Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

For the fourth day in a row, Mike woke up to bite marks in his bedposts.

Mike would’ve liked to say he had some sort of idea as to what creature was crawling around his bed at night and sinking its teeth into the wooden slats of his bedframe, but he'd done enough lying for five lifetimes, probably. So, to avoid adding another mark on the endless tally of lies he'd told, Mike would admit it; he was at a loss, and that was freaking him out. What sort of interdimensional creature would choose to slink around his bed and gnaw on wood instead of his legs? Other than termites— whose teeth were definitely not big enough to stab three-inch deep holes in his bed, unless there were now demo-termites crawling around the Upside Down— Mike was pretty sure the amount of animals that got more sustenance from wood than human flesh numbered at about zero.

The marks had been steadily encroaching closer to his head throughout the week. He wouldn't have noticed them at all, even, if not for Holly's insistence that he dig up the board games under his bed. Allegedly, she was 'going to literally die of boredom' if he didn’t play with her, so he obliged.

He'd gone to grab a ‘cool game, not one for losers’ at Holly’s request, even if he was a little— okay, scratch that— way too stressed out to focus on a board game in the middle of the apocalypse. Holly, however, might have been too young to grasp the severity of the literal end of the world. Instead of worrying about her impending death, Mike's sister was going stir-crazy from her fifth week of, as she called it, 'apocalyptic house arrest', but he couldn’t blame her. Mike was pretty sure he was going crazy, too.

(Mike had almost been put on apocalyptic house arrest as well, until he'd insisted he was, in fact, strong enough to go on monster-hunting patrols with the rest of the adults.

He had almost regretted his insistence when it led to a week of gun training with Steve and Jonathan. Almost, because while struggling to fire a pistol in front of Will's brother— who kept glaring at him, for some reason, like his incorrect weapon usage was a worse crime than murder— it was leagues better than staying stuck inside his house, useless and unneeded. At least he was doing something, instead of sitting like a waiting duck for Vecna to snap his neck.)

In that moment, however, there had been no patrols for him to go on. So, despite Mike's desire to pace around his room until his legs started to shake, or practice his speed on reloading a gun until his forearms went numb with the effort, he had reluctantly agreed to play one round of Monopoly with her. One.

When Mike crouched down under his bed to fish out his battered Star Wars Monopoly board, he had decided that they were going to play zero rounds of Monopoly, actually, because he found something a bit more pressing to focus on; the six-inch long claw marks scored into his bedframe. The scratches had marred his bed and tore up the carpet floor, scattered next to a peppering of deep, jagged holes, all stained with something dark and tacky that ran through the splintered wood and pooled in a thick puddle at the foot of his bed. His old board games were covered in the shit, too. Sorry, Hols, can't play. Something bled out at the foot of my bed, and I think it's trying to kill me!

Holly might have been young, but she was smart enough to understand that some things were more dangerous than boredom— see, fanged monsters gnawing at your bed. That wasn't exactly how he wanted to get out of playing mind-numbing board games with his sister, but it worked in a pinch.

At the moment, however, Mike would rather have played a million rounds of Monopoly with Holly, because these bite marks were getting far too close to his face. If they got closer to his body every night, and if every serrated bite and claw mark was currently strung in a ring around his neck and face, then the next day—

He couldn't keep this a secret any longer. Yeah, okay, maybe not telling anyone how he'd been tormented by some strange monster in his sleep for nearly a week at this point wasn't really the smartest thing. But they had bigger things to worry about, okay? And sure, Mike could have gone to sleep one night and not woken up, but that might not have been the worst thing. He still struggled to aim a shotgun, and he was mostly a dead weight on patrols, and no one really needed him anyway. It might have been a relief, but— Holly was getting really anxious about all the bite marks, and the candy bribes Mike had been using probably wouldn't work anymore, not when the price was her brother's life. Even if Mike still couldn't wrap his head around why she cared so much.

Holly's lip had wobbled once, and Mike had caved instantly. God, he was a sucker. It was just like Will's wide doe eyes, how one blink could convince Mike to jump off a cliff if only Will asked, but those fluttering lashes made him weak for different reasons. Reasons like Will's my best friend, of course I'd do anything he asked and I want Will to need me, of course I'd do anything he asked and I love Will, of course I'd do anything he asked.

Of course I'd do anything he asked. He's Will.

He tried not to think about the last one too much, but it was damn hard when he literally couldn't escape Will. The Byers family had been living with the Wheelers since Hawkins had split open; Will had been sleeping in the basement with Jonathan, and Mike had been lucky enough to keep his own room— but other than the fitful hours they spent asleep, Mike couldn't stop himself from hovering around Will near constantly. Maybe it was his own fault he couldn't get away from Will, then.

He'd gone to inform Will of the bite marks first. Mike didn't want Will to also get hurt by the monster, so he wasn't going to let Will do anything stupid like try to catch it. He just wanted someome to confide in, and Will was always a good listener. Killing this thing was Mike's job— and maybe Lucas's too, since he actually knew how to use a gun.

Right now, however, Mike had gone as far as stalling on the basement stairs, thinking hard on how to phrase his problem without sounding insane, or giving anyone a reason to worry. Hey guys? So there's these bite marks in my bed, and I think I'm being tormented by one of Vecna's minions, or something— minions, really? That sounded stupid—

"Mike," said Dustin, rolling his eyes at Mike from his spot on the couch, "you know we can see you, right?"

"Stop standing there ominously and get down here," Lucas agreed. "And stop staring at Will, too. It's creepy."

Mike threw his hands up in the air. "I'm not—"

"So that's why I felt like someone was watching me," Will murmured, his voice scratchy with sleep. Though Mike's friends were usually right when they said he’d been staring at Will, Mike hadn't even seen him until he spoke. Will had himself buried in a pile of blankets, huddling in the corner of a couch with his head slumped on the armrest. He was practically invisible, brown blanket against the brown couch, mop of brown hair nearly covering his eyes— he looked cute, all cozy like that.

If he kept thinking things like that, Mike would probably do something stupid like blush bright red, or pull Will's blanket around them both and lean his head on Will's shoulder. Instead of curling up to Will on the couch, Mike pushed the thought away and walked down the steps instead of lunging for the couch like a crazy person.

Mike was trying not to overreact, but there had been something off about Will, lately. He had chalked it all up to the stress of their impending doom and the constant weight of Vecna on the back of his neck, which was why he didn't want to burden Will with anything more than all the shit he already had weighing on his shoulders, but— maybe, Mike thought, there could be something more to his recent listlessness than stress.

He'd never seen Will this pale before. Back in Lenora, there had been a healthy, glowing flush to his skin, a smooth tan running across his newly-built arms— okay, don't get it twisted! Mike had done more than stare at Will's weirdly strong arms. He'd looked at Will's face, thought about tracing the shape of his chiseled jaw, ruffling his hand through Will's soft curls—

So he spent a little too much time thinking about Will's appearance, sure. For all the trouble it had brought him, all the late nights he'd spent white-knuckling the bathroom counter wondering Why me? What's wrong with me? Mike had gotten one good thing out of his all-consuming obsession with Will; he could tell, with barely a thought, whether Will was acting strange. And now, as he took the stairs to the basement two at a time, Mike was sure of it. Will was looking and acting weird.

"Thought you were out practicing with Jonathan," Will mumbled, his head drooping against the pillows. His eyes blinked open and closed slowly, like lead weights were pulling on his eyelashes. When Mike caught a glimpse of his irises, they were a dull, dark brown. He squinted to find the usual golden gleam in Will's eyes, and came up empty.

With his pale complexion and dead eyes, it was easy for Mike to think Will looked half-dead. He'd never understood why the whole town had been hell-bent on renaming Will Zombie Boy, with how lively and bright he'd always been, but now?

Now, he looked one missed heartbeat away from becoming a corpse. Mike hated to think about Will that way— and, frankly, he still couldn't stop himself from staring at Will, even if Will looked like he had the flu— but Mike was worried, okay? Will didn't look well at all.

"I, uh," and Mike paused, because he wasn't too keen on explaining how Will's brother kept giving him these weird, knowing looks that made something that felt suspiciously like guilt squirm low in his stomach, "took a break. And there's something I've been wanting to tell you guys, anyway."

Dustin rolled his eyes, which he'd kept fixed on the television screen during their whole conversation. "If Vecna's not about to bomb your house, don't bother. I'm halfway into Fright Night, and it's just gotten really good, so—"

"Dustin," said Mike, through gritted teeth, "I'm not joking."

Lucas leaned over and pressed pause on the VCR, much to Dustin's dismay. Before Dustin's irritated sigh could go on long enough for Mike to do something impulsive, like launch the remote at his forehead, Lucas chucked a pillow at Dustin's face with terrifying accuracy. Jocks scared him, and Lucas was no exception. "He's stupid. The movie isn't even that good, anyway. Right, Will?"

Dustin glared at Lucas over his mouthful of pillow, mumbling something about perfect cinema and awesome vampires, man! Will shrugged, eyes half-closed as he blinked up at Lucas. Just as Mike noticed the gooseflesh on his arms, Will tugged the blanket further over his frame. "Mhm, sure."

"Exactly," said Lucas, shoving Dustin in the shoulder. "So. What happened?"

Mike glanced at Will, lingering on his shivering shoulders with a wince. He didn't look like he should be walking anywhere, but who would be willing to take Mike's word on the monstrous claw marks in his bedframe? "It's— come on. I'll show you."

"Holy shit," breathed Dustin, "when you said bite marks, I thought you meant termites."

"Have you ever seen a termite with fucking sabertooth tiger incisors?" said Lucas, exasperated.

Will laughed, soft and raspy. He sounded like he had a cough— or a lisp, maybe, like how he'd stumbled over his S letters in kindergarten. Could a lisp come back from stress? "I didn't know you still liked tigers, Lucas."

"Yeah, well— I—" Lucas stuttered, huffing something indignant under his breath, "you've got a whole pile of tiger plushies in your closet, so don't even start."

Will still had the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He looked cuddly, which was a word Mike never thought he'd use to describe anything ever, really.

Mike tried again not to do something stupid, like pull Will to his bed and wrap in in a hug, or pull the blanket around them both so he could help Will warm up. His hands itched with the urge to reach out and touch, no matter how hard Mike tried to push it away. "I’ve only got five," Will corrected, smiling a little, "and I'm not ashamed."

His thoughts drifted for a moment, gone to his own little tiger plushie tucked away in his closet. Sometimes, during the months where Will had left to Lenora and Mike missed his best friend so much it ached, he'd take the tiger out of his closet and just— look at it, for a while. It reminded him of Will.

Sometimes, on his worst days, he'd hold it up and stare into its beady brown eyes, think of the way Will's crinkled when he smiled, and sink to the floor with the tiger held close to his chest until the ache faded in its soft, worn fur. If he closed his eyes, Mike could almost imagine Will's head was there in his hands, his hair tangled in Mike's fingers and his smile pressed against Mike's palm.

The ache never truly went away, even now. Even with Will mere inches away from him, Mike still missed him.

"Mike?" said a voice, poking at his side. "Earth to Mike? Are you going to explain this, or let us sit here and wonder whether mutant termites are teaming up with Demogorgons?"

With a start, Mike wrenched his eyes away from Will. He hadn't even realized he'd been staring this time. Fuck. "So-o," he started, drawing out his vowels in a shitty attempt at stalling, "the teeth marks started at the base of my bed, right?"

"And now they're all around your pillow," Lucas said, grimacing, "so you're probably going to get chomped by a giant termite tonight."

"I thought you said it wasn't termites," Mike responded. He traced the edge of the bite mark with his thumb. The blood dried around it was thicker, warmer, clinging to his fingers like glue and sneaking through the beds of his nails. He pulled his hand away with a shudder.

Lucas shrugged in response, leaning over Mike's shoulder to squint at the bite marks. "I only said it was unlikely, and I stand by that. These look more like—"

"Demo-bats," Dustin finished, quiet. "Those holes are the same shape as the ones in Eddie's chest."

Mike turned around. Dustin had gone pale, eyes narrowed on the holes in Mike's bed. He wasn't as pale as Will, but he still didn't look too good, and that was Mike trying to describe it nicely. "You can go downstairs," said Mike, "if this is— too much. I get it."

"It's fine," Dustin said, through gritted teeth. His lip was wobbling, just a little. "I don't want to watch another friend cough up blood, anyway."

Mike frowned, staring hard at the bloodstains on his bedposts. There were no wounds on his body, and nothing external hurt or ached in the slightest, so what the hell was bleeding all over his bed? Whatever the thing was, it had been careful enough not to stain his sheets. Maybe Demo-bats were a polite species, past the killing and the maiming.

"Will?" He turned, glancing behind him. "What do you think?"

For a moment, Will just blinked, staring pointedly at a spot past Mike's shoulder. His lashes cast sharp shadows on his cheeks, strangely hollowed in the light of Mike's bedroom. Had he not been getting enough to eat? "I think," he said, "you should have a stake-out."

Dustin raised both his hands up instantly. "Don't look at me. I mean, it's not like I want you getting torn apart by Demo-bats, but I'm out."

Will started to open his mouth, but Mike moved in before he could even begin to volunteer, or say anything else equally ridiculous. "You," said Mike, pointing a finger at Will's chest, "are not doing anything more dangerous than sitting on the couch and resting."

"What?" Will tilted his head, and the blanket shifted off his shoulder. Mike, against his better judgement, reached over to tuck it back above his arm.

"Are you serious? You look like one breeze could make you keel over dead!" Mike threw his hands up in the air, like he could push the disbelief from his body if he moved quick enough. "You're all— pale, and shivering, and you look like you haven't eaten anything in days, and I didn't want to say anything and be an asshole, but you look sick, Will! You're sick."

Something flashed in Will's listless gaze. For a moment, his eyes went wild, before drooping down again. "I'm not sick."

"You're definitely sick," said Lucas, before turning back to Mike. "I'll stake out with you tonight, but if I die, I'm making sure your family gets sued. And this time, grab a weapon better than a candlestick, please?"

"For the last time, that was a stressful situation, and I was unprepared—" Dustin sent him an unimpressed look, and Mike stopped with an irritated sigh. "Whatever. Just— don't tell anyone about this, okay? I don't want people to worry."

Dustin raised his eyebrows even further, somehow. "You took the risk of getting torn apart by Demo-bats in your sleep because you didn't want to worry anyone."

"Who's surprised," Will murmured into his blanket.

"You cannot be talking," Mike shot back, shoving his finger into Will's chest once again. Maybe he just wanted to keep touching Will, even if it was only through the tip of his finger. Sue him. "You look like you have the plague, and you sound like you have the plague, and you decided not to mention it to anyone? Because?"

"If Will has the plague, I'd be impressed," said Dustin, from somewhere behind Mike. "It's practically extinct— Will, if you got bit by a rat, would you have any idea where it went? For research purposes."

Will glanced down to his chest, where Mike still had his finger jabbed into Will's shirt. Mike pulled away, abashed. "I didn't get bit by a rat, Dustin, and I don't have the plague. I feel fine, just— stressed. Everyone's stressed. Maybe that's why I look half-dead, or whatever." He laughed to himself, like he was in on a joke no one else could get.

"I've never seen anyone look like a corpse because they're stressed," said Lucas, giving Will a disbelieving look. "Come on, let's go downstairs. I'm taking your temperature."

Why hadn't he thought of offering to take Will's temperature? He could have held Will's face in his hand, traced a finger across his temple, leaned in close and tucked a strand of hair behind Will's ear— okay, now was not the time. Not when he was potentially going to become a Demo-bat meal in less than twelve hours.

"Wow, keep giving me compliments," drawled Will, as Lucas marched him down the hallway. "You're too kind."

Dustin glanced over to Mike as he followed behind Lucas. "Wow, you're pissed. Did you really want to take his temperature that bad?"

Mike spluttered, directing his glare at Dustin as he struggled to form words. "You— I— shut up," he finished, weakly.

"I support you," Dustin said, "but every day, I thank God I'm not in your position." With that, he shut the door behind him, leaving Mike's jaw somewhere on the floor.

Mike wasn't that obvious, right?

He'd ask Lucas, but— okay. First of all, he'd rather die than talk about a crush to Lucas, of all people. Lucas would hold it over his head for the rest of his life, and Mike would probably have to kill himself to stop being made fun of.

Secondly, Mike's feelings were so much more than a crush. Mike had done his best to deny it, bury the feelings far away, lock the dirt grave in his mind and throw away the key, but it always came crawling back. He couldn't deny who he was anymore, who he loved.

He'd always known, deep down. What Mike felt for Will had always been love, a slow-blooming thing that grew from friendship, to soft, young love, to a love that burned, a love indescribable. He'd only been too blind to see it, until Will moved thousands of miles away and took Mike's heart with him.

Even then, he tried to push it down. He made sure to keep his distance from Will; half-hugs in an airport, a careful six inches between them on Will's new bed (Same sheets, Mike remembered thinking, a fuzzy feeling blooming in his stomach), a promise to keep himself pressed against a pizza van door, so his and Will's shoulders wouldn't dare brush together. No matter how much he tried to push his body away from Will, Mike couldn't stop his mouth from running closer to Will than ever. It'll be easier, if we're working together again. If we're— friends, again. Best friends. It was embarrassing to think back on, how he'd put his feelings on full display and Will still hadn't got it. Maybe he wasn't as good with words as he thought.

He'd given up trying to keep his distance, both emotionally and physically, once the Byers' family had started sleeping in his house. If the world was ending, Mike wanted to spend as much time as he could with Will, before it all went to Hell in a handbasket. Literally.

Thirdly; Mike and Lucas were on the third hour of their stake-out, and not even a breeze had passed by their door. Now was definitely not the time for sleepover crush talks (even if this wasn't a crush.) In addition, Mike was also beginning to think he was going crazy. If this monster didn’t show up soon, all these bite marks and scratches might end up being some deranged, Vecna-induced shared hallucination.

"Have we considered that the monster might be under the bed?" Lucas said, flicking his flashlight on and off with an irritating click.

"That's cliche," said Mike, "and stop using your flashlight. You're going to scare it off."

Lucas rolled his eyes, the whites gleaming even in pure darkness. "A monster that cares about tropes. You're funny."

"Hey, it didn't get any blood on my bedsheets, so it's got to be a polite monster. Maybe it's well-read, too."

Lucas just sighed, but Mike couldn't blame him for not saying anything else. They were up late, closer to sunrise than sunset, and just because it was a struggle for any of them to get a good nights sleep— you know, with the oncoming threat of death and all— didn't mean staying up for so long wouldn't make them a little bit tired. The other oncoming threat of being torn apart didn't help, either.

Mike had brewed a pot of coffee to keep them awake, but it had gone cold long ago— shit, that reminded him. "So, what was Will's temperature?" He did his best to sound casual, even leaning against the headboard with an arm stretched out wide. Hopefully he'd avoided the bloody spots.

Lucas's wince was obvious, even in pure darkness. Mike could hear the hiss of air between his teeth before he saw Lucas’s grimace. "Seventy-eight degrees. I think the thermometer might be broken, because—"

"That's not possible," Mike finished, quiet.

"I don't know." Lucas trailed off then, twisting the flashlight in his hands. "He was really cold, and when he opened his mouth, his tongue was all—"

Something scratched at the door.

All it took was one shared look, and they were off. Lucas went quiet, springing into immediate action and snatching his handgun off the nightstand, while Mike only shifted the shotgun he'd had in his hands the entire time up near his shoulder. Wordlessly, they slipped off the bed together, circling around the door with their guns angled at its center. Mike's hand shook as he clicked off the safety.

Blood rushed in his ears, loud enough for him to almost miss the second noise. Almost.

Panting gasps drifted out from under the door, strained and growling. The thing snarled, scratching at the door again— deeper, this time. Mike could hear the noise of wood snapping under its claws, rending deep scores in the door.

Oh, God. He was going to die. His gun was no fucking use when his hands were trembling too hard to stay on the trigger, and as levelheaded as Lucas usually was, Mike could tell even he was faltering when he flinched at the snarling breaths coming under the door. The thing was going to burst into his room, stick its leathery head through the door like some horrible remake of The Shining, and tear them to bits with its massive claws. Mike could even see a bit of light seeping through the wood where the monster had torn it thin, and a dark, hulking shadow shaking in the gaps.

It panted again, harder. It sounded— pained, almost? Each breath whistled, like it was filtered through grit fangs. Mike didn't want to imagine how long they were, how they'd feel in his skin.

The thought snuck into his mind regardless. His hand slipped off the trigger.

"We're going to open the door," Lucas whispered, sudden. "On three."

"We are not."

"Three," Lucas counted.

Mike shook his head vehemently. "Do you want me dead?"

Lucas crept closer to the door, and Mike followed before he could stop himself. "Two."

Mike's hand found its way back to the trigger. This time, his grip was firm, less shaky in the face of death. Maybe pushing his oncoming doom closer made the fear turn to pure adrenaline.

"One!"

On one, Mike charged towards the door before Lucas could move, turning the knob and pushing the door open in one swift motion. Lucas made an irritated, shaky noise of protest behind him, shoving himself next to Mike as they spilled into the hallway. On Mike's heels, Lucas raised his gun further, spinning around wildly as he stumbled into the dim hall light. Mike spun just as quickly, eyes darting back and forth, searching for the thing that had torn his door to splinters, the thing that had panted and whined and gasped, each breath so hauntingly pained, almost like it was human—

The hallway was empty. A single light flickered, far down the stairs, the only evidence of inhuman presence. The hallway was entirely, eerily empty, with silence so thick Mike could hear it. How had it left so quickly?

Lucas turned back around, an angry snarl of his own breaking through the quiet. "But it was right there—"

His voice broke when he saw the door. With Lucas's silence, Mike was almost afraid to turn around, but he couldn't stop his head from turning, sick curiosity pushing him forward. And when he locked eyes with Lucas, Mike was sure they shared the same expression; wide-eyed, jaws hung open, shallow breaths turning their faces ashen and pale.

If Mike didn't know any better, he would have said the door was bleeding. Claw marks and trails of teeth peppered the wood, stripping away the white paint in little splintered curls at his feet. The thing looked like it had been funneled into a wood shredder, then yanked out halfway. And, staining the wood, seeping into the claw marks and pooling around the shallow, jagged bite marks, was—

"Where the fuck did all this blood come from?" Lucas breathed, far too loud in the silent air.

The stuff was still wet, dripping down the slashes in his door and pooling in a thick, sticky puddle in the carpet. Against his better judgement, Mike reached out and dragged a finger through a large splatter around a trail of teeth. It was still warm, too.

Lucas snatched Mike's hand away. "What are you doing?"

"It's warm," Mike said, shaky. "What if— do you think it got someone else?"

"Shit." Lucas was down the stairs before Mike could even think about moving. He scrambled to follow, nearly slipping on a slick spot of blood as he sped down the hallway. All he could think was either What if it got someone, what if it's Will, and, strangely, God, my mom's gonna be so mad when she finds a stain in the carpet.

The trail turned thinner as it dripped down the stairs, ending in a little puddle at the tile where the hallway met the kitchen. When Mike stumbled off the stairs, he was alone. Lucas must have turned a corner somewhere and left Mike to fend for himself.

He was entirely alone in a dark hallway, one light flickering in the kitchen, with a monster prowling around the house and a gun he hardly knew how to use. At this point, he might welcome a bite to the neck and a quick death.

He should have asked El to stake out with him. Sure, El was secluded in the middle of the woods in Hop's cabin, and Mike could hardly get a normal word out around her now that they'd broken up, but she wouldn't abandon him like Lucas had. Probably. And she could slam the monster into a wall with her mind, so that was a plus.

"Mike!" Lucas called out. Okay, maybe Lucas hadn't abandoned him, and Mike had overreacted a little bit. Just a bit. "Come in the kitchen."

The kitchen light flickered again, casting long shadows in the hallway. Lucas didn't sound scared, or like he was bleeding out, so maybe everything was fine. Or, maybe, Lucas was in shock, hunched over a bleeding, half-dead Will, watching as the life drained out of his eyes.

Okay, obviously Mike would have panicked if anyone was dying, but even the thought of Will being injured at all set his heart racing, twisting like a caught animal in his chest. Will couldn't be dead. They were supposed to have more time together.

Mike rushed into the kitchen, skidding on socked feet across the tile floor. His eyes darted around the room, searching the floor for blood, or a body, or something. Nothing seemed wrong at all, other than the light resolutely blinking above him and making him a little dizzy. The iron smell of blood stuck in his throat didn't help, either.

"Lucas?" He couldn't see him at all on the floor— was he in the pantry, or something? "Lucas!"

"I'm right here, Mike," Lucas responded, exasperated. Mike spun around again, searching for the source of his voice, and— oh. He was right there.

Lucas was standing near the kitchen island, his hand on someone's back, moving up and down in a slow rhythm. It took Mike a moment to register the person as Will with how he was hunched over, forearms bent on the counter and shoulders trembling like he'd run a marathon. His hair was in all in his face, overgrown bangs slick and dark with sweat, covering his eyes as his head nearly drooped onto the counter entirely. Had he been chasing something? Had something been chasing him?

Will was panting, hard. Mike's mind was frozen, but his body moved for him; he rushed over to Will in an instant, nearly knocking Lucas over with the force of his hand as he moved to tilt Will's face forward.

"Will! Will, are you okay?" Mike held one hand under Will's jaw, the other moving where Lucas's had been to stroke his back. Strangely, his skin was burning up, his face was flushed with just as much heat. Mike could almost see the blood rushing under Will's skin, his face a far cry from the pale, ashen face from this afternoon. Now, he was flushed, tan, eyes bright and sparkling in the dim light.

For some reason, the sight didn't set Mike at ease— if anything, it was unsettling. The gleam in Will's eyes wasn't the soft shine he knew; it was sharp, focused, like a predator stalking its kill. He looked hungry.

Will flinched out of Mike's grasp, reeling away from the counter. "I'm fine," he said, through gritted teeth. There was something flecked across his bottom incisors, dark spots pooling around his gums. Were his teeth shinier than usual? "Just— nightmare," he got out, still panting.

"Was it Vecna?" said Lucas, wary. He was keeping a safe distance from Mike, like he was afraid Mike might bite him if he got any closer. He probably would, actually.

Will shook his head vehemently, eyes flashing again. Wow, his pupils were blown. Mike almost couldn't see his iris at all. "No, only the usual. It was just— really, really bad this time. Sorry."

"You're sure it wasn't Vecna?" asked Mike, stepping closer to Will as he backed away. He looked like a cornered animal, eyes wild and shiny. The light flickered in time with his footsteps. "This isn't your normal reaction to a nightmare."

Something squeaked under Will's shoe— why was he still wearing shoes this late? "I'm sure, Mike. Sorry for waking you guys up. I'm going to bed."

Before Mike could protest, Will turned around and slipped out of the room. The lights flickered again— God, someone really needed to change that lightbulb— and as the shadows pooled around Will, Mike's eyes were drawn down and down, to a small point where a touch of light lingered on Will's hand.

He wouldn't have noticed otherwise, but the way Will's hand caught the light made it obvious; his palms were dark. Dark, slick and shiny, dripping a little trail on the floor, spotting the tile with red.

It all connected in Mike's mind, then. The panting outside his door, those pained breaths that seemed so eerily human, Will's shaking shoulders. The tired rasp to his voice and the pale (at least, previously pale) sheen to his skin— he wasn't sick, he'd been exhausting himself. He hadn't had a nightmare, he'd been battling the nightmare.

Mike was sure of it. Will had been fighting the monster.

Chapter Text

It was a shame, really. Will used to love vampires.

Up until now, he'd known only fond memories of the made-up monsters; binging shitty horror movies with Jonathan and flinching at the fake blood, letting his mom smear more fake blood around his fake fangs for Halloween, tromping around the neighborhood and swinging his velvet cape around Mike's furry tail, werewolf to his vampire.

That memory— piles of candy, stupid furry ears and even stupider fake claws for the both of them, smiles so wide they'd made his cheeks ache— held double the hurt for Will to look back on. He'd never get that in sync with Mike again, and he'd never be that human again.

What a shame, something whispered, a sarcastic drawl in Will's ear, you're better than him. Boo-hoo.

Will pushed the pillow tighter over his ears, a pitiful attempt to block out the voice he'd let inside his head. He knew who was speaking to him, but Will didn't want to give it a name.

This was his own fault, really. He was the one who had offered himself up, dove headfirst into that gate and held his arms out wide, palms open for the nails to push themselves in. You can have me! He'd yelled, desperation creeping into his voice no matter how hard he tried to be brave. Leave my friends alone, and you can do whatever you want to me! Isn't that what you want?

When Will had said Whatever you want, not even the most morbid corners of his imagination could have thought of this.

First off; Vecna had set something inside him, a possession crawling under his skin like it had a mind of its own. Will couldn't remember much from the last few days, but he could recall all the pain he'd felt in that moment, mostly because it was still there. How Vecna dug his claws under Will's thin skin and burned him to to the bone, pushed creeping vines through his veins and whispered in his ear We're going to be very good friends, Will as a dark and ugly transformation tore through his body— it had hurt then, and it hurt now.

His whole body ached. Will was beginning to think it would never go away. From the tips of his toes to the pads of his fingers, to the line of his jaw and the roots of his teeth— oh, God, his teeth. His fucking teeth, his teeth, they were—

Second. The teeth.

Vecna had said he'd make him better than human, his right-hand man. His Acerak, Will had thought, dimly, his apprentice.

Better than human, in Will's mind, did not constitute six-inch fucking fangs.

Okay. Maybe six inches was an exaggeration. Will hadn't measured them, mostly because he'd hardly been conscious enough in the four (was it five, now?) days after he'd thrown himself into Hell to do anything at all, much less scour the Wheelers' house for a ruler to measure his horrific appendages. He didn't want to look at them at all, honestly.

They hurt. His gums hurt so bad, and they wouldn't stop bleeding, and Will couldn't stop stabbing his lips with his horrible incisors, and he could hardly speak through the things, and God, he hated them. He hated them. Will might have found them cool if they hadn't been forced on him by a guy who liked to snap necks for fun (or for whatever goal he had; Will still wasn't sure what Vecna wanted from him) but being molded into a killing machine by a mass murderer sort of sucked all the joy out of having neat fangs.

Even then, he might have found them a little fun, if he hadn't been using them.

He'd been blinking in and out of consciousness for the better part of a week, now. It was a struggle to stay awake in the daytime, when light seemed to make him dizzy and sluggish and achy all over. Will had kept to the cool, dark basement in the days afterward, mostly in an attempt to avoid everyone.

It wasn't working too well. Lucas and Dustin kept coming to visit with 'battle plans', and Mike kept coming down and bringing him food he couldn't seem to swallow, and Jonathan kept coming to bed every night and asking him things like Are you okay? You look pale, and If it's about Mike, tell me, and I'll set him straight. Just talk to me, okay?

Jonathan was getting closer each night, questions becoming more specific as Will resolutely ignored him. Are you sick? If it's stress, do you want to tell me what's wrong? Your lisp has been coming back, what's up with that? How come you're never in bed when I wake up in the middle of the night? Why's Mike always following you around like a lost puppy?

Okay, not even Will knew the reason for that last one. But everything else— the lisp, the pale sheen to his skin, the nightly disappearances— Will knew what was wrong with him.

He was Vecna's, now. He was becoming like him.

If Will thought it was a struggle to get through the day and stay fully conscious, nighttime was something else. The moment the sun set, once light blinked away from the Earth, Will's mind went entirely blank. He couldn't remember anything at all from those nights, except in tiny flashes; taking shaky steps through the woods, stumbling back home with something dark dripping from his clothes, slumping against a wooden bedframe he didn't remember sleeping in. He couldn't remember anything he'd done, but the blood dripping down his wrists gave him a good idea.

If he wasn't eating, he'd have to sustain himself somehow, right? There had to be a reason his tongue always tasted like metal, now.

His mouth always ached when he came to, shaking in a pool of blood that wasn't his, holding a head that didn't feel like his. Lying next to a bed that wasn't his, white sheets fisted in dirty hands. He felt guilty enough for invading Mike's home, but staining his sheets? Really? He'd be better off sleeping in the woods at this point; then, at least, he'd keep his friends safe from what he'd become. He couldn't keep himself safe, but maybe that was for the better. With Vecna so focused on Will, where would he find the time to hurt anyone else?

His thoughts blurred out of focus, the pillow slipping off his ears as sleep took its hold. Come on, Vecna murmured, low in Will's ear, close your eyes. Don't you want to visit me?

He came to in a red haze, surrounded by a dusty darkness and a looming, shadowy presence he didn't want to name. The first thing he registered, other than the impending sense of death hovering over him, was a sharp pain in the tips of his fingers. There was something digging at his skin. Trying to break free.

He circled a hand around his wrist, pulling it up to his face. For a moment, he couldn't bring himself to look; he only stared away, trying to take deep, calming breaths and build up the courage to watch another piece of Vecna break through his skin. What part of him would be ruined next?

Look at it, Vecna commanded— God, his voice sounded louder here, booming like thunder, you know you want to. Haven't you always wanted a weapon of your own? Something to finally defend yourself with?

His head turned, unbidden. Will closed his eyes. He didn't want to look, he didn't want to look—

Something sharp brushed his eyelid, and Will's eyes sprung open before he could even think to flinch back. Another sharp, glinting thing pressed against his jaw, tilting his head down. Down to the twisted, slick hand on his face, further down to his own hand, the wrist gripped so tight with his other hand Will wondered whether he'd stopped his circulation and all the blood had gone from his head to his wrist, because what he was looking at couldn't be real. It couldn't.

For a moment, Will almost didn't register the huge hand literally on his face, too occupied with the sinking realization in his stomach when he'd caught sight of his own hands.

Well. What had become of his hands.

"Vampires don't have claws," Will breathed. "You're fucking with me."

Gone were his nails, gone was the chipped purple polish El had painted over them, gone were his nailbeds and half his fucking fingers, really. Replacing his nails were something Will could only describe as knives, sharp and glinting even when there was no light to be found in this dark, dreary dreamscape. And, terrifyingly, they were wet, dripping little pink rivers in trails down his skin. He realized, with a sickening lurch, that this blood wasn't coming from his fingers. It was smeared over his claws, like he'd sunk them into something. Or someone.

Shakily, he brought his other hand from his wrist to feel the things, wincing as he dragged his newfound claws away from where he'd stabbed them into his wrist. His own blood mingled with what had trickled down his hands as he carefully traced the pad of his finger over the hard material. They were solid, immovable.

Steeling himself, he circled his hand around a claw and tried to tug; no dice. If anything, they grew bigger.

He was reminded of the hand on his face when it suddenly shifted, moving to cup his jaw. Sharp claws of its own trailed down his face, and as Will looked at the hand, he considered himself lucky that Vecna decided to make him look at least a little different. Turning his hands into those giant, meaty things with claws for fingers would have been much, much worse.

The hand tilted Will's head up, and though he already knew who was holding him, looking into Vecna's dead eyes still sent a shudder rolling through his body. Will jerked back.

Useless. He was frozen in place. The mind was Vecna's realm, after all, and he had Will's under his giant fucking thumb.

"Claws," Will breathed again, trying his best to stop his voice from shaking. He tried to say something else, anything at all; Why are you doing this to me? Please, please keep your promise, hurt me all you want but God, don't hurt them. Nothing came out except a delirious gasp, half-laughed and half-whimpered.

He cursed himself. He was weak, and Vecna could smell it; Will could see it in the way he smiled, all dark teeth and shiny front incisors. He was as hungry for Will's fear as Will was hungry for— something else, something human. Something he didn't want to think about.

Vecna tilted his head, as if considering something. "Humans," he muttered, shaking his head like he was dismissing the thought. "So set in their ways. Fangs for vampires, claws for werewolves. Why can't you be both? Why can't you be something different, something better?"

"This isn't real." Vecna's hand squirmed against Will's face, vines crawling under his skin. "It's not real."

"Who are you trying to convince?" Vecna leaned in closer to Will's face, pursing his lips— or what was left of them, anyway— in a tight line. "Give it up, William. Open your eyes. Looking away won't make it less real."

He'd shut his eyes again, almost on instinct. Will opened them slowly, not to obey Vecna, but to prove he wasn't afraid. He swallowed down the lump of terror in his throat, and looked Vecna straight in his eyes without giving himself even a moment to hesitate. They seemed to suck the light out of the air around him, darker than dark could possibly be.

Will looked away. "Why don't you just kill me?"

At that, Vecna laughed, a sharp bark that made Will flinch back before he could stop himself. "And squander all that potential—" and he reached his other hand down, poking a sharp claw into Will's chest— "in there? Tell me, William. Why would I waste someone as special as you?"

"I don't care what you want from me," Will spat, eyes still fixed on a spot far beyond Vecna's gaze. He had no idea what made him special, and he wasn't too keen on finding out. "You can have it all, as long as it's only from me. I don't know what you're making me do, why I keep passing out at night and— and waking up all—" and he choked, the words stalling in his throat and disappearing entirely, "but don't make me hurt my friends. Keep your promise."

Vecna trailed a claw up Will's chest, tracing the spot where his heart was threatening to beat through his skin. "Your heart beats fast, hm? How I've missed feeling that fear. But you've no need to worry, William," he said, smiling. His incisors split his lips as he spoke, dripping something darker than blood on Will's shirt. When Will looked down, he watched with horror as the dark mixed with something light, red and slick. Where was all this blood coming from? "Your friends will be spared, and you— well, you will become so much more."

"What are you doing to me?"

"I'm making you better," Vecna responded. His grin stretched across his face, eerily dark. He leaned forward, tilting Will's chin up with his hand. Will could almost feel those sharp fangs against his teeth, smooth and slick. He couldn't repress his shudder. "I'm making you stronger. You've spent too much time being weak, don't you think?"

Will strained against his hold, jerking his head from Vecna's claws. A sickening rip echoed in the empty air as he moved away, and something hot trailed down his face, dripping into his open mouth. It was already too full of blood for him to taste his own. "I'm not weak," he protested, faint. His words came through with a lisp. His teeth were growing.

"Oh, but you were." Vecna traced the cut he'd left on Will's cheek, eyes glinting with the absence of light. "It's okay to want to hurt, William. Don't you want something to sink your teeth into?" His hand moved upward, parting Will's lips with a brush of his thumb. He studied Will's fangs for a moment, squinting.

Will bit the pad of his thumb, hard. Just because he was cooperating with Vecna didn't mean he'd be docile.

Something flashed in Vecna's eyes, then, a hint of light like a headlight glare in his pupil. "Now that's what I wanted to see," he hissed, his grin growing wide. "Don't act so weak anymore, hm? You've got something strong in you. I want to see it grow."

And with that, the world went black. Just before he faded out again, Will felt something rush through his mouth, hot and salty— and then the give of wood under his claws, splinters sinking into his skin. What was he doing?

When he looked down, there was nothing. It was too dark to see his hands. He could only feel the cool knob of a bedroom door pressing against his skin, until his head gave way and sleep rushed over him once again.

He woke up shaking, as per usual. This time, instead of blinking awake curled up at someone's bed, Will was on his couch. The Wheelers' couch, technically, but he'd been sleeping on it long enough for the worn thing to feel like his— and piss him off like it was his, too. Too many loose springs.

One of those springs was jabbing him now, pressed up against his spine and digging into his skin. Annoyed, he sat up, wincing at the sting as the metal unstuck itself from his back.

He was still shaking. Weird. Will could hardly remember his nightmare, but it had to have been a bad one for him to shake like this. He held a hand up to brush the sweat-slicked hair from his eyes. His hands were wet, slimy against his forehead— wow, he must have been really freaked out—

When his nails scraped at his forehead, everything came rushing back to him. He jerked his hands away from his forehead, bringing them up to his face and staring hard in the dark, hoping to every higher power out there that it hadn't been real, that it wasn't real. It wasn't real.

Large tiger claws took shape in his eyes as they adjusted to the darkness. Shakily, Will raised his other hand to brush their surface; his palms were dripping, slick and cold. Will didn't need light to know what it was.

Something trickled out of his mouth as it hung open, staring at his shaking hands. So that's why my hands were all wet, he thought, dimly.

He'd woken up like this before— dark stains on his clothes, aching gums and salty tang on his tongue— but never to this extent. Never covered in the stuff up to his wrists, dripping from his mouth, staining his blankets and slinking under his nails.

No, claws, he reminded himself. They really did look like tiger claws. The thought made him a little sick.

I thought you might like them, Vecna sighed, almost disappointed. Don't you remember? Collecting plush tigers, pretending you had your own claws and teeth? Did you not want to make it real?

"Get out of my head," Will spat, through gritted teeth. His fangs brushed against his bottom lip, almost close enough to split the skin.

Your kills have been small, he said instead, louder in Will's ear like he was only speaking to piss Will off, or scare him out of his mind. Maybe both. A thimbleful of blood won't sustain you for long. I know you can hunt for bigger prey, Will.

A phantom claw brushed against his face, echoes of his nightmare. A wave of bile rose in his throat, and he struggled to choke it down. "Get out."

A different voice replaced Vecna's, then. The sheets on the couch opposite him rustled, and a head poked out of the pile, turning slow with sleep. "Will?"

Will tugged the blanket over his hands, freezing like a deer in headlights. If he stayed still enough, maybe he could blend into the wall. Or go invisible. Couldn't vampires disappear in the night?

"Another nightmare?" Jonathan asked, pushing his blankets aside and slipping off the couch. Will kept his mouth firmly closed, in case his teeth were bright enough for Jonathan to see in the dark. He was sure, by now, they were too long to pass as human.

The pillows at his feet shifted as Jonathan's vague outline sat down beside him. "I know you're awake, Will. You can't sleep standing up."

Jonathan moved his hand out, reaching towards Will's shoulder. Before he could even get close, Will scrambled back, pushing himself against the back of the couch. His teeth bared on instinct, and he couldn't seem to find the strength to put his fangs away.

"Will," Jonathan said again, wary, "are you— there?"

At that, Will pushed himself off the couch, stumbling away from Jonathan before he could notice anything off. He turned his hands into fists and ignored the way the claws cut into his palms. "I'm fine," he snarled. A real fucking snarl, hissed out like a cornered animal.

Oh, God. Was he human at all, anymore?

"Will," he repeated, more stern. If Jonathan said his name one more time, Will really was going to do something violent. "Come on. Just— come back here, please?"

His hands itched to reach out, tear his claws in something living, something warm. A dull ache bubbled up in his stomach, gnawing at his insides like a deep, ravenous hunger, and his mouth opened without his say, teeth gnashing down on empty air.

Jonathan wavered in his vision, the room growing more visible by the second. The darkness was disappearing, giving way to clear shades of gray.

Night vision, Will thought, almost awed. He could see Jonathan's expression clearly, now; eyes wide and wild, hands up in surrender, palms shaking. He spared a quick glance down his own body, and— fuck, he was worse off than he'd thought. If Jonathan got the light on and saw what had stained Will's clothes, he'd be screwed. To put it mildly.

He gave Jonathan one last look before steeling himself to run, swallowing down the urge to say anything else when Will knew it would only come out in a strangled hiss. Jonathan just stood there, entirely still. He was exposed, unprotected, thin clothing covering hot blood.

Jonathan was weak. Easy prey. Come on, said Vecna, you know you want to.

Will's legs moved on their own, taking one stumbling step forward before he could get ahold of himself. His hands unclenched, claws reaching forward for what stood in front of him. Blood, running so hot Will could almost taste it on his tongue already— fuck, he was so hungry—

One of Jonathan's hands moved, reaching for something on the nightstand. Cold metal, glinting clear in Will's vision. "Are you even Will?"

The scrape of metal against wood snapped Will out of his trance; he flinched back, scrambling for the stairs. God, what had he been thinking? "Jonathan, don't—"

He hadn't even grabbed the gun, arm barely tilted towards the weapon like a faint suggestion. Will knew he never would've touched it, and that only made the guilt churn worse. Jonathan rushed towards Will, then, arms open to pull him into an embrace. Will couldn't have that.

"Will— Will! Fuck, I— I'm sorry. Come back," he breathed, eyes shiny with remorse.

Will stepped far up the stairs before Jonathan would reach him. "Don't," he said again, nearly tripping as he walked backwards on the steps. "Don't hesitate, next time."

With that, he turned around, cleared the last few steps, and slipped through the basement door. He hoped the hall light hadn't caught on his claws.

The next time Will woke, he was in a bathroom, slumped against the wall. God, could he go one day without passing out?

Fuzzy floaters bobbed in the corner of his vision as he blinked awake. Will's vision blurred back into focus as he shook himself, his heart rate going from flatline dead to beating fast as an oncoming freight train. He looked around wildly, eyes darting from wall to floor— which, surprisingly, were clean and pristine, sparkling like Mrs. Wheeler had swept through with a gallon of cleaning spray.

Once he'd scanned the room, Will dared to glance at his own body, wincing as he braced himself for the inevitable, horrible sight he probably was.

Strangely, the only thing dripping from his hands were tiny soap suds, collecting in the divots of his claws and ringing a little pearl bracelet around his wrists. He was clean from head to toe, skin scrubbed of all the blood and strings of gore he was sure had been there only a few hours ago. How bad was Vecna fucking with him? This couldn't have all been a hallucination, because the claws were still very much there, red and shiny like they'd been polished professionally. And his fangs— he raised a hand to his mouth, careful to keep his claws angled away and his finger pressed flat— yep, they were also very much there.

They are retractable, Vecna whispered, strangely kind, along with your claws. Try it out, hm?

The claws and teeth were like muscles of their own, almost; Will could pull them both back with barely any effort. It was a bit horrific to watch probably four-inch long claws disappear back into his fingers like they’d never existed at all, but what sickened him more was Vecna’s voice in his head, speaking as though he cared about Will. It made him sick.

Once he’d retracted his weapons, Will strained to remember what he'd done after traipsing up the stairs. It all came back to him in flashes, dark snippets of flickering lights and streaks of red; stumbling into the first bathroom he saw, turning the tub to the hottest temperature, scraping his skin raw until the only color on his body was from the sting of a sharp, wiry sponge. So that was why his pants were damp and he didn't have a shirt on.

He remembered the ache in his arms as he scrubbed the floors, how he'd spit and swallowed hot gulps of water until his mouth tasted like skin instead of iron, the sting of splinters in his palms as he tore open Mike's bedroom door, how he'd dug his teeth into it, spilled blood in the bite marks, barely conscious of where he was—

What?

What the fuck? No, he had to be making things up. This had to be a dream, a nightmare, some Vecna-induced hallucination, because Will would have fucking remembered if he was the one tearing apart Mike's room with his teeth. He would have remembered.

When Mike had worried over the claw marks in his bed yesterday, Will had been concerned, of course— but he knew it couldn't have been him, because he didn't have claws. Yet.

He knew the marks must've had something to do with him, since they'd apparently started after Will had sold his soul to Vecna. (He still wasn't sure how to describe it; sacrifice implied he was dead, and though he wasn't dead, Will wasn't quite sure he was alive, either. Selling his soul implied he had turned into some evil, mindless demon— which, as it was beginning to turn out, might not have been wrong. Maybe he was plain evil, now, because why else would he start gnawing on Mike's bed?) They couldn't have been his, though, because again, he didn't have claws.

Yet. Again.

Something sickening lurched in Will's stomach. So this was what he'd been doing, in those long stretches of barely-conscious sleepwalking? Tearing apart things in the woods with claws he hadn't known he'd held, gouging scars around Mike's head, gnawing on his door like a fucking animal—

He was going to throw up. Would it all come out red?

The thought made him laugh, until the nausea crawled up his throat again, and he was dry-heaving over the bathtub before he could blink. He noted, through bleary eyes, that he'd forgotten to drain the bath water. It rippled back at him like a taunt, pale red waves reaching up to his wrists.

His reflection stared back at him with the same horrified stare he could feel on his face. Will wasn't sure he'd looked in a mirror since it happened, and even if he had, his appearance was still a shock. My hair's greasy, he thought, slow. Mom won't be happy.

His second thought was just as unimportant, just as useless as a ripple in the rip-current he'd been put through. I've got bat fangs, not canines. Incisors. He remembered a heated argument with Dustin over the logistics of vampires, whether canines or incisors would be better for sucking blood. Will had been staunchly for canines, mostly because of his love for tigers.

Obviously, he'd been wrong. If Dustin knew, maybe he'd laugh. More likely, he'd probably shoot Will dead. He wouldn't hesitate, not like Jonathan.

Just as Will's mind began to run through Jonathan's vacant stare, a voice drifted from under the bathroom door. "He's not well. I know."

It didn't take a genius to know whoever was outside was talking about Will. It did take a bit of effort, however, for Will to figure out who was talking. In an effort to hear more, he stumbled over to the bathroom door, pressing his ear against the door.

"No, you don't get it," said another voice; strained, cracking on every other word, shaky. Mike. "He's not just sick, he's—"

"Possessed." Fuck, was that Jonathan?

"What?" Will could almost hear the whoosh in the air as Mike raised his hands up. "No, he's not. It's something else."

Jonathan sighed, disbelief heavy in his voice. "Okay, then. Do you think I want him to get possessed by Vecna?"

"Oh my god, no," Mike groaned. This time, Will really could hear the slap of Mike's palm against his face. "That's not what I meant. You saw the marks in my bed, right? There has to be a reason it hasn't killed me yet, and there has to be a reason Will's always tired and pale. And skulking around like a corpse." Harsh, but fair.

"You think they're related?"

Mike made an affirmative noise, enthusiastic. Will couldn't stop himself from smiling, even when it hurt to move his mouth. "I think," he said, pausing as if for dramatic effect— God, what a dork— "he's been fighting the monster."

It was a good thing Jonathan laughed, or else Will would have been discovered right then and there. His ribs hurt like hell, half from laughing so loud he thought his lungs would burst, and half from the general ache that came with transforming into an interdimensional monster. Regardless, it was the happiest he'd felt in weeks— and the thought of protecting Mike, using his teeth and claws to shield Mike from danger instead of putting him through it, made something flutter low in his stomach. It wasn't something he had much time for, amidst all the mental torment, but something he couldn't escape nonetheless.

The something was this; he loved Mike. That should have been obvious from the beginning.

"And you slept through it," said Jonathan, deadpan, "for four nights in a row."

"I'm a heavy sleeper," Mike protested. The hall went silent for a moment; if he was in a comedy show, Will probably would have heard crickets chirping. "Okay, okay, I get it." Jonathan must have given him a disbelieving look hard enough for Mike to give it up. "It was a stupid idea. Whatever. I just saw blood on his hands last night, when he was in the kitchen, and I didn't really think anything through. I just wanted to know what was wrong."

Will heard the sound of rustling fabric. Was Jonathan putting his hand on Mike's shoulder? Jonathan being physically affectionate with a Wheeler other than Nancy— and Holly, actually, with all the time they'd spent in the Wheelers' house— was hard for Will to imagine, even with the both of them speaking together right in this moment. The only thing Will could think of was Jonathan making good on his word to punt Mike like a football.

"I get it," said Jonathan, soft. "I know you want to protect him." Again, if Will lived in a comedy show, a swirl of question marks would probably be racing around his head right about now. Mike, wanting to protect him past the age of twelve? Not possible.

Mike's voice turned shaky, then. "But I can't keep him safe from himself. I don't know what to do."

Will leaned away from the door. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear any more, so he slowly got up, backing up to the bathtub because he really needed to drain it—

Something squeaked under his foot. Wincing, Will glanced down; guess he hadn't cleaned up all the blood, then.

The conversation outside the door went quiet. Crickets. "Who's in there?"

Well, he'd have no time to drain the bath now. Will tugged the shower curtain over the bath and willed his voice not to shake as he spoke. "Uh," he started, his voice cracking on one vowel, somehow. Great going, Byers, could you sound any less normal? "Just Will."

"Will," Jonathan breathed, "oh my god, shit, I—"

"Don't. Please." Will walked over to the door, staring at the lock in case it started to slide open. Just in case.

Will could almost feel Mike's suspicion through the door. "What did you do to him?"

"Are you okay?" Jonathan said, ignoring Mike's question. Will watched the door quiver as Jonathan leaned his weight against it, scraping against the wood as he pressed his ear to the door. "We've been looking for you everywhere."

The scraping sound reminded Will of something else, splinters stuck under his claws. God, he still couldn't believe he'd been tearing Mike's bed apart in his sleep. "Yeah, I— I'm fine. Just, uh. Taking a bath. I was cold," and oh my God, he needed to stop rambling, Will was not helping his case.

Crickets chirped in the silence again. Will swore he heard Jonathan whisper something along the lines of He likes it cold, and the muffled noise of Mike stifling a groan with his hand, but Will wasn't sure he could trust his senses anymore.

"Well, uhm," Mike said, his voice strangely high-pitched, "when you're done with that, can we talk? I, uh— wanted to ask you something."

Will was about to respond, when Jonathan retorted with "No, I have to talk to him. I need to—"

"Need to what?" Mike shot back. Will could almost hear the air whooshing around Mike as he whirled around to spit fire at Jonathan. "What did you do to him to make you apologize like that? What did you do?" Mike had a weird tendency to overreact when it came to Will's safety, even now. Mike should've probably been more concerned for his safety at the moment, but the thought of Mike looking out for him made his face turn warm nonetheless.

"We're going downstairs, Will," said Jonathan. Will heard Mike snap something harsh at Jonathan, his voice slowly fading as Jonathan marched him away. "Come talk to me when you're ready."

Even as their voices faded down the hallway, Will could still catch Mike's angry voice. "He's going to talk to me," Mike said, louder than Jonathan's pissed-off sigh, "and you're going to tell me what you did, or God help me, I will. . ."

Their voices disappeared as they turned the corner. Once they were long gone, Will staggered backward, coming to sit on the rim of the bathtub with his hand trailing in the darkened water. The room should have been quiet, now, but all he could hear was the cold snick of the gun's safety, the way it scraped against the wood, Jonathan's trembling voice, Are you even Will? Are you even Will, are you even Will, are you—

He wasn't sure anymore.

Chapter Text

For a moment, Mike had thought Jonathan wasn't that bad, after all.

Now, as Jonathan dragged him down the stairs by the wrist, Mike realized that thinking positively about Jonathan usually led him to then become the worst person ever. Between El's telekinetic powers and Jonathan's ability to send Mike those terrifying, knowing looks at his lowest moments, Mike was beginning to think the Byers family as a whole was psychic.

"What did you do?" Maybe having this conversation right in the open wasn't the best idea, but it was hardly past dawn. No one else was awake except for them.

And Will, who was taking a bath at seven in the morning when he had nothing to do, except sitting around and waiting for the world to end.

Mike hated to admit it, but Jonathan was right. Will was much, much worse off than he had thought.

Jonathan brought his hands around his chest, crossing them tightly. "You know I'd never really hurt Will, right?"

"I thought I did," said Mike, leaning forward to push his glare further into Jonathan's face. "I don't know if that's true anymore."

Jonathan edged back, turning his head away from Mike's stare. "Come on. Looking at me like you want me dead won't change anything, Mike," he said, exasperated.

"Stop stalling, then." Mike's hands were shaking. He pushed them together, stripping the skin off a nailbed with trembling fingers. His hands were red, stained with tiny flecks of dried blood from his raw skin, though nowhere near as red as Will's. If Will hadn't been fighting something, where had all that blood on his hands come from?

Jonathan drew his arms closer to his chest. "He woke up in the middle of the night, mumbling something. I know he has nightmares a lot, but this was different. He sounded like he was talking to someone."

Okay, wait. The timeline wasn't adding up in Mike's head; did Will have a nightmare, wake up and go to the kitchen, then go back to the basement and have another nightmare? When would he have found the time to get himself covered in blood? "When was this?"

"I don't know," said Jonathan, shrugging. "Four, maybe? I know it wasn't light yet."

Mike knew he'd seen Will up late, but not four in the morning late. "That doesn't make sense. I mean, it was late when I saw him in the kitchen, but not that late."

"Mike," said Jonathan, possibly even more exasperated, "you really believed him when he showed up covered in blood in the kitchen and said he'd had a bad dream? And here I thought you knew him."

Something ugly flared in his chest at that insinuation, because of course he knew Will. He knew everything there was to know about his best friend, from the shape of his smile to the monsters in his head. How could he not? "What are you trying to say? Don't be a cryptic asshole."

"I mean he's a liar, Mike," Jonathan said, oddly fond. "He'll tell anyone whatever they need to hear, if it'll make them happy. He was just trying to stop you from worrying. You're just like him, when it comes to that.

Jonathan, acting like he knew Mike. What terrifying alternate timeline was this? "He's not— he wouldn't lie to me. Maybe to you," Mike muttered, rolling his eyes.

"He does. All the time." Jonathan seemed unfazed by the idea, in harsh contrast to Mike's minor crisis. What else had Will been lying to him about? "He's not just having nightmares. Not fake ones, anyway."

"You're still being a cryptic asshole."

One of Jonathan's arms left his chest, then, coming to rest against his forehead. The guy probably had more frown lines up there than a middle-aged adult. Mike could sympathize, even if he hated to sympathize with Jonathan, of all people. "Sorry, it's just— I fucked up, okay?" Jonathan's voice grew shaky, then, desperate enough to turn back time. Mike didsympathize, this time.

"I tried to comfort Will, but he started backing away, and when I asked him to come back he fucking— growled at me, or something, and I panicked. Reached for the handgun on my nightstand on instinct, but he must have heard the noise, 'cause he told me to stop, and then that was it. The moment was over. I thought he was fine again, but he still ran off, and when he opened the door— in the light, he looked—"

Something was connecting in Mike's mind, seperate ideas snapping into place like a horrible, twisted puzzle.

Will, growling. The snarling outside his door, the pained, human breaths. The blood on his door, and the blood on Will's hands.

He shook the idea from his mind the instant it came. They couldn't be connected like that.

Jonathan was shaking, his voice entirely broken. He held his head in his hands, taking slow, shallow breaths. "What did you see?" When Jonathan gave no answer, Mike tilted forward, pulling Jonathan's hand from his face. "Jonathan, what did you see?"

"You said," Jonathan breathed, quiet, "his hands were only bloody. Right?"

Only bloody? "Just his palms. I didn't notice until he took them off the counter."

"I must have been hallucinating, then." Jonathan's eyes were wild, wide-eyed as he stared at a spot past Mike's shoulder. "Maybe Vecna's targeting all of us. Maybe this is how he wins, by making us all fucking crazy."

Mike tugged on Jonathan's wrist, sharp. "Just tell me what you saw."

"He didn't have hands, Mike." Jonathan met Mike's eyes, then, and Mike was sure Jonathan's desperate gaze was a mirror image of his own. "He had claws."

They pieced together a timeline, drawn quickly on faded note paper before the rest of the house started to wake. Mike didn't want to piece together anything at all, but he had to admit; this made a lot more sense than the idea of Will fighting off a monster.

Mike didn't want to think Will was the monster, but Jonathan was set on the idea, no matter how insane it seemed to him.

"Wait— I need to hear this again," said Mike, tracing his pencil over Jonathan's scribbled handwriting. He squinted at the words, trying to make sense of them in the early morning light. It wasn't going well. "You think Will went outside, did something to get his hands all bloody, then came back and fucking— gnawed on my door, or something?" God, the idea was even crazier when he said it out loud. "Then, according to you, he went to the kitchen before Lucas and I could catch him, and— okay, I can't read the rest. Do you even know how to hold a pencil?"

"That's your handwriting," Jonathan sighed, "and I can hardly read it either. He must have back down to the basement after he left the kitchen, then left again when he realized I was awake. That's all."

That's all? Really? God, this was the most convoluted timeline of events Mike had ever seen. "And you think he's doing all of this under Vecna's influence?"

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. "You think he's covering himself in fake blood for fun and not telling anyone?"

Mike opened his mouth to protest, but all the air disappeared from his lungs when he heard a set of footsteps, coming closer from the hallway.

Fuck. No one else could know about this, not yet. What if someone decided it wasn't safe to keep Will in the house, and he ended up moved away where Mike couldn't see him? Or what if they decided it wasn't safe to keep him around at all, and went to finish what Jonathan started?

"You said you wanted to talk to me?"

Mike whirled around, practically leaping away from Jonathan to face Will, though he couldn't quite bring himself to actually look at Will. He realized just as quickly that literally lunging up to Will and letting his hands move how they wanted to— reaching out to check Will's heartbeat, or wrenching his hand forward to check for claws like he so desperately wanted to— wasn't particularly the best way to act casual. Instead, he took a small step back, breathed one long, deep breath, and fixed his face into an expression he hoped seemed normal. "Uh— hey, Will."

"Feeling any better?" asked Jonathan. Somehow, he was brave enough to look Will in the eye, when Mike could hardly turn his face to Will at all.

"A bit," he responded, voice scratchy. Mike steeled himself, then; he had to look at Will. He had to know if Will's hands were curled into claws, if his eyes were darker than ever, if he looked dead and tired and hungry. He didn't want to look, but he had to know, even if the thought of that gleam in Will's eye— that harsh, hungry glare— made Mike absolutely sick.

He had to look. Mike took a deep breath and brought his head up, gritting his teeth to bite back the wave of revulsion he knew would come once he looked Will over. The thought of his best friend, the boy he fucking loved looking so hurt, so wrecked and torn apart by a monster Mike couldn't fight against— it tore him up inside, a knife of guilt stitching through his chest.

He couldn't let this happen to Will, and yet, he already had. Mike had already let Vecna take hold of Will. He'd failed already.

Mike stared at Will hard, blinking quick to make sure he wasn't seeing things. Will looked normal, and it was possibly the weirdest thing Mike had seen all month. He'd seen glowing gates to Hell split apart the earth and watched screeching, tiger-clawed bats spill from the crevices, but this was somehow worse. Will was fine, and it was terrifying.

His hands were clean, tan and shiny like he'd scrubbed them with a pressure washer. Mike couldn't even find a stain under his nails. His normal, oval nailbeds, only clawed in the sense that they were a bit overgrown. He was smiling, even, a forced thing that couldn't quite reach his eyes.

Mike glanced back to Jonathan, who looked just as confused as Mike felt. He raised his hands up, pointing them back to Will like he was saying Don't look at me, man.

This insane juxtaposition, Will's tan, healthy skin and generally soulless eyes— though Mike could probably find the warmth in Will's gaze if his heart had stopped beating— almost made Mike want to laugh. But he had to act natural, which he must've been failing really bad at, because Will was staring at them both like they were crazy.

"Are you trying to psych me out, or something?" said Will, raising an eyebrow. Will's voice stumbled in the middle of his sentence, going high-pitched as he glanced away. Now that Jonathan had pointed it out, Mike could see it in an instant; Will was lying to him.

"Just—" Jonathan paused, breathing hard through his nose. "You don't look well. Come on, sit down. Let's talk."

Mike gave Jonathan a wild look, mouthing What the fuck, man! and hoping Jonathan could read the fire behind his lips. He was the one who was supposed to talk to Will, hold him close and comfort him until his hands stopped shaking, whisper It's going to be all right, I won't let him hurt you, and Jonathan was ruining it. As per usual.

Yes, he knew Jonathan was Will's brother, and of course Jonathan would want to make sure Will was okay. That didn't mean he had to like it.

Will glanced around, eyes darting around the room as if looking for an escape route. "I, uh. I think I was going to go back to bed, actually, so—"

"Okay," Jonathan said again, something steely flashing in his eyes. "We're going to talk, then. Sit down."

Will took a step back, hands twitching at his sides. His mouth opened slightly, panting. His teeth glinted, white and sharp in the light, and Mike forced himself not to look away. There was something off about his mouth, something Mike couldn't place. Something uncanny.

Maybe Jonathan would handle this better; he'd helped burn the Mindflayer out of Will, after all. Mike wasn't sure he had the strength to hurt Will like that, even if Will, well— wasn't Will at all.

Will seemed to deflate a bit, then, shoulders shrinking as he collapsed on the couch. He stayed silent, staring listlessly at Jonathan as he curled into the cushions and resolutely avoiding Mike's gaze.

"Mike," said Jonathan, his voice firm, "why don't you go get Will something to eat?"

He wanted to protest, but the scene in front of him— Jonathan's hard, worried stare, Will's shaking shoulders and shallow pants, and the way he'd hidden his hands in a blanket, clenching the fabric with unsteady fists— Mike knew this wasn't something he could handle, not right now. Not when he'd stayed awake all night worrying over Will, and not when he was too tired to do much more than sit and stare and panic, endless waves of terror that crawled up his throat and strangled all the words on his tongue. Mike wasn't even sure he could get through a sentence without breaking down and jumping into an Upside Down portal with nothing but his fists and a desperate urge to tear Vecna to shreds.

He might have won, with all the terror-induced adrenaline pumping through him. But even Mike, impulsive as he was, knew when to slow down. He knew when to stop, for Will's sake.

"Okay," he said, backing out of the living room, "yeah."

Mike gave up on the pretense of finding Will something to eat when he heard the shouting.

Will wasn't being loud, really; it was only quiet enough in the kitchen for him to hear nearly every word of their conversation, since no one else had seemed to wake up yet. The clock was ticking over to eight, and the whole house was still asleep. Mike was waiting on bated breath for someone to walk down the stairs, see Jonathan and Will screaming at each other, and figure everything out with one hard look.

Screaming was an exaggeration. Maybe Mike was just on edge.

"Will, come on. I just want to help you," Jonathan said, desperate. At this point, Mike had left the kitchen entirely, abandoning the fruit he was about to cut for leaning against the hallway wall to listen in. Will hadn't eaten anything else Mike had brought him, anyway. Only another point towards the Will is turning into a monster under Vecna's influence theory.

Fucking hell. Why was Jonathan always right?

Mike heard something scrape against the floor, like someone had backed into a coffee table. "I don't need help, okay? I don't know what you think you saw, but I'm fine. I'd tell you if something was wrong."

"No, you wouldn't," said Jonathan. His voice had gone soft again, like he was trying to lure a wounded animal into his arms. The comparison wasn't too far off, really. "I know you think you're protecting people when you don't tell the truth, but you're not, okay? You only make us worry."

"This isn't about me. You're probably just stressed, or something," Will countered. Now, Mike could hear steps on the wood floor, like someone was backing up to the second floor stairs. Will was trying to back himself out of a corner, literally and metaphorically. "You're just seeing things that aren't there. I get it, okay? I get why you're worried, but I was in bed all night, until you saw me wake up. No reason to worry."

Jonathan's footsteps held almost the same weight as Will's, the noise of both their movements overlapping. "Was Mike seeing things, then, when he saw you in the kitchen last night? What about Lucas? Were they hallucinating the claw marks in their door, too?"

More footsteps hurried up the steps. Mike moved further down the hall. "I don't know what you're talking about," Will breathed, his voice shaky. His next step was a miss. Mike could hear the squeak of his foot against the wood, the wince as he banged his ankle into the railing.

"Go upstairs, then. See for yourself." Jonathan's voice really was loud, then. Mike could hear the way his voice trembled, how he was trying to bite back his anger as it quivered in his throat. It was the same inflection Mike had heard in his own voice, how it went loud and shaky every time he tried to bite his tongue.

Jonathan knew how to hold back. Mike had never learned.

The only noise then was one pair of footsteps, slowly inching their way up the stairs. Mike thought that was where their argument would end, where he'd be able to swoop in and bring Will to his senses.

Instead, someone else started stomping down the stairs, heavy footfalls bringing a headache ringing through Mike's sleep-deprived brain. Ow.

What? Mike had spent enough time in the Byers' house before Lonnie left. He knew how to tell who a footstep belong to almost as well as Will could, even now.

"Hey, watch where you're going— oh! Hey, Will. Are you feeling any better?" Unlike Mike, Lucas must have gotten a good night's rest after the kitchen incident, because his voice was loud and painfully cheery. Again, ow.

"I said, I don't know what you're talking about," Will hissed. Mike could hear the impact as Will shoved himself past Lucas's body, storming up the rest of the stairs and stumbling down the hall with footfalls loud as thunder.

The whole room went quiet for a moment as Will's footsteps faded away. Mike decided, without putting much thought into it, that this was his perfect moment to slip by, duck past Jonathan and sprint up the stairs while everyone was distracted—

"Mike?" He stopped dead against the hallway wall when Lucas said his name. "You really think following him up there is a good idea right now?"

Jonathan just frowned at the stairs, like he could bring Will back with the force of his mind if he stared hard enough. "Let him cool off for a bit," he said, quiet. His voice cut through the room, turning all Mike's fire cold. Mike hadn't heard him sound that miserable since— well, since the last time Will had been possessed.

Mike wanted to scream. He wanted to whirl around and spit all his stress at Jonathan, yell How can you tell me to wait? How can you tell me to sit by and let my fucking heart get torn apart while I watch Will hurt? How can you let Will hurt like this? He wanted to tell Jonathan how he didn't get it, You'll never get it, not unless you're about to lose the chance to tell your best friend how much you love him because an interdimensional monster has its claws around his brain, and it's getting ready to squeeze—

He wouldn't. Mike knew he was wrong; Jonathan did understand how it felt, because Will was his brother. He'd watched Will grow up longer than Mike ever had, comforted him more than Mike ever could, probably. He'd never left Will's side. Mike had left him constantly.

Jonathan trailed out of the room, and Mike let him without saying a word. "Make sure Will doesn't leave the house, please. I just— I have to think for a bit. Think I'll talk to my mom." That sent a spike of fear through Mike for a moment, until he remembered that Ms. Byers was literally Will's mom. She'd rather throw herself into Hell than hurt Will.

The moment Jonathan left, Lucas spun around and fixed Mike with possibly the most confused look Mike had seen since Lucas had watched El slam a door shut in his face with her mind. "What the fuck happened while I was asleep?"

"How did you even sleep at all?" Mike didn't want to say the words out loud again, because putting the fact that Will might have claws into the air would only make it only real. He didn't want it to be real.

"This was my third all-nighter in a row, Mike," said Lucas, exasperated. "It catches up to you eventually. Now tell me what happened, or I swear to God, I'll throw you in a gate myself."

Mike thought he wouldn't mind that, with how his day was going. But as much as he wanted to pretend nothing was real, give up and close his eyes to the rest of the world because he was so desperately tired, he couldn't. He couldn't give up on Will if he tried, and God, had he tried.

He'd turned his back on Will too many times, now. Mike couldn't do it again.

Mike still collapsed on the couch. Even with all the leftover adrenaline rushing through his veins, Mike was still one long blink away from a twelve-hour nap. "So-o," he started, stifling a yawn, "Jonathan tried to confront Will after I told him about what happened last night, and—"

"Oh, thank God, you're actually telling people about your problems," said Lucas, wiping a fake tear from his eye. "Never thought I'd see the day."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Mike waved him away. Lucas sat down next to him regardless. "The whole conversation went to shit, and now Will's up there sulking, which is all Jonathan's fault, by the way. Don't know why he wouldn't let me talk to Will. Also, did I mention Will might have been the one clawing at my door last night?"

Lucas didn't seem to register what Mike had said, at first. "Will probably would have reacted worse to you, man," he said, wincing. "I mean, I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but since he might be dead tomorrow— wait, what?"

"Hold on, telling me what?" All Lucas did was give him a slack-jawed stare. "Lucas. Telling me what?"

"I'm gonna need an explanation on Will having six-inch claws first, I think."

So, reluctantly, Mike explained the whole Vecna is turning Will into a monster theory. Much to Mike's dismay, Lucas also thought it made sense. Another fucking point for Jonathan.

Lucas's brow furrowed, frowning silently at some faraway spot after Mike had finished his recap of events. If Mike had to catch someone up one more time, he'd probably lose it. Not that he wasn't going crazy already. "Why would Vecna want to do this, though? Usually he just torments people with visions, or snaps their necks. This is— cruel," Lucas finished, trailing off with a frustrated sigh.

"I don't know," said Mike, peeling another strip of skin off his nail. "I don't fucking know, and it's making me crazy, and I don't understand why you seem to know more about Will than I do. Why won't he tell me anything?" Mike put his head in his hands, holding back the urge to shake Lucas by the shoulders and ask why Will didn't trust him anymore until Lucas coughed it all up. Not because he didn't want to, because he did, but because he knew it wouldn't get him anywhere. Also, Lucas was strong enough to shake Mike back hard enough to turn his organs to sludge.

Mike liked his organs, so he kept his hands planted on his face as Lucas looked at him with this weird, unidentifiable look— was it pity? God, why did everyone keep looking at him like they knew something he didn't?

"Look," said Lucas, sighing, "Will would fucking kill me if he knew I told you this, so don't mention it, but— he's worried you're only talking to him now because you can't see El. He thinks you've got, like, apocalyptic Stockholm Syndrome."

All he could do for a moment was stare, because what? "But I broke up with El," he said, lamely. Mike couldn't find much else to say to that. He was still in shock, because how could Will think he was just some second option?

Lucas shrugged, holding up his hands in surrender. "I mean, I can't blame him. You've been glued to his side ever since he started staying at your house, and I can't remember you acting like that since we were in eighth grade. Wouldn't you find it weird if I started clinging to you like some lost puppy?"

"Yeah," Mike started, before his mind caught up to his mouth, "because I'm not—"

His brain turned on just in time. Mike snapped his mouth shut, biting down hard on his tongue to hold back the rest of his sentence. Because I'm not in love with you. "We're friends," Mike said, instead, "and I'm worried about him, and we're literally living in the same house, Lucas. Why wouldn't I stay near him?

The look Lucas gave him made Mike want to squirm, but he stayed still. He still had some dignity, after all, even if Lucas was staring at him like he knew exactly what Mike was about to say instead. "Tell Will that, then. He thinks he's just the replacement for El, and you'll leave him the second you see her again. Can't blame him, when it's happened before."

Mike had nothing to say in his defense, because it was true. He kept leaving Will for El; as much as he hated to admit it, she was the easy choice, the safe option. She was the girl he could hide behind to watch Will from afar, wishing he could do more than lock his feelings away, wishing he could talk to Will at all without getting choked up by the shame that came with loving him.

Now, with the weight of the end of the world crushing down on him, Mike found it hard to feel that shame anymore. All that guilt had gone away when he realized he'd never find the time to fix things between him and Will if he kept pushing every part of him that loved Will down.

"He's not a replacement, and— fuck, he needs to know that," Mike said suddenly, standing up and walking towards the stairs like fire was nipping at his heels. He had to make sure Will knew he cared, this time. Mike thought he'd driven the point home by spending every second at Will's side, but if Will needed Mike's word to make it true, then so be it. He'd speak past all the shame for Will.

Lucas followed after him, protesting. "Jonathan was right, dude! You've got to give him time to calm down, he won't want to listen when he's already angry—"

"I can't keep sitting around like this," Mike said. Even he could hear the pain in his voice, a twisting whine that almost made him want to back down and cry from the sheer frustration burning a hole in his chest. Almost. "All everyone wants to do is wait, and I hate it. Don't you get it? I have to do something."

Before Lucas could stop him, Mike marched up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He wasn't going to back down from his anger, he was going to fucking use it. He'd use his anger to protect Will, this time. Not to hurt him.

Mike found Will in his bedroom, slumped against his splintered bedframe. Will's breaths were low, shallow. His mouth was moving, muttering something Mike couldn't make out, and he had his eyes narrowed at the ceiling, glaring at Mike's ceiling fan like it had personally offended him.

"What'd it do to you?" said Mike, gesturing to the fan.

Will practically jumped out of his skin, leaping off the ground as he whirled around. "I— fuck, Mike, don't scare me like that," he gasped, digging his hands into the carpet. Something shiny glinted at Will's nails, and Mike forced himself to look away. He wasn't going to confront Will about the monster problem, not yet. He had to start small, so he wouldn't scare Will away.

"Sorry," Mike said, laughing a little to diffuse the tension running thick through the room. It worked, sort of; Will's hands left the carpet, at least, one coming to his leg and the other coming to clutch at his head. Did he have a headache, or something? "Can I, uh— can I sit?"

Will pressed his fingers to his temple, hard. "Sure."

When Mike sat down next to Will, he only winced and shoved his fingers against his face harder. "Do you, uh," Mike started, slowly, "need some painkillers? You look—"

"If you're trying to finish what Jonathan started, please don't," said Will, before Mike could finish. "I'm fine."

"I wasn't going to." Mike moved a touch closer to Will, close enough to feel the heat from his hand. Mike resisted the urge to lay his hand over Will's by pressing it flat on the carpet. "You just looked like you had a headache, so I wanted to ask."

For a moment, Will just looked at him, letting the air go tense with silence once again. There was this odd, vacant glaze over his eyes, almost like he was hardly here. His head slowly tilted to the side, towards Mike's face— closer to his exposed neck, actually, but Mike didn't want to consider that— subtly enough to where not even Will seemed aware of it. Mike wouldn't have noticed either, if they hadn't already been so close together. And, maybe, if Will's mouth didn't start to droop open so slightly, revealing teeth that seemed far too sharp for Will's small mouth. Why were his lips so red?

"Did you eat something?" Mike said suddenly, before Will's tilt towards his neck could go from subtle to horrifically obvious.

Will jerked back, as if woken from a trance. "I— what? No," he said, oddly defensive. His eyes darted away from Mike's gaze, face turning almost as red as his mouth.

Get it together, Mike, Jesus. Stop staring at his lips when you're supposed to be having a serious conversation. "I, uh. Your lips were really red. I thought you might've eaten, like— cherries, or something."

"Cherries," said Will, dryly, "in the apocalypse. In a midwestern apocalypse."

"Okay, okay, point taken."

Will raised an eyebrow, scooting back from Mike's body and resting his head near a patch of dried blood. Mike's throat seemed to have gone to dry to speak, or else he would have warned Will so he could avoid getting blood in his hair. The longer he looked at Will's face, the drier it seemed to become— God. He needed to calm down. "Why were you staring at my lips, anyway?" said Will, casual. Like he hadn't even intended to insinuate something.

Mike tried to speak, but all he could get out was a dry choke. "I, uhm—" fuck, his face was definitely redder than Will's mouth by now— "Because they were red, okay? It looked like you dipped them in fake blood, or something."

While Mike had stuttered, Will's face had turned flushed, eyes darting away towards the floor. The moment he'd finished his sentence, all the blood rushed out of Will's face and left him as pale as he'd been the day before. "What did you come in here for?"

His voice was scared, harsh like the growl of a cornered animal. Mike flinched, despite himself.

"So," he started, trying to push the fear from his voice, "Lucas might have told me something."

Will's eyes went cold, then, the last little gleam Mike had seen in his gaze going out like a candle. "Yeah, I don't think I want to have this conversation either."

He started to get up, pushing himself off the floor with his hands. Mike grabbed Will's wrist before he could think. "Do you really think you're my second choice?"

His eyes were dull, dead. Mike itched to do something, anything to bring the life back to his body, but he was lost. Helpless. Useless, he thought, darkly.

Will's skin was so cold. Was he dead already? "How am I supposed to know I'm not?" Will spat, glaring at Mike with his empty eyes. Something was so, so wrong. "All you've done is ignore me since you got with El, and the second she leaves you, you're clinging to me constantly. What else am I supposed to assume?"

When Will spoke, he hardly opened his mouth. Each word came out like a hiss. He was still stumbling over his S letters.

Mike was beginning to think he might have more than claws.

"I don't know, that I've been trying to fix our friendship since our fight in California? That I've been doing everything I could to keep you safe? That I don't want to wake up one day and not find you in the house, maybe? Maybe assume that I don't want you to die?" Mike knew he sounded desperate. He couldn't bring himself to care.

"And you're doing such a great job at it," Will drawled, sarcastic. "You keep saying all these things, that you care, you want to protect me. You want to be friends." Mike hated how he said that word, like it was a joke. Like it meant nothing. "You never make good on it."

Will's wrist was still in his hand. Mike wasn't sure what to make of that. "We are friends, Will! What, do I have to say it out loud every time I talk to you?"

Will just shrugged in response, looking away. "When you go from no contact for a year to spending every second at my side, yeah. That kind of needs an explanation."

All Mike wanted to do was yell, say I love you, I love you, I've loved you my whole fucking life and I've only stopped being scared of how much I love you because I'm more terrified of how we're all going to die, but he knew he had to hold back, at least for now. He'd take a lesson from Jonathan, here, and bite his tongue.

Instead, he said this; a half-truth, something he'd hope would be enough to soothe the wound he'd apparently been rubbing raw this whole time. "I'm scared, Will. Is that what you want to hear? I'm scared we're all going to die, and Vecna's going to get you, or me, or someone, and I'll end up wishing I'd spent more time with them. I can't let that happen with you. I want to be with you as long as I can, and I hope it's forever, but if it's not, I want everything I can get."

He'd hoped to see some sort of light in Will's eyes, then; a spark of hope, reconciliation, anything. Something to prove Will still cared.

Instead, Will looked miserable. He stared far past Mike, eyes glassy and wet. There was a shine in them, but not the kind Mike had wanted to see. "And what if it's not?"

"That's why I'm not leaving," Mike said, firm. "That's why I've spent every second by your side. That's my explanation."

At that, Will deflated, going limp against the bedframe. His wrist, once stiff in Mike's grip, went limp; his face, once full of pure misery— which Mike still couldn't get, because what had he said that made Will so dejected?— went slack. He looked tired enough to curl up at the foot of Mike's bed and never wake up.

Will let out a sigh, a quiet, shaky breath that echoed in the silent air. His mouth opened wide for one short moment, and something sharp as a knife flashed in his mouth. Mike tried not to flinch, and was mostly successful.

"Did I say something wrong?" said Mike, once he thought the silence had gone on far too long. "I mean, if you really don't want me to spend time with you, I— that's okay. I get it. I know I keep fucking this up, but I'm trying. I swear I'm trying."

For a while, Will went quiet again. He tilted his head over to Mike, slow like his whole body was full of lead weights. For a moment, his eyes flicked down to his wrist, still held in Mike's grasp; but, when he glanced up again, Will's gaze was lighter. His eyes were still a little wet, but the shine to them was real, warm enough to make Mike's heart flutter. "I want to be around you, Mike. That's never changed."

He was even smiling, a little thing that hardly curved his lips, only real enough to bring crinkles to the corners of his eyes. Mike's hand itched to brush away his tears. "Okay, uhm— good. That's good." Why did every word in the dictionary leave his brain the second he needed them?

They sat in silence for a while, a gentle buzz of quiet more like a warm blanket than a live wire. Will's wrist was beginning to warm up under Mike's hand when his head started drooping, eyes blinking closed as he got precariously close to Mike's shoulder. This time, however, instead of those sharp teeth baring towards his open neck, Will's mouth was closed in a small, contented smile. Mike fisted his hand in the carpet as he shoved down the insane urge to trace Will's smile lines with the pad of his thumb.

Just when Will seemed asleep, his head jerked right back up, flushing dark like he'd only just realized what he'd done. He scrambled backwards, standing up and wrenching his wrist from Mike's hand with a guilty wince. "Sorry, I'm just— sorry," he said again, eyes wild. "I've been really tired. I should—"

"Wait," Mike said, then wincing when his voice came out embarrassingly desperate. It worked, at least; Will stopped in his tracks, turning around with a confused look. He tilted his head, as if to say Go on.

Mike hadn't felt like he could read Will in a long time, so even being able to tell what Will wanted from him without words made him happy to an extent that probably should've been embarrassing. With Will, however, Mike found it hard to be embarrassed about anything.

"Do you, uh," and he paused, because every fucking word in his brain had left him, for some awful reason, "would you want to sleep in my room tonight? I mean, you've been really cold lately, and it might help if you were in my room, 'cause it's warmer in here than the basement. And if you're having nightmares, then maybe me being there could make them better, and, uhm. Yeah."

Okay, so all the words in the dictionary had come back to him, and Mike decided to use them in the worst way possible. Great.

For some horrible reason, Will smirked. In that moment, Mike decided the only reasonable solution to this problem was to find a nice Upside Down gate to take a permanent nap in, until Will's soft voice washed over him and— actually, no, his stupid soft voice made Mike wish Vecna was there to snap his neck, because Will said, "You want to spend time with me that bad, huh?"

"I, uhm," Mike spluttered, crossing his arms over his chest, "maybe."

Will tilted his head for a moment, the smirk fading as he thought it over. "You know what," he finally said, turning back to Mike with a smile so genuine it made Mike want to keel over on the spot, "yeah. Sure."

"Okay," Mike said, eloquent as ever, "cool."

Will's smile only grew wider, teeth flashing as his mouth slipped open. Mike didn't find his fangs quite as scary, then. "Cool."

Mike was beginning to regret this.

"You still have that Death Star toy?" Will laughed, peering under the dusty cavern of his bed. He was crouched in an awkward position to avoid the blood spots Mike hadn't washed out of the carpet, which only left Mike wondering how long they were going to avoid the elephant in the room.

Okay, the monster in the room. Regardless, Mike wasn't sure how long he could hold out before he started to slip up and ask about the blood on Will's palms, or how long Will could last until his eyes lingered on Mike's exposed neck for a touch too long. When would one of them break?

"It's a collector's item, okay?" Mike said, throwing his hands up in the air. "And you're one to talk. You literally brought your stuffed tiger up here to sleep with." Put it away and hold me instead did not escape Mike's mouth, but it came very close to slipping through.

"He'll probably be better at keeping away the nightmares than you," Will said, holding the tiger close to his chest. "And don't be mean to him. He doesn't like it."

Will raised his hand to cover the tiger's ears, and Mike burst out laughing; not to make fun of Will, but because it was the sweetest thing Mike had ever seen. Sure, a month or two ago he would have wanted to curl up and die after thinking Will was sweet, because, well— he wasn't allowed to think like that. He wasn't allowed to love, not like that. But now?

Now, Mike had to use all his strength to hold back from doing something insane, like squeezing Will tight enough for his lungs to burst or kissing him senseless. God, he was hopeless.

"Yeah?" said Mike, failing miserably at holding back his laughter. "What does he think about me, then?"

Will took his hands from the tiger's ears and pushed its paws across its chest. "He thinks," said Will, "that you're stalling right now, and we both need to go to bed. He's tired, too." He grabbed the tiger's head and pushed it down to droop at its chest, like the plushie was falling asleep.

Mike stiffened, looking away from Will's knowing stare. Even tired out of his mind, and possibly possessed out of his mind, Will could read him like a book.

He wasn't scared, okay? Mike had just realized, a bit too late after he'd practically begged Will to sleep over, that maybe sleeping in a room a monster had been clawing up for the past week wasn't the best idea. He'd also realized, maybe, if said monster was his best friend, that inviting the monster to sleep in his bed was also not his brightest idea.

"It's not going to come back," Will said, sincere. He set the tiger down on a pillow, and patted the space next to him for Mike to join. "If it does, we've got enough weapons in here to turn it into a pile of monster guts, or whatever. You'll be okay."

The only way Will could know that for sure was if he was the monster. Mike couldn't bring himself to believe Will's words, even then.

He wasn't scared of Will, obviously. He just didn't feel too fond of getting torn apart in the night, or watching Vecna hook his claws into Will's brain and shove sharp canines from his mouth, or waking up to his bedframe dripping blood on his forehead, again—

Okay. Maybe he was scared. Maybe he was really starting to regret this.

But he couldn't back down, not now. Mike wasn't sure he could be dragged away from Will right now if the ground split in two between them, anyway. He'd jump across a whole gate to reach Will, if that was what it took.

"I know," said Mike, quiet. He looked up to meet Will's gaze, and couldn't stop the sigh of relief when he saw that flash of light still flickering in Will's eyes. "You sure you don't need anything before we sleep? Water, food—" Mike wasn't sure Will had eaten at all today. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Will eat anything, and that terrified him.

On food, the glint in his eyes turned hard. "I'm fine, Mike," said Will, with more life than the last few times he'd said those words together. His eyes still shone, a harsh headlight glare bright enough for Mike to feel like he was going blind, or crazy. How could Will, of all people, look so bloodthirsty?

Will took a small step forward, leaning towards Mike like the world was tilting under his feet. Mike decided this was probably a good time to go to bed, even if he wouldn't wake up. "O-kay, you look like you're about to pass out on your feet. You need sleep."

At Mike's voice, Will seemed to wake up; he shook himself, taking a large step back and landing on the bed. "Yeah," he murmured, like he was reassuring himself, "sleep. I can— I'm going to do that." Will leaned over to turn off the lamp, and Mike's heart started to race. He wasn't sure what scared him more; the idea of sleeping in the same bed as Will, or the idea of Will murdering him in his sleep.

The instant that thought passed his mind, Mike knew the first option was what was making him anxious enough to vomit. Being more scared of accidentally brushing up against Will in his sleep than literally dying probably wasn't the healthiest way to rank his fears, but strangely, death didn't seem so bad if it was with Will.

Jesus. How had he not realized his feelings earlier, when he'd been having thoughts like that for years?

"Do you, uh," Mike started, just before Will could turn off the lights, "want another blanket, maybe? I don't know if there's any left, but—"

Will turned off the lamp. "Just get in the bed, Mike."

Mike got in the bed.

He hadn't realized just how large and cramped a queen-sized mattress could be all at once. He could feel Will's body heat next to him, but he was still far enough for Mike to stretch his fingers out and not even brush Will's skin. He could hear Will's breathing, low and rapid, but he couldn't fit his whole body under the blanket without shoving himself up against Will, and he would honestly rather die than do that without asking. If Will was okay with that, however—

"You're hogging the blanket," Will said, exasperated. He sounded surprisingly awake, for swaying on his feet just a few minutes ago.

Mike, despite all the adrenaline running through his body only moments before, was ready to drop dead on his pillow. Either interpretation of that statement worked for him, as long as he wasn't awake. "Am not."

In response, Will tugged the blanket over his shoulders, nearly taking it off Mike's body entirely. "Hey! I offered another blanket, you know."

"And what if I wanted your blanket," murmured Will. Mike could hear him holding back laughter. And this was the boy he'd thought was a monster?

He must have really gone crazy, because Mike tugged the blanket from Will's body and said, without a second thought, "Come over here and get under it, then."

For one long, terror-inducing moment, Mike thought he'd fucked up completely. Will wouldn't tolerate this; he'd get up, sneer something along the lines of What are we, twelve? and walk out into the woods, or tear Mike apart with his possibly-nonexistent claws. Mike wasn't sure he deserved anything more.

Instead, Will laughed to himself, almost like he thought he was the crazy one here. "You— okay. Okay," he murmured, shuffling closer to Mike's blanket— and, by extension, Mike's body, shit—

It was fine, actually. Will was a little cool, but not terrifyingly cold. He did feel a little clammy, and Mike could sort of feel Will's spine against his chest— okay, so it wasn't fine, and Mike was now worried out of his mind. Again.

Will made this little satisfied noise as he curled up under the blanket, and Mike decided he'd make it fine, even if Will felt like he was halfway to becoming a corpse. He'd try his hardest to stay calm for a while, because, for some inexplicable reason, Will was happy to press up against him under their shared blanket. Mike would do anything to keep him that way, even if he couldn't understand why Will was happy to be so close to him at all.

Slowly, praying Will was already asleep, Mike wrapped an arm around Will's waist. He kept his touch gentle, loose enough for Will to wriggle away if he wanted, soft enough to where Will might not notice at all. Conscious or not, Will pushed himself further into Mike's chest with a contented sigh, and Mike fell asleep with the sound echoing in his head like a white noise hum.

Mike fell asleep first. Big mistake.

Really, his biggest mistake was thinking he'd actually wake up if Will started to leave. He was serious when he'd told Jonathan he was a heavy sleeper, and now, Mike was paying the price of being stupid enough to let Will out of his sight by waking up to a cold bed and empty arms.

Will had been considerate enough to tuck the blanket back over Mike before he left, at least. Now, however, Mike was struggling to untangle the thing from his legs, cursing and trying to keep his hands from shaking as he shoved the blanket off him. It landed in a heap on his floor, and he nearly tripped over the thing as he scrambled to his nightstand, snatching the handgun Will had set on his side of the bed.

Will hadn't taken his own gun. Did he have a death wish, or a better weapon already sewn into his skin?

Jonathan had told him not to let Will leave the house. One fucking thing, and Mike still managed to mess it up. "Useless," he muttered, shoving open the door and stumbling into the hallway, "fucking useless."

Mistakes. Those were all he was good for, it seemed. He'd been careless enough to fall asleep first, stupid enough to fall asleep at all— what was sleep worth, when Will's life was on the line? He shouldn't have slept at all; he should've sat upright and awake, watched Will's chest rise and fall until the morning came back again. He should have hurt himself every time he felt his eyes droop, dug his nails into his skin and bit the skin of his lip and let the pain keep him awake.

He should have stayed awake. He should have kept his eyes open, on Will. One job, and he couldn't even do it right.

Mike sprinted down the stairs, nearly tripping on the last step. Something slick sunk into his socked feet— yes, he slept with socks on, sue him— and nearly sent him flying off the stairs and landing face-first on the living room carpet. Instead, he grabbed onto the stair railing just in time, glancing down as he caught his balance.

Dark spots of red dripped down the last stair. Someone had left a breadcrumb trail of blood spotted through the hallway, smeared all the way to the front door. Mike flew off the last step and shoved himself through the door without bothering for shoes.

He'd kept a mini flashlight in his pocket, some tiny thing Dustin had sworn would be useful when he'd handed them out to the Party. Mike had wanted to laugh at the time, staring at some collapsible piece of metal small enough to fit in his mouth. Now, he'd kiss Dustin on the mouth, if that was how he wanted a thank-you.

Okay— no, he probably wouldn't do that. Mike would have shuddered at the thought if he wasn't running full-sprint into the woods, following the line of blood staining the grass in dark puddles. By the time he'd crashed through the woods, the tiny drops of blood had turned to wet smears large enough for Mike to trip in. He'd probably made his own trail of bloodied footprints from all the times he'd slipped through those dark, tacky puddles. Good thing there weren't enough cops left in Hawkins to get on his case.

The blood was still warm under his feet, clinging to his socks as he shoved his way through the woods. Thorns caught on his exposed arms, nicking his skin and letting his own blood mix with those strange tracks smeared on the ground.

It couldn't be Will's, could it? How could he have started bleeding in the house? Why did those dark smears only turn large once Mike entered the woods? How recent had this blood been shed, to still be running and warm? And what were those noises?

As Mike tripped through the woods, swinging his flashlight wildly across the trees, that strange, strained voice only grew louder. He wasn't sure if he was getting closer, or if something was getting closer to him.

Those same pained breaths he'd heard through his door echoed in his ears, shaky snarling and keening whines so uncanny yet so human, human enough to make Mike run faster, fast as his legs would allow him, fast as his own breaths would come through. With every step, his body protested, burning with the physical strain of sprinting and the urge to turn back, to run from the horrible tearing noise of something that sounded sickeningly like flesh, the snap of bone and the wet growl of something bleeding someone dry—

He skidded through a thick patch of blood, hot under his heels. The blood was getting warmer.

He was getting closer.

Mike pushed past a brush of thorns, numb to the sting as they scratched through his skin. His heart was pumping faster than he could breathe, faster than he could think. Fear crawled through his throat like thick bile, but he couldn't stop to let it out. He couldn't make another mistake. He had to keep going.

When the trail ended, he almost kept running. Mike was blind off adrenaline, pure terror driving him forward, blind enough to hardly feel the soft body under his feet. Blind enough to barely feel the still-warm brush of fur against his ankle, the clammy caress of slick fingers stumbling over his exposed skin, nearly blind enough to run over the whole thing and keep on searching.

Almost.

Reality slammed back into him just in time, giving him just enough grace to let him stumble backward and scramble away from whatever was strewn across the forest floor. His eyes blurred in the darkness, flashlight flickering in his shaky hand.

This time, he felt no hesitation to look up, shining light on the scene in front of him. In the flickering dark, he could hardly make sense of the hulking shape in his vision, the still body spread on the floor. He could hear the noises, and that was enough.

Panting, shaky breaths, choked whimpers and the soft snap of skin under sharp teeth. Snarling, too, with the grisly lapping of blood loud enough to cover up every other noise, if Mike wasn't close enough to that trembling, terrifyingly human figure to hear every horrible thing. He'd be sick, if his whole body wasn't frozen with fear.

His legs shook. Something snapped under his heel, the sharp give of a rotten branch.

Slowly, the monster turned its head, and, for a moment, Mike caught a glimpse of the thing under it. A slumped, shadowy figure, limbs splayed out like it had been shoved down, torn apart right there on the forest floor. It's head twitched, and Mike watched as a glassy eye turned to the open sky, and— oh god, it was Will. Those were Will's eyes, doe-brown and dead, forever open, and Mike had been wrong, they'd all been wrong, the monster wasn't Will, the monster got Will, it got him, it got him, it got him—

The monster met Mike's eyes, then, all doe-brown iris and blown pupils; shining and wide, with a harsh gleam of hunger that held Mike frozen in place. Open mouth, fangs long enough to split his lip, to split Will's lip, because Mike would recognize that Cupid's bow anywhere—

The monster hadn't killed Will, then.

It was Will.

Chapter Text

Will had sworn he could control himself.

He'd made a promise, bit his tongue and swallowed the blood like it would bind him to his words, force him to keep his oath. He wouldn't black out again, not around Mike. He would fall asleep in Mike's bed, ignore how the sheets smelled like him and the soft way he sighed as he fell asleep, ignore all the stupid things that made him fall further in love with Mike in favor of focusing on not fucking blacking out. He would close his eyes, shove that sneering voice from his mind, and will his body to stay where it was as he slept. He'd wake up clean and comfortable, mouth dry and hands clean of all the horrible things he'd done without his own consent.

He hadn't even remembered stumbling into the kitchen until Jonathan had accused him, every one of his words edging closer to the truth than Will could allow. Jonathan and Mike both were catching on, now. Will hadn't been careful enough.

He had to learn how to control it, he'd thought— and then Mike had wrapped his arms around him, and every coherent thought of his vanished with one touch. Mike had lulled him to sleep with those stupid, warm hands, and left Will entirely uncaring about the tugging pain under his nails, the hunger gnawing at his stomach, the egging voice that whispered Get up, go on. Aren't you hungry?

Typical. One shred of kindness from Mike, and Will forgot all his sense. He should have seen it coming.

After he'd woken back up, Will was sure he'd gone blind, despite seeing clearer than ever. His mind was hazy, fuzzy with hunger. Something sharp poked at his tongue, and it took Will a long moment to register the knives in his mouth as his own teeth. He could see everything in the dark room, but he'd zeroed in instantly on that warm body in the bed, the blood pumping under its skin, that soft, exposed skin, open and wanting for Will to sink his teeth into—

Mike. That was Mike, what was he thinking?

He'd left the room then, stumbling and shaking as he pushed his way out of the house and into the woods. Something hot spilled from his mouth, dripping off his chin as he tripped over a stray log. He'd chewed his tongue up to shreds in his sleep.

His own blood tasted dull, empty. The deer's blood was much stronger.

Will hadn't even realized what he'd done until the snap of bone brought him back to life, one clear instant for him to look on in horror. He looked down at his hands, a mess of dark claws and darker stains, thick strings hung between his fingers. His clothes were saturated with the stuff, so wet he could feel the fabric clinging to his skin. And his mouth— oh, god. He could feel the blood coursing under his tongue, sliding down his throat, thick and hot in a way that should have been so, so disgusting.

He kept drinking. The moment of clarity was gone, until another clear snap wrenched him back.

A quiet gasp echoed through the forest, louder than the give of skin under his claws, louder than the noises he couldn't stop from bubbling up under the blood. Will turned around, slow, focused. He didn't want to black out again and wake up with another body in his hands.

When he locked eyes with Mike, Will knew it was over. Mike would never see him the same way again. So much for being friends.

He does not want you, Vecna said. Will's hands shook, claws itching to reach forward and rip. Don't you see? He thinks you are a monster. Show him how monstrous you can be.

"Will," Mike breathed, taking a step forward, "oh my God, Will."

For a second, he'd been frozen, entirely caught in Mike's horrified eyes. When the leaves scraped under his feet again, Will came to himself; he scrambled back, palms sliding on the slick floor as he pushed himself away.

He tried to speak. Nothing came out except a strangled whine, thick with the blood still streaming down his throat.

Mike reached out a hand, shaking like a leaf in the wind. "Hey, hey," he whispered, soft like he was soothing a stray animal, "come on. It's me. It's Mike. I'm not gonna hurt you." Are you going to hurt me? went unsaid, but Will could hear it in Mike's voice.

Will's eyes darted across the woods, landing on a glinting thing abandoned on the floor. Mike had left his handgun there, far back. He'd never make it in time if Will chose to spring.

Vecna had no response to this thought. Instead of his hissing voice filling Will's mind, Mike's words echoed in his ears. He was so soft, gentle. Like he was holding his hand out to a wobbling baby deer, instead of a tortured teenager covered in blood. "Can you hear me, Will?"

He was so gentle. Will couldn't understand how Mike could still be soft, when Will had become nothing but harsh. "I— yeah." He managed to choke something out, once most of the blood had gone down his throat. The hunger was sated, if for a moment.

"Come on," said Mike, holding his hand out again. "Can you stand? Do you need me to carry you?"

Why wasn't Mike scared? Why hadn't he run already?

"Why are you here?" he rasped, a slight lisp in his words. At least there were no S's for him to stumble over.

"You're not going to hurt me." Mike crouched down, grabbing onto Will's slick hand. "You promised."

Will wasn't sure he could keep it. Not with Vecna pushing his claws further from his hands, hissing Now's your chance, Will. Put those teeth to use. It's the only way you'll get close to him like you want.

He let Mike pull him up regardless, careful to angle his claws away from Mike's skin. For a moment, they only stood there, hands intertwined. The slick slide of blood between them made Will want to vomit. He'd imagined holding Mike's hand a million times, from the fuzziest daydreams to the worst bouts of loathing. Never had he imagined it like this.

"Come on, Will," said Mike, moving Will's arm up to hook it around his shoulder. I'm staining his clothes, Will thought, dimly. He fisted his hand into the fabric, grimacing as his vision blurred again.

He couldn't pass out, not again. Will let his teeth gnash down on empty air. He had to control himself.

Mike let Will lean on him as they stumbled through the woods. He left the deer carcass behind without even mentioning the thing, and Will wasn't sure whether to be grateful or disgusted. "Let's get you home."

By the time they reached Mike's front door, Mike really was carrying him.

Will had collapsed more than a few times, exhausted by the effort it took just to keep his eyes open. He found it hard to think about walking when he was fighting off that snarling voice at every moment, a constant growl of Why won't you hurt him, Will? Don't be fooled. He doesn't want you.

He shoved the thought from his mind, not without pain. A short gasp escaped his fangs.

"Are you hurt?" Mike said, still holding Will as he swayed on the Wheeler's front porch.

He wasn't starving, not anymore, but it was still a struggle not to lean his face a bit further into Mike's neck and bite down. Fuck, he needed to get away. He couldn't go inside. "I— Mike, I can't—"

Will took a step backward and was met with Mike's solid chest. In any other situation, Will might have blushed. Now, the only flush in his face was from fear.

He couldn't let anyone else see him like this. He could only imagine their reactions; Jonathan, steeling his grip around that handgun, his mom's refusal to meet his eye, little Holly's shriek of unadulterated terror— okay, the last one sort of made him laugh, until a fang caught his lip and he choked again.

"Mike," he said, trying to make his voice sound firm, "I can't go in there." He only sounded weak.

Instead of letting him go, like any rational person afraid of a literal fucking vampire would, Mike pushed his hand back into Will's. The blood had gone dry by now, but that didn't make Will feel any less disgusting. "Well, you're not running away again, so in you go." He patted the small of Will's back, and pushed him forward as Mike leaned over to unlock the door. Will considered making a run for it, but Mike's hands were so warm, and his bed was just in there, and maybe he could collapse in a hot shower for hours instead of explaining why he'd been mauling a deer with his teeth.

The light hurt his eyes. He turned away with a hiss, a strangled noise that sounded insane even to him. How could Mike stand to get close to Will, when he was like this?

"You sure you're not hurt?" Mike asked, pushing his had firmly into Will's back as they walked through the hallway. "You sound, uh—"

Will had kept his eyes glued to the floor, watching with dim recognition as he tracked blood all over the Wheeler's carpet— oh, Mrs. Wheeler was going to hate him— so for a moment, Will didn't even notice when Mike stopped dead in the hallway, his head turned toward the kitchen. He kept his gaze on the floor, fighting off the urge to let his eyes roll back, until a pair of hands far too small to be Mike's cupped his face and brought him back to reality.

He looked up with a start, and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Joyce looking back at him. Her hands were shaking bad enough for Will to feel it against his face, her nails digging into his skin as she tilted his face up to meet her eyes.

For one drawn-out moment, his mom was utterly speechless. She just stood there, holding his face in her hands tight enough to take all the blood from his pale face, hardly breathing until Will jerked back to squirm away from her harsh grip. At that, his mom moved into action; one hand flew down to Will's neck, pressing against the fluttering spot under his throat to check his pulse, while the other squeezed him tight in a bone-crushing hug. It might have been more painful than her nails digging into his face, honestly.

"Honey," she choked out, burying her face in Will's shoulder, "Will. Will, what happened?"

He couldn't retract his claws with how much his hands were shaking. Will let them hover over his mom's back, casting grisly shadows on the wall. He'd be great with shadow-puppets, you know, if he wasn't possessed. "Mom, get off," he said, in lieu of an answer. "I'm getting your clothes all dirty."

"Don't care," she said, holding him tighter. They stayed like that for a while, and eventually, Will felt the hunger recede. Nothing else seemed to matter, then, not when his mom held in the face of everything; the blood still dripping from his mouth, the claws he was sure she could feel brushed against her shirt, the pained rasp to his every breath. If one person could love him in spite of what he'd become, maybe things wouldn't be so bad, after all.

He felt happy, then. Content to stay in Joyce's arms forever, at least, until another voice came through; bleary with sleep, but loud enough to blow Will's eardrums clean off. "What the fuck?"

There were three different reactions to Will's condition. Apparently, that was what they were calling it now. Will had no say in this.

Jonathan looked like he was going to be sick. Will had wrenched himself away from Joyce, arms splayed wide to avoid slashing her to bits, and while he'd already known his brother was standing there from the soft steps on the floor, it was still a shock to look him in the eye.

He was paler than Will had ever been, eyes wide and horrified over the hand clasped against his mouth. As Will's heart dropped and shattered in pieces on the floor, Jonathan only stood there, swaying on his feet and hardly breathing as he looked Will up and down.

Will wasn't sure what to do, in a situation like this. Give him a wave, wiggle his blood-soaked claws at him? Run into the woods and never return? Tear him to pieces with his fangs, pierce his claws through Jonathan's chest?

Okay, the last one was the hint of hunger talking, but still. He was entirely frozen, palms up in surrender, trying as hard as he could to retract his claws. The most they'd go was halfway, a sharp snick echoing through the silent air as he struggled to shove them down. Will sighed, more of a choked snarl than anything. Jonathan flinched back.

Mike was the first to move, marching up to Jonathan and shoving a bloodied hand in his chest. "What the fuck do you think you're doing? Go get the first aid kit, idiot, don't just stand there—"

That was what snapped Jonathan back into focus. He pushed past Mike, running up to Will and grabbing him by the shoulders, holding on hard. "Will, shit, Will. I'm sorry, fuck, I— where the hell did all this blood come from? And your hands, oh my god—"

Will would have made a joke, waved them around and said What, these bad boys? but his heart had crawled its way up his throat, leaving all its shattered pieces to stab his tongue.

Jonathan had hesitated. Jonathan had flinched away from him, stared at him with nothing but terror in his eyes, nearly passed out at the blood soaking Will's clothes.

Jonathan was scared of him.

"Will," he said again, voice softer, "hey, come on. I'm not— you can put your hands down, okay? No one's gonna hurt you."

Will's voice found him at the worst possible moment, when the only thought running through his head was Jonathan is scared of me. My own brother is scared of me. "You were going to," he rasped, wet. Something was stuck in his throat, and he wasn't sure if it was the leftover blood or the remnants of his heart.

"I thought you were dead." Jonathan crouched down, looking Will straight in the eye. All that fear was gone, and even Will could see it. "You were just standing there, covered in all this blood, and your eyes were so dark and empty and I thought you were dead, Will."

He blinked hard, hoping to will the light back to his eyes. "You weren't scared?"

"Never," Jonathan insisted, pulling Will into a tight hug. Joyce's were still tighter. "Not when it's you."

"Mom's got you beat," Will laughed, a watery sound coughed into his shoulder. His shirt was wet with tears now, too. "Her hugs are more painful."

Jonathan squeezed him tight enough for his ribs to crack, pushing all the air from Will's lungs with a short oof. "I didn't know this was a competition."

He only pulled away when Joyce walked back up to them, tapping Jonathan on the shoulder and saying, "Come on, let me look at him." At that, Will froze up. He couldn't seem to get a breath back in his lungs.

They were going to find him out. His mom would search him up and down, ask Will why he looked like he'd swam in a swimming pool of blood and emerged without a scratch, and it would all be over. His mom would grab his hands, take one look at the knives in his skin, and realize he wasn't her son anymore. Something had crawled inside his body and replaced him entirely, a child stolen away and replaced with a monster by the fae. Faerie demons wouldn't even be too out of line, with all the horrors they'd experienced already.

He knew it was over when Joyce didn't even touch him. She just stood there, staring at his hands and the mouth he couldn't seem to close because of how much it hurt to breathe. The only air he could get was through his grit teeth. His throat was closing, his lungs had shriveled in his chest, and his mom didn't love him anymore.

So when his mom stepped forward and tilted his head up to look at her again, he almost didn't register the feeling at all. She traced her thumb over a sharp incisor, her face so unbelievably sad it hurt Will to look at her at all. "God, baby. Who did this to you?"

"Who do you think?" Mike sighed. He'd been so quiet, Will almost forgot he was there at all. "It's Vecna. It always is."

"It's—" Will tried to find an excuse, and came up empty. It was too late. They already knew, and the deal he'd made with Vecna would go to shambles, and he'd wake up the next day to a house in ruins and teeth coming out of his throat, or something. This had been a mistake. He was a mistake.

Joyce's eyes turned fierce, then, whirling around to face Mike with one hand still on Will's cheek. "We're killing him."

What do you want, William? asked Vecna. Will could almost feel the prick of claws, digging into his shoulder. Would you like to let her try? You know how it will end.

"And let Will die with him?" said Mike, throwing his hands up in the air. "No way."

Will tried to speak, but nothing came up. Dissuading his family— and Mike— from killing an Eldritch god was kind of a challenge, especially when he was basically convinced none of them loved him after seeing what he'd become.

"He's my son, Mike," Joyce said, pained. "We'll find a way. We aren't helpless against him, just because he thinks he can hold my— my boy hostage and have us give up, just like that."

He's my son rang out in Will's mind like the bang of a flashbomb. How could she still love him when he was hardly human? "I'm still—" Will started, choking on his words, "you love me? Like this?"

"Of course we do," Jonathan said, final. Like it wasn't even a question.

The words went through his mind like water. "I don't— Jonathan, it's like I'm not really here, anymore. There's something wrong with me. I'm not—"

"Will," said Jonathan, not unkindly, "shut up, okay? You're my brother, and I meant it when I said nothing in this world could change that. Especially not something as small as those claws."

Will gave him a disbelieving look, and Jonathan glanced away, sheepish. "Okay, so they're not small. I still think they're kind of awesome, honestly."

"The teeth are cute," Joyce added, pinching his cheek. "You look like a bat."

Will squirmed out of Joyce's reach, a smile breaking across his face no matter how hard he tried to push it away. "You think so?"

"Yeah, man," said Jonathan, shaking Will's shoulder. "You could suck Vecna's blood with those teeth— wait, is that why I smell deer blood?"

Jonathan said something else, but his words were drowned out by Vecna's growl, loud and demanding in his ear. They have no idea what you can do. Once they learn what you're capable of, they'll leave you like all the rest.

You are not like them, William. You are better.

His vision went hazy for a moment, legs going unsteady underneath him. You are stronger. They do not deserve you. Show them your teeth.

"Will!" Another hand clasped over his shoulder, pushing Jonathan's aside. Even with Vecna's voice rolling in his ears, Will could recognize Mike's frantic tone. "Will, what's wrong?"

Do not tell them of your role in this, said Vecna, not if you want your friends to be spared. You are not a martyr.

With that, Will snapped back into focus, scrambling upright again. He nearly fell into Mike's arms, collapsing into his chest for one terrifying moment until he pushed himself upright again and leaning against the wall with a shaky sigh. He'd already destroyed the Wheeler's house with all this blood he'd tracked around. Did he have to get it on the walls, too?

"The spy," Mike breathed, watching Will with wide eyes. "He hears us."

He couldn’t hide any longer. An explanation poured out of Will's mouth, then; a half-truth, an honest tale of what he was becoming shrouded by the lie of this being done to him. He spun something impressive, for someone who hadn't slept in days. Will pinned it all on Vecna. He was the one who came to Will, the one who forced those vines of possession through Will's body, because why would Will ever ask to be taken so violently? He was the one who moved Will through the forest, the one who made him rip into animals with his teeth, the one who sunk his claws into Mike's bedframe and crowned scarred ribbons around his head in the night.

It was all on him, just as Vecna asked. To Will, it almost seemed a nice thing to do, but why would Vecna be so willing to take the blame?

"He has me," Will finished, slumping against the wall. "It's too late already, for me. Whatever's left of me."

Mike marched forward, tilting Will's head up to look him in the eye with a stubborn glare— God, why did people keep touching him? Mike's hand burned against his face, warmth meeting cold blood under his skin. He'd just eaten, and he was still so cold, and it hurt. He couldn't stop shivering.

He deserved it, for being stupid enough to put himself in this position. How could he have thought he'd ever be smart enough to hide at all? He'd never been good at hiding anything else about himself, anyway.

"No," said Mike, forceful, "it's not. We'll find a way to get him out of you. We've done it before, right? We'll do it again."

Mike's face was so close. Close enough for Will to reach out, tuck a strand of overgrown hair behind his face, put his own bloodied hand on Mike's cheek and leave a mark he couldn't scrub away. Dig his claws in deep.

He kept his hands in fists at his sides. "Don't, Mike. This isn't like last time."

Jonathan just looked at him, disbelieving. Like he'd seen through all Will's lies already. "And why not?"

Because this is my fault, thought Will. I did this to myself. I let Vecna in to save you, and he’s not going to let me go this time. If I can still save you, then I'll die to do it. I don't think death could be any worse than life right now.

Before he could say anything, his mom pushed herself between both Mike and Jonathan, giving him a soft smile to offset the glares boring into his skull. "We can talk about this tomorrow, okay?" she said, sending both Mike and Jonathan a pointed look. "It's late. Will, why don't you take a shower, and get some sleep afterwards?"

Sleep was sort of what caused this dilemma in the first place, but Will didn't want to worry his mom any more than he already had. And with the way she said her words, a sort of That's final tone to her voice, Will knew she wouldn't let this conversation continue any further. He really needed a shower, anyway, because he might throw up if he looked down at his body and saw more blood than skin again. "Okay," he said, pushing himself off the wall and wincing when his shirt stuck to the plaster like velcro, "yeah."

"I'll be in Karen's room if you need me, honey," said Joyce, "and Jonathan will be in the basement." Jonathan looked like he was about to protest, until Joyce put him in place with another stern look. "Mike, keep an eye on him, will you?"

Mike, who had been staring off across the hallway with an odd, vacant look, whirled around at the mention of his name. "Wha— huh? Oh, yeah, of course, Ms. Byers. I'll, uh— keep an eye on him. Yeah." He gave her a weak thumbs up. Will would have laughed, if he was hardly awake enough to breathe.

Mike hadn't spoken much at all once Jonathan and Joyce had come in. Had he left all his gentleness behind in the woods?

Will didn't want to dwell on it; Mike was the last person he'd expect to accept him after what he'd done, anyway.

You knew I was right, Vecna purred. No one wants you, Will, but you are stronger alone. Find that strength in all those differences of yours.

Will gave up on shaking Vecna's voice off as he scrubbed the blood away.

The hot water hurt, but when he set it back to lukewarm, the blood wouldn't come off at all. Will settled for a stinging, scalding shower and accepted the red flush it left on his skin, painful as a first-degree burn. He hoped the sound of running water would drown out the whimpers he bit back at every scalding drop.

Under the constant stream, his claws and teeth retracted on their own, shying away from the heat like they hadn't been content to sink into hot blood just hours before. Will would have wondered over the difference, but between the low hum of Vecna's sheer presence in his mind, and the effort it took to keep his eyes open, he could hardly think at all. He was impressed he hadn't fallen asleep in the shower, honestly.

After stumbling out of the shower and throwing on just enough clothes to be decent— almost sans a shirt, because his arms had ached too much to get the damn thing over his head— Will wandered out of the bathroom, prepared to collapse on Mike's bed and soak his pillowcase with wet hair. Lifting his arms up to dry his head hurt like hell, too.

Why didn't he feel any better after drinking a whole fucking deer dry? He felt worse, if anything, especially as the memories came back to him in dark fragments; how fur felt under his teeth, the sickening snap of bone as his claws cut through its chest, the dark, glassy eyes that stared at him in reproach. You did this to me, it seemed to say, antlers brushing his neck as he'd leaned in like a guilty caress. You are no better than him, now.

He used to love animals. Deer, rabbits, tigers; he had plushies of them all, left behind in Lenora except for one orange tiger. Before, he'd hated to leave them there, ripped to fluff in all the gunfire. Now, he was glad for it. He probably wouldn't have been able to look any of them in the eye anymore.

Fuck, he really had to sleep. If not, he'd probably start hallucinating dead animals, or Vecna would see into his mind and make him hallucinate dead animals, just to fuck with him. It wasn't beneath Vecna at all.

He turned the corner, heading for the stairs. Mike's voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Will?" At his name, Will glanced over, quiet for a moment as he considered Mike. He looked small, all huddled on the couch with his knees tucked up to his chin. Will had always seen Mike as larger than life; a paladin, a knight in shining armor, the heart. His heart. Seeing him so small, stripping skin from his nails with shaking fingers and shrinking into himself like he wanted to disappear from the world— it made something twist in Will's chest, miserable and ugly. It's my fault he's scared. It's my fault he looks so sad. I did this to him.

The dead deer's eyes blinked in his vision again. You did this to me. Mike's eyes were almost as dark as its own glassy gaze.

Will sat down with nothing to say. After burning his skin in the shower, he wasn't sure he could speak anything more than a trembling sigh. He kept a respectable six inches between his and Mike's bodies, because he did not want a repeat of waking up to Mike's face in the crook of his neck. He could still feel every point of contact between them in the bed like it had been burned into his skin, a warm distraction from the sting of hot water; Mike's arms around his waist, a leg swung over his own, hands digging into his tee-shirt like Will was a teddy bear. It would have been nice, if Mike had wanted to do it. He'd never want to hold Will awake.

"Will?" Mike said again. His voice shook as he leaned over, going louder when Will said nothing. The words wouldn't come up. "Are you okay?"

"I'm sorry." Nothing else would come out.

Mike scooted into Will's space, destroying his carefully placed six-inch barrier. "Hey, you've got nothing to be sorry for. Nothing, okay?"

When Will didn't respond, Mike grabbed Will's jaw, more gently than he deserved, tilting Will's face to his gaze. Mike's hands were too warm, and they hurt in an entirely different way than his hot shower.

Will flinched away. "You don't know that."

"Yes, I do," Mike insisted, firmly. "This wasn't your fault. You didn't ask for this."

But he did. He'd walked himself straight into Hell. He hadn't flinched when those vines had tore into his body, and if anything, he'd leaned into the hurt. It didn't matter if he hurt, as long as his friends escaped his pain. It wasn't like he hadn't hurt himself for them before, so what was a little bit of pain for their safety?

It was never a little bit, not with Vecna. He liked a slow torture, a spectacle. What was more magnificent than a monster?

Mike kept his hand on Will's face, and despite himself, Will leaned into his palm. "Can I ask you something?" he said, after a few minutes of quiet silence. Will was too tired to label it as tense or comfortable; it existed somewhere in between.

"Go ahead," Will murmured, eyes blinking closed. He might end up falling asleep before he heard Mike's question, at this rate.

Even with his eyes half closed, Will could see in an instant how Mike's face flushed at least three shades darker than usual. "So— uhm. Are you, like, a vampire? I don't want to be rude, or insensitive, or just a plain asshole, but I was just wondering, and—"

Will took a moment to consider it as Mike rambled on, growing more flushed by the second. He could almost feel Mike's hand growing hotter against his cheek; Will's head had fallen back into the cushions by now, and he'd trapped Mike's hand under his weight. "You know what," he said, speaking halfway into Mike's palm, "I guess I am." If his fangs hadn't retracted, he'd probably have split Mike's skin by now.

Mike stopped his rambling, looking pointedly away from Will as he went quiet. When he spoke again, his voice must have cracked at least five times. "Well, I, uh— guess that explains all the blood? And the deer. Wait, does animal blood taste good? Or do you think, uh, human blood might taste better? Not that I think you'd bite someone, I was. Uhm. Just wondering."

Why was Mike so nervous? Other than thinking Will wanted to drain him dry, Will saw no reason for Mike to stumble over his words like this. Even if he did want to bite Mike, Will was too tired to do anything about it. "It tastes okay," he said, shrugging. "I'm never really conscious enough to remember." His last sentence came out more bitter than he'd intended. What did he have to be bitter about, when he'd done this to himself?

The room went silent again. Will could see Mike bite down on the inside of his lip, like he was trying to hold back another question. "It's fine if you're curious," said Will, hoping to ease how his hands were shaking against Will's cheek. "I don't bite."

Mike raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

Will laughed, a dry noise that scraped his throat. It was still a relief to laugh at all. "Well," he said, "maybe if you ask nicely."

So he'd said something stupidly flirty again without even realizing it, and now Mike's flush had crawled all the way down to his collarbones. Great. The day would come when Will was able to control his words around Mike at his own funeral, probably.

After Mike nearly choked on air, he turned around and gave Will a smirk, of all things. "I'll try to be nicer, then." Before Will could say anything else, Mike went on, making vague gestures to the air as he went. "So, how, like— okay, this is going to sound really stupid, but— how stereotypical are you? Like, will you burst into flames if you step into the sun? Or, wait. Can you turn into a bat? That would be awesome— okay, sorry, I'm being a jerk. Vecna cursed you and I'm asking if you can turn into a bat. Jesus."

"And you said you'd try to be nicer," said Will, laughing. "I mean, sunlight sort of hurts, but I don't think I'll start burning up in the sun, or something. It's just the heat, I guess. Like last time. And I wish I could be a bat."

"You'd make a cute bat," Mike said. His eyes widened the moment the words left his mouth, like he hadn't meant for them to come out that way, or at all. The room went dead silent, and this time, Will really could hear crickets chirping. "I mean, uh—" Mike stumbled, waving his hands erratically as he tried to fix his sentence, "because, uhm. All bats are cute. Obviously."

Mike could probably feel how hot Will's face was under his palm. "Yeah," he said, hoping to God his voice wouldn't crack, "obviously."

There really were crickets chirping outside, hopping around the front porch like they were listening in just to mock him. Just when the noise became unbearable, and Will was about to unsheathe his claws for a cricket hunting spree, Mike spoke again. "Why did Vecna do this to you?"

All the blood drained from Will's face. Mike could probably tell how cold he'd gone. "I don't know, Mike." His eyes shifted away from Mike's gaze, staring hard at the couch cushions.

"I don't get it," Mike sighed, bringing his knees up to his chest again. "It's like he's just torturing you for fun. What reason does he need to— to wreck your body like this? And what's with the blood? I mean, is he really into vampires, or something? It doesn't make sense." He sounded exhausted.

Will did this to him. Will made him look so small. Will made Mike exhausted, miserable, hopeless. He'd tried to help, and only made everything worse. When had he ever done anything different?

He dug a sharp incisor into his half-shredded tongue before he could blurt out another apology. If he said sorry, Mike would ask why, and he'd really go to Hell this time, because Vecna would probably flay him alive for breaking his end of the deal. Or whatever sort of torture Vecna was into, nowadays.

"I mean, you don't know either, right? There's nothing in his mind that explains this at all?" Mike sounded so genuine, so trusting in Will to answer him honestly. Guilt gnawed at his stomach more than hunger, now.

His tooth slipped from his tongue. The words slipped from his throat just as fast. "Don't ask me this, Mike."

For a moment, Mike just stared. He didn't even seem to register what Will had said. "What?"

Are you going to let him break you? Will could almost feel a claw tightening around his throat, ready to squeeze. Or is this what you want? Would you like to watch them all burn once you've broken your promise?

Mike must have seen how Will's eyes glazed over, because he grabbed onto Will's shoulder and shook him, hard. Mike's nails dug into his skin, harsher than the points pressing into his throat. "Hey, what do you mean? What's wrong?"

Will could hardly hear his own voice. "It's my fault, Mike. I asked for this."

He'd never been a good liar, anyway.

Chapter Text

In Mike's defense, he'd been really caught up in the idea of Will as a bat. Those big, shiny eyes, their little fangs and tiny claws— sure, maybe other people found them scary, but Mike had always thought they were adorable! If Will was a bat, Mike could scratch him behind those tiny ears, and carry him around on his shoulder, and—

Okay, this was a horrible defense.

When Will tried again to claim how this was— somehow— all his fault, Mike hardly registered the words at al. "No, you didn't," he said, shaking his head. "Seriously, why do you think I'm going to believe that? Why would you let him hurt you like this?"

At that, Will stood up, wobbling on his feet as he pushed himself away. "Mike, I had to. It was the only way."

"Had to— what?" His brain was slowly beginning to catch up. He hadn't liked any of the conclusions his mind had come to in the past few days, and this one was no exception.

"He promised me," said Will, backing away from the couch. His claws flexed at his sides, in and out with a sharp click. "He'd keep you safe, if he had me. It was an easy choice."

Mike pushed himself up from the couch, stumbling towards Will as he walked away. Will froze halfway to the stairs, legs quivering like they were about to give out under him. "So you— what? You let him hurt you like this? Will, why—"

"I'm weak, Mike." Will swayed on unsteady feet, blinking at Mike through glazed eyes. Mike wanted nothing more than to sweep him up, carry him to bed and let him sleep until noon, but he couldn't make himself do more than step forward, putting them inches apart. This close, Mike could see every one of Will's eyelashes, blinking back the wet sheen from his tired eyes. Mike only wanted to get closer.

Mike stopped dead in his tracks. "What?"

"I'm the weak point," Will said. He had his hands in fists, claws cutting into his palm. "The chink in the armor. The loose thread. Whatever you want to call it, I've always been a liability. Vecna's had me since the day he took me. If I let him stay in my mind like this, without even trying to do something, we'd all be dead by now. I did what I had to."

On instinct, Mike grabbed Will's wrist, wrenching it forward to open his hand. Wide crescent marks slashed up his palms, deep enough to draw blood. "And you thought the best thing to do was— what? Let Vecna do whatever he wants to you, on the off chance he'll be nice enough to spare someone? You can't sacrifice yourself and think no one will care. You're not a martyr."

Something flashed in Will's eyes, a harsh glare as he turned away. "That's what he said. He doesn't want me to be a symbol. I'm not a reason for you to fight."

"You're the only reason I want to fight," Mike breathed, not even considering his words before he spoke. He couldn't bring himself to take them back, not when they were true. "I don't care what Vecna thinks. If he had a brain up there, he would've known that I'd fight. If he was smart, he would have known how much I— how much we care."

Will tugged his hand away from Mike's grip, and Mike couldn't stop the hurt from showing on his face. "If you keep caring, you'll die." It was remarkably blunt for Will, but Mike didn't flinch.

"Let me die, then," said Mike. "Let everyone die. Why do you think I'll give up because you want me to? Because Vecnawants me to?"

"It would save you," Will said, turning back to Mike. "I don't want you to keep fighting for me, Mike. I just want you to live."

He sounded so tired. Mike understood; they'd watched this story play out time and time again. Will, damsel in distress, Mike, knight in shining armor. Of course Will was tired of being saved, and of course Mike was tired of being the savior. He'd still save Will again and again.

Will knew how to save himself, too. Mike just wasn't sure he recognized it yet. "And I want to fight for you, okay?" His voice turned soft, then. Mike didn't mind it, if it meant Will would listen. "We can fight together, you know. We'll find a way."

Mike wasn't sure Will believed him, with the way his face only fell further into a frown. "Yeah," he said, "okay. I'm going back to bed."

Before Mike could say anything else, Will traipsed up the stairs and disappeared in the dark. With his racing mind, Mike knew he wasn't sleeping anytime soon, and he knew he couldn't keep arguing with Will. Instead, he sat back on the couch and drew out the timeline he'd drawn earlier this morning, folded up in his pocket.

The pencil he'd used was still on the coffee table. Mike took it in his hands and did what he did best (or worst, if you considered his handwriting).

He wrote.

Three hours later, Mike had six bullet points, one potential solution, and an uncountable amount of question marks. The list went as follows, in Mike's caffeine-shaky handwriting;

• Why would Vecna let Will sacrifice himself?

• Why does Vecna want to hide his deal with Will?

• Exploit bond between Vecna and Will. Somehow.

• How? (Seven question marks followed this statement, each one written at a different time as Mike turned the question over in his mind over and over again.)

• Is Vecna even capable of understanding love?

• Seriously, why is he making Will drink blood?

He'd scrawled a seventh question under all the rest, then scratched it out deep enough to tear the paper. Does Will not care about me? About us? He still couldn't scratch it out of his head.

How could Will care more about Mike's life than their friendship, and where had this obligation of Will's to keep Mike happy while Will had to suffer come from? Mike didn’t get it. It was hard for him to wrap his head around living a life without Will at all, much less Will wanting Mike to live a life without him.

Will had pushed off the value of his own life so flippantly, like all that mattered was him being weak. Mike hadn't seen one moment in which Will was truly weak; if anything, Will was the strongest person he knew.

He'd been conditioned into weakness, into giving up. No one had let him fight back before.

Mike knew he could. He knew Will had that strength, after living day after day with what he'd gone through and not backing down from life entirely. Just staying alive was the strongest thing Will could do, and Mike wouldn't let him throw it all away.

When Mike had called Will a super spy, all little-kid awe and wide-eyed innocence, he hadn't been wrong. There had to be a reason Vecna had dissuaded Will from telling Mike about their deal— a pretty exploitative, shitty excuse for a deal,but when had Vecna ever played fair?— and there had to be a reason Vecna couldn't stop Will from telling Mike about their deal. He just couldn't seem to find the connection, and every cup of coffee only brought his mind further from the answer.

"Are you drinking straight from the coffee pot?"

Mike nearly jumped out of his skin at the noise, whirling around to find where the voice had come from. The second he turned around, light from the open front door spilled into his eyes, scorching his retinas so bad he could hardly even see a person in the doorframe at all.

The person stumbled through the room, and Mike heard an oof and the bang of a body part against an end table as his eyes began to recover. "And Jesus, why is it so dark in here? Is this your vampire lair?"

Accusative tone, general assholish behavior; yep, that was Dustin, all right. Mike put the coffee pot down before Dustin could ridicule him further. "Maybe I think best in total darkness. Why are you even here?"

"I didn't know you thought," said Dustin, dead serious. Mike heard a few more winces and strings of curses before Dustin got to the blinds, pulling them open with another few expletives as he struggled to tug the string in the right direction. "Shit, fuck, there they are. Are you going to evaporate in a cloud of dust now?"

Vampire jokes. Ironic. "I'm not a vampire, Dustin. Again, why the hell are you here?"

"Didn't you hear?" Dustin raised an eyebrow at him, which Mike could finally see as his eyes adjusted to the light. Maybe he was a little dramatic about burning his retinas out, or whatever. "Ms. Byers called an emergency meeting. God, do you never turn your walkie on? How are you still alive?"

He almost snapped back and said he hadn't turned it on because he'd been dealing with a fucking Vecna crisis, idiot, until the thought of why Will's mom would call an emergency meeting crossed his mind and he began to panic. Will had been reluctant enough to share his— condition— with Mike and his family. How would he react when he woke up to the whole extended Party digging for details about him?

"How is she even awake?" said Mike, glancing up the stairs. No sign of life there; everything was dark, quiet. "It's barely morning."

"You're up," Dustin responded, shrugging. "When I heard her over the walkie, she sounded like she hadn't slept in days. I don't know how you wouldn't know, since she said the meeting was about Will, but whatever. Guess whatever's up with him was important enough to where she couldn't wait for the rest of the world to wake up."

"So we're the only ones awake, then," said Mike. "Real productive emergency meeting." He reached for the coffee pot in the hopes of soothing his nerves, even if it hadn't worked the last fifty-two times he'd taken a sip. Dustin groaned, and Mike put the pot down in shame.

The pot nearly slipped from the table entirely when the door swung open again, startling Mike worse than Dustin's arrival, somehow. Mike lunged for the pot and grabbed it precariously by the handle, dripping coffee on his mother's perfectly vacuumed carpet. Between the bloodstains and the amount of coffee Mike had spilled with his shaky hands, his mother was going to kill him.

"I'm here, I'm here—" Lucas swung his head around wildly, gasping for breath like he'd just run a marathon. "Wait, where's Will? And Ms. Byers?"

"Beats me," said Dustin, collapsing on the couch next to Mike. "I don't ever want to agree with Mike, but this is a weird emergency meeting, if you ask me."

Mike made a vague noise of protest at Dustin while Lucas walked into the living room. He stopped at the coffee table and considered Mike's empty mug, reaching out like he was about to pour a cup of his own.

Dustin shook his head. "Don't, man. Mike drank straight from the pot."

"What the fuck, Mike?" Lucas yanked his hand away with a disgusted look.

He was about to defend himself— he was going to clean the thing out when he was done, and it wasn't like anyone else was drinking from it anyway— when a muffled voice drifted down the stairs, and the room went quiet to listen in.

"I'm staying up here," said a voice, ragged with sleep and deep in a way that made Mike's heart flutter. He almost thought the voice belonged to Jonathan, until he realized he'd sooner throw up than swoon over Jonathan's voice, of all people. No, this was Will speaking. "You heard Mike—" Dustin and Lucas's heads turned to him, and Mike raised his hands in surrender— "I'm a spy. I'll ruin your plan."

Dustin mouthed What the fuck, Mike? but dropped it once Jonathan's voice drifted down the stairs instead. "So we'll kick you out if we don't want him hearing. You can't hide from everyone, Will. It's not gonna go away if no one sees you."

A shadowed figure hovered just over the first stair, foosteps soft as they backed up towards the landing. "You don't even have a plan," said Will, pained. "You've got— what," he paused, glancing down the steps to survey the living room, and the rest of the Party looked away like they hadn't been listening, "three of my friends and a death wish? They won't want to protect me after they see— you know. This." Mike knew exactly what he was referring to by the sharp click that drifted down the stairs, but Lucas and Dustin were idiots, so they both gasped in unison and stared up in shock at the scene upstairs.

"And they just proved my point," Will muttered, dismally.

"Are you serious?" said Jonathan, giving him a light shove. "Your friends are losers— full offense, by the way," he added, at Dustin's indignant huff. "They'll think you're awesome. Come on, let's go. Mom's waiting on us."

With that, Jonathan walked down the stairs, not bothering to look back like he knew Will would follow. Once he stepped into the living room, the Party gave him a few awkward hello's, scooting back as Jonathan loomed closer. There was a tired, determined look in his eyes, narrowed and bagged with shadows like he'd forgone sleep entirely in favor of thinking about Will. Mike sympathized; he'd done the same for a long time, and the only difference in tonight was that he'd thought over Will's safety instead of the curve of his smile.

Okay, he might have done that, too. He might have done a little thinking about the mole near Will's lip, the sharp curve of his fangs, the blood staining his mouth cherry-red— o-kay, he had to stop, now.

He snapped back into focus as Jonathan looked them over, his face severely unimpressed. "You're here because I know you all care about Will the most. Act like it, please."

The Party nodded in unison, all Yeah, Jonathan and Of course, yeah, we know's, until he glanced away and Dustin turned to Mike with a sheepish look. "Since when did he get so scary?"

Mike agreed, but he'd rather die than admit it. "You think Jonathan is scary?" he whispered back, smirking. "Oh, man, this is prime blackmail material—"

"Wheeler." Mike froze in place, turning to Jonathan as slow as a statue. "Will's coming."

Mike stayed still as Will trailed down the stairs, clutching to the railing like he was afraid of falling— and with the way his legs wobbled on every step, Mike couldn't blame him. How could he possibly look more tired than he had last night?

"Hey, guys," Will rasped. He wouldn't meet anyone's eye, much less Mike's.

The whole room went quiet. Mike was at an impasse; he wanted to go up to Will and hold him tight, let Will lean on his shoulder to help him make it to the couch, but Mike wasn't sure he was allowed to touch Will at all after last night. He wanted to be the first to respond, soften his voice to push the tension from Will's shoulders, but he wasn't sure his voice would have that affect anymore.

Before anyone could respond, Ms. Byers tumbled down the stairs, her feet flying down the steps two at a time. "Sorry, sorry," she said, speeding into the living room, "convincing Karen to stay in her room and watch Holly when she's gone batty with house fever is like pulling teeth— oh! You actually came!"

"Hey, Ms. Byers," Dustin and Lucas said, in unison. It was sort of creepy, honestly.

Dustin sent Lucas a glare and mouthed Don't ever do that again before turning back to Will's mom. "Of course we came. It's Will."

Something passed over Will's face, the ghost of a frown as he all but collapsed on the couch. Mike's heart twisted as he watched Will sink into the cushions; since when had he become so small?

"Yeah, 'course," Lucas agreed, before glancing at Will. "I, uh— hey, man."

"You look like you think I'm about to bite your hand off," Will said, dryly. Mike caught a glimpse of fang in his mouth and glanced away before Will could catch him staring.

Dustin hopped into the La-Z-Boy, legs criss-crossed like he owned the thing. "I mean, with those teeth, I wouldn't put it past you. Seriously, have you been sharpening them on rocks or something?"

Will winced, his eyes stubbornly on his fisted hands as the room went quiet once again. Mike could almost feel the tension, thick enough to cut with a knife. Or with Will's sharp teeth, a keen edge that could split Mike's skin in two— okay, what was wrong with him? Genuinely?

He knew Will would never hurt him, so why did these thoughts keep coming up? It wasn't like he wanted Will to bite him, or anything. Definitely not. Nope.

Jonathan gave Will a little nudge on the shoulder, whispering something in his ear Mike couldn't hear. Joyce was rummaging around in the closet, entirely blind to the way Will kept clenching and unclenching his fists, pushing his claws in and out in an anxious rhythm. As for Dustin and Lucas, they were staring at each other with wide-eyed, bewildered expressions, wondering what the hell they'd said wrong. Mike couldn't blame them, but at the same time, he wanted to shake them both by the shoulders until they stopped looking at each other like idiots.

"So," Will said, gaze averted to his fidgeting hands. "About that."

Will's mouth stayed open, slightly, like he was still searching for the rest of the words somewhere in his throat. Dustin was staring hard and unashamed at his mouth, studying the teeth that were definitely too long to be human with a confused look. When Will noticed, he turned away.

The encouraging smile Mike tried to shoot Will went entirely ignored. Instead, Will turned to Lucas, whose eyes were wide enough for Mike to almost see the gears turning inside his brain. "Teeth," he said, mouth agape.

Dustin shoved him in the shoulder. "No shit, Lucas."

"No," Lucas said, shaking his head, "the teeth around Mike's bed, idiot. The claw marks. Holy shit."

For a moment, Dustin just blinked, until Mike saw the metaphorical lightbulb go off in his eyes as well. "Holy shit— and he was in the kitchen, too. Are we stupid?"

"Pretty sure," Jonathan said. Dustin looked like he was about to shoot him a rude gesture, before thinking better of it and turning away.

"Wait," said Mike, whose metaphorical lightbulb had not turned on, "you told Dustin about this?"

A shaky sigh distracted Mike from Lucas's answer. The rest of the world went silent in his ears as his mind focused solely on Will; he turned away from Lucas, walked over to the couch, and sat down next to Will without bothering to think about whether Will would want him there. That part sort of left his mind, when things got like this. He'd never had to think about whether Will would want him around, until now.

"Hey," said Mike, setting his hand on Will's shoulder, "come on, it's okay. Dustin and Lucas are just assholes, alright?" Mike gave them both a sharp glare, and they shrunk back. Good.

Will didn't shrug Mike's hand off his shoulder, so that was a start. He turned to Mike, and— was that a smile? "I think they're having a pretty normal reaction, compared to you. You whispered to me like I was some— wounded baby animal, or something."

"That's just how he talks to you all the time," said Dustin. Before Mike could protest, he went on, bulldozing over Mike's voice with his own. "And I feel like I missed a few things, because where the hell did these teeth come from? And— holy shit, do you have claws?"

As Dustin went on, Will began to shrink back into the cushions, trying to hide his obviously upset expression. Dustin and Lucas may have been blind, but to Mike, Will wasn't hiding it very well.

Mike let his hand drift further in an attempt to soothe him, pressing small circles to the back of his neck before he could stop himself— but to Mike's disbelief, Will leaned into his hand with a soft sigh. The noise was for Mike's ears alone— or no one's, maybe, considering the way Will glanced back at Mike with an apologetic wince, like he hadn't meant to get this close to Mike at all.

All Mike did was scoot a bit closer to Will, shaking his head wordlessly. Wil seemed to get the message, with how he relaxed into the cushions, frown lines smoothing out as his eyes fluttered closed. They took longer to open with each blink, and Mike felt Will's frown transfer to his own face. Did Will get any sleep at all?

Dustin and Lucas were bouncing off theories on each other, entirely blind to Will's worry and Jonathan's disapproving look. Mike wasn't sure how they hadn't noticed, because he could feel Jonathan's eyes boring holes into his skull. Since he didn't exactly want Jonathan seeing through his brain entirely, Mike decided to speed things up a bit.

"Is it okay if I, uh, you know," he started, tripping over his own words with the threat of Jonathan looming behind them, "explain some things? They're getting further off track with each minute, and I don't know where your mom went, because she was the one who called this emergency meeting, but—"

"Go ahead," said Will. He'd had his eyes closed for a full minute by now, and his head had leaned far towards Mike's neck. Mike didn't think about the implications of that at all.

So Mike cleared his throat once, twice, and then a third time because no one was listening to him, and it was pissing him off. He was about to sacrifice Will's comfort to stand up and clap his hands like some grade school teacher when Jonathan coughed, loud.

The whole room went silent. God, Mike was going to kill him.

Once Jonathan got their attention, Mike started to recap everything he knew. He edited a few parts out, at Will's request— and by request, Mike meant a tugging on his shirtsleeve and a short shake of Will's head, like it hurt him to tilt his head at all. He left out all of last night, honestly, choosing to say Will came to them about what had happened instead of Mike chasing after him through the woods. Mike understood; if the memory was hard enough for him to look back on, he couldn't imagine what Will was feeling.

"Dude," said Dustin after Mike had finished, awe plastered on his face, "this is sick. You're a real-life vampire!"

Will shrugged, smiling a little. "I mean, I'm constantly holding back on the urge to tear you to pieces, but if you think it's cool. . ." He trailed off, and Dustin took it as a joke, laughing along with him. With the way his claws flexed at his sides, Mike wasn't sure Will was joking at all.

"Yeah, speaking of that," Lucas said, shooting Will a worried look— finally, someone with a rational fear of being maimed by their bloodthirsty best friend— "what are we supposed to do about this?"

"We're going to help Will, obviously," Mike answered, rolling his eyes. "Why else do you think you're here? We're not telling ghost stories."

"Vampire stories," Dustin cut in, because he was annoying and obsessed with semantics, though Mike was only so negative because he was going to lose it if he had to explain what was up with Will one more time, "and I agree with Lucas. Of course we want to help you, Will, but how? Do what we did last time and burn Vecna out of him? What do we do about Vecna himself? How do we know he won't just come back?"

Mike tried to come up with an answer, and nothing came out. He was left looking stupid, mouth wide open and hands up in protest with nothing to say, because he didn't know. He'd stayed up all night thinking about how to save Will and only gotten further from an answer, as useless as usual.

Just when Mike was about to bury his head in his hands — or snap at everyone and storm out of the room, which was more typical for him— Joyce came stumbling back into the living room, arms full of weapons Mike was sure he'd never seen in his house before. Everyone leapt back in unison, all eyes trained on the one grenade swinging precariously on her pinky finger. Where the hell did she get a live grenade?

"Mom, what the hell?" Jonathan flung his arms over the couch, shielding Mike and Will both. Mike would feel touched, if he wasn't about to get blown to bits by Jonathan's mom.

Joyce shifted the weapons in her hands, and Mike caught a horrific glimpse of steel shining in the middle. Jesus, was that a flamethrower? "We're not burning Will, or Vecna," she said. There was a determined glint to her eyes, fierce in a way it only turned around Will. "We have to burn their connection."

"I take it back," Dustin said, sprawling over the couch. "Ms. Byers is definitely scarier than Jonathan."

Mike nodded, turning back to his paper without a verbal response. Both the Party and the Byers family had spent the last hour planning, and Mike could see the evidence of each scrapped idea strewn about the floor. Will would have mourned all the wasted paper if he was awake, but he'd begged off the rest of their meeting and collapsed in Mike's bed half an hour ago. Apparently.

For all Mike knew, Will had crawled out the second-story window of his bedroom and gone deer hunting in the woods again. It was almost likely, with with how hungry he'd looked. Mike wasn't some vampire expert— or whatever Will was now— but he could see it nonetheless; that glazed, vacant look in his eyes, how his teeth turned longer every time Mike turned to look back at him, the disquiet of being watched prickling at Mike's neck. He wasn't stupid. Will was hungry, and he couldn't hide that from looking away every time Mike tried to catch his eye.

That weird feeling, the constant press of hungry eyes boring holes into his neck— it tore Mike in two. Part of him wanted to push his overgrown hair across his skin, tie it around his neck like a scarf to stop Will from staring, and part of him wanted to walk up to Will's room and tilt his head back until Will got the memo.

He wasn't sure why he was so keen to let Will literally bite him, honestly. Maybe Mike was just so blindly in love, he'd let Will drain him dry without a thought. Maybe it was because Will's teeth in his neck would be the closest Mike could get to Will in the way he wanted. The more he thought on it, his dilemma was probably a mix of both.

He didn't have much time to think on it at all, though, with how hard Ms. Byers was working the rest of his brain. She'd found his scrawled list of questions and plucked his brain until they'd found an answer for at least half of them. As close to a real answer as they could get without asking Vecna himself, anyway.

Joyce just raised an eyebrow at Dustin. "Keep checking those weapons, mister. Make sure the rifle has bullets in it."

In response, Dustin saluted her and went back to inspecting her array of guns. "Where did you even get all of these?" Mike asked, eyeing Dustin as his finger nearly slipped on the safety.

"I like to visit the army surplus store," she said, shrugging like it was as typical as saying I like to go grocery shopping, or whatever moms liked to do. "Your sister helped me out with a few, too. I sent her off for some more ammo earlier."

Nancy, being helpful. The thought made him shudder, until he realized that his sister had been holding out on real guns for God knows how long, and he'd probably gotten off lucky by just being yelled at after all the times he'd 'permanently borrowed' from Nancy's piggy bank. "Remind me to never talk back to her again, then," he said, laughing through grit teeth.

Nothing seemed that funny anymore, not when he'd watched Will clutch at his head and hiss winces through his teeth, then hide it from Mike by burrowing himself further into the corner of the couch. Will was hurting, and all Mike had to fix it was a half-baked plan and enough firepower to blow his house to smithereens, which meant maybe enough artillery to give Vecna a nosebleed.

Mike just didn't get it. How did Vecna have enough power to speak through Will's mind, but not enough power to stop Will from telling Mike about his plan? The last time Will had been possessed, the Mindflayer's control had grown stronger as Will had grown weaker. Now, Will was growing weaker, and Vecna was— what? Sitting in his evil lair, waiting for the moment the Party came to spin around in his chair like some maniacal villain? Was this all bait?

"You and her are so different from Will and Jonathan," Joyce commented, smoothing out the sheet of paper Mike had scrawled ideas on in the early morning.

Mike shrugged, mostly ignoring the comment in favor of following where Joyce's eyes had landed on the page. "Yeah, well," he said, "Jonathan's always wanted to stick up for Will. I don't think Nancy's thought I've ever needed defending."

"Probably because you defend yourself like a ball of thorns," she said, tracing over a line again and again with narrowed eyes. Mike read the line with her— something he'd written as a half-joke while half-asleep, Is Vecna even capable of understanding love?— and wondered why she was focusing on it at all. "I don't think I've ever seen you let anyone in close at all, except for Will." She glanced up to the stairs with a fond smile, disappearing as quickly as it had come. "Well. Most of the time."

So every member of the Byers family had it out for him, apparently. At this rate, Mike was going to end up in a grave dug by a Byers before the apocalypse ended at all. "I know," Mike sighed, following Joyce's gaze up the stairs. "I just— I don't know what to do. I always end up pushing him away, and hurting him, and— and losing him, you know?"

Joyce gave him a weird look, then, some odd emotion Mike couldn't place. A small smile curled at the corners of her lips, and for a moment, Mike thought she was going to make fun of him, or laugh him out of the house. "No," she said, frowning, "I don't know, Mike. He doesn't tell me much, not anymore, but I can still see him. You used to read him like a book, too, didn't you?"

Mike wanted to ask what she saw in Will, but he figured that would probably dig his grave a foot further. Joyce must have seen it somewhere in him, because she continued and said, "He used to wait by the phone every day, when we were in Lenora. Always wondering when I'd get off the line, asking if anyone tried to interrupt a call. Never told me who he was waiting for, but he had that tone in his voice, you know? Like he missed someone. Someone he thought he'd never see again."

He'd always been good at reading between the lines, but now, Mike was a little lost. "I came back, though," he said. "We didn't call much—" and Joyce gave him an unimpressed look, so he relented, "okay, we hardly ever called, but I still sawhim. He didn't think I was just going to leave, did he?"

"No, it wasn't like that," said Joyce, laughing a little. "He knew he'd still see you eventually. You can be close to someone and still miss them."

Mike remembered all the times he'd stood so close to Will, all the times he'd sat on the same couch as Will and still missed him hard enough for his heart to ache. Hell, Will was only upstairs, and Mike still missed him. He'd missed Will when they were in his own room together, missed him hard enough for the ache to crawl through his throat and slam into the back of his teeth. Mike had missed Will until he'd twined their bodies together under a tangle of his own sheets and made the ache disappear with the space between them.

He'd miss Will until he could talk to him without his words running through Will's ears like water. He'd miss Will until their minds connected again, until he could know Will's words before he heard them, until they could look at each other and read every emotion through the flash in an eye.

He'd probably miss Will forever, then. Mike wasn't sure if Will wanted that sort of connection back anymore.

"I know." Mike let his head fall back and hit the couch cushions, and Joyce laughed again.

"Well, don't you want to do something about it?"

Mike had always been one for dramatics, so he let his head sink further into the cushions with a loud sigh. "I told you, I don't know what to do about it. It's like he doesn't want to talk to me anymore."

Joyce laughed harder, then, and Mike knew this time he really was being made fun of. The grave the Byers dug for him would probably extend to the center of the earth. "I told you he waited by the phone like a kicked puppy, and what you got out of it was that he doesn't want to talk to you? And here I thought you were the smart one of Will's friends."

His head perked up from the couch, just a little. "Okay, when you put it like that—"

Joyce shoved him in the shoulder, not unkindly. "You were right when you said Vecna can't understand love. But you've got to understand it too, don't you think?"

Mike nodded, and Joyce smiled, warm and understanding like she'd read him as easily as she could read her own son. "Go ahead, Mike. Talk to him."

At that, Mike peeled himself off the couch and went upstairs. He'd learned— though everyone had by now, really— that listening to Ms. Byers was always the right thing to do.

He found Will sitting on the edge of his bed, quivering. He had his head in his hands; between his fingers, Mike could see Will's teeth moving against his cheek, like he was gnawing on his own tongue for some relief. Just watching Will sit there made Mike want to rip his own heart out for Will to have, but he held back. Barely.

"Will?" Mike took a tentative step forward, and Will's head sprang up before Mike had even spoken his name. Will's eyes froze him in place; wide, pupils blown almost past his iris, heart-wrenchingly frantic. The bags under his eyes had deepened, almost, dark purple against his bloodless skin. He hadn't gone up here to sleep.

Will's mouth opened slightly, panting. Mike could see his tongue move behind his fangs, startlingly red even in the shadows of his mouth. "Mhm?" He sounded half-there, listless, as if he wasn't awake at all.

"Are you, uh," Mike started, slowly edging closer, "feeling okay?" Now, Will was tilting towards him, almost unconscious as a ship swayed by harsh waters.

Strangely, the urge to flinch back had left him. Mike lost any natural instinct to be scared when it came to Will, honestly.

Despite everything— the bright, hungry glint to his eyes, the sharp edge of his teeth— Mike still sat on the bed beside Will, and stayed quiet and waiting while Will stared forward in a half-awake haze. He couldn't stop himself from getting worried, though; Mike tried calling him again, reaching out to tap him on the shoulder. "Will?"

At that, Will jumped, turning to face Mike with wide eyes like a startled rabbit. They were close enough for Mike to notice his pupils dilating and expanding, a rapid rhythm in time with the pulse fluttering at his throat. "Jesus, Mike. When did you come in here?"

"I've been in here for the past two minutes." Mike couldn't stop the worry from seeping into his voice. "Is it getting worse? Is he still— speaking to you?"

If possible, Will's face went even paler, eyes wide and shaky as he shook his head. He winced with every little movement, like it hurt to keep his head up at all. "He's angry," Will rasped. Each word sounded like it came wrapped in thorns. "He wants me to lose control, to black out, and— and go for it, you know?" Mike wasn't sure what it was, but he had a sinking idea that Vecna's wishes involved the blood rushing under his skin. "But he can't make me. I don't know why he can't, and I don't know how long I'll be able to hold on before someone gets hurt. Before I hurt someone."

"And— what happens if you don't eat?" Even alluding to the idea made Will look sick.

"I black out," he said, dull. "That's why I kept going into your room at night, and— well, you know. I don't know how I stopped myself, then. I can hardly remember doing it at all."

Mike shrugged, pushing off the whole thing like it hadn't scared him half to death for a whole week. It seemed unimportant, now that he knew Will was the one hovering over him in his sleep. And if Will could hold back, even unconscious, was Vecna's hold as powerful as they'd thought?

"You need to eat, then," said Mike, final. Will blinked at him like he'd said something much crazier, though the context for his sentence was already half-insane when by eating, Mike meant drinking blood.

Will shook his head again, almost inperceptibly. "I— Mike, I can't," he said, voice cracking with emotion. "I don't want to do that again."

He turned away from Mike, staring at the wall as he gnawed on his tongue. With every wince he saw on Will's face, Mike was getting closer and closer to shoving his whole arm in Will's mouth for him to gnaw on, pain be damned. It'd be worth it, for Will. "You have to," Mike said, trying his hardest to be gentle. Will glanced back at him, with all the shiny eyes of a startled prey animal. "It's not gonna last forever, okay? You won't have to do this forever, but now, you have to. You have to be strong to fight him."

"Me, fighting." Will snorted. "Don't bullshit me."

"I'm not," Mike said. The words came out louder than he intended, and Will flinched. "You're fucking strong, okay? You've always been that way. I know you can stay strong for a little bit longer."

Mike couldn't differentiate the shines in Will's eyes, hunger and tears blurring together in a shimmering smear. "I hate it, Mike. I hate being strong. Vecna— he keeps telling me I'm strong, that I'm better than you all because of what I've become. I've never felt strong in my life, and now that I am, I hate it. It hurts."

Will went on before Mike could think to comfort him. He worried to touch Will— not because of his unsheathed claws or exposed incisors, but because of the way Will was leaning away from him, eyes averted from his exposed skin like Will couldn't bear to look at him at all. If he touched Will, Mike worried he'd lose Will entirely. "I've put everyone through so much shit. So much hurt. I just wanted it to all land on me for once, and I couldn't even do that." A choked sob escaped his teeth, almost a laugh if it hadn't come out wet.

He really turned to Mike, then, eyes all on him. Their hungry gleam made Mike feel more sad than frozen, now. "We've both watched someone die. You know what it's like, to watch someone die and know it was your fault. You understand, right? I can't— I know they're just animals. I know I have to, and I know it's my fault that I have to. It still hurts."

The obvious thing for Mike to do here was comfort him. He should have leaned in close, let Will sob against his chest, told him they'd find another way. Hell, Mike would have killed a million deer for him, if that was what it took.

He was going to tell Will just that. He'd tell Will it was okay, he hadn't hurt anyone, that nothing had ever been his fault. His brain must not have passed the signals on to his tongue, however, because something else came out entirely.

"You could bite me." What?

Will had the same reaction. "What?"

"I, uhm—" Mike's brain had stopped giving his mouth signals at all, because no coherent words came from his tongue after that. "It's just— you don't want to kill animals, right? And I get it, but I don't want you to pass out again, and you only seemed more tired after the deer, honestly, so, uhm. Maybe human blood would be different?"

"I think I'm hallucinating," said Will, blinking hard. "You're not stupid enough to ask that."

Mike laughed, a high, anxious thing that scraped the back of his throat. "I think I am, generally." His heart was racing, the pulse beating his throat raw.

"You— Mike, I can't," Will breathed. He backed up to the edge of the bed, wild eyes trained on Mike's face like Will could stop him from asking if he looked hard enough. "I don't know if I'll be able to stop, once I—"

His pulse had slammed into his throat hard enough to make a wound for Will to bleed dry already. "You stopped last time," Mike said, moving a bit closer. Will had nowhere to go except out of the room, but he had his eyes on Mike, not the door. Mike wasn't on the same page as Will too much anymore, but he wasn't inclined to think Will wanted to run. "I trust you. Come on."

Will frowned, teeth grit together behind his lips in a tight line. Mike could see the swell of the incisors protruding against his skin. "You shouldn't."

"Like that's going to stop me," Mike responded, laughing a little. He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, tilting his head back to show off the flushed expanse of his neck. He was hot enough to know he was red down to his collarbones without looking. "Come on, look at this shit. It's like a five course vampire meal."

"Oh my god," Will muttered, burying his face in his hands. Mike could still hear the laugh that slipped out; maybe a little crazed, but undeniably real. "You— on the neck? Are you serious?"

"Dead serious," Mike said. By now, he'd closed the distance between him and Will entirely, their legs pressed together and dangling off the edge of his bed. "Come on, please? It'll make a sick scar."

For a while, Will stayed silent, considering him with a look Mike couldn't quite place. There was something uneasy in his eyes, something that made Mike's stomach twist and tug like it wanted to get closer to Will, following some unseen magnetic pull of Will's that Mike had never been able to escape. Instead of following the tug, Mike waited patiently for Will's answer, watching his teeth press behind his lips as he bit down on his tongue.

It wasn't that Will's gaze made Mike nervous. If anything, he was comfortable to wait forever, but Mike couldn't stand to sit by while Will gnawed his own mouth to shreds when his own blood was literally right here. Instead, not thinking about his actions as usual, he reached forward and grabbed hold of Will's jaw, tilting Will forward to meet his eye.

"You can't drink your own blood, idiot," Mike said, fondly. "Come on. I'm right here."

A flush crept up Will's face, blooming where Mike's fingers met his skin. "Do you know how hard you're making this for me?"

Will sounded pained enough for Mike to back off, withdrawing his hand like he'd been burned. Will's words stung enough, but Mike understood; he'd come off too strong, too pushy. He rushed to apologize, words coming out before he could think. "I— sorry," he said, setting his hands firmly at his sides. They twitched to reach out again, but Mike kept still. "You don't actually have to, if you don't want to, uh— you know. Bite me. And I don't know why I even asked for you to do it on the neck, because that was weird, even if it would leave an awesome scar, but that's not the point, and—"

"You're crazy," Will said. The awe in his voice made Mike's heart stop dead. "You want this? Really?"

Mike nodded, possibly too enthusiastically. He wasn't sure his brain was working well enough to care. "I don't see why I shouldn't." There were a million reasons he shouldn't, the top being he might literally die, but that was besides the point. "You're my best friend, Will. I trust you."

Usually, best friend was a word that went sour in Mike's mind before it hit his tongue. Usually, best friend was a word used in past tense, and usually, best friend set a hard line between the affections they were and were not allowed to share.

Will tended to use best friend as an insult, a harsh reminder of what they'd been. Mike wasn't sure he liked those hard lines either. Now, with the only thing between them being an inch of space and fuzzy, half-asleep morning light, those lines seemed a little more blurry.

"You," said Will, groaning, "are making this so hard for me." This time, Mike could tell he had no ill intent with those words. Mike could see it in the smile lines around his eyes, the little spark of happiness Mike never thought he'd bring back.

Will brought his hand up to Mike's neck, a tentative shake to his fingers as he pushed the rest of Mike's hair aside. "He's quiet," said Will. "I don't think he likes this."

"Good," Mike answered, tilting his head back to give Will better access. Instead of moving right in, Will traced the pad of his thumb over Mike's neck almost reverently, bringing all the blood rushing to that patch of skin.

He tilted himself a touch closer. Mike could feel the warmth of Will's breath ghosting over his neck.

Mike felt faint, and he hadn't even lost any blood yet. Jesus.

Will was coming steadily closer now, and Mike could feel the tension in the air threatening to snap him in half with its sheer weight. "So, uhm. How, uh— how do you want to do this? Like, are you just going to bite down, or do you want me to move, or—"

"Mike," Will said, pressing a finger down on his fluttering pulse, "shut up, or I'll get too freaked out to do this at all."

By now, Will's nose was pressed against his neck, breaths fanning out against his skin in slow, controlled pants. When Mike felt Will's lip brush against his skin, trembling as much as his own hands, he couldn't stop himself from leaning in. Like he could pretend it was a kiss, if Will's mouth moved just a bit more. "Okay, okay," he breathed, shakily, "yeah."

"Yeah?" Will murmured, warm against his skin.

Mike nodded, and that was it.

It hurt. Of course it hurt, and Mike wasn't going to pretend like it didn't hurt— not when even the first seconds of Will sinking his teeth in hurt like he'd skewered his neck with a steel beam— but Mike couldn't bring himself to mind the hurt, really. Not when Will was so close to him, lips warm against his neck like just the touch of his skin brought life back to Will's body.

With Will's teeth in his neck, moving at all sent fresh waves of pain swift down his spine, but Mike couldn't help himself; he brought a hand to the small of Will's back, ridding any of the sun-warmed space between them with the warmth of his own body, and despite everything, he couldn't help but grin. Little black spots were growing in his vision, and each breath he took only pushed Will's teeth in further, but what mattered to Mike was that Will was here.

Mike knew it from the slow, deep breaths he could see in Will's chest, how his eyes had flutered closed with a soft sigh instead of going glazed and vacant. Will was here, conscious and concentrated as he scraped his bottom incisors up the length of Mike's neck, teeth dug in one spot near the column of Mike's throat. He was careful as ever, bringing a hand up to cup the curve of Mike's jaw as he drank deeper, brushing the pad of his thumb against Mike's cheek when he let out a choked, embarrassing noise— something anyone else might tease him for, but not Will. Never Will, not when he was so good, good enough to hold Mike close and careful enough to keep away from the artery just shy of his teeth, careful enough to hold Mike gentle as ever when he started to shake. He'd been made dangerous over and over again, and still, he was so careful.

Will was careful when he eventually pulled his teeth away, gentle as ever as he slid his teeth from Mike's neck and brought his arm around Mike's back when he started to go limp, dark stars blooming in his vision as something hot trickled down his neck. It took Mike a while to register the stuff as blood. Maybe that was the blood loss kicking in, but even in his dizzied state, Mike knew Will hadn't taken enough to hurt him. He was careful, always.

Mike started to worry a little when Will didn't pull his face away. Maybe Will had gone a little overboard, taken enough to make Mike's mind fuzzy enough to feel things— or, maybe, Will really was kissing him.

The kiss was small, almost light enough for Mike to pass it off as him pulling away, and almost short enough for Mike to believe it. Almost, but not quite; Mike's mind was hazy, but he was still there enough to feel the curve of Will's lips against his neck, soothing over his bite with the soft press of a kiss to the sting. If Mike was hallucinating, it was a hallucination good enough to send all the remaining blood right to his face.

Eventually, Will truly pulled away, taking his hands from Mike and sitting back up on the bed. Mike's body decided this was a perfect time to go limp, turning his limbs to lead weights as the room spun in his vision. He fell with a slow-motion blur, swooning through air like it was water, content to collapse and never open his eyes again if Will kissing him— even just his neck— could stay real, at least to him.

Instead, Will caught Mike just before his head hit the covers. Through his blurred vision, Mike could hardly see Will's expression, only the dark blur of his bloodied lips and wide, worried eyes. "Mike," Will said, thick with blood and emotion, "hey, wait, don't— stay awake, come on. I didn't— I thought I could stop, I didn't think— I'm sorry. I'm so—"

Mike shook his head vehemently, reaching up with a shaky hand to cover Will's mouth. The bite had reduced to a slow, throbbing pain spread through his whole body, but the pain didn't seem to matter, not against Will. "I'm okay," he said. Will looked like an angel above him, wrapped in the hazy glow of Mike's blurred vision. Mike couldn't help but smile at the sight, no matter how much it hurt. "Don't say sorry, okay? You stopped, and I'm okay. Just dizzy, maybe."

"Maybe," Will repeated, laughing wetly. "Does it hurt?"

"Like hell," Mike said, "but it's okay. You kissed it better."

There was one quiet moment where Mike thought the blood loss had really kicked in, and he'd hallucinated the kiss entirely, until Will smiled back at him. "Yeah," he agreed, ducking his head with a bashful glance. "Did it help?"

Mike's vision was clear, now. He could hardly see his own hands, but he could see the hard line of best friends blur, then shatter, then disappear entirely. His legs had long gone limp, but Mike could toe over that faded line without a thought.

Best friends used to be a complicated dance, constant turns and dips and secret sword parries and stabs to the back, mostly at Mike's hand. Now, it was as easy as one step, one word. "Yeah."

They stayed in that warm quiet for a while, Will holding Mike's head up as the world blurred back into focus. Mike would have been content to stay in that quiet forever, if not for the hot blood still running down his neck and sticking under his shirt. "So," Mike said, casually, "I think I'm still bleeding."

Will blinked at him, eyes trailing down the blood-slick expanse of his exposed neck. His mouth gaped open, and Mike was lucid enough to see a trickle of blood drip out and land somewhere on the bed. "Shit," he said, standing stock-still for one long moment before the words sunk in. "The first aid kit is downstairs, and so is literally everyone, and— shit," he finished, trailing off in a groan.

"Shit," Mike agreed, still smiling.

Something clicked into place when their eyes met, a flash of realization in Mike's spinning mind. Amidst all the panic, all the still-warm blood and mingling skin, Mike knew it for sure, more sure than he'd been when he let Will's teeth plunge into his neck, more sure tha he'd ever been.

He'd stopped missing Will.

Chapter Text

The worst part about biting Mike was that it worked.

Will wanted to hate it so, so badly. He wanted to feel disgusted when he tasted the blood, cringe and recoil when his teeth pierced Mike's skin, anything that meant he'd done something wrong. He wanted anything to give him plausible deniability, anything that turned his hunger into necessity instead of love. Anything to make him less of a monster.

He'd always had a hunger for Mike, but this? This was so much worse. He knew it should have been wrong, from the sinking feeling in his stomach to the hard lump in his throat before he'd got the courage to sink his teeth in.

When he bit down, it felt like love. When Mike went limp under him, leaning into his teeth and pressing a shaky hand to his back, chasing after Will's lips when he'd kissed Mike better— it all felt like love, a blooming thing as bright as the blood spread across Mike's neck. He wanted it to feel wrong, but this was the first time his hunger had felt right. He couldn't bring himself to hate it, and with the way Mike seemed to have no qualms as he tilted his head back on Will's teeth, Will thought Mike might have felt that blooming feeling, too.

Will was host to a lot of things that were wrong (see, interdimensional monsters that liked to possess his body for their own evil gains), and he harbored even more things that should have been wrong, but weren't. Everything he felt towards Mike— the hunger, the love, the admiration and resentment— it all should have felt wrong. Now, watching Mike stare at him so happily after Will had quite literally bit him, Will had never felt more right. He'd never felt more strong than with Mike beside him, never more alive than in this moment.

He realized, then, that Mike was right. He was strong, as long as he looked for it. Will had looked, and found his strength in Mike. It would always be Mike.

The second worst part about biting Mike was the fact that he was definitely unprepared for the cleanup.

"Stay here," Will said, breathless as he shoved a wad of toilet paper in Mike's hands. He'd rushed to the bathroom in search of something for Mike to use to put pressure on the room, and come up empty except for one shitty, see-through toilet roll. "Put pressure on the bite with this, okay? I'm going to get the first aid kit, and to tell your mom she needs to buy better toilet paper," he grumbled, turning towards the door. Mike tried to follow him, and Will froze him in place with a sharp glare. "I said stay here."

"No-o," Mike said, reaching out dramatically towards Will before flopping on the headboard with a loud sigh. "We're, like— vampirically bonded now, or something. If you leave me, I'll literally die."

Will shook his head, laughing. "I'm pretty sure that's not how it works. I'll be right back, I swear— and do not try to stand up, or you'll pass out."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Mike said, his voice following Will down the hallway. "How do you even know?" Will chose not to respond to that; with the way Mike had collapsed in his arms, the answer should have been obvious.

Strangely, instead of nearly tumbling down the stairs as usual, Will made it downstairs without the urge to pass out tugging at him even once. He felt strong in his own limbs, something that hadn't felt normal to him in a long while. His vision was clear, his hands felt like his own, his body was warm, and his mind was clear. He wasn't foggy with hunger, or deaf to the world with Vecna's voice in his ears. He felt normal, which should have been a strange thing to think after literally drinking his best friends blood, but it was true. He felt fine. Great, even.

Well. Will thought he was normal. The horrified stares from his friends and family in the living room said otherwise.

He'd felt so good in his own body, he'd almost forgotten that there were people downstairs at all. Now, with four pairs of eyes trained on him in different stages of confusion, Will decided he might rather go back to passing out, honestly.

"Will," Lucas started, his voice carefully measured— though his slack jaw said otherwise— "what the fuck were you doing up there?"

"I got hungry," said Will, shrugging. This— okay, this wasn't ideal, but he'd be fine. He'd play it off cool, grab some gauze, and run back upstairs like there was nothing wrong whatsoever. No, there wasn't any blood still smeared around his mouth, what do you mean? His all-out incisors? That was just how his teeth looked all the time, of course. Nothing to see here.

He stepped off the stairs and turned to the kitchen, pointedly ignoring every pair of eyes on him in favor of finding some bandages and getting the fuck out of here. Thank God the first aid kit was still sitting on the counter, and Will could just grab it and go right back upstairs, put off all the explaining for later—

"Oh my god," Dustin said, gleefully interrupting the tense silence, "you bit Mike."

Jonathan spluttered behind him, eyes going wide as dinner plates. "You bit Mike?"

His mom was silent, smirking as she sipped on a glass of water, calm and composed. Will had never seen his mom smirk,and decided he'd like to never see it again. "I'm going upstairs now," he announced, to no one in particular.

"You bit Mike," Dustin echoed, almost awed. Lucas was too slack-jawed to speak.

"I said, I'm going upstairs," Will repeated, hoping the emphasis would make them shut up. He turned the corner and practically ran to Mike's room, hoping to God no one had seen how red he'd turned in the past minute. An echo of You bithim! presumably from Dustin again, chased him into Mike's room and brought a flush all the way down his collarbones.

Mike, who had thankfully not moved, raised an eyebrow as Will walked in the room. "Dustin sounds too happy about whatever he's yelling down there."

"Scientific method," Will said, unwrapping a bandage as Mike tilted his head, confused. "He's always happy when he comes to a correct conclusion. Especially if it causes other people— see, me and you— suffering."

Mike tilted his head back further, then, moving his hair to let Will wipe the blood from his neck. Will made sure to avoid the punctures, rubbing a cleaning towel where the blood had pooled on the side of his neck and down his shoulder. When Will wiped at his collarbones, Mike shuddered, and not even Will was blind enough to think it was from pain. "So I'm going to walk down there with a giant bandage on my neck, and Lucas and Dustin are going to make fun of me for the rest of my life— which is going to get cut short, because Jonathan will murder me and Ms. Byers will help dig my grave. Couldn't be more excited."

"Uhm," said Will, stalling because Mike wasn't too far off, "well. Okay. Maybe."

"It was worth it." Mike shrugged, tilting his head to the side before Will even asked as he smoothed the bandage out over Mike's skin. "You feel better, right?"

He felt unbelievably better, so alive to the point where he was honestly a little terrified. Like, I could pick up a bus and throw it into orbit alive, which was a pretty scary feeling to have when he'd felt half-dead for the past week. "I feel good," he said, cutting out the part where he felt strong enough to maybe tear a Demogorgon to shreds with his teeth. "And I haven't heard— him, not since I, uh. You know."

"Since you bit me," Mike filled in, ignoring the way Will flushed even deeper. "That's good, right? Maybe we weakened the connection, somehow."

"Maybe," said Will, pulling away as he finished bandaging the bite. He wasn't too confident in Mike's words, but it felt easier to hope when he didn't feel half-dead.

They lingered in silence for a moment, Mike biting his lip like he'd gotten lost in thought and Will trying to ignore the concept of Mike's mouth in general. He looked like he was about to ask for something, before thinking better of it and swallowing his words with a thick sigh. Will doubled his efforts to ignore the way Mike's Adam's apple bobbed in his throat. "Come on," Will said, a little shaky, "let's go downstairs. Try to prepare yourself."

"Are you sure we, uh— have to?" Mike avoided Will's gaze, playing with the hem of his shirt in anxious tugs. Will wasn't sure what, but something snapped in Mike at the prospect of going downstairs, baring his neck for all to see, and— Will got it, then.

Maybe Mike had felt that blooming feeling, that irrefutable tug of love. He was scared of what it meant, and Will understood.

Mike didn't want to follow that pull. Will understood. Not like understanding had ever made him feel any better.

Words failed him, and he gestured to the door, half-hoping Mike would be too scared to follow. They went downstairs, half-together, Mike too far from Will for him to hear Mike's footsteps at all. Will reassured himself as he went; Mike was just scared, and things would get better for them. As friends, or— well, whatever they were, now. Things would be okay.

'Things' went from okay to despairingly terrible remarkably fast.

When they wernt downstairs, Will and Mike had found what felt like the entirety of Hawkins in their living room. All of Hawkins turned out to be a few older teenagers Dustin somehow knew, Hopper with a worringly small band of policemen, and a few huddled groups of hulking, somewhat terrifying men dressed in military gear that Will had never seen before.

Apparently, all these people had been recruited to travel back to the Upside Down in hopes of tracking down Vecna. The strange military people and Hopper had assumed him to be hidden away where the gates had converged, conserving his resources while he grew stronger again— but truly, no one had any real idea. This was guesswork, thrown together to save the world or die trying.

This, to Will, was okay. He wasn't too confident in the whole 'saving the world' thing, but actually doing something felt better than the last few weeks of sitting around and waiting for Vecna to bring down his fists on them again. Despairingly terrible came later. In the form of Mike, of course, because Will had been a fool to assume he'd get a few weeks of Mike not ripping his heart in two.

Speaking of Will, he and the Party had been sent to the library as a lure for Vecna, bringing down his mind to leave his body open for attack. Will was supposed to act as Max had, bringing Vecna out of hiding and distracting him while the rest of the Party made sure to defend Will's physical body, with enough Walkmen and tapes of The Cure to bring him out of a trance if necessary. There would be no room for mistakes, this time.

Joyce had armed the Party with space heaters, horribly heavy chunks of metal that only added on to the weight of the weapons everyone was carrying. Will was reminded, vaguely, of the last time he'd heard the insect buzz of those heaters; dark shadows twisting in his lungs, writhing against restraints with nothing but a relentless tug in his mind to escape, getout, hurt them, what are they doing to you? Why would they do this to you if they love you?

The memory in his mind sounded too similar to the voice he'd heard in that night, a quiet hiss that had locked up all his limbs and tied his tongue in twisted knots. Had it been him, all along?

"Hey," Mike said, softly, "you okay?"

Will realized he'd stopped moving, frozen in front of the open doors of the library. He only remembered the building in its other side; the dark, creeping vines, trailing around his limbs and slithering their way down his throat. For a moment, Will could almost feel the vine there again, choking his words before they could come out. "I— yeah," he said, shaking off the sensation. "Let's go in."

When his mom had told Will to burn the connection, Will hadn't thought she'd meant it so literally, but here they were. Lugging space heaters to the ruined library as the sun began to set, casting dark shadows that chased their every move, growing longer and meaner like the shadows of monsters casting their presence up to the real world. If Will concentrated, he swore he could feel them moving, wings beating and claws trailing across his skin as they began to swarm in that other plane of existence.

They were waiting. Vecna knew they were coming, this time. The same plan wouldn't surprise twice.

Will just had to hope it worked better this time.

"I don't get it," Lucas sighed, once they'd made their way inside the library. The roof was half-open to the stars, large, gaping holes casting moonlit shadows on the scuffed wooden floor. "I mean, I don't want to bring anyone down, but how is this supposed to work twice? We did the same exact thing just a month ago, and look how it ended up." He gestured to the floor, half caved in and covered with dirt, the toppled shelves and burnt book pages strewn about the earth. "What's different this time?"

"We've got Will," said Dustin. His face was grim, the seriousness of his tone made a little silly with the war paint smeared across his and Lucas's cheeks. Where did he find the time to get paint? "The only reason Vecna's still alive is because he's siphoning off Will with the blood. Once that's gone, he's fucking toast."

What? Will hadn't thought of it that way at all, and with the vacant stares of Mike and Lucas, it seemed the rest of the Party hadn't either.

"And you. . . didn't think to mention this earlier?" Will said, confused.

"I think this would have been useful this morning, you know," hissed Mike, glaring at Dustin, "when I literally asked for theories on this?"

Dustin threw his hands up in the air. "I thought it was obvious! It's the perfect way for him to recover strength, without having to kill more people himself. Why else would he do it?"

"I guess that makes sense," Mike muttered, reluctantly conceding to agree with Dustin. "You still could have told us earlier, but—" he paused, glancing around anxiously when his voice rose in annoyance— "whatever."

"Of course it does. I'm always right." Dustin went back to plugging in the space heaters, all attached to one long power strip they'd taken from the Wheeler's. Will hoped the whole thing wouldn't short-circuit when they had to turn it on.

Night was falling fast. Will could feel something looming, rising with the moon as the sun sank away. He'd never been a spiritual person, not one to believe in a God who would lay ruin to the world like this, but if there was a veil between the real world and the Upside Down, it always felt thinner to Will during the dark. He could feel things crawling under the earth that sent shivers through his skin, the pounding footsteps of monsters and frantic steps of his own friends— but not Vecna, not the signature spider-crawl feeling prickling his neck or the animal hiss wrapping claws around his mind. He was dormant, for now.

The quiet should have been the first sign something was wrong. Will wouldn't recognize it for a while.

"Why don't I feel weak anymore, then?" Will asked, wincing as the power strip sparked under Dustin's fingers. "I told you, I feel strong. Like—" he paused, flexing his claws in and out with less effort than it took to move his own finger— "scary strong. I don't get it."

Dustin looked absolutely flabbergasted. Will could almost hear him blinking, fast enough to send a breeze Will's way. "You— oh my God, you're kidding. You don't get it?"

"Look, dude, " Lucas groaned, rolling his eyes, "I know you like acting like a know-it-all, but this is serious. We know you're the smart one here. Can it."

"Oh, come on," said Dustin, pinching the bridge of his nose with a frustrated sigh, "We literally talked about this earlier. It was on Mike's question list, for God's sake. Did we all forget about the power of love?"

Mike shoved him, an angry gesture that didn't do much when he had about enough muscle mass to push a kitten across a single floorboard. "Fuck off, man. We all might die in a few hours, and you're acting like this is some Disney movie?" He had his shoulders hunched up, eyes downcast and sharp, remarkably defensive over one sentence. Will gnawed on his lip with a sharp incisor. With the tone Mike had taken just now, Will was regretting ever getting near Mike again at all.

What was his deal? They'd been fine just a few hours ago. Will had almost been convinced, even, Mike might not hate him for his feelings, something he wasn't sure he'd genuinely considered in his entire life. What changed?

"I'm serious," Dustin insisted. "Remember what El told us? How she was literally able to bring Max back to life with happy memories? Memories of love?"

"El's not— into Max," Mike said, almost choked. "I— what?"

Dustin rolled his eyes. "I am convinced your brain shrinks a little more every day. You can love someone as a friend, idiot."

"I—" Mike looked away, sheepish. "No, I, uh. I knew that. But what does this have to do with Will?" Will wasn't sure he liked where this conversation was going at all.

"Vecna feeds off despair. That's why he was able to feed off the animal blood you drank, don't you think? When you, uh— fed off Mike—" and Dustin paused, sending Will a weird, knowing look that made Will want to use his claws somewhere dangerous, like Dustin's fucking eyeballs, "there was no despair involved. That was love. Vecna's fucking allergic to that shit."

Mike looked like he was going to faint, maybe. His eyes were darting across the room, from a vaguely interested Lucas, to the floor, to the dark sky, but never to Will. "What does you mean?" Mike said, weakly.

So this was how Mike reacted when he was accused of loving Will at all? God, Will was going to be sick. What had he been thinking, getting so close to Mike again when the guy didn't even want to admit he loved Will as a friend?

"They're idiots," Lucas muttered, head in his hands.

Dustin nodded. "No shit." He turned back to Mike, who had backed himself into a bookshelf, too close to Will's own spot against the scorched checkout desk for comfort.

The vague plan Will had set up in his mind was crumbling, fast. He could see it all crashing down the second he got stuck on Mike; the moment Vecna caught onto that despair, Will would be over. The whole world would be over, and for what? Some stupid boy?

Something crawled over his neck, too solid for Vecna's whispering breath. Will raised his hand to brush it away and found a little black spider, beady eyes glinting up at him before Will flicked the thing off his claw.

This should have been another sign. Will was too focused on his heart shattering to notice.

"Why are you trying to get involved?" Mike spat. "This isn't about you."

"Great. The fate of the world is in the hands of two people who haven't properly communicated their feelings since the age of twelve," was Dustin's response, in lieu of an actual answer. "This is about me, idiot! It's about all of us! Figure your shit out—" he paused, with a vague, sweeping gesture towards Mike and Will— "or we all end up dead. Vecna will drink up both of your despairs like water."

"Are you telling me they didn't 'figure shit out' after Will fucking bit him?" Lucas asked, turning to Dustin.

Will balanced himself against the counter. Maybe it was just the topic of conversation, but his stomach had twisted itself in knots, weakness returning to him in waves. He remembered pressing his lips to Mike's skin, remembered Mike asking for him, and his stomach sank further. Instead of Mike, Will only tasted nausea.

"Apparently not." Dustin jerked his head towards the door, swinging open to the decimated steps of the library. "Come on. We're giving you two some space." They walked away, but before stepping out of earshot, Dustin called out, "Don't forget the safety of the world depends on you two actually talking to each other!"

Their footsteps faded away in the dark, heavy silence coming to swallow them whole. Will felt the darkness thick in his hands, a quiet intense enough for Will to consider giving the world up to Vecna right then and there.

Somehow, Will found the courage to speak before Mike had even turned to look at him. "Why'd you ask?"

His voice scraped through the air, tearing the silence in two so harshly it almost hurt Will to hear. He felt shaky. Dizzy and sick, despite the physical strength coursing through his limbs. Sick with the knowledge that Mike didn't want his love in any form, sick with the constant mixed signals Mike was sending him, sick with the taste of Mike's blood metallic on his tongue.

Mike froze. He still wouldn't look at Will, eyes fixed on a faraway spot where the shadows grew thick. "What?"

"You know what I'm talking about." Mike's blood was making its way back up his throat now, thick as a vine twisting roots around his tongue.

"I don't—" Mike paused, eyes widening when he finally glanced over to look at Will. He lifted a hand up to his neck, fingers ghosting over the spot Will had sunk his teeth in, realization flashing apparent on his face. "Seriously? We're back on this? It— I wanted to help you, Will. I couldn't just sit by and let you hurt like that. I know it's not enough—" and Will heard the double meaning there, the odd undercurrent of I'm not enough, and that only made his stomach twist further— "but I had to do something."

Now, Will was the one who wouldn't meet his eye. He stared hard at the ground, because if he looked at Mike once and saw those shiny, pleading eyes, he'd fold. He'd give up, let them talk about it later, when later might not even exist. "You seem so scared of it, then, for something that's 'not enough'." Will laughed, a dry thing that let his incisors out to catch on his lip. A jagged tip cut into his mouth, and he tried not to let his wince show. "Why'd you freeze up when we went downstairs? Around Dustin? Why can't you even admit you—" and he choked on the word love, because it was too close to the truth for comfort no matter what definition it took,"I mean— why'd you start acting so different to me just now? We were fine an hour ago."

Mike looked Will up and down. It took all of Will's strength to not look up, to not let him in. "Isn't it obvious? They've all seen right through me. I don't know how you can't, too."

Mike was shaking. He'd brought his hands up to his face, now, like Will could see right through him, too. Like Will had any fucking idea what was going on in his head.

"I don't know what to do," Mike breathed, hands shakily falling down to his sides after his outburst. "Things used to be so small. I always knew what to do. I always knew how to help you, and now?" Mike laughed, so humorless it almost made the world look darker. "Now, you've got monsters bigger than all of us with their claws around your brain, and whole fucking dimensions under us ready to rip us apart, and it's all so big, Will. Nothing I do feels like enough, in the face of this. No matter what I have, I'm not enough. Everyone knows it."

"You're not—" Will started and stopped just as suddenly. What was he supposed to say? Did it even matter what he said, when the world was crashing down around them?

Mike ran a hand through his hair, twisting a lock around his fingers with a sharp tug. "See. You know it. Dustin knows it, of course, because he's the smartest fucking idiot in the world. He knows I'll drag you down when Vecna comes, and I hate it, but it's true. You know it's true."

"Then why are you still here?" The shadows lengthened in his eyes, creeping up to his feet over the ruined floor. Something was coming closer, stalking circles around them. Will wondered whether it would be easier to let it pounce.

"I'm selfish. That's it," Mike laughed, like it was the funniest explanation he'd ever heard. Will had never thought of Mike as selfish, so to him, this was only another way to dance around the living, breathing monster in the room. The ugly thing blooming in Will's chest, the obvious love Mike seemed so intent to fear. "I wanted one more minute with you, even if the rest of the world burned for it. I couldn't— I don't want to die without telling you how I feel. I can't."

Oh, Vecna would have plenty of despair when he came. Will could feel it choking his lungs, forced down his throat like all the other creeping vines trailing through his skin. "How you feel? Come on. I already know how you feel."

At that, Mike jerked back, eyes going wide. "You do?" He sounded too hopeful. Like Will thought he felt anything good.

"You're scared," Will said. He knew he was right when Mike nodded, an infinitely small shake of his head. He knew he was right when a shiver crawled up his spine, making a home in the exposed skin of his neck. "You're too scared to admit to how you actually feel, whether you know how I feel and you hate me for it, or—"

Even now, as Mike stared him down, so close he could feel Mike's body heat in the chill air, Will couldn't choke the exact words up himself. Maybe he and Mike were more similar than Will had thought. "Whatever. I don't want to know how you feel."

Mike got closer to him, then, turning his whole body to face Will. He was overbearing, too close, too much. Will had never wanted anything more. "I— what the hell, Will? You think I'm scared of my feelings? God, how old do you think I am, thirteen?" Will could have brought up how they were two years older and still barely wiser, but Mike's voice felt too loud for Will to speak at all.

"I don't care if you're scared. I don't want to know how you feel about me when it'll never be anything good. Just let it die, because hell, I don't want to die feeling like this. Do you?" His voice sounded dull, dead even to him. It echoed in the silent air, bouncing off walls that were more ruin than brick.

It was too dark for Will to see Mike's hand until it came out to grab Will's jaw, forcing him to look Mike dead in the eye. "How could I feel anything towards you that isn't good? God, have you seen me?" Mike looked so determined, so passionately angry Will could see the hard-set line of his mouth even in the dead of night. "You make me a wreck, Will. I feel— so much, so much it hurts, and it won't be enough."

Mike kept going, his words growing more pained with every breath. "You know how it ended, with El. My feelings weren't the ones that saved her. That was Max, her feelings towards Max. I wasn't shit. I didn't love her enough. And with you— it's different, so different, and it still won't be enough. I'm not enough for anyone."

"What do you feel, then?" Will knew he was too quiet to hear, but he couldn't seem to speak up any further. "Why isn't it enough?"

For a moment, Mike just blinked at him. Will could hardly see his eyes, like the stars above them had gone out entirely. "You just said you knew." Mike must have heard him anyway.

"I thought I did," said Will. Mike still had his hand on Will's jaw, grip going shakier by the second. It took every ounce of Will's strength not to lean into his palm. "You say one thing, then do something completely different— God, how am I supposed to know anything, when it comes to you?"

Around them, the darkness wavered. If Will had his eyes on the shadows instead of Mike's face, he would have known something was wrong. If silence hadn't been wrapped around them like a blanket, he would have heard the cricket chirps outside, the muffled voices of Lucas and Dustin as they made their way back into the library, their frantic yells as they searched the bookshelves for Mike and Will and came up empty. If Will could concentrate at all, he would have felt the spider-crawl shiver up his neck, but he'd never been able to focus well when it came to Mike. He'd always taken up all of Will's attention, for better or worse.

"We used to know each other so well," Mike said, wistfully. "You used to know me so well."

"You stopped letting me in," Will responded. It was that simple.

"I'm open, now." Mike shifted his hand up further, bringing his thumb to trace under Will's wide-open eye. "Do you want me to let you in?"

Little spindly legs made their way up Will's neck, finding a nest in his hair. Mike's palm was too warm for Will to notice. "Please," was all he could get out, whispered too quiet for even himself to hear.

Mike must have known Will better than he thought, because he seemed to hear that whispered answer as clear as a bell. He found the other side of Will's face in the dark, all his fingers pressed under Will's jaw to tilt his head up ever so slightly, coming back to weave into Will's hair, nails scratching across his scalp. He whispered a quiet I'm open right above Will's lips, breathing the answer into his mouth like an oath, a promise. Will took the promise and leaned in.

Will, for better or worse, always ended up with his focus on Mike. He hadn't noticed the looming dark, not the stars blinking out in the sky, nor the oppressive quiet. He hadn't noticed, when things went from subtly strange to entirely wrong. Nothing else mattered when he was with Mike, even the oppressive chill of death sweeping through the room.

But he'd noticed Mike. He'd noticed Mike's warm, gentle hands, and the soft whisper of his words. He noticed how gentle Mike was, so different and soft like Will had hardly seen before. It was easy to notice when that softness went away.

Will noticed, again, when Mike's fingers turned stiff against his jaw. He noticed Mike turning frozen as he leaned in, noticed the cold chill sweeping into his face from Mike's still mouth, the clammy press of his lips and the stiffness Will had only seen in a long-dead body.

He noticed, even in the all-consuming dark, the bloodless pallor to Mike's face as Will jerked himself away. He noticed Mike's dark eyes, wide-open and empty, and as his heart dropped out from under him, Will noticed the vine sneaking its way around Mike's throat, millions of creepers making their way to swallow him whole.

You said it yourself, didn't you? The vines tightened around Mike with a sickening crack, and Will could do nothing but watch as they dragged him away. Love gets you killed.

Chapter Text

This was what he'd meant by despairingly terrible. Not Mike hating him, not Mike's unwillingness to love him, not any of the feelings that had torn Will's heart in two. He could've handled it all, if Mike had just lived. Mike could hate him all he wanted if that meant he was alive, but now—

Even thinking it made Will feel sick, but how could he avoid the obvious when it was right in front of him?

Mike was going to die, and it was all Will's fault. Vecna had enough despair from him for a five-course meal.

"Caring," Will choked out, because nothing else seemed to matter when Mike was going to die, "I said caring gets you killed."

God, everything mattered when Mike was going to die. All the words Will hadn't found the courage to choke up. The kiss he was promised that turned dead under his lips. The fucking semantics of his own sentences. Everything mattered, and Will couldn't change a thing.

The creeping sensation over his neck came back to Will with a sudden jolt. He brushed his fingers against his prickled skin, and drew his hand back when a mass of spiders started to crawl over his claws. His heart, which had stopped dead around the time Mike went limp in front of him, started up again with a jackhammer's pulse.

"Weak tricks," Will gasped out, shaking the little crawlers from his hand. "Try something better."

A red haze had crept into the room, sometime between Mike getting slammed into a bookshelf and Vecna materializing from the dark as a mass of twisting shadows, all bloodied vines and glinting spider-eyes. Will could hardly see a thing, spare Vecna's hulking presence and the vague blur of Mike, twitching listlessly in the corner.

"You think I need tricks, William?" Vecna tilted his head, and the vines on Mike's neck loosened, ever so slightly. Will could have cried from relief— but he couldn't look weak, not now. "I only need the truth."

Fear crept up in the back of Will's throat, slick as the vines crawling under his feet. He was more than tempted to collapse there, let the vines swallow him whole and take the pounding terror away, but— he couldn't. Not when the whole world was depending on him. He had to stay strong.

"Your friends are dying to find me, aren't they?" His twisted mouth curved up in a grin, dark shadows pooling in the corners. "It's a shame, really. You could have saved them so much trouble, if you'd told them what you were."

You're strong. Mike's voice echoed in Will's mind, those words he'd said so truthfully, like he could hardly believe anything else. Will swallowed his fear, let it sink deep in his stomach with all the blood, and summoned up those dregs of strength Mike had sworn he had.

"They know," Will spat, backing away. He held his claws up high, like they'd do anything against that thick skin. Like they'd do anything at all, when Vecna wasn't really here. "They know what I am, and they're not scared— what, is that what you wanted? You thought they'd just leave me?"

Vecna laughed, a hissed thing whistled through black fangs. They'd grown longer since the last time Will had seen them. "Oh, but they are, aren't they? They are dying, William."

He waved his hand, and everything went dark. Will was blind for one long moment; then, the world shifted under his feet, turned to twisting vines and dark skies, hovering clouds and skulking monsters, and—

It wasn't real, Will told himself, as he watched a Demogorgon tear into a woman suited in military gear, a flash of brown hair flying wildly that vaguely reminded Will of that older teen, the girl who gave Will strange looks like she could see into his soul. None of it was real— not his mother, cowering in fear, not Hopper, weapon broken and arm mangled, and it wasn't real, not the screams, not the dark shadows of people already torn apart, not the masses of monsters with claws already slick with blood. It wasn't real.

"It's not real," Will whispered, more of a prayer than a belief.

"Did you think they would make their way through even a fraction of the power I hold?" Vecna said it like he found it very, very funny. Will found he was going to be sick.

He hooked a claw under Will's jaw, tilting his head upward to meet his eye. Will had feared those dark eyes more than anything else, but strangely, with death an inch away, he couldn't muster up the effort to feel fear at all. "You said you'd spare them," he spat, coming out less pleading than he'd thought with all the terror choking his tongue.

"And did your friends look dead to you?" Vecna's smile was all teeth. "You have to uphold your end of the bargain, Will. Do what I ask, and they will live."

"You have what you want from me," Will said, wrenching his face away from Vecna's grip. He took a few stumbling steps back, pushing himself closer to where Mike might have been, obscured by the dark haze following his every move. "You turned me into— this, and got all the life you could've wanted out of me. I made you stronger. What more do you want?"

Vecna smiled, an eerie thing that didn't meet his dead eyes. "I thought you might understand, if I made you more like me. A little push for you to recognize how alone you are. How different we are, really, from everyone else."

"I'm not like you," Will spat. He stared Vecna down, unflinching.

For a moment, Vecna's smile disappeared, turning into a hard, thin-lipped line. That sudden flash of emotion faded just as it came, back to his bared grin as he met Will's eye. "Not yet," he said, "but you are getting there."

The ground shifted under Will's feet once again, a dizzying sensation of vertigo blurring his vision. When the world came back into focus, Will found himself in a tangled mass of vines, creeping past his feet, swarming up a bookshelf, twined around a half-obscured body— Mike.

Mike. Mike was right there, close enough for Will to touch, to tug on the vines and rip them apart with his claws— God, he had to move, he had to save him—

Will took one running step forward before horror froze him still. The vines tightened around Mike, slamming his open mouth closed as the fight was wrung out of him. He could hardly stand to look at Mike when his face was so pale, eyes half-closed, dark and empty as his head lolled listlessly towards the floor. If it weren't for the shaky rise and fall of his shoulders, Will would have thought he was dead already. "Didn't you hear him? He is scared of you. Of wanting you. Is that really what you want?"

"He will leave, Will. Love is. . . flimsy. Weak. Don't you want to be strong?"

"Let him go," was all Will could get out, shaky and weak-sounding even to him. "You have me. Isn't that what you wanted?"

Vecna strode around Will, making his way to Mike before Will could try to stop him. "Oh, but I have him too, now. You gave him right to me," he said, reaching out to tilt Mike's head up, "and the worst part is, he let you." He hooked a claw under Mike's chin, tilting his head back, exposing his neck and the twin marks on its side. The bandage must have fallen off somewhere; now, Vecna had his other hand on the side of Mike's neck, tracing the bite and laughing when Mike twitched away, holding him still when his head jerked back.

This really was Will's fault, wasn't it? He'd given Mike right to Vecna, sealed the deal with his teeth and sent the blood gift-wrapped straight to his fucking doorstep. The realization ripped through Will like an electric shock, sending him stumbling back, nearly hitting the floor until he found a shelf to lean against. Vines squirmed under his touch, only making Will feel sicker. "No," he breathed. Like it would change anything.

"All I want from you, now," said Vecna, "is to finish what you've started." He ran a claw down Mike's neck, and Will understood instantly.

Mike was going to die. It didn't seem that big of a deal, for a while.

He couldn't breathe, but it felt nice, letting go. He watched black stars bloom in his vision with vague disinterest. When his lungs constricted, going tight and frantic with pain, Mike was almost relieved. He was only riding out this breathless, dizzying wave; soon, it would all crash down, the pain would fade away and he wouldn't have to fight—

Don't fight it, Michael.

He jerked up with a start, eyes flying open wildly for one moment before something pressed into his windpipe, hard. A sharp, jagged claw, blunt edge pressed to his throat in warning. Base instincts kicked in, then; Mike's limbs jerked forward of their own volition, fighting against the hold of those slithering vines, but it was no use. He was breathing hard, as much air as he could get through his lungs, and his best wasn't enough. His vision went fuzzy, like putting on someone else's glasses, and the thought of death turned into a vaguely enticing possibility to a terrifying, solid reality, made all the more terrifying by—

Will.

Will was a vague, dark blur in Mike's vision, partially obscured by Vecna's hand as he traced his claw over Mike's bite mark— which, what the fuck, that was Will's bite, what made this fucker think he had any right to touch it— but Mike could notice Will from the other end of the world, so in Mike's mind, he was clear as day. Will was clear in Mike's vision the moment his eyes blinked back open, a smear of color and shaking shoulders and strong, dark eyes, staring up at Vecna like he was only a man, instead of an interdimensional god ready to slice Mike's throat like a mandoline.

"You see, don't you?" Vecna's voice boomed in the air, loud enough to give Mike a headache. Like that was even on the first page of his list of pains. "Look at him. Shaking, trembling. Weak. No one is strong enough in the face of death, least of all a boy too scared to face you."

Mike tried to cough something out, anything to let Will know he wasn't scared, not of Will, but the vines tightened, and all that escaped him was a choked whimper. "Don't you want to be free of him? He will only bring you down with all that fear." Vecna laughed, trailing a claw down Mike's neck. "All that weak, senseless love," he murmured. "Finish him."

Will stepped back, his strong gaze wavering as he glanced back at Mike. "No, no—"

Something broke in Mike, then, a strange strength returning to his heavy limbs that he could only find when Will was in danger. He jerked his head forward without even considering the vines at his throat, nor the claw still pressed against his neck— and, miraculously, the vines loosened just enough for him to choke something out. "I'm not scared."

"Mike?" Will's voice was hardly a whisper, but Mike heard it clear as a bell.

"I'm not—" and the vines tightened again, but Mike choked the words up anyway, "scared of you. I'm not scared of dying, and I'm not scared of Will, and—"

The claw slashed into his throat, a clean slice making ribbons of his skin. Not deep enough to kill, but enough to make him gasp, enough to make him jerk away in pain. "Finish him, Will."

He stepped away from Mike, then, creeping up to Will with an outstretched hand. "You will be close to him as you have always wanted, and he will never hurt you again. Why would you want to fight for the hurt? He will never leave you happy—"

His booming voice went quiet, so sudden Mike jumped at the silence— as much as he could jump with vines ensnaring his every limb, anyway. Mike found himself less restricted than he'd thought; the vines around his wrists had loosened just a touch, enough for him to jerk one hand free and reach forward for Will. Like that would do any good, when the only power he had was apparently to piss off Vecna with his words alone.

With Vecna's back turned to him, Will was obscured entirely. Mike started to panic until he watched Vecna stagger back, bringing a clawed hand to his chest like something had hurt him. He shouldn't have been able to be hurt at all, not in his own domain, but—

The dark fog surrounding them started to creep through Vecna, a dark hole growing in his chest like someone had placed a blowtorch to his sternum. Through the fog, claws out and teeth bared, was Will, so uncharacteristically fierce Mike could do nothing but stare. His mind went blank for a moment as he watched Will pant with exertion, wondering what the fuck just happened; how could Vecna burn when there was no fire?

Two things clicked in Mike's mind, fast as dominoes falling into place.

One; the space heaters. Those pain-in-the-ass, useless chunks of metal Mike had loathed to lug around, complaining every step to the library, had actually been useful for something. Dustin and Lucas must have turned them on by the time Vecna had taken him and Will, turning his claws hot enough to cut through Vecna entirely. Mike would thank his idiot friends— you know, if he wasn't seconds away from being choked to death.

Two; there was a reason Vecna didn't want Mike talking. He wanted Will to feed off Mike's fear, drink him dry of despair and surrender it all to Vecna. It wasn't the blood that gave him power, not directly; it was the emotions, the terror, the sickening betrayal and fear.

When Mike had let Will bite him, the only thing he'd felt was light, the soft happiness of being so close to someone he loved so dearly. Vecna wanted Mike to hate Will. He wanted Mike to recoil from Will's teeth, feel fear and disgust at the thought of being bitten, push Will away for being a monster. He wanted Will to resent Mike for his fear, and create twin pits of despair in their hearts large enough to send the whole world into ruin.

When Mike had wondered if Vecna could understand love, he'd meant it as a joke, a shot in the dark with the vague hopes of his life being resolved like a fairy tale. He'd thought of kissing a prince, awakening him from his years-long curse and banishing an evil wizard to a locked tower, and laughed at the idea he'd formed in his half-awake state. He'd rolled his eyes at Dustin's grand declaration of the power of love, too afraid to admit he wasn't sure his love would do anything at all.

Mike had seen love let a dead girl's heart beat again— and sure, El also had telekinetic superpowers, but Mike thought he had something better.

He had Will, and that would always be enough for him.

Vecna wasn't going to stay down forever. Will had to think fast, but with nowhere to turn except into an endless fog and no weapons except for his own two hands, Will wasn't sure what to think at all.

He was still winded from the force of his swing, the swipe of his claws scoring holes straight through Vecna's chest. Will could see the skin trying to knit itself together again, fighting against the heat spreading through his system. He had one moment of confusion before connecting the dots between the beads of sweat rolling down his hands and how his claws had sliced through Vecna's skin like butter.

The fucking space heaters. Not a day would come where Will would appreciate his friends— and his mom, for forcing them to take the unwieldy things— any less.

Only a few steps away was Mike, tugging against his restraints with the stubborn persistence of someone who wanted to live. Will could have fallen to his knees at the sight; he'd never seen that stubborn fight go out of Mike until now, when Will had watched the light in his eyes flicker out and felt his own hope flicker away with it. Now, watching Mike struggle and reach out for Will, all that hope surged back to him in one running burst. As Vecna regained his balance, still fighting to close the hole in his chest, Will's legs carried him forward, almost of their own volition entirely. He surged past Vecna, feet flying over vines as he sprinted towards Mike, faster than he'd ever thought he could run—

Something snagged on his angle. A single vine looped around his calf, just enough to hold him in place for a moment, long enough for Vecna to get in close.

His movements were stumbling, shaky. Will must've taken more out of him than he'd thought. "You're making a mistake," he hissed, digging a claw into the front of Will's shirt and tugging him forward to whisper in his ear. "You will never have what you want from him. He has done nothing for you. Why do you still run to save him, time after time?"

"I don't want anything from him," Will said, wrenching himself away from Vecna's claw. His shirt tore down the collar as he jerked backwards, tugging his leg from the tangled vine. "I don't love him to get something out of it, and God, if I did, you'd have enough despair from me to level the whole fucking solar system. What, did you think love was a transaction?"

The vine crumbled under his feet, each creeper turning to ash under his heels as he began to walk backwards. He wasn't waiting for Vecna's response, but it came anyway, in the form of a hand wrapped around his whole wrist.

"Everyone sees you as weak," he snarled. His claws dug into Will's wrists, sending something hot running down his arm. "I know how you hate them, how you resent them for seeing you as the child you once were. I know you yearn to be strong, Will. Do you want this love—" and he spat it out like the word was dirty in his mouth, foul on his tongue— "this weak, senseless emotion— do you want it to make you weak again?

His grip was too tight to pull away. Will thrashed in his hold, desperate to pull away, desperate to get back to Mike— but Vecna only dug his claws in deeper, tearing jagged crescent marks through Will's skin.

Behind Will, something snapped, a soft noise like a rotten branch giving way. He wouldn't have heard the noise, if not for the way Vecna's head snapped up and focused on the something behind them— no, someone. Mike.

"He's not—" Mike choked, tearing the tightening vine from his neck with a free hand— "Will's not weak. He's strong, but you—" and he coughed again, gasping for air as the aftershocks of being choked slammed into him. When he lifted his head again, there were tears in his eyes, but more importantly, he looked determined. Mike was entirely vulnerable, more defenseless than Will, yet he had never seemed more brave.

"You don't get it, do you?" Mike said, once he'd caught his breath. "You can't get it."

Vecna's snarl sent shocks through Will's spine, an animalistic hiss Will could almost see himself in— and Will got the point of this, then. This monstrous transformation, these teeth and claws and desire to hurt— this wasn't Vecna bringing something dark in him to light. This wasn't his strength, it was Vecna pushing himself through Will, trying to make Will like him.

He'd thought Will would jump at the power to hurt others like Will had been hurt himself. He'd banked his rise back to power on Will on an assumption because he couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't want to hurt.

Will had been hurt enough. He didn't want anyone to suffer like had— not even the monster looming over him, the man ready to destroy everything he knew.

He didn't want Vecna to suffer. Will just wanted him to die.

As Vecna opened his mouth again, presumably preparing for another speech to sway Will on the uselessness of love, Will struck. He brought his claws down again, wrenching his free hand back before spearing Vecna's chest clean through, five neat holes where his heart had once been that quickly started to expand and eat through his skin.

His wrist hurt like hell when Vecna wrenched his hand away, stinging pains shooting through his whole arm. When he tried to flex his wrist, it didn't move in the way he wanted it to— but Will would have time to worry about that later, and he still had a perfectly good right hand to cut through the rest of Mike's bindings. So, while Vecna stumbled back, hissing like a fire doused in water, Will got back to running again.

This time, he made it. Will reached Mike and started cutting at his remaining restraints without thinking, sawing through his tied legs and shoving the thought of what the hell they'd do next to the back of his mind. Will would figure it out, he just had to get Mike free, he just had to get Mike out of here alive—

"Will." Mike's voice was urgent, so quiet Will could hardly hear him. "You have to do it."

The words barely registered in Will's mind; he just kept sawing at the bindings, gasping with relief as he got Mike's ankles free.

"Will," Mike said, louder. Will kept cutting. He was on Mike's right hand, now. Just one more, and Mike would be free—

"Will! Are you listening?"

He flinched back, then, glancing up to Mike with a wince. "Mike, we have to run," he whispered, slicing the last vine clean through. "I don't— fuck, I don't know how long we'll make it, but we don't have any other choice—"

Mike grabbed onto Will's wrist, a light pressure on his uninjured arm. "Do you trust me?"

"For better or worse," said Will, before shaking his head and continuing, "but there's no time for this, we have to run—"

"Bite me."

Will startled back. "What?"

"He wants the emotions," Mike said, "not the blood." He was tripping over his words as he spoke. Everything blurred together in one long string, and Will wasn't sure whether that was his own confusion or Mike's urgency. "He wants you to hate hurting me, and he wants me to hate being hurt, but I can't, Will. I could never hate you. He doesn't get it— remember what I said, about exploiting the bond?"

I could never hate you. Deep down, Will knew it all along, but the words still came as a shock said out loud. "I— fuck, sort of?"

"Dustin's an idiot," said Mike, laughing weakly, "but he was right. Power of love, remember?"

Will recalled the surge of strength he'd felt only with Mike's blood, how he'd felt so glaringly present, and— oh, it all made sense, then. "Yeah."

"Fairy-tale bullshit," Mike muttered, tilting his head back. "Come on. You trust me?"

His eyes said enough. The smile at the corner of his mouth said more than enough, spoke volumes to Mike as he smiled in turn, leaning into the touch when Will pushed his hair away from the pale expanse of skin.

"You want a second scar? Or should I go for the same place twice?"

"Same place, please," Mike said, smiling far too much for someone on the brink of death. "I want it to last."

He was far too earnest, too sweet when they were both going to die if Mike's assumption was wrong. Will took it anyway, letting the warmth of Mike's words bloom in his chest as he leaned in.

He hoped trusting Mike was for the better this time.

The pain had almost been romantic, the first time. This time, it just hurt like hell, but Will was almost gentle enough for Mike to feel nothing at all.

Arguably, this bite hurt worse than the last; Will was urgent, careless, digging his teeth in like his life depended on it— and God, it did. Mike could really feel his skin split this time, even hear the harsh tear of what might have been a tendon as an incisor split through his neck, and sure, maybe he was about to pass out from the rolling bouts of pain, but he wanted it to hurt. He wanted the pain, even if it killed him, one last fuck-you to Vecna. One last promise to Will, that no amount of pain could make Mike fear him. Nothing in the world could make him hurt Will, not with intent.

He'd hurt Will on accident enough times for Will to hate him. Hell, Will should have hated him, for all the times Mike had torn his heart in two without even realizing it. He wouldn't blame Will if he only felt resentment as he tore Mike in two. If Will gave Vecna the despair he wanted, it would be Mike's fault.

Somehow, Will still loved him. He'd never said it, but Mike just knew, the deeper he dug his teeth in. No one could hurt him and still be gentle if they didn't love him, really.

Just as Mike started to wonder whether this was all for nothing, if he'd bleed out in Will's arms as the world ended— though he wasn't sure he'd mind, when Will's hands were gentle enough to make death seem like sleep— the ground shifted under his feet. The whole world started to quake, fierce tremors in the ground like an earthquake as vines crumbled under their feet.

Mike wrenched his eyes open, pushing past the haze of pain setting starry black spots in his vision. All around them, the dark red haze was disappearing, clouds dispersing in a thinning fog. Mike couldn't see Vecna, but he could hear— something. Something harsh and eerily quiet, like the crackling noise of an inferno, or a snake's warning hiss. It could have been Vecna or the world breaking under their feet, but Mike wasn't exactly in the state to go investigate. Either way, it sounded like death.

"I think—" Mike choked on the rest of his words, because the blood was starting to come up through his mouth— Jesus, this was disgusting, how could Will stand it— "it's— working."

Will wasn't really in a state to respond, but he didn't pull away, and that was enough. Everything continued to crumble around them, and Mike's vision continued to grow darker, and his breaths became slower and his lungs continued to ache, and— well, he was probably going to die, but that was okay. He wouldn't fight it, not if his death meant, for once, his love was enough.

A soft ray of light peaked through the thinning clouds, bringing a bit of clarity back to Mike's blurry vision. His blood was almost sparkling in the moonlight— the real, solid light, the little rays that came from the holes in the library roof.

This was working. Mike was going to die, but it was working. That was all that mattered to him; his family would live, his sisters and his mother and his friends and everyone he loved would live, and the worry of not living would disappear for good. There would be no more threats, no more near-death experiences and world-ending catastrophes, and if Mike had to die for it, so what?

He would die with Will. He would die being enough, and to him, that was all that mattered.

Will expected death, but it never came.

He and Mike should have been vulnerable with their backs turned to Vecna, but nothing came to hurt them. There was no sweep of claws down his back, no piercing pain of broken bones, no creeping vines or telekinetic tugs. There were no thunderous footsteps, no booming voices or snarled threats. Instead, all Will heard was an ear-piercing hiss, like the call of a dying snake— the kind his dog had liked to bring to the front porch, tail wagging as he deposited it right on Will's feet. A memory as small as that felt like more protection against Vecna than an entire suit of armor.

Yes, Will loved Mike in the most intense, all-consuming sort of way— and no, not all his memories of love revolved around Mike. When he'd tugged up all his happy memories, pushing any despair deep down in the hopes that Vecna would choke on all the love, his first memory had been of his family.

He'd half-forgotten the day a long time ago, left it to fade away under happier memories. The day after his dad left wasn't really something Will had wanted to remember, but now, it was all Will could think of when it came to love.

Christmas Day was a somber celebration when the tree had been knocked over the night before. Glass baubles glittered on the ground like stardust, broken ornaments his mom had forgone sweeping up in favor of sitting dead on the couch, staring into space and smoking enough cigarettes to turn Will's lungs black with secondhand smoke. He didn't mind, knowing how much she must have been hurting.

He'd woken up strangely empty, walking to the living room in a haze and watching the tree lights flicker, their plug sparking as it fell from the wall. His dad was gone for good, and that should have brought up something; relief, sadness, anger, anything. But his nine-year-old heart had felt nothing, not until his mom had come rushing in, white furball in hand, Jonathan trailing behind her with an armful of dog food and a grin on his face that filled Will up with more happiness than he'd ever known.

The memory, to Will, was the textbook definition of love. The life of his entire family had been overturned only a day ago, and his mom had still gone out of her way to make Will feel just a bit better. They cared about him, past every heartbreak and hardship. Nothing could tear their family— their real family— apart.

I have to get back to them, he thought, digging his teeth in deeper. Every pained noise from Mike made Will want to wrench himself away, and the thought of hurting Mike like this only for them to die anyway made him feel even worse, but he had to keep going.

His thoughts turned to Mike, then; his crooked smile and his fervent belief in Will, his dark eyes and gentle hands and his constant insistence that Will was strong. He'd found it hard to believe Mike felt anything good towards him for a long while, but now?

Now, Will knew Mike had always loved him. He didn't have Mike's words, but he had Mike's life in his hands— and who would trust their life so wholly with someone else if they didn't love them?

The Mike he thought of wasn't Mike as he was now, choking on blood and saying words Will could hardly hear, but all the moments Will had spent with Mike in the past; their shared glances, their shared silences and the way they almost shared minds. How Will could always know what Mike was thinking, how Mike always knew what Will was wanting— that was what felt like love, what made the vines in his mind that had tethered him to monsters give way.

When he thought of Mike, the world turned bright. Something snuck under his closed eyelids and set his gaze aflame, bright like the blinding light of an explosion. But there was no explosion, only the soft fall of something fitting back into place; everything went quiet, and the whole world seemed to melt away, vines disappearing under his feet and dark clouds retreating back into their place as shadows. There was no grand gesture, no final push from Vecna. Everything faded away, and the real world fell back into place, simple and quiet.

They'd lost that ability, sometime in between the start of the constant threat of monsters and the end of their childhood. Will never knew what Mike was thinking, and Mike had never figured out what Will was wanting. Not until now, as everything came back as it should have been. The monsters disappeared from the world and the dark clouds disappeared from the sky, and the moonlight came back to the sky and shone gently on Mike's face, pale and ethereal and— so fucking bloody, oh God—

"Will," Mike breathed, tugging Will out of his reverie. "Will, it's— look. He's gone."

For a moment, Will hardly heard him. The words didn't register in his mind until he realized why everything looked so much brighter, and when he did, Will pulled away as quick as he could. With the way Mike winced under him, Will might have been a little too reckless, but it didn't matter. Not when Mike was going to live, and his family was going to live, and everyone was going to—

"I think we did it," Mike laughed, a breathless thing too wet to sound happy. "Also, I, uh— it's kind of hard to breathe. I think I'm dying."

The library was still in ruins but it was real, and the ground was solid under them and there were no vines and they were going to live, and— what? "Don't say that," Will said, voice thick. "Not happening."

The last time he'd bit Mike, he couldn't hate it as much as he tried. Now, scrabbling to press the wound he'd torn in Mike's neck closed with his hands, Will hated it more than anything.

"It's okay," Mike said, shrugging as much as he could with his whole body on the floor. "I— I was enough, right?"

Will nodded, pressing harder on Mike's wound. The blood slipped through his fingers, no matter how hard he tried to keep it in. "You were," Will assured him. "You— Mike, when I thought of you, everything just. . . fit back into place. You made things right again."

He wasn't making much sense, really, but Mike seemed to get it. "Then it's okay," he said, smiling a little. "Don't try, Will. I'm not making it—"

Will tore his shirt in half with a shaking claw and wadded up the fabric to press against Mike's neck, hard. "Shut up," he said, cutting Mike off to do something stupidly inconsiderate. But to be fair, there weren't a lot of ways to shut Mike up when he was set on something— see, dying, for some inexplicable reason— other than making him, which was why Will kissed him.

His mouth was warm enough to catch Will off guard, and soft enough for him to melt anyway. He'd imagined his first kiss a million times, only with Mike in his weakest moments, and— well, he'd imagined splitting his lip in a kiss more than a few times, because he felt like he'd be the sort of idiot to slam his face into someone else's hard enough to break skin, so this wasn't too off course. Mike's mouth was hot and metallic, blood passing between their lips no matter how chaste he tried to keep the kiss, something Mike seemed intent on changing with the way he tugged Will in deeper, kissing with his whole body like his life depended on it. Maybe it did. Mike felt much more alive now than he had minutes ago— did kissing count as mouth-to-mouth if he was breathing hard enough?

Will had never liked the taste of blood, but it was so much sweeter on Mike's lips, so much warmer when he could feel Mike's chest rise and fall under his hand. He'd never clean the taste from his mouth if he could keep feeling the thrum of Mike's heartbeat under his palm, racing faster and faster as Mike pulled him in closer, letting his mouth fall open to trace his tongue over Will's incisor, and—

Will pulled away before Mike could do something stupid of his own, like stab his tongue open on Will's tooth. "Idiot," he murmured, fondly. "You want to cut yourself on my teeth again?"

"Wanted to know what they felt like," Mike said, shrugging, "and now I have, so I can die happy—" and Will shoved him, because hadn't Mike gotten the message that he wasn't dying by now— "okay, okay, I'm not dying, I swear."

"Now you get it," said Will. "Come on, can you stand? Let's go find Lucas and Dustin."

As it turned out, Mike could not stand, not without his legs wobbling dangerously underneath him. Will looped an arm around his waist and let Mike lean on them as they walked away from the bookshelf, making sure to wrap his other arm over to Mike's neck to keep pressure on the bite, because if his hand slipped and Mike really bled out he would never forgive himself—

"They were behind the bookshelf, idiot," said a voice behind them, oddly thick with emotion and a little hoarse, like they'd been screaming for a while.

"We looked behind that fucking bookshelf! Twice!"

Will turned around slowly, making sure to support Mike so they wouldn't both tumble to the floor. "Dustin," Mike breathed, a grin breaking out on his face, "Lucas, you—"

Lucas rushed towards him as Mike trailed off. "Oh my god, there's blood on your fucking teeth, stop talking." Dustin was quick to follow, first-aid kit in hand. At least someone had some sense to bring bandages, because it had skipped Will's mind entirely.

"We looked for you everywhere," Lucas said, quiet as Dustin handed him bandages, "but you were just gone, or something— Will, that rag is soaked, take it off or you're going to infect that thing. Jesus, did your life depend on puncturing Mike's arteries or something?"

"Basically." Will kept himself wrapped around Mike, holding him up even when Mike insisted he could stand. After this, Will wasn't sure he could ever let go of Mike again.

"I was right," Dustin said, far too happily for someone standing in front of two people covered in blood. "Power of lo-ove."

Mike rolled his eyes. "Say it like that again," he muttered, "and I will make myself bleed out all over you."

"We should probably get him to a hospital. I think he's serious."

Lucas slung Mike's other arm around his shoulder, much to Mike's dismay. He squirmed back, moving closer to Will. "Come on, Will can hold me just fine."

Hospital rung out in Will's mind like an alarm bell. If there were people still working at the hospital, then maybe the whole world really hadn't been destroyed, and maybe everyone else was alive, too. "I— wait, is everyone else okay? Are people at the hospital, or—"

"I mean, we were sort of busy looking for you two, and making sure the space heaters didn't explode," said Dustin, picking up his first-aid supplies, "but I heard something over the walkie. Sort of staticky, but it sounded like your mom, and she said something about the emergency room near Melvald's, I think?"

His mom being alive said nothing for anyone else. What about Jonathan, and Hopper, and— everyone? What if—

"Will," Mike murmured, leaning into his side, "it's okay. They'll be okay, and we're gonna see them all at the hospital, okay?"

He must have felt the way Will stiffened, or maybe their bond had come back so strong Mike really could read his mind, now. "Yeah," he said, "okay."

They started walking, stumbling out of the library on shaky feet. Even Dustin came to hold Mike up, walking right behind him in case he stumbled back, much to Mike's annoyance. On his fourth complaint, Dustin begged Will to make him shut up somehow, please, and it had taken every ounce of Will's remaining strength not to kiss him right then and there.

Mike, however, did not have that strength, because he leaned over and planted a smacking kiss on Will's mouth before Dustin could even finish his sentence. The whole Party was stunned into silence for a moment; Dustin and Lucas sported matching baffled expressions, while Will silently turned red as a fire hydrant.

"That's how you get him to shut up, I guess," Lucas finally said, eyes so wide they had practically sprung out of his skull. "I never thought I'd say this to anyone, but can you two start kissing more often?"

"I knew it," Dustin said, a victorious smirk on his face. "The power of love is real—"

"Oh my god, shut up!"

Well. Never in a million years had Will imagined coming out to the Party like this— but, to be fair, he'd never imagined surviving the end of the world, either.

Mike was an idiot for being okay with dying.

If he had died, he would have missed out on so many things; seeing his sister alive and feeling relief wash over him in waves, the bone-crushing hug from his mom after he'd stumbled back home, weary but thrumming with the sheer adrenaline that came with— well, defeating an interdimensional god, the awesome fucking scar that scabbed over his neck in the weeks after Vecna's defeat, Will bringing him flowers in the hospital (daffodils and forget-me-nots, because Will was the sort of romantic sap who somehow remembered the one time Mike said he hated roses), Will kissing him, Mike kissing Will, kissing Will, kissing Will, kissing—

Okay, maybe he was just glad to have lived so he could keep kissing Will. So what? He wasn't ashamed to want Will. Mike would shout it out to the whole world, scream it to the sky if he could. After nearly dying, the thought of some stranger hating him for loving Will seemed unimportant at best.

And— yeah, of course he loved Will. He hadn't exactly gotten around to saying it yet, but Mike thought it was obvious. He let Will nearly kill him, for God's sake. Who would do that for someone they didn't love?

Speaking of which; Will was still hung up on the whole I nearly killed my best friend (maybe boyfriend, too? Mike hadn't exactly brought that up yet either) and gave him permanent breathing problems— which, okay, that was true. There was no getting around it. Will had pierced through his trachea in his desperation to save them, an entire hole in his throat the doctors had to stitch up. There were permanent metal stitches inside his neck, and even now it still sort of hurt to breathe, and the doctors had even given him a literal inhaler after they'd taken him off the ventilator, but Mike didn't mind, not when he was alive. That was what mattered to him, not being unable to run, or whatever. He'd never been much of an athletic person, anyway.

The first time Will had walked into Mike's hospital room, he'd taken one look at the tubes trailing down Mike's throat and nearly walked right back out again. Will had been so convinced Mike would hate him for what he'd done, that Mike would never want to see him again— which was insane, because Mike was pretty sure he really would die if he never saw Will again. He'd told Will just as much, though Mike wasn't sure he'd been convinced.

They'd dropped the topic, until now; sitting side by side in the Wheeler's basement, a half-sketched map stretched out in front of them, fingers brushing together as they wrote down notes for their new campaign. He felt a strange sense of familiarity from the million moments he'd spent in this basement with Will before, poring over comics and campaigns back when the basement had felt big and they had felt small. Now, Mike found himself bumping into table corners and walls more often than he'd like to admit. He felt like all the places he'd spent time with Will in had grown smaller, instead of them just growing bigger.

Case in point; Mike swore he hadn't always taken up this much of the couch, but now, he could hardly move without bumping into Will. He didn't seem to mind, so Mike had decided to throw caution to the wind and tuck his head into Will's shoulder while he drew, sketching out wide dragon wings on some fantastical monster.

Sometimes, it still came as a shock to Mike that he was allowed to do this now, getting close to Will with no consequences. It made him feel giddy every time he remembered he could, and he wasn't sure that would ever change.

"You know," Mike murmured, absently tracing the crescent-shaped scars around Will's wrist, "I think you could give me a tattoo."

Will laughed, shrugging off Mike's idea like it was just one of his many odd remarks— which was fair, because Mike tended to say things like Do you think dragons used to be real? and What if the moon landing was on Mars? No, I'm serious, there's evidence— but this time, he was dead serious. "I don't think you should trust me with that. Tattoo removals aren't exactly cheap, and also, your mom would kill you."

"I'll be an adult eventually," Mike responded, "and then what will she do? Give me a disappointed look at family reunions? Come on. We could match."

Will gave him a noncommittal hum, focusing on detailing the dragon's claws instead of Mike's words. They sort of reminded Mike of Will's own claws— which, while they'd grown smaller in the weeks after Vecna's death, hadn't disappeared quite yet. He'd worried they'd never disappear, a permanent reminder of Vecna stuck on his body. Mike understood, but he couldn't help but admit the claws were sort of cute, now that they'd grown shorter. They looked like little bat claws, and his teeth looked like tiny bat teeth, and— okay, so he'd gotten too invested in the thought of Will as a bat again. Sue him.

"Where would you want a tattoo, then?" Will asked, still focused on his drawing.

Mike tapped his neck, circling a patch of skin right above his scar. "Over here. I want a bat, like, digging its teeth in. Wouldn't that be sick?"

The pencil in Will's hand consumed more of his interest than Mike's words until he'd mentioned teeth. Will stiffened, pencil trailing off in a shaky line as he kept his gaze pointedly on his paper. "You don't want a cover up or something? Why would you want to show it off?"

"First of all, because it looks awesome," Mike said, grinning into Will's shoulder, "and second, it's yours. It's like I'll have a part of you with me all the time, or— wait, that sounds stupid. I just— it's like showing you off without actually doing it, you know?"

When Will glanced up, he looked straight at the wall, still refusing to meet Mike's eye. "But I hurt you. I nearly killed you, and I— you can hardly breathe, Mike. I don't understand why you're even here when I—"

"I hurt you," Mike said, plainly, "hundreds of times over. And where are you right now?"

"Emotional hurt. Not the same as putting someone on a ventilator."

Mike shrugged. "And I made you angry enough to disappear in a thunderstorm for hours. You still came back, because you love me."

When the words came out, Mike hardly thought about them at all. It seemed as natural to him as breathing, as obvious as the moon in the nighttime sky. For a long while, he'd been terrified of saying he loved Will. How could someone as good as Will ever like someone like him back?

Now, when Mike knew for a fact that his love (and, obviously, Will's love) had literally turned Vecna to dust, there was no need for him to question it. Will's love had saved the world— and though that was usually the sort of cliche reserved for shitty rom-com movies, the kind Mike hated and the kind Will loved to hate, it was undeniably true. Will loved him, and Mike had the continued existence of the entire world to back him up. Simple as that.

Well. Maybe it wasn't that simple to Will, because he whirled around like a startled animal to face Mike and practically choked on his next sentence. "I— you— that's, uh. Presumptuous."

"Oh, come on," said Mike, "I know you do. No one could put up with me if they didn't."

"I guess that's fair." Will glanced away, giving the ground a sheepish look. He'd flushed red down to his collarbones, and Mike sort of wanted to trace the lines of his neck to see just how deep red he could go. And, well— he could, because Will loved him, so he slung an arm over Will's other shoulder to trace his fingers around the collar of Will's shirt, slipping his hands under the warm fabric.

Will relaxed into the touch with a soft laugh. "You— what's this for?"

"I love you," he said, simply. "I think we should get matching bat tattoos. What if you got their wings around those scars?"

For most of his life, Mike had tried to love the wrong person. It had made him miserable, but he'd thought it would all be worth it if he could just be normal, if he could be enough for someone when he was hardly enough for himself. Now, wrapped around the boy who he knew for a fact was the right person, his person, Mike could only think of that time— those plastic kisses, fake flowers and tight-lipped smiles, two people stuck with another person's other half— as a distant memory.

"Oh," was all Will said, for a long stretch of time. He set his pencil down and reached up to twine his fingers with Mike's, a small smile teasing at his mouth as he met Mike's eye. "You do?"

Now, Mike knew he loved the right person. He had real, blooming flowers on his nightstand, real smiles right in front of him, had his other half pressed right to his side. He'd felt wrong for such a long time, but this— Mike knew this was right. It had always been right, even if he hadn't felt allowed to realize it.

"Yeah," he said, smiling, "obviously."