"Oh you're in my veins
And I cannot get you out
Oh you're all I taste
At night inside of my mouth"

It's almost eight o'clock when Will slips in through the front door of their new house. It's small and the paint is chipping, but it has a lot of windows and is nowhere near Hawkins Lab. It's also far enough away from the library that the ash isn't so bad. Will likes the small yard. The trees are old and full and instead of backing up to the woods like his other house, it backs up to a farm on the outskirts of town. The corn is still high, but Will can't wait to paint the field once it's finally harvest time. The sun sets in that direction and he wants to see what it's like without the corn blocking his view.

He takes a deep breath and tightens his lips into a calm expression, clicking the door shut quietly. The living room is dark except for the light of the television. It's turned down low, and the quiet cadence of an old movie his Mom likes fills the room. It smells like stale coffee and toasted garlic, cigarettes and vaguely of his mother's violet perfume. There's golden light shining through the archway to the kitchen, making the drab rust-colored carpet glow. The sound of clanging dishes and laughter carries through the house, and Will knows his mom is with Jonathan and Hopper.

Hopper's been here more often than not. El continued living with them since it had been her normal for so long. Hopper started out visiting a few days a week, taking El out to dinner or making her run errands with him. But his Mom and Hop are officially together now so it slowly turned into him staying the night sometimes, which turned into he's here more than he ever is at the cabin.

It makes sense. He's El's dad after all. He should be around. But Will is still getting used to his family being so big, so full. The frustrating thing of it is it's definitely become a little harder for him to slip by unnoticed with so many people around, especially Hop, the detective that he is. And now that they were back in Hawkins, his mother has suddenly started hovering again, and Jonathan too. Even El has started asking him more and more how he was feeling, what is he feeling? Has One gotten stronger yet?

El told him she wanted to sit with him and see if she could piggyback inside his mind, thinking maybe that if she could feel exactly how that felt for Will, thenmaybe she could figure out how to turn the connection to their advantage. But Will hasn't let her. Not yet. The idea seems too invasive. She'd be able to see too much. She would know.

"Will? Is that you?" He hears his Mom call from the kitchen. Will turns the corner to find her and Hopper standing at the sink, Hop holding a towel and dutifully waiting to dry whatever Joyce hands him. Jonathan is at the table with a magazine open. His eyes are large and concerned and too knowing. They are all aware that he was with Mike tonight. Will avoids his gaze.

His Mom turns when he hears him. "Hey baby…are you hungry?" Joyce smiles warmly at him. "I made meatloaf."

"No," he says as cheerily as he can. He sets the backpack on the chair next to Jonathan, slipping his novel out of the side pocket. "I'm not hungry."

"Are you sure?" she asks, her eyebrows raising in suspicion.

"Yeah. I ate," he lies.

"Oh alright," she says, shrugging her small shoulders. "Well, the leftovers are in the fridge if you get hungry."

"Okay," he calls over his shoulder as he turns, already padding down the hall towards his room. It's at the back of the house. He likes it there. It's quiet, and the light is good for drawing. He closes the door harder than he means to and immediately strips his shoes and socks off then takes off his shirt. He feels a little better when he puts a fresh pair of pajama pants on. They're smooth and clean and smell of laundry detergent and the oak of his drawers.

It isn't until that very moment that he notices how tired he really is and yawns heavily into the crook of his arm. For a day that had started out on such a positive note he's impressed by how spectacularly shitty it turned out to be. Will flops onto his bed and opens his novel to the page he had left off, reading a few lines and pretty quickly accepting the fact that concentrating on this book is absolutely hopeless today. One of his sketches along the page is unfinished so he adds some deeper shading to the eyes and along the creases in the old fashioned shirt. Then he finds himself drawing his new friend instead, with his long black hair and a smile that makes his nose crinkle. He focuses on his dark eyes and the way his lashes fan out, well, rather prettily actually, the more he thinks about it.

He spends some more time on this one, taking more care with the pen lines and he's pleased with how it turns out. He's standing just how Will saw him today, relaxed and teasing, skateboard under his arm, and frays along the edges of his vest. Will holds it up, arms stretched straight to the ceiling, and studies the lines closely. It looks good. He kind of wishes he sketched this one in his notebook. He thinks of ripping it out, but knows that he's already going to be fined for damaging the book. His Mom is going to be pissed.

Will shuts the book and lazily lays it across his night stand. The little lamp casts harsh shadows along the wrinkles in his quilt. He reaches for his sketchbook instead and opens it to a clean page, then opens the drawer to his nightstand and pulls out some charcoal pencils, sharpening them quickly and blowing the scraps onto the floor. He bites his lip as he focuses on mapping out the forms of his face. It's a partial profile, and he chooses to darken it heavily, making his eyes appear intense and the light from the side harsh along the high plain of his cheekbone. Before he knows it, Mike's peering back at him, his brows drawn together and his eyes black and brooding. He darkens a line along the edge of his mouth and swipes a few curled lines over where his hair meets the protruding collarbone.

He finishes and touches it up, shading and lightning certain areas, and using his white pencil inside Mike's pupils and along his lips.

"It's not my fault you don't like girls."

Will brushes his fingers along the line he's made along his cheek.

"I feel like my life started that day I found you in the woods."

Will presses the pencil even more heavily along the black of Mike's collar. A tear drips down on to the page and he angrily wipes it away.

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU, are you some faggot?! Pathetic." He hears his father's voice suddenly screaming in his head, feels his hands roughly balling up the front of his shirt in his fists, remembers the way his hot breath smelled of beer and cigarettes and the oil stains beneath his fingernails as he shoved him into a wall.

"You said yes."

"El! I love you."

"It's the best thing I've ever done."

"You're the heart! "

Will swipes the pencil rapidly across the page now, charcoal dust heavily smearing the blank space.

"I promise."

"You're my best friend."

"We're friends. We're friends, Will!"

Will sucks in a ragged breath, but can't contain the sob that rips out of his chest. The tears blur his vision and are hot along his cheek. The muscles in his back tighten and his fingers clench into a fist, smearing the drawing as he forcefully rips the page from his notebook.

"Stupid," he whispers, crumpling it in his hands. "How can you still be so stupid ?"

Will throws the notebook on the ground, and shoves the pencil and ripped page into his bedside table. He swiftly tugs at the drawstring of his lamp, turning towards the wall and pulling the blankets up over his ear. The tears fall harder in the dark and he lets them come as they wish, rubbing soft circles along the edge of the knit blanket and sobbing wretchedly into his pillow.

Enough, he thinks miserably. It is enough.