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Will had known Mike for almost his entire life.
They had met when they were five. Mike had come up to Will while he was sitting alone on the swings, looking down as his shoes passed over the wood chips.
“Do you want to be my friend?” Mike had asked, and Will had seen him in class before, and remembered that he was the boy who had begun crying when his mother had dropped him off, remembered that he was the boy who had waved at Will from across the classroom when Will was trying very hard to color his dragon in the lines.
Mike had said it shyly, like he was nervous, and Will had glanced up at him to see that yeah, he was fidgeting his hands like Will’s mom did, sometimes.
Will said yes.
From there, something that Will wouldn’t have a name for for a long time blossomed in late night pillow fights and early morning bike rides, in welcoming other boys to their group and playing campaigns as a group, as a party .
There were quite a few names for what Will felt for Mike. Most of them were bad; some people didn’t seem to understand that he was a person, too, and that he was allowed to have feelings for whomever. Some of the names, though, were good — hell, some of them Will couldn’t even speak aloud, because if he did, that would make it all real, and that wasn’t something that Will thought he was prepared for.
Maybe someday, Will would say it. Someday, he would tell Mike that he loved him.
They’d already made it to the end of the world. There was no point in waiting, not anymore — Will was almost certain that if he waited any longer, the words he wanted to say would be his dying ones, melting on his lips with warm blood and his last breath.
Will loved Mike.
And now he was going to kill him.
“Will,” Mike pleaded, voice cracking in fear or sorrow — Will couldn’t tell which. His eyes were shining with tears, but he was still beautiful, Will thought, even if he had tear tracks glistening across the freckles on his cheeks. “Please. You don’t have to do this.”
Will didn’t say anything. He looked at Mike for one more moment, tracing his features with his eyes. He could see the hope draining from Mike’s eyes as he realized that Will wasn’t going to let him get away.
Will lifted his arm. The gun was heavy in his hand, the metal cold against his skin.
“Will,” Mike whispered again. “ Please .”
Will pulled the trigger.
He didn’t flinch when Mike’s body fell to the ground, a thud resonating through the empty warehouse. Will could feel the gun drop from his fingers, could hear it fall to the floor next to him, could hear the vines of the hive mind hiss as they covered it next to his foot so he wouldn’t be able to use it again.
Some part of him wished that he could. Maybe Mike would forgive him in whatever happened after .
Will wanted to find out. He hoped he would be forgiven, one day, for the lack of any feeling at all, the numbness that ate away at his insides almost as much as those three little words he’d been holding in for so long did.
There was a hand on his shoulder now. Will looked to his side, feeling vaguely like a little kid looking up at his father.
“You did well this time,” Vecna said, pointed fingers digging into the flesh on Will’s shoulder. Will didn’t react. “No hesitation. You’re ready.”
The hand was gone. Will blinked, then looked down at Mike. His eyes were open, dark irises blanker than Will had ever seen them before, devoid of the myriad of emotions that Mike usually carried in his eyes. Will had spent years deciphering each and every one.
He kneeled down next to Mike and gently closed his eyes, just like he had time and time before.
Will stood up. A lightning bolt flashed, showering the warehouse in an eerie red light, and Will looked at the warehouse floor, littered with the bodies of the boy that he loved, each killed in a different way, each more gruesome than the last.
Will blinked again. The lightning was gone as fast as it had come; the warehouse was dark again, and Will could only hear the slithering of the vines as they covered the bodies on the floor.
He turned around and walked away, ready to follow Vecna and kill Mike again, if he had to.
He hoped he didn’t have to. He didn’t feel like he had a choice.
***
“Hawkins will fall,” Will overheard from where he was standing outside of his old house, watching numbly as vines tore it apart. “You’re out of time.”
Vecna was on the verge of winning, Will could feel it. He could feel the world shifting slightly, an odd prediction that time was on the precipice of something, like the hourglass was about to be turned over and suddenly the grains of sand humanity had left were numbered.
“We’ll stop you,” he could hear Mike say, his voice as clear as ever, devoid of any fear whatsoever. That was a mistake.
Will took a few careful steps towards the front door and walked straight in as the vines opened the remnants of the door for him. He turned, suddenly aware of the letters painted on the wall and the hole opposite of them.
He’d been here before, right?
“You can’t do anything,” Vecna said, and Will approached behind him, quiet as a mouse.
“We —“ Mike cut himself off with a noise Will couldn’t place, one that sounded like something was wrapping around his throat, limiting his oxygen.
Will closed his eyes against a sudden wave of nausea. He’d killed Mike like that, he was pretty sure. He vaguely remembered wrapping his hands around Mike’s pretty neck, the neck that could've been littered with bruises of a different kind if Will had just been stronger when he had the chance.
But instead, he was stupid, and weak, and Mike’s pulse had fluttered out beneath his fingertips and his body had dropped heavy from his hands.
“Will?” Someone else asked, and Will opened his eyes to see Nancy standing next to her brother, dirt streaked on her sharp features, hair frizzier than Will remembered.
He’d killed her, too, hadn’t he? He’d killed them all.
He’d just had to kill Mike the most in preparation for an event that was about to happen. One that was as close and as inevitable as the end of the world.
“He’s the catalyst,” Vecna was saying, and Will snapped back to the present, back to having Vecna’s cold hand on his shoulder and Mike’s hot gaze on his. “You let him go, and now he’s mine. You will be the reason for your defeat.”
“Will,” Mike whispered, barely audible above the distant shouts of the rest of the Party and the slithering of vines in the house. Will glanced to the side, just over Mike’s shoulder, and saw the vines covering some familiar letters on the wall.
R
U
N
Will wished he could.
Nancy cocked her shotgun and held it up to her shoulder, aiming square at Vecna’s chest. “No,” she said simply, before one of the loudest sounds Will had ever heard was echoing through the room and Nancy was lowering her gun.
Vecna looked down at his chest, where the buck shot had mottled his skin. He shrugged, and it immediately grew back as though nothing had happened.
“Will,” he said, voice booming, and oh .
So it was time.
Will took a few steps forward, towards the Wheeler siblings, and took one of the knives that Vecna had given him out of his pocket.
He opened his mouth — to comfort them in the end or to plead with Vecna to spare them, he wasn’t sure — but nothing came out, so he closed it again and approached.
“Will,” Mike said again, the only word on his tongue since he had seen Will, and Will could feel the alien sting of tears against the back of his eyes as he realized that everything he had craved for for years was his, but it was all wrong . “Will, please.”
Will was prepared for this. He didn’t even know if this Mike was real, after all; he didn’t know if this Mike was his Mike. He could just be another clone conjured up by Vecna’s ever growing powers, for all Will knew. His job was to kill him, no matter what.
Something tugged at Will’s chest, a voice that sounded like five year old him telling him that this was Mike, that there would be no re-do’s if he killed him.
How can you live without him , little Will was screaming, knowing you’re the reason he’s gone?
Will didn’t know the answer. He kept walking towards Mike.
“Will,” his name again, but this time it was Nancy calling his name in a warning. “Don’t get any closer.”
Will paused and looked at her. Her eyes were shining with tears, red in the eerie Upside Down lighting, and Will remembered that she’d loved him, once, as if he’d been a brother.
His eyes flicked back to where Vecna had been standing and was inevitably watching, somehow, his presence gone but not forgotten. Will had a feeling he’d gone to distract the others, leaving Will to complete his mission.
That’s all they were now, weren’t they? A mission ?
Years of laughter, joy, love , all down the drain in the blink of an eye and the quick flash of a knife to the chest.
Will turned back to Mike and raised the knife. There was nothing left for them, anyways; Vecna would make sure of that. Will’s powers were useless in the face of Vecna’s, and if he was truly trying to justify it, Will was saving Mike from a lot of suffering in the coming days.
It was the best thing I’d ever done.
Well, if we’re going crazy, then we’ll go crazy together, right?
I think it would be better if we were a team — friends. Best friends.
“I love you, Will,” Mike was saying, but Will couldn’t hear him over the ringing in his ears, could only read his lips.
Wait —
The shot was loud in the artificial quiet, like everything around them was holding its breath, waiting for the knife to drop. Will looked over at Nancy in surprise as she lowered the gun, then looked down at where his leg was slowly beginning to be covered in blood.
Will tried to scream, but no sound came out. Mike’s scream was much louder. “ Nancy !” He shrieked, reaching forward for Will. Will fell into his arms, too stunned to do much else, and Mike lowered them both to the ground.
The knife was pressed against Mike’s chest. All that needed to be done was a rough jerk of a hand and Will’s mission would be complete, his purpose fulfilled.
He let the knife drop out of his hand.
“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Mike was saying, and Will looked up at him, eyes going unfocused then back again. “God, Will, stay with me. Please .”
That word. Will had heard it from Mike a million times in the past few days. Every single time, Mike had been begging for his life, and Will hadn’t been kind enough to grant him his wish.
But this — this please — it was said with such feeling and such genuine fear that Will could feel the back of his neck tingling, could feel the connection that Vecna had with him dwindling.
“I love you, Will,” Mike said again, with tears in his eyes, and Will could feel the connection snap like a rubber band that had been pulled too hard. “Come back to me.”
“Mike,” Will said, voice nothing more than a gasp, but Mike let out a wet, teary laugh of relief as he hugged Will closer. “ Mike .”
“I’m here,” he said, smiling down at Will. He was beautiful. “It’s me.”
Will was suddenly aware of the acute pain in his leg, and he groaned. He looked down to see it, inspect the damage, but Mike took his chin in his hand and roughly brought his eyes back up to meet his own.
“No,” Mike said, shaking his head at Will. “No, it’s okay, you’re okay.”
The wound in his leg was growing bloodier, the pain growing sharp, and despite being awake — truly, fully awake — for the first time in days or weeks — he wasn’t exactly sure how long he’d been under Vecna’s influence — his vision was beginning to darken around the edges, crumbling like a picture cast onto an open flame. He knew that he should stay awake, but the cruel pull of sleep was dragging him under, settling heavy in his bones.
“No, no,” Mike was saying, brushing the hair out of Will’s face where it had stuck to the new sheen of sweat blanketing his skin. “You have to stay with me. I can’t…I can’t lose you. Not again.”
“Will,” Nancy said, dropping to her knees. She lifted her hands, as if to put pressure on the place where her bullet had hurt him, but the gun was still in her hand. She stared at it, a look of terror growing on her face as if she’d realized the terrible thing she’d just done. She set it down next to them, her fear written clearly on her face as she stared at his wound. “Will, just…just hold on.”
Will gripped the front of Mike’s shirt. “Mike,” he gasped, grimacing against the pain that pulsed through his leg with every beat of his heart. “I lo – I love you too.”
Mike smiled at him, through his tears, and Will brushed Mike’s cheek with his hand. If this was the last thing he ever got to see, then. He wasn’t complaining.
The world faded to black.
***
“Will?”
Will stirred, opening his eyes. A bright light made its way past his eyelids, and for a brief second, he found himself wondering if this was it — if, somehow, despite all of the terrible things he’d done, Will had managed to make his way into heaven.
He seriously doubted it.
“Will, baby,” someone said, their voice soft, and Will was convinced for a second that it was an angel, but then there was a hand on his cheek and a sharp pain in his leg, and he knew that he had, once again, bested death.
Will blinked his eyes open again. “Mom?” He asked quietly, before he knew what he was saying.
Joyce smiled at him, her eyes full of tears. “Baby,” she said, pushing some hair out of his face. “I’m here, it’s okay.”
Will looked around the room; everything was white, sterile, and it reminded him of a few years prior, when he’d woken up from what had felt like a deep sleep. Will shifted to sit up, although Joyce’s hand on his shoulder told him otherwise. The sheets pooled around his waist, and he winced as moving shot pain through his entire right side.
Panic overtook him as he realized he didn’t know why he was there; he had no recollection of doing anything that would earn him a trip to the hospital, but here he was.
Memories suddenly flashed through Will’s mind, unbidden, like someone was forcing him to look at pictures he’d stashed away in a box so he’d never have to look at them again.
Mike, on the floor, his unseeing eyes looking at the sky.
Mike’s face, above him, his eyes filled with tears, begging Will to stay with him.
“Where’s Mike?”
Joyce looked at him, face melting into a smile. “He’s been waiting in the lobby for you,” she said, understanding dripping from her words. “Jonathan just went to check on him.”
Will took a deep breath. “I think…I think I’d like to see him,” he whispered, tears brimming in his eyes.
Joyce leaned forward and shushed him quietly, wiping under his eyes with her thumbs. “I think he’d like that, too.”
She held his hand for a moment, watching him with a small smile on her face, and Will felt twelve again, all of a sudden, like he’d just woken from a nightmare week in November.
“Will?”
Will’s eyes snapped towards the door, and his initial instinct upon seeing Mike was to reach for the nearest weapon. He realized, belatedly, that there wasn’t any around him; he didn’t have to kill Mike, anymore.
He was safe.
Mike was looking at him like he’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life, or like if he touched Will he might evaporate under his hands.
“I’ll leave you two boys alone,” Joyce said, giving Will’s hand a squeeze. He hadn’t told his mom that he was gay, not yet, but he had a feeling she’d always known, and he was grateful for it, right now.
Mike went and sat down in her spot.
“How are you feeling?” Mike asked, like that was really the most important thing to know, right now, and not the fact that Will had tried to…to kill him.
“Fine,” Will said, staring at him in disbelief. He moved so his hands were under his thighs, so he wouldn’t be tempted to reach out and hurt Mike, but then pain shot through his leg again, so acute he let out a gasp.
Mike’s brow wrinkled in worry. “Do you need the doctor? I can go get the do –”
“I’m okay,” Will panted, wincing at the throbbing in his leg. “I’m – I’m okay.”
Mike put a gentle hand on Will’s arm, his uneasiness clear in the way his fingers tightened over Will’s skin. Will inhaled sharply and had to stop himself from flinching away.
Mike was okay. Mike was safe.
“I’m – I’m sorry I let you go,” he said, tears spilling down his cheeks. Will blinked at him. “I’m sorry I let him get you.”
Will didn’t remember how Vecna got him; one moment, he was sitting on the roof of the Wheeler house, waiting for Mike to return from the bathroom so they could continue their conversation shrouded with smoke, and the next he was hitting Mike — or, a vision of him that Will’s mind had concocted — over the head with a baseball bat, over and over and over again, fear gripping him from the inside out.
He could feel his own eyes begin to well up with tears; he wished he could forget all the ways that he had been forced to kill Mike, that he could instead focus on the fact that he was sitting in front of him now, breathing and beautiful and alive .
Mike leaned forward and rested his head on Will’s chest, like he was listening to the heart beating in there for himself, to make sure Will was actually here, was actually alive.
Will’s hand moved up to Mike’s messy hair on its own accord, and he paused for a moment, analyzing his intentions. Was he going to try to hurt Mike, or comfort him?
He threaded his fingers through Mike’s hair gently, tugging carefully at the knots that got in the way of his fingers. “Can you – can you hear anything?”
The question slipped out of his lips almost before he knew what he was saying, and it wasn’t until the words were hanging heavy on the air that he realized just how much he needed to hear Mike say yes.
Mike lifted his head and looked at Will instead, confusion painting his features. “What do you mean?”
Will watched him for a second. He was so close , close enough that if Will wanted to, he could lean forward and kiss him, or he could surge forward and knock him out with his own head.
Will flinched against his own thoughts, and Mike’s lips turned down into a frown. “When you were listening,” Will said, his voice rapidly losing its edge as he felt tears burning at the back of his throat. “Could you hear anything?”
Mike’s features softened, like he finally understood what Will was trying to say. He nodded, and grabbed one of Will’s hands. “I could hear it,” he said quietly, pressing Will’s fingers against his other wrist, letting him feel his own pulse thrumming in his veins. “I could hear your heart, Will.”
Will let out a punched out gasp and slumped back against the pillow with his eyes closed, finally letting some tears spill out and over his cheeks. He could feel his lip quivering as he opened his eyes to look at Mike, and he did his best to smile. “Okay,” he said, voice cracking in the middle, and Mike huffed out a wet laugh.
“Okay,” Mike replied, offering him a kind smile, one that Will remembered seeing before , and it reminded him of how much he loved Mike, how often his heart felt like it was only beating for the boy in front of him. “Here,” he continued, grabbing Will’s hand again and bringing it up to rest against his chest.
Will could feel Mike’s heart beating through the thin layer of his shirt, and he breathed another sigh of relief at not having stopped it. “Thanks,” he said quietly, sincerely, and Mike leaned forward to press their foreheads together.
“You’re a good person, Will,” he whispered seriously, breath ghosting over Will’s lips, and Will almost leaned forward to press their lips together, but Mike was already moving away. Before he knew it, Will could feel Mike’s lips pressing against his forehead. “You’re a good person.”
The gentle feeling of Mike’s lips against his skin made Will think that yeah, maybe he could believe Mike. Maybe one day, he’d be able to be around Mike and wouldn’t feel the ghost of a tug on his heart, wouldn’t have to clench his hands into fists to keep them under control, wouldn’t have to check his surroundings for weapons whenever Mike walked into the room.
Maybe he could spend the rest of his life with Mike and be okay. Maybe he could be a good person, again.
God knows Mike wouldn’t let him be a bad one.