"Hey, you remember what I said last year, right? We're Zombie Boy and Ghost Boy. I'm not ever gonna leave you."
"Promise?"
"One hundred percent."
***
In which Alistair fights the monster that possessed his friend alongside his friends, while trying...
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Chapter Forty: Goodbye Is Not Forever
(The Battle Of Starcourt, Pt. 11)
***
Alistair didn't want to believe this was happening.
He'd wanted to deny it ever since Will had told him when he snuck over to stay the night at his place a few months ago, but he couldn't now. Not when he was standing in Will's room, everything in it either packed up to go, to donate, or had been sold.
Moments before the Byers would move away from Hawkins. Forever.
Alistair swallowed the lump in his throat as he stood there, surrounded by the boxes making up his boyfriend's life, trying to grapple with how outside of holidays, he'd never see Will in person again, how he would now have to talk to him on the phone instead of them sneaking to each other's places and go on secret dates together, of no more stolen kisses and secret handholds and discreet flirting out in public, of those amazing nights when they made out and fell asleep in each other's arms, of all those amazing months not being possible with Will being on the other side of the country. Of never seeing Will, his boyfriend who'd first been his best friend, who he thought would always be there by his side, again.
At least you have your powers, a voice reminded him—Alistair at least could use his power to have his soul be with Will, no matter the distance, something that had gotten easier since that night. And he would call Will every day—probably clog up the landline, but Alistair wouldn't care. Probably try and steal Dustin's Cerebro to talk to him, when Mike wasn't using it to call El.
They could make it work. But Alistair was going to miss Will like hell, miss him like a physical ache in his being.
He would miss El, of course—he would forever miss the girl he saw as another sister, and he was certain she would miss him, the first person of the Party she'd truly become friends with—and would also clog up the line talking to her. But Will was his boyfriend, the person he liked so much it hurt. It was indeed going to be hell to miss him, to continue a relationship that was already so secret to begin with.
But he was willing to do it, to make it work. They would have it work.
"Hey," Alistair heard and he looked back to see Will there, leaning on the doorframe. His boyfriend smiled, but the look of missing him was clear on his face.
"Hey," Alistair replied, moving to him. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, just... gonna miss everyone. Max, Cami, Lucas, Dustin, Mike. You," Will responded, his hand grazing Alistair's, pinky finger locking around his. Their special gesture, of sharing hand holds and kisses in a touch that would have no one think it meant that.
"I'm gonna miss you too. And El," Alistair murmured, pressing his forehead against Will's. "And I'm gonna use my powers to visit you as much as I can. When I'm not calling you up or stealing Cerebro from Mike and Dustin."
