hi guys its me. im feeling,,,kinda terrible rn so here’s some angst i wrote a little while ago!
Something was wrong.
Will knew Mike too well to believe his yeah guys, I’ll be fine! that had sounded far too flat to be reassuring.
He knew Mike had been struggling; it hadn’t been hard to see, not when he was with El, not when Nancy made that offhand comment about his room while they were cleaning Hopper’s cabin.
And yeah, maybe…maybe Mike had changed. Will didn’t doubt that. Change was inevitable, especially with them, between them, and…and that was something that Will had learned to deal with a long, long time ago.
But something about Mike’s volunteering didn’t seem right.
“You weren’t seeing the counselor though, were you, Mike?” Dustin asked, tying a bandana around his head to keep his curls from falling into his face.
Will looked at Mike, expecting a scoff, but he hesitated, hand reaching up to nervously comb through his hair. It had gotten longer in the past couple of weeks - the lack of barbers in Hawkins had ensured that - and was getting curlier, almost. His fingers got caught halfway through. “Well,” he started, then shook his head. “I would never, I’m not—“
“There’s nothing wrong with it, Mike,” Lucas said gently, putting a hand on Mike’s shoulder. “Max was going to her, before—“
“I’m not depressed! I’m fine,” Mike said, too loudly, and Will could feel his eyes widen against his will. Mike took a deep breath before he continued. “I’ll just make him want me, and then when he’s vulnerable, you guys can kill him.”
“We all know how well that worked last time,” Erica pointed out, eyebrows lifted at Mike. Lucas looked down at his hands, and Will ached for him.
He couldn’t imagine losing someone he loved. Holding them in his arms as they pleaded for their life. Watching as the light drained from their eyes.
He wasn’t going to lose anyone else. No one was. Will would make sure of that.
Mike’s lips turned down. “Yeah, well, it’s different this time.” He reached for a bandana, and he wrapped it around his face, covering and protecting his mouth from the spores that still made Will’s lungs ache, all these years later. “We have El, and we have Will.” He brushed his hair back out of his eyes, and Will’s fingers itched to fix it, to put it up, to let his fingertips graze over Mike’s forehead.
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do, Mike,” Will said quietly, fingers twitching slightly at his side.
Mike looked to him, and something shone in his eyes that Will couldn’t place. He put a soft hand on Will’s shoulder. “You’re gonna be there, and you’re gonna make sure that I don’t get taken.”
“Okay,” Will said. His voice sounded small, even to his own ears, but he didn’t care, because Mike was depending on him. They all were.
***
Will didn’t know why they were at the quarry.
He’d just followed Mike—like he always did—and they’d ended up…here.
Mike set his bike down carefully, and Will watched him curiously. Mike shuffled forward, towards the edge, and— “Mike.”
He turned to Will. His thin body was backlit by the unsettling red lighting from the Upside Down, and it made Mike look ill. Will swung a leg over his bike. “Mike.”
“This is where you died, Will,” Mike said quietly, so softly Will had to take a step forward to hear him. “They found your body here, they—“
“But I didn’t die, Mike,” Will interrupted. He could feel his bravery cracking, like the lightning in the sky above them. “I’m here, I’m here.”
“I know,” Mike said, looking away as his voice seemed to shatter. “I know, but god, it looked so real. It was…it was you.”
Will vaguely remembered hearing about it. The government had made an exact replica of…of him, his body, and had left it in the cold water below them. To cover up that he had actually been taken.
“And I couldn’t—“ Mike turned all the way away from Will, curls cascading against his back like a waterfall. “I couldn’t live without you. So I—fuck, One! Come on! Don’t make me say it!”
Mike was yelling now, and it echoed through the eerily desolate landscape around them. Will took a step back, more out of surprise than anything, and he looked around frantically. “Mike—“
“You’ve been in my head, you fucker! You know I jumped because I couldn’t live without him! You know I did! And you know about the letters and the thoughts and the things I can’t bear to say to him! You know everything!” Mike’s screams were hurting Will’s ears, and he covered them with his hands. Will watched in terror as Mike spun to face him, hands on his head, eyes crazed. “Come out and take me! Please! I’m ready to go! Let me out of here!”
“Mike!” Will screamed, pointing behind Mike, and he turned around just in time to see Vecna walking at him, hand raised. Mike fell to the ground, like a puppet with cut strings, and Will tried to run towards him, but he couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t—
“Will.”
His voice was everywhere. Will bent over at the waist, mouth open in a silent scream, ears covered with his hands, like his flesh would do anything to stop the terrors of his mind.
“I’ve waited so long for you,” Vecna said, walking past unconscious Mike, whose pale, pale face was twisted into a sick grin, and Will wanted to vomit. “You’ve finally come back to me.”
“No,” Will sobbed, shaking his head. “You’re not real, you’re not real, you’re not—“
“Oh, but I am, Will,” he said, running a finger under Will’s jaw. Suddenly, some vines were snapping out of the underbrush, wet tendrils digging into his skin as they gripped Will’s limbs and lifted him into the air. “I’m more real than anything you’ve ever seen.”
A vine gripped Will’s throat, and he choked out another sob before Vecna was in his face, warm breath puffing over Will’s skin. “You’ve always been lied to, Will.” He pointed at where Mike lay on the ground, limbs askew like he had fallen, or jumped from somewhere very high, oh god— “Maybe it was all your fault, this whole time. For being different.”
He spat the word like venom, and Will recoiled hard enough for the vines holding him in the air to tighten their grip to hold him upright.
“You’re the reason he’s dead,” Vecna hissed, lifting Mike with a hand. “You made him love you, so much that he couldn’t live without you. Does this look like something good to you, Will?”
Mike was thrown at Will’s feet like he weighed nothing, and Will screamed, agony becoming so unbearable that his chest felt like it was collapsing.
“That’s what I thought.” Vecna nodded to himself, then motioned to the apocalyptic hell around him. “If you come with me, we can be good.”
Will shook his head as tears pricked his eyes. The vines around his neck tightened.
“We could be heroes, Will.”
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