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Will Byers has never liked packing his things. Actually, that’s not quite right, he’s never liked packing, period.
He grows tired of cardboard boxes almost immediately, of deciding what gets to come with him and what ends up donated to charity, of sorting his life into essential and non-essential piles. What he hates most, though, is what packing means, packing implies movement, change, leaving, and Will has never been particularly fond of that part.
Maybe it’s because he spent most of his childhood doing it. Maybe it’s because, too many times, he had to put his toys into brown boxes when he was little, and later his paintbrushes and sketchbooks when he was a teenager. Packing has always meant the same thing to him: goodbye after goodbye, places that never quite stuck. He ended up spending most of his time at Hawkins, during his teenage years.
This time, he admits, it’s a little different, but not any less exhausting.
His brother Jonathan helps with most of it, he actually takes a day off work just to be there, which Will is deeply grateful for. Everything about this feels new and overwhelming to him, while Jonathan has done it all before, years ago, when he moved to college not too far from home. Will hasn’t been quite as selfless, the college he chose is far away from Hawkins, and maybe that’s exactly why he chose it.
Don’t get him wrong, Will loves Hawkins, he really does. But it hasn’t felt like his town for a long time now; he feels suffocated there, by the labels people stuck on him, by how painfully understanding his mother is, by how stagnant and small his life has become. The only thing he truly hates leaving behind is Jane, his best friend. Not that he’s really leaving her behind; Jane is leaving for college too, which means seeing each other will take effort.
Will has already cried three times just thinking about it. Jonathan tried to reassure him, saying he’s still close friends with his old high school buddy, Steve Harrington, but Will knows Jonathan barely sees Steve anymore, so that speech didn’t exactly help.
Still.
The dorm room walls are awful.
They’re painted this strange, washed-out blue. Will prefers warmer colors like deep reds, muted yellows, anything that feels alive. Of course, he doesn’t complain, the fact that his scholarship covers the room at all is already more than enough; college itself would have been completely impossible otherwise. So yes, the walls are terrible, and the beds are arranged in a way that makes absolutely no sense. Who puts a bed directly under a window? That just feels like tempting fate, he doesn’t question it, though, especially since his roommate was kind enough to let him take the bed against the wall.
“Pretty nice room,” Jonathan comments, carrying another box inside.
Will snorts softly, rolling his eyes. “It’s… tragic, Jonathan.”
He laughs at the end, because he can’t really complain: Jonathan’s dorm had been even worse. Will vaguely remembers Jonathan and his roommate using duct tape to keep the window shut. Jonathan sets the box down on Will’s bed, and Will thanks him with a small smile, he looks around the room again, already planning how to cover the entire wall by his bed with posters. There is absolutely no way he’s sleeping next to that blue wall, absolutely not.
“Is that the poster box?” Will asks, like it’s a matter of life and death.
Jonathan looks exhausted, sweat clinging to his hairline, shoulders tense with effort. Will feels guilty when he really looks at him, Jonathan still has hours of driving ahead of him, and then a night shift right after. Before Jonathan can answer, Will grabs the last box from his hands. “You’re done, sit and rest.”
Jonathan frowns. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” Will argues. “You look like you’re about to pass out,” he keeps going, flipping through the stack of posters inside the box like he’s trying to distract himself. He hears Jonathan huff behind him and Will already knows what’s coming, Jonathan always says the same thing.
“I am not—” Will cuts him off, guilt tightening in his chest because really, it’s too much.
“You took a day off work for me and carried half my life up three flights of stairs. You’re resting.”
Jonathan is stubborn, just like him, he straightens up in the middle of the room, arms crossed. “I’m the older brother.”
“That doesn’t make you indestructible,” Will insists, glancing over his shoulder. Jonathan still hasn’t made a single move toward sitting down so Will opens his mouth to argue again, he’s this close, when a loud knock rattles the door.
Before either of them can respond, a head full of aggressively gelled curls pops into view. “You must be Will,” the guy says brightly, “Hi! I’m Dustin!”
He’s wearing braces, colored ones, the kind Will has only ever seen from afar, and his outfit looks like he got dressed in the dark, somehow, it works, the colors are… fun. Everything about him feels loud and alive, he also tries to stick out a hand, but it’s clearly a challenge with the box he’s holding, which looks painfully heavy.
Will takes a step forward to help, but Jonathan’s older-brother instincts kick in immediately. “I’ve got it,” Jonathan says, already grabbing the box from Dustin’s arms.
Dustin exhales in relief and then, without warning, wraps his arms around Jonathan in a full, enthusiastic hug. “Oh my god, thank you,” he says. “This thing was trying to murder me.”
Will freezes.
They just met, and this guy is hugging his brother.
Will would be laughing, except now Dustin turns and pulls him into a hug too, just as sudden and just as tight. “Oh—” Will manages, awkwardly patting Dustin’s shoulder, “Nice to meet you.”
Jonathan is laughing openly now, clearly enjoying this way too much. “So—you’re Will. My roommate… Cool, cool, cool. I talk a lot, by the way, hope that’s not a problem.”
Will blinks. “Uh, no. I mean—no, that’s fine.”
For some reason, Dustin is grinning from ear to ear, as he starts muttering to his stupidly heavy box like it can hear him, which leaves Will with no choice but to look at Jonathan with a questioning expression. He’s not trying to be mean, really, Dustin is just… peculiar.
Dustin keeps talking as he rummages through the box, pulling things out one by one, and Will pretends he isn’t staring, he fails.
“So, what’s your major?” Dustin asks, spinning around abruptly with something in his hands. The now-empty box slides off the bed and hits the floor with a dull thud. Jonathan, finally sitting on the bed, lets out a quiet laugh.
Will stammers out something unintelligible before forcing himself to regroup, but then Dustin sets a plastic cage down on the desk they’re supposed to share and the cage contains a damn-“Hey,” Jonathan says slowly, voicing what they’re all thinking, “is that a… bat?”
There is a bat on his desk.
Will freezes, he is terrified, absolutely and unmistakably terrified, but also, against his better judgment, genuinely curious. Dustin nods, a little awkwardly, knocking over a few magazines in the process. “Oh yeah. He’s just my pet, basically,” he says, gesturing way too dramatically with his hands.
Will bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Who has a bat as a pet?
“Is that legal?” Jonathan asks, getting up from the bed at last and Will follows him automatically as they move closer to the cage.
“I’ve got a special permit,” Dustin says quickly, clearly prepared for this question. “Wildlife rehab program, it’s a long story. Totally legit, though—I promise.”
Will leans in, careful not to get too close. The bat is small, its wings folded neatly against its body, dark fur ruffled like it’s been brushed the wrong way. One of its eyes is half-lidded, and just beneath it, there’s a thin, pale scar. It makes something in Will’s chest twist, soft and unexpected.
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask you first,” Dustin continues, pacing the room as he talks. “If I’d known you were going to be my roommate, I would’ve reached out over the summer. I swear he won’t bother you. I’ll take care of everything. You won’t even notice he’s here.”
He stops, glancing at Will, suddenly earnest.
“Seriously. If it’s a problem, we can figure something out.”
Will looks from Dustin to the bat, then back again, he’s still nervous, heart beating a little too fast in his chest, but he doesn’t look away.
“Does he… have a name?” Will asks softly.
He’s not going to be the asshole who stops Dustin from keeping his pet in their room, the thought settles quietly in his mind, solid and certain. Dustin’s expression shifts instantly, his eyes light up with something bright and unmistakably pleased. There’s a small, warm smile on his face when he answers, sincere in a way that’s impossible to miss.
“His name’s Michael. Mike, for friends.”
Will hums in acknowledgment, nodding slowly. “He’s… cute,” he adds, surprising himself a little. Dustin beams and “Right? You’ll like him. He’s chill, mostly sleeps during the day and doesn't make a sound unless he’s hungry.”
Will steps closer again, cautiously this time. Mike’s tiny chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm, wings tucked in like he’s trying to make himself smaller and he wonders what happened to him, how he ended up here, how many hands passed him along before he landed in a plastic cage in a college dorm room. “That’s definitely one way to start college,” Jonathan says, amusement clear in his voice.
Will lets out a quiet laugh. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
It is a strange beginning: a blue-walled dorm room, boxes still half-unpacked, his brother lingering a little longer than necessary, and a bat named Mike perched on his desk like it belongs there, but Will has always liked peculiar things, the ones that don’t fit neatly into categories. And as he stands there, watching Dustin chatter softly to his bat like it’s the most normal thing in the world, Will thinks that maybe this place won’t be so bad after all.
September passes quickly, Will has to admit that much.
The leaves around campus slowly start to change, bleeding into autumn almost without asking permission, greens fade into muted yellows, soft oranges creep along the edges, and the rigid, manicured green of the university grounds takes on something gentler. The colors calm Will in a way he doesn’t quite know how to explain.
Once again, it’s the warm tones that do it, the ones that feel lived-in, imperfect, human.
He finds his footing surprisingly easily between required courses and the ones he chose willingly. He learns, rather quickly, that spending three hours drawing real human bodies isn’t nearly as embarrassing as he’d imagined, if anything, figure drawing becomes one of his favorite classes. There’s something grounding about it, the quiet concentration, the scratch of charcoal against paper, the way time slips by unnoticed.
Art History isn’t so bad either. At least not on the days Will manages to stay awake and attentive through the entire lecture, because early morning classes should be illegal, as far as he’s concerned. Still, over the course of the month, he starts to realize that nineteenth-century paintings seem to possess a life of their own, the subjects are captivating and haunting, even.
Whenever he has a few free afternoon hours, Will retreats to the university library, Bloodthorne Hall Library, nestling himself deep in the ancient art section. Studying those paintings in private becomes his favorite pastime, he likes the quiet there, the sense of being surrounded by things that have endured.
He also learns, pretty quickly, that Dustin Henderson is a Biology major. Will sees him more often in a white lab coat than in his usual chaotic outfits, Dustin spends long hours in the science building, disappears into labs for entire evenings, and more than once doesn’t come back to their room at night at all.
Other habits become apparent too. Dustin forgets to eat when he’s studying, lives off vending machine snacks when reminded too late, talks to himself while pacing the room, and names everything, for example his notebooks, one in particular is D'artagnan, for some reason. He also hums when he’s nervous and taps his fingers incessantly when he’s thinking, he never forgets to take care of his bat.
Will doesn’t question it much. He has to admit Dustin is likable, an easy roommate, genuinely empathetic, and catastrophically clumsy.
One of the first nights they spent together weeks ago still stands out vividly in his memory: Dustin laughing so hard at something stupid on phone that he literally rolled off the bed and skinned his knee on the floor. Or the time he came back from Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy with a full bandage wrapped around his head.
“What did you do?” Will had asked, arms crossed, concern obvious by then, three weeks was enough time to get attached, apparently. Dustin had laughed loudly, braces flashing in bright colors. “I underestimated gravity,” he said, shrugging. “And a cabinet.”
“That explains nothing.”
“It explains everything.” Will had sighed, nodded, and chosen not to ask any follow-up questions.
Honestly, if he ignores the fact that Dustin seems to injure himself at least once a week, his first month of college hasn’t been bad at all. They grow close despite their opposite personalities, their first weekend is spent buying junk food at the nearest grocery store and eating it cross-legged on the dorm floor.
“This is dinner?” Will asks, holding up a questionable microwavable meal.
“Technically,” Dustin replies. “It has nutrients, I promise.”
They stay up too late talking about nothing and everything.
Will mentions Hawkins, tells him it’s a little strange as a place, and Dustin reassures him immediately, eyes lighting up as he says he loves strange things. Will admits quietly, like it might be embarrassing, that his favorite movie is Ghostbusters. Dustin reacts like this is vital information. “No way, solid choice,” he says, nodding approvingly. “Mine’s Nosferatu.”
Will blinks. “The silent one?”
“The best one,” Dustin replies, reverent. “You have to watch it. Seriously.”
“Why?”
Dustin pauses, thinking. “I don’t know, for the vibes?” and that’s not an explanation at all, but Will nods anyway. Dustin talks a lot; Will listens. He laughs at some of the more bizarre anecdotes, occasionally wondering if Dustin might be making things up as he goes. Between one evening and another, the ones they actually manage to spend together, when Will isn’t buried in anatomy study and Dustin isn’t locked inside some lab, Will also learns a few things about the bat.
Which, incidentally, Dustin was right about.
Mike rarely bothers them, Dustin takes meticulous care of him, cleans the cage even though he explains that bats usually groom themselves, still, Dustin insists that Mike is sensitive. So he brushes the fur behind his head and along his chest with a soft-bristled toothbrush, slow and careful and the small bat, who Will has to admit he’s starting to find ridiculously cute, closes his eyes and seems to melt into the attention.
Dustin only stops when, and Will would swear this on the most important things in his life, the bat gives a tiny nod of his head. Will doesn’t comment on it, if he understood correctly, Dustin’s had Mike since he was eleven or something like that. He figures Dustin knows what he’s doing.
Dustin washes him, pets him sometimes, feeds him fruit… which throws Will off, because he’s fairly sure he once read that bats eat insects. Dustin just shrugs and says Mike follows a vegan diet, for some absurd reason, and Will doesn’t press further.
Sometimes, when Will comes back to the room, neither Dustin nor the bat are there. The cage is completely gone from the desk, Dustin once tells him Mike needs fresh air, especially at night. Will doesn’t question that either, especially after the nights when Mike wakes them up, screeching and flapping violently, wings slamming against the plastic. The first time it happens, Will genuinely thinks they’re about to be attacked.
“Oh my god,” Will whispers, sitting bolt upright. “Dustin—Dustin—”
“Sorry,” Dustin mumbles, half-asleep, clearly annoyed. “My bad.”
“He sounds… he sounds angry.” Will almost cries, because he is indeed scared.
“He is,” Dustin yawns. “I forgot his walk.”
“His what?”
Dustin stumbles out of bed, grabs the cage, and pauses in the doorway. “I’ll be back in ten—fifteen max.”
“You’re… taking him for a walk,” Will says flatly.
“Night air,” Dustin replies. “Good for him.”
Then he’s gone and Will lies awake for a long time after that, staring at the ceiling.
It’s within that first month of living together that Will realizes something important: he would never, ever be able to take care of that animal. Not really. It’s too much work, too much attention, too much caution, things Will knows, honestly, he doesn’t have in him.
Which is exactly why the world seems to cave in on him at the beginning of October.
It’s raining. Not just raining, it’s pouring, hard enough that the sound of it drowns out his thoughts. Will can’t even focus on the book open in his lap, though maybe that’s partly because the topic is painfully dull. It’s the first time it’s rained since he arrived, and for some reason, it unsettles him more than he’d like to admit.
There’s a full-on storm outside. Thunder rolls overhead, close enough to rattle the windows.
Dustin still isn’t back.
Will is sure Dustin’s classes ended a while ago, the sun has been down for hours now, the hallways are eerily quiet, the campus outside completely deserted, but there’s no sign of Dustin and no sign of the bat, either.
It’s not really his business, Will knows that. And yet, he can’t stop thinking about it.
He gets up, paces the room, back and forth, chewing at the skin around his fingers until it stings. He calls Dustin’s phone more than once, irritation slowly bleeding into worry when he notices it, lying abandoned on Dustin’s bed.
The phone, Will stares at it, who doesn’t carry their phone with them?
The book slips forgotten onto his bed. His mind starts filling in the blanks with worst-case scenarios, he considers calling Jonathan. He considers going out into the storm himself to look for Dustin and the bat, even though the thunder outside sounds violent enough to split the sky in half.
He considers too many things at once.
So when someone knocks on the door, Will nearly jumps out of his skin.
His heart slams against his ribs as he rushes to the door, hands shaking. There’s a sharp mix of emotions clogging his chest: fear, relief, anger. He’s already decided that the first thing he’ll do when he opens the door is scold Dustin, the second is force him to carry his phone at all times.
The words are right there on his tongue when he yanks the door open, maybe a little too forcefully.
But it’s not Dustin.
It’s an elderly woman he recognizes from the student services office. She looks severe, bored, entirely unimpressed, in her hands is Dustin’s cage.
Will’s brain short-circuits.
“Are you William Byers?” she asks, eyeing him from head to toe.
Will swallows, Mike, the bat, looks damp inside the cage, fur clinging awkwardly to his tiny body. Dustin is nowhere in sight, which is wrong, because Dustin never goes anywhere without him. Something has happened, Will knows it instantly.
“Yes,” he says quickly, reaching for the cage and nodding a little too hard. “That’s me.”
“Dustin Henderson told us to bring this to you,” the woman says flatly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
She turns as if that’s the end of it.
Will’s panic spikes.
“Wait—please,” he blurts out, gripping the cage as it trembles in his hands. “Where is Dustin?”
His voice cracks despite his best efforts.
The woman sighs, clearly annoyed, but answers without even looking at him. “The infirmary.”
That’s all it takes.
Will doesn’t think twice, he sets the cage down on the desk far too roughly, it rattles, for which he doesn’t even apologize to the bat and he bolts out the door and into the storm. The rain soaks him instantly, his shoes slip on wet pavement as he runs across campus, breath burning in his lungs, hair plastered to his face. Thunder crashes overhead, but he doesn’t care.
All he can think about is Dustin. By the time he reaches the infirmary, he’s drenched and shaking, and inside everything smells awfully like antiseptic and disinfectant, the lights are too bright and a nurse stops him halfway down the hall. “I’m looking for Dustin Henderson,” Will says, breathless. “Please.”
He must look pathetic because she studies him for a moment, then softens. “Room three.”
Will finds him minutes later, lying on a narrow bed, arm in a cast, a bandage wrapped around his head, he looks pale and smaller somehow, curls flattened, braces visible when he tries to smile. “Hey,” Dustin says weakly. “Wow… You look like hell.”
Will just stares at him. “What happened?” he asks, voice trembling now that the adrenaline is gone. Dustin sighs, “Wet ground and bad traction, I think… gravity again.”
“You broke your arm.” Will notices.
“Technically, yes. And I hit my head and they wanna keep me here for observation.”
Will closes his eyes for a second, relief crashing into him so hard it almost hurts.
“You scared me,” Will says quietly.
Dustin blinks at that. He looks surprised, caught off guard in a way that feels almost intimate, then his expression softens, a small, crooked smile tugging at his mouth.
“Sorry, man.”
Will exhales shakily and pulls a chair closer to the bed, sitting beside him. He stays in the infirmary for a while, keeping Dustin company. They don’t talk much, mostly, Will listens to the steady hum of the lights, to the distant sound of rain hitting the windows, to Dustin’s uneven breathing whenever he shifts and accidentally jostles his broken arm.
Unfortunately, the nurse disagrees with this arrangement.
At least three times within twenty minutes, she comes by to check on them, sighing pointedly and reminding them, each time, that there are very clear campus rules about visitors, because sick students are not allowed to have guests in the infirmary during the evening hours.
Eventually, Will has no choice but to leave, besides, he has early morning classes the next day anyway, so even if he wanted to stay, he couldn’t.
Dustin thanks him in his usual chaotic, clumsy way, attempting a hug despite the cast, it’s awkward and half-executed, but Will lets it happen anyway, which results in an awkward shuffle and a hiss of pain from Dustin.
“Idiot,” Will mutters fondly, steadying him.
He’s halfway through the doorway when Dustin suddenly frowns, eyebrows knitting together like a thought has struck him all at once. He twists sharply toward Will and immediately regrets it, a pained groan slipping from his lips.
“Don’t move,” Will says instinctively, spinning back around. Dustin squeezes his eyes shut for a second, then opens them again. “The bat,” he blurts out, bringing his good hand up to his head, “Mike.”
Will stops short.
He stares at him, blankly, and then the realization hits him hard.
The bat, of course. Will hadn’t thought it through, not really at least, he hadn’t connected the dots: Dustin slipping on the wet ground, breaking his arm, getting stuck in the infirmary for observation for who-knows-how-long… the inevitable consequence of all that comes crashing down on him all at once.
“Oh,” Will breathes, he turns fully back toward the bed, heart starting to pound again. “Will,” Dustin says now, voice softer, he’s looking at him with wide eyes, there’s something almost childlike in his expression, it makes something tighten painfully in Will’s chest. “I need you to take care of him… j-just until they let me out, please.”
He’s practically begging. Dustin must know, he does know, that Will’s relationship with the bat is complicated at best, unless and hesitant, and he always seems way too overwhelmed by the responsibility of it all.
Will swallows, he lets out a small, awkward laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he says, shaking his head gently, trying to sound reassuring. “Yeah, of course. I won’t leave him alone.” because Will isn’t heartless, and he won’t let a helpless creature suffer because he’s scared.
Dustin’s shoulders relax a fraction at that. But there’s something else in his eyes when he finally meets Will’s gaze again, something that goes beyond concern for the bat, like he’s holding onto a secret he’s never quite found the courage to say out loud and still doesn’t.
His expression softens. “Just…” Dustin says quietly, “Be careful.”
That’s all.
And Will doesn’t know why, doesn’t understand how such a simple, harmless sentence manages to send a chill down his spine, but it does.
So he leaves Dustin alone in the infirmary a few minutes later and walks back across campus. This time, he’s careful with his steps, the space between the infirmary and the dorms feels longer than it did before, stretched thin by the rain-soaked pavement and the weight pressing down on his chest.
His thoughts spiral almost immediately.
He has no idea how to take care of a bat, Dustin didn’t leave instructions, not really. No list, no warnings, no don’t forget this or everything goes wrong. Will has watched him do it, sure, but watching and knowing are two very different things.
What if he feeds him the wrong thing? What if he touches him the wrong way? What if he stresses him out and the bat bites him or, worse, gets hurt? God, what if he gets hurt.
Will presses his hands into the pockets of his pants, fingers curling tight. Okay, just breathe.
He knows Mike’s diet, fruit, apparently. Vegan, somehow.
He knows Dustin cleans the cage even though it’s not strictly necessary, knows he uses that soft-bristled toothbrush, slow movements, gentle hands, he knows Mike doesn’t like loud noises and that nighttime seems to make him restless.
That has to count for something.
And Dustin won’t be gone long, probably. He fell and broke his arm, yes, but people break arms all the time, they don’t keep you forever for that, a night, maybe two, Will can manage a night.
He repeats that to himself as he walks. I can manage a night.
By the time he reaches the dormitory, the panic has dulled into something more manageable; nervous resolve, shaky but present. He pauses in front of the dark wooden door to their room, staring at it like it might stare back.
You can do this, he tells himself.
As he pictures Dustin’s easy confidence, the way he talks to Mike like he understands him, Will straightens his shoulders, takes a slow breath, and reaches for the handle.
That’s when he hears it, a sound from inside the room and it’s soft, not quite a scrape, not quite a flutter, but something moving.
Will freezes while his heart slams violently against his ribs.
He pulls his hand back and leans closer, pressing his ear to the door. The room beyond is silent for a few seconds, long enough for his thoughts to race, for every terrible possibility to bloom in his head, and then it happens again.
A faint rustle… Mike, maybe?
Will swallows hard.
“It’s fine,” he whispers to himself, though his voice barely comes out. “It’s just Mike.” He shifts his weight without thinking, shoulder pressing lightly against the door.
The door gives in.
It swings open suddenly, and Will stumbles forward with a startled gasp, losing his balance completely. He trips over the threshold and falls into the room, into darkness, the door shuts behind him with a soft, ominous click, and for a moment, the only thing Will can hear is his own breathing.
The silence is wrong.
It’s not the quiet he expected, not the faint rustling, not the soft sounds he swore he heard earlier, this silence is dense, heavy, like it’s pressing down on his ears… tomb-like and artificial.
Will stays still on the floor, palms flat against the cold tiles, his eyes take their time adjusting to the dark, and he realizes his hands are slick, not with rain, but with sweat and he’s shaking, from the cold, yes, but mostly from fear.
It’s fine, his brain insists. You’re just scared because it’s dark, that’s all.
Nothing moves and nothing breathes and the thought almost calms him, then Will lifts his head. The white tiles he was staring at slip out of his vision, replaced by the rest of the room and his heart lurches violently into his throat: he must have fallen near the center of the room. He’s too far from his bed, too far from the door, a thin, pale strip of moonlight filters in through the window, spilling across Dustin’s bed and stretching like a ghostly limb toward the middle of the room.
Will’s gaze follows it instinctively: the outline of his desk; the chair pushed slightly out of place; the posters on the wall, warped and unfamiliar in the dark. Dustin’s bed, unmade, sheets rumpled, shadows pooling deep in its folds.
And then… Will’s breath catches.
Two eyes stare back at him from the bed, not reflecting light, not catching it, emitting it. A vivid, unnatural red burns in the darkness, fixed entirely on him.
Will freezes.
The color is wrong, too bright and definitely too alive, it’s the kind of red that doesn’t belong in anything human, or animal, or real. And the way those eyes look at him isn’t empty or instinctual, it’s aware.
Will’s gaze snaps, frantic, to the desk, the cage is still there but it’s empty this time. His eyes flick back to the bed, the red eyes haven’t moved, they don’t blink.
A wave of cold terror washes over him so suddenly it makes his vision swim. Will wants to scream, but his body refuses to cooperate, his throat locks up, his limbs feel heavy, useless, like they don’t belong to him anymore. There are two glowing red eyes staring at him from Dustin’s bed.
His mind scrambles, grasping for logic, for explanation… Mike escaped, he’s just—he’s just bigger in the dark, it’s definitely the lighting, right?
But then, the shape shifts, not abruptly, it does slowly, a silhouette detaches itself from the bed, unfolding with deliberate grace. Will catches glimpses of sharp lines while it moves, the eyes tilt slightly… they’re studying him.
Will’s heart is pounding so hard he’s sure it can be heard across the room, his breath coming in shallow, panicked bursts, each one louder than the last in the oppressive silence, this thing knows he’s there, this thing has been waiting for him.
And then, when Will finally squeezes his eyes shut, when he braces himself for teeth, claws, darkness, death… the light snaps on, suddenly and warm, almost blinding.
Will flinches hard, a strangled sound catching in his throat as the darkness vanishes all at once: the red eyes are gone, the shape on Dustin’s bed is gone too. Whatever he thought he was seeing dissolves instantly, like a nightmare ripped away mid-breath.
His heart doesn’t get the memo.
It keeps slamming against his ribs, wild and uncontrolled. Will blinks rapidly, chest heaving, trying to make sense of the room now flooded with light. Who turned on the light?
“I did.”
The voice comes from behind him, low and rough, like it scrapes its way out of the speaker’s throat instead of being spoken normally, Will’s thoughts stall completely, every instinct in his body screams at him not to move, but he forces himself to, it takes everything he has to turn around, slowly, toward his bed.
And that’s when he sees it.
Sitting there, casually, like he belongs, one leg bent up on the mattress, elbow resting loosely against his knee, posture relaxed to the point of arrogance.
Bathed in the soft, yellow glow of the lamp, there’s… a boy, or something that looks like one.
His eyes are still red, not glowing now, not burning holes into the dark, but unmistakably the same red Will saw seconds ago, under the warm light, the color looks deeper, darker. They’re fixed on Will.
The boy has sharp features, like high cheekbones and a strong jawline, but they’re softened by full lips, slightly parted like he’s amused, or curious, or both. His hair is dark and curls loosely around his face, still damp, clinging to his forehead and temples as if he’s just come in from the rain or something like that.
His skin is pale, like it’s untouched by warmth. There’s a faint scar beneath one eye, thin and white, like it’s old, another small cut near his hairline, barely healed, like a recent accident.
Will’s stomach drops.
The details slam into place all at once: the scars, the eyes, the timing, the cage. Will’s gaze flicks frantically to the desk, the empty plastic cage stares back at him like an accusation. He looks at the boy again, the red eyes soften slightly, almost human now, as if he’s watching Will figure it out in real time.
“Oh,” Will breathes, the word barely audible.
Now, sitting comfortably on Will’s bed, under the warm light like a perfectly normal college student, Mike tilts his head just a little and says, almost gently, “Hello, William.”
Will doesn’t scream, but he’s not sure his heart can survive the next five seconds.
He’s always thought the place where he grew up was… strange. Hawkins had been full of stories: aliens, secret laboratories, experiments on the human mind. The kind of things people whispered about and then laughed off as nonsense, Jonathan had sworn to him, over and over, especially on those nights when Will woke up shaking from a nightmare, that none of it was real. Just stories, go back to sleep.
But this?
This is nothing like that.
What he’d been convinced was his roommate’s bat is now sitting on his bed and it’s a boy, flesh and bone and eyes, eyes fixed on Will with something that looks dangerously close to expectation, like he’s waiting for Will to connect the dots.
And if Will weren’t so busy trying to convince himself he isn’t completely losing his mind, he’d probably be screaming.
“You’re not crazy,” the boy says calmly from the bed. “You don’t have to worry.”
Will freezes mid-step.
He’s been pacing the room for at least ten minutes now, hands tangled in his hair, breath coming too fast, trying to find an explanation that makes this even remotely possible. But every mental path leads to the same conclusion: he hit his head when he fell. This is a hallucination, his brain is scrambling to cope with the fact that the bat escaped.
It doesn’t help that the boy, Mike, because of course that’s his name, seems to know exactly what Will is thinking. Every time a question forms in Will’s head, Mike answers one of them out loud, like he’s plucking the thoughts straight from his skull.
“So you’re not real,” Will blurts out, his voice shaky, words tumbling over each other. “You’re just… my imagination. My brain is trying to justify losing the bat. I left the cage open, didn’t I? That’s what happened and—”
“Not exactly, William.” something about his tone changes.
Will looks up and the bed is empty. A cold shiver slides down his spine, slow and deliberate, his heart slams painfully against his ribs. Where did he go?
“I’m right here.”
The voice comes from behind him and it’s too close.
Mike’s breath brushes against the shell of Will’s ear, unnaturally cold and Will spins around, nearly colliding with him. They’re inches apart now, close enough for Will to see every detail: the dark lashes, the sharp line of his mouth, the red eyes staring at him with something intent, focused.
“How did you do that?” Will asks before he can stop himself. The fear is still there, buzzing under his skin, but it’s not alone anymore. Against all reason, curiosity has slipped in, quiet and persistent.
If Dustin had a bat that could turn into a human, he would’ve said something, he would’ve warned him… prepared him, right? Suddenly, Dustin’s guilty look in the infirmary comes back to him in sharp detail, that hesitation, the sense that something had been left unsaid.
Mike notices.
“That’s right,” Mike says slowly. “Dustin thought you weren’t ready. That you wouldn’t understand.”
He circles Will with silent, measured steps, not threatening, but controlled. Every movement is precise, like he’s examining something new “I, on the other hand…” Mike stops in front of him, tilting his head slightly, a faint smile curves his lips.
“…was curious.”
And in that smile, Will realizes the problem isn’t just what Mike is. It’s the way Mike is looking at him, like Will is the most interesting thing in the room. Will has to take a deep breath to keep from collapsing right there on the floor.
If someone had asked him to list the things he expected to do after high school, meeting a bat-turning-human would not have made the cut. Not even at the very bottom, and yet here they are.
Once the initial shock loosens its grip on his brain for half a second, a thought clicks into place with horrifying clarity: the most plausible explanation is also the worst one.
The boy standing in front of him, the one staring at him now with that faintly amused, knowing smile, eyes dragging over him from head to toe like Will is something to be possessed, is exactly what Will thinks he is, there is no doubt in that.
“You can say it out loud,” Mike teases lightly, not even slowing his pace. His tone is steady, there’s no hesitation in it, not a crack to suggest uncertainty.
And that, more than anything, is what convinces Will.
So maybe Will is right after all. Maybe Mike really is-“You’re a… vampire?” Will blurts out, and the words sound ridiculous even to his own ears the moment they leave his mouth. The kind of sentence that belongs in a cheap horror movie or a half-forgotten legend, not echoing across a quiet campus walkway at night. Who would ever believe a story like that?
Mike doesn’t answer out loud, instead, his voice slips directly into Will’s head.
Yes.
Once, twice. Again, softer, louder. Layered over itself, until it’s all Will can hear.
Will staggers, his vision tilting dangerously as dizziness washes over him in a sudden, disorienting wave. He grabs onto the nearest solid thing, Mike’s sleeve, the cold brick wall, he’s not even sure which, just to keep himself upright. His heart stutters, then accelerates, pounding hard enough to make his ears ring.
His imagination, traitorous as ever, has already turned against him.
It floods his mind without permission: flashes of sharp white teeth against pale skin, the press of a mouth at his throat, the intimate horror of it. The idea of being held still, not roughly, not violently, but inevitably, while something ancient and hungry feeds from him. He imagines the cold first, then heat, then the awful, dangerous pull of it.
“For what it’s worth,” Mike says mildly, stopping in front of him, “as much as I like the image…” his eyes flare, bright and vivid red, glowing unnaturally in the dim light.
“I won’t do that.”
Will’s breath catches. “Unless you want me to,” Mike adds, casually, like that’s even a possibility. Will stares at him, horrified, who wants a vampire’s teeth in their neck? Definitely not him.
Mike turns away, gaze drifting toward the rain-streaked window, his voice shifting into something almost… conversational. “Dustin’s obsessed with that vegan thing,” he says. “And I don’t kill his friends. That’s non-negotiable.”
He shrugs slightly. “So most of the time, when I’m in my bat form, I live on fruit.” Will blinks. That part, at least, tracks, he nods faintly, automatically, this is information he already knew, even if it makes far less sense now than it did an hour ago.
“But when I’m like this,” Mike continues, turning back toward him, “I can’t.”
His gaze sharpens again, that unsettling intensity returning full force. “I need blood. Fresh, usually.”
Will’s shoulders tense without him realizing it. His arms fold over his chest, instinctive and defensive, like that could somehow protect his throat if Mike decided to ignore his own rules.
Then, because his brain insists on latching onto anything that feels logical, Will blurts out the first thought that sounds even remotely useful. “Then why don’t you just… stay in bat form?” he asks. “Wouldn’t that be easier?”
He says it like it’s a perfectly reasonable solution and maybe it is, for him. A bat is terrifying, sure, but manageable… a vampire standing three feet away? Not so much.
Mike lets out a low laugh, the sound raises goosebumps along Will’s arms. “When Dustin fell,” he explains, “the cage slipped out of his hands. I slammed into the plastic walls.”
Will’s eyes drop to the cut near Mike’s temple: dark blood seeping sluggishly from it, already thickening as it dries. “My body’s healing,” Mike goes on calmly. “But since I haven’t been feeding on blood for a long time, I don’t have the strength to shift back until it finishes and not without feeding.”
Silence stretches between them.
Will has no idea what he’s supposed to say, no idea what Mike expects from him. If Mike doesn’t plan on attacking him, thank God, then how exactly is Will meant to help? His throat tightens.
“What do you want me to do?” Will finally asks.
His voice comes out smaller than he’d like, almost fragile. He lets out a weak, breathless laugh, not because anything is funny, but because the situation is so far beyond normal it borders on absurd. When he promised Dustin he’d take care of his bat, this is not what he had in mind.
But he has already given his word.
And Will Byers has never been good at breaking promises.
“First,” Mike says at last, his voice noticeably calmer, lower, as though he’s deliberately smoothing its edges, “you could help me deal with… this.”
He gestures vaguely at himself, at the half-dried blood near his temple, at the general chaos of the room.
Will nods immediately, the movement too quick, too eager; for a while, he forgets how late it is, forgets the rain still tapping against the windows, forgets the fact that tomorrow morning he has class and that Dustin has been lying to him for a month.
A few minutes later, Mike is leaning back against the desk, almost sitting on it, his posture deceptively relaxed. Will stands between his knees without fully realizing how that’s happened, not until the space around him feels charged in a way that makes it difficult to breathe.
Will’s hands shake as he lifts a tissue soaked in disinfectant. He isn’t even sure why he grabbed it, he doesn’t know if vampire skin reacts to disinfectant, if it burns, if it does anything at all, but he needs something to do, something ordinary to ground him in the reality that this is still his dorm room, still his life.
From this close, everything about Mike feels sharper.
He’s wearing one of Dustin’s sweaters, Will realizes it because it’s clearly too small for him, stretched across his shoulders, the sleeves ending too high on his wrists.
And he’s pretending to breathe. Will notices it now: the rise and fall of Mike’s chest is uneven, slightly delayed, as though he’s mimicking the action rather than needing it.
When Will’s fingers brush his skin, he startles.
Not because it’s unpleasant, because it isn’t, but because Mike is cold. Not cool from the rain or the night air, but deeply, unnaturally cold, like stone that’s never known sunlight, there’s no warmth beneath the surface at all.
The only heat in him is in his eyes.
Up close, Will can see them properly now: the red isn’t constant, not fully. It deepens and brightens when Mike looks at him directly, when his attention sharpens, it makes Will’s stomach twist in a way he doesn’t quite recognize.
His gaze drifts, involuntary, to the scar beneath Mike’s left eye. It’s faint but old, the kind of mark that doesn’t fade even when it heals.
Will has seen it before, dozens of times, and never thought to ask. Now it feels important, like a detail in a painting you only notice once someone points it out. From this distance, Will has to admit something he doesn’t entirely like admitting.
Mike is beautiful.
Not in a way that feels safe or human, but in the same way the subjects of old paintings are beautiful: figures frozen in time, their expressions unreadable, their presence heavy with something unsaid. There’s something about Mike that draws the eye and refuses to let it go, something in the way the space around him seems to subtly rearrange itself, as if the room has learned to accommodate him.
Will feels it then: the pull.
It isn’t physical, not yet, but it’s undeniable. Like standing too close to a cliff edge, like gravity slowly asserting itself, his body leans forward before his mind has caught up, drawn by something instinctual and deeply inconvenient.
His eyes drop to Mike’s mouth.
There’s a faint shadow along his lower lip, barely visible in the warm light, it’s not blood, just the suggestion of where his fangs would rest. When Will looks back up, Mike is staring at him with an intensity that makes his throat tighten.
There’s hunger there.
“I can hear your blood,” Mike mumbles, voice low, intimate, pitched only for the space between them. “It’s moving fast.”
It doesn’t sound like a threat. If anything, it sounds observational, almost reverent. Before Will touched him, before any of this, Mike had sworn dramatically and solemnly, with a bad Dracula impression, that he wouldn’t hurt him. That promise is the only thing keeping Will from bolting right now.
His fingers still midair, Will’s breath stutters.
“It’s just because I’m scared,” he whispers, but even as the words leave his mouth, he knows they’re wrong.
There’s no fear in his body, only awareness. His heart is racing, yes, but not from panic, more from anticipation, from the overwhelming sense of being seen too clearly. He can feel his blood moving through him, warm and alive beneath his skin, especially along his neck, his pulse loud in his ears for reasons he doesn’t quite understand.
Mike smiles and Will’s gaze drops just in time to catch the faint flash of a fang.
And then—Oh.
He’s leaning in.
Will is leaning toward him, toward Mike’s mouth, without consciously deciding to do it, his body responding to something ancient and persuasive that bypasses rational thought entirely. “That’s enough,” Mike says sharply and then he’s gone.
One second he’s there, solid and close, and the next Will is staring at empty space, his balance faltering slightly as if something has been abruptly pulled away from him.
He blinks, disoriented, his pulse still roaring in his ears, trying to understand what just happened and why he feels like he’s been dragged back from the edge of something dangerous. “That,” Mike says calmly, now across the room near the window, “is the vampire pull.”
Will turns toward the sound of his voice. Mike stands there composed, distant again, as if he hasn’t just been inches away from him seconds earlier.
“You shouldn’t stay that close to me,” Mike continues, tone even but serious. “If you do, you’ll give in before you realize what’s happening.” Will clears his throat, heat creeping into his face, and tugs awkwardly at the hem of his still-damp shirt. Is he really that easy? He shakes his head, frustrated, embarrassed, and tosses the bloodstained tissue into the trash before turning back to face Mike.
“I think I need a hot shower,” Will says quickly, the words tumbling out a little too fast. “You—uh. You should… figure out what you’re going to do.”
He turns away before Mike can say anything else.
The shower is the perfect excuse to put distance between them, at least for a little while, to give himself space to breathe, to think, to convince his mind that what just happened hasn’t completely shattered his understanding of reality. Because none of this makes sense.
Will has spent his entire life believing in logic, in things that can be explained, and yet here he is, sharing a dorm room with a vampire and somehow agreeing, without fully realizing it, to help him survive.
Help him feed.
The thought alone makes his stomach twist.
The water is hot, almost scalding, but Will barely notices it as it pours over his head and down his back, slicking his hair flat against his skull and carrying the scent of shampoo with it. He lets it run longer than necessary, watching as pale foam slides down his chest, drips from his elbows, disappears into the drain at his feet as if the water can simply take his thoughts with it and wash them away.
It doesn’t.
The communal shower room is dim, lit only by a single flickering bulb near the entrance, casting long shadows across the tiled walls. The sound of the water echoes softly, hollow and distant, and the silence beyond it tells him the dorm has finally fallen asleep: no laughter in the hallways, no doors slamming, just the steady rhythm of running water and Will’s own breathing.
He closes his eyes, presses his forehead briefly against the cool tile.
How am I supposed to do this?
How do you help a vampire feed without becoming part of the problem?
He runs his hands through his hair, scrubbing harder than necessary, trying to ground himself in the physical sensation of it, he needs to relax.
And then, finally, the solution comes to him.
Not a good one, not an ethical one, by any stretch of the imagination, but still a solution.
It hits him while he’s mentally drafting a long, furious complaint to Dustin, cataloguing every single detail he plans to throw in his face the next time they talk. His gaze drifts, unfocused at first, until it lands on the white lab coat he’s wearing in his imagination, his name stitched neatly over the chest pocket… the labs.
Will’s thoughts slow, then sharpen.
Labs mean storage, and refrigeration, control access too, but if there’s one thing he’s absolutely certain of, it’s that blood bags don’t just appear out of thin air. They have to be stored somewhere, catalogued somewhere, probably in one of the medical or research labs on campus.
Blood bags.
They could steal some. Just a few, enough for Mike to do whatever it is he needs to do in order to, you know, not die. It wouldn’t hurt anyone directly, no one would even notice, probably. And the idea settles in his chest with surprising ease, solidifying before he can fully question it.
Decision made, Will finishes his shower far too quickly, movements rushed and distracted. He barely bothers rinsing the last traces of shampoo from his skin before stepping out, water dripping from his hair onto the cold tile as he grabs the first clean clothes he can find. He dresses hastily, still damp, socks sticking unpleasantly to his feet, and leaves the shower room with a sense of urgency buzzing under his skin.
By the time he reaches their dorm room, his mind is set.
He opens the door quickly, but Mike isn’t there.
Will freezes in the doorway, his grip tightening around the handle. The room looks exactly the same as when he left but the absence is loud. His heart stutters, unease crawling up his spine. “Mike?” he calls softly, stepping inside.
Nothing.
He closes the door behind him, scanning the room, his eyes flicking instinctively to the bed, the desk, the corners where shadows cling stubbornly to the walls. He takes another step forward, then another, tension coiling tighter with each one. Maybe he left.
A sudden movement behind him.
Will yelps, spinning around so fast he nearly loses his balance, and finds Mike standing right there, close enough that Will has to physically stop himself from stumbling backward into the door. “God—!” Will clutches at his chest, breath coming too fast. “What is wrong with you?”
Mike looks almost smug, lips twitching as he leans casually against the wall, arms crossed. “You’ll have to get used to that.”
Will glares at him, but it’s half-hearted at best, adrenaline still buzzing through his veins. “You can’t just disappear like that,” he mutters. “I thought you— I mean, I didn’t see you.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
Mike straightens, stepping a little closer, his expression shifting, not predatory, exactly, but focused in a way that makes Will suddenly very aware of the space between them. His gaze drifts, slow and deliberate, lingering just a second too long.
“Huh,” Mike adds casually. “You smell good.”
Will blinks.
“What?”
It’s not fear that floods him then. Not panic, not dread.
It’s heat.
A sudden, unmistakable warmth creeping up his neck, settling in his cheeks. He hates how immediate it is, how his body betrays him without hesitation. “I—it’s just shampoo,” Will says quickly, mortified, turning his face away even though he knows Mike can probably still see it.
Mike chuckles softly, clearly amused. “I’m talking about your natural scent.”
Will swallows, his heart still racing, but for entirely different reasons now, and the realization hits him dangerous and impossible to ignore.
This is going to be complicated.
He steps away immediately, putting physical distance between them before his body can embarrass him any further. The last thing he wants is to make a spectacle of himself, and the very last thing he wants is to develop a crush on a vampire. A vampire who will, presumably, go back to being a bat as soon as possible. A vampire who is temporary, unnatural, and absolutely not someone Will should be looking at like that.
Rationality. He needs rationality.
The best thing to do is think clearly, come up with a plan: something simple, effective, something that can end this situation in the least emotionally damaging way possible.
“So,” Will says, clearing his throat as he starts pacing the room, his hands moving restlessly as if his thoughts need somewhere to go, “I had an idea in the shower.”
Mike raises an eyebrow but doesn’t interrupt.
“What about blood bags?” Will continues, glancing at him briefly before looking away again. “Dustin must’ve told you about them… maybe. I mean… maybe not, but labs have them.” He hesitates for half a second. A thought flashes through his mind, unwanted and intrusive.
Maybe Dustin doesn’t use blood bags at all. Maybe he just… offers himself.
The image is sharp enough to make Will’s stomach twist, and with it comes a deeply unsettling curiosity about what being bitten would feel like… something intimate and irreversible. He shoves the thought down immediately, burying it before it can take root.
Mike, for his part, looks genuinely thoughtful now, head tilting slightly as he considers the idea. He doesn’t dismiss it and that alone feels significant. Encouraged, Will launches into an explanation laying out a plan that’s clearly been forming in his head longer than he wants to admit. He talks about storage rooms, late hours, security that’s more procedural than effective. About how they wouldn’t need much, just enough to get Mike through whatever this phase is.
And then he stops.
“…Right,” Will exhales. “The badge.”
Mike watches him quietly as the realization settles in. “We’d need access,” Will continues, rubbing a hand over his face. “Someone who’s already cleared. Which means—”
“Dustin,” Mike finishes.
Will groans. “Obviously.”
That, unfortunately, is where the plan stalls. Will has classes, a schedule, a life that, inconveniently, still exists outside of the fact that his roommate is undead. He can’t just disappear in the middle of the night to pull off a lab heist.
So they decide to wait.
Tomorrow afternoon, after lectures, Will will go to Dustin, demand answers, steal or borrow the badge, and then they’ll deal with the rest. Mike just has to hold out a little longer.
“I can do that,” Mike says easily, though the way his eyes linger suggests it might not be quite that simple.
Eventually, Will turns off the lights, and crawls into bed, exhaustion finally catching up with him. He stares at the ceiling for a moment, listening to the quiet of the room, acutely aware of the fact that he is not alone. “…Do vampires sleep?” he asks suddenly.
“Nope.”
Will sighs. “Great,” he rolls onto his side, facing the wall. “Then don’t stare at me all night.”
A pause. “I wasn’t planning to,” Mike says, entirely unconvincing. Will pulls the blanket tighter around himself and “I’m serious.” he says, but he has to bite a damn smile as he’s saying that. Oh no, this is not going the way it should be going, really.
Will doesn’t end up sleeping even a full hour that night, and he’s not entirely sure Mike is to blame. If he’s being honest, the fault does lie with Mike, but not because of what he is, either.
It’s the awareness. The constant, low-level consciousness of another presence in the room, the quiet certainty that he’s being noticed, even when nothing is said. Will doesn’t mention it, of course, but he has the distinct feeling that Mike can still hear his thoughts, or at least sense them, because every time his mind drifts somewhere it shouldn’t, his chest tightens like he’s been caught in the act.
So, in the early knots of dawn, when the sky outside is still pale and undecided, Will makes a choice. He slips out of bed as quietly as he can, movements careful, practiced, like he’s afraid the room itself might betray him. Mike is stretched out on Dustin’s bed, lying unnaturally still. His eyes are closed, lashes dark against pale skin, and for a moment Will wonders if he’s actually asleep before immediately dismissing the idea.
He’s not sleeping, he’s just waiting.
Will doesn’t wake him, he takes advantage of the silence instead, grabbing his bag and easing out of the room with a soft click of the door behind him.
Unfortunately for him, the morning brings with it what will later feel like the first truly bad decision of his life. Instead of going to his elective class, Will goes to the library.
He knows he shouldn’t. His scholarship depends entirely on his exams, on attendance, on not doing exactly this, but he also doesn’t think anyone could reasonably blame him. Not when there is a literal vampire living in his dorm room, that feels like an acceptable excuse for academic negligence, honestly.
The library is quiet, almost reverent at this hour. Sunlight filters through tall windows in thin, dusty beams, illuminating long rows of shelves that seem to stretch forever. At first, Will doesn’t even know where to start, he wanders aimlessly, fingers brushing over spines, his mind too scattered to latch onto anything specific.
Then it clicks.
There’s a section. He remembers it vaguely: ancient myths, folklore, old belief systems catalogued more out of tradition than relevance. He heads there with renewed purpose, heart beating faster as he kneels by the lower shelves and starts pulling out books that look older than they should be allowed to be.
He reads about the undead.
The language is archaic, dramatic, but the patterns repeat themselves often enough to be impossible to ignore. Vampires are described as damned beings, cursed somewhere between life and death. They drink blood to sustain themselves, and without it, they weaken: physically and mentally.
One passage makes Will pause.
It speaks of offering. Of how prey is often compelled to present themselves willingly, drawn in by charm, by fascination, by something deeper than fear. And worse, how when blood is given freely, without resistance and the pull, a bond is formed and it’s permanent and irrevocable, a connection that cannot be undone.
Will closes the book slowly, his hands cold.
He leaves the library only by mid-morning, just in time to attend the lecture before lunch. He sits through it with half his attention elsewhere, the weight of what he’s learned pressing against his ribs, the book still tucked under his arm when the class ends.
He’s pretty sure Mike is not feeding off Dustin.
Will doesn’t stop to eat lunch, not this time and it’s not because he isn’t hungry (his stomach is already protesting loudly), but because he needs answers, and he needs them now. Answers that don’t come from brittle pages and ancient myths, from books that speak in metaphors and warnings. What’s happening in his dorm room isn’t a legend, it’s real and tangible, sitting on a bed that isn’t his.
He has no idea where Mike is. He hasn’t been back since dawn, and the thought makes something uneasy twist low in Will’s chest. Still, he clings to the hope that Mike stayed in the room, that he hasn’t wandered off into the daylight, or worse, into trouble.
The infirmary smells awful again. When Will steps inside, the nurse from the night before looks noticeably more relaxed this time, even offering him a quick smile. “Third room,” she says briskly, already turning away, as if Dustin is the only patient she has to worry about.
The book in Will’s backpack feels heavier than it should, its presence pressing insistently against his spine, like it wants to be acknowledged. He follows the corridor to the right and pushes the door open without knocking.
Dustin is still lying in bed, a lunch tray balanced on his lap, half-eaten sandwich abandoned in favor of animated hand gestures as he talks to himself, until he notices Will’s expression.
“Hey, roomie!” Dustin chirps, a little too brightly.
Will doesn’t smile back.
That alone is enough to make Dustin’s grin falter. Something in Will’s posture tips him off that this is not a casual visit. “This is about Mike,” Will says, quietly but firmly, glancing around the room to make sure they’re alone.
Dustin’s eyes flick to the door, then back to Will. He watches as Will shrugs his backpack off his shoulder and lets it hit the floor at the foot of the bed with a dull, heavy thud. Dustin swallows hard.
“I can explain,” Dustin says quickly, lifting his hands in surrender. He already knows what Will is talking about.
Will lets out a short, humorless laugh. “I’m sure you can. You’re very good at explaining things, just usually after you forget to mention the important parts.” He starts pacing the small room, fingers dragging through his hair. Dustin opens his mouth to speak again, but Will cuts him off with a sharp look.
“Your bat gave me a surprise last night,” Will continues, voice low, controlled. “A very memorable one. Interesting guy, actually. Strange... a little dramatic.”
Dustin shifts uncomfortably. “Will—”
“But there’s something you didn't tell me,” Will says, stopping and staring at Dustin, him sinking back into his pillow. “Something kind of crucial.” He leans forward slightly, lowering his voice even more, turning the words into a furious whisper.
“You didn’t care to tell me that he’s a… vampire.”
Dustin winces. “Okay, when you say it like that—”
“How else am I supposed to say it?” Will snaps, then immediately reins himself in, glancing toward the door again. “You left me alone with him, Dustin. No warning. I thought I was babysitting a bat, not discovering a supernatural secret roommate with fangs.”
Dustin rubs the back of his neck. “I didn’t think you’d find out like that.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“I just—” Dustin sighs. “I didn’t think you were ready. And Mike didn’t want you to know unless you had to.”
Will stares at him. “I had to, Dustin. He was bleeding, he couldn’t turn back. And he’s hungry.”
That finally wipes the color from Dustin’s face.
“…Oh,” he says softly. “Yeah,” Will replies. “Oh.”
He ends up spending his entire lunch break talking with Dustin, tucked away in the infirmary room while the rest of the campus moves on without them. It turns out there are a lot of things no dusty old book ever bothered to mention.
Mike can walk in the sun, for one, but only when he’s properly fed.
Mike isn’t the only vampire in the world, which unsettles Will more than he lets on, though he files that particular anxiety away for later.
Mike is mostly harmless, Dustin insists, painfully earnest about it, because he has excellent control for someone his age. Still, he’s young, for a vampire at least, and that means mistakes happen, Mike doesn’t like drinking blood, he avoids it when he can.
He has killed before.
That piece of information lands heavily, settling somewhere deep in Will’s chest, cold and uncomfortable. Dustin rushes to clarify that it was because of circumstances, self-defense, things that happened a long time ago, but the fact remains, sharp and undeniable.
And yes, Mike is very good with the pull. Unnaturally good, which means Will should be careful.
Very careful.
And no, Dustin has never let Mike feed on him. Not once.
By the time the conversation winds down, Will is certain of exactly one thing: he does not want to go back to his dorm room right now. He still doesn’t know who Mike really is, how old he is, how he was turned, or what his life looked like before he ended up sleeping in Dustin’s cage in bat form. Dustin conveniently skips anything that sounds too personal, too intimate, but he’s firm about one rule.
Under no circumstances should Will let Mike feed on or bite him.
Ever.
It’s the only rule they have. When Mike feeds on someone’s blood given without resistance, his essential nature shifts. That’s the word Dustin used… shifts, and Will hates how vague it sounds, how open it is to interpretation. It means sharper instincts, looser control, hunger that stops being theoretical and starts becoming directional. It means the pull gets stronger, the bond tighter, the line between want and need dangerously thin.
And they do not want that, not now, and maybe not ever.
Dustin hands over his badge without protest, because they both know they’ll need it, and explains that the guard rotation at the biology building changes precisely at seven in the evening. There’s a brief window: short, risky, but doable. If they’re quick, they can get in and out.
Will nods far too many times, anxiety buzzing under his skin. He never wanted to be part of something that feels vaguely like a low-budget heist movie, but here he is, helping a vampire survive because he’s apparently incapable of not doing the right thing, even when the right thing is deeply inconvenient and slightly terrifying.
The rest of his afternoon passes in a blur.
He sneaks a quick snack during art history, hunched in one of the back rows, trying and failing to focus on Renaissance symbolism while his thoughts keep circling back to blood bags, fangs, and red eyes in the dark. By the time the lecture ends, his head is pounding and his body feels heavy with exhaustion.
It’s already six by the time he makes it back to the dorm.
Will pushes the door open, worn down enough that he doesn’t immediately register the emptiness of the room. Part of him half-expects Mike to materialize out of nowhere like he always does, just to scare him for fun, but this time, Will tells himself, he’s ready.
Which is why, when Mike’s voice reaches him before the rest of him does, Will barely flinches.
“Welcome back stranger,” Mike mumbles, his voice far too close to the back of Will’s neck, breath cool and deliberate, like he’s testing the distance on purpose. The tension snaps tight instantly, coiling in Will’s spine.
Will turns, already forming the words I have a plan and then they die in his throat.
There is… skin in front of him.
Bare, pale skin, still damp, dotted with water droplets that trail slowly down a slender neck, over sharp collarbones, slipping past the jut of a throat that moves when Mike swallows. The droplets continue their lazy path, tracing the shallow lines of barely defined abs before disappearing beneath a towel wrapped low around his hips.
Mike is shirtless, and he is wet and he’s standing way too close.
Will’s face heats immediately, his pulse stuttering as his gaze betrays him, flicking upward only to meet Mike’s eyes: bright, vivid red, just like the night before. Dark curls cling to Mike’s forehead, dripping water onto his lashes.
“I—yeah, um—” Will tries, and fails, to form a coherent sentence.
His eyes drop again, uninvited, helplessly drawn to the slow movement of Mike’s fake breathing, the towel, the droplets pooling and breaking against fabric. When Will finally forces himself to look back up, Mike isn’t smiling.
That somehow makes it worse.
Will steps back abruptly, shaking his head, as if that might knock sense back into him. This can’t be happening. He can’t be attracted to Mike, not rationally. It has to be the pull or whatever supernatural influence Mike keeps talking about.
Right?
“I can feel your pulse quickening,” Mike says lightly, head tilting, red eyes locking onto Will’s darker green ones. That is not fair.
Now that Will has put distance between them, the tension doesn’t fade, it just changes, stretching thin and electric. Mike is still… devastatingly attractive, and the realization makes Will deeply uncomfortable: it was not, in fact, the pull’s fault.
“You should—uh, you should get dressed,” Will blurts out, turning toward his own bed and grabbing the first excuse he can find to keep his hands busy. “I found a way to deal with your… problem.”
Mike hums, clearly amused, and Will hears the subtle shift of movement behind him, then a soft laugh and the faint sound of fabric slipping.
And the towel hits the floor.
Time passes, enough for the tension to settle into something quieter, enough for night to fully claim the campus.
By the time they’re wandering outside together, the grounds are almost eerily empty. The lampposts cast pale, uneven halos across the pathways, and the buildings loom tall and academic and asleep, windows dark, ivy stirring faintly in the breeze. Their footsteps echo more than they should.
And that’s when Will realizes something deeply inconvenient: if he removes the fact that Mike is a vampire, he’s actually… not bad, at all.
Annoyingly so.
Mike walks beside him with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets, posture relaxed, like they’re just two normal students out for a late-night stroll instead of accomplices in a semi-illegal blood-theft operation. Every so often, he glances sideways at Will, not in that intense, predatory way, but casual, checking in.
“You’re counting your steps,” Mike says after a minute, not even looking at him.
Will blinks. “I—what?”
“You do that when you’re anxious I noticed,” Mike continues lightly. “You slow down, then speed up, then slow down again. It’s not subtle.”
Will exhales through his nose. “Great. Love that for me.”
Mike smiles and it’s not sharp, not teasing. Just… warm, surprisingly so. “I can distract you, if want.”
And he does.
He tells Will small, stupid things, about Dustin insisting on naming everything even at home, about how the biology building smells faintly like antiseptic and old coffee because Dustin has already bought him there, about the time he tried to read a vampire anatomy textbook and got offended by how inaccurate it was. He keeps his tone easy, conversational, slipping humor in at just the right moments, like he knows exactly how to keep Will from spiraling.
When Will hesitates at a shadowed intersection between buildings, Mike slows too, matching his pace without comment. When a distant door slams somewhere across the quad and Will flinches, Mike murmurs, “Just custodial staff,” immediately, and it helps. More than Will wants to admit.
By the time the biology building comes into view, looming and square and dimly lit at the edges, Will’s heart is still racing, but it’s no longer trying to escape his chest.
They stop just short of the corner, half-hidden behind a row of hedges. From here, they can see the entrance clearly. One security guard is finishing his round, posture loose, already glancing at his watch. Another figure approaches from the opposite direction, keys jingling faintly.
The shift change.
Mike leans in slightly, voice low. “This is your moment.”
Will swallows, nods once, fingers tightening around Dustin’s badge in his pocket. He feels strangely steady despite the situation.
“Stay close,” Will whispers.
Mike’s smile turns just a little sharper this time, eyes gleaming red faintly under the lamplight.
“Always,” he says.
And as the guards cross paths and the door unlocks, they move quiet and quick, slipping forward together into the narrow window of opportunity before it snaps shut behind them.
The first thing Will notices is the smell.
It hits him the moment he pulls the heavy refrigerator door open: cold air spilling out, sharp and sterile, carrying something metallic beneath layers of chemicals. Not the thick, coppery scent Will had braced himself for, but something cleaner, like a hospital corridor at night, like latex gloves and disinfectant and lights that never turn off.
Inside, the shelves are perfectly organized.
Rows upon rows of plastic bags hang neatly from metal hooks, each one labeled with dates, codes, blood types. For a fleeting, ridiculous second, Will feels relieved.
This works, his brain insists desperately. This is logical, their solution, they steal a couple, Mike feeds, everything goes back to normal. He even opens his mouth to say something, some quiet, hopeful confirmation, when he realizes Mike has stopped moving.
Completely.
Mike stands just behind him, close enough that Will can feel the cold of his presence at his back, but he doesn’t step forward. His posture goes rigid, shoulders tightening, jaw setting as he stares into the refrigerator with an expression that isn’t hunger.
It’s disappointment.
“…No,” Mike says.
Will turns slowly, dread creeping up his spine. “No… as in no blood?” he asks, trying to keep his voice steady. “Or no as in, the wrong kind?”
Mike exhales through his nose, the sound sharp. He steps closer, leaning in to examine one of the bags without touching it, red eyes narrowing slightly. “This is processed,” he explains. “Treated, full of things meant to keep it from clotting, from changing.” His lips curl faintly. “It’s dead blood, Will.”
Will swallows. “But… it’s still blood.”
“Yes,” Mike agrees. “But it won’t work.”
That sinks in far too quickly. “So it won’t… what. Help at all?” Will asks.
Mike hesitates, just a beat too long. “It would,” he admits. “A little, enough to keep me standing. Not enough to fix anything.”
Will drags a hand down his face, fingers catching briefly in his hair, of course it can’t be that easy. Nothing about this night or about Mike has followed any reasonable rule so far.
Before he can spiral further, a sound slices through the lab: it’s footsteps, someone clearing their throat down the hallway, the soft jingle of keys. A door opening somewhere nearby.
Will’s heart slams violently against his ribs.
“Oh my God,” he whispers. “We need to go,” they should not be there, not with someone else's badge, not when they’re not even students of that major, not when they’re about to steal stuff.
“Now,” Mike cuts in sharply.
Mike’s hand closes around Will’s wrist, cold fingers firm and unyielding, and he doesn’t wait for agreement, he moves, too fast.
The world lurches, Will barely has time to gasp before he’s being pulled forward, his feet scrambling to keep up as the corridor stretches and blurs around them. The air rushes past his ears, tears stinging his eyes as adrenaline detonates in his bloodstream.
Mike runs like the laws of physics are more of a suggestion than a rule. He weaves effortlessly between buildings, vaults steps without breaking stride, pulls Will along with impossible strength and precision. Will’s lungs burn, his legs scream, but he doesn’t let go, not until the campus becomes streaks of shadow and light, not until they’re deep in the trees near the edge of campus, hidden by darkness and dense foliage.
When Mike finally releases him, Will stumbles forward, bracing his hands on his knees, chest heaving as he drags in desperate gulps of air. His whole body is shaking, not just from exertion, but from the sheer overload of it all.
And then, when he’s just about to catch his breath, he laughs. He didn’t know speed running could be that funny and lively. His laugh slips out before he can stop it, breathless and disbelieving, turning quickly into something louder, freer. He laughs until his sides ache, until his vision blurs, until he has to wipe at his eyes with the heel of his hand.
It really has been so long since he’s felt like this.
The laughter fades on its own, tapering off into quiet breaths and the soft rustle of leaves above them. Will straightens, wipes at his face once more, and finally dares to look at Mike properly again, at the way he’s standing there as if none of this has rattled him, as if breaking into a lab and outrunning security is just another Tuesday night.
“Wait,” Will says, the thought catching up to him all at once, his brows knit together as the adrenaline settles into something closer to bafflement. “Why didn’t we just… use your speed to get into the lab in the first place?”
It’s not accusatory, just genuinely confused.
Mike tilts his head slightly, studying him in that unnerving, attentive way he has, for a heartbeat, he doesn’t answer. Then something soft flickers across his face.
A smile.
It’s subtle, barely there, more instinct than intention. “Because you’re interesting when you’re focused,” Mike says simply.
Will blinks. “What?”
His gaze drops briefly to Will’s chest, to the place where his heart is still hammering away, before lifting again, eyes glowing faintly in the dark. “And I like hearing your heartbeat speed up when you’re focused,” Mike adds, like it’s the most natural observation in the world.
Not teasing.
Will’s brain short-circuits.
Heat rushes to his face before he can stop it, sharp and embarrassing, and he’s suddenly very aware of his pulse, of his breathing, of the fact that Mike can probably hear all of it. He looks away on instinct, staring at the ground as if the dirt might offer him some kind of explanation for why that affected him so much.
“That’s—” Will starts, then stops. He doesn’t actually know what he was going to say. Weird? Unsettling? He settles for a weak, “You’re not supposed to say things like that.”
But the moment doesn’t last, the laughter fades, adrenaline draining away, leaving reality behind like a shadow creeping back in. Will’s smile softens, then disappears entirely as the implications resurface.
The blood didn’t work, the plan failed.
And Mike is still hungry.
Will hugs his arms around himself, the night suddenly colder.
“…So,” he says quietly. “That didn’t solve anything.” Mike’s gaze drifts back toward the campus lights in the distance, expression unreadable. “No,” he admits. “It didn’t.”
Silence settles between them, if not the labs, if not the blood bags, then… what?
♢ ♢ ♢