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Will’s been lying. He’s been lying a lot, for a while, to a lot of people who care about him. He doesn’t know what compelled him to start, but all he knows is that at some point he fell a little too deep into it and couldn’t claw his way back out.
They were lucky, being able to buy their house back once they moved back here. Will didn’t think so, but it was good for his mom and Hop to not have to go searching for a house in half-destroyed Hawkins or worse, have to have all five of them living in that tiny cabin in the woods. It was nice, being a full family with El and Hop included— they’d been missing out on that for too long.
Mike’s dad gave him a truck for his sixteenth birthday (which is stupid, because Nancy didn’t get anything for her sweet sixteen, and what the hell is Mike going to do with a truck? ). Will is sitting on the back of it, legs dangling over the edge. Their little routine is that Mike comes out of the house with boxes that Will packed the night before, Will takes them and shoves them as far back as they can go in the back of the truck, and repeat. Will doesn’t own that much, per se, most of the boxes are just his paintings— and even then, he left a lot of them behind.
This routine leaves Will a lot of time to sit and stare at his childhood home. So much shit, all packed into one building (and a small one, at that). He swears he can almost see ghosts of his mom and dad fighting through the window, the sound of broken glass and the music to drown out the noise. He can still see the Christmas lights from when he came back from the hospital and the boarded-up hole in the wall of the living room. He can still see the map of the tunnels (though quite vaguely, he was pretty far gone by that point) all over the floor and the walls and his mind. He can still remember the fire.
He takes in a shaky breath, hands clenching into fists. The house looks so perfect from this angle. The closest it’s gotten to perfect is the last couple years.
Mike comes out, a small box in his hands. Will doesn’t have to look at the sharpie along the side of it to know it’s the box— the box that Will keeps everything that’s ever meant something to him in. He started it the night he got back from the hospital, after the upside down. The first thing ever put in this special box, the box he would use to remind himself of how valuable everything in his life was and how he almost lost it, was the “Get Well Soon” card that Mike gave him. Although Mike couldn’t draw to save his life, inside was a scribbly drawing of Will the Wise fighting the Demogorgon with fireballs. It almost made Will cry. A lot that Mike did after the Upside Down made Will cry, especially his insistence to spend every waking moment with him.
Mike hands Will the box, and he pushes it back against the other boxes. Mike sits down beside him, shoulders pressed together. They sit and stare at the house that has made up most of Will’s life.
Mike is the first to speak. He takes in a deep breath before, “Are you sad about it?”
“Sad about leaving?”
“Yeah.”
Will sniffles, which betrays him right off the bat, but Mike still waits. “I think so.”
“Think or know?”
Will can feel Mike’s eyes on him. He keeps his gaze locked onto the front door of the house. “I’m sad, that’s for sure. I just don’t know if it’s about leaving, or... something else.”
Mike’s head drops onto his shoulder— Will has always teased him for being shorter, but he guesses that it’s comfort now. “What else could it be?”
There is something hidden deep, deep within him. It’s been at the very bottom of his stomach for a while, but it’s finally starting to rise back up into his throat, and if he doesn’t get it out, he never will. And he needs to tell someone.
He clears his throat. “I didn’t tell you much about my time in the Upside Down, did I?”
Mike’s hair tickles Will’s neck as he shifts his position slightly. “No, you didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you ask?”
“Because I had seen the Demogorgon and spending a week in a place filled with everything like that sounded like the worst thing I could ever imagine. So, if you didn’t want to tell me, I wasn’t going to ask. I know I wouldn’t want to talk about it, if it was me.”
Will is forever reminded of how much he loves Mike and how much Mike loves him. He is forever reminded of why he needs to tell Mike, out of all people. He wrings his hands together in his lap. “One time— I would tell you what day, but they were hard to keep track of down there— I was... I was in front of this house. I was sitting there, because I was tired and injured and sad and scared and I sat there and watched.” It’s flashing across the back of his mind now. He can still see it.
“Watched the house?”
Will is having trouble breathing. The lump of truth lodged in his throat is trying to suffocate him. “Watched it burn down.”
He feels Mike perk up a bit against him, move jerkily a bit away and then lay his head back down gently. Mike’s hand fumbles for Will’s, and their fingers slot together easily. “What... what do you...?”
Will laughs just a little, very aware that he seems insane. Mike is used to it, but sometimes it’s fun to be able to surprise him every once in a while. “I was sitting in front of the house, pretty close to it too, and then it just started... burning. Like, flames came up from the bottom of it and started spreading throughout the whole house. And I— I knew it wasn’t real. I sat there, and I knew the moment I blinked it would be gone, but I didn’t blink. I just watched it burn down. It felt... cathartic? Out of all the fear, it felt very comforting. I felt free? In the moment I did, but obviously now that the house it still standing, I don’t want it to burn down, it just felt good in the moment.” Sometimes Will wonders if Mike will ever break. Sometimes he wonders if one day he’ll say something so fucking insane that Mike will finally leave. He’s been testing it. So far, so good, but he knows better than everyone how quickly things can change.
This time isn’t the one. Mike stays silent for only a moment, squeezes Will’s hand once, then asks, “Well? What happened after you blinked?”
“I didn’t blink, per se... I heard something behind me and turned around. Then the catharsis and the fear and all that shit left my body and I jumped up and ran back into the house.”
“And it wasn’t burning down anymore?”
“No.” But he can still see the flames. Can still feel the almost unbearable heat. “But... I don’t know, ever since then I’ve been... waiting.”
“For the house to burn down?”
“Yeah. For it all to go up in flames.”
Will stares at the perfectly intact house. He stares at the erasure of all that it’s gone through, stares at the future things it will go through. He remembers wishing it would burn down, some nights. Those weren’t common. But they still happened. “Mike.”
“Yeah?”
“I think I know why Vecna never went for me.”
To his credit, Mike doesn’t even flinch. Will hears him take in a shaky breath, feels his grip tighten a little more around his hand, but he isn’t tripped up. “Okay.”
“Are you mad that I didn’t tell you sooner? Even though I’ve known the whole time, even before Vecna came around?” Will’s voice is apathetic. He doesn’t care, he just wants Mike angry. He wants a way out of telling anyone this.
“Will.”
“Yeah?”
“Tell me.”
Will hates being known so well. He chews on the inside of his cheek, would start picking at his nails if Mike wasn’t holding onto his hand like a lifeline. “I accepted it.”
Mike sits there as if he’s waiting for something more, but there is nothing to come. It’s lodged in Will’s throat. Someone needs to reach in and claw it out of him. “Accepted what?”
“The Upside Down.”
Mike takes a deep breath. “Will, baby, you need to give me more than that.”
Will’s choking on more. “ I— well, I was scared, at first. Of course I was, I was twelve and the Upside Down is fucking terrifying. But... by the time I was up against the wall, with that tentacle in my mouth, next to Barb’s body— I accepted my fate. I accepted that I’d already become a part of the Upside Down... that it would be... well, it for me. But when I woke up, when I was in the hospital... the acceptance didn’t go away.” Will looks down at their hands, intertwined. Whenever he thinks about this, the world starts to go in and out of focus; it starts to feel less real. He needs to be grounded. “But it was... worse. Like, the acceptance wasn’t a feeling, I was now... integrally accepting of the Upside Down. Not just of its existence, but I was never... appalled by its actions anymore, I guess?” Will taps his other hand against his thigh in an erratic drumbeat. “Like... I was still scared sometimes, but everything it did made sense. None of it was barbaric, or too violent, or inhumane— the Upside Down did what it did and it had its reasons and although I wasn’t on its side... I wasn’t against it. Never, no matter how much I wanted to be. So, Vecna didn’t need to go for me. He already had me.”
Silence is bearing down on him like a weighted blanket. The air is a thick, sickly-sweet syrup, trapping air in Will’s throat. He’s been evil for a while. He’s been intrinsically connected to the physical amalgamation of evil and he’s been accepting of it since it got him. If Mike’s not scared away now— with everything they need to move into their apartment together and have a half-decent rest of their lives sitting behind them— then maybe Will should be the one afraid.
“Will.” One time, Max pointed out that Mike has a voice he only uses for Will— a softer, sweeter cadence. Now, Will can’t unhear it. It would warm his heart if he wasn’t already so cold. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
Will stops tapping his thigh incessantly, lets all the air out of his lungs. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Do you want me gone because you don’t want to be with me anymore, or you think you don’t deserve me?” Mike’s voice is cheeky; he already knows the answer.
“What do you think?”
Mike nods against Will. “Okay. So... all the violence, you saw it as... normal? Is that what you’re saying? That it didn’t shock you, it didn’t feel out of the ordinary?” Mike’s tone is not accusing. It’s curious. He actually wants to know.
“Yeah. Like... when we found out Dart killed Dustin’s cat. It took me a second to react like the rest of you did, because it made sense at first— Dart needed food, he found some. Then it hit me.” Will pauses, thinks for a second. “I guess it’s like... the Upside Down dictates the emotion first. Like, my reaction right off the bat is the Upside Down. It’s... my first reaction is however I would’ve reacted back when I was possessed. But then the human, empathetic part of me kicks in— almost immediately afterwards, no one ever notices— and I’m disgusted and horrified and all that shit.”
Mike squeezes Will’s hand three times. “Do you need me to tell you you’re not a bad person, or have you figured that one out already?”
“Yeah, I think I got that one.” He looks back up at the house, in all its fixed-up glory. “At first I didn’t have it, but now I’ve got it.”
“Does anyone else know?”
“Know what?”
“All of it.”
“I almost told my mom once.”
“What stopped you?”
The bags under her eyes. The tired droop to her face. The way that no matter what time he took to tell her, the Upside Down had taken something from her. That no matter when it was, whatever the Upside Down had done was unfair, and shouldn’t be seen as reasonable in the slightest. “I don’t know.”
“Tired of the truth?”
It’s so nice to be known so well. “Yeah.”
“Tell me later?”
“Maybe never.”
Mike laughs, taking his head off of Will’s shoulder. Still holding his hand, he directs the two of them until they’re face to face, still sat on the bed of the pickup. Mike’s smile is soft, his pupils practically shaped into hearts. Even after discovering how comfortable Will is with such violence, his hands raise and cup Will’s cheeks, with a gentleness only used for the most loved of belongings. “Got anything else to say before we stop dwelling on things that don’t matter?”
Will can feel the smile spreading across his face, even with the stone still in his gut. “Sometimes when I get really angry, glass around me will explode.”
Mike’s eyes widen to a comical amount. “Well, now you’re just fucking with me.”
“It’s true!”
“Fuck you, you’re lying.”
Will rolls his eyes, sighs dramatically. “It doesn’t happen that often, but it does!”
Mike raises his eyebrows.
Will lets his face relax into Mike’s hands. “C’mon, Mike, you’ve just got a thing for people with superpowers.”
“Fuck off.”
“Well, now that you know about my murderous tendencies, you are unfortunately stuck with me forever. You know too much, I’ll have to kill you if you try to leave.”
Mike sighs, mocking disappointment. “Well, I don't think I mind being stuck with you.”
“Well, then you wouldn't believe my luck." With that, Will leans forward and kisses Mike.
Despite all of that, the house doesn’t go up in flames behind them. Surprisingly, something other than horror becomes an integral part of Will: the belief that the fire will never come at all.