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The bunker slowly came into focus as Mike blinked open his eyes. The icy air hit him immediately and his bones felt stiff after the long, freezing night. The dingy mattress provided little comfort, it was mostly each others body warmth that let them sleep at night. Speaking of the other, where was Will?
Mike sat up groggily, rubbing his eyes and yawning as he stretched his arms high above his head in an attempt to loosen his muscles. He slumped back down into a lazy sitting position before looking behind him for Will.
Will wasn't lying next to him.
Mike shrugged, not paying much mind to it as he stood up and paced around the bunker, sifting through leftover piles of junk for something interesting. He rummaged around them for a bit before he realized there was nothing of the sort. He tilted his head, figuring he would go and bother Will for some source of entertainment.
Ever since the nuclear bomb had hit and they'd been in the bunker, Will and Mike had been each others only company. Not even Sneaky Link was around anymore. There were slim pickings for entertainment, either wandering around the wasteland (which notably looks a lot like Fallout 4) or looking through the piles of trash, or just talking to eachother.
Will wasn't really bad company, Mike thought. Just weird. And gay. And sometimes tried to kill Mike. But he was kind of okay if you put all that aside. On boring mornings like these they would mostly just chat, maybe fight, maybe Will would start vomiting slugs and Mike would offer half-hearted consolation while he studied them.
Where was Will? Mike walked over to the stairs and began heading toward the bunker door, not in any particular rush. Maybe Will had found food, or something new and interesting that would break the endless cycle of boredom.
Mikes train of thought was broken as he reached the door and pushed it open, the heavy metal thing throwing up clouds of dirt as it scraped against the ground. Mike stepped out, the glaring hot sun a sharp contrast to the freezing cold bunker.
"Will?" Mike called out. He probably shouldn't draw attention to himself like this, what with all the demoslugs (or maybe demodogs by now, some of them) roaming around hunting for prey. But he did so anyway, scanning the wasteland for Will.
"Dude, this is so cringe!" Mike huffed as he walked lazily around in a circle as if that would help anything. He was about to call out rudely again when he spotted something far in the distance. A heap or lump of some sort that wasn't there yesterday. Upon squinting his eyes at it he realized it looked vaguely like a body.
Mike raised an eyebrow, not particularly worried. Maybe a survivor of the bomb was trying to find help and died. He walked over, figuring he could pick-pocket the corpse, but as he came closer he came to the unnerving realization that it was wearing Will's clothes. What was Will doing out here?
He'd passed out after vomiting slugs before, so he must've came out here to throw up then fainted. The sun beating down on an unconscious Will can't be good, can it? Mike started going a bit faster, finally arriving at and stopping in front of the body who's back faced him.
Just to make sure he wasn't napping, Mike lightly kicked his back with his foot. "Wake up, man!"
Will did not wake up.
Mike huffed in annoyance, dropping on his knees down to Will's side and grabbing his shoulders, turning him over. Mike was about to make a bothersome remark before freezing at how stiff Will felt.
Passing out does this to people, right? But as Mike leaned in closer and brought a hand up to Will's face, gently lifting one of his eyelids to look at his eyes, they were dull and lifeless. Mike's hand immediately flew to Will's chest, feeling around it and realizing there was no rise and fall. No signs of living.
Mike just stared, mouth hanging open. Staring into eyes that had once sparked with love, with hatred, with all sorts of emotions that now looked vacantly at him. Mike dropped his shoulder and let him fall back to the ground, hand still splayed out on his chest as if he would feel a pulse any moment now.
Then Mike looked up, and a foot away from the body, was Will's rifle. Uncomfortable and unsettled, Mike grabbed Will's cheek with his free hand and turned his head over, sucking a breath in through his teeth as he stared at the bullet wound on the side of Will's skull.
He's dead. Will killed himself and he's dead. Mike took his hands off of him and let them hang uselessly at his sides as mentally he scrambled to remember the last thing he'd said to Will.
He tilted his head. Will didn't say much last night, just some weird questions Mike thought not much of. Their small conversation came back to Mike.
They were in the bunker. Mike laid on his back on the mattress, and Will was sitting on his knees in front of the junk piles. Not doing much rummaging and more just staring at the trash.
Mike had sat up, hands behind him pressing on the mattress to support himself. "What are you doing?" Mike had asked, running a hand through his hair lazily attempting to ruffle it up. Will had sighed and turned his head toward the other.
"Mike, what are we doing?" He had asked. Will looked disturbed, uncomfortable, but numb at the same time. Like he'd already decided something he wasn't telling the other. Mike had paused for a moment, then shrugged. "I dunno. What do you wanna do? Not much on our calendar."
Will had narrowed his eyes. "No, I mean.. What are we looking for?" He'd turned away and stared distantly at the wall, maybe at something Mike couldn't see. Mike had snorted at the absurdity of the question.
"Home Depot, if its not burnt to the ground already." Mike had responded, tilting his head. "Maybe.. We'll find a struggling group of survivors and become their leaders!" Mike had grinned. "And our civilization will grow so big that we'll split up, and you'll rule one part and I'll rule the other and we can fight for territory." Mike had snickered as he finished, but Will just looked more upset.
"Mike, I'm tired." Will's voice had been small, like they were kids again. But Mike had just shrugged. "Then go to bed."
Will had looked at him for what felt like hours, almost like he was memorizing something, before turning away and letting his arms fall to his sides. "You're right."
Mike was snapped back to the present as a fly buzzed before settling onto Will's nose. Mike shooed it away as he stared at the corpse, a million thoughts conflicting in his head. Will was dead? No, couldn't be. Will was always with him, kind of like a dog. A loving dog that even if you beat it and locked it up it would still chew at the metallic mesh of its cage begging to be at your side again.
Will would come back, Mike was sure of it. Maybe this was all a prank, something out of the Truman show, and the real Will would tap his shoulder right now. Mike would look behind him and see Will grinning and Mike would stand up and maybe laugh with him and tell him how stupid that prank was. And how unfunny the listless eyes of his corpse looked.
But there was no cameras, this was no fake dummy body, and it was all too real. Mike pulled Will's head into his lap and just stared at his face. He thought about how relaxed he looked now. His brow was always furrowed as if he was constantly concentrating on something, but it wasn't now. His dimples were always especially noticeable when he smiled, but he wasn't now.
Maybe he was. Just somewhere else Mike couldn't see. He was never particularly religious, but Mike figured if there was a heaven, Will would go to it. He was never evil like Mike was. He wanted to kill people sometimes, but that was just the Mind Flayer messing with his head. He was just weak and pathetic, in need of protecting.
Hell was no place for someone like Will, who hid under the kitchen table when Lonnie and Joyce were arguing. Who needed Mike at his side when the kids at school called him things like zombie boy.
Mike suddenly hoped desperately that there was no heaven or hell. That there was no afterlife or trials after death. That he would never see Will again as a ghost or as an angel or as anything at all because he knew Will was tired. The kind of exhaustion a good night's sleep couldn't fix.
Mike turned his head and stared at the bunker door. Will shot himself so far from it, maybe so the noise of the gunshot wouldn't wake Mike in the night.
Mike was never one for crying, or sympathy, or anything like that at all, so he didn't cry. He just looked back at Will and brushed his hair out of his face, as if he'd even care about that now.
Maybe Will had the right idea, Mike thought. He slowly slid the others head off his lap and stood up, walking around the body to pick up the gun. Mike held it as if it were something fragile. A prize, a treasure. A reward. It still had a bullet left, maybe unintentional, or maybe Will had expected Mike to follow him.
Mike almost had half a mind to pray right now that wherever they went, if they did go somewhere, that he could see Will again. But he knew if there was anywhere he was going, it was much lower than heaven.
He dropped to his knees beside Will again. He felt a sudden and strange urge to be close to Will. Not for warmth like they did in the bunker but maybe just for old times sake, like when they had sleepovers at each others houses as kids. So he wrapped his arms around Will, just below his chest, and hugged him.
Mike held him tight, maybe enough to restrict his breathing if he was still doing that at all. With his hands still wrapped around Will, he picked up the gun and pressed the barrel to his forehead.
He tilted his head to lean on Will's, huffing with a strange finality. The gun was a bit awkward to hold, what with its length, but he positioned it to hit his brain and kill him without a doubt. This was the end, he supposed. An end of his own doing. He was strangely calm as he shifted the gun again and mumbled something to deaf ears one last time.
"Love you." And he pressed down on the trigger.