Howling For You | Byler

one shot.

contains; angst, depressive thoughts, season 2 spoilers.
if you're delicate or can be sad easily, I high recommend to don't read that.

-
one shot
i loved one person on my
entire life.
but he wasn't mine.
howling for you.

My mother had chosen my clothes that night, but Jonathan wouldn't stop pointing that camera at my face. I remember that while the lens looked in my eyes, my feet stumbled upon trying to follow Joyce's footsteps.

And though we were smiling and even laughing, I knew it wasn't all right. I obviously felt a lot better for don't having... Something inside me. But Bob... Bob, who had given me so much courage and been on my side for so long, trying his best to feel loved, treating as if there wasn't something wrong with me... He's gone. He's gone, and it's my fault.

The walls of my house are thin, so I can clearly hear mom crying for her loss, even if it has been a month since then.

And there we were: dancing, pretending joy and fun because that should be a perfect night. For some strange reason, I felt wrong for dancing like that. My left hand was on Joyce's arm, while the right was holding her other hand. Why was she guiding if she was a woman? Not that I'd understand anything about dancing, though... It was weird.

But good.

When the car stopped in front of the school, my stomach froze. Jonathan was the first one out, and Joyce just stood outside. I'm not sure if she left or stayed to wait for us, because when I came in, I could only pay attention to two things.

The first was the decoration. The lights flickered brightly that night, and the silver colours seemed to even overshadow the brightness of the stars outside. I never thought the courts of a place as torturous as the school could be so beautiful, so... Inspiring. For a moment, looking around and noticing so many people well dressed, I felt ashamed. With his closed tuxedos, the boys seemed to try to follow a pattern. The girls wore a strange hairdo in the same way. The creep up strands, probably supported by spray. I felt surrounded by Steves.

What about my clothes? Normal. So normal that I felt, again, a freak. The same hairdo, the same way of walking, the same frightened facial expressions. That's me, William Byers, affectionate and lazyly Will for short.

While I walked with Jonathan to the corner he had prepared to take photographs, even if wanted to avoid, looking around was my main reaction. I wanted to draw that place, that scene, those lights. For a second I felt in peace, good to be there, even the bad songs didn't bothered me. Jonathan was swapping the camera filter and there I was, right beside him, observing what he did with a certain boredom. I love the photographs, really, but I'm not interested in the technical side.

"You have to stabilize the camera on the tripod, otherwise your hand can tremble at the time of photography." He explained quietly, in his timid and low tone of voice. In response, I just nodded.

"Will! You're finally here! " That voice. By the way, I remember just talking about the first thing that caught my attention that night, right? Well, meet the second one.

The bright smile, even though his teeth were lightly crooked, the dark hair and those clothes far better than mine. The Wheelers always dress well, frankly. And Mike... Mike seemed to be fine with anything, especially with that brown open tuxedo and the adorable necktie hidden in the gray cotton vest.

My expression, before serious and full of boredom, has changed dramatically. That's what Mike had done, did and still does. He always is close. And I didn't know why, but his company was always important to me. The strongest memories I have of all the events from October to November went with Mike.