Chapter Text
The party is finally free from Vecna’s clawed grip, finally able to move on from horrors they never should have had to witness, finally free to have a future outside of Hawkins iron chains, they’re finally happy.
At least, that’s what Mike keeps telling himself.
It’s a distant thought- one he almost immediately dismissed, locked away in the back of his mind like he does with most- the feeling that something was inherently and fundamentally wrong.
It’s a constant, unsettling feeling that no matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to shake.
The first time he notices it, is at their graduation.
Everyone’s eyes, cold, distant, soulless. A permanent painted on smile that doesn’t quite reach their eyes as they’re lined up methodically, looking like prisoners in their bright orange gowns.
Their hands are placed neatly in their laps, prim and proper, nothing like Hawkins ever was.
The ringing in his ears, sickening him to his core, screaming at him that he was missing something. Some piece of the puzzle that he hadn’t yet connected, the answer on the tip of his tongue and if he just looked a little longer, a little closer at it- yet the moment he was on the brink of discovering it, the sound stopped. Silence. Any thoughts he had on the matter slipped from his mind and he sinks back into the faint, static buzz.
The whole day feels off… wrong. But he puts it down to grief- obviously life couldn’t completely go back to normal after everything they’d been through, especially losing El, he knew that, but it’s nothing like he’s ever heard grief being described.
Even the party doesn’t feel like it used to, the one thing Mike thought he could rely on to be normal. Everyone felt like puppets rather than people. Will’s eyes not holding the same warmth toward him as they once did, the now cold pools of grey that have taken over his face seeming to be a poor imitation of the eyes he’d found himself staring at far more times than he’d ever dare to admit.
He remembers the quiet conversation that he’d had with Max awhile back, sat on the old basement stairs, talking about shitty parents and listening as she told him that the thought of becoming anything like her parents- like Billy, terrified her.
So when he watches as Max tears up the basement in a fit of cold rage, it doesn’t make any sense- the words from that conversation distantly echoing in his mind as he watches on, but he ignores it nonetheless, putting her outburst down to, again, grief, as he finds himself doing with most of the others less than favourable behaviours.
The rest of the campaign is fine, though that unsettling feeling looms over him- taunting him- in the shadows like a monster waiting to strike, baring it’s teeth in the darkness.
He watches intently as Will chants out the words from his DnD book as a slight warmth rises to his face- blaming it on the cramped heat of the basement-, the party crowding around him and a buzz of excitement filling the room, celebrating their victory as Mike announces the final words of the campaign.
He doesn’t cheer with them.
Mike watches as the party pools out of the basement, putting his DnD book on the shelf alongside Will’s. Quiet tears streaming down his face and an intense pang of sadness at the knowledge that they may never be sat in this dusty basement again, huddled around the table in the soft comfort of fantasy.
He absentmindedly strokes his thumb over Will’s binder, faint memories of the two of them playing DnD in the soft quiet of his room, whispering adventures of Mike the Brave and Will the Wise as they drifted off to sleep. Sometimes dressed in their own shitty hand-made costumes, tiptoeing around the dark, the walls becoming not one of a suffocating family house but an ancient land- carrying cardboard swords as Mike would protect them against the wicked creatures in the shadows.
God he wishes he could go back, aching desire to return to a time when their campaigns were nothing but fantasy. Running around in Mike’s backyard, holding hands as they ran from whatever creature they imagined was chasing after them, eventually tripping and tumbling onto the ground in a fit of laughter.
But he’s pulled abruptly from the safety of his memories when out of the corner of his eye, he sees a lamp flickering.
He knows he has nothing to worry about, he saw Vecna get killed, the upside down is gone. But he can’t help his heart racing as if a demogorgon is standing directly in front of him, the lights taunting him with every flicker.
The flashes of light seem almost… timed. Like thunder. A repeating pattern and the dust around it resembling those of the particles in the upside down. But before he can think about that too much, he heads up the basement stairs, feeling a gaze heavy on his back, something watching him in the shadows as he takes those last few steps a little quicker.
Karen almost knocks him back down the stairs as she opens the basement door. “Oh, there you are, I got worried- dinner’s at the table Micheal.”
His mother doesn’t call him Micheal anymore.
He takes his place at the dinner table, alongside the rest of the party, pushing his food around his plate and gazing absentmindedly into the distance. Conversation buzzes around him but he can’t get himself to focus.
Will nudges him with his shoulder, mumbling something he can’t quite make out, words disappearing into the ever loudening buzz in his head.
“Wake up, Mike”
“What?” Mike says a little too loudly, snapping out of his daydream state as Will’s voice pierces the static. He feels everyone’s eyes snap towards them, but the only thing he can focus on is Will.
“I asked if you were okay?” Will stammers, confusion and concern tainting eyes that don’t belong to him as his expression forms something akin to pity.
Mike’s throat goes tight, holding captive any words that attempt to claw their way out. There’s this intense feeling that poisons him, fear- like he’s being felt at gunpoint. His gaze is torn away, shifting back to his plate in quiet shame as everyone surrounding him falls back into meaningless conversation, the sound resembling something much like background television, not fully making it into his brain.
The clock ticks on, louder than usual, making dull thumps against his ears as he desperately wills for the hands to shift faster and to escape to the warm embrace of sleep.
Time moves slow and syrupy, dragging its heels with every passing minute until eventually the clock hands reach a reasonable time for Mike to be excused and go to his room.
He shuts the door behind him, leaning back against it as the buzz grows louder. The mechanical ticking of the clock downstairs pounds through his brain as the day replays over and over in his head. Nothing makes sense, but he puts it down to exhaustion.
Climbing clumsily into bed, his hand hovers over his lamp- a slight but undeniable tremble in his fingers- before retracting it, letting the soft light extinguish the shadows and any monsters that lurk beneath them.
Sleep washes over him not long after his head hits the pillow, suffocating rather than the comfort he had expected, slipping deeper into slumber until the buzz ceased and his brain could rest from the heavy traffic of thoughts…
It doesn’t last long.
“…ike? miKE? M...KE, C...ME BACK TO M...”
His eyes fly open, breath hitching in his throat and heart racing as he frantically darts his eyes over his new surroundings, desperately seeking the source of whatever woke him.
Darkness.
It surrounds him, swallowing him whole. Water pools underneath him, every step he takes causing his reflection below to distort and shatter, pushing soft waves across the inky river.
“MIKE?”
Will.
The sound of Will’s voice echoes around the emptiness, drifting in and out of focus as Mike stumbles aimlessly through the dark, the words ringing out in every direction- leaving Mike completely lost on the source of the sound and only adding fuel to the roaring fire of his panic.
The void is endless, heartbeat speeding up along with his breathing as the possibility of escape seems more futile by the second. But most terrifying of all, he can’t hear Will’s voice anymore. He’s completely alone.
“WILL?!”
He wakes up in a cold sweat, sitting bolt upright and taking in sharp gulps of air, chest heaving and threatening for his heart to tear itself out with how quickly it’s beating.
The stale, dusty air in his bedroom can’t quite seem to satisfy his lungs so he instead rushes to swing open the window and invite in the cold breeze lurking outside, burrowing deep into his skin. Mike swallows down short breaths of fresh air like he’s drowning, letting it fill his lungs as he suppresses a shiver. It’s bitter and biting but eventually, his breathing slows down and his thoughts begin to drift alongside the quiet wind.
The dream is quickly fading from his mind but he remembers one thing for certain- Will’s voice.
He doesn’t sleep much that night.
——————————————————————————
As usual, Mike and Will have left packing for college until the very last second. Which is why on the very last day of their summer break, instead of soaking up the last dredges of sunlight or going swimming with the rest of their friends, they’re sat in Mike’s dimly lit basement sorting through whatever they want to bring with them.
Their suitcases are stuffed with clothes that barely fit them but they can’t bring themselves to let go of just yet, random pieces of childhood they’ve managed to salvage from the wreckage of the basement- all of that is important but there’s one thing that Mike really needs to bring with him.
Will’s drawings are displayed with immense pride across the basement walls, Mike reluctantly taking them down from their place as he slides them into a binder and tucks them neatly into his suitcase.
“You kept them?” Will’s voice echoes out from his place on the couch. Heat rises up to Mike’s face and he keeps his gaze firmly planted on the contents of his suitcase.
“Why wouldn’t I?” He mumbled “I always love seeing what you draw”
Will remains silent behind him, his gaze feels like it’s burning a hole into the back of Mike’s skull. The words he’s just spoken now taste bitter in his mouth, like he’s just confessed to some sort of crime, the heavy silence not doing anything to calm his nerves-
“Cool- I just, didn’t realise you liked them that much I guess” He can hear the smile in Will’s voice before he turns round to face him. It’s like a scene out of some lame romance movie, time slows down and all he can focus on is Will.
College is gonna suck without him.
Mike walks over to sit beside Will on the dusty, moth eaten sofa, gently bobbing his leg up and down and fidgeting with his hands before his next words escape from his mouth.
“Hey, I- I know this is a stupid thing to ask but, do you still think about what happened in the upside down?” He asks, voice meek and uncertain, like everything he’s just said would make Will think he’s gone crazy- or is broken somehow.
Will takes his time to respond, mouth slightly parted as he tries to figure out what to say- “I mean, yeah sometimes. It’s hard not to” He begins “But it’s over now, right? Vecna’s gone.”
“I know- yeah but, don’t you think it felt… too easy almost?” Mike questions,
“That’s easy for you to say Mike, all you did was shoot a couple flares” Will laughs, Mike’s sure it was meant to be a lighthearted joke but it comes out sounding bitter and wrong, the words sinking their teeth into him and poisoning him with a heavy sense of guilt.
They sit in uncomfortable silence for a few moments as Mike thinks on what to say, unsure of whether to choke out a half hearted apology and move on or push forward on a topic Will doesn’t seem all that interested in talking about.
He decides, stupidly, on the latter.
“I’m being serious, Will!” He gestures wildly with his hands to get Will’s attention “It just seemed so.... I don’t know, easy!
-
I mean this guy is pure evil, and crazy powerful too! Is it that weird to think that a couple of teenagers shouldn’t have been able to outsmart the guy who can literally read minds and-“
“Mike.”
His frenzied ramblings stop immediately when he hears Will’s tone. When he turns to face him, he swears for a fraction of a second that something like anger flashed in Will’s eyes before it’s replaced with his usual kind but stubborn gaze.
“It’s over, Mike. He’s gone.” His blood runs cold at words that should be a comfort to him, it’s wrong, it’s all so wrong and suffocating and the walls feel like they’re closing in on him the longer that Will keeps staring with eyes that don’t belong to him, the air is heavy and hard to swallow and the buzz in his mind keeps growing louder and louder-
He looks away. Mike stays rooted in place, before mumbling something about getting a glass of water and rushing out of the basement.
He doesn’t talk to Will for the rest of the day.
——————————————————————————
College is lonely.
Mike’s dorm room has been empty pretty much since the day he got here. It didn’t take long for his nightmares to drive away his roommate- waking up drenched in terror and a cold sweat, screaming out Will’s name.
It didn’t bother him at first, but after awhile the aching loneliness began to set in.
He could ignore it before, block it out like some dull background noise, but he’s noticed more and more that everything is… well, wrong. He isn’t sure how else to describe it.
The colour of someones backpack shifting to a slightly different shade, faces he recognises in the hallway but are gone in a blink, clock hands changing colours- and everywhere he goes, a faint clock chime haunting him, following him like a shadow.
It all gets too much one day, everything is too loud, too bright, too familiar and yet all too different all at once and it makes him sick to his stomach. He needs to hear Will’s voice again, he’ll understand.
He missed the party. He missed it so much.
It’s late, and he’s drunk, and stupidly- he decided to call Will at two in the morning.
The phone rings a couple times before he picks up and a warm feeling of relief blooms through Mike’s chest.
“Mike? What’s going on, are you okay?” Will’s voice bleeds out from the phone speaker- tired, warm and far more intoxicating than anything Mike has ended up drinking tonight.
“Nothing, I just- wanted to hear your voice” Mike’s voice is slurred and quiet, it’s obvious he’s been drinking but Will is kind enough not to bring it up.
“Mike- seriously are you okay? It’s late.” Concern colours Will’s voice as he speaks.
“I’m fine I promise, I miss you though.” He knows he must sound pathetic right now, but he can’t find it in himself to care.
“I miss you too.”
Warmth floods to his face at the quiet words that filter out of the speaker, but he blames it on the alcohol. Every emotion he’s kept tightly locked down and bottled up threatens to spill over, years of repression and guilt turning over in Mike’s stomach as a wave of nausea sweeps over him.
But he doesn’t hang up, not just yet- even just the sound of Will’s breathing is helping to keep him sane right now, something he hasn’t had the comfort of feeling in months.
“How’s college been?” He asks, trying to steer the conversation away from anything that could result in some kind of humiliating drunken confession.
“Stressful” He breathes out “It’s been weird not having the whole party together.”
“Yeah, I’m still getting used to it.”
A quiet sigh echoes on the other end of the line, but an awkward silence follows as neither of them are quite sure what to say next.
Everything felt distant between them lately, it wasn’t like it used to be, when they would stay up late into the night talking about anything and everything, barely stopping to take a breath.
Now silence stretched on for what seemed like hours as they both racked their brains for some kind of relevant topic of conversation, but when they managed to land on something- it felt strange, like Will was reciting lines rather than having an actual conversation with him.
The silence leaves room for Mike to start regretting his impulsive call, just as he’s about to hang up though- Will’s voice cuts through the phone again.
“Wake up, Mike”
A cold chill runs down Mike’s spine, as he sits there stunned for a couple seconds. Will’s voice is hard and cold, completely different to the tone he was speaking with moments ago.
“…W-what?”
“Wake up, MIKE WAKE UP, WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP”
He’s screaming now, desperate and pleading, chanting the same words over and over and over
“WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MIKE WAKE UP MI-“
He slams the phone shut, throwing it across the room as he pushes himself further into the corner. Tears stream down his face as a cold fear plagues his body.
He doesn’t speak to Will anymore.
——————————————————————————
Days have begun to blur together to the point where Mike almost managed to convince himself he was stuck in some kind of time-loop. That unsettling feeling begins to blend into rest of the buzz in his mind, fading into nothing but background noise.
He’s become well accustomed to the loneliness of it all, the mechanical sound of the typewriter’s hollow keys echoing around his empty dorm room, confined to writing words that deep down he knows no one will ever read and writing stories about friends that barely speak to him anymore.
Mike pauses, letting his finger relax for a minute- a dull ache in his hands from the constant input, instead opting to drum them lightly against the desk. He sits in the heavy silence of his room, his eyes almost immediately drawn to the painting like a magnet, something he finds himself staring at ever too frequently these days.
Any small details that may have seemed wrong before have faded away into the painful normalcy of everything. The incessant and nagging unsettling feeling he once got when he gazed upon it has been replaced with guilt. Hearing Will’s words in the van replay in his mind, an aching reminder of how he failed El- how he failed both of them.
These past few months she’s been… lost without you.
She’s so different from other people and it’s really scary to be different.
But- you make her feel like she’s not a mistake at all, like she’s better for being different.
Losing you- it just hurts- it hurts too much.
El needs you Mike. And she always will.
There’s not a single ounce of comfort he can find in these words anymore, only leaving a bitter taste in his mouth and yet he can’t quite get them out of his head. Stuck replaying them like a broken record, over and over and over...
He stands, tracing over the brush strokes that feel out of place and yet all too familiar, hand freezing as it hovers over Will the Wise before his gaze drifts over the heart painted delicately upon his own shield.
A pause, a beat, a quiet moment in stunned silence- a ringing in his ears as if a gunshot had just gone off- his eyes unable to be torn away and his body stood completely frozen and unmoving, swaying slightly from the intense waves of nausea that wash over him.
His heartbeat tries to match the speed his mind is racing, the realisation hitting him sharp and unforgiving. Everything comes tumbling down all at once, leaving no room for him to breathe.
Bile rises in his throat- acidic and hot as he uses up the last dredges of energy to sprint to the bathroom, head pounding as he empties the contents of his stomach- bitter chunks of food escaping from his mouth as he kneels over the toilet bowl.
The taste alone is enough to make him want to throw up again as he kneels there, clumsily dragging his sleeve across his mouth and leaning back to rest against the wall, clutching the sides of his now painfully hollow stomach with trembling hands.
His head is still pounding as he tastes salt from tears he hadn’t realised had fallen. Those words are still echoing in his head but now he’s really hearing them for the first time, hearing Will’s words for the first time. The very words he’d been waiting to hear for so long now, words that carried that conformation that Will loved him back.
I need you Mike, and I always will.
If only he hadn’t been so caught up in his own head, looking back now it was so obvious that Will was lying about that painting- El had never cared about DnD, but he was so desperate to cling onto some semblance of normalcy that he blindly accepted what was given to him without a second thought. And that had cost him the only light in his life, the person that he had promised to go crazy together with but now he’s sat on the spinning bathroom floor, alone and out of his mind- going crazy still.
The bathroom is too small, the walls are tight and suffocating, snatching every last remnant of air left in Mike’s lungs, inching closer and closer as the ceiling spins alongside it until he can’t take it anymore. Without thinking, he rises from his place on the cold, bathroom tiles and sprints out of there- out of his dorm into the heavy, pounding rain.
He runs with no particular direction in mind, the only thought racing through his head being to get away.
Car’s screech to a halt, dull screams echoing from their horns but not quite piercing Mike’s ears as he sprints across the road, frantically mumbling apologies as he does so.
He runs until the air in his lungs has run empty and his legs feel like lead, not fully processing exactly where he is. The rain is still jagged and sharp, like teardrop shards of glass, weighing him down and cutting deep into his skin.
Eventually, after what feels like hours, as he finally pauses to stop for breath- he finds himself standing at…
The quarry.
The very same quarry that a younger Mike had willingly leapt off of a mere few years ago.
He can still remember it, Dustin’s muffled voice- begging him to stop, as Mike inched closer and closer to the edge, staring down into the welcoming void below. Desperately convincing himself that he was doing this for Dustin and not due to the fact he had seen Will’s lifeless, rotting body dragged out of the dredges of this very quarry he was now teetering upon the edge of.
He can still feel that same pull now. The feeling of misery tugging his feet to the magnetic pull of the below- it’s jagged mouth swallowing a couple stray rocks that tumble down as Mike shuffles closer to his demise.
The ground sways beneath his feet with every step, short, ragged breaths not doing nearly enough to satisfy the demand of his lungs.
There is nothing left for him here, nothing but friends who can barely stand the sight of him and a house filled with strangers in the place of his family. But most significantly of all, he’s lost Will. The very same reason he was stood at the edge of this quarry years ago.
He closes his eyes- letting the darkness engulf him- and taking a long, shaky breath, preparing himself for the fall below, recalling the biting rush of air when he’d leapt off here before, his stomach turning upside down as gravity dragged his body further and further downwards…
…eave in the morning with everything you own in a little black case
He freezes.
Eyes flying open and every bone in his body unable to move as he strains to hear the faint lyrics of a song played far too many times in the dark quiet of his room.
“Will?” He whispers to himself, almost afraid to acknowledge- afraid to accept what he’s hearing. God maybe he really is going crazy. He stands in the deafening silence of his surroundings, the lyrics are fuzzy and distant- like he’s hearing them underwater.
“MIKE, YOU HAVE TO WAKE UP”
A shiver runs down his spine, for the first time in months, he’s heard Will’s voice. Not the soulless puppet that took his place, but his Will. The words echo from the distant below of the quarry and he almost jumps in right then and there just for the chance to hear his voice again- even if it’s the last thing he ever hears.
“WILL?!” He screams, the name clawing its way out from his throat, as if his calls would somehow reach the disembodied voice.
Burning tears threaten to spill as Mike chokes out Will’s name again and again and again, the music gets louder and louder, absorbing Mike’s agonising cries until he can no longer hear his own voice.
“WILL?!” His throat burns from screams he can’t hear, unable to even bear the sound of the music anymore- his hands shoot up to cover his ears as he falls to his knees on the sharp jagged rocks.
His thoughts drown out, the sharp magnetic tug of the void below calls to him. His body goes limp, drifting closer,
and closer,
and closer…
until he lets himself tumble down into the wide, hungry jaws of the quarry- letting it swallow him whole.
The wind rushes beneath him, cold, bitter and biting on his skin before the air is knocked out of him and he collides with the inky water, disappearing beneath it.
For awhile, there’s nothing but darkness- overwhelming, suffocating darkness- it’s cold hands choking out the last dredges of air remaining in Mike’s lungs as he drowns in the thick, syrupy liquid.
“…ike.? miK E COME B…..CK
T…. ME, PL….ASE
Y…OU PROMI….ED”
Mike is vaguely aware of Will calling out to him, water filling his ears and making it sound muffled and foggy as he uses the last of his strength to cling desperately onto his voice like a lifeline.
He has to get home to him, he can’t leave Will-
He can’t… not again.
He can feel Death’s cold hands reaching out to him, dragging him further and further downwards as the light above him fades away and his mind slips into the comfort of unconsciousness, the pain slowly ebbing away along with the rest of the noise in his mind. Will’s voice becomes a distant memory- nothing but a dull buzz.
“mike? … m…k… ar…. y…u st…ll w…th…. me?”
He wants to fight it, to kick and thrash and scream until he gets back to Will. He wants to drag his mind from the depths of eternal sleep and claw his way out until he’s home again, but every last ounce of fight left in him has gone, fading away with every passing second until he can barely move.
The world goes black, he can’t tell anymore if his eyes are closed or if it’s just the darkened depths of the water.
The rest of party will end up reading about his death in some bullshit newspaper the next day, his parents will sit over their morning coffee- spending at least a few blissful moments unaware that their sons rotting corpse is at the bottom of the quarry.
It’ll become the latest Hawkins story, the same people who spread all those bullshit rumours about Will’s disappearance will light candles and pretend they cared. He wonders what kind of rumours will be whispered about his death.
Would the locals have heard his screams- his desperate, pleading cries of Will’s name before he fell?
“m…… plea….se, i love you”
“I love you”