𝚆𝙷𝙴𝚁𝙴 𝙸𝚂 𝙼𝚈 𝙼𝙸𝙽𝙳? ⇢ ʙʏʟᴇʀ

the length of imagination

Will's brows raised only slightly as he observed the two of them, not exactly clueing into the fact that he'd spoken his shabby nickname for the dark hair boy out loud. When he realized this, however, his face flushed a bright pink and he turned his attention back down towards his food. He wasn't going to touch it any longer, but it was better to look at something that wouldn't catch on to his embarrassment. 

"It's all I've got" Will pressed, returning to look up at Lucas once he felt like the tone in his cheeks had begun to dissipate. Will slid the cover of his container out from underneath it and snapped it into place over the opening, letting out a long sigh as though he'd been keeping it held in for hours.

"I can't just call him 'the asshole who won't tell me his name', can I?" Will grumbled as he reached up a small hand, snatching his sandwich container off of the table and twisting towards the back of his chair to slide it into his bag. He could have pretended like he was irritated about the whole situation more than he truly was, but he knew that it likely wasn't going to get him anywhere.

 If the boy didn't want to tell him who he was, to leave Will to figure it out on his own as if he had perfect control over his own mind, then Blue is who this boy would become. Blue is what he had given him and Blue he would be. As Will zipped up the front of his backpack, he could hear Dustin let out a laugh from behind him.

"It's a little long if you ask me" Dustin spoke, waiting until Will had twisted back around and rested his elbows on the table before continuing his sentence. "He can be a bit of an asshole, though. That's just---" Dustin paused, as though he was trying to figure out where he was going with his sentence. Will caught on to what he was doing immediately, silent frustration nipping at him like unkempt flames.

"That's just Blue" Dustin finished through a bleak sigh, giving Will an apologetic look before he picked his juice box up from the lunch table, sipping it as though it would keep him from saying anything else. The name sounded just as irregular coming out of Dustin's mouth to Will as the concept of what the boy's real name might be.

"He's taking it out on me" Will said abruptly, running his pointer finger over a small scratch that scarred the table top like an old wound as he felt a twinge of guilt simmer deep down inside the pit of his stomach. "You know, I get it, I guess but..." Will murmured, his sentence trailing off as he sat for a moment to consider. He hated the idea that this was his fault, even if technically, it was entirely of his own doing. If he hadn't ridden his bike home that evening as he'd been told, if he even walked it home instead he might have ended up in a completely different circumstance than the one he was in now: the one where half of him felt like it was missing. He didn't want to be like this. Blue knew that, right? He had to.

From across the table, out of the corner of Will's eyes, he noticed Lucas shifting a bit forward in his seat. "It's not fair, though. He doesn't need to take this out on you. We aren't" Dustin announced in a rather sour tone.

"We aren't him, though" Lucas interrupted suddenly, catching the attention of the two boys as he spoke. Dustin, lips falling closed, went silent in response, like a solid point had just been made, a point that went directly over Will's head. Will eyed the boy sitting across from him curiously, as though what he Lucas said was spoken in confidence, even if it didn't really resonate with him. He couldn't see how Blue was all that different from his other two friends, how his suffering seemed to have more of a hard core to it. By the way that Blue seemed to be taking this, entirely different in comparison to the two boys that sat across from him, Will imagined that they must have been closer than he could remember, which wasn't saying much. It still stung the small boy, however: the way that Blue had looked when Will had admitted that he didn't remember how to play the game the evening before, like a child that was trying to keep from crying after scraping his knees.