Chapter Text
Swirls of blue, green, yellow, and a thousand other colors danced their way across the canvas. Each stroke was given with care, a message, a promise to make good as a beautiful reminder of the past. Will’s hands no longer represented what race he was—rather a kaleidoscopic rainbow of stories, each patch of color an intimate tale manifested into various paintings.
Unconsciously biting his lip, Will dipped his fine-haired paintbrush into a pot of custom-mixed blue, a shade resembling the inky velvet of the midnight sky. Narrowing his hazel eyes at the canvas, he leaned forward and swept it across his character. Nobody knew why he was so adept at or insistent upon painting these certain fantasy characters. While his art had garnered a lot of attention and praise at NYU, nobody knew what it meant to him. Nobody knew that every time he finished painting the mousy-haired mage, he wept with grief.
It was the beginning of his junior year at college, and Will had reinvented himself. Nobody knew of the horrors he’d been through. He wished that he was as clueless as the rest of the student population, unaware that the world as they knew it had nearly imploded. Over three years had passed since the downfall of Vecna, since El had sacrificed herself, since he had come out and started living authentically.
It had been two years since Will had talked to Mike.
He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help but paint the courageous paladin with ebony curls, sharp cheekbones, and all-too expressive eyebrows. Mike wasn’t the only person he painted—he was simply the only one that he wished he could stop depicting. It still hurt to think back on when he had been hopelessly, brutally in love with the boy.
Why did he ever think it was reciprocated?
Shaking his head and blinking out of his stupor, Will set down his paintbrush. Glancing out of the high windows of the art studio, Will jolted with shock. The September sun was already setting, the sky melting into a brilliant ombre of pink, orange, and gold. Standing up from the paint-flecked stool, Will groaned as he stretched his arms up, dropping his heavy skull back.
He needed to head back to his apartment. He didn’t tell Carlton that he would be out late, and he didn’t want to cause an unnecessary argument—while his boyfriend didn’t know the extent of his past love for Mike, he may have noticed how frequently Will had painted a certain armor-clad knight.
“Is there someone The Paladin is based on?” Carlton had asked, his blue eyes searching Will’s, eyebrows expressing curiosity.
“It’s just…” Will hesitated for a split second, “A character that shows up in my dreams a lot.”
He hadn’t lied.
Snatching up his black-leather satchel from beside his stool and slinging it over his shoulder, Will sighed and walked towards the door. He paused before reaching for the handle, taking a deep breath and resetting his mind. He found that he often drifted into another world whenever he took to the studio and needed to come back down to Earth before heading home to his apartment.
Stepping outside of the Barney Building, Will started his trek to the subway. Because of the way that the government had royally failed him and his friends, they were all financially set for life. Unlike a good chunk of students at NYU, he didn’t have to live in Brooklyn, and instead elected to live in Manhattan so that he could be closer to his campus.
Thank God I got kidnapped by an interdimensional demon, he thought wryly.
As he walked two blocks to the subway station, he pulled out his Walkman and popped in his Ziggy Stardust cassette. The quiet drumming of Five Years started in his ears, relaxing him as he propelled his feet forward. He drank in the smell of NYC. To him it smelled alive, an air rich with possibilities and anonymity.
Will loved the city. To him, it was both the opposite of and quite similar to his hometown. While Hawkins had forests of green trees, New York had forests of buildings. Each jungle was alive in their own respects. It was silly, perhaps, to think that he could find a bit of home in the biggest metropolis in the world. But Will was an artist, and artists always had unique eyes.
As he approached the top of the steps that led down to his train, he could see it approaching fast. Not wanting to have to wait for another one, he dashed down the steps, skipping three at a time, and jumped the turnstile in the hopes of saving time. The doors were about to shut when he squeezed his way through, wheezing with exertion.
The car was packed enough to the point that Will had to stay standing up, but he never minded doing that. Sitting down in the subway made him queasy with anxiety—he felt a lack of control at not being able to jump ship from the train at a moment’s notice. Regardless, he only had a few stops before he arrived at the street where his apartment resided.
He took the few minutes of peace to continue to gather himself. As much anxiety as the subway gave him, no one would notice him—no one knew him as “zombie boy”. There was always someone willing to be the most insane person on the train, and he took comfort in knowing that it never would be him. That he would never draw attention to something that didn’t merit any.
The train screeched to a stop, bumping many of the passengers to the side, resembling the chaotic waves that Will missed the most about California. Glancing towards the stairs as he trekked towards the opening to his street, he saw that the sky was a dusky purple. It must have been close to 7:30 p.m.. He had promised Carlton that he would be home by five at the latest, and now two and a half hours had passed him by, a daydream of paint and characters and people he could only think about on his canvas.
Inserting the keys into his lock, Will could smell the dinner before he ever opened the door. Wracked with guilt, he pushed the door open with an apprehensive demeanor. Carlton was sitting alone at the table, an unfinished plate of food pushed to the side, with a beer cracked open. He looked up at Will, eyes full of reproach.
“Carlton, I’m so sorry, I lost track of time at the studio, and I wasn’t wearing my stupid watch today…” his voice trailed off as Carlton stared daggers at him.
“One night, Will. I just wanted you for one night. Why is that so damn hard for you? Why the fuck can’t you listen to me, just for once?” Carlton expelled, his voice crescendo-ing with each word.
Will flinched. This wasn’t the first time Carlton had yelled at him, and it most certainly wouldn’t be the last. But it was his fault—his boyfriend had prepared dinner for him, expected him to be home, and Will had failed him. It was almost reminiscent of how much disdain Lonnie would express towards him, but for completely different reasons.
Rushing to the table, Will kneeled by his side, grasping onto the hand that wasn’t currently gripping his fork with white-knuckled vigor.
Imploringly, Will whispered, “Hey, hey! I’m so, so sorry honey. I really didn’t mean to do this—I wanted to spend the evening together with you too. Can we still have dinner? Would that be alright?”
Carlton wasn’t looking at him; his gaze fixed on the opposite wall. Will reached out and gently cupped his boyfriend’s smooth jaw, turning his face towards him so that he could see what he was feeling. Carlton’s eyes were always a dead giveaway, betraying whatever emotions he was so stoically trying to mask.
Tilting his head into Will’s outstretched hand, he fluttered his eyes shut and nodded slowly. Exhaling with relief, Will stood up and kissed his lover on the cheek. It was a slow kiss; a faint flower being imprinted like the greenery that he adds to his art. Carlton tilted his head up towards Will’s face, gazing at him through his veil of lashes, eyes flickering between the artist’s hazel ones. Meeting Will in the middle, their lips brushed lightly together. Carlton brushed his lips one more time before deepening the kiss, arms pulling Will into his steady lap.
Will knew exactly what Carlton did and didn’t like. He knew that his boyfriend enjoyed it when he used his tongue a touch excessively. He knew that Carlton preferred a little bit of roughness, and he knew that Carlton didn’t like to “waste” his time on foreplay.
So, Will did exactly what his boyfriend liked, turning over and performing the perfect song of moans and breaths until Carlton became undone.
Because what Carlton liked is exactly what Carlton received. Will would do anything just to appease him, to keep him in his life. How many other chances would he get in love?
Stupid. Such a stupid, stupid thought. He’s the only love I need. The only one I want. Such a stupid, dangerous idea.
When they were finished, two bodies aching with rapid breaths and pulsing with sweat, Carlton detached himself and walked into the bathroom. Will lay there on the dining room table a beat longer, closing his eyes and exhaling a long-held breath. Once he heard the shower begin to rain from the bathroom, he finally lifted himself from the surface and walked over to their bedroom.
---
“How were your classes today?” Will inquired over a plateful of chicken and Spanish rice.
“Same old,” Carlton waved his fork around, rolling his almond eyes. “Emerson is still a bitch. He refuses to give me anything above a C. I swear to God he has a personal vendetta against me.”
“Mmm,” Will hummed, not wanting to say anything that would aggravate him on this subject any further.
“But whatever. It’s not like I’m going to apply anything from his class once I get an actual job. It just pisses me off how he looks at me with that smug face…” He trailed off in a huff, clearly getting worked up.
Will didn't say anything, just reaching over to lay his slender hand on his boyfriend’s forearm, tracing patterns with his thumb.
“Anyway, who cares. What were you working on in the studio so late today?”
Will pauses. He doesn’t think it prudent to mention The Paladin right now. Carlton gets into weird moods whenever he mentions that particular character. It’s almost like he can sense that Will is obsessively painting an unrequited love. He’s never told his partner about Mike, and he doesn’t see the necessity in it—nothing ever happened. At least, nothing overt.
“I was working on The Mage. I’m thinking of potentially creating a comic book about her. I just need to find an author to flesh out the written story.”
He was lying through his teeth. He was lying through his teeth, and he felt like it was obvious. After a moment that went on just a little bit too long, Carlton hummed.
“I think that sounds like a great idea. It might give you some closure to the story. You know, so you can stop obsessively painting these characters and finally move onto something else.”
Will blinked. What? Withdrawing his hand from his forearm, he choked out, “What do you mean, finally move on?”
Carlton looked up at him with a hint of exasperation. “C’mon, Will. You haven’t painted anything but this fantasy world since you started school. Maybe it’s time you expanded your portfolio. You know, branched out a little bit. It wouldn’t hurt.”
He didn’t know what to say. These paintings, these depictions had served as more than just a productive coping mechanism, more than just a way to reconcile with his horrific past.
But Carlton didn’t know about any of that. How could he blame him? He would never try to explain the fantastical elements of his trauma to him. He could see why his boyfriend thought that he was just hyper fixated, in a creative vacuum—even if it meant so much more to him than that.
“Yeah… yeah, you’re right. I think I’ll go through with the comic and find a writer.” Will couldn’t look into his eyes, instead settling on playing with his rice, pushing it around with the side of his fork.
Well, fuck.
As they went to bed that night, with Carlton pressed flush up against his body, Will couldn’t help but start to regret his lie. He didn’t want to reduce everything down to a simple comic, let alone stop painting this world. But he loved Carlton and would do anything to keep him.
He just wouldn’t tell him that he was planning on continuing it in secret.