Chapter 1: The beginning
Notes:
This first chapter is kinda short, future chapters will be longer (as long as my attention span locks in)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
One thing to note about one William Byers is that he hates the cold. And the dark. But mostly just the cold. Whenever the temperature would drop at night or in the winter or when the wind blows a little too hard, sending chills down his body right to his core, it’s almost like he never left, never escaped. It’s almost as if he is transported right back there, to the upside down, huddled in castle Byers and praying the creature in the dark be able to find him. It’s almost as if he can hear Vecna whispering in his ear, and breathing down his neck. Watching…. Waiting.
So yeah. To put it lightly Will hates the cold.
It’s cold in the basement of the Wheeler’s house. There are no heaters, only blankets and wishful thinking to keep you warm. He’d been staying down there with Jonatan for the better part of three months now, except it’s almost like they hadn’t been sharing at all because every night Jonathan stays in Nancy’s room. Which of course means Will is left all alone. In the basement. In the winter.
He hates it.
To make matters even worse, Mike hasn’t talked to him in two full weeks. He won’t even look him in the eye, just…. Walks right past as if will is a ghost, or like, invisible or some shit. It awful and unbearable and it is so damn cold and it’s so lonely.
Will sighs and finally gets up from his , at this point ridiculously large, pile of blankets. It’s not like they help. Nothing helps. the cold is always there, seeping through every layer will tries to put on to ward it away. Now that he’s no longer burried in the many, many blankets he had amassed will shivers. He shivers, and quakes. They’re not small shakes either; he swears he can hear his bones rattling together, like a mini, controlled earthquake that’s only happening to him. With each shiver and chatter of his teeth he feels closer to breaking down, closer to breaking, and closer to doing something stupid or other that he will most likely regret.
It’s late. It’s dark. Most of all it’s cold.
The sole window in the basement creaks with a sudden gust of wind, shaking and rattling like something is trying to get in, and will jumps.
He swear he sees something in the window. Someone. A face that’s all too familiar yet completely a stranger, a blonde man with a haunting smirk and cruel eyes, yet when will blinks the phantom is gone.
“No. No, no, no, no, no.” He whispers to himself. To himself because no one else is there, not even Jonathan or Mike. It’s just him in the freezing basement, alone and losing his mind. His breath quickens, his shaking has become more violent now. There’s a sound coming from the furnace in the back room, but it doesn’t sound like the usual sounds of a furnace. No, it sounds like the creatures, the demogorgans coming to hunt him down, to finish what they had started back in ‘83 when they had hunted him through the trees of the upside down, stalking him through the vines as he hid and cried and prayed for someone to come save him.
The house creaks. Will flinches.
He backs up, shaking and tears welling on his eyes, until his legs hit the couch and he sinks to the ground back pressed against the cushions. He brings a hand up to cover his mouth as he lets out a sob. Someone is breathing against his neck.
Distantly will swears he hears the sound of a clock chiming ominously. Five tolls of the bell, each distorted, warped. To Will it sounded like… falling. Down..
down…..
down…..
just like Alice down the rabbit hole.
“William”
Will let’s out another sob. He feels sharp fingernails trail lightly down his neck. His skin burns and tingles, a sensation almost like radio static, and he feels his whole body explode into goosebumps. Every nerve in he body is yelling at him, screaming for him to run, to get away from this.. this thing, but will feels frozen, rooted to this spot, back against the couch cushions in his (ex?)best friend’s basement, sobbing in terror, and freezing cold.
When morning comes, the haunting ticking of the clock is gone, but Will is still curled in the same position against the couch with half dried tear tracks running down his cheeks, shivering violently, and a trail of still wet blood dripping from his nose.
Notes:
If you can’t tell, my ahh has now hyper fixated on stranger things. To be more specific: Byler, and so my dear readers I have written this to at least somewhat scratch that itch. I hope you enjoyed reading this fix so far, more chapter will be coming soon :3 love yall!
Comments and kudos are always appreciated!
Chapter 2: Let me help you
Notes:
I do my best writing at 2 am while eating fundip like a literal child lmao
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The harsh light of a cold winters morning seeps into the basement from the one small window, casting the room in longs shadows and bathing everything in an almost haunting kind of light. Illuminated by this light, pressed agains a brown couch, shaking and bleeding from his nose is Will Byers.
He whole house creaks as the morning goes on and people wake up and start their day.
Will doesn’t move. He stays frozen to he same spot, pressed up against that couch and shivering, not quite sure what is and isn’t real. There’s a haunted, almost traumatized look in his eyes as he just sits there. Alone.
There’s a creak on the stairs. The sound of soft footsteps slowly making their way towards him. Will tenses, Vecna’s taunts from the night still whispering at the back of his brain.
“Will?”
The voice that fills the air is soft. Familiar. It reminds him of warmth and bike rides and dnd and happiness. Mike. His Mike, or not his anymore since this is the first time in weeks that Mike has spoken to him, or even looked his way for more than a second. Even before that, before he had come back to Hawkins, and everything with El, and the roller rink, and the lies, and Vecna went down it was evident that there was something straining their friendship. Maybe it was the distance between them, or maybe Will had said something, done something, to cause that rift. A rift that had only grown since returning to Hawkins, so much so that it seemed impossible to repair now.
Will can’t find it in him to turn his head. He doesn’t have the energy he just.. sits there, at the foot of the couch, shaking. He hears foot steps come closer and then suddenly they’re face to face, and Mike is crouched in front of him, and the air around him seems to warm up just a fraction now that he’s here.
“…ll? Will? Are you ok? You’re starting to scare me a bit.”
And Mike’s voice seems so, so loud in the quiet coldness of the basement around them. Warm hands press against Will’s arms and then he’s being pulled to standing, and Mike’s talking again, and wow his head hurts. It feels like there someone smacking a really heavy book into his head over and over again and he just wants it to stop, please make it stop , please-
He stumbles forward, his vision blurring slightly with the headache, and then he’s falling. Just like Alice, and just like the sound of the distorted grand father clock from his dream or nightmare or vision or whatever it was. He’s caught by strong arms, and as he floats back into his body all his senses start returning and the ringing sound that had over taken his earring faded away to Mike panicking.
“Will! Oh my god will! W-what’s going on? Are you ok? What was that?”
It’s too much.
“I’m fine Mike, I swear.” Will says, but there’s a shake to his voice. An unsteadiness that leaves a tinge of uncertainty and dread hanging in the air between him and Mike. Then they’re moving again. Mike is pulling him back up, making sure he’s steady, then guiding(pronounced; dragging) him to the basement bathroom. He sits Will down on the edge of the bathtub, Starts running the tap, and then runs off with a quick mutter of finding a washcloth.
Will sits there waiting. He isn’t waiting for very long, he knows that, but in the short amount of time that Mike isn’t at his side the cold returns with a vengeance. It seeps up through the tiles making his feet go numb. His teeth chatter. The lights in the bathroom flicker and the room gets impossibly colder and colder until Will can see his breath in front of him. He’s distantly hears the distorted sound of the clock chiming, just as it had the night prior, and Will frantically rushes to stand.
‘M-Mike? Mike? MIKE!”
His friend had vanished. Will stumble unsteadily out of the bathroom, still calling panicked for Mike, for anyone. As he stumbled into the main room of the basement things were… wrong. Thick vines covers the walls, lights flickered, a blueish light bathed the room. A man stood in the corner, and as he turned around Will was met with the face of his father.
Lonnie had never been fond of Will. For most of his childhood the brunt of his father’s anger and beatings were taken out on him. The misfit. The one who never quite fit in anywhere. To Lonnie he was too… feminine. Not nearly manly enough which led to him frequently screaming at Will, calling him names and slurs that he wouldn’t come to understand until many years later when kids would throw the same hateful words and names at him just like his dad. Will remembers one particular day in the fourth grade when Mike had asked about the nasty bruise on his arm. His voice shook as he said he just fell off his bike.
Now faced with the same man, the man he had grown up fearing and resenting, the wrongness of the whole situation sent chills down is spine.
“Well well well, if it isn’t the little fag.”
Will bit back tears and stared down at the ground.
“Still a fucking fairy I see. My god you were always such a disappointment. So ‘sensitive’. So weak. I didn’t raise my son to be a goddamn faggot William.” Lonnie’s now distorted voice spat.
Will felt one of the vines snake around his ankle as a strangled sob wormed it’s way out of him and his father’s voice continued to tear him apart. In the background the distorted clock chimed. Five times.
Someone was snapping in his face and a warm hand was pressed to his arm and Mike’s familiar voice called his name.
“Will are you ok?!’
“Yeah… sorry I guess I just spaced out a little bit there.” He replied
“Oh. Yeah… that makes sense….” Mike trailed off. There was a moment of silence before he began to speak again, “uhm anyways, I found a wash cloth. Let me help clean you up, yeah?”
“I can do it myself Mike I-“
He interrupted Will pressing the warm, damp washcloth to the stained skin under his nose. “Please. Let me help.”
By the time they had finished the air around them seemed slightly less tense, if not a little awkward. Mike held out his hand in offering and Will accepted his help to stand from where he had been perched on the side of the tub. They both made their way back to the main room. Will settled onto the couch, exhausted from the events of last night and a few moments ago. Will feels a tiny bit of hope as Mike glances at the spot next to him, and moves as if to sit down, but then he freezes. Will feels the small smile that had made its way onto his face slip away as Mike practically ran up the stairs with barely a wave goodbye.
Then yet again Will was left all alone with the cold.
Notes:
New chapter YAYAYAYAYAYAY
lmk your thoughts, theories, or suggestions in the comments, and as always kudos is much appreciated. More chapter to come soon
Chapter 3: Terrible, horrible, no good, and VERY bad
Chapter Text
Mike Wheeler is a horrible, awful, no good, very bad friend. What is wrong with him? I was so clear that Will, his best friend, the kindest, smarted, and probably the most talented person Mike had ever met, was not ok in the slightest. When Mike had gone down to check on him he had been so pale. He had horrifically dark eye age almost like bruises under his eyes, his hair was messy, and his eyes… there was this haunted far away look.
Something was so clearly wrong and Mike….. Mike wanted to help him so bad. He wanted to clean off wills face, and wrap him in a million blankets, sit him by the fire, and just hold him until he was warm again. Until the fear would vanish from his eyes and he would smile that sweet on of a kind smile that he reserved only for the party, and then maybe everything would be ok again. Maybe then they’d be able to talk like they used to, to practically be able to read each others minds. They’d defeat the monsters from the upside down and finally be able to just… be kids. To play dnd and ride bikes all around town and other shit teenagers did.
Maybe that was wishful thinking.
Mike heaved a heaved out a sigh and flopped onto his bed face down.
It was of course at that very moment that Nancy decided to ‘check on him’. She’d been doing that a lot recently, coming into his room, asking about his day, making sure he ate slept and that he was ok. It was like after the events of spring break something in here had just… snapped. It wasn’t a big difference, not like her personality had completely swapped or anything, but it was there, this quiet buzz of anxiety always surrounding her now. And of course the moment she chose to check on him had to be right now.
“Hey Mike, how are you….uhm what exactly are you doing?”
Mike turned his head to look at her, groaned, buried his face in the pillow in front of him, and let out a muffled scream.
“Wow ok. That sure was a reaction.” Nancy said as she quietly shut the door and moved to sit on the edge of the bed. “What’s wrong Mike?”
Mike sighed again because that truly was the question. “I don’t even know Nance, it just…. Sometimes everything feels like too much y’know?’
There was a pause, an uncomfortable but not quite awkward silence as his sister shifted a bit closer to him, placing a hand on his shoulder.
”yeah,” she whispered, “I know.”
“It’s just like, w-what if something happens again? Something bad? I-I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore Nancy. And… and now will is acting weird and everything between us has been so horrible and awkward since he left and now.. I-it’s like I don’t even know him anymore. I-I just wish everything would go back to how it was before all this…”
Nancy stared at him for a second before pulling him into her arms in a tight hug. He let himself cry into her shoulder, let himself mourn the childhood that he had lost, that they had all lost, to the upside down.
“It’ll be ok Mike. Not right now, maybe not even for the next year, but eventually everything will be ok again and-and we can figure out how to live again, together yeah?”
And Mike laughed. It was wet and tearful into Nancy’s shoulder but is was real, probably the first real laugh he had in months. “Yeah.” He agreed easily. Because yeah, everything was awful now but they would figure it out. They would fight the upside down and Vecna until finally, finally, they are free.
Mike’s train of thought was interrupted by Nancy as she began to speak again, “so what’s up with Will?”
“I…. Honestly Nancy I Dont know. I-I mean we used to be so close, like we knew each other inside and out and sometimes we could just like, look at each other and it was like we knew exactly what the other was thinking, but like now…” Mike choked back a sudden sob, “we feel like strangers now Nance.” The tears had begun to fall down his face even quicker, leaving his eyes slightly bloodshot and trails across his cheeks. He hiccuped and he rubbed the tears off with his sleeve.
As Nancy pulled him into a hug Mike whispered to her, “I’m scared Nancy. I’m so, so scared. T-today I went to go check on him and… he looked so broken. I-I don’t know what to do. It… it was almost like he was in some sort of trance. He was shaking, and his nose was bleeding, and he was so cold.” He breathed in deeply, “I just.. I wish all of this could just be over…”
Mike broke off into quiet sobs, and Nancy held her little brother as he continued to cry, whispering reassurance just as she had when they were younger and mike was only terrified of the dark and imaginary monsters potentially hiding under the bed, rather than actual monsters from a different dimension and losing everyone he cared about.
At the same time dots were beginning to connect in her head, and Nancy felt dread beginning to creep up her spine with each passing moment. All the symptoms Mike had described had her brain spiraling. Too close. Too similar.
Doubt and fear lingered in both Wheeler’s minds, thoughts racing and hearts pounding nearly in perfect sync as the world around them grew more uncertain, more… terrifying.
One thing was definitely clear: something was terribly, horribly wrong.
Notes:
Heyyy. So… how we feeling about the finale chat? :3
Honestly I wish it had ended differently or that we’d gotten more of the show to fix some of the larger plot holes, but really I’m just sad it’s over. The true end of an era.
Oh well. I guess I just have to rewatch the whole series again lol
As always, all comments and kudos are super appreciated!
Chapter 4: A brief escape
Summary:
This chapter is a little shorter, I’m gonna try my best to make next chapter longer but I have the attention span of a very tired goldfish lmao.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
By the time Will returns to himself it’s probably some time in the afternoon based off the light coming through the basement window.
His head is swimming, he feels disoriented, and there’s a migraine steadily pulsing right behind his eyes, but at least he’s present. He’s in his body, he can think for himself, feel his surroundings, see everything in the basement he and the rest of the party practically grew up in. Most importantly is that the cold is gone.
I mean, Not gone exactly, but waning. Less present. It was no longer freezing down to his bones, no longer so cold he could see his breath, and he was no longer shaking violent from the frigid air that had been around him.
Will let out a sigh. Not a big, dramatic one. Quiet. Almost… relieved. Thankful that his… episode was over.
He stood up slowly, wincing as joints protested and popped, then made his way upstairs. Quiet, almost sneakily, will crept to the garage. He didn’t want Mike anyone to follow him. He just… needed a moment to breathe, to think, without everyone’s eyes boring into him with worry, or concern, or fear. Will grabbed a bike, ‘Mike’s bike’ his brain unhelpful supplied, and made his escape.
He biked around the neighborhood for a bit. Through the streets they used to race down when they were kids, past the houses, and mailboxes, and people, none of which had really changed despite how much everything else had.
For the first time in a long time will felt free. Almost like he could close his eyes and pretend like none of it had happened. That they’d all grown up together, playing dnd, and biking, and getting milkshakes, and growing up like normal kids. He could almost pretend the upside down had never happened. He’d never been taken. Never been chased by nightmare creatures in a strange world, never been tormented by a beast made of shadows and dust, never been attacked by a horrifying flesh version of that very same creature that had shattered his mind.
He could almost, almost pretend that he’s never watched his friends move on without him, grow up while he was frozen in place. That he had never been replaced by new people who were more interesting, funnier, happier. That he had never moved to California and the gap between them hadn’t grown into a gaping chasm.
The cold wind whipped past him as he plunged down a steep hill on the bike, the jacket he had borrowed from Mike doing little to protect him from the cold. Yet it was almost as if the cold wasn’t there, his body numb and his heart pounding from the physical exertion.
As he rode, he remained lost in his thoughts, no specific destination in mind, no finish line, no end. Because really there wasn’t anywhere for him to go anymore. He, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin no longer spent much time as a group. Dustin was always off volunteering with, or hanging out with Robin and Steve, or calling Susie. Jonathan was with Nancy most of the time, Argyle had returned to California, El was training with Hopper and mom, Mike was avoiding him, and Lucas spent most of his time at Max’s bed side in Hawkins general.
Max.
Almost as if something had been guiding him, he came to a stop right outside of Hawkins general. It almost felt like something was pulling him, calling him inside. It had been too long since he had visited Max anyways. It had been a while since he had anyone to go with him, and going on his own felt wrong in a way, so he had just… stopped going to visit all together.
‘Jealous,’ whispered something deep inside him, a part of himself he had always tried to bury, to shove down, to ignore. Because deep down Will was jealous of Max in a way. Poor Max who had suffered so much, who was now in a coma fighting for her life while will was awake and fine and being so… selfish.
But that voice, the one he tried to smother, was still there whispering, ‘at least people care about Max. But you… you are pathetic William. No one cares for the freak. The queer. No one care for you’
Will took a deep breath and shook his head, as if trying to rattle the voice out of his head with the almost violent movement. He didn’t have time to be self centered when his friends were hurt and the world was ending. He was probably being dramatic anyways.
Will got off the bike and began walking it over to the bike rack near the hospital entrance, his head pulsing with the same headache from earlier.
The sound of a ticking clock echoed in the world around him as Will put his bike on the bike rack and started walking into the hospital to visit his friend.
And if a trail of blood began to trickle from his nose as 5 chimes rang out in his head…. Well, who cares anyways.
Notes:
NEW CHAPTER YAYAYAYAY
In other news, school sucks and I miss winter break already, and also updates will probably take longer to come out because school started back up.
anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Let me know any thoughts you have in the comments, and thank you to anyone who has left kudos!