Byler one shots

30

Time has passed since the Mind Flayer, a memory so distant yet so close to home, as if it never was and has always been at the same time. Will has spent many sleepless nights and dreamy days, wondering if he’ll ever leave the past behind like everybody else seemed to successfully accomplish. He smiles at the faintest worries of his mom, exaggerates enthusiasm at Jonathan’s display of brotherly affection, feigns eagerness at his friends’ continuously growing interest in many new things.

Life goes on, and so it should. Lucas and Max started dating, and Max is now an indisputable member of the Party. Dustin continuous to take notes from Steve’s manly advices despite his constant denial that he follows the older boy’s words to a T. Mike won’t stop talking about El knowing that the girl will reunite with him soon enough.

So, yeah, life goes on around Will. And maybe that’s the problem. That life goes on around him, avoiding him altogether.

It goes from “Hey, baby, do you think it’s okay for mommy to date Hopper?” to “Will, baby, Hopper and I are going to get married! You know what that means? That means Jane will be your sister from now on. Isn’t that great, baby?”

It goes from Will watching Mike and El share intimate looks to Will watching Mike rush to their house with the main objective of seeing El and him as an afterthought.

It goes from Jonathan promising Will to hangout as often as he possibly could to Jonathan promising to call Will from his university in Chicago when time allows.

Life goes on around Will. He just can’t seem to find himself going with it.

He looks around him and see nothing but people moving on, happy and content, achieving their goals one checkbox at a time that he can’t find it in him to ruin their happiness by emptying his heavy heart and cluttered mind to their willing ears. He’s not the only one who went through hell, yet he seems to be the only one who never quite made it out intact.

Still, he remembers to be grateful. To his mom who continues to ask his opinion over every little thing. To Jonathan who never fails to call every chance he gets. To Hopper who treats him like his own, very much loved, flesh and blood. To El who seems to pick up her cues from their mother and treats Will like a son.

He remembers to be grateful to Max who painstakingly teaches him how to skate. To Dustin who never tires to elaborate his quick thoughts to the rest of the Party. To Lucas who constantly make it known that Will is the only sane one in the group.

And he remembers to be grateful to Mike. The Mike who became his first ever friend. The Mike who never gave up on him. The Mike who makes it so painfully easy for Will to fall for him. The Mike who Will can never ever confess to no matter how much it hurts to keep the sharp words inside his chest, clawing at his rib cage, ripping through his throat, tearing his mouth open that tears become an ordinary part of Will’s sleeping routine as if that’s just the natural order of the cosmos.

Life goes on, allowing him to watch his loved ones live happily while he sit back and enjoy the show on a chair of humility and repentance.

Life goes on like a white, static kind of noise that blends all too well in the background, soft and constant. A kind of sedation that lulls his consciousness within tamed borders, as if some sort of force is keeping watch on his every move, preventing him from exploding.

That last thought makes him laugh. He just simply doesn’t have the strength to go against life anymore. He’s not even part of it in the first place.

Three years into high school. That’s how long it takes until something finally changes. A someone.

A Richie Tozier comes into his life and shakes his world, slowly pushing him against the tides of life, turning down the volume of that god awful white noise, giving him a fighting chance to find his place in this cruel world.

Richie shows up one day, proclaiming that he looks like Mike, insisting that he even looks better. He wouldn’t leave Will alone since then, always showing up at random corners of the school and whispering silly things in Will’s ear. And every time, he gets bolder, grabbing Will’s hand, pushing his bangs out of his face, hugging him in front of the Party.

The group thinks it a new method of bullying, but Will disagrees. Because he and Richie share a secret. A secret that Will has no intention of sharing to anyone else.

“Go out with me, Byers. Feel free to think of me as Mike.”

“Why, Richie? Dating, it – it doesn’t work that way. Do you even like me?”

“Would I ask you out if I don’t?”

“Is that a yes?”

“Only if you let me kiss you.”

It feels wrong. It defies everything Will believes to be wise. But for the first time in a long time, he feels something new, something else besides nothing.

So in his third year of high school, Will makes a decision stranger than anything he’s ever done.

He forces himself to fall in love with the image of the one he wishes for every single night.