s chest, “uh, sorry, let me just–” He felt a hand hold him in place by his upper arm.
The heat of Chance’s breath tickled Will’s neck, “I can’t really make anything out when you’re all squirmy. I’m not, like, The Flash.”
More like the Human Torch, that’s for sure. Wait–had Chance just made a comic book reference?
The universe, of course, didn’t allow Will the time to delve into that concept any further. Lucas burst into the room, wet towel thrown over his shoulder and shower flops thwacking with cartoonish flair. “Wiiiiill, are you up? We have got to study today or else–oh–”
With impressive speed and force, Will shook Chance’s hand loose and launched across the room, D&D book released like hot coals and abandoned at Chance’s feet. Chance looked down at the book, back up to Will, down at his hand, back up to Will, and then over to Lucas. “Hey, man, I was waiting for you,” he greeted casually.
Lucas’s face contorted into some pained combination of a grimace and a smile, “Okay, yeah. I mean, sure. It makes sense now why I found Rick haunting the halls and complaining about his premature grays again.”
“No, really!” Will jumped in, “He woke me up banging on the door like a Neanderthal–I actually thought he was you and briefly considered a formal separation.” Lucas looked around like an invisible studio audience would boo at the accusation. “Anyway, he basically forced me to let him in and tell him about D&D. I’m a victim because you took too long in the shower,” This earned him a frown he could feel rather than see from Chance’s side of the room.
“I might’ve believed you, but there’s a hole in your story,” Lucas pondered and paced in a circle, the menacing echo of his shower flops bouncing off the walls. “Chance already knows all about D&D. He’s even seen my ranger you dr–”
“Lucas! We’re already late for Human Anatomy. Chop, chop. I’ve been waiting for eons.” Chance bounded across the room and pushed Lucas toward the door with both hands like a boulder up a hill.
Will stayed put, quiet and confused, as Lucas was ushered out the door, outcries that he was “still wearing [his] flops” and Chance was “being a weirdo” becoming more distant. He couldn’t even begin to unpack what any of it meant or why someone like Chance would waste time pretending to be clueless with someone like him, so he elected to let gravity land him back on his bed, alone at last.
The only sound that remained was the release of his own long-held breath and the rustling of Chance’s basketball rolling down the bend in the mattress and hitting his head with a boink.