Chapter Text
Dear Will, the note read. I’m sorry. I hope you can, but you may never understand why I did this, but it is the way it has to be. I want to thank you for being such a perfect best friend to me. Tell Dustin, Lucas, Max, and Jane that I love them. Please don’t blame yourself for this. Goodbye Will.
Love From, Mike
Will knew, in his heart, exactly where Mike would go. Their safe haven, their place. Castle Byers. He could imagine Mike’s thought process. It was in the woods so he could go quietly
He burst out of his backdoor, running faster than he ever had before, to the familiar place. Leaves and underbrush crunched loudly under his sneakers. Will’s foot caught on a tree branch and he went down hard.
Will hissed at the feeling of his hands in the dirt, pebbles and sticks scratching up the soft skin of his palm. He ignored the pain in his ankle and continued. Once Castle Byers came into view, he slowed to a stop.
Will watched as he grabbed a gun from his backpack. Watched as he flicked the safety off with a trembling thumb. Watched as he took a shaky breath that reverberated throughout his body. Words wouldn’t form no matter how hard Will tried to speak, like his vocal cords were broken somehow. His limbs wouldn’t move despite his brain screaming to do something, anything, to stop Mike. Frozen. He was frozen. Completely and utterly paralyzed.
When he read the note, Will realized one, heart crushing thing: Michael Wheeler had always wanted to be dead, everyone was just too naive to see it. Or maybe he was just very good at hiding, too good at faking a smile.
Mike brought the gun to his temple and there was an unexpected emotion on his face: relief.
He looked more free than Will had seen him in months, maybe even years. Yes, because this is what Mike wanted.
With one more exhale, his last breath, Mike pulled the trigger.
“Mike!”
Will shot up. He was clammy and cold, his breaths coming shallow and uneven and his tears falling down his cheeks like hot sheets of rain. It was just a dream. Just a dream, he thought, trying to calm both his racing thoughts and his burning lungs.
Will looked around the Wheeler’s basement, relieved to find that Jonathan was not on the couch, meaning he had, per the usual, crept into Nancy’s room.
He glanced at the clock. The eerie, glowing red numbers read, 3:29. Which means he’d only been asleep for two and a half hours. Great.
The cold stairs creaked under his bare feet as he went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Will opened the basement door, which screeched even louder than the steps and he prayed that he hadn’t woken anybody up. Especially Mr. Wheeler.
The boy shut the door behind him, wincing at the noise as he eyed Ted Wheeler, who was snoring obnoxiously in his recliner. Mr. Wheeler has always made him uneasy, seeing who Will was, or more realistically what he was.
“Why the hell are these hinges so screechy?” He muttered, thinking no one would hear his curse and complaint.
“My dad said he was gonna fix that door months ago, guess he didn’t get very far” Mike whispered from the kitchen, where he was leaning against the counter, long hair falling in messy curls on his forehead and shoulders, drinking… milk?
Will’s gaze snapped to his best friend, not expecting him to be awake at this hour, let alone up and in the kitchen. He was wearing an old hellfire shirt and baggy plaid pajama pants that hugged his lean frame annoyingly well.
“I-is that milk?”
“Yeah. My mom used to give me and Nance warm milk whenever we couldn’t sleep, and it has just become my go to whenever I can’t fall asleep,” he explained quietly. Mike squinted at Will, the dim light from the moon just barely illuminating the two of them. “Hey, why are your eyes so red? Were you crying?”
Fuck. “Crying? No, no. I wasn’t crying, I’m just.. really tired tonight. Couldn’t sleep” Will quickly said. Smooth Byers, real smooth, his inner monologue scolded.
“Are you sure? Do you want me to come hang out with you down there? Cause I know Jonathan’s in Nancy’s room, I just… don’t want you to be alone” he asked tentatively with a small, slightly worried smile. Damn him for being so caring and perfect.
Will exhaled sharply. “No Mike, it's fine.” His voice came out harsher than expected or intended so he followed up, softer this time, with, “I’ll be okay. I just needed some water.” Mike nodded, taking another sip of his warm milk.
Will grabbed a cup from the cupboard, filled it about halfway, and drank the liquid in a few gulps. Mike’s gaze followed him silently. The glass clinked against the granite of the counter top and the room fell into an awkward silence, filled only with Ted’s snoring from the living room and the boys’ soft breathing. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, racing a bit too quickly to call what he was feeling platonic.
“Well um- I’m gonna go back downstairs and you know, go to sleep. Goodnight Mike” Will stuttered, rubbing the back of his neck nervously before turning and walking back towards the basement door, avoiding the extra squeaky floorboard.
“G’night Will” Mike replied softly.
He could feel Mike watching him as he turned the knob and walked back down the steps. The door clicked shut behind him and he was plunged into cold, suffocating darkness.
Will blindly descended the staircase and sat back down on his makeshift mattress, which was really just a few pillows and blankets under his sleeping bag, and sighed a dramaticized sigh.
He knew how wrong it was, he knew it. But Will couldn’t help but think… things. Mike’s little worried smile that he desperately wanted to kiss right off of his face, the way his eyes followed Will’s every move like he was the most interesting thing on planet Earth, the way his shirt rode up revealing a sliver of his pale stomach.
He felt his face heat up. Damn it. In an attempt to silence his less than acceptable thoughts, he turned the lamp on, grabbed his sketchbook, and began to sketch. His muscle memory took the reins.
Before he knew it there were multiple sketches on his paper. Mike. His face, his build, his eyes, his hands. No matter how hard Will tried to evict him, Mike was at home in his head. He had his own little place.
But Will knew it was doomed. Mike had Jane, Mike loved Jane. And if they, for whatever reason, broke up there would be another girl that took his breath away. Because people like Will, they don’t get accepted, and they definitely don’t get to be loved.
So he pushed his feelings down, down, down. Any hopes that Mike could ever feel the same were crushed that one night in the rain where he said to Will ‘it’s not my fault you don’t like girls.’ If only he knew.