Lover boy[s] // Will Byers

-chapter three-

And the day sure was.

The bright lights and pounding music made Sev's head spin and his eyes hurt. The hot and stuffy air caught in his throat, the smell of popcorn and milkshakes that were placed on their table by a roller-skating waiter with pimples and a bored face.

Sev ran a hand through his hair and sipped his caramel drink, the clattering sounds of pin ball machines echoing in his ears, along with the sound of everyone laughing and shouting. His shoe bounced on the floor, the wheels on the bottom sliding. Will turned to Jane and ate a chip covered in yellow chicken salt, "Why do you keep lying to Mike?"

Said boy had gone to get some socks from the counter and left the two siblings to argue while he wasn't there. Jane frowned, a panicked look on her face, "I'm not lying."

Sev felt like he really shouldn't be there, this was not a conversation for him. This was not the place for him altogether, but he couldn't just leave now. Besides, he had something he had to do. Jane raised her voice a little bit, but it wobbled as she defended herself. "I have been to a party here!"

"For mums work." Will shot back. "That's not what you implied. I just...I don't think Mikes gonna like it when he finds out that you're lying to him. And he doesn't deserve that. When he finds out he's gonna be mad."

Sev lied all the time, heck he lied to the Byers. He said his mum didn't mind that he stayed over so much, he said that he got the little flecks of scars on his cheeks from skateboarding [partly true, but not the whole truth]. He said he moved from Chicago to California when he was six. He said the reason nobody came over to his house was because his mum wasn't home that much and she wasn't very nice to people.

He didn't want to lie to them, they were his only friends. Family even. But he still lied, he had to. The biggest lie had nothing to do with any of that though, the biggest lie was to protect himself, to protect his broken little heart.

The biggest lie was the one he told to himself, the one that said he wasn't obsessed with Will Byers.

"Okay, so, I asked for vomit green and I got vomit green. Isn't that awesome?"

Sev watched from the groups booth as everyone else skated in loops on the rink, disco balls colouring their faces in rainbow dots. He had the skates on over his socks, but there was no way in hell he was skating. He had no balance, like the little part of his brain that made sure he stayed up right had been fried and then curled up and died, leaving him to look like an idiot.

Breath.

He ran his hand through his hair again, and tapped his foot on the squeaky ground. The music started to blur in his ears, the sounds of people laughing and calling out to one another mixing with the pop music until it was an overwhelming white noise. The lights spotted in his eyes, making him blink quickly, and he felt his heart rate increase. Sev ran his hand through his hair and held onto the side of the booth as if he was a baby deer walking for the first time, he shuffled to the bathroom, leaving his backpack on the red booth seat.

Breath.

The sound was dulled in the bathroom, like he was in a pod of calmness. The bright white tiles made him uneasy, but at least there weren't any rainbow lights hurting his head anymore. The mirror showed him the face of a relaxed teenage boy wearing too much dark eye makeup and eyes as light as the blue heaven milkshake Will had ordered minutes before. He fiddled with one of his piercings and splashed water over his face, trying to cool his overheating face off as he did.