Chapter Text
The world had gone to shit about a month ago. The sky had gone red and it was raining a sort of ash that wasn’t really ash, but something different entirely. As if this world wasn’t done handing out horrors, as if the monsters that roamed around weren’t enough, as if the monstrosity that this world had become wasn’t enough of a punishment for him.
He remembered how happy he was, with a family who supported him, friends who accepted him and a boyfriend who loved him. He’ll never forget the day he lost it all. The day his life ended and hell began.
As he hid, he began to wonder. What had humanity done to deserve this? What had his family done to deserve this? What had he done to deserve to survive this? As he hid, the world changed. As he hid, a new monster reared its ugly head. No one was there to hear his screams and cries for help.
Because Will Byers was all alone.
***
Will Byers wished he was alone. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to be alone, he’d just had enough of witnessing the monster he had created. Mike and Eleven. His sister and the boy he’d loved since he was old enough to know what love felt like. They had created their own personal heaven, cuddled up on the couch ‘watching’ a movie. Though with the amount of gazing into each others eyes that’s going on Will doubts they could even knew what they were watching. Will was in his own personal brand of hell.
It was his fault anyway, always playing the marriage counsellor and fixing a house that should have fallen down years ago. He’d created a fire hazard that would eventually burst into flames that only he knew how to put out. He was the faulty bridge connecting two islands. He was-
“Hey Will?” Mike asked.
“Yeah?” Will responded.
“Can you get me some….” Mike trailed off and seemed to have an intense internal battle about whether to ask him to get coke or dr pepper.
“Just some water, please Will,” El smiled. That's the problem with getting annoyed at El and Mike. Mike says something so frustrating it makes Will question if his best friend has a brain, and then El will swoop in and say something that’s so sweet and genuine that it makes him forgive them almost immediately. So Will sighs and goes to the kitchen, leaving them to continue gazing at each other. Again.
Alone in the kitchen, he thinks about the nightmare he had last night. They occur more frequently now, visions of an older version of himself, grappling with pain and grief and fear so intense that he’ll wake up with screams stuck in his throat and tears in his eyes. It’s a version of himself stuck in the upside down, a version of himself who lost everything. And he knows it’s just Vecna taunting him in his dreams because his older self had everything. The cool feeling of the water overflowing Mike’s cup brought him back to reality. He set Mike’s water down and picked up El’s cup. He was zoning out a lot more recently, he should work on that before anyone noticed.
***
The movie is finishing when Will comes back with the water. It’s a typical romantic drama ending, one where the girl runs into the guy’s arms and they magically forget about all the reasons they didn’t work and all the reasons why they argued, because after all, they love each other and that somehow is a guarantee that no matter what, they’ll always be together. If that was true Will would be in a very different place right now. Will hated these movies. They were so incredibly unrealistic.
***
The end of the day was always the worst for Will. Preparing himself for whatever horrors his mind would conjure in his sleep, the horrors that Vecna would induce. He was wearing Mike’s pijamas, since he didn’t bring any from California. If it wasn’t the end of the world he would have been swooning. The pants were too long and the top was too tight, but to him the blue fabric was the most comforting thing about tonight. He sat down on the mattress on the floor next to Mike's bed and checked the time on his watch. 8:45. Was that too early to suggest going to sleep? He wished he and Mike could stay up talking like they used to. Back when they told each other everything, back when their biggest problems were school bullies and when they were going to play dnd. Sometimes Will just wanted to be a child again.
The door opened and Mike stood awkwardly in the doorway, unsure if he should come in, even though this was his room.
“Hey,” he said, hoping to break the silence.
“Hey,” Mike said, finally coming into the room. He sat on the edge of the mattress. A loaded silence followed. There seemed to be so much silence these days. They sat there for a while, unsure of what to say but wanting to say something.
“So…did you like the movie?” Mike asked.
“Oh yeah, it…it was cool.” Will said. No. That’s a lie. He hated it.
“Cool” Mike said. Will looked down at his hands. Grasping for something to say.
“Well it’s getting pretty late, we should probably go to bed” Mike said the words sounding too fast to be casual. Will knew that if he protested, Mike would know something was wrong. So while he wanted to blurt out the first excuse that came to his mind to stay awake, he said “Yeah, I guess that’s a good idea,” and stretched out on the mattress as Mike turned off the lamp sitting on his bedside table.
***
Will Byers was being ripped into pieces and no one was coming to save him. The thing was talking to him, and it was unlike any creature he had ever seen before. He was different to the beasts that walked the new world, and he couldn’t explain how. The thing was asking him questions, questions he didn’t comprehend through the haze of pain.
“How are you not dead?”
Will simply screamed.
“What are you?”
And screamed and screamed and screamed.
He could feel his body changing itself, with every crack of bone came the sickening noise of it fixing itself into something, something horrifying and new. He could feel his skin altering itself, feel his entire being mutate into something monstrous. It was like a game. Every time something broke, it would be fixed again, except it wasn’t quite like it was before, until his mind broke and his body spasmed and it hurt, it hurt so much, and that pain was all he knew, it hurt, was it always going to hurt, it hurt, why did it-
(Mike’s POV)
Will isn’t waking up.
“It hurts! It hurts! Please! Mike!”
Mike is shaking Will so hard but his eyes refuse to open. At the mention of his name Mike starts to cry.
“Will wake up, it’s just a nightmare, you’re ok, you’re ok you’re ok, please wake up”
The screams continue. And Mike's panic increases.
“Okay, Mike, find a way to wake him up. How do you wake someone up? Shit shit shit”
He frantically looks around his bedroom and lands on the glass of water next to his lamp. He grabs it without thinking. Will’s screams stopped but now he’s gasping like he can’t breathe. Mike doesn’t know which is more terrifying. He knew Will had nightmares but he never thought they could look like this. Out of pure panic, he dumps the water onto Will’s face, not really expecting it to change anything. But instead Will sits up with a gasp and trembles, looking around frantically, looking scarily young and vulnerable, and for a second Mike sees a scared, possessed boy. But then Will’s eyes settle on him and stay there.
“Mike?” he sounds broken, the syllables shaky and his voice cracking as tears travel down his cheeks. Mike rushes forward and wraps his arms around him.
“Hey hey you're ok. You're ok. I've got you. I’ve got you. You're safe.” Mike whispers, heart racing, relief and concern causing him to hug Will tighter.
“It hurt, it hurt so much,” Will sobs, and Mike feels a stab of rage at Vecna for making Will, his Will, ache like this, cry like this. Will, who’s so selfless, so kind, so creative. So incredibly Will. Mike feels Will start to relax and so he pulls back. He puts an arm around Will’s shoulders and they huddle together on the end of Will’s mattress.
“Hey…You ok?” Mike asked and he immediately felt stupid. Of course he wasn’t ok. But Will doesn’t get annoyed, instead he just nods.
“Do you-do you wanna talk about it?”
Will takes a deep breath and-
The door flies open. Will jumps and Mike grabs his hand reassuringly. Joyce, Nancy and Karen rush in, El, Jonathan and Ted not far behind.
“Will are you ok?”
“Whats going on?”
“Who was screaming?”
“What happened?”
Voices overlapped and wove together as everyone tried to fit inside and find out what happened who screamed is everyone okay why is Will wet can someone explain what the hell happened here and the voices and the people became irrelevant as he realised that Will was hyperventilating again and the fact that the entire universe seemed to be crammed into his room was probably the reason why. The last thing Will needed was a commotion. So Mike stood up and yelled
“Guys! We’re fine, it was just a nightmare, you can go back to sleep!”
Everyone paused but nobody left.
“S-seriously I’m alright, you can go to bed. I’ll be fine.” Will managed to say, somehow managing to give them a weak smile. It was a small shock to see Will lie so quickly.
Ted nodded and gave them a small thumbs up as he left the room. It took a while before the others were satisfied and followed him. Eventually it was just Joyce left.
“Will, I know you said you’re okay, but you know that you can spend the rest of the night in my room, right? Nobody’s going to judge you, we’ll all understand.” Joyce looks sincere and worried and Mike understands why she would want Will in her room. But for some reason he desperately hopes Will says no. Will looks back at Mike, and Mike doesn’t know what to say. No, that’s a lie. He wanted to tell Will to stay, that he would be here and protect him. But he couldn’t do that, not right now.
Will fidgets with his hands.
“Thanks Mom, I know. But I think I might stay here for tonight.”
Mike smiled at Will, feeling relieved that Will trusted him enough to stay. Feeling relieved that he’d get the chance to figure out what the hell just happened.
(Will’s POV)
Joyce left after making sure that Will absolutely wasn’t hurt, and by then Will was exhausted. But sleep meant dreams and dreams become nightmares that might be visions. Because something in him, an instinct, maybe, told him that this wasn’t necessarily fake. But his thought process was interrupted by Mike’s voice.
“Um, do you…do you wanna talk about it? About the dream?”
No. He really didn’t. He didn’t want Mike to think he was more different than he already was. What if he thought he was possessed again? He knew for sure that he wasn’t. What if he thought he was going insane? But the way that Mike was looking at him, concerned and paying attention to him for once was all he’d wanted for a long time. So instead of pretending to go back to sleep, Will sits up and looks at his hands.
“If I tell you, can you promise…promise to not tell anyone? Even El?” He asks tentatively. And he’s a bit surprised that Mike responds with Of course, Will instead of Why not El? So Will takes a deep breath and faces Mike.
“I saw myself in the upside down.”
He watches Mike for a reaction, but Mike just looks grave and nods.
“And I was…older. Way older.” Will doesn’t know how to explain this. Doesn’t know how to explain that he is this older Will but isn’t at the same time.
“Like sixty?” Mike says, with a serious face, and the mental image of 60 year old Will stumbling around the upside down is so ridiculous that it makes him smile.
“No I’m like 20 or something”
“Ohh so way old I see”
Will laughed and Mike smiled at him, maybe Will was imagining things but he swore he saw fondness cross Mike’s expression and something in him loosened. After a beat of comfortable silence, Mike looked at expectantly.
“And in this dream you’re all…you’re all dead…and it’s not just you guys, it’s everyone. The entire world is dead. And I’m the only one left. I’m alone”
“And is there anything, like monsters or stuff in the upside down?”
Will pauses and tries to calm down enough so he can explain without remembering the feeling of being torn apart and put back together. Mike touches his arm and he can feel the skin shriveling and becoming something else, he can feel it again, he remembers the pain, the hurt. But he somehow manages to take a deep breath and find his voice again.
“Yeah, Vecna was there. In the dream I didn’t know who he was though. I just knew he was a monster.”
Mike paused and said
“That's weird, what'd you think it means?”
“And then he started to do his thing. Like the gruesome death thing. But it was different?”
Mike leaned forward on his knees and said
“Different how?”
“It was trying to kill me but it was like my body refused to die. So it… changed?”
“Changed?”
He could feel his body changing itself, with every crack of bone came the sickening noise of it fixing itself into something, something new.
Mike must’ve noticed his panic, because he quickly said
“You don’t have to answer, it’s okay.”
Mike’s hand was on his shoulder again and his voice was so soft it made Will feel safe, even if he couldn’t trust it to last.
“Thanks, it’s just, I honestly have no way to explain it without you thinking I’m going crazy.”
“Hey’- Mike met his eyes in the darkness-’crazy together right?”.
***
For the next few days Mike doesn’t leave Will alone. Following him around like a lost puppy. Will pretends he doesn’t notice, because for once Mike isn’t with El all the time and it felt like what their friendship used to be. It’s a bit excessive but Will doesn't mind. If anyone else notices, they don’t say anything. And that’s fine by him. He’s happier than he’s been in a while. It feels like Mike’s finally his again.
***
(Mikes POV)
“You kicked a what?”
Mikes laughing so hard he can’t breathe.
“A- I- I kicked a pigeon” Will manages through fits of laughter.
“What?”
“I was eight!”
“It doesn’t matter if you were eight! You still kicked a pigeon!”
Mike imagined his best friend, 8 years old again punting a pigeon. It makes Mike so happy to see Will so carefree again, laughing despite everything, despite the dreams that wake him up at night and don’t let him sleep. It was a relief to be able to laugh with him again. How did I make it through last year without him? Will started to cough like he always did when he laughed too much. Mike hopped up and said
“Hey, do you want some water?”
“Sure.”
“Cool.”
Mike walks down the stairs, humming Smalltown Boy to himself as he goes. He turns the corner to the kitchen and slams into El.
“Oh sorry, didn’t see you” Mike says, steadying El by her shoulders.
“It is alright Mike” El gave a tight smile. Mike nodded and shuffled into the kitchen, grabbing a mug and flicking the tap on. El stood in the entryway.
“Do you want some water? I’m getting some for-”
“I want to talk to you about something.” El says, interrupting him. Mike stops and sets the mug down. His heart begins to thud in his chest. She wasn’t breaking up with him, was she?
“Oh…um sure. What’s up?”
“When are we going to watch the second movie?”
“What?” Mike responds, wracking his mind, trying to remember what movie El meant.
“The movie we watched with Will.”
The movie before Will’s nightmare.
“Oh yeah! I didn’t even know that had a sequel!”
“Mike you rented the box set”
Shit.
“Did I? Must have slipped my mind. Yeah we’ll totally watch them soon”
“When?”
“I don’t know, whenever”
“Now?”
“I’m kind of busy now”
“Doing what?”
Technically he wasn’t busy. But Will was waiting for him. They were hanging out. Was that a good enough reason to blow off your girlfriend? El seemed to notice his hesitation.
“You are with Will?”
“Yeah, yeah me and Will are hanging out.” And Mike immediately regrets saying that as he watches El’s face fall.
Shit.
“You are always with Will.” El said, voice steely. And well, Mike feels himself tense defensively.
“I’m not! We’re…we just hang out sometimes. We’re friends.
“You're always with Will. I haven’t talked to in days”
Mike feels a stab of guilt, he’s supposed to spend time with his girlfriend. But why was he so reluctant to?
“What- we, we have talked. I spend a normal amount of time with Will, and a normal amount of time with you.” He says, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You follow him everywhere.”
“I- I do not!”
“Yesterday, when we were playing on the Atari and Will got upset and left, you immediately got up to follow him.”
“To make sure he was ok. I was being a good friend!”
“Well you're not being a good boyfriend!”
Mike let his arms fall.
“So because I care about Will, I’m a bad boyfriend?”
“No. I want you to care about Will but you’ve been following him around for the past few days and I feel like you're ignoring me.”
The kitchen was silent.
“Yeah. Yeah ok. I’m sorry, I have been pretty distracted lately, how about we watch the next movie tomorrow night?”
El smiled gratefully.
“That sounds nice.”
——————————————————-
Mike walks up the stairs with a glass of water in his hand, thinking. Was he spending too much time with Will? He hadn’t even noticed. Had anyone else noticed? Why hadn’t anyone said anything? An uncomfortable feeling spread from his stomach. Did they think it was weird? He reached his door and raised his hand to knock, before realising it was his room too. Pushing open the door he found Will propped up on his pillow, reading a book.
“D’you get lost?” Will said not looking up from his page. “No, El cornered me. She wanted to know when we were going to watch the next movie?”
Will looks up from his book.
“There’s more?”
“Hey I thought you liked the movie!” Mike says, smiling jokingly.
“ It was just another romance movie. You’ve seen one you’ve seen them all”
“Well lucky for you I bought the box set, so we will be seeing them all.”
Will laughed.
———————————————
(Will’s POV)
Will Byers is no longer human. His limbs are too long, too heavy. His insides have been rearranged and scrambled and remade into something new. The monsters of this world ignore him and he no longer has to hide, for he is now one of them. He no longer sees the monstrosities as ugly, demented creatures for he now feels their pain. The agony of his limbs and the torment of his stretched, deformed face and the suffering of his chest and the heart that might not be a heart that beats inside him. Was he even himself anymore?
So against his will, he follows the Thing, the thing that made him into this, the thing that now controls him.
Will wakes up in a cold sweat. Hair plastered across his forehead. He immediately turns over to see if Mike was awake. He was asleep. Looking more at peace than Will had seen him since they were little. He lays back down, and tries to take deep breaths. The dreams or nightmares he should say had died down in intensity the last few days. Feeling like things he had remembered seeing in a movie rather than feeling like it had actually happened. But this one felt strange. This one felt real. Helplessness engulfed him and he felt like crying. He thought the dreams were getting better. Apparently not. Apparently it was the calm before the storm, fat tears rolled like rain down his cheeks and he got the sinking feeling something was starting.
“Will?”
_________________________________________
Mike’s POV
The party we're hanging out-finally. It had been so long since they'd all gathered together like this. It felt so good for them to laugh again. To just be together, even if it wasn’t all of them. Max was still in a coma, and Eddy was dead. Their absence was felt, but it felt bearable now that they were here, in Mike’s basement, playing video games just like they did when they were kids.
They all groaned as the screen flashed Game Over in bright red, talking over each other about how the game was unfair and how close they were to beating the game.
“Dustin we would have already won this level if you just passed me the sword like we all told you too” Mike complained, throwing his arms over his eyes dramatically.
“Yeah well if Will wasn’t so shit at aiming his arrows we wouldn’t have even needed the sword”
“Can you just shut up” Will snapped, and everyone just stopped. Mike frowned. It wasn’t like Will to take things so seriously especially when they were just messing around. Will just stared at the ground, expressionless. After a moment of silence Lucas said,
“Jesus, Byers who pissed in your cereal?”
And everyone laughed and the tension seeped out of the room and everything was fine. But Mike was worried. It really wasn’t like Will to snap like that at a joke. And he hadn’t thought twice about it after that. And now that he thought about it, this reminded him of that time when Will had been painting and didn’t realise that Mike was there. He’d never mentioned it, because he honestly shouldn’t have been there, but he’d watched as Will tried to paint a scene of some sort, a frustrated look on his face. Mike remembers that Will accidentally smudged some part of the painting and just lost it. Will had angrily grabbed the paintbrush and basically attacked the canvas with ugly black lines, ruining whatever beautiful picture he’d been painting
But now that Mike thought - really thought - about it, there was also the time when they were playing Mario Bros and Will lost. He’d flipped his lid and stormed out of the room, and Mike ran after him.
“Will are you okay? It’s just a game, and besides, you’re still, like, the best player out of all of us.”
“Yeah, it’s just been a long day, and I was just frustrated, that’s all. Don’t worry about it.”
And that had been enough for Mike to think yeah okay Will’s all right, he’s just had a bad day and that was that. Until El brought it up and told Mike that he had been spending too much time with Will and that he was being a bad boyfriend. So when the laughter died down and Will got up and left, Mike pretended he didn’t see Will glance at him as he passed. Because he wasn’t a bad boyfriend.
Will’s POV
Will went upstairs, fuming. He didn’t even fully understand why. Normally, it would’ve bothered him, the fact that he was losing his temper so often, but right now he was so angry and he couldn’t bring himself to care. Approaching Mike's room, he tried not to slam the door behind him but failed miserably, he just made it to his pillow before the tears came. That always seemed like the end of things in Will’s life.
Things always ended in tears.