Chapter Text
Mike’s been standing outside of Will’s building for ten minutes. He hasn’t seen him in two years.
It’s not nerves keeping him planted here. It’s not. But there is a small recalibration happening. Will’s letter has round script that reads 118 W 3rd St. Apt 56. The silver plaque on the facade of the building bears the same address, but this building doesn’t look right, doesn’t look quite like the place Will Byers should live. It’s tall, brick, with a hundred windows. Mike is three states removed from Indiana with a duffel bag stuffed with clothes and a secret he’s been harboring for six months.
People brush past Mike on the street, hustling by like he’s in their way. There is noise from every direction: honking and shoes skidding on the cement and a dozen conversations.
Mike hoists his duffel bag higher onto his shoulder and pushes through the glass door.
The elevator exerts more horizontal movement than what feels tolerable, so Mike stands in the corner, bumping against the wallpaper with his elbow. He stares at the glowing button beneath the ‘5’ and holds his breath.
They’ve written, here and there, they’ve talked on the phone. They kept meaning to meet up but the logistics never aligned. For Mike, it’s been two years of getting his English degree at a shitty commuter college and half wondering if he should just say fuck the writing and become something stupid like a computer programmer. And two years of writing Will four-page, handwritten letters and memorizing his new phone number. Two years of writing things that aren’t supposed to be about Will, and at some point realizing they always are.
So, yeah. He hasn’t seen Will in two years.
The elevator jolts to a stop, the doors creak open, and Mike leaps out from it before it gives up and plummets to the ground floor untethered with him inside.
The door labeled 56 is at one end of the hall, by a dim, alley-facing window. Dust drifts in the afternoon light, and the sounds of the city are muted but still there.
Mike knocks once, but before his fist can rap the door again, it’s gliding away from him.
“Mike,” Will says, smiling.
“Hey,” Mike says back, smiling too. Mike reaches for him without thinking and wraps him up in a hug, letting the bag slide to the floor.
“Okay,” Will laughs. “Okay. Hi.”
“Sorry,” Mike says, starts to peel away, but Will holds him tighter. “Been awhile,” Mike says into his shirt.
“Yeah.” Will’s voice is softer now. “It has.”
Mike can feel him, so warm against his chest. Can smell his skin.
Will pulls away first, his cheeks pink. “Come in, weirdo.”
Mike kicks his bag a few feet and shuts the door.
Will looks different. His hair is parted, longer, curling out at the sides of his neck. He looks older, which Mike supposes is right. They are twenty now. He might even be taller, or broader, or something. The air from his apartment is cool, smelling of incense.
Mike looks around. It’s small, but it’s lively, full of coming-of-age impedimenta. Posters, blankets, crammed furniture, VHS tapes stacked high. Canvas, cameras— Jonathan’s, must be— sculptural and weird art pieces. A long tendril of a plant spans the length of the wall opposite the door.
But it’s also neat, ordered in a way, intentional. Very Will.
“Cool place,” Mike says.
“Uh, thanks,” Will laughs.
“Uh… when did you move out of the dorms?”
“As soon as I could. Seriously, I left a trail of smoke I got out of that place so fast. There were roaches.” Will shakes his hands out. “Everywhere.”
Mike makes a face, mirroring him. There is a warmth in Will that Mike missed. Didn’t realized how much he missed it until just now, feeling it again. Mike looks away.
“Did you do dorms both years?” Will asks.
“Yeah. Well, the first. But then it was so close to home I just said fuck it and bought a car instead.”
“You moved back home?”
“Yeah. So cool, I know.”
“Yeah. The true college experience.”
“Alright, Byers. What do you know about the college experience? What, are you like a burnout now?”
Will smiles with his entire face. Bright teeth out, green eyes and all. “No. Not that bad. But— hey. New York is fun.”
“Do you drink?”
“No! No. I usually just smoke.”
“Oh shit.”
And this is the situation: Mike is standing in Will Byers’ kitchen, watching him idly lift his shirt with his hand, rubbing his stomach. Talking about how he smokes weed now— since when?— and how fun New York is, and Mike is insofar the poster child of failure to launch and a ‘C’s get degrees attitude. Trying not to look at Will because it’s unsettling to see how much he has changed.
“You don’t?” Will asks.
“Oh, um. No, not really, I guess.”
“Well, you can try. If you want.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
Sirens pass by, not for the first time since Mike has been inside.
Will pads over to the short hallway to the left. “So, bathroom is in here,” he slaps the door closest to them. “That bedroom at the end is mine, behind me is Jonathan’s. And, we have a pull-out couch, so. It’s really comfortable, actually. You can leave your bag wherever. My room is fine if you want to get changed.”
Mike nods. “Cool. Thanks.”
Will glances him over. Then he says: “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, definitely, I mean— you know. The bus ride here fucking sucked. Took like almost an entire day. The guy I was sitting next to kept groaning. Just— groaning. No reason.”
Will laughs again. Mike feels it in his throat. “I forgot to tell you to take the train. I take it a lot to see Robin. When you have to leave, I can take you to Penn Station. It’s faster too. But… can’t make promises about anyone groaning.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah. Come put your bag in here.”
Mike follows Will with his duffel bag.
Will’s room is extremely small— half of it is bed— but it has a bright, open window with a nice view onto the street below. There are a few large folios leaning against the wall, and beside them stacks of canvas of various sizes and many stages of completeness.
“Holy shit,” Mike says. Because the art... it’s all very good.
It’s not quite surrealist, but not entirely real either. A place in between. The scenes look normal until you look long enough, and then you notice something twisted. A forest in broad daylight with crooked, bruised shadows. A bed with the sheets thrown to the end, like someone rose in a hurry, the light curdled and dim. Hands against dark backgrounds, pointing, or reaching, or gripping, the skin too saturated. Figures that aren’t human but something else, something adjacent, sinuous, otherworldly.
“Here,” Will offers, taking the strap of Mike’s bag. He’s still blushing. “Oh my god, are you planning to move in? This is so heavy.”
“Ha. I overpack, I guess.”
“I guess.” Will drops the bag by an empty stretch of the wall.
“Your art is so good.” Mike steps further into the room and turns to take more of it in. The wall is plastered with taped up sketches: figure studies, abstract doodles, all dark, finger-smudged charcoal on thin newsprint.
“Thanks,” Will mumbles. He sits halfway on his bed.
Mike sees a maroon sweatshirt on his desk chair, the sleeve emblazoned with a round, white signet and the chest printed Fordham University. Mike squints at it. It’s odd because there’s also an NYU pennant on the wall. Purple and white.
“So I have plans for us today. A few spots I love. Just, I don’t know,” Will walks into the hall, “Let me know when you’re ready to go. It’s cool if you want to hang out here for a while too. I know you just got in.”
“Yeah.” Mike follows him out of the room. “Yeah, I’ll probably chill out for a second.”
Will offers him a glass of water. The fridge swings shut. There is a note pinned to the front with a magnet.
Had to run. Dinner tonight? -C ♥
The handwriting is ambiguous enough. It’s looks like a girl’s. It’s probably for Jonathan.
“Thanks,” Mike says. “I’m gonna change out of this. I feel like I’ve been wearing it for a week.”
Will laughs, which Mike hangs onto. He returns to WIll’s room and shuts the door.
The Fordham sweatshirt hangs there, silhouetted in the light of the focused desk lamp. Mike keeps his back to it. He drops his old pants into Will’s hamper and almost walks away. But seeing them sitting there, on top of Will’s shirt... something about it makes his neck hot. Even though there’s no other reasonable place to put them, he almost reaches in to take them back.
It’s just laundry.
He walks away.
He’s stepping into shorts, adjusting for the humidity of the city in July, when he sees it.
A polaroid, tacked into a cork board with other ephemera. Will, squinting and grinning, face close to the camera. Someone is kissing his cheek. A guy. The white space under the photo is marked in sharpie: xoxo.
Mike’s hand stops on his waistband. He stands there, frozen and half-dressed, staring at it. Will’s smile, the line of the guy’s jaw. The easy way Will leans in to him.
He pulls his shorts on and slams the door behind him.