Chapter Text
Will Byers is going to kill himself.
Sometimes, all he can think about is how easy it would be.
He could do it. No one would know until after it was done.
He could do it.
A hand presses against his shoulder, guiding him. Will lets his feet move because what else is he supposed to do? “Come on, buddy. Let’s head home, okay?”
Will can’t find it in him to nod, but he does rest his head on his older brother’s shoulder, watching the world pass him by as the streetlights flicker. Always flickering. There was one. A single, aching pain inside of him. He keeps his eyes open, keeps the visions at bay. It’s easier that way.
But still not as easy as…
His mother’s hands cup his face, run over his forehead, tears streaming down her cheeks in worry. Will loves her, and he does feel bad, but- he’s been missing before. She’s seen his body before. It wouldn’t be much different now. Will bows his body over so she can kiss his forehead, giving her the sense of comfort, all while knowing he is going to go missing again tomorrow, and the day after that, until the body they find this time will be real.
He rolls over on his bed, blanket kicked to the floor, and lets his gaze fall onto the canvas on the other side of the room. The open window had dried the paint, and now it brushes cold air over his skin. It feels warm compared to the goosebumps on his skin- the ones that haven’t went away in a long, long time. He doesn’t think they ever will. Not unless he takes the initiative.
He thinks he’ll add more black- the red was too light, too soft. Cherries look through him, mocking him, and he can’t muster anything to mock back with.
He doesn’t sleep that night.
Sometimes, all he can think about is how he’ll kill himself.
Lucas squeezes his hand in a death grip, leg bouncing, worried. Max is in the exam room again, the same routine they’ve had every friday since they won. It didn’t feel like a victory. He is rotting from the inside, he is spoiled, he is past his time. Will does not say this out loud, but he does stare at the door, and he does sit there, a steady presence.
“Do you think- do you think they’ll be able to get her to walk again? It’s been ages, Will, and I just-”
Will turns, holding his arms open. His friend collapses into them, and Will runs a hand down his back, heart simmering in quiet affection for him. In love, in worry, in care. He doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t have to. Lucas lets himself break, the same way he does every visit, and Will keeps it between them.
He understands. What Henry has done… it’s never going to leave. He can’t bring himself to tell this to Lucas.
Lucas, who still has so much hope.
“I can’t keep doing this- I love her, I love her so bad and it’s my fault this all happened, if I just got to her sooner-”
In his mind, the decision is made. He just can't decide when, or how. He can’t jump- he couldn’t let them pull his body out of that water again. He couldn’t bear to make them hurt.
“Your painting is really… lonely,” Jane says, the first word she’s spoken in an hour.
Will’s hands pause, a streak of maroon on his brush, a swerving vine. “Really? Is that what it looks like to you?”
Jane hums, her own page full of noodles catching Will’s attention. They were sweet. Happy. Will lets it warm him, ever so slightly. She deserved nice things. “Why is there only one?”
Will turns back to the canvas, a sense of loss inside of him. “I don’t know.”
His finger drags along wet paint, smearing it.
“I think you should add another, then. So it is not lonely anymore.” There's a certain sadness you only feel when you realize you've lost your place in the world. Every crevice where Will once used to fit is now loose, his edges worn and eroded, the gap far too big. This world… this universe…. it can no longer hold him. He has deteriorated, and he will be gone, and he wonders how Jane knows, how she understands. If she was lonely like this too, despite the amount of love that was shoved onto her. She has everything Will has ever wanted, and he loves her so hard that his lungs hurt with it, because she is his sister, and she is kind, and she is strong, and she did not deserve what happened to her.
Will licks his lips. Looks at his art. You can pack your childhood bedroom in boxes, your favorite clothes into bags, and you can lift your life in both of your hands and remove them yourself, because you will only be taking up space that someone else will be snug in, and he has done it before.
He has left everything before.
He has no idea how to do it now, but he knows. There is no saving him. Not when he is the only remnants of what has ruined them all.
A hand brushes against his, drawing his attention. “Will,” he says. Soft. His heart has felt so wrung out for so long, and yet Will finds himself wondering. When will he fall out of love? Will it die with the rest of him? Will his heart haunt Mike forever? “I got you a snack?” It’s hopeful, the way he says it. Eyes full of desperation. Maybe Will has cursed Mike. Cursed him to care.
Will murmurs a quiet thank you anyways, and Mike beams as he opens the package, pulling out all of the orange and slipping them into Will’s open hands. He thumbs at one of them. The smoothness of it.
Maybe Will cursed him all of those years ago, maybe he had trapped him on those swings. Held on too tightly. He could have gotten away, that one summer. Mike nudges Will’s hands back towards his body, nodding. “Your favorite, right?”
They were, once. Now Will’s stomach felt hollow. Like someone had taken a spoon and scraped every bit of himself out, left to ferment on the ground by his feet. He nods back despite it all, and he sees how Mike wilts. There’s some sort of movie playing, one that Will couldn’t remember the name of. Lucas and Jane keeping Max updated, swapping between themselves as they tell her what’s happening. Her vision is back, but it’s blurry, and it’s only getting worse with time- not better.
He tries not to think about it.
“Did you want something different?” Mike prods again.
Will couldn’t tell Mike what he wanted. He couldn’t tell Mike anything.
“No,” he says instead, throat hurting. “Thank you.”
“I could feed them to you, maybe?” Mike tries again, voice nervously joking. It doesn’t land and Will has to watch the way Mike’s smile falters. “Please,” he murmurs. “If you won't eat any real food- just this. This is all I’m asking.”
Will averts his eyes, looking not at the television in front of them but at the window behind it. The open space. It calls to him. He places a piece of candy in his mouth, the taste of peanut butter both overwhelming and comforting in such a stupidly childish way. Mike squeezes his leg, whispering out his thanks. As if this meant anything.
Maybe it did, in the moment. But he knew that one day they'll move all of the things out of his room, they'll clean out the smell of him, and erase his name from the door.
Every fingerprint he’s ever left will be washed away one day, and it'll be like he was never even there at all.
“Will!” Arms loop around him the second he steps inside the door and he catches his sister by her waist, hugging back. “I am so glad you are home! At the festival, there were people who were painting on their faces! There were lots of pretty designs, but the line was too long and Dustin said he did not want to wait, and we could just ask you instead!”
“Will!” Dustin chimes in, grinning wide from the couch. “Where the hell have you been? We tried to walkie but there was no signal- and El said she couldn’t find you either! You been hiding from us?” It’s playful, and Will wants to bash his brains out against the wall, he wants to tear out his eyeballs, to plus his hears with them. He smiles back, instead, and tries not to focus on how Dustin seems disappointed.
“No. I was just out.” Jane presses her face to his shoulder, and he knows she’s blaming herself. She hasn’t been able to find him since the final battle. He knows it’s been eating away at her. When she sits at the end of his bed and looks, and looks, and Will closes his mind off because he can’t let her see.
She can’t know. He can’t ruin this life for her- not when she has a real chance of happiness here. “I don’t have any face paint,” he continues, thinking of the shades of red, black, and grays. The only colors he had left. The rest of them shoved into a bag somewhere, Henry’s- no, Will’s anger having gotten the best of him.
It was hard to tell, now.
Jane slumps a bit and shakes her head. “We can get some tomorrow! Do you want to watch a show with us? It is very good, even though it is not in english, but it has the words-” “Subtitles-!” “Yes, the subtitles in it, so we can read what they are saying.”
He knows she wants him to say yes.
Will has never been able to give anyone what they want.
“Maybe another day?” He’s lying, and he can see how her face shudders. She goes to respond, the way she always does, but Dustin tugs on her. Will didn’t even notice him getting up.
“Yeah, no worries, man! I have this cool new radio if you want to stop by and see it, sometime. The speakers are huge, and the connection is just insane. You just- walkie me when you can, okay?”
Will gratefully accepts the olive branch and the opportunity to leave, giving his friend a quick hug. Dustin squeezes, and Will soaks it up. He never knows when the last time he sees them will be, but he wanted them to know, just in case.
He hopes they know, at least, that Will loves them. He would do anything for the people in his life.
Even if that meant hurting them for something they needed.
He lays on his back, chin facing the ceiling, and lets his eyes flutter closed. It would be worth it in the end, if he could come to real peace with it.
There’s a whimper to his left and Will lets his eyes open slowly, small particles of white falling onto his cheeks. Not snow- never snow, but close enough. Familiar enough.
The whimper sounds again and Will stretches out a hand, unbearably tired, feeling slick and slimy skin nudge against his fingers. “It’s okay,” he breathes, gentle even when he felt anything but. “I’m not going to hurt you.” The chitter gets louder before the shape curls up against his side, seeking his comfort. Will closes his eyes again, fingers petting along something that haunted his life, and felt sympathy for something that has only ever hurt him.
“We’re both just stuck here forever, huh?”
It doesn’t reply, doesn’t understand him. Not when Will wasn’t inside, not when he wasn’t pulling strings. His other hand slides along the ground, tugging at that hole inside of him, wet grass popping up between the gaps of his fingers. An artist’s touch, even here. The creature's body shudders, hungry, and Will considers being eaten alive.
It would be a fitting end.
“Will! Will, come on- come on, wake up-”
His lungs shudder as he breathes in, hands gripping his face, his shoulders, alternating wherever they could.
“That’s it- that’s it, come on, come back to me-”
He feels dizzy, out of it, the way he always did. He’s pulled into a chest, a heartbeat he could spend forever memorizing, and tries to get his bearings.
“What the hell was that-?!”
“How am I supposed to know?!”
“Is he hurt-? Will, buddy, talk to us-”
“Shut up!” Mike snaps, his hand cupping the back of Will’s neck. It burned, but he leaned into it anyway, his brother’s lips pressing the side of his face, worried. “You’re going to stress him out! I’ve got him- just get out of here.”
“No way in hell, Mike! You always do this! If this is something serious, I’m going to be here!”
“Maybe he’s right, Lucas-”
“No! No, he’s not right! You all just saw Will, I’m not going to stand by and let it happen to someone else again!”
It’s silent, after the outburst. Will slumps, fingers twitching.
“Lucas,” Max sighs, and Will wishes, distantly, that he had done the job last night like he was planning on. “I think- we need to talk.”
There’s a pause, one that Will feels in his bones, and he lets his eyes open. Focusing on red.
If cherries could speak, Will thinks they would be lonely.
A stupid thought from a stupid boy, but he couldn’t help himself.
Pitted and emptied, stuck in a pile, surrounded by millions of the same but none quite right. Each one different, somehow. Boiled, until they lose their color. Dyed to look pleasing. Stuffed in little jars and eaten, devoured.
Do they ever wonder about the others?
Do they miss the other jars? Their pits? Do they stay awake thinking of each stem they could've had if it hadn't been tugged from their scalp? Do they think? Would they want to?
A hand threads through his hair, his mother’s tears slipping onto his shirt, and he presses his ear closer to Mike’s thumping heart.
He would like to be a cherry, if he got to have another life after this one.
A life where he could be thought of and desired- something sweet. Or perhaps, he wouldn't want to be a cherry at all. Perhaps they have no thoughts, merely just fruit, and he is nothing but a lonely soul trying to see himself in them, too.
Maybe Will was already a cherry, just one sitting at the bottom of an empty bag, shoved into the back of the fridge.
“Will,” Mike whispers, hands trembling where they hold him. “You here with me? With- with us?”
Maybe Will needed to stop thinking so much about something so trivial.
He nods, and Jonathan slumps with relief, pressing kiss after kiss on his forehead. It makes him think about when he sat in that room, surrounded by everyone he knew, and poured his soul out for them to see. When Jonathan sees him, does he see that boy, too? The one hyperventilating with fear, but filled with hope?
Does he see him small, and shaking? Crying? Flinching, even?
“Will,” Mike tries again, his hand pressed against his back, pressing them tighter together. “Do you- do you have any idea what happened?”
Will sighs, and nods. Jonathan lets go of his left cheek to wipe at his tears. His mother is silent, her face pressed against his shoulder blades. It can’t be comfortable, but he doesn’t bother telling her that. It wouldn’t matter anyway.
“Okay,” Mike soothes, even though Will can hear the shake in it. “Okay.”
They speak over his head, but he just closes his eyes, and hopes this is where he dies. He could be at peace with this.
It’s only hours later that he opens his eyes again, on his bed, overwhelmed with heat. Hair is his mouth, and a nose against his neck, puffing air down his back. He sighs unintentionally, body going lax, and feels Jane shudder against him. His chest is wet, and Will understands. He always does.
“It’s okay,” he whispers into the dark, hands gathering her hair. She shifts, makes it easier for him, plasters herself against his front. “I’m sorry if I upset you.” His hands separate and then twist, braiding. He knew it would be a pain for her tomorrow if she didn’t sleep with it up somehow, curls thick and easily tangled.
“I could not find you,” Jane whispers back, ashamed. “You would not respond. Is he back? I thought- last time, I was sure that I had done it right. That he was gone.”
Will’s heart throbs and he takes the hair tie she holds up for him, her hands looping around him the second she was available to again. He ties it off, snug and secure, before running his hand up and down her back. “He’s gone,” he confirms, hating himself more by the minute. “It’s not him. It’s just me.”
“I don’t understand.” He can hear the disappointment in it, the shame in herself. “I closed the gate.”
“I know.”
“...I am scared for you.”
“...I know,” he responds, even though it’s not the answer she wanted. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to be happy. You are my brother.”
Will’s own eyes water and he presses his face into the hair at the top of her head, feeling himself burn up. “I love you. I’m so- I’m so grateful I got to be your brother. It made me happy, I promise.”
“...But you are not happy now? You speak as if something is- as if you are gone. I don’t understand.”
“El,” Mike chimes in, and Will hates that he woke him up. That he caused all of this.
His fault.
“We can talk about this tomorrow, okay? Will’s tired, we should all get some rest.” Mike’s hand shifts, and for the first time tonight, he realizes where it was. Snug against Will’s chest, right over his heart. He shifts, nuzzling the pulse at Will’s neck, and he can’t imagine taking this away from him. Jane hesitates before nodding, her forehead against the base of Will’s throat. “Get some sleep, Will,” he whispers, just for his ears only. Mike’s lips leave a kiss, lingering, and Will feels, just for a moment, at complete ease.
He would have done anything to have this, a few years ago.
Will closes his eyes, letting his heart guide him, and lets his mind slip.
“It’s okay-” Will holds his hands out, palms up and open, kneeling on the ground. It squirms on the ground, hissing, mouth wide and open like a flower. There’s a wet sound of it’s back hitting the black blood oozing onto gravel, a puddle around it. There was no grass here, not yet. “I can help you,” he tries again. He didn’t like using the strings- he hated the feeling it left behind, the slithering inside of his body. It just struggles, and Will feels guilty even as he reaches out, fingers twitching, jerking.
It’s body stills against it’s will, muscles trembling, and Will uses his other hand to pull the piece of rubble out of it’s side.
It was small, vaguely cat sized, and Will hasn’t come up with a name for it yet.
Or for the rest of the ecosystem he was slowly forming.
His thumb drags against the torn flesh as it sews itself together, sharp metal tugging to the ground, almost done-
“Will!”
He snaps back, gasping, eyes open. Mike hovered over him, frantic. “Will- thank God-” His breath leaves him at the force of Mike slumping on top of his body, covering him, shielding him with his back. “Thought I lost you-” Mike’s voice was watery, and Will’s heart tore into two.
He raises a hand and presses it to Mike’s back, hugging him as softly as he always as, letting himself feel the moment. Will’s tongue darts out, tasting the blood on his upper lip, and he swallows as he thinks of what to say. “I’m sorry,” he settles on, always a good choice.
“Please just- tell me what’s going on. You told El that it wasn’t Vecna, but I don’t- I don’t know what else it could be. Your eyes were all rolled back and your mouth was moving, but you weren’t saying anything, and-”
“Mike, I’m okay.” It feels like a lie.
“How long until you’re not, huh?!” Will flinches, even though he knows he deserves it. “You’re not telling me anything, and you’ve been so- so off lately, and now this? Please just- tell me what’s happening.”
He can’t. Mike seems to understand that, mouth trembling, and he presses himself hard against Will’s body, trying to align them, as if he could slip inside Will’s soul. As if he wasn’t already there. “Don’t leave, Will.” It’s a quiet plea, desperate, and Will lets his fingers run through Mike’s hair, soothing him as if they were still children.
“It’ll be okay,” he settles on, unable to lie. Mike squeezes him tighter.
“I just dont get it,” Lucas says again, for the fifth time. “Why can’t you tell us anything? If this is really Vecna-”
“It’s not,” Will sighs. “I’m just sleeping.”
“Sleeping? You were clearly in a trance-!”
“We didn’t need music,” Dustin speaks up, eyebrows furrowed in thought. “You just- opened your eyes and you were fine. And you weren’t floating, or stiff. Just kind of- limp.”
Will wonders what Dustin would think if they found his body hanging, somewhere.
“Does that matter?” Lucas cuts back in, irritated. “Why are you so calm about this? Do you not care?”
“What?! Of course I care! I’m not calm, I’m thinking, like you should be!”
“The answer is right in front of us-”
“What if Will isn’t lying? Maybe he just sleeps weird-”
“And what if Will is a spy, huh?! I’m not letting him take anyone else!”
It’s like something snapped, something unspoken.
That time of his life… they don’t talk about it. It’s a rule they all agreed on without every actually discussing, just the way of the world. The first time when Max had asked, Will passed out after hyperventilating, Jonathan having to leave work early to take him home. They never mentioned it again.
Until now.
“Shut up, Lucas!” Mike’s hand jabs him hard, Lucas stepping back, eyes aflame. “You don’t know shit about any of this!”
“That’s the issue- none of us know what’s going on and Will is just lying about it!”
“He’s not lying!”
“Oh yeah? We all believed him last time, too, and look-”
Mike’s fist is swinging before Lucas can finish his sentence, tackling him to the ground. Dustin shouts something, jumping up, and Lucas is switching their positions in a second, slamming Mike to the ground. It happens in a blur, the sound of yelling, people getting involved. He can’t think of how he ended up involved, either, Will’s hands gripping Mike’s shirt and trying to pull him off when Mike manages to get a good hit in. He registers pain, an elbow slamming into his stomach, but he doesn’t know whos it was.
Mike’s bleeding.
Lucas is bleeding.
There’s more yelling, Dustin wrapping his arms around Lucas, feet slipping, shoved to the ground and to the side. Hopper is there before Will can even register it all, brain moving like mush, world spinning.
More yelling.
A hand in his, Mike jabbing at Hopper’s chest, his mom trying to calm down the situation.
Will’s stomach aches, hard, that empty void calling to him. Blood running down Mike’s face, nose at an angle, mouth still open, still fighting, still passionate.
Mike.
Mike bleeding.
The lights in the room burst and Will is tilting backwards, eyes rolling up, body limp.
“WILL-!”
There are five of them, now. Will doesn’t know how they come to be- how they keep appearing. He tries not to let it get to him.
He digs his hands into red mush, fingers cold, and pulls. Grass blooms under his palms, pushing, growing. The one in the middle tilts it’s head to the side, and Will feels himself copy it, a mirror. It stares and Will stares back before he looks down. It’s red. Everything is always red, somehow.
He can feel, distantly, a hand in his. Lips on his temple. His ears buzzing. He closes his eyes, letting his body sink to the ground, curled.
There is cold along his back, pulsing, and Will welcomes it, this time. It doesn’t mean harm, even if Will feels fear clog up his throat, feels that phantom memory of knuckles pushing against his cheek, caressing his face, evil in his pores.
The pulsing beats, like a heart. It’s fast.
When he rolls over, trying to find a comfortable position to sleep, there’s six of them.
His head is on a lap, and when he opens his eyes, he sees his sister looking down at him. She sinks in relief, squeezing his shoulders, and Will processes his brother on his left side, his hand inside of Will’s, thumb rubbing circles on it.
“Good morning,” Jane whispers, eyes worried. “You left, again. I could not-” she frowns, cutting herself off mid sentence. Will squeezes Jonathan’s hand, exhaling hard enough that it feels like he left his body again.
“Will- I’ve tried not to push you, and to give you space, but… I just…” Jonathan hunches over, and Will feels a deep sense of disappointment. Not in his brother, but in himself. It feels silly to think, but Jonathan has always been more than just a brother to him. Jonathan raised him, in a sense. He gave Will a childhood, and he gave Will safety, and he has taken all of the bad hands Will has been given in life and tried to turn it into something good.
And Will?
Will knows that it is going to hurt him, that he won’t be able to financially handle another funeral, that he is setting his brother up for failure.
“I just want to know what’s happening, okay? Just- don’t leave me in the dark. I’m here for you.”
Will swallows, choking down the emotions he has been fighting against for years, and he breaks. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do- do what? It’s okay, bud, we can figure it out together-”
“I can’t keep living like this, Jon.” Will feels the tears start, and both of his hands raise to cover his eyes, pressing the balls of them in deep, deep enough it hurts. There’s a small pause before Jonathan tugs him into his arms, fiercely, and Jane slides into it, right where she fits.
He’s looking at it again. The painting.
It feels ridiculous to be weighing so much of his time on something so simple. So useless. His hands twitch at his sides, and he resists the urge to grab it and just tear it into pieces. To destroy it, like he’s destroyed everything else. He’s done it so many times before- he wouldn’t even need a baseball bat this time.
A hand knocks on the doorframe, the same pauses he’s known his whole life, and Will feels himself arm despite everything.
“Hey, mind if I come in?”
Will shrugs a shoulder, cross legged on the floor, bottles of paint closed. He couldn’t bring himself to open them.
Mike slides onto the floor next to him, hesitation on every line of his body. Will can hear him open his mouth, think it over, and then close it. Will decides to speak first, just this once.
“It’s not Vecna.”
Mike pauses, before whispering, his voice a gentle coo. “I know. I know, Will. I trust you.”
Will stares at his hands, at the grooves of them, the ridges in his fingers. “It’s me.” Mike doesn’t wait a second before slipping his hand over Will’s, squeezing. Like so many years ago. “He’s not… he’s not putting me in a trance, or anything. I just- I’m still there. And I can’t leave.” His voice cracks, watery. “It’s dying. The demos, the houses- every time I sleep I wake up there. They don’t… they don’t attack me, or hurt me, they just- they ask me for help. And I help them.”
“...Help them how?”
Mike shifts, their fingers slotting together, a grip that Will feels within his soul. “...It sounds crazy.”
“That’s fine.”
“...Well, I-... I heal them, sometimes. Or I fix what’s broken. I’ve been trying to give them food, to eat- they’re all starving. But that means I need to build a whole- a whole system, and it’s so… hard. I’ve been working on the grass, mostly. But it never looks like grass should.”
“How does it look?”
Will didn’t expect the level of awe in his friend’s voice. The sweetness to it. He turns his head, eyes connecting, and Mike’s are so… so loving. Even now. Especially now.
“Red. Everything is red, or a shade of it, and I don’t know.”
Mike’s eyes flick behind him, to the painting, the one that’s been haunting him. Will feels like he’s been gutted alive. “Maybe that’s what it needs? I don’t know everything about how the Upside Down works, but if you’re flipping through the slides and fixing things, maybe- maybe you’re just giving it what it needs. Maybe that’s why you can do it.”
Will swallows, throat dry. “You really think so?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I really do. And, hey, I mean- maybe this isn’t something bad. Just-” Mike rubs his free hand up and down his thigh, unbearably nervous. “Can I spend the night here? I’d feel better, knowing that- that if anything happens I’ll be here.”
Will couldn’t take his eyes off of Mike if he wanted to. The way he spoke- the way his voice dipped, and the way his posture fixed itself…
“Okay,” he agrees, before he could think it through. Mike smiles, repeating it back at him, and Will can wait until tomorrow to die. Not tonight.
He digs out the bag of paint in the attic, ruffles around, and decides to give the canvas a sky.
When Will opens his eyes that night, chittering next to him, he sighs. He can feel a hand on his hip, breathing on the side of his face. His ears tingle, but he cannot hear.
This time, the patch of grass is blue, and soft.