iora

⋆˚࿔ iora, 20, she/her⋆˚࿔

about me! .ִֶָ𓂃 miwi enjoyer, byler connoisseur, cat lover and boygenius savant for life ⋆˚꩜

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apple pencil incoming soon = byler fanart.

OurSpace - Chapter 7: Will'z Mixx

Endless black water, an abyss lit silver by a moon too large for the sky. It hung low and bright, casting shades of grey and white light across blades of grass that flickered in the wind and gave the tree’s tentacle-like shadows on their trunks. 

The stars reflected mirror-like beneath him in the water, unmoving like glass, it felt less like standing above a river and maybe more like standing between two worlds, two skies that he had created for himself. 

He looked up, his eyes trailing along the river until he saw somebody standing on the other side, practically invisible in the shadow, but almost illuminated by the pale moon. A boy stood there, shirtless and still, even in the cold. 

Hair hung low on his bare shoulders and wisps on his forehead moved softly in the wind that Will wasn’t able to feel himself. 

He did not speak, and he did not move, and Will wasn’t sure if he was breathing. 

His face was shadowed by the willow tree branches above him, but something on his ear glistened in the moon’s reflection, bright and familiar, even in the darkness. 

Will understood it with the constant and terrible certainty that these dreams allowed, the way one can understand grief when it meets them in the park on a sunny day, the way you understand falling if you were pushed off of a cliff. 

The boy stepped into the water, but he didn’t fall in, he stayed above it on the surface. He turned away from Will, and started walking towards the other end of the river, and Will followed. His pants rolled up to his ankles, he stepped forward, sinking his feet into the water and meeting the pebbles and stones that resided underneath, ripples of silver water spread over his footsteps in rings of light. 

He looked up, the boy was now standing, looking up at the moon, only the back of his head visible now. 

Will walked to him, closer and closer, barefoot as the cold water trickled over his ankles and splashed at him, like it was unaccepting of him in it. 

The moon now hung low enough to touch, the air smelt of rain, and dirt, and something rotten underneath it all disguised by a sweetness in the air. 

He stood next to the boy now and the boy turned to him, and although he already knew who it was, although he had already realised deep in bones, when Mike’s face stared back at him he still felt a split of cold run through him like a blade between his ribs. 

The light and shadows danced on his bare skin, pale and soft, his collarbones protruded from his shoulders, ribs perfectly detailed on his sides and hair trailing down below his stomach.

He smiled at Will, soft and knowing, as if they had once loved each other so completely that it had re-written the architecture of both their bodies, the way their bones sat in their flesh and the way their eyes grazed over each other. 

The dorm room door slammed so hard against the wall it might’ve cracked the plaster. 

Will jerked awake, sitting upright and eyes wide. 

A stream of light pooled into the once dark room from the open door, and once again a silhouette stood there, unmoving, but there was two, and they spoke, 

“Sh-shit, fuck man are you here?” a voice sounded, slurring and confused 

Will’s eyes squinted, and stinging from the immediate blast of light that met them, “Where else would I be?” he stirred, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, 

He heard a giggle from the smaller silhouette,

“Sorry man, thought you might be out” Charlie grumbled 

“Maybe he’d like to watch” the smaller silhouette joked but Will was the only one that didn’t find it funny. 

He looked toward the bed side table at the clock Jane had gotten him. 1.A.M.

“Seriously, one in the morning?” he squinted, Charlie was still un-moving, but was drunkenly swaying in place slightly with the girl clinging to his arm

“I thought you’d be at Mike’s” he said, then hiccuped 

Will rolled his eyes in the darkness, sat up straighter, “When have I ever been over at Mikes at one in the morning?”

“Sometimes when y-you watch a movie together” he stumbled and fell a little, catching himself on the door frame, 

Will closed his eyes again and sighed in annoyance. He realised he was never going to sleep in there tonight, he knew himself they were so drunk they’d hook up even if he was in the room. If he didn’t wake up to them coming in he’d have woken up to something worse. 

“Would you like me to go to Mike’s so you guys can have sex?” he said with a sarcastic smile through pursed lips,

Charlie raised both arms in happiness before dropping them down back to his sides, “Aww man that would be seriously awesome of you” he hiccuped again,

He just hoped Mike would be awake. It didn’t seem like too bad of an idea though, a classic best friend sleepover. The first one they’d had in months without the constant yearning stares burning holes into the backs of each other's heads. 

He would finally be able to execute the spare bed option, but he prayed Mike wasn’t smoking a joint by his window listening to the Butthole Surfers getting all poetic about his life in a personal essay for his “Writers in Despair” class that he so avidly talked about as if he was Sylvia Plath’s offspring. 

“Oh my god” Will grumbled under his breath. 

He ripped the covers off of him, sliding off the bed. His feet hit the ground with a slight thud, now being closer to them he could smell the alcohol that somehow came off their skin along with the cigarette smoke. 

He stumbled tiredly and pulled the pillow off of his bed, letting it drop to his side heavily with disappointment.

He inched himself toward the door, sliding past them stuck to the wall trying not to touch them in fear he might end up in a threesome depending on how many alcopops they had downed in the last half hour. 

He turned back to close the door and was met with their faces being mashed against each other. He recognised the girl, she was short, long black silky hair and she wore knee high high heel boots. 

They slid into the room themselves and Will shut the door for them, keeping an expression on his face that could only reflect shock and horror at the aggressiveness of their kissing if only they’d look at him. 

He crossed over the hallway, which now at one in the morning smelt like weed smoke and microwaved noodles, the lights dim and buzzing above his head. It was quiet, there were people still awake, watching movies he could almost hear through the door and flickering purple lights spilling out onto the wooden floors from the crack under the doors. 

He stood out front of Mike’s door, he groaned and tilted his head up with closed eyes before knocking on the hard and shit-ily painted wood, hoping Mike was still awake to hear him so he wouldn’t have to knock five times. 

He heard the floorboards creak with footsteps behind the door, coming closer before it swung open after a couple seconds, 

His face was confused, a little worried before he recognised it was Will, and then back to being confused as to why he was here at 1.A.M, 

“What’s up?” He leaned his face against the door frame, “Why do you look like a dog who just got sent outside for pissing on the couch?”

Will rolled his eyes, “Charlie brought that girl home”

“Ah, so sex is imminent” Mike said, bearing his teeth in a cringed expression,

“Sex is active, I think I heard a belt hit the floor before I closed the door”

“Efficient,” Mike looked down at the pillow Will was holding, dragging by his side, “you finally wanna check into the motel?”

“Yes” he said through pursed lips,

“Mi caca en su caca” he said, opening his door while still keeping his hand above Will’s height 

so he had to duck and walk underneath him. 

Mike had picked up this strange, unique confidence lately that emitted things from him, like saying “Mi caca en su caca”. Will assumed it may have been from the mystery person in his literature class he was pining over, or maybe Mike had been listening to self fulfillment tapes in his room whilst power posing. 

“It’s casa” he corrected

“What did I say?” he asked, looking back at Will who was now standing with his back to him in the middle of his dorm room. His shirt was slung low on his collar bones, grey, long sleeved and stretched at the neckline from years of sleeping in it, with the girls from Bikini Kill printed on the front. His pants were brown, checkered, and he was wearing what looked to be Joyce’s old sleep socks, woolen, thick, and either badly knitted, or frayed from endlessly being passed around the Byer’s household in winter. 

“Caca. Which means shit” he rubbed the back of his head.

“Well my shit is also your shit, whatever” he waved his hand before closing the door. 

“I’d hope not,” he said, flinging his pillow up on top of the spare bed, before realising he didn’t bring his sheets with him, “Ah shit I didn’t bring my blanket”

“I think you mean ah caca, I didn’t bring my blanket”

“Mike please” Will looked at him with his eyes closed, brows furrowed and sleep still in his voice.

“Do not fret young padawan, for I have extra linens” he signaled his open arm toward the closet

“Are you high?”

“Yes.”

Mike’s window was open and a cold air flowed in, fresh, cold air combined with the smell of a freshly smoked joint filled the room, thankfully without any rhythm from the Butthole Surfers, along with the general scent that Mike had, Will could recognise from a mile away. Salty and sweet with a faint touch of whatever Old Spice deodorant he had picked up at the store last. 

The room was dimly lit, the only light being emitted from the banker's lap in the corner of the desk that was covered with papers, and his computer open on his bed still playing whatever he had been watching before Will stumbled in. His bed was made, but poorly. A blanket dangled off the edge only holding on by being tucked into the thin crack between the frame and the mattress, and the comforter was tangled halfway onto the floor. 

The spare bed sat bare in the lofted frame, piled with a few badly folded clothes Mike hadn’t put away. 

He opened the closet, the door creaking with uncertainty, pulling out the first pair of sheets he saw. 

They were all mismatched, yes, but it was better than sleeping on a bare mattress with numerous mysterious stains of the past 21 year old tenet ingrained into its fabric. 

Mike walked over stopping him from pulling a single blanket out of the drawer, “Woah, mi compadre-” 

“Why do you keep speaking Spanish?”

“I was reading up on Spanish poetry, they’re very romantic people! I was going to say, it’s too cold for just a blanket, I have a spare comforter back there somewhere”

“Look at you all grown up with an extra comforter,” Will said, meaning it to come out as sarcastically proud but the fact that he had been woken up a mere 5 minutes ago made him sound more monotone and generally unimpressed.

Mike put his hand into the closet drawer and fussed around mindlessly, waving his hand around pretty much aimlessly before grabbing onto something and pulling the comforter out with a grunt,

“Sì”

“Callarse la boca” Will said, remembering the one thing he learned from taking Spanish in California, he waved his hand in his face,

“What does that one mean again?”

“Shut up” he said, hands on his hips

“Touché”

“That’s french”

“Oh” 

The process of getting a fitted sheet on an awkwardly shaped, placed and designed college dorm mattress immediately became a disaster. 

Dorm bed frames were designed by people who clearly hated anyone who was young enough to go to college. The mattress slid every time they tried to bring it over to the side, and the loosely screwed-in nails in the bed frame were squeaking worse than whatever was going on in Will’s dorm as they struggled to force the covers over the corners.

“Lift it,” Mike grunted

“I am lifting it”

Mike shoved the mattress harder to try and maneuver the cover into place, Will nearly lost his balance, catching himself with one hand on the wall and the other holding onto the bedframe, in a less than sedimentary approach to stabilise Will, Mike flung out his hand to grab onto his forearm like he was falling of the cliff at Sattler Quarry, 

“Fuck-” Will sighed, standing with both arms shot out to the wall and the bed

“Sorry” 

“It’s fine” 

Will swallowed a wad of spit, and panted a little out of breath. He never was athletic. 

Mike’s hand still rested on his forearm, his fingers wrapped unnecessarily tight practically pinning one side of him to the bed. 

The room hummed softly through the open window breeze and distant voices through paper thin walls, music somewhere down the hall and people who from what they could hear were watching X-Men. 

The corner of the sheet popped back up off the corner of the mattress and they both threw their hands up in defeat, 

“Are you sure this sheet is even the same size as the mattress?”

“Yes” he grunted, “My mom wrote what size it was on the tag,” Mike said, pointing to a ‘T’ that was drawn out in marker on the tag of the mattress cover, 

Will turned to him, unimpressed, “Oh your mom-”

“Shut up, just push it over” Mike said, grabbing the corner and pulling it down hard over the mattress. Will climbed halfway up the bedframe to hold down the mattress, Mike stood below, his hand reached up and held his shin against the frame so he wouldn’t fall backwards.

3 months ago Will would have felt his body thrill at the touch, and now he felt nothing. He felt that Mike’s hands were a little cold, and that he had been biting his finger nails and washing his hands too often. He felt that the tips of his fingers were colder than the rest and the center of his palm was warm. 

He had felt Mike’s touch before, a million times, on the back of his neck lazing on the basement couch, tucked behind his back, thrown against his arm. This was the first time that he touched him and he felt nothing. 

It felt strange, something was intimate about it in a way, quiet coordination of their bodies together in movement absentmindedly touching and brushing, activating muscle memory they’d never truly lost. 

Slightly and embarrassingly out of breath, Will and Mike managed to messily make their way around the mattress, seemingly like it was their first time encountering one. They decided they should forever keep the cover on, in case Will needed to sleep there again and they weren't in the mood to wrestle with an inanimate object. 

Will looked towards Mike’s clock, it was dark green and digital, his father had gotten it for him for a college gift after his mom had to ask him to do it. He said it was smart and appropriate for a young man. 

1:18.A.M.

He looked towards the window above the desk to see that rain had started during their rough housing with the sheets, and it was now hammering against the window. Through Mike’s being stoned and Will’s tiresome dread, they had not noticed until they were finished, and since Mike had previously left the window open for smoking there was now a slight slick layer of rain water over the floor that the wind had blown in. 

“Ah shit,” Mike said, leaning forward over the small puddle to close the window, “I keep doing that” 

“You’d think by now you might close and open the window in the time periods needed”

“I don’t think very much these days” he grunted, leaning down and mopping up the water with a towel that had been hung on the back of his chair. He lay it down on the floor, stepped on it a little to soak up the water and swiped it up off the floor surprisingly efficiently, probably because it had happened multiple times before. 

He threw the towel into the corner that had been piled with other dirty clothes. 

Will had since thrown the comforter onto the bed and was now scaling the bed frame.

“Do you want to watch something?” Mike asked, scaling his bed in a similar fashion, 

He nestled into the bed, pulling the covers over him, “I’m too tired to watch something, too awake to fall asleep” 

“You..” he trailed off, thinking that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to bring up tactics of sleepovers they used to have, 

“You want me to put on that lounge music you like?”

Will used to have trouble falling asleep some nights back in Hawkins, Mike would hear him tossing and turning next to him, breathing a little too deeply, or sometimes he would just see him in the dark, lying there on his back looking up at the ceiling. 

He used to have nightmares when they were little, so badly that he would wake up screaming, covered in sweat and piss. Joyce would have to wash him up half asleep and bring him back into the room. 

He never liked staying at the Wheelers when they were small, scared that he would wake up in a puddle of sweat and piss and Joyce wouldn’t be there to pet his hair and kiss his head afterwards. 

Mike convinced Will one night to stay on the eve of Will’s eighth birthday. He made sure the basement phone was working, so he could call Mrs. Byers if Will needed it. He got his mom to bring down thick blankets from the attic and moved mattresses down the basement stairs, being cautious to take down two of his old night lights so it wouldn’t be pitch black. 

Will came over, and they did their usual routine of reading comics and Will going through piles of paper, drawing made up characters endlessly with the nice, expensive crayons that the Wheeler’s had.

When it came time to sleep, Will was curled up into a ball so tense next to Mike it was like sleeping next to a boulder. 

Mike reached his hand out, and placed his hand on his back. He flinched at first, but Mike started petting him like Joyce did, rubbing his back in gentle circles and humming tunes he had heard playing from the radio that day. 

That night was what started the endless nights at the Wheeler basement. 

As they got older, Will didn’t need back rubs anymore, but he would make Mike tell him stories about magical creatures, and would try to get him to re-tell the stories of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings from memory.

He had gotten pretty good at it, and had memorised Will’s favourite part from book IV, The Two Towers, chapter 8, where Sam and Frodo are resting in the pass of Cirith Ungol, 

“It's all wrong, by rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered…But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass…That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”

This would usually have Will in a slight giggle, twelve now they were, and Mike was getting better at the accent with each passing re-telling. 

Mike often liked to think that he was Sam, and Will was Frodo, venturing through the depths and horrors of Middle Earth to return the ring to Mordor.

“Dustin would be a dwarf” Will whispered, 

“Gimli” Mike would answer, causing another muffled laugh from Will.

He was perfectly fine at sleeping now, but on the off nights where he wasn’t, Mike had found all the songs he used to hum to him when they were small, and burned them onto a CD.

He brought it with him to college, just in case. He did a lot of things for Will, just in case. 

“You still have that?” Will asked 

“Yeah, I brought it with me, just in case”

Will felt himself smiling, his eyes closed and tiredness taking over the extremities of his body but he still felt a warm feeling build up inside of him,

“Okay” 

His eyes squinted open, seeing Mike slip down onto the dorm room floor. He watched him kneel down beside his desk, his dark hair curling over the pale skin of his jaw, his t-shirt slouching around his collar bones, stretched out at the hem lines. He yanked open the wooden drawers, packed full of school papers and various cords to god knows what. He rummaged through the college boy drawer abyss before locking his hand onto something and pulling it out. 

Something that Will recognised from months ago, something so small and discrete no one would even think to memorise the way every song on it sounded and which one was coming on next. 

A square, plastic, clear case, complete with a replica doodle of The Two Towers book cover that Will had drawn and slid into the front compartment. 

Will’z Mixx!!

Mike had scribbled on the CD. He popped it out of the case, sliding it into the CD player resting on his desk. Something that he had done a million times before, for years, with no judgement and humour in the act. 

The buttons clicked under his fingers as he pressed play and turned the lamp off plunging the room into a sultry darkness being only slightly illuminated by the crack under the door. He heard Mike climb back up into bed, the creak of the old wood and ruffle of the blankets as he readjusted the thrown about covers as the music started playing, washing over the sound of the pattering ran outside the window. 

It swirled in spirals over their heads, synth washing over the rest of the track in a soft orange fog that spread around the room like the familiar tune that Mike used to hum to him. 

It tangled together with the rain outside, the velvet hum drifted through the room in slow waves of melancholy and midnight warmth, liquid rhythm with the rain hissing against the dorm building. It was the calmest Will had felt since starting college, an aching calm, blurred at the edges with a hazy warmth slinked through his bones. 

It was almost like he was drifting back into his dream, standing at the edge of the lake with the boy’s pale skin reflecting off the moon light and back onto the rippling water that somehow only pooled and bobbed beneath Will’s feet, but was utterly still and unmoving below his.

Only this time, they were Will and Mike, and they were ten, playing at Eno river that trailed off Loch Nora. Will remembered this day, Jonathan was only thirteen, and had taken them down to the river to play on a hot summer day after school, a week out from summer break. 

He had been reading by the lake side in the shade of the tree, looking up every now and then if the laughter subsided.

They splashed water at each other, still in their clothes from school.

There was no thought there yet, no thought at how furious each of their fathers might be when they got home to find out their sons had been spending their afternoon together in the river with their shorts rolled up 

No thought about how boys from school might run through the bushes and start calling them names, like they would start doing a few months later at school.

They cackled together, tumbling into the shallow end of the water. They pulled themselves out, grabbing at the grass to claw themselves free from the stream and sitting up onto the grassy bank that was rested with rocks at the river's edge.  

Their legs and arms dappled with water and foreheads spotted with sweat, 

“Are you excited for summer break?” Will asked 

“Yes. Are you?”

“Yeah” he nodded

“We can have sleepovers, like, every night!” Mike smiled, missing a tooth, he had lost one of his bottom baby teeth the weekend prior,

“Do you think I can use your crayons again?”

“Yes, no one else uses them”

“What about baby Holly?” Will asked, Holly was a year old this summer, just starting to walk without face planting onto the carpet,

“Baby Holly barely knows the difference between the crayon and the boiled carrots my mom makes for her”

Will laughed, because he had seen Holly almost put the orange crayon in her mouth at the dinner table a few times.

Will looked down, their feet dipped in the water as it ran over their skin, cool and fresh on the hot day where they sat in the sun. He could see the pebbles that sat under the water, grass peeking through as it waved in the current, and their reflection, he saw too. Only it wasn’t them when they were ten, it was them now. 

Mike’s hair hung over his forehead, his earring shone in the reflection of the sun in the water and his brows furrowed inward as they always were, like they were stuck that way permanently since he turned fifteen. 

It turned dark again, like his dream before. Not scary, just as if somebody dimmed the sun down a little. He didn’t turn back but he knew that Jonathan wasn't there anymore, because this wasn’t the memory anymore. 

Mike stared at him in the reflection, smiling sweetly, his lips pink and wet with water, or sweat or spit, Will couldn’t tell.

They stared at each other's reflection in the water, their faces morphing as it rushed over the rocks and weaved through the grass below. 

They were stuck like that, not frozen, more just they didn’t want to move. 

They didn’t need to. 

Like when you know you need to get up and brush your teeth but you've been laying down for too long and now you’re too tired.

One night won't hurt, right?