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William Byers was quick to tears. He was easy to bully because he was quiet. Introverted. Maybe even pathetic. He was always one of the shortest people in their class, and that stayed a constant until high school when he shot up like a sugar cane stalk while Mike was in California. Will was sensitive. People’s words got to him. He couldn’t let them roll off his back like Lucas did, or turn them into jokes like Dustin. He took everything to heart. He was like an organ in that sense. Soft, warm, easily penetrable. It had been so easy for Vecna to squeeze him in black, pulsing vines and turn him into a vessel for something dark. It had been so easy for the Mindflayer to invade the creases of his brain and erase every part of Will—as if he was never there in the first place. It was easy for his father to leave bruises on his arms and call him names, and even easier for the kids at school to see the exact thing that made him so different, as if it was written on his face.
Mike Wheeler knows all of these things about Will Byers. He’s known since he was five years old, yelling at schoolyard bullies to leave his best friend alone. He’s known since he was seven, leaving the Byer’s house in a hurry as Lonnie shouted and hurled a dish across the kitchen with a great crash. And Will cried. Will cried, and cried, and cried like the world was ending every time. And every time, Michael's heart burned. He would wipe the tears from Will’s face, making a mess of his own palm, staining the sleeves of his favorite blue sweater.
When Mike thinks back to it, he realizes just how small the both of them had been. Small enough that they could fit underneath the desk in Mike’s basement, wrapped around one another. Small enough that they swallowed each other. Will, sniffling into Mike’s shoulder, and Mike reciting the plot of The Hobbit because his mom had read it to him before bed just the night before and The Hobbit always made him feel safe, like he was somewhere else entirely.
Nights reciting bedtime stories turned into nights writing their own—combining their allowance to buy a Dungeons & Dragons starter set, doodling on paper grids to make maps of their own worlds, using sticks as wands and swords until they could buy plastic replicas and real wizard hats, making up quests on the spot.
Mike raises his hand in a flourish, pointing at Will across the table.
“Dandorf the Giant challenges you, Will the Wise- to a hot dog eating contest!!”
Will snorts, “what? Mike, there aren’t hot dog eating contests in this world!”
“Uh, why not? Giants love hot dogs, duh!”
Will rolls his eyes and adjusts the blanket tied around his neck like a cloak, “fine. I accept, Dandorf the Giant. But, if I win, you will return the Princess's magical crown to me!”
Mike looks down at his folders, “okay. Um. I think maybe you roll now?”
“Roll for what?”
“Uh- hunger! The hungrier you are, the better your chances of winning!”
“Okay”, Will takes in a serious breath, shaking the d20 between his hands and releasing it across their hand drawn maps. The two boys lean over the table, watching with rapt attention as the dice rolls across the table.
“16! You’re starving!”
“Yes!!”
They existed within a world of their own creation down in that basement. A place with no bullies, or angry yelling, or anyone to tell them they were lame and weird and different. And Will could play the hero and Mike could play the damsel in distress and there was no one to tell them it was wrong. And Mike could kiss Will on the cheek after being rescued from the tower guarded by a fearsome dragon—because that's just what princesses did when they were saved by heroes—and there was no one to tell them it was wrong.
Things didn’t change when Lucas joined the party, because a bigger party was always better for fighting monsters. And things didn’t change when Dustin joined a couple years later, because Dustin already knew all kinds of strategies for D&D they had no idea about. They grew closer, an inseparable four.
But Will and Mike remained Will and Mike. A pair. Their two-player stories remained inscribed in ink on the pages in Mike’s folders and in the backs of their minds. Always.
And whatever they went through, everything, a whole decade later, the sorcerer and the paladin always found a way back to each other. Through forests, over mountains, across rivers, past battlefields.
Between relationships. Through fights and disagreements. Past mind control and amnesia. Over near death experiences. Across the country.
And in the middle of a battlefield, the worst, bloodiest battle yet, Mike found his hero once again—a sorcerer dressed in a t-shirt over a sweater and some jeans, with his hair sticking to his forehead and blood smeared across his face and tears, a river of them wetting his neck.
And Will's fingers clenched and the Demogorgon's bones snapped—
And here’s the thing. Mike never believed Will when he told him he was the heart. How could Mike be the heart of their party? How could he, when Will was the one who agreed to be his friend, when Will was the one who wiped his knees when he scraped them, when Will was the one who held their party together when it was falling apart, when Will was always the one saving Mike from himself?
But in that moment, Mike felt as soft and warm and penetrable as an organ. His whole body throbbed like a heartbeat as the Demogorgon he was so dreadfully sure was going to be his end only a moment ago - crumpled into a heap of pathetic flesh.
Gasping, Mike looked to Will across the battlefield.
And-
Oh.
Mike is struck breathless all over again. There Will kneels, like a light amidst darkness, blood trickling out of his left nostril. His eyes are heavy but sure. They bore into Mike, green around the edges and dark, rich brown in the center, reflecting the orange of the fire that burns around them.
Maybe Mike should have seen it as a sign. Something sinful, something damned. The moment his heart implodes in his chest, a fire rages in a circle around the two of them, angry and hot. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe they were already in hell.
But all of the worst places Mike had ever been were cold.
He likes it cold.
All of the worst moments of his life—biking through the rain and shouting Will’s name, the police pulling his pale body from the lake, Will trembling shirtless in his room as the Mindflayer tormented him, ignoring Will and feeling the empty space he left in Mike’s life like a phantom limb—they had all been bone chilling. Freezing.
Maybe hell is ice.
So that burning, Mike welcomed it at that moment. How he burned, flames licking his ribcage, searing on his cheeks and his ears. Mike, ever useless, could only stare slack-jawed in awe as Will wiped the blood from above his lip.
And then Will collapsed, and Mike screamed.
—⋆🗡* ⚕⋆—
“Will?! Will?!?” Mike shakes the other boy’s body which had crumpled in exhaustion on the hard ground. He curls over him like he’s protecting something fragile and precious, despite the fact that Will has thoroughly proven tonight that he is anything but fragile.
“Will- oh my god- are you- Will-”, he blubbers, hands flitting over Will’s face and back, searching for wounds and a gentle rise and fall which he can't even see through the tears in his eyes—
A firm hand grasps his shoulder.
“Mike, honey, it's okay. He’s going to be okay. Help me carry him, yeah?” Joyce’s figure swims in his vision, kneeling on the other side of Will and running her hand up and down Mike’s arm. Someone is crying. Loudly. Maybe it's her, or him, or both of them. He tastes the saltiness of snot on his tongue. The side of his head is wet and throbbing.
A whine simmers in his throat, and it must have been a pathetic sound the way Joyce squeezes him. The world tilts as Mike scrambles to slide his arms underneath Will, struggling to plant his feet beneath himself, feeling weak and tingly all over.
They push together, flipping Will onto his back and then lifting him by his armpits, each of them taking an arm over their shoulder to support him. Mike wishes he could carry him fully—Will cradled in his arms where Mike would know he would always be safe.
If only he were stronger.
They stumbled through the ruins on the MAC-Z, stepping over the bodies of soldiers and burning pieces of flesh and wreckage.
The walkie talkie on Mike’s belt crackles.
“Mike?? Will?? Is anyone there???” Lucas’s voice fizzles through the slightly damaged radio.
Mike fumbles with the walkie, “yeah-” his voice breaks, “yeah, were here. Me and Joyce are carrying Will back now. Lets- meet us at the front of the MAC-Z, we’ll drive back to the Squawk, okay?”
“What- what happened to Will? The Demogorgon it- was that-?”
Mike cuts him off, “Will’s okay, just passed out. We’ll talk when we get there.”
Rough breathing sounds from the other line.
“They’re gone Mike. The kids are gone.”
Joyce sobs. Mike swallows something sharp and cold. He blinks, willing away the tears building in his eyes, pressing closer to Will.
“I know. It's going to be okay,” are the only words he can offer, thick with grief and misery. This was no one's failing but his own, after all.
—⋆🗡* ⚕⋆—
Robin and Murray are already at the Squawk by the time they arrive. Their group feels so small now. Mike wishes Nancy were there to come up with a plan. He wishes his mom was out of the hospital, hugging him and stroking his hair and telling him everything is going to be okay. He wishes El were there—powerful, stable, reliable. El had always had a special ability to see right through Mike. It's why he loved her. It’s also why he has always been so afraid of her. She would know exactly what he was thinking right now, as Will lay limply on the couch and Mike sits on his knees beside it, carefully watching the rise and fall of Will’s chest. They're alone as the others talk in the next room, and Mike tries to block out the sounds of frantic, heated conversations.
The church his family used to go to—years ago when they still cared about anything at all—the pastor used to say, “do not worship false idols.” That only God and Jesus deserved your devotion, and straying from them was straying from goodness.
Mike doesn’t think he’s believed in God, even the idea of one, in a very long time.
Is there anything in this universe deserving of such worship?
Yes, he thinks there is.
It's a horrifying thought. Mike had spent his entire life pushing away thoughts like that. And just like that - so easily had Will shattered everything Mike was trying to be. So easily all of these feelings have come pouring out of him, like he’s a broken glass trying to repair himself with scotch tape.
“That was really him, huh?”
Mike is abruptly yanked from his thoughts by the sound of Lucas’s voice. He hadn’t even heard him come into the room.
“Huh?”
“The demos,” Lucas clarifies.
Mike breathes, trying to focus on the feeling of stale air filling his lungs.
“Ye-yeah. He just- he just raised his hand and stopped the Demogorgon. Just like El. but different, too. The demo, it was floating. I thought I was going to die and than it was just floating in the air in front of me. And then all he did was flick his hand and the demo crumbled. You should have seen it, it was so-”
“Badass? Absolutely fucking insane?”
“- beautiful. He was beautiful. He was beautiful.”
Mike’s knees ache from kneeling, but its barely comparable to all the other aches and pains across his body. The word beautiful rattles out of him, quiet, like a kid with a secret they can barely contain. His eyes trace the way Will’s bangs gently brush across his forehead. The way the dark hair in front of his ears creates the suggestion of a beard. The way his eyebrows are clenched even in his sleep, as if his mind never really rests. The slope between his nose and upper lip, perfect and always a little pink. There is really no other way to describe such a portrait.
Lucas shifts on his feet and his breath hitches, but he doesn’t say anything. Mike, cowardly, he thinks of himself, can’t bear to shift his gaze up at his friend. He doesn’t know if he would be able to handle what he sees there. Judgement, disgust, confusion, hatred? That fear of being judged roils within him, ingrained into his bones. Its muscle memory, telling him to move away and change the subject and act like he doesn’t care. When Troy called Will his “little boyfriend”. When his dad told him,
“Two young men shouldn’t be sleeping in the same room anymore, Mike.”
When he wrote Will letters while he was in California and realized they sounded far too romantic for something he should be writing to a friend and so he never sent anything at all.
It's the visceral fear that has turned Mike into the worst version of himself time and time again.
Lucas’s hand touches his shoulder. “You should really sit somewhere more comfortable. That can’t be good for your knees, man.”
His throat bobs. He doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t even think he can. But Lucas is telling him to. Maybe Mike is being too weird right now. Too obvious. Maybe Lucas is uncomfortable and Mike should just leave because he really is such a stain on Will’s life -
But Mike doesn’t want to leave him. Not for anything.
“I can go get a chair for you,” Lucas says after a long moment of silence.
Mike thinks about days spent sitting at Will’s bedside in the hospital. Sleeping in an uncomfortable chair, waking up with his neck stiff, hoping every moment that Will would come back to himself, terrified that he would lose him all over again.
Mike is so tired of being terrified.
He wipes his sleeve across his face and stands on his lanky, uncoordinated limbs. He lifts Will’s legs, oh so gently, and slides onto the couch with a deep sigh. He rests the sleeping boy's legs across his lap, calves touching his thighs through blood-stained blue jeans.
When he looks at Lucas, Lucas is looking right at him, his eyes deep and inquisitive like something important has just dawned on him.
“How do you do it?” Mike asks in a broken voice, “how do you wait for Max to wake up everyday? How do you hold it together when you don’t know if she’ll be okay?”
Lucas blinks, his eyes wet and his shoulders trembling just the barest amount.
“I- I don’t,” he says simply. Mike raises an eyebrow.
“I beg her everyday to wake up. I can’t stand it. All I can do is keep trying. Keep trying to bring her mind back. Keep trying to make a better world for her to wake up to.”
Lucas steps closer to the couch and leans against the armrest beside Mike, half sitting on it.
“All I can do is remind myself what she would want for me. She wouldn’t want me to wait around being a broken wreck all day. She’d probably say something like, “go make yourself useful, dingus”.” They both chuckle, because it's true.
“When there’s - when you -.... When you love someone..” Lucas glances at Will, and Mike feels his heart skip a beat and the back of his neck burn.
“You can’t ever take them for granted. You never know when you…might not have them anymore. And - and if they do leave…you need to trust them, that they’ll come back to you.”
Lucas’s voice is thick with emotion. He leans towards Mike, bumping his shoulder, and the taller boy sniffles. They sit in a comfortable silence, Lucas resting against the couch and Mike looking down at Will’s knees.
“They’re a couple of fighters, you know that?” Lucas says, nudging Mike again.
And Mike smiles.
“Yeah, they are.”
He rests his hand on Will’s knee, rubbing his thumb back and forth gently, letting himself be content if only for a short while.