when it's time for will to pick a college, he obviously floats a few around in his head. joyce, hopper, and jane are moving out to montauk, so will decides it's about time he got that city experience he always wanted and head to nyc with jonathan. not that there was anything wrong with robin and vickie, but he desperately wanted to expand his circle of queer friends. and hey, with mike considering nyc colleges too, who knows what could happen--maybe they could be roommates, or something. he gave up hope that mike would ever love him back after he told him they could still be "best friends", but it's hard to kill a part of you that has been beating for so long, will has come to find. so best friends would have to do.
jonathan suggests to join him at nyu; they have a great art program after all and then will wouldn't have to be totally alone. he always feared being alone, his friends and family abandoning him if they knew who he really was. that was even the fear vecna decided to prey on the most, to try and convince will he was unwanted. but after coming out, that fear in his heart was slowly replaced with love and the courage to try something new.
the hopper-byers plan a trip to nyc over the summer to tour some schools, assigning jonathan as their tour guide. a few days before their trip, karen calls joyce to ask if mike could tag along with them so he could get a better look at some of the colleges he was considering out there. ted didn't want to visit nyc--he remembers the news coverage of those kinds of people marching in the streets every summer. joyce of course obliges.
the trip goes well--jonathan comes to enjoy showing his family his favorite spots and catching up with some friends, joyce and hopper are happy to get a lay of the land and have a few moments to relax, jane is enthralled by the sights and sounds, and mike and will get to tour some colleges they each respectively like. mike really likes hunter college and their english program and decides that it'll be his first choice.
will falls in love with cooper union and their art program--the tight knit community, the homey and adorned studios, the artistic grit of the east village. on the tour, he sees some of the art students hanging out in the park across the way, laughing with each other. these people are expressive and happy, dressed in ways he's never really seen before. it's odd. they look like people he knows for a fact would be horrifically bullied at hawkins high. maybe things are different here. maybe they could be different for him.
the group visit the classrooms, the library, and the art studio--it's there that will truly falls in love in a way he only has once before in his life. these artists are good, really good. every canvas reflects the artist in front of it; will yearns to see his own reflection. he feels a sense of home that he wasn't sure he'd find--and joyce and hopper are happy that it's free tuition (though they have enough government hush money to put all three of their kids through school multiple times over).
but his chances of getting into the school scare him a little. it's prestegious, their acceptance rate is abysmal, and he's not sure he's good enough to match the skills of all the incredible artists he saw at work on the tour. but he tries. if he can manage to kill an eldritch horror of unknowable desires from a world beyond theirs, he can at least try to get into art school.
luckily for will, the disturbing and moderately concerning art he makes is exactly the sort of weird that the staff at cooper union were looking for. he gets accepted--as does mike to hunter college--and before he knew it, he was off to manhattan. and after some deliberation, mike is as well.
but college is hard--really hard. he spends more time in the studio than he does in his apartment. he doesn't totally mind, though. jonathan managed to get a dorm at nyu, so will had to find a place to live. his roomates are fellow students from cooper union--artists, architects, and engineers--who are never home, and at this point he's so accustomed to company that the silence of working in his aparment is a little unnerving.
he's engrossed in his work, fully, thoroughly, and constantly. mike gets a little concerned, sometimes going a week without hearing from him. he's got his own busy schedule, but he tries to call a few times a week if he can't meet will in person. heading home from a night class, mike drops by the studio, bringing will coffee, food, and a much needed distraction. the two slowly fall into a routine each week--mike grabs dinner after his night classes, takes the train to cooper union, and eats take out with will in the studio while they chat with will's friends. the security guard comes to know him by name and tells him he should just enroll there at this point.
the routine repeats week after week. it becomes a little spark of motivation for will to finish up whatever he was working on so mike can admire his progress.
one night nearing the end of the semester, the studio is dead quiet. everyone has gone for assorted parties to celebrate the end of the semester and finishing their projects, but will is unhappy with his work--he wants this to be the best piece he's ever made, he wants his critiques to go smoothly, he wants to prove (to mostly himself) that he can do this. mike shows up right on cue, but the atmosphere is different. maybe it's the echoy sound that isn't usually there or the absense of chatter in the backrgound, but mike seems a little more touchy: he lets his hand graze against will, he doesn't stop his eyes from wandering, and his compliments seem more specific than usual. and will is going crazy. he tells himself it's the sleep deprivation and he's feeling phantom sensations, the dim lights are making mike's eyes look weird, and his brain is so fried that he has to be hearing him wrong--until mike's eyes wander a little too far down. will kisses him quickly, all reason in his head faltering just enough to press his lips into mike's. he pulls back, ashamed and terrified at the horrible mistake he just made, appalled at whatever part of him just allowed this to happen, up until mike pulls him back in. will takes a break from his art for the rest of the night.
will always loved the idea of taking things slow, of falling in love with each other more and more every day. but after that night in the studio, he comes to realize that he and mike had been taking it slow their entire lives, each day spent falling in love and pining for each other when they didn't even know it. so when they search for apartments together over winter break, it feels like everything is just as it should be, like their eyes had been glazing over this chapter of their lives for so long. but now they're finally reading it.
the next four years together are exactly as will could have ever dreamed. taking a day trip on the weekends to every borough, discovering new cuisines and favorite restaurants, having their night out a gay bar, attending the premiere of jonathan's short film, mike performing at poetry nights in the village, will featuring in art exhibits all over the city, having simple dates in the park, talking late into the night on their stoop, dancing to music around their kitchen, having private nights for only them, meeting friends in all sorts of places, cramming the whole party into their apartment for reunions; experimenting, learning, growing, changing, becoming, loving, living. living.
though their time together is not without tearful nights and an overload of work keeping them apart, it becomes so easy to forget about those moments when they're overwhelmed with love for each other and the lives they're building in tandem. if these four years are any sort of indication of the rest of his life, will is so incredibly happy he's finally chosen love
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