Chapter Text
Everything in life is temporary.
Sometimes that gets told to you in a polite way by a parent or teacher, sometimes you read about it in a book that was assigned in a school project, and sometimes you learn that the hard way.
That isn’t always a bad thing in Will’s experience. His father’s presence in his life being temporary was honestly a blessing for his entire family. His experience in the Upside Down being temporary was great because that meant he wasn’t still getting hunted by whatever demon decided to terrorise Hawkins that year. Unfortunately that was where the positives ended.
Learning that having a normal life was temporary was something Will had learned from a scarily young age and yet the world liked to remind him of that fact more frequently than it needed to.
His family home- move to California
Sibling bond with Jonathan- guess what, he’s decided he’s going to cope with his trauma by getting high all the time. Whoop de fucking doo.
Childhood- where to begin…
It was almost funny when he thought about it in hindsight. Key word being almost.
That being said there was one thing he had always considered a constant in his life (besides his mother but that was a given).
Michael Wheeler.
The boy that had clapped at the end of his class presentations when nobody else would.
The boy that would make up excuses to drag Will away from loud areas because Will was too polite to leave even though he hated the environment.
The boy that looked at a child that everyone else deemed not worthy of their time and thought, yeah, he’s someone that I want to be around.
He was excitable, kind, and would always soften his tone when talking to Will because he knew that Will hated shouting. He was careful when touching Will because he saw how he flinched the first time he went to high five him, and yet he wasn’t scared to touch him, he simply did so with care.
He made Will feel like he was normal.
He made Will feel like the fleeting moments of normality would last forever every time he invited Will into his basement.
After a while he got used to it. He got used to having a constant in his life. He could be completely lost with no sense of status quo and yet he would always have Mike as a beacon that made him feel safe.
It didn’t take him by surprise when he realised he was in love with Mike, loving Mike was as easy as blinking.
And then the world reminded him that everything was temporary.
He never truly realised how much he needed Mike until he started drifting away. He needed Mike like oxygen and suddenly there were malfunctions in his gear and water was slipping in.
Soon he’d drown.
Will had tried to fix it, he had made several feeble attempts to mend his bond with Mike but nothing worked. He was too focused on giving El air he didn’t even realise he was removing Will’s oxygen mask.
He had lost everything at least once, but losing Mike Wheeler hurt the most, especially considering Mike didn’t seem to give a shit.
Every time he tried to make plans, Mike would make up feeble excuses not to attend. Every time they spoke it felt like Will was the only one talking whilst Mike scanned his surroundings for a way to escape and speak to anyone else. Every time he phoned when they lived in California felt like Mike had been forced to call and didn’t actually want to speak to Will.
In the end he just stopped trying.
Mike said they were best friends again but they weren’t the way they used to be. If they were then Will wouldn’t feel like he was walking on egg shells every time they interacted.
When he moved back to Hawkins he learned about a group known as “the hellfire club” and things took a turn for the worse after that.
Spite about the situation would bubble inside Will’s chest every time he remembered that summer. They only hated dnd when Will was there. Mike only hated dnd when Will was there. The thought made him want to scream, cry, remain in the Upside Down being chased by a Demogorgan for the rest of eternity so he wouldn’t have to deal with that knowledge. However the bottled up anger found a way out of Will’s chest in the form of arguments.
Suddenly every conversation with Mike ended with someone dragging one of them away to prevent a physical altercation. Mike’s eyes looked at Will like he was worth less than the gum on the bottom of a desk when they were yelling at each other. Their arguments would range from the ongoing Hellfire Club debate to something as inconsequential as folding the top of a page instead of getting a bookmark. That being said they would always end the same, with a knock on the door and Mike standing there, sometimes with an apology but oftentimes just a distraction to salvage their friendship.
Occasionally Will would apologise but only when he knew that Mike was in the wrong and therefore the boy would be too busy wallowing in self pity instead of helping Will keep the inevitable crumbling of their friendship at bay.
That was the thing with Mike, if he knew he was in the wrong he’d never actually apologise for it because he’d spend too much time dwelling on the fact he did something wrong instead of fixing his mess. He’d spill the milk, realise he was the one that knocked over the glass, and instead of grabbing a towel and cleaning it up, he would simply stare at the mess as it slowly expanded into a less manageable mess because he spent too much time dwelling on the fact he had spilt the milk in the first place.
One of them would always come crawling back to their constant even if every variable was telling them their attempts to hold their friendship together were futile. They weren’t just on separate pages, they were on entirely different books.
All the while Will was still in love with Mike, and Mike still viewed Will as a chore.
Hating Mike was harder than loving him though. Loving Mike made him feel guilty and yet the feeling was addictive. Hating him was identical except magnified by 100.
The part that still loved Mike would yell: How dare you hate someone that was the first person that ever treated you like a person. So much effort wasted on a queer like you who can’t deal with not being the person he needs anymore.
And yet at the same time the part that was begging Will to hate Mike would scream: You are sick for loving him. He spent so much time on you just for you to be a queer. He spent so much time convincing himself everyone was wrong about you he didn’t stop to consider maybe they were right. He deserves to hate you so why do you love him. He’s the reason you even know you’re a queer so hating him is the better option.
The part that desperately wanted Will to hate Mike sounded similar to his father so it was easier to discredit since nothing that bastard said was of any truth or merit.
And then they reached the point of no return.
There was something different about that and they both new it. Deep down they both knew that this fight would be their final one and that there was no returning from this.
He couldn’t even remember how it started but the ending was still engrained in his memory.
It was a week before they both left for college and somehow they were shouting at each other again.
It was probably over something Will said. An unintentional jab at an open wound that resulted in Mike losing his cool.
Or maybe it was over El. Every time Mike said something that broke Will’s heart El’s name was usually said in the same breath. And that was nothing against El, he loves his sister with all his heart, but fuck Mike didn’t know how to love El and still be around other people. El was a princess and Mike had to defend her honour at any given moment even if El was perfectly (if not more) capable of defending her honour on her own.
He remember Mike yelling. He remembered shouting something back. He remembered the way Mike looked at him. Disgust.
He remembered the way Mike shoved him as he walked away.
He remembered lying on the ground, demanding that Mike look him in the eyes and punch him, manically daring Mike to prove that he hated Will’s guts.
“You don’t want me around anymore. Fine by me but fucking commit to it.”
He remembered when Mike got on the floor as well to tell him to shut up. For once Will wasn’t crying but laughing. If he told his 11 year old self that he’d end up here then the child would probably cry and Will wouldn’t blame him yet the scenario was so absurd in his brain that his heart wouldn’t break yet.
”Shut the fuck up Byers.”
The nickname used to be exclaimed with joy as Will entered the room. It could barely even be considered a nickname because it was just his last name but everyone usually just called him Will (or occasionally a slur) most of the time so he used to count it. Now it was being spat out like venom. Will was almost glad Mike opted for his last name because he would rather die than hear his best friend say his name the same way his bullies did.
Finally he remembered the way Mike’s fist collided with his jaw as he lay on the floor, with the face of the boy he loved looking at him with burning hatred. Whilst everyone usually saw him as scum nobody that ever hated him knew him. It was always hatred by the sheer principle of his existence. But Mike knew him better than anyone else had. Mike hating him was personal.
Michael Wheeler hated him.
He still loved Michael Wheeler.
He moved to college a week later and kept in touch with Dustin and Lucas. Neither of them dared bring up the fight or even mention Mike’s existence to Will.
The last he heard of him was a few months after he moved in after El told him that she had broken up with him. It didn’t exactly shock him but he was genuinely happy that his sister was able to find out who she really was without Mike.
He met new friends and whilst he didn’t need them to breathe they liked having him around and he liked having them around.
The good memories of his times with Mike faded after a while but he still remembered the bad ones. He had the bruise to prove it for a few weeks.
He could still feel a phantom of the pain from when Mike’s fist collided with his jaw.
It didn’t matter.
It wasn’t like he’d ever speak to Mike again and any lingering feelings of hatred and love would fade after a while.
Soon things would become pure indifference.
He had told a couple of people about what had happened, mainly because if you walk into the first day of class huge bruise on his face it’s a pretty good conversation starter, however it was with minimal context and never a name.
These people didn’t need to know who he was.
The name was reserved for him.
Michael Wheeler.
Michael Wheeler…