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i.
(What haunts you, Michael Wheeler?)
Will Byers stands on a battlefield, amidst all the blood and the flames and the scattered corpses— all the evidence of Vecna’s single-handed carnage, of hell on Earth. His hand is outstretched, palm turned upward as though he’s asking for something from the universe: strength, blessings, perhaps just a miracle. Indeed, a miracle is what Will Byers has wrought.
A Demogorgon hovers mid-lunge just before Mike Wheeler, seconds away from launching itself at him in what would have been a fatal attack. But now its long unearthly limbs shudder; its whole body suspended in motion, stretched taut as though being pulled apart from within by a thousand rubber bands.
And Mike Wheeler can’t tear his eyes away; not from the Demogorgon, but from Will.
Will, who is as he has never seen him before.
Will, who is lost to the world as he taps into unforeseen power— eyes glazed over, hands raised to the heavens, head thrown back. Will, who seems to be stretched as taut as the Demogorgons he’s keeping at bay, almost vibrating with the force of his concentration. Mike can see the twitch of every cord in Will’s throat.
Bones break with a nauseating crack, the Demogorgon’s decapitated body twists itself into an agonizing tangle of limbs before it falls to the ground. But Mike barely pays any attention.
Will falls to his knees, too fast for Mike to even react, before Mike can even start to rush and catch him. But Will only sways slightly on the spot as his eyes roll back forward, and some of the tension leaves his body. Blood trickles from his nose, and in a daze, Will raises his sleeve to wipe away the oozing red.
Will is resplendent.
And yet, all Mike feels is a sense of recognition. The voice, that quiet voice inside of Mike that he so often tries to drown out with anything and everything he could come up with, only says— that’s him. That’s Will.
Holy shit, he did it.
He really is the Sorcerer.
ii.
(What haunts you, Michael Wheeler?)
After Will’s great exploit, it’s a long while afterwards that Mike is finally able to catch some time alone with Will. There was the whole business of having to regroup; of getting Lucas the medical attention he needed; of catching everyone up, as far as was possible, on what had gone down. This was besides the fact that Will had been out of commission for most of this. He lay, drifting in and out of consciousness, on the couch in the WSQK station— now fluffed up with all the bedclothes and cushions Joyce and Mike had been able to scrounge up.
But it’s when Mike sees Will finally awake and alert— his eyes finding Mike, then proceeding to fix themselves firmly on him— that it feels like Mike can finally breathe in fully. It feels like there was a thing in his chest, stopping his lungs, that he didn’t even know was there until it was instantly dissolved by the sight of Will and the smile that crept across his face at seeing Mike.
So Mike kneels by Will’s couch, and they talk about this and that, weaving awkwardly around the specifics of everything that had just happened— Mike catches Will up on where everyone had been and Will mostly nods along, quietly satisfied just to listen. But Mike feels a question forming on his lips, one that he’s been bursting to ask his best friend ever since…
What does it feel like, Will?
Will chuckles. Thought El would have told you all about superpowers, he teases weakly.
Something in Mike’s heart catches at this, despite the good-naturedness of Will’s teasing, and he can only mutely shake his head no. El had never wanted to talk about her powers. He should have realized why that was a lot sooner than he actually had.
(“I can’t be your superhero, Mike. I couldn’t even save Max.”)
Will takes a moment, then, mouth twisting to the side as he ponders. Mike notices Will’s gaze bore into his hands where they lie in his lap, palms facing upwards.
It was… scary, admits Will. I was already so tired, and so afraid, and I’d just seen him for the first time, face to face, and he’d been so close… Will’s face falls a little. Then I saw the Demogorgon coming for Robin, and Lucas, and you— and something clicked into place, I guess.
Will’s expression goes all determined at that, and almost unconsciously, his fists clench and unclench in his lap.
I don’t think I was myself, at all. And that scares me, says Will quietly. He’s still looking down at his palms. It feels like I really was part Vecna, then, and he can’t be happy about what I did. But if I hadn’t been able to do that when I did…
You saved me, says Mike in a sudden rush. You saved us all.
Will startles, and Mike realizes that he’s plunged his hand into one of Will’s open ones. Mike feels the blood rush to his cheeks as he withdraws his hand from Will’s, for what seems to be a moment suspended in infinity, and tries to ignore how empty his hand feels now. A dusting of pink has also broken out across Will’s face— but Will only softens and smiles, and Mike sees a dimple blossom in one of Will’s cheeks, like a morning star.
But wait, Mike says, attention snapping hawk-like to what Will’d said just a few moments earlier. What, exactly, clicked into place?
It felt important for Mike to ask that. But Will’s cheeks turn even pinker.
I remembered when I was a kid, before everything with the Upside Down started, he says carefully. I remembered me showing my drawings to Mom, me building Castle Byers with Jonathan.
Will sneaks a glance at Mike, before he continues:
I… remembered us in kindergarten, on the swings.
Will doesn’t have to say it, but Mike knows what Will’s referring to. That first day of kindergarten, when he’d walked up to Will on the swings and asked to be his friend, despite the thumping of his heart and the sweat breaking out on his palms.
That’s still the best thing I’ve ever done, Will, says Mike in almost a whisper, and is surprised at how simultaneously terrified and exhilarated he feels. He feels the weight of so many things left unsaid, though he doesn’t know what it is he needs to say. But from the way Will’s looking at him, he’s certain Will can feel it, too.
Mike feels happy— unreasonably happy— and then feels a wave of fear wash over the effervescence that had been blooming in his chest.
iii.
(What haunts you, Michael Wheeler?)
(Perhaps Vecna, rooting around in his head for nightmare material.)
(Perhaps just his own tortured, overactive conscience.)
Mike sits, alone, next to the bed where his mom lies, her eyes roving slightly under tightly closed lids. Lulled by the dimmed-down lights of the room, Mike feels his mind wander.
This is the terrible secret Mike has always kept cradled in the deepest, darkest, dustiest recesses of his heart:
He has always missed Will the way he should have missed El.
He missed El, of course, when he’d thought she was dead for an entire year. He’d listened for almost a year, in vain, for a whisper of El’s voice on the walkie-talkie. He’d cried countless tears. He’d begged whatever gods were out there to bring her back. He’d wanted nothing more than to know that she was, somehow, anyhow, actually alive.
But missing Will had felt like something else entirely— even when it wasn’t the Upside Down that he’d lost Will to, just California. Missing Will felt like he was suddenly missing something horribly essential to his existence; like he’d had a limb, or even his heart, torn away from him. Missing Will felt like he was missing the thing that had actually made life worth living, that had painted his life in vivid colour where now there were only muted shades of grey.
He wasn’t an idiot. He knew what the bullies— including Will’s own dad— had always said about Will, if in the most hateful and disgusting ways possible. But as the years passed, he’s wondered whether there was actually any truth to what they’d said. After all, out of the four of them Party members, Will’s the only one who’s never had a girlfriend. Although Will’s always had girls like him, of course.
(“Will is painting a lot, but he won’t show me what he’s working on. Maybe it is for a girl.”)
More often than not, though, Mike’s wondered whether they’d gotten the wrong person. Whether the accusations against Will were only ever a case of guilt-by-association.
There was one point in time, when he’d been regularly sneaking over to Hopper’s to make out with El, that everything seemed alright. There was no way he could possibly be gay now, he’d thought, and he’d rubbed it in Will’s face without intending to. But then everything fell apart, and Mike found himself unraveling again.
He finds himself gazing down again at his mom, bruised and battered almost beyond belief. It had been… difficult to know what to feel, when he and Nancy’d thought their parents were actually on the verge of death. For a while now, he’s felt strangely distant from his family, especially after everything that he’s had to deal with over the last few years. His mom doesn’t know him, not the way he really is, no matter how much she insists that she does. His dad hadn’t ever cared to know him, or even say that he did.
How can he even begin to mourn a father who was never truly there and a mother who tried her best, but whose best never quite seemed enough?
His family had not been saved by their best efforts to appear the perfect white picket fence household, even before a Demogorgon had broken into their home and turned it completely upside down. Dad, sleepwalking through life. Mom, bordering on full-blown alcoholism. Holly, so often feeling utterly alone— Holly, falling prey to Vecna under all of their noses.
Mike buries his head in his hands.
There was so much he could have seen sooner, done sooner, but he never did. Because he always stopped himself. Because he always thought there were other things that were more important. Because, as much as he doesn’t want to admit it, there were too many times he thought it was more important to be normal.
What does any of it matter, anymore? What is there that matters, anymore?
What has he done so far that matters?
He has always loved Will the way he’d once thought he loved El. That’s the only thing that matters.
iv.
Michael, says Will. I must be strong. But you make me weak.
(“I need to focus now. I need to be strong, for Max. For everybody.”)
Will Byers leans over Mike Wheeler. Will’s fingers, strangely warm to the touch, hook around Mike’s chin, and he shivers. Will pulls Mike closer until Mike’s close enough to stare right into Will’s eyes— close enough to kiss Will if he wanted.
But Will Byers’ eyes are glazed over with a dull white, no longer the beautiful light hazel that Mike has always known them to be. And behind those blank irises, there is no one that Mike can recognize. There is no Will there anymore.
(This.)
(This is what haunts me.)
Will, he says, the name soft in his mouth as always, a desperate invocation.
Nothing familiar stirs behind this uncanny not-Will’s eyes.
Mike keeps talking anyway, scrabbling for the right words for dear life’s sake, and hopes there’s somebody in there who will listen. He wants to break himself open like an egg, lay himself bare and bloody, say all the things he should have said when Will was there to listen— all the things he should have said before but was too scared to.
The painting, says Mike slowly, it was all you, wasn’t it? Do you know how much I loved it?
It meant everything to me, Will, everything you told me in that van. And since El told me the painting wasn’t her, I’ve wondered and wondered why you did it— why you told me all those things if they weren’t true.
And at that, Mike feels his voice break. Not-Will’s grip around his cheek tightens until Mike feels like his jaw might crack from the pressure. But not-Will does nothing else, only continues to stare into Mike’s own eyes as if transfixed, and Mike takes that as his cue to continue talking.
Words burst from him as water from a cracked dam.
You say I make you weak. But you’ve always been strong, Will, even before you had powers. Maybe not in the way Vecna thinks it is to be strong, but in so many other ways. You’re kind, so kind sometimes I’m scared you forget to be kind to yourself. You’ve made the most beautiful art I’ve ever seen. You’ve never bowed down to what everyone thought you should do, never gave up on anything you love, even when the rest of us were pretending to be grown up. No one else could go through what you have, and come out still the same Will that I’ve always—
That I’ve always loved.
(“You said many things, Mike. What was not a lie?”)
Mike feels tears prick at his eyes, then flood them, until he can no longer see straight. Not-Will’s face wavers in front of Mike as though he’s seeing through ripples on water.
I told you, a long time ago, that Hawkins isn’t the same without you.
Nothing's the same without you, Will. I’m your Paladin, you’re my Cleric, and I can’t think of anything else that would be more right.
Will, please come back to me.
Not-Will shivers, and abruptly Mike feels himself tossed backwards. He lands on his ass in the dirt, and scrambles back to knees and elbows to peer back at not-Will, jerking his head wildly like he’s an errant bull trying to throw its rider off. Suddenly—
Will’s eyes roll forward, and he drops to his knees, panting. Throwing all caution to the wind, Mike crawls towards Will as swiftly as he can. Then Will raises his head, and Mike sees in his eyes—
Hazel. The most beautiful hazel Mike’s ever seen.
Will’s eyes are brimming with tears, but also an indefinable something. Mike thinks it might be happiness. Mike thinks he might just look the same way.
Will Byers leans over Mike Wheeler. Will cups Mike’s face in both of his clammy hands, and presses his smiling mouth to Mike’s.
(This is.)