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a "bathroom break"
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. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧
Gabe and Will were sharing Reese's Pieces from the vending machine (they'd devoured all of the candy Gabe had brought already) as they waited for Nancy and Jonathan to return. El was reading a magazine in the seat furthest away from them, and Mike seemed to be attempting to pluck up the courage to go and talk to her. Max, Alina, and Lucas were all locked in a fierce competition of Who-Can-Catch-The-Most-M&Ms-In-Their-Mouth, and the colorful candies kept spilling all over the ground. It was quiet, except for the occasional cheer from the M&Ms group, and so Gabe decided to fill the silence.
Of course. It was practically given that he would. Being a motormouth and all.
"Will?" This was a tentative topic, but curiosity had overcome Gabe's rational senses. When the boy sitting beside him looked up, Gabe swallowed and asked the question. "What was it like? To be... to be a host?"
He couldn't stop thinking of his realization from the car. That he'd rather be dead than flayed. And then he wondered how, exactly, it had been like. Because although the fact that Alina and Will had been hosts was there, nobody had ever really asked what it had been like. After everything about them had faded away. After their bodies became husks.
He didn't think Will would be very happy with this question, and he was right, because the smile that had been creeping up his lips faded, but Will didn't yell or refuse to answer or anything like that. He just shifted in his seat, and then responded.
"It wasn't me," he began. "But, of course, you guys know that. How I forgot everyone's names. But it was more than that. It was like... it was like everything that made me William Byers had been stripped away from me. Everything. From my art to D&D to knowing who you were. And... and I was so hot, all the time, I thought I was burning from the inside out. For a while I was trying to fight, trying to remain me and not giving in entirely, but there was this little voice whispering inside of me, telling me to just let go. And then I did, and... it hurt even more. And then I... I don't remember much," he admitted. "I don't really remember when they got the Mind Flayer out of me or anything. And... well, I do remember one thing. Seeing Alina in my now-memories. She was trying to keep the army alive, you know? When she was a host, too."
