Chapter Text
Will is up late, desperate for a surge of inspiration to hit him. Any minute now, that’s what he’s been telling himself as day turned into night.
He’s facing the blank canvas on his easel, one paint brush in hand and one between his teeth. It’s been like this all day.
It’s a simple assignment really. All the professor had asked of the class was for them all to make a still life painting. Medium and motif of choice. For something like this, that needs to dry quickly, since Will is starting last minute, acrylics and gouache on canvas - easy. It should be easy, anyway.
He had all week, but he couldn’t find it in him to start. Now it’s due tomorrow morning, and the hour is late.
He grabs the brush from between his teeth to let out a frustrated groan, putting it back in the back pocket of his jeans where it had been kept for most of the day.
His tired eyes settle on his bedroom window, raindrops reflecting colors of the street lights outside are jumping in every direction, and the sight is hypnotizing. He feels his eyelids getting heavy.
He just needs sleep.
He sinks into thoughts about tomorrow’s studio session that without a doubt will be a disaster. He’s a full two minutes into his ideas of what excuses to tell, explaining why he failed to get the painting done, when a sharp tone suddenly jolts him awake.
It’s loud and unwelcome, and the suddenness gives his heart a scared tug. It’s the telephone in the kitchen.
He shoots a quick glance at his wrist watch, 11:44 pm. An odd time for anyone to call unless it’s urgent, which doesn’t exactly calm him. He already knows his brother isn’t staying at home tonight, they talked earlier. Maybe it’s his mum, maybe nana fell again.
He makes his way to the dimly lit kitchen as fast as he can, targeting the wall mounted phone like it’s a fire that needs putting out, only allowing it to ring twice more. He yanks the phone to his hear.
“Byers.” he announces sharply.
“Hey Will.”
On the other side of the line is a voice Will would recognise anywhere, probably at any time. Will swings himself around so his back thumps against the wall, wide eyed with his hand tangled in the plastic cord.
“Mike?” He still has to ask, instinctively. He already knows the answer. He already knows it, because his heart is immediately thudding faster at the sound.
“Yeah, you— you sound shocked.”
Will swallows.
“It’s been a long time.”
Seven months to be exact.
There is a long, awkward pause.
“It’s almost November” Mike finally replies, his voice low. “I just— I wanted to check in, see how you’re doing.”
A pause again. Will is not sure how to react. He doesn’t need Mike to tell him it’s almost November. Will has been dreading it every year since -83, he doesn’t need Mike to pretend he cares for the sake of some made up duty.
“Sorry, is this a bad time? I know it’s getting late.” Mike continues, sounding less sure of himself by the second.
“It’s almost midnight, yeah, but uh—no. It’s fine. I was awake. And I’m alright, Mike, just… doing the usual stuff I suppose.”
“I’m sorry, I— I should’ve called sooner.”
“I said I was awake.”
“I meant I shouldn’t have waited seven months” Mike says, shame in his voice.
At least Will isn’t the only one aware of just how long it’s been since they last spoke.
Maybe Mike too is aware of how odd it was for him to call on Will’s birthday back in march, sounding like he did it just because he felt he had to, and then not pick up the phone when Will called him on his, just two weeks later.
“You’re right. You shouldn’t have.” Will replies, growing agitated at the thought. “It’s been weird.”
“It’s been weird, I agree.”
Another silent beat.
“Is it—okay? That I’m calling now?” Mike asks, a carefulness in his voice.
“Sure, but— I mean, yeah.” Will clears his throat. “Sorry, what is this about?”
“Well I— just wanted to see how you were. I want to know what you’ve been up to. Since the last time, I mean.”
“Like I said, I’m fine, Mike. Life here is good”
Mike presses him to tell him more, and for whatever reason Will finally gives in.
He proceeds to tell him about NYU and his Studio Art Major. About his upcoming projects, and the other courses he’d rather not take, because he wants to focus on his art only, even if the inspiration isn’t quite there on this particular night.
He tells Mike how Jonathan is doing and about his new girlfriend, Julia, who he’s quite frankly obsessing over in a way that isn’t sane. Jonathan practically lives at her place these days. He’s rarely home anymore.
He tells Mike about how he started going out to bars and clubs, first with a fake ID one of his classmates had made for him, but now he knows enough bouncers to just be let in, because he always behaves.
He talks about how he met good friends in those places, that are unlike any of the people he’s ever met in Hawkins.
He lets Mike know he’s happy, because it’s the truth.
Mike responds to it all politely, with one or two questions following every new thing Will tells him about. When he senses the conversation dying down, he returns Mike’s question.
“And you? What’s been happening in your life?”
Will finally stops leaning towards the cold wall of the kitchen and goes to sit down on the nearest chair by the little round dining table. He slumps his shoulders and leans back, tension slowly leaving his body.
“Uh, well. It’s Hawkins, you know.” Mike deflects. “It’s not like New York. Time moves slowly and quick at the same time. It’s the same, but different. I don’t know. My life is— well, it’s not as interesting as yours.”
“Well, you’re still working sound at the squawk, that’s interesting.”
Will wouldn’t know what Mike was up to at all if it weren’t for Robin. They talk the most often, out of the people still back at home. She mentions Mike in passing sometimes, so Will knows. Mike works at the radio station with her now, since Steve started coaching at Hawkins Elementary.
From what Robin told him, Mike is technically a technician at the station, but she needs him in the booth to assist with sound effects during segments.
“Yeah.” Mike chuckles “Still pushing applause buttons and squeezing rubber chickens for a living.”
Even though he’s been upset with Mike, and still is, the sense of normalcy in their conversation that settles from Mike’s laugh is comforting now that whatever lies between them on the phone line is fragile.
It’s good to hear Mike laugh, even if it’s over a self deprecating joke, Will thinks.
He can’t help but smile.
“You get to have Rockin Robin as your boss, that’s not too bad.” He jokes back, huffing out a small laugh himself.
“Will, you have no idea what it’s like.” Mike says with a playful dread in his voice.
Will can only imagine, and when he does he can’t help but keep smiling. He truly loves Robin, and the thought of her getting on Mike’s nerves humours him.
“Do you still write?” Will asks him next.
“Of course.”
”The usual stuff?”
“Uh—yeah, same stuff.” Mike sounds hesitant. He doesn’t elaborate.
“And you’re painting, of course.” he continues. It’s not a question, just a statement.
“Yeah, I was doing it just when you called, actually.”
Will hastily reaches for his back pocket where he sits, to check if the brushes had snapped when he sat down earlier without thinking. They hadn’t, thankfully, so he shifts slightly to be able to pull them out, and inspects them a bit.
“What are you painting?”
“Just something for school. A still-life painting, it’s when you set a bunch of objects up and just paint exactly what you see.”
“Yeah, I’ve—probably seen those.” it comes out of Mike sounding like a lie. “So what will it be? That you paint, I mean.”
“Oranges.” Will responds flatly. “I don’t know why I thought it had to be boring. That’s probably why I’m stuck. No inspiration.” Will admits. He starts painting invisible circles into the table top with one of his dry brushes.
Mike chuckles.
“Well, make it less boring for yourself and it’ll come back to you I’m sure.”
Will goes quiet, thinking. He could probably make his task more fun for himself.
In the silence Mike continues “Make it more you, I don’t know. That was corny—sorry. I don’t know anything about art. You’re the s—, the artist. You’re the artist.”
Will smiles at Mike awkwardly coming apart the second Will doesn’t immediately respond back to what he has to say. He’s always been like that, over explaining himself immediately if he’s not able to read the face of the person he has in front of him. Chronically insecure.
Over the phone this must be particularly challenging for Mike, Will thinks.
So he quickly thanks him for the idea, because it was shockingly enough not a bad one.
Their conversation extends, they even joke, and it comes easily, it feels easy. So much so that Will realizes he momentarily forgot about the harshest fact of all - despite the friendly banter, despite the way it feels in this moment, Mike isn’t a very good friend.
That’s why they’re having to do all this catching up in the first place.
They are not what they used to be, and the more Will lets himself reminisce, the more he realizes that Mike hasn’t been a very good friend for a long time, not for years.
He’d been a bad friend during the months of this year that they hadn’t been in touch. Before the near end of the world. Before California, during California.
What kind of person would Will be if he kept sweeping this fact under the rug that was time and loyalty, over and over and over again?
Will Byers is no preteen with a crush anymore, he tells himself, and he wouldn’t let anyone else walk over him so why would he let Mike?
He breaks their lighthearted conversation with the heavy question that he refuses to withhold himself from asking a single second longer.
“Why didn’t you call sooner, Mike?”
It’s dead quiet on the other end of the line. Mike might as well have hung up on him.
It must’ve rightfully taken Mike aback. Will continues:
“I called you. I even wrote you a letter. Did you even get it? Did you get the letter?” Will’s voice breaks slightly, but he hopes Mike can’t hear it.
“Yeah, I— I got the letter.”
“Why then? Why just shut me out without any explanation? What the fuck did I do wrong?”
“I— It’s hard to explain.”
Something snaps in Will. What about it could possibly be hard to explain? Mike made a decision. He shut Will out, cut him off, that’s what it was. There clearly must’ve been good reason for it. Will just had to hear it.
“You didn’t expect me to ask? It’s been seven—“
“Seven months, I know.” Mike interrupts.
“You’re aware, great… so, what then?”
“Can we just—not talk about this right now?”
“When were you expecting us to talk about it? You called me, after all this time.”
“I’ve been busy, Will? I don’t know, you didn’t call either!”
“Busy?” Will has to laugh, “I did call, and you just said you got my letter, what are you talking about?”
“I was gonna respond to that, there— just wasn’t time. Letters… they take time, okay! And you were the one leaving to begin with!”
There it is.
It’s Will’s fault. All he had to do was move away from their hometown to get discarded by Mike, his supposed best friend. His supposed best friend who swore the distance wouldn’t change them, or that Will coming out wouldn’t change them.
Classic Mike Wheeler, putting the blame on Will, first chance he gets.
They drift apart, it’s Will’s fault. Mike doesn’t call, Will’s fault. Mike fights with his girlfriend, Will’s fault. Mike’s girlfriend lies to him, somehow also Will’s fault.
Yes, it’s been years, but the words “Why am I the bad guy!?” yelled in Will’s face by Mike still echoes in his head. Because it comically explains it all, explains Mike’s entire self image.
No matter how many people Mike fails or disappoints, he is never the bad guy in his own mind.
“You’re so full of shit, Mike, still. I can’t do this.”
“Will—“
”Don’t call back, Mike.”
“Don’t call back?”
“Just—“ Will is taken aback by how harsh it sounds, even though he’s angry, even though the line should be drawn right here. “Call me back when you’re ready to explain what really happened. Stop being a child.”
Will slams the phone back on the wall to hang up. The adrenaline of standing up to Mike has his heart hammering embarrassingly fast in his chest.
He storms back into his room. Anger and frustration quickly turning into a surprising sense of pride. Who the hell does Mike think he is, calling him up in the middle of the night expecting casual small talk, catching up?
He throws himself on his back in bed, brushes still in hand. He didn’t even notice he had kept his grip on them for most of the call.
He throws a look across the room at the blank canvas on the easel next to his desk. He wasted so much time on the phone, now he’s even more doomed to not finish his painting by the morning.
He glances at the stupid oranges propped up in a sad looking pyramid on the desk. The least interestingly shaped fruits in the world, all one color. What the hell had he been thinking picking these for his motif? That it was classical, of course. It was bordering on pretentious.
He shoots out of bed with a swing of his whole body, and clears the desk of the fruits by pushing them all down on his chair beside it.
His eyes drift upwards at the wall mounted bookshelf above him where he stands.
He hears Mike’s voice again, clear as day.
Well, make it less boring for yourself.
Make it more you, I don’t know.
Gross.
He throws a stack of books from the shelf onto the desk with a loud thump, too loud for this hour of the night. He adjusts the stack
so that some of book spines face forward and some have their pages exposed. Next he rummages the shelf for whatever else he has on display up there that is motivating enough to paint.
He moves down a miniature hydra, poorly hand painted by Jonathan, gifted to Will for his 12th birthday. He grabs the velvet pouch of DnD dice and half empties it out on the desk. An earth coloured geode that’s followed him everywhere he’s lived also makes the cut. His Marvel coffee mug already on the desk gets moved in front of the books.
He stands back to inspect his new motif. It’s busy, bordering on messy and probably ten times more challenging to paint than those fruits would be. It’s certainly nothing Paul Cézanne would paint, that’s for sure.
It’ll take him twice as much time to get right too, but he has twice as much inspiration to do it now. Probably because it’s a motif full of objects familiar to him, that mean something to him, that’s what he thinks to himself for a short second anyway, as he’s gathering up the strength to get started.
It’s gonna be a long night.
He starts sketching, angrily.