Work Text:
Mike Wheeler
~~~~~~~~~
Silence. Total and complete silence devoured Mike as he watched all that Eleven was, all that Eleven had been, sweep away before him like grit before a current.
A strange mixture of serenity and misery came over Mike, as he began to find comfort in the concept of life as a finite principle. He made friends with time then, and it's perpetual movement. In the silence he knew, that as time moved, there was promise he would travel with it. He knew that meant he wouldn't be stuck here in this moment, in this pain; but he also knew that time's eternal motion promised him the certainty of death. Maybe now, Mike thought, he might run into the open arms of death as if it were a lover. As if in it's embrace, the solace he might find was beyond life. Eleven was wherever death takes a soul, so maybe he might cling to the inevitability of death. If only to hold her again.
In the stillness, Mike knew he had been screaming. Though as his body shock with the force of the guttural sounds, he found he could not hear them.
Prayer. To an onlooker it might have appeared as if he was hunched in a position of prayer. His knees touching the rough terrain, tears falling from his face. Who were his prayers being sent too, Mike pondered? Who would listen? If divinity was nonfiction, then why hadn't God seen him now?
Another wave of agonized tears wet Mikes numb face, as his grasp on consciousness began to falter.
The dark held his hand into the few hours of peace he would not grow familiar with.
~~~~~~~~
Will Byers
When will knocked on the mahogany door, it swung open almost instantaneously.
"Oh Will, I'm so glad you're here." Mrs. Wheeler pulled him into a close hug—yet it was all wrong. Her hold on him was weak, in a way he never had known her hugs to be. All preconceived notions on the woman seemed to be reversed in this version of her. Mrs. Wheeler never had a bare face, nor disheveled hair. Mrs. Wheeler didn't have sunken dark circles under her eyes. And Mrs. Wheeler most definitely did not wear pajamas at 3'o clock in the afternoon.
"Where is he?", the question came out more panicked then intended. It had been three days since El sacrificed her self while closing the upside-down, he hadn't seen Mike since,
Mrs. Wheeler pulled back from the hug to look in Will's eyes, as she said, "In his room. Will, he hasn't been doing well, it may be too much for you. Please do not hesitate to let me know if you feel you want to leave, I-"
"I can handle it."
She gave Will one last long solemn look, and beckoned for him to come inside. Will proceeded to take off his shoes and approach the staircase up to Mike's room.
Once Will reached his door he rapped his knuckles against the wood.
He was greeted by silence, so still in fact, he assumed Mike had been sleeping. But when he opened the door, there was Mike, uncomfortably trapped in a state of wake. The picture was disturbingly motionless. Mike sprawled on top of his blue comforter, eyes stuck to the celling, still in the clothes from three day ago. His eyes were scarily bloodshot, from the combination of sleep deprivation and tears, Will concluded.
"Mike?", His voice crumpled around his name as it came out.
Mike's head turned to the doorframe in a mechanical maneuver.
At the sight of Will, his face fractured, and sobs fell out of his cracked lips.
Will quickly moved to his bedside. Kneeling on the floor next to the bed he pushed his hair out of his face and wiped the tears spilling from his eye.
"You're alright, I'm here", Will consoled, holding him close.
They sat intertwined for what felt like years. The words unsaid between them had Will tightening his grip. He hadn't realized he was crying with him until a teardrop fell to the wrist of his sleeve.
"I'm scared of the emptiness of my bedroom", Mike finally spoke, his voice croaky with disuse. "I look to my closet, and I can only see the doors she hid behind when we first met. But now it's empty. And she's gone, and I'm terrified." He was once again wailing into my hold.
"Mike, you gave her life a purpose, you filled her with so much light and love that she was willing to sacrifice herself knowing she was blessed with you in her few years. You gave her enough to leave content. She died happy. Happy that you get to live. You can't destroy yourself and allow her death to be in vain."
"I-I know that, but it's so hard, Will. It's so fucking hard."
Will sat on the bed and pulled his head into his lap. "I know it is Mike, believe me. I loved her. She was my sister, my friend." His voice cracked on the last word.
"But you —we—are allowed to rot, you have the right to curl up and break, if only you get up. If only you return to me, to your family more alive and more canescent than you once were." Will whispered into his hair.
Will knew then, that it was inherently ruinous to love Mike. To love another was to build a coexistence. Ones dependency on another's wellbeing is inevitable destructive. And to receive love, a concept Will had not grown familiar with, resets the gravity of an individual's livelihood. He watched as Mike's affections for Eleven rewrite his will to live.
"You will never be without love, Mike wheeler", he breathed into his hair.
They sat knit in each other's grasp until Mike drifted into a restless sleep. Will went with him.