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Assistant: Title: touch like velvet
        Author: ciders ciders 
        Chapter: 1/26 
        Summary: It was easy for Will Byers to fall in love with Mike Wheeler.The trouble came when he had to pretend it wasn't real.
        Contents: Chapter 1: there is a light that never goes out
    

    


  

  
  
    
    It is December 15th, 1988, and Hawkins, Indiana is nearly drowning. It’s raining hard in the little town and no inch of the land goes unscathed by the icy downpour that pelts the streets outside. It’s been pouring for weeks, it seems. Like the entire town is under some sort of chilling gloom that it can’t shake. Some wonder if it will ever stop, if maybe the town might get drenched in a flood that takes out homes, well groomed flowers and flower beds, sweeping away cars, bikes and street signs in it’s wake. This will never happen, of course: nothing bad ever sticks forever in Hawkins. It just reoccurs on a rollercoaster type pattern. It is on this day, just as the sun dips unnoticed behind the treetops surrounding Hawkins, that Will Byers realizes he is truly alone. Safe from the torrential weather behind the slate grey exterior shingles of his house, Will Byers is bundled up in the living room, not quite asleep but not truly awake either. He’s been enjoying the sound of the rain landing and trickling down the large glass window nearby for almost 45 minutes, taking in the silence that radiates through his home like he can’t predict the next time he’ll experience such peace. It wouldn’t be a far fetched thought; the Byers’ household seldom gets to experience many moments like these, and so instead of indulging himself in a book or taking to drawing like he typically does on rainy days, Will just sits, his hooded green eyes fixed on the droplets as they trickle downwards. He doesn’t realize that he is alone at first. It comes creeping like it usually does, a passing thought that swells like a balloon, filling up Will’s insides with a bitter taste as it courses through him. He knows he’s alone, of course, because he always has been. Almost always, Will thinks to himself in shapeless disagreement, bringing his legs up closer to his chest as his eyes remain fixed on the weather. Almost always. 
   
Will would prefer a more definite loneliness than the short comfort he’d experienced before. The short comfort that brought him nothing but heart ache, anger, guilt. The comfort that left him once more, as he ultimately was; alone. It had felt fine at the time, though, hadn’t it? Even if it was wrong. Stop it. You can’t think about this anymore, Will chides himself inside the confines of his brain. He didn’t mind it, of course. If he did, he always said he’d do something about it. Instead, Will runs a finger over the knee of his jeans, gazing out the window as he soaks up the thoughts like he can’t get enough of them. Silence breeds these things, of course. He can’t curb his loneliness no more than the moon can stop it’s cycles, or the ocean can stop it’s tides. It’s bound to happen, he thinks. I’m bound to be alone, and that’s how it has to be. What other way has he lived? 
  So why does it still hurt?
 The silence is well needed, a blessing in disguise for the short time that it lives inside of the Byers’ home before the vibrant ringing sound of the home phone cuts through the quiet like a razor blade. With a low groan, Will untucks himself from his formerly comfortable position on the chesterfield and crosses the threshold of the living room towards the hallway in his sock feet, padding across the laminate as the phone lets out a couple more struggled rings. He doesn’t run, doesn’t even speed walk to the receiver, but there is a rushed fashion about his movements that he knows only he and his brother really truly relate to. As Will reaches out and plucks the phone off of it’s holder, propping it between his ear and his shoulder as he turns back towards the living room window, a couple brief blips of static rush through the phone before the caller finally pipes up. “Lonnie?” a thin, cautious voice murmurs on the other end. Will pauses. Speak of the devil. “He’s asleep, Jonathan.” Will replies smoothly into the phone, leaning into the wall as he watches the rain dribble down the window. From his own end, Will can hear Jonathan pull away from the phone and let out a deep exhale. He knows he wasn’t meant to hear it, yet he can’t help but relate. “Oh, hey, Will… er… I didn’t wake him up, did I?” Jonathan asks nervously through his end, going quiet as though he’s waiting for Will to check. He does, of course; leaning away from the wall for only a second, Will glances down the hallway and pulls the receiver away from his face. Taking in the overwhelming silence in the house once more, Will returns the phone to his ear. “Nope, thankfully,” he mumbles, eyeing the hall as though he’s all too aware of it now. “Good, ah… I was calling to talk to you, anyways… about tonight,” Jonathan admits adamantly, and Will can feel whatever tension is pulling at his shoulders deflate with understanding. Sliding a hand into the front pocket of his jeans, Will thumbs two thin, rectangular slips of paper that he’s been keeping good care of for the past two weeks. He can feel his heart sinking before Jonathan has even clarified himself. He knows what’s coming. Sliding the two tickets together in his pocket, Will swallows hard, pressing the receiver tighter to his ear. “You’re bailing.” He whispers, crushed. Will feels miniscule, for a moment, for being as let down as he is. The tickets in his pocket show the result of him putting away his last two paychecks from working part-time over the summer at the theatre in downtown Hawkins, however, and he can feel the meaning inside of their papery, mass printed faces. He and Jonathan had planned to go see the reshowing of Killer Klowns from Outer Space for several weeks, ever since they’d seen the Hawk theatre’s marquee announcing it’s return to the silver screen for a limited time one morning when Jonathan had driven Will to school. He knows how important this is to me, Will thinks, refraining from the urge to grumble like an upset child as his fingers press into the cool cover of the phone. What could be more important than this?
   

  School. School is more important.

   
“Will, I’m not— listen, I really want to be able to go, alright? But I’m just—“ a moment on the other end, a shuffle, the sound of the mouthpiece being brushed. “I'm really preoccupied here right now.” Being an adult. Or being the opposite of an adult. Working, or pretending to work. Staying away from here, ultimately. Will hates being as bitter as he is.
   
“Will?” Jonathan murmurs, and Will is drawn back in, clearing his throat as though that might fight off his disappointment. It's not like this was the only reason I got up today, Will thinks harshly, his stomach turning. “It’s fine.” “You could still go see it, y’know. Maybe Dustin or Lucas would go with you.” Will flinches at this. Not in hearing his best friends’ names, of course, and not really at the suggestion of doing something with them specifically. Will thinks of the last time he’s done something with his brother that hasn’t had something to do with complaining about their father, cross legged on Jonathan’s bedroom floor. He finds, tucked into a creeping sense of hurt, that he can’t remember. “I said it’s fine.” Will responds shortly as he hears the sudden creak of bedsprings from the end of the hallway. He leans into the wall harder, running a thumb over the plastic piece. “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” Jonathan asks quietly from his end, and Will lets out a brief sigh just as his father shuffles out of his bedroom door. Will’s eyes dart towards him if only for a moment to assess the shape that he’s in. Lonnie trudges quietly, barefoot, down the hall towards the kitchen, fitted in a loose white t-shirt and plain, slate grey pyjama pants as he doesn’t give Will a second look. Letting out a less than half-assed grumble as he passes his youngest son, Will’s teeth clench together hard, like an instinct. From the other end of the call, Jonathan presses on. “Will?” “Yeah, I’m here. No, I’m—“ Will hesitates, glancing back towards his father as he steps in front of the fridge, kneeling down and pulling open the cooler, “—I’m not mad, I’m just— we were going to do this together, y’know? Us.”
   
“I… I know, Will, and I’m sorry I just—“ “Who’s on the phone?” Will’s posture tenses, surely, as he hears his father’s subtly slurring voice chime in from the kitchen, the sound of the cooler sliding shut ringing inside his ears like a train whistle. Pressing the phone harder against his ear, Will acts as though he hasn’t heard his father’s half asleep questioning. “— And it gets really busy here, y’know? School work, and stuff.” Jonathan finishes, completing his point inside of a sentence that Will has only heard half of.  “I get it, Jonathan. Can we go some other ti—“ “If it’s your mother, tell her I need the f@ck@n’ money she owes me.” Lonnie snips from somewhere behind Will, and as though Lonnie has lit a flame beneath the boy’s already aggravated temper, Will stomach yanks itself into a sickening knot and he twists back around to look at his father. Pulling the phone away from his ear, Will watches Lonnie’s already half-drunk antics in disdain. He’s propped against the counter with a chilled can of beer in his hands, trying with tired inadequacy to crack open the top. As he finally gets a hold on the tab and pulls it upwards, the opening peels open, a cool ‘pop’ announcing his success, and Will can’t seem to keep his temper in check. Something he never really has trouble with. Something he only really has trouble with when Joyce is brought up. “If you need your money so bad, talk to her yourself for once,” Will snaps, catching his father’s attention immediately like the crack of a whip. Lonnie clutches the can in his hand, staring at Will as though he’s just spontaneously combusted right before his eyes. Before Will can watch his father’s expression shift into anything else, he turns back towards the wall and presses the phone back to his ear. Jonathan is beginning to question Will about Lonnie, but the boy can’t seem to find the time to listen. “I did wake him, didn’t I—“ “You know what, don’t worry about it honestly, okay? It’s just a stupid movie, anyways. Listen.” Will says, wrapping the phone cord around his finger and letting it slide away moments later. “I’m gonna go, but, uh… I’ll see you when you get home, okay?” “Will?” Jonathan asks cautiously, knowing in some sense what situation the boy is in, but having his protest denied. “Bye, Jonathan,” Will utters into the phone, pulling away from the receiver and letting it slide back into it’s holster with a click that almost seems deafening in the home’s quiet. He doesn’t know why his words feel so final, but something about them rings heavy. Will wants to lift the phone up again, dial Jonathan’s number back, get an answer, get something. He wants to tell him to come over anyways, just in case, because he might need to. Hell, he does need to. The situation never gets that bad when he talks back, but he always wonders if one day it will. He knows someday it will. He just doesn’t know, exactly, when that day might be. Stepping back and turning away from the receiver, Will is immediately met with a vicious shove that sends him reeling back into the wall, shoulder blades slamming hard into the unfinished wallpaper. The hurt in this action on it’s own is enough to send chills of pain down Will’s upper arms. “F@ck did'jou just say to me, boy?” Lonnie spits through a squared jaw, can abandoned on the kitchen counter dripping condensation as he steps in front of his youngest. Will wants to stay quiet, of course; he wants to say nothing and receive nothing in return, but it never quite works out that way. His heart rate picking up at an alarming rate, Will inhales sharply as he opens his mouth to speak. “I said, if you—“ Will is interrupted by the pale flash of his father’s hand rising and grabbing the front of his shirt, the fabric balling up inside his fist as he yanks Will forward with a jolt, their noses nearly bumping together as Lonnie stares into Will’s face with an expression full of complete and utter annoyance. Will can smell the man’s breath, ripe with liquor and the sickening smell of beer, in such a close proximity. He’s not angry with me, Will thinks, and in some strange form, this comes as a relief. In his own saddened way, he knows his father isn’t quite angry. Annoyed, irritated. Feeling disrespected, even. He isn’t angry, though. Will knows because he’s seen angry. It’s uglier than this, and he knows it. Anger hurts in a different way. “You think I really want an answer?” Lonnie barks in response, the volume of his voice raising a few octaves as his grip never loosens. The panicked part of Will wants to pry his hand off. The seasoned part of Will remembers what happened the last time he tried to do that. “Don’t give me any of your sh@t, you little b@st@rd. I’m asking one simple thing, and I expect you to do it without any f@ck@n’ attitude,” Lonnie assures him with words like dripping, corrosive sludge. As Will stares at the bridge of his father's previously broken nose, the tip of his cheekbone, his forehead, anywhere but his eyes, he realizes that he is shaking. After several seconds of lengthy, unimpressed staring, Lonnie’s fingers unfold themselves from the collar of Will’s shirt, and he steps back, almost teetering, turning towards his abandoned beer as though any irritation in his being has simply vanished. Snatching the can from the counter and stepping back towards Will’s direction, the boy stays flat against the hallway wall as his father glides past him. He flinches, instantly berating himself internally for it, and watches Lonnie disappear back into his bedroom, the door ramming shut behind him as he goes. Will stands there for what seems like a century, shaking, before he reaches up finally and straightens the crumpled part of his button-up with trembling fingers. He hates himself, for a moment; for several reasons, but the most significant being his lack of adjustment. He wants to get used to this, but some part of him doesn’t seem to cooperate. Some part of him knows it isn’t right. Just because it isn’t right, doesn’t mean it should scare me, Will thinks. Even if it does scare him. Even if it should. In one hideous though, Will thinks himself lucky. Lucky because he didn’t get hit. Lucky.  As Will stands with his back to the wall, clutching at the neck of his shirt, he spots the small dish of change that they keep on the counter. In one blistering movement, completely forgetting the weather he had been so fixed on before hand, Will crosses the room and digs a hand into the dish. Fishing out no more than four dollars in change, Will stuffs the quarters into his shirt pocket and moves towards the kitchen table, his lungs tightening in his chest as he feels the steady emotional weight of the house crushing him. 
  Gotta get out. Gotta go. 

   

  God, it feels like I’m drowning.
 Snagging the first of his jackets that he sees hung limply on the back of a kitchen chair, Will pulls the coat on with purpose, not bothering to zip it up as he practically bolts to the door. He can’t seem to throw his shoes on fast enough, snatching up his backpack and shoving the front door open, taking in the suddenly much louder sound of rainfall against thick, fresh mud as he steps outside. He bumps the door shut behind him, not too thoughtful about how loud he must be shutting it to hear it through the downpour. Drowning in there, and somehow this is better, Will thinks. He doesn’t know where he’s going at first, only knows that he is, indeed, going somewhere. He knows the way into town, and so he heads in this direction with really no true definite location in mind. All he knows in the time being is that anywhere is better than his own house, and that thought sits with him for his entire walk down the old dirt road that leads out to the Cornwallis and Kerley intersection. After approximately ten minutes of trying not to careen and slip into developing mud sockets in the back road, Will’s feet finally hit pavement, and his being relaxes, if only slightly. Mirkwood, Will thinks fondly, observing the road for a moment before he remembers just how drenched he truly is already. He ponders the old name, a name he and his friends had come up with once when they were younger, as he turns and carries on down towards town, rain splattering against his already dripping bangs. The streetlights don’t do much more than just enough, keeping Will from accidentally losing his footing and twisting an ankle while slipping off the edge of the asphalt. Will takes a moment to breathe. He needs it badly, more than he imagined, because outside of his house, Will can be Will. To his own imaginary extent. Once I’m eighteen, I’m out of here, Will thinks, and it’s true, he hopes. Three and a half months isn’t too far away, and he knows if he can manage to save up enough of his money, he can catch a bus and watch Hawkins, Indiana disappear behind him like a cloud of smoke. He knows how easy it sounds, and he knows it’s likely much harder to actually do, but being seventeen feels like hell. Will can drive, legally, but he can never really leave. He can run away, he thinks as he does so, but he can never really stay gone. Under the not-so-careful eye of his father, Will Byers feels like an ant under a magnifying glass. His position isn’t helped, of course, by the fact that his friends, his brother and his father, specifically, know nothing about him. Especially not one particular thing he can’t seem to forgive himself for. When I turn eighteen, I’m gone, Will thinks. When I turn eighteen, I’ll come out, too, his mind echoes. Being seventeen is hard. Will knows this. He’s got the money stashed away to leave, he’s got the will to go, but it’s always something he can’t control that’s blocking him. Being seventeen and still stuck in the closet however, to Will Byers, feels like staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. Through the darkness, as Will makes his way slowly but surely towards downtown, he can feel the tears coming even if they blend seamlessly into the chaotic weather around him. 
  Why am I crying?

   
He wants to swat them away, but he can’t separate his own tears from the rain. Ripping his bag from off his shoulder, Will digs through his belongings until he feels the familiar chord of his headphones, still attached to his cassette player. Hitting the on and play buttons in swift succession, Will leaves the device in his bag as he numbly stuffs the headphones into his ears. Almost as though he’d been preparing for this moment, the lonely drone of Morrissey’s voice fills Will’s ears as There Is A Light That Never Goes Out begins to play. The sh@ttier part of Jonathan’s old music taste, Will thinks briefly, before that sick, sick feelings washes back into his throat. He almost wants to claw it out for a moment. It was shit but somehow, it only propelled his tears. 
  Why am I crying? Why am I upset?

   
As he makes his way towards town, his mind settling on a destination, Will lets his head dip slightly, a startling sob ripping through his chest like a set of jagged claws, and a singular thought accompanies him on his way there. He wills his feet to move, to keep going, and they do. 
  Just because it isn’t right, doesn’t mean it should scare me.

   
The rain never ceases.'
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