Chapter Text
Will had a horrible feeling in his stomach. It had begun early in the morning when he first arose. He found his newly awakened mind turning cogs in that head of his, wanting to take a trip to the past. The issue with that was Will didn’t particularly like his mind wandering off. He’d much prefer to get over it, say past is past, lock it away, and bury it. Of course there was a part of Will that ached but he could ignore it if he tried hard enough. And god knows he tried.
No, Will didn’t indulge in analyzing the past but he certainly analyzed every thought that had to do with that peculiar ache of his. The ache that over the last year and a half he’d dealt with had become less and less foreign. Now he even took a slight comfort in it, having it there with him, always present. Will knew there was guilt he carried for taking that slight comfort in that ever-present ache. But it paled in comparison to the guilt he carried over what had gone down between him and Mike.
The sound of rising steam, the tea kettle, snapped Will out of it. As he crossed the kitchen, from the dining table to the stove, he knew this was why he so heavily guarded his mind from all this wandering about the past. It never brings about anything productive. Past is past, nothing more. He opened the chestnut wood cabinet just above his head—if inanimate objects could be on their deathbeds this cabinet sure would be, it was practically falling off of its hinges—to find a clean mug. One of three cups left in the cabinet, Will reached for it. The rest had been abandoned, left to rot for days in the kitchen sink. Will told himself he’d get around to it eventually.
‘Eventually’ would have to be sometime between the next two days—his mother had gone to visit Jonathan in New York to see how he was doing at College. Will had pleaded and begged—it was a little embarrassing looking back on it—to let him go on the trip with her but she had insisted his education was important. That he couldn’t afford missing out a whole week of school and that he’d see his brother soon enough when he came down to Hawkins for Christmas. Will supposed Christmas would come soon enough and he also knew her logic held up. He was behind in a few of his classes and the only way he was going to make it through his senior year was if he focused on his studies. And with no one around he could do just that. Not to mention it would get his mind off of a certain someone.
————————————————————————
Will avoided most people at school. It was easy for him since there never really seemed to be anyone looking for him. Of course when he saw his old friends in the hall of Hawkins High he smiled back at them and waved but that was all he did. The old party spoke but sparsely, and even farther and few in between, as the full group they once had been. The bond they held had faded out. Maybe that was just the way it was supposed to go, they had all grown up, found their own tribe of like minded people and stuck by them. But there was still some form of semblance to the group.
Max and Lucas had both joined their respective boys and girls basketball teams; not to mention they’d recently gotten back together (after their millionth breakup). Will noticed them at the start of the year, Lucas’s arm wrapped around Max’s waist, the beaming smiles they both shared on their faces as they walked down the hall. They didn’t notice him but that’s neither here nor there.
Then there was El and Dustin—Dustin was always a huge theater geek and El had fallen in love with the performing arts as well. Will had gone to one of the school’s productions last semester only to be pleasantly surprised by how good the play was—but, of course, it was El and Dustin, two of the most passionate people he knew. He remembered the long hug El had given him after the show finished. How she lit up when she spotted him in the crowd, thanked him for coming, and told him she had missed him before skipping off to find Hopper. The moment nearly brought him to tears—El always gave the best hugs, ones that made you feel loved no matter what.
Now Mike, he was interesting—‘interesting’ was one way to put it. Within the time he and Mike had their falling out, Mike had become somewhat of Hawkins High’s very own heartthrob. Every girl at school blushed as he passed them by, wanted him for their own, and envied the girl that got lucky enough to have him. Will couldn’t blame those girls in a way—Mike had grown taller, grown into himself, his baby fat had melted away, and the once awkward kid he had been went away and Mike had become cool and attractive in the eyes of the Hawkins High student population.
As Mike had come into his own, and as girls chased him, he began to date Kathy Barros. Will only assumed they were still going strong. Kathy was by far regarded as the prettiest girl in school. All he really knew about her was that she had moved here last year from New York and before that she had lived in Brazil. She was in Will’s literature class and she was nice enough (at least he thought so, he never actually talked to her before), only able to catch glimpses of her side profile from where he was sitting. Kathy had long flowing brown hair, tanned skin, hazel eyes, full pink lips, and held a very intense sort of beauty.
Will felt he was the one in the group that had changed the least. He often thought his trip to the upside down had changed his brain chemistry in some way. He hadn’t made any new friends—hadn’t joined a club like El or Dustin or a sports team like Max and Lucas and he definitely wasn’t popular like Mike was. He never realized just how much he was like his brother until this past year. Obviously Jonathan was his brother so there was bound to be a couple of similarities between them but Will never thought he’d be spending his nights alone just as Jonathan did, too caught up in his own head to entertain the thought of having friends, or even someone to talk to who wasn’t a family member.
As Will shut his locker close, it seemed his previous thoughts of his friends had manifested before his eyes. He was able to make out two familiar faces in the crowd of teenage bodies. Lucas and Mike. Will dropped his gaze, turning away, hoping and praying to whatever sort of god there might be that they wouldn’t spot him. Will wanted nothing more than to be left alone. He was almost out, out of the situation that might possibly, and more than likely transpire taking into account Lucas’s hawk eyes, when he hears Lucas call out his name.
Crap.
And that horrible throbbing sensation in Will’s stomach that hadn’t fully gone away from this morning suddenly panged—stinging even more. As he turned to face his once close friends he found them only a few steps away. It had been a while since Will and Mike had been face to face like this. Mike had this uncomfortable look on his face. Only to anyone else they probably wouldn’t have noticed the slight wince in his features, would think nothing of the expression he had on but after being Mike’s best friend for the majority of his 17 years on earth, Will had a gift for telling exactly what Mike’s facial expressions meant in conjunction to how he was feeling. Even though Mike had been harder to read recently—always had that default mask on—looked so sullen these days, eyes dark and distant, Will was still able to see through it. Though at this moment Will wished it was a gift he hadn’t possessed.
Will fixed—one of Mike’s specialties—a default mask on his face and directed his gaze toward Lucas. Lucas had been a constant in Will’s life from the day he met him. Out of all the party members Lucas would be the one most likely to make conversation—even if it was dreaded small talk—with him now and again these days.
“Will.” Lucas smiled. His dark brown eyes shining underneath the school’s harsh lighting. “I heard you have the house to yourself. You don’t know how jealous I am, man,” Lucas laughs under his breath. “If I found a genie in a bottle, the first thing I’d wish for is having the house all to myself.”
“How’d you know about that?” Will hadn’t told anyone.
“Max told me.” Of course. His mother had asked Hopper to check up on Will every few days, and of course Hopper told El, and El must have told anyone she could get to listen, which was Max who told Lucas. “When’s your mom coming back?”
“2 days from now.”
Lucas smiles at that, but this isn’t the heartfelt smile he had on before, it’s a shit-eating grin. “You’ll be able to make it to the party tomorrow then. It’s supposed to be the party of the year. Everyone’s going.”
Party?
“Party?” Will repeated out loud. He looks over to Mike who suddenly drops his eyes and his face burns bright red. Mike looks like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The dark green sweater Mike was wearing hung loose on his shoulder, fitting him yet looking a size too big, same with his jeans. Mike’s milky skin seemed to whiten around his eyes to show the deep purple circles beneath his lashes.
No one told Will about a party. And who would? He understood why he knew nothing about it. No one spoke to him and he spoke to no one. He was a loner. Why would he—of all people—get invited to the ‘party of the year’? With all that said, Will would rather spend his last night alone, cozying up in his bed with a good book. Parties couldn’t interest him less. The thought of sweaty teenagers pressing their bodies up against each other made him turn up his nose.
Lucas smacks Mike in the arm to which Mike ‘ows’ at. “Dude you really didn’t tell him?” Mike shrugs. Lucas looks back at Will, sighing, “Tyler Gremmens,” Lucas began to explain, “is throwing a Halloween party. The whole school’s invited.”
Apparently the whole school, everyone, but him.
Lucas smacks Mike in the arm once again, as if to indicate to Mike it was his turn to speak. It almost came across as a mother pressuring her son to talk. Suddenly Mike is talking and is ( actually ) looking directly at Will. “Yeah.” Mike says meekly. “You should come if you don’t have anything else planned.”
Will doesn’t have anything else planned. He knows it and so does Lucas and Mike. Lucas was practically forcing Mike to invite Will. As he stood in front of him, Mike rocked back and forth on his feet—that above all standing in place was the most uncomfortable thing about this interaction. This was a pity invite, even if Lucas meant well.
The bell rings. Before Mike pivots and turns, there’s this stare Will shares with him. Mike’s mouth is in the shape of a tiny smile and behind all the awkwardness, and whatever had happened between them, Mike looked as if there still was a small part of him that was—Will couldn’t believe it—happy ? to see Will. Will kind of wants Mike to say something else; to show some sort of outright emotion. He wants to hear Mike laugh again. Wants Mike to look at him without internally cringing.
“See you there.” Lucas smiles at Will as he turns to follow closely behind Mike, presumably on the way to a class they share.
Will stands there, watching his old friends walk down the hall until they turn the corner and are no longer visible from his line of view, thinking over the interaction. That horrible feeling in his stomach is more present now than ever.