Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

He’s home alone when it happens.

The phone rings and rather than answer it, Will rolls onto his stomach lazily, and flips it off.

“Never.”

It rings for a while longer.

It’s late. He’s thinking maybe ten pm or so judging by the dark outside, only his night lamp turned on, but when he actually decides to check the time--

“Oh, god.”

--it’s still just five.

The perks of fall months. Will continues to stare at nothing in particular, enjoying the sounds of the freezing rain pelting his windows.

Maybe, he shouldn’t have canceled his date-night with Max. They’d finally agreed when to meet, because neither happened to be busy with any other plans this Saturday, prompting them to giggle their way into agreeing on the time, place and date.

But then, real life happened, as in laziness, and ennui, and Will swore to the whole audience of nobody at all that he loved Max, he even adored Max. She was his best friend right after his right hand but he flew to Chicago for an exhibition on Tuesday, returned on Thursday only to have to promptly fly right back and if Will wasn’t so financially comfortable, he’d bitch and moan about having to abandon the comfort of his home as often.

He’d complain, for example, that at the ripe age of twenty-five, he still lives with his mom in his little hometown where proudly wearing his earring and therefore letting people know he doesn’t like girls is a permanent step away from someone deciding to break his nose. But there’s something about being well-off enough and humble enough and also willing to spend his money on the town development enough that has placated the Hawkins populace, almost leading to a rather positive opinion of their openly resident gay man.

On some days, he feels reputable and esteemed, and though he knows most of the smiles are fake since he refuses to eat and fuck pussy, they’re better than violence. And in his heart, Will Byers is a simple man.

And his mom, though she swears up and down she’ll move wherever he wants, actually loves Hawkins. She wants to die here. She might not have told him so but he knows her so well that no matter how many times she’s claimed she’ll happily follow him anywhere, or even live on her own, Will knows with him by her side and Hawkins being their home, Joyce Byers is truly satisfied.

Naturally that includes her boyfriend, the town chief of police but Will doesn’t want to think about the man much today.

He’s nice.

But Bob was better.

Will sighs, contending in the thought of his favorites, and when he rolls on his back for a change, his phone in his hand, he decides to give the news a bit of a scroll.

There’s celebrity gossip, newest fashion advice, new places opening and, oh, more on the Bedside Slasher.

Will rolls on his stomach for a more comfortable position, stuffs the pillows under his chest for purchase, then buries himself in the most recent articles.

Weeks since the last murder case… Victims sustain anywhere from thirty to fifty stab wounds… A proven sadist whose MO is psychological and physical torture before finally allowing their victims to pass away… Each wound is premeditated to keep the victim alive until the end… Paints their victim’s lips red with their own blood when they’re dead.

Will shudders.

The USA has been obsessed with this dickhead for the past three years, with his kill count having reached forty-seven just recently, and a whole lot of conspiracy theories surrounding his mystery. Some netizens say that he’ll never be found because he’s an eternal wanderer who never stays in one place for too long. Others claim he’s been lucky thus far, but many have pointed out that even the cops have confirmed he stalks his victims for at least two weeks before striking, and considering his habit of killing a person per a small town before moving on, people should notice a stranger who randomly comes and goes. It’s why his other popular name is:

The Town Terror.

Personally, Will thinks that’s a fair opinion, but also not quite. Although small towns are in the habit of being a bit xenophobic, side-eyeing any stranger who wants to linger, the popular approach also is to pretend it isn’t here and it’ll disappear on its own. He can imagine a bunch of people from the towns where the murders took place meeting the killer, even talking to him without really absorbing the details of him. And then bam--

News of a murder. The victim is always found in their bed-- hence the name, in their upstairs room with the family typically at home, sometimes even downstairs, watching the TV.

In Elwood, for example, the entire family was home while the murder was taking place. The mother, father, and two siblings were enjoying their favorite show while upstairs, the killer was slowly claiming the life of their son, brother, and friend, pinned painfully to the bed, prompting many true crime channels to allege that the killer threatens their victims with hurting their families if they scream for help, and that’s even considering he shuts them up by stuffing their own underwear in their mouth. The eeriest theories imagine each murder in the following fashion:

The killer enters. The house will have either no pets, or no dogs. He locks the door if it isn’t already locked, something he simply knows due to paying close attention to the victim. He wakes the victim up-- how isn’t known, and makes the bargain clear. According to some theories, his meticulous stalking has allowed him to learn the names of the other home residents, and he prattles them off to the victim to anchor the reality that the killer knows everyone here, and even knows where they sleep, what they’re like, how to get them. After that deal with the devil, the killer proceeds to tie their victim’s mouth with the victim’s underwear and take what he considers his, forcing the victims to go through an hour of pain and torture before they’re finally permitted to bleed out.

But that sounds a bit romanticized and fetishized, which has been widely criticized by many netizens. Many of them believe that the general approach to the killer verges on admiration, obsession, and awe with his MO and ability to remain shrouded in complete mystery. There’s no footage of him after all, no mention of a figure being seen lurking around the house or leaving it deep into the night.

He’s a ghost, he’s a terror.

And in the eyes of far too many, he’s an idol.

Will taps his lips, scrolli--

His phone rings.

“SHIT.”

In shock, he drops it, flying back into a sitting position, and moments later, his mom barges into his room, holding a baseball bat.

She only sees him all sweaty and blushing, his phone screaming an instrumental version of Closer by NIN.

“Will,” she gasps and Will pre-emptively picks up the phone, telling her--

“I know, I know… just got freaked out. But I’m alright, really.”

She holds her chest for a bit longer, then shakes her head. “Seriously,” she chastises again and he’s sure the gripe is with scaring her shitless, not even using this questionable song.

She’s out of the room when he finally turns his attention to the caller. She is quicker.

“You little jerk.”

“Oh, Max.” He smiles. “Don’t tell me you’re mad.”

The door is closed again and Will sprawls back on his bed, kicking away at his sheets as he lounges around.

“Of course I am,” she answers, just a little bit sassy. “Not only do you cancel on me, not only do you do it via text, but you also won’t pick up the phone and accept your reaming out? Absolutely not, be a man and accept your fate.”

Will pouts. “But I am… Okay, fine, I wasn’t, but I am now. Besides, I was on the phone when you called, so you absolutely scared me.”

“Good. I hope you weren’t posting a new status on your socials about being lonely, or I swear to god, I’m gonna have a conniption or something.”

He laughs. “No, no, I was just, well--”

“... Well?”

“Alright, but don’t judge me.”

“Oh, my god. I know what you’re going to tell me. You were geeking out over the serial killer.”

“Geeking out? No. Obsessively reading all the newest articles on him?”

Will drops on his back.

“Yes. Did you know that according to some sources, one of the first names monikers he received was the Crimson Smile, but it was quickly dismissed since it romanticized the horrific nature of his crimes?”

Max sighs. “And you just happen to know that. Alright, admittedly, I’ve also checked out a few true crime episodes. Not gonna lie, though, they usually piss me off since they sensationalize his crimes and talk him up without really addressing the horrors the victims go through.”

“So true. This one content creator, and I couldn’t tell you which one, seriously employed her creative writing degree and wrote out a full script on how ‘the last two hours with him’ might look.”

“God, that bitch. Yeah, I saw that one. Fucking disgusted me.”

He hears her sit down on something, and pretends they’re both actually in his room, in his bed, yapping away about this as they occasionally reach for a drink or snack to carry them through the night.

A moment later, she continues. “Did you also hear, by the way, how this one man claims he talked to his son while it was happening? He thought something was up so he knocked on his kid’s room but his son, think his name was James, told him everything’s okay and he’s touching himself or something, hence the noises. Dude just laughed it off and left. Poor man. Just imagine getting a hunch your kid’s in trouble, then you abandon the mission because the killer’s told your kid what to say to keep you away, and you were basically seconds away from saving your child’s life. Terrifying.”

They both shudder.

“Why do you think he does it?” wonders Will.

“Iunno. A sick fuck.”

“Well, duh, clearly, but why would anyone kill someone? And like, keep killing, you know? I mean the only reason we know, or rather assume he’s a man is because of his method of killing, stabbing--”

“Which is meant to represent sex, I know, I know,” she dismisses with a wry tone. When she exhales, Will gets the notion she’s smoking, but that can’t be right; she stopped months ago. He’s just about to ask her when her words pull him back into the conversation.

“Gets a bunch of freaks wondering why he doesn’t rape them, also considering he shuts them up with their own underwear, which-- super gross, don’t even get me started. I seriously stumbled upon this online conversation between a bunch of men going all like well, makes sense to rape the women, not the men, cue a fucking argument over judging the killer if he raped the women and the men and how they would at least let the women ‘have fun’ before killing them.”

“What the fuck?!”

“I know.”

She has to pause to let the words sink in.

“People are fucked up.”

“Yeah,” he answers, thinking about it. “They are.”

He’s sure he stumbled upon the same conversation. Except he peaced out of it to protect his mental well-being. Unsurprising.

“By the way--” she says, and he gets the notion she’s about to say something they’ll both regret.

“You know you fit his victim type, right?”

Will sits up. “Max, seriously?”

“I mean think about it-- no pets, you live in a house in a town with your mom, your room is on the second floor. And you’re the right age.”

That’s right.

All of his victims are between the ages of twenty-three to twenty-eight, leading to a popular theory that the killer himself is twenty-eight.

Will has also seen their photographs. They always portray them as smiling, happy, intentionally haunting just in case anyone who knows the killer feels bad enough to tattle. More importantly, they’re all young and attractive. Perhaps it feels odd to consider himself attractive, but maybe he isn’t too ugly. Maybe, he’s easy on the eyes. The town might be pretending he’s its only gay member but he’s noticed the way men look at him. When he bends over and shoots someone a wide, radiant smile, their world tilts whether they’re female or not.

“Maybe,” he says, then, needing to lighten the mood, he grins. “Hey, would be shit to die a virgin.”

Max laughs. “Well, twice as shit considering that you’ve had enough boyfriends to have had that cherry popped a while ago but your standards are ridiculous.”

“Hey… not that ridiculous. I mean I’ve done things. Just… not that.”

“Penetration, I know.”

She sighs.

“I hope I’m wrong, by the way. Elwood was his most recent target, and that’s eerily close to Hawkins. I’m just worried it could be you, you know. I’m fine, safe even. First floor, got a dog, and a boyfriend. Sometimes the dog and the boyfriend are the same.”

She rolls her eyes and Will makes a face, amused and weirded out.

“Maybe we should go out,” she suggests with recovered vigor. “In fact, let’s. Let’s keep our evenings occupied until he’s, like, in another state and far away from Indiana. What do you say, Will?”

Will checks his phone-- around six pm, almost seven.

It’s not a bad time to go actually. In fact, he could have a lot of nice time with her. Max would also be amenable to taking his mom with them, but she’d want to call Jim so maybe not. And as Will pores over this, Max interrupts the tense silence, making him realize it is tense.

“Will?”

“No.”

He finds himself answering before giving it a conscious thought. It just pours out. No.

Max sighs. “Damn it, Will.”

Will frowns, twisting his hand around the bedsheets. “I really am tired. And it’s-- it’s pouring freezing rain outside, you know, and it’s cold, and it’s dark and I don’t know, he’s not going to come get me. I’ll be fine, I swear.”

“Do you promise?”

He catches the slight tremble in her tone. It makes him twist the sheets harder--

“I promise.”

And hope she lets it go.

Max lets out a sigh. “God, fine, whatever. Blame me for giving a shit.”

“Max, don’t be like that.”

“I’m not! I’m not… Fine, I am. I guess I’m feeling a bit tender or something. Sorry, anyway… called to ream you out and all that and instead we ended up talking about a rather grisly serial killer. Hopefully this doesn’t summon him or something.”

“Hey, he’s a serial killer, not Bloody Mary.”

Max chuckles. “Sure… Listen, gonna go now. Talk to you tomorrow? Text me in the morning or even throughout the night to let me know you’re alive and shit like that, okay?”

“Damn, this really got you scared.”

She chuckles again-- it’s shorter, lifeless. “Well, what can I say-- a woman’s intuition or something. Keep your windows locked, okay? And pull the curtains close or something. Anyway, good night, Will.”

“Good night, Max.”

He looks at the curtains and the windows, haunted by the idea of someone actually waiting for him out on the street. It’s vivid enough to make the idea of getting up to check scary, like he will be there, and if nothing else, Max’s concern summoned him.

But Will decides that’s bullshit, getting up in a hurry to check--

As suspected, nothing.

There are two windows in his room, each with a nice view of the street. He gets to watch the lamppost close to his house, its light currently disrupted by the rainfall.

Then, he checks they’re tightly locked. Maybe pulling the curtains shut is a bit too much, like giving into fear or something, but if nothing else, he considers it. He hypnotizes them for a bit longer, then laughs it off.

“Seriously, such nonsense.”

He leaves the room to take a shower to the sounds of thunder.

When he emerges from the shower, it’s almost an hour later. He’s rubbing his hair dry with a towel, clad in his usual nighttime clothes even if he isn’t feeling like sleeping just yet, and he wanders downstairs where his mom is watching TV.

And she’s not alone.

“Hopper?”

His arm slung over the top of the couch like he owns it, the man startles, for a moment looking like he’s a teenager caught doing something naughty. The perks of not being liked by Will. Then, he fixes his expression.

“Hey, kid. I came here just when you were in the shower. By the way, if I didn’t know you paid for the damn house--”

Joyce slaps him in the chest. “Jim. We talked about this.”

Hopper rolls his eyes. “Right, right, got it.”

And that is exactly why Will doesn’t like the man. He’s too much of a man. He grunts and growls and acts like hyper masculinity is still in style. But he’s not a homophobe, and this time when Will got called an ugly word while on the street, Hopper had a very laying-down-the-rules conversation with the person. As Will remembers, Hopper addressed the guy rather frankly.

Listen, you piece of fucking shit.

Maybe Will doesn’t dislike the man too much. He’s traditional without pushing the tradition onto him and Joyce, he’s masculine without expecting Will to stop acting feminine, and he eats a lot. For whatever reason, it makes Will safe around him. How could anyone with a pot-belly and a fondness for stews be evil?

“Did you enjoy your shower, baby?” asks his mom, pulling him out of his reverie.

Will smiles and walks into the living room, attention snapping to the TV. “Totally. Wutcha watching?”

“Some old TV show reruns,” she answers as she relaxes against her man. “Step by step and all that.”

God, she looks so comfortable like that. Although Will will always secretly pray she gets back with Bob, there’s no denying she’s in love with Hopper.

Ah, whatever, he’ll tolerate that.

“Cute,” he says, turning away already as he waves them off with a smile. “I’m off to bed. Not really gonna sleep just yet, I think, or I will, dunno, I’ll see.”

They wave him off, too, with Joyce wishing him a sweet, “Good night, baby.”

God, she’ll call him that when he’s forty, won’t she?

Will laughs at that, proceeding up the stairs just as the laugh tracks in the show goes full blast, letting the audience behind the screens know when they are supposed to laugh.

He’s just about to open the door to his room when he notices the wet footprints on the floor.

Deciding they’re his, he grabs the door handle but-- it doesn’t hurt to compare.

He holds his feet up to them--

Longer.

He frowns, backing off the door, his hand reflexively turning the handle and it opens--

The window is open.

“HOPPER? MOM?”

It must be the tone of his voice. The way he backs off and he hears Hopper’s thundering approach, the quick traipse up the stairs and he’s next to Will in under three seconds, a hand flying to his gun.

“You okay, kid?”

“I just-- I didn’t open the window.”

Joyce is behind them. “Oh, that.”

Hopper’s just about to enter the room when Joyce’s embarrassed voice stops him, and when both shoot her a look, she rolls her eyes a bit.

“Listen, it was a bit stuffy and I-- I just-- oh god, you got me all worried now. Right, yes, please, do check the room, Jim, but I seriously opened it just ten minutes ago.”

Will looks at her awkwardly, feeling lame about his freak out.

See?

Nothing.

But the urgent way he looks at Hopper suggests something else. Hopper gives him a nod.

“Got it, kid.”

He draws out his gun, turns the lights on.

Enters.

They watch as he examines the room, looking under the bed and into the closets, inspecting every functionally good place to hide, and when he finds nothing, he pauses at the window. He stares out at the street below, and Will knows he’s looking at the same lamppost. It’s still cold. The wind keeps the rain away from falling inside, leaving the floor cooler, but dry.

Hopper shuts the window, then looks at Joyce.

She sighs. “Well, at least I’m dating a cop.”

He grunts, then smirks. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, putting the gun back into its holster. “Comes with its perks,” he adds, dropping a kiss on her cheek as he reaches her, and Will decides to overreact.

“Gross, get a room.”

“Planning to,” teases Hopper back, and Will laughs, cheeks pink.

This is on him. He started this. And Hopper is too much of a kid to have let this go.

Will sighs.

“Fine, whatever. Sorry about freaking out.”

He turns the lights off again.

“You can go now.”

“Well, good night again, sweetie,” says his mom, actually dropping a tender kiss on his cheek.

Hopper waggles his brows, threatening with the same.

“Oh, stop it.”

Will swats at him, and Hopper cackles. He sees them off to the staircase, waiting until they reach the bottom. When they’re back in the living room, the smile he wore all throughout drops. Unknown reasons.

Will looks behind himself. Also unknown reasons.

At the end of the hallway is the master bedroom. It was supposed to be his originally, but he forced his mom to take it, wanting a better life for her after watching her fall asleep on the couch in the living room of their old home. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it lacked a lot. She fought him about the bedroom for days before giving in, and now he sees the closed door, wondering if the window there is closed…

Is it too wrong to check?

Max would be happy I gave this my best.

He walks there.

On his right, there is a door leading to his room. On the left, one opens up to the bathroom, and the other to a guest room that’s always locked.

He counts his steps while he walks.

Ten.

When he reaches the door, he considers the stupidity of this, and how Max got under his skin. They shouldn’t have talked about the Slasher, and he shouldn’t have looked him up like a secret, dangerous obsession. Now, he hesitates to open the door, like what awaits behind it is how nightmares are born.

His hand trembles.

Stop being such a fool, what are you doing?!

It closes around it.

Click.

It opens…

The room is dark, just like much of the hallway. The windows aren’t open, but he feels considerable discomfort at the thought of coming closer. But if he doesn’t, he’ll have failed Max. It won't hurt to look, will it?

Will feels the wall for the lights switch.

He searches, not there, and not there, and is he not remembering it correctly? That’s nonsense, that’s--

He gathers his courage.

He steps in, turns his back to the inside of the room, and positions himself exactly as he’s used to standing whenever he’s on his way out.

He finds the switch.

Light.

Will whirls around, pressing against the wall in panic--

To find nothing.

Other than looking like a spitting image of his mom’s preferences, the room is empty.

“I am so stupid…”

God, so much. All this nonsense talk with Max got under his skin. He needs to tell her not tell him creepy shit again--

Oh.

There is space under the bed. What if…?

Will gets immediate flashes of a killer hiding under there, ready to cut his Achilles’ heels the moment he gets too close. When he pictures the face, it isn’t masked. It’s a man with glowing red eyes like a demon.

Will shudders, and slowly crouches down from a distance…

When he looks under the bed--

Nothing.

He stares there for a while, searching every corner just to ensure he’s not actually standing face-to-face with his killer so-to-speak and blatantly ignoring it.

Actually nothing.

Emboldened, Will ventures back into the room, embarrassed by his irrational fear. Maybe the walk in closet? But this is getting ridiculous--

Will throws the door open--

The clothes move.

He stumbles back, panic rising, eyes wide--

And the clothes go still. Moving the door abruptly displaced the air inside the closet. Now that a few seconds have passed, he can tell there’s nobody. No random black shape stretching all the way to the floor, no red eyes peering back at him, hidden between the clothes. Although just for good measure, he approaches, and turns the light on in the closet.

As expected-- another nothing.

Will’s shoulders slump.

“Why am I acting so paranoid?”

He turns all the lights off on his way out of the bedroom, then ventures back inside his own, thinking he’s gone crazy. But this is his own doing-- he got cheeky, even reckless. He discussed something innately dark without realizing it could still get under his skin despite his advanced age and now he’s reaping the consequences.

With a sigh, he looks over his bed for his phone, planning to drop Max a strongly worded text.

Someone closes, and locks the door behind him.

There’s a split second.

He tur--

He free--

H--

A large step and there’s a chest to his back and a thick, cold knife to his neck and a whisper to his ear--

“Scream, and I gut you like a pig.”

--and all Will can think about is: Max will feel so guilty.

He fully freezes. His gulps push his neck into the edge of the knife-- and the killer is a man after all. He’s tall, his voice distorted like he’s speaking to a device fastened to his mouth, and he holds Will with the haunting finesse of someone who’s done this enough times to get the position right.

He has, actually. And Will knows the exact number:

Forty-eight after tonight.

“P-please don’t--”

“Shh.”

He strokes the knife down Will’s throat.

“You don’t want this to end early.”

I do, actually.

Knowing what’s coming?

God, just end this.

He considers doing something stupid. Yes, he’ll do it. It will result in his death but the killer will panic. He’ll slice him dead and escape--

“Go on, little rabbit. Try.”

And just like that, presumably reading his mind, the killer steps off. Will’s world becomes the unpleasant weight of a choice.

He can try defending himself. He might have never learned much in the way of self-defense, but one of man’s survival instincts is fight, hah, right?

He can scream and hope the man’s aim is good. According to the way he murders people, he’s very good.

The choices all stand before Will, and as it thunders, lights hurls Will’s shadow into the room.

But for a split second, he sees the man’s reflection in the window.

Over six feet, all black clothes and a mask. It’s too over too quickly, and yet lingers long enough to drop Will’s heart into his stomach.

“I… I… I can’t.”

“Smart. Now turn around.”

When he turns, he can’t face the killer. He stares at his chest, frozen by the reality the killer is here, and they summoned him like Bloody Mary. Had he not teased his luck by talking about him, by discussing him like he’s not guilty of merciless killing, would he still have come? And if Will had agreed to go with Max instead, would he have waited until the next day? The killer stalks his victims for weeks.

How many times has he looked through my window, watched me live, laugh, and go about my most mundane moments? How many times has he--

Realizing the killer possibly saw him in his private moments is embarrassing. It slaps Will’s cheek with a red color, and by his sides, his hands ball.

Just end it now. End it.

A knife appears under his chin.

It replaces fingers that would tilt it, its sharp edge so close to slicing soft skin that Will whimpers, obediently angling his head up where the knife wills it. It bares his throat in a way he cannot emotionally process. Flesh pale and his carotids bragging, beating out the last hours of their life and the red hum of Will’s blood.

Fear eclipses their throbbing. Fat. Heady. Stalked by a pair of eyes that Will catches an accidental glimpse of. And then he’s staring up at the ceiling while the knife drags a certain, curious path down his throat as though planning out its first cut, here, there, or there…

He shudders.

It scours…

He shudders again.

And it scours more. Its tip strokes where the carotids beat out his fear’s rhythm, and their pumping is felt through the pressure of the knife, pressing in, paling the skin before moving on and it blushes once alone.

It stops at the jugular notch… lingers a little lower, then the killer steps closer--

“Don’t scream.”

He grabs a fistful of Will’s top, a plain, white shirt and the knife cuts down the front of it in one sweeping motion, coming close to nicking his belly button.

Will simply whimpers-- a horrified, and yet subdued sound as the killer both tears his shirt and then grabs the divorced halves of it, holding them together.

He holds Will closer like that-- until they’re face to face, touching.

“Look at me.”

And yet Will doesn’t want to. Not now.

Not ever.

He does a moment later, because the world discounted his choice.

And he sees.

A hoodie keeps the man’s head covered, but most of the mystery is owed to the balaclava with space only for the eyes. They’re painted. Their natural, dark color makes it hard to pinpoint where the end and the mask starts. But they’re there. On the man’s face. Staring back with something raw, and intense. And when they meet and this meeting lingers, Will feels disgusting butterflies in his stomach.

“We’re going to have so much fun tonight, Will,” whispers the killer, dragging his knife down Will’s cheek. “A night to remember, I promise.”

With that, he turns them around.

Will’s bed.

Its end hits his legs--

And the man throws him there-- lords over him in silence, and Will wonders where the countless true crime episodes mention this moment. Where the articles describe this weird, confusing dance that makes it feel like a successful date.

He wonders as he lies on his back and a dangerous man looks down at him in a manner that gets Will uncomfortably interested. He feels the shimmer of that interest lower than his stomach. From there, it expands. It sweetens every muscle’s clench. It’s a mouthful of something unexpected, a forbidden sort of excitement.

“Undress.”

His hands move on their own, shrugging off the destroyed top.

Silence.

It exists in a room while the surrounding world indulges in noise. The storm rages harder than before, an apparent opponent to what is going on. Or a dog with all bark and no bite. Its fury remains locked outside the windows, lashing at them with heavy rainfall. But inside the room, only the susurrus of abandoned clothing follows.

And Will removes the last bit of clothing, blind to where it lands on the floor, aware only of the unfaltering, ceaseless attention.

There’s something unforgiving and hungry in the man’s expression.

“There’s a little something in your top drawer. I want you to take it.”

“How--” --do you know?

The killer places a finger to his lips. Sh. And Will’s voice stops.

He swallows.

He looks to the right, spotting the nightstand. Knowing what he is about to uncover clenches his stomach, leaving him dizzy from anxiety and imagination. But there’s no declining this man. Will reaches for it because he has no say, disrupting the quiet of the room with the sounds of the drawer being opened.

The bottle of lube is cold.

“Good,” says the killer, voice thick and honeyed. “Now, prepare yourself.”

Will looks between him and the lube.

Him and the lube.

Him-- lube.

“No.”

He skitters back on the bed, nudging against the pillows-- a moment.

And the killer is reaching for him, one ankle grabbed, pulled closer, the other hand on Will’s mouth-- stifling his scream in a tandem of motions that pulls them amazingly close together.

The man is now between his legs.

Hovering above him-- a black, strong presence and Will exhales and inhales, the motions so vulgar and exaggerated he feels close to being called a whore.

The hand lowers from his mouth…

“You think you can do it for me now, princess?”

Princess…

Will’s breathing is ragged. “Are you going to rape me?”

“It can’t be rape if you want it.”

“I don’t want it.”

The man comes closer. He lowers his body on top of Will’s, erasing any notion of distance between them with a slow-acting, and maddening descent that forces Will to a state of hyper-awareness. He’s counting his breaths. He’s counting the man’s. His legs are spread too wide and refuse to shut and the killer’s body is lean and defined, a slim, and dangerous machine of dark intent with his knees tucked under Will’s and arms braced on either side of Will’s head.

“I’ll make you want it.”

He strokes Will’s face with his knife again, and in the light of the lamp, the shape of his eyes is revealed.

Beautiful.

“Now wet those fingers and fuck yourself. I’ll watch.”

The man sits back, slow, and does just that: watch.

Will swallows.

Oh god, what is happening? What is happening?!

And why do I--

He attempts to pull the legs together, a belated, futile attempt that only serves to pull the man’s attention to what’s between them; and the hard cock, though not necessarily a sign of consent, still does something in the way of showing what Will wants.

The killer.

It’s such a wholly embarrassing thought that Will only hopes to exorcise it with his fingers.

With another nervous swallow, he uncaps the bottle, and pours some of the slippery liquid on his fingers. When they reach between his cheeks, the killer’s attention burns.

Something about that is deeply satisfying.

His fingers circle. They’re warm, but the lube is cold, and he hisses, then forces his body to loosen up. Though he’s been with no man, he’s intimately familiar with his fingers and even other silicone help. It takes just a little bit-- some probing, a warning. A promise. Then his body’s hunger roils with a jolt of pleasure, reminding him that despite his alleged high standards, for years he’s wanted nothing more than to feel the thrust of a selfish cock.

And the first finger enters.

His breath hitches, a natural reaction he never tried to control, but now he should have-- it’s like a planet with its own gravitation. Its pull yanks the killer closer in a weak forward jerk like he’ll lie down over Will once more, and naughtily, Will desires it, feeling like despite the man’s upper hand in the situation, Will has an actual sway over him. He holds a power he’s too shy to explore just yet, but it clenches around one cheeky fingertip, so close within his reach he will be fucking it.

The finger enters fully, and Will breathes deeply, swirling the finger clockwise.

The hole loosens.

Even if just a little bit, its stubborn clench disappears, tickling Will’s middle with ecstasy. He adds another-- perfectly slippery, a great help in the act of fucking.

It’s a little bit longer-- it joins the first one in the circular motions, then Will picks up a tempo. And flat over his chest, his hard cock twitches.

The killer lets out a sigh.

Its vulnerable, and raw shade makes Will fantasize about the man’s face-- about his cheeks. They should be red. And lips-- should be parted. The eyes, severe and passionate, consume Will’s details, from the way his fingers work him, to the subtle sounds that escape him, and the face he’s making-- embarrassed, but wanting. He’s never had someone watch him like this-- and never flourished under this kind of attention, so deeply intense it’s viscerally uncomfortable.

But now that it’s his, Will doesn’t want any other.

He arches off the bed-- and finds the spot.

“Oh, fuck.”

His moan, trembling and high, is soon joined by another as the fingers begin to pound, repeatedly slamming into a bundle of nerves that’s rubbery against his fingertips, and sensitive whenever he touches it, singing heat and bliss into his blood.

It’s when he hears the killer too-- and from the man’s lips it tumbles, a decided whimper.

It makes Will’s cock respond-- a twitch, then another. It weeps with drops of precum that now paint his stomach, his balls tucked up high and his hole gently throbbing.

The sounds he makes, though muted by the heavy storming, nevertheless paint the spaces obscene and naughty, velvety admissions of his ecstasy that he wishes to cry out loud shamelessly.

When he adds another finger--

“Stop.”

He doesn’t want to, though. The man’s voice carries that delicious flavor of struggle that points to his diminished self-control and Will suffers from mental images of being pounded into the bed, screaming his throat raw all naked while the man just lowers his pants a little. He cannot comprehend why that interests him-- only that he’s close, too close, and stopping his own fingers turns into an actual undertaking.

He listens only because the killer’s eyes explain he has no choice.

They carry a promise of something worse and Will’s entire body throbs.

He hears the smile in the next words.

“Good boy. Now, another task.”

He pulls out another knife-- fatter handle, long and protruding. He flips it his hand, glib and expert, then swings back and Will thinks this is how he dies-- naked, fucked out after something as simple as two fingers.

But the killer stabs the knife into the bed between Will’s legs, then straightens up, locking eyes with Will.

“Ride it.”

“What?”

Will sits up, careful not to nick himself, flushed in the face and refusing to believe he heard him right.

A knife tilts his chin up.

“I’m not gonna have to repeat myself, am I?”

Such a smooth threat-- Will shudders.

“N-no.”

He hurries to slick the handle in more lube, which is over too quickly, leaving him with just one step.

He bites his lower lip, buying himself seconds.

“But… why?”

“Why?”

He’s so good at holding Will without letting go of his knife. And he does just that, skirting his hands down Will’s sides, earning a row of shivers, until his hands are under Will’s ass, and as they cup and squeeze, he jerks his hips in response, stupidly turned on.

His cock shoots some precum, staining the man’s clothing.

“So-sorry--”

“It’s alright, princess. Now come give it a ride.”

He guides Will’s hips up, a nerve-racking, impossible thing as Will scoots close, unable to believe this is happening. He might have put objects inside himself, but they were always built for it. Their shape was everything he craved to actually feel but never had the courage to truly permit, and now he positions his hole over the handle of the knife, and then s l o w l y comes down…

His voice is a gasp-- and the knife under his chin doesn’t let go as the man whispers--

“Eye-contact. Watch me… Watch me.”

God, he’s got the darkest eyes. This is what every previous victim stared into before they died, except this can’t have been secretly happening behind the closed doors. If it has, the police know but the public has been prohibited. Why? Because all the deviants would sexualize this and do nothing but imagine how a man fucks before killing.

Will already suspects.

Like a beast.

Will sits down on the hilt… moans as the angle happens to be just right for this, but this is dirty. This is too much. His breath staggers, and--

“You’re beautiful, Will.”

Is he?

How?

“So beautiful,” he adds, a reverent, and highly devoted whisper as the man reaches for Will’s face-- and no longer does the knife tilt the chin, cupped by a hand while Will’s body dances.

He rides the hilt slowly.

Sinfully.

Wet, deliriously erotic sounds that have no right sounding good like this-- but they do, and when Will leans into the touch, he thinks he’s gone insane. He must have.

The killer reaches between his own legs…

A zipper.

A button.

And a gentle lowering of the pants and then he’s holding it in a gloved hand, and he brings their faces together, and whispers, “Look at it.”

Wills looks.

The sight of it actually dries his throat. It’s long, thick, flushed with blood, several veins lining its surface, the slit of it staring back at Will, unfairly wetting his mouth with the desire to taste him.

It twitches when he looks its way.

The man gives it an experimental caress, smearing his own precum down to its base, his lips switching close to Will’s ears, whispering--

“I’ll stretch you with this. You want that, don’t you?”

Will gives an anxious nod.

“Say it.”

“I want it. I want you to stretch me with it.”

“Good boy.”

That should not turn him on.

“You want to belong to me, don’t you?”

“I-- I--”

“Say that you do.”

He watches the man stroke himself, desperately hungry for his cock inside his hole.

“I-- I want to belong to you.”

“You want only me to fuck you.”

“I... I want only you to fuck me.”

“You want me to fuck all your holes, fill you, mark you, breed you.”

“I want to-- I want to--”

Will’s pace picks up. In despair he seeks to rest his head on the man’s shoulder, instead feeling a thumb push past his lips that he sucks on without ado. The noises that it creates join the lewd rest, similarly echoing.

And when the thumb is replaced by two long fingers, and his hips slow their possessed dance, Will’s eyes close, mind altogether too addled by the madness of this to pretend he can tell right from wrong.

“Say it,” teases the man, his voice low and scratchy. “Say it, Will.”

“I want you to breed me.”

His answer comes as his lips work the fingers, sucking on their tips and letting them deep into his mouth for a fucking.

And in-between moments resembling a break, Will finishes his dark covenant.

“I want you to fill all my holes-- my ass, my mouth. I want you to fuck a hole into my heart. Mark me, breed me, possess me, please.”

“Yes.”

He cups the back of Will’s head, holding it in place as he violently fucks Will’s mouth, causing his eyes to roll back from the weirdly sexual humiliation of that. What does this say about him? How come he likes this? He twitches hungrily, so hot he wants to crawl out of his own skin and climb into the man’s, feeling his cold control, his icy silence.

God, who even is this if not the actual devil?

“You’re so good for me, Will,” praises the stranger-- “So perfect for me. Look at you take my fingers. You’ll be fantastic at taking my cock.”

He pulls the fingers out then, and Will gasps for a moment, wondering, “You promise?”

The man brushes their noses together.

“I swear. And now… Get off that.”

He guides Will on his knees, sliding off the bed, which places his cock on Will’s eye-level. The order is immediate. And yet Will waits until it’s spoken.

“Open up for me.”

He shudders. It’s like the man has seen the shape of Will’s soul, and knows exactly what to tell him.

He opens wide, tensing in anticipation as the cock breaches the lips, sliding inside. It’s even bigger than Will noticed, filling him entirely until it hits the back of his throat, making Will gag a bit.

“Don’t give up yet-- c’mon, you can take me.”

He pushes in deeper.

“You can take all of me…”

Down the throat… triggering wet, even unpleasant noises until Will’s nose touches the man’s clothed abdomen, and he pulls the man’s clothes up enough to reveal the delicious V-shape leading down to his cock.

Will breathes him in, mentally ill and deranged to want the man’s scent as well. But he has no shame, repeating the deep breaths as the man watches him, keeping a hand on the back of Will’s head.

“You’re so good, baby, so perfect… Now-- you know what to do. Be my whore.”

With shaky hands, Will touches the man’s thighs, so drunk on the moment he truly feels like a whore. And with an excess saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth, Will obeys the command. He withdraws--

And pulls himself right back, slamming forward as he fucks his own throat in some desperate, and wicked manner of seeing himself on a level with a tight hole that likes of which throbs between his cheeks. He uses himself, he chokes himself on it, sacrificing breaths and dignity in favor of gorging himself on this cock like it’s a five-course meal and he’s savagely hungry. Hearing the sounds he makes perfectly embarrasses him.

He’s a whore, he’s a slut, he’s sucking off an actual killer and he doesn’t care if he dies next. He cares about the moment, the way he feels loose and free unlike ever before, like something constantly held him back until the Bedside Slasher undid all those seams when he first tilted his chin with the tip of the knife he’s killed dozens with.

The thought is so impossibly hot that it cannot be real.

And the man moans.

“So good, you’re so good…”

His hand strokes Will’s hair back in praise. Will looks up at him, stubbornly imagining a face he’s better off not seeing. Then he’s pulled back, hair held and he splutters.

Strings of saliva connect the head of the cock and his lips, and he jerks forward despite the tension at the base of his skull, straining to lick the head of the cock as the man moans--

“Such a whore.”

“Yes,” Will moans, looking up, “your whore.”

The sound it earns him is guttural-- low.

He’s released.

And somehow, he draws his hands back, dropping them on his legs like he knows something that doesn’t need to be said.

When he bobs down on the cock again, he takes in the first few inches. His lips work them nice and slow, tongue darting out to appreciate the length down to the base where the balls should hang, tucked up instead.

Shame. Will loves the thought of them slapping into his ass.

He pulls back only to return to accepting him down his throat, loose and pliant before casually bobbing down on him, eyes a level of drunk that’s offensive to reason.

He cares so little he’d even shout his status of a whore. Something about this man is so deeply addictive that Will accepts it without ado, servile, obedient, eager to be used as long as it’s secured through a blade that could gut him like an animal.

Then, the killer grunts, “Stop… stop…”

He reaches for his face once more, gently guiding it away from himself and down on the bed.

He pulls the knife out, sheaths it. His other one rests on the bed, seemingly abandoned as he claims the bottle of lube for himself, and tucks his knees under Will’s to elevate his hips on his lap. The reach becomes sinful. With ease he guides Will’s cheeks open, stretching his hole for intrusion before pouring in enough lube to get things perfectly smooth. Watching the final few moments before Will will finally know what it’s like to be taken gets him dazed, and he wonders if the killer even knows.

He reaches for him, squeezing his hands.

“You’ll be my first.”

The pause that arrives is fateful.

“And last.”

He enters.

The tip pushes through, too thick despite the low friction to be anything but immediately painful, and Will gasps, guiding his body to relax--

“Will?”

She knocks on the door and another inch enters.

“Will, you alright, baby? We’re getting kind of worried.”

Another inch-- and Will’s world is turning on its own, body opening to something it’s wanted since Will first realized he liked dick.

And he moans-- loud.

And visceral.

And behind the door, his mom responds with, “Oh.”

“Sorry,” he shouts to her, and laughs-- “I’m really, really okay right now.”

Another inch, so deep Will’s eyes twitch--

“So okay.”

And another, and deeper as a bulge appears on his stomach, pushing on the flesh from the inside, made to protrude when the man angles up better, and Will gasps.

Will doesn’t know when his mom left. She could have born witness to him getting fucked well and the idea of almost getting caught is so wildly hot that he wants this man’s dick in their blind company, bent over deep for him and ravaged while they suspect nothing.

It’s immediately too hot for comprehension, and the man bottoms out, their bodies flush together.

He comes down over Will, watching, or hesitating-- Will doesn’t know. It feels like a sign, or a permission.

“Did you really kill all those people?” he asks instead in a tiny, vulnerable voice.

He gets a nod.

“And were you going to kill me?”

Another nod.

“You changed your mind.”

A nod.

“Have you ever done this before?”

The man’s eyes burn.

“Never.”

Will groans, boldly reaching the man’s neck, feeling for where the balaclava ends, and when he finds its edges, he rolls it up for a reveal of the man’s mouth, and then they’re kissing, full-mouthed, deep, tongue and claiming.

The pace begins then-- slow, but hard. Brutal, thrusts that beat their bodies together and into his lips, Will cries. He receives his moans in turn-- pure and unfiltered whimpers of deep desire as the man swings his hips forward, repeatedly claiming Will’s hole in deep strokes.

The slaps make him see stars--

They shoot pleasure up his spine, quickly killing any echo of pain with an gratuitous, and indulgent stretch that feels like everything Will has ever wanted. When it rolls his eyes back-- he’d call that obvious. When his hands claw down the man’s back, boldly and frantically looking for the hem of his clothes, it’s also obvious. He reaches it and slides his palms under and rakes over lean, tight muscle, rolling the clothing up to his shoulders in some ardent moment of little sense and too much pleasure.

“Oh god, oh god, I can’t believe I’m finally getting fucked-- and it’s by a killer.”

He hears a chuckle.

His breath hits Will’s lips, the vicious cant of his hips concealed by the clapping thunder.

“Quiet,” he teases in a warm whisper, “they’ll realize you’re more than just touching yourself.”

“Why don’t you stuff my mouth with my underwear like you do all your victims?”

The killer groans.

Then, a smirk twitches at his lips, and Will promises himself he’ll remember their shape. He already knows their flavor.

He’ll hunt this world for this man if he has to spend a lifetime turning every stone but he won’t give up until he’s found him.

A moment later, the man is reaching inside a pocket, pulling out something Will did not see coming and did not buy.

“You’ll wear this tomorrow, alright?”

Will spots the shape, the soft lace and chuckles. “Alright.”

Then, the killer kisses him once final time, taking his mouth in another fuck-- before he pulls back, and stuffs the pink, lace panties into Will’s mouth.

He bites down on Will’s throat and continues fucking.

When Will comes, it’s just a minute into the intense, and tireless pace that slaps their bodies together shamelessly. He’s fucked throughout the feeling, and right into another orgasm that makes him choke on the underwear in his mouth, salivating unceremoniously and yet failing to mind. Not once does the man stop.

He’s hungry, feasting himself in every forward thrust, his arms wrapped around Will’s form, possessive and tight. He won’t stop two minutes in. Three. Four. He feels hungrier than at the beginning, getting Will’s hole all stretched and loose and comfortably abused to a state of pinkness and throbs. Will experiences suffocation. The man’s dark, warm clothes; his hot, tight skin; his thick, long cock deliciously fucking into him. Will’s legs won’t stop shaking.

And when the killer finally fills him, it’s been over half an hour of their bodies squelching.

His teeth clench tight, actually piercing skin, but his thrusts still, and feeling his hot cum inside himself gets Will groaning into the panties.

The killer breathes heavily for another while, then sits back, grabbing the previously neglected knife in a shaky hand.

Will is too dazed to immediately notice. When he does, the man motions to shush.

Yet seeing the knife come in contact with actual skin flinches Will.

“Cold.”

He manages to say that, the underwear already out of his mouth, and the man shushes him again, then regards his canvas, considering the first strokes.

He cuts in slowly.

Precisely.

Will understands the importance of it despite only knowing he’s supposed to contain all noises. He stills himself as well, freezing in a moment where it’s easy to act dead. And easily, the man carves in four simple lines, building one letter.

M

When he’s done, he rolls his jumper down his back. Puts the knife back. Covers his face but not before allowing Will to admire that cocky, satisfied smile that makes Will wonder how he looks right now.

Hot?

Good?

He feels so stupidly good-- his cum dries on his stomach and the man’s clothes and he enjoyed a dry orgasm in repeats that would drop him at the man’s knees, begging at the altar of his cock.

“Will I see you again?”

“Of course.”

His voice is distorted again. Will remembers it without the distortion, pure and masculine and easily light.

He stretches on the bed, beginning to notice wetness under his fingernails.

“Will I see your face too?”

He gets a chuckle.

“Yes, but you should not want to.”

He’s all tucked and standing up, and Will realizes-- this is blood. He left scratches on the man’s back.

He looks down at the carved letter.

“Now we’re even?”

“No, this is not about getting even. It’s about possession.”

He reaches for Will one final time, grabbing his ankles, and twists one leg away from the other. He admires what he did to the hole for a while, sighing at the harsh, pink color and the cum leaking out of him. His DNA is right there, viable for analysis. Both know it. But Will sits up, wondering if he dreamed this, and how real the threat ever was, until he realizes the following bitter thing:

He won’t believe it until he sees it.

“Good luck possessing me then.”

“Do you doubt you’re mine?”

“Yes.”

He pins the killer with a lascivious smile, and the man laughs. “I love it when you're cheeky.”

He releases him, his final touch a soft stroke and Will shudders, imagining having this man all to himself-- dangerous, freshly after a kill and raw from the thrill, naked and pounding.

The fantasy dares to get so descriptive that Will stutters at it--

“Go,” he near begs.

The killer backs off to the windows-- opens it--

“See you soon, Will.”

He exits just like that, and Will doesn’t pretend to be able to walk. But he has to. The window opened to a sound, and now his mom beats on his door, freaking out.

Right.

Makes sense.

He has a few unread messages from Max.

Also makes sense.

He’ll answer both and the meantime--

Did this really happen?

***

“What’s up, Byers? You walking weird.”

Will shoots Max a grin and they embrace. “Don’t worry about it.”

Do, actually. Worry about it a lot.

As she watches him sit down at their table in their favorite little cafe, she scoffs, commenting, “You know, the last time you acted this way was when you bought that special toy for adults and used it a bit too much. How big was that? A niner?”

Just like my killer.

Blushing, Will frets in his seat, failing to meet her inquisitive gaze while behind his eyes, the night replays.

I’m sure it was a dream. I’m sure he’s not an actual killer.

He had to sneak into the bathroom last night after his mom worried herself silly, and treat the branding on his abdomen.

In either casse, he is cattle now, and though it might be to a copycat, at least he lived-- at least he got fucked so well that the art of sitting is his next concern.

“I think so, yeah. But whatever-- by the way, don’t ever freak me out like that again.”

He shoots her a look that tries to be strong, because he also remembers the worried manner in which he looked through the master bedroom, but it’s rather pathetic comparatively, prompting Max to cock a brow at him.

“I’m just saying, you freaked me out by saying I’d be his ideal victim so-- let’s not, okay?”

“Ideal,” she mutters, “did I actually call you ideal?”

“Yes.”

He doesn’t know.

He nurses his extra large cappuccino, held in a cup that resembles a soup bowl, and Max watches him struggle with lifting it up to his face and drinking it, sporting an amused smile.

“Fine. Whatever. I kinda figured I’d freaked you out by the way,” she comments, sipping from her regularly sized tea. “Let’s make it the last time we discussed that, okay?”

“Yeah, agreed.”

Soon, the waitress delivers their sweet treats, forcing Will to recall why he decided to treat Max.

Oh, that’s right.

Because he can.

He smiles smugly while she takes the first bite from her simple NY cheesecake, a delightful choice for the record, but his is a cookie dough brownie variety with an extra dollop of cream on top, and he wonders if the man last night got him pregnant. It’s ridiculous, of course he didn’t. They’re men… But if he has to ask another man to breed him, he might just hope he grows the right parts just for the beauty of it.

Will shakes these thoughts off, deciding to consider the option of a pregnancy realistically. Swollen feet, huge changes, morning sickness-- no, no. He’s fine. He just likes it as a kink and otherwise realizes it wouldn’t be for him.

Besides getting knocked up by a killer is, well-- he’s not one, he decides, thinking it’s logical. There’s no way in hell the actual killer would have climbed into his room at night just for a good shag. Or a fantastic one.

So, a dedicated copycat? Is he coming tonight too? He mentioned meeting soon and Will rubs the marked spot, since it itches.

“Jesus Christ, Will, are you alright? You’re so off today. Did you fuck the brains out of yourself or?”

Oh, god, that is such a likelihood. Maybe that is why some people go gungho for sex. It makes them lose their cognitive abilities. Will shudders, considering it so deeply that Max frowns.

“I was kidding.”

“Don’t be,” he slyly corrects.

She spots his slowly-growing, crooked smile, and laughs. “My god, you used that big thing and now you’re all glowing. Just wait until you feel the real thing.”

“About that…”

Noticing his conspiratorial expression, she leans in with him, frowning in wonder that does not want to be answered.

“You said about not talking about him again, you know, the Slasher, but our last night actually got me thinking. You know, what if the cops didn’t share everything with the public?”

Max snorts. “Naturally they don’t. I mean, there’s gotta be details they’re concerned about, like things if they got out people would get the wrong idea or something. Or, you know, they would inspire a bunch of assholes.”

He nods along. “Right, and then we’d have copycats walking around.”

“Exactly.”

He looks down, using a small spoon to stir his not-so-tiny drink. “Like, what kinda details do you think those could be? Maybe some things that would help them tell the killer apart from the copycats, right? Provided someone was, um, foolish enough to go the copycat route.”

She’s beginning to stare. “Right, of course. I don’t know, let me think. Clearly, if there was a sexual aspect to it, I don’t think they’d want to share it.”

Bingo.

He nods, smiling. “Right, yeah. Was just wondering… oh, don’t look at me like that.”

But Max already is, a smirk beginning to spread along her mouth as she drops her elbows on the table, creating a bridge of hands for her chin to sit on, and she teases, “Oh, you, I know where this is going. See, I always wondered why you were so prudish with your partners, at least when it came to putting out, but then when you told me all the other things you did with them, I realized, oh, no, Will Byers is not prudish.”

She cleans in closer, whispering.

“Will Byers is a whore who needs to be forced.”

The words are an immediate jolt of pleasure right to his cock.

“Well, not forced,” she corrects, sighing, “that sounds rough, sorry. I’m not implying-- I mean, I really just wanted to tease you that you’re one of those sick fucks imagining what it’d be getting fucked by the killer.”

“I-- yeah, no. I wasn’t--”

Actually wasn’t. But now--

His cheeks are burning.

“Listen, you did mean the forced thing, didn’t you?”

She goes quiet.

“Max, c’mon, I’m not going to get mad. You’re seriously good at clocking things others ignore, so could you…?”

She purses her lips, thinking for a bit. In fact, she takes long enough she’s clearly hoping to be told to let it go, which isn’t happening, and his expression confesses to a hunger that leads to her scowl.

“Oh, fine. Remember your last boy? Carlton or whatever. You never really talked him up much, or like ever except for this one occasion when you mentioned him getting drunk and impatient and forcing you on your knees and then, you know…”

She sticks her tongue into her cheek, and holds a fist up, miming a certain act that pushes a violent shade of red onto Will’s cheek.

In understanding, he parts his lips. They wrap around the letter “o”.

“Exactly,” she says, shrugging. “You always had this thing of… I don’t know. Your childhood was perfectly normal, I always told myself, clearly you having a kink for some CNC or shit like that didn’t line up with how kindly your mom and brother treated you.”

He remembers his dad.

And she’s smart enough to realize that two plus two equals, “Lonnie.”

“Lonnie.”

She stares at him, thinking. “You never really talk much about him, actually,” she muses, her voice at a lower, careful register. It makes it sound richer. Huskier. More masculine. It isn’t but when it shivers him down to his toes, Will rubs his thighs together, trying not to get hard listening to her.

“Yeah, well, not much to say. He never beat mom or anything, but he was really good, as in bad with his words. He targeted me. Called me names and suggested I was gay… Tada.”

There’s no sense of victory in him saying it.

“Mom always blamed herself for not leaving him earlier, but she was, like, seventeen when they had Jonathan, and Lonnie was in his twenties or something, and I think from the way she talked about him staying with him was sort of necessary until she got back on her feet financially and could afford to leave. But then…”

“Then, they had you.”

“Yup.”

He pauses, considering it. “Honestly, makes me kind of sick since it sounds like he… well, anyway. Maybe that would explain things, I don’t know. I don’t really want to think about or consider how he treated mom. I know he was an abusive jerk to me so who knows, I could have some daddy kink which includes liking men who just take what’s theirs and, and…”

“God, you are so blushing right now.”

That’s because he met a man last night who took what was his. And now that Will’s had a taste for it, he considers what it’d be like to actually play it up. He could scream and cry, begging to be released while the killer still took what was his, pounding him to the bed in spite of, and despite Will protesting…

Jesus.

Lonnie did probably mess him up a lot. That sounds sick.

Will coughs, returning his attention to his food. “Let me just-- yeah. I have a grocery run to do after this so I can’t, you know, I can’t…”

She stares at the part of the table that obscures the view of crotch, and smiles, darkly amused. “Of course. Understood. Can’t walk around the local yogurt selection with a hard-on, you slut.”

Another jolt-- another fresh wave of heat and Will groans, hiding his face. “I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“Never.”

“So much.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’ll be sure to ask Lucas later.”

She picks up her drink and tosses Will a wink.

It’s her being cheeky and masculine that makes her awfully attractive to him. Maybe, he’d never sleep with her even if both got so drunk they forgot to tell left from right, but she could whisper into his ear all sorts of things about how he deserved a good fucking like the whore he is and he’d come without touching.

… God, last night did mess him up.

Will gulps down his cap in favor of occupying himself otherwise, and no less than five minutes later, he runs to the restroom twice.

Max enjoys his suffering, pointing out, “Hey, you know what caffeinated drinks do to the bladder. Although…”

She stalks the way he moves, and frowns.

Shit. She’s too smart. She’ll realize he’s concealing an actual injury on his abdomen. He flops down, wincing loudly, which works by earning her attention.

Ten minutes later, they’re hugging each other bye.

“Message me later, okay?” she says.

“Will do, mom.”

“Hush, I just worry about you a lot. You know what the world is like.”

Bigoted. If he decided to live in a larger city, the acceptance rate would be considerably higher, allowing him to disappear into the masses.

Here, he’s a public figure, a well-known name and face with an attached history and things to dislike him for.

Here, people know each other, or better yet know of each other while assuming it means actually knowing the other person on some intimate, and personal level attainable only after years of tight friendship-- or roughly five to ten very lengthy and intimate drunk conversations.

Here, though the consensus appears to be to let the gay dude live, the stink eyes he earns just by his virtue of existing continue to prove her point daily.

He smiles. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

He walks to the supermarket.

It’s past noon already, meaning that soon enough it’ll be getting dark. He sort of likes that. The streets are slippery from last night’s rain, and the air’s wet and still a bit ozone-y, adding something to the grayness. A lot of people would hate this. They’d fantasize about either a nice summer day where it’s too hot to breathe, let alone go anywhere, or the part of fall where trees are shedding leaves, turning the world yellow, red, and atmospheric. But their November will soon segue into December. At its tail’s end, the trees are mostly barren, the air gets that deep sort of chill packing a punch, and in a week or two, they’ll be getting snow.

He cannot wait.

He walks into the supermarket, grabbing a cart to help him, then browses. It’s rather sad to admit he tends to come out here for a little chance of scenery. Love mom, again no regrets for staying here, but there’s not a lot to do in Hawkins. If he was a kid again, if he had a daring group of friends, he could mess around with his life expectancy. They’d go to the old quarry, visit Lover's Lake, or do anything that’s a bit cheeky.

Maybe he’d love that.

There’s a way of looking at Hawkins as a place packed full of potential waiting to be explored. Will wonders about this deeper, getting lost down the aisles. Half an hour later, he’s still mostly meandering. His cart’s got some meats and frozen dinners that they no longer need to rely on, but nostalgia has a weird pull. He pauses at the fresh produce section, scanning them for something he’d later likely to nibble on, but someone stands behind him, and lingers.

That is normal, sometimes people just get a bit too close to each for comfort, eyeballing the same oranges or apples.

But this lingers--

And Will realizes it lingers profoundly. That he can notice it. Measure it. That he can discuss the subtle way it changes him, from the new tension in his body, to the way he breathes.

Lower, and quicker.

Deciding to tell the person off, he turns around--

He sees the shape of the mouth first.

Haunting, familiar.

Stick in a gorgeous, yet dark smile and when Will lifts his gaze up--

“See, princess, I told you we’d meet soon.”

He cups Will’s cheek next, and stands close to him, fearless, wild.

There’s that look in his eyes-- without the paint and the cover, they look even more insane, possessed by a truly unfiltered sort of intensity that adds to their impenetrable darkness. They have a natural glare, like they never quite learned the art of gentleness and never will, instead preferring to choke and suffocate. Even now they compare to having hands around the neck and the man’s are big, and long-fingered. Even one would be enough to wrap fully around Will’s throat, making Will wonder why he didn’t do that last night. Maybe not yet is the actual answer.

He lets out a little gasp sound--

“You-- you--”

The killer smiles. “I know. I’m really hot.”

God, that’s lame.

But true.

Unfortunately, and tragically accurate when Will considers all of him at once-- young, maybe 6’4’’, strong, masculine features captured by that sharp cut of the jaw and strong nose, not to mention his thick brows intended for an eternal frown.

He’s quite Byronic, actually, like fate just ripped him out of the pages of its favorite book simply because he sounded like an interesting person.

There’s such a thing as being too interesting.

And haunted by the lean length of him, Will stutters some more, trying to back off though only to discover there’s no space to. Behind him, apples are piled, threatening to topple to the floor if he tries to escape that route once more, and he gasps, comforted, and poisoned by the hand on himself before the man smirks, his tone romantic and intense.

“I caught you off guard. Don’t worry, I know just the way to anchor you.”

His hand slips to Will’s neck and then he kisses Will, tongue, lips, open-mouthed and shameless, his other hand resting on the jut of Will’s hip and the kiss possessive enough to feel like it belongs behind the closed door.

But it works.

The man stops it, amused by the way Will chases his lips without realizing it, and he mutters, “See? I know exactly how to make your body sing.”

And that’s when it hits Will.

The full weight of talking to a serial killer who fucked him last night is actually nothing easily handled, feeling like a constant too much he’ll never recover from. Even now as the burden of knowing spears through him, his voice returns to its stuttering expression, preferring its awkwardness over talking, and Will’s flushed with memories of what they did, how it felt, the delicious nine incher between the man’s legs and how easy it is to fall in lust with somebody.

Except he shouldn’t.

And he won’t.

Acting like he wasn’t bold with this man, Will ducks his head, attempting to break the tense silence with, “I, well, ur, people are watching.”

“I’ll bend you over and fuck you here if you bring them up again.”

Will blushes in shock. “You wouldn’t,” he hisses, giving him a look, but the man has thick, curly hair with an attitude and he would.

God, how is it possible to look more insane without all the things covering his face?

“You doubt me, pet?” he intones, entertained. His thumb plays with the waistband of Will’s jeans, dipping into its material to feel naked skin, and Will shudders, reflexively gripping his hands to stop him. Just one pathetic tug later is enough to let him know he could never stop him if it came down to who’s physically stronger here.

It’s sinfully exciting.

“Maybe. I mean obviously. I definitely think you’re a copycat who--”

“Stop.”

The warning comes too late because Will said something he shouldn’t have. He sees it in the man’s eyes. That clear, and hard warning that significantly dwarfs the word.

He shudders.

“I doubt you,” he says regardless, chin tilted up.

And the look gets even worse.

“I doubt you,” Will repeats, bold or insane, certain nothing bad will come out of this. Though it’s exciting to imagine he somehow compelled an infamous serial killer to keep him alive, it’s statistically highly unlikely-- a thing for stories and fantasies.

Reality is far different.

The smirks. “You’ll regret that.”

Will shivers. “Maybe… Maybe not. I don’t think I will.”

He gives him a look that the man repays with times more intensity, but rather than shy away, Will opts for a bold, compelling smile.

“Prove me wrong.”

You fucked up.

Will reads it in his thoughts, the man’s eyes, and that terribly distracting itch on the abdomen with the letter M. Maybe, it stands for mine. Or for a name.

Michael.

Will swallows, prideful as he turns for his cart-- the man’s hand grabs the handle. Squeezes.

And as he moves to stand behind Will, he brackets him in, intentional, casual with every motion he commits as he reaches around Will to grab the handle with his other hand too, pushing his chest into Will’s back, ghosting his lips over his neck too.

“Can you feel it?” he whispers.

“Feel what?”

He performs a short, circular motion with his hips; the alignment is perfect. And the unmistakable outline of his cock pushes between Will’s cheeks.

“The weight of your mistake.”

Will shivers.

“No.”

He swallows.

“I have shopping to do. Goodbye.”

He pushes forward, convinced he won’t be let go-- he is. The man’s hands abandoned their grip, sliding off as Will nervously maneuvers ahead, and when he pauses several feet in, he spends seconds talking himself out of looking back over his shoulder.

He fails.

He turns his head--

Hunger.

Obsession.

Amusement.

An ill combination, and the perfect killer on a man whose eyes say challenge accepted.

What have I done? Will muses for a moment, before opting for the usual-- denial.

He reaches the cash register and pays. Outside, he carries one moderately light bag, repeatedly checking behind himself to see if M is after him.

Nothing.

No matter where he looks and how often, M is nowhere to be seen.

Will tells himself he’s going mad.

He reluctantly relaxes.

The business of Hawkins streets is nothing to bring home. He spots several familiar faces, some of which he saw in the supermarket actually and as they notice him staring, they judge him.

He gets whiplashed at first, wondering what’s going on.

He remembers.

His cheeks burn and his lips act swollen. The kiss was nowhere near enough to manage that… he thinks-- but they saw it happen, prompting Will to look down at the ground, feeling like the kiss somehow made him an accomplice in something that should belong to fantasies and not real life.

His pace picks up.

He stops at a crossing, the light shining red, and allows his attention to scatter about aimlessly, increasingly getting more confident.

It all just happened.

Everything is okay.

Denial, denial, denial.

He crosses the road, and a black car with black-tinted windows pulls up.

Will knows the driver without ado.

He pretends he doesn’t, that the driving at a snail’s pace to keep up with him isn’t at all concealing a dangerous, and potentially psychotic man-- that it’s all a coincidence, something to casually mention to his very limited number of friends and then make jokes about.

The denial is such that when Will gets to the part of his journey home where he has to cross a large, and mostly unoccupied parking lot belonging to a group of unrelated restaurants sitting in a clutch, he principally refuses to think about what it means for him. The sun is slowly setting down, he’s mildly encumbered by his coat and the grocery bag, and in the evening, the parking lot is packed full, showing off people’s love for dining out.

Maybe he should take his mom out.

That sounds like a good idea.

Will cuts across the lot boldly, and when the car continues to follow him, he forces his ignorance.

It gets ahead of them and then, ten or so yards in the distance, stops.

And wearing his killer outfit, M steps out.

Will freezes.

His options are actually plenty. Turn around, or scream for help-- even if M isn’t doing anything, people would at least look. They’d see him getting chased and hopefully assume something horrible was going on.

Or potentially, Will could do this:

“Is this how you intend to prove who you are to me?”

“Get in.”

He shivers. The voice is distorted now. It’s interesting how he’s fully out in the open and nobody even looks at him. It occurs to Will this is how he’s been getting away with the murders. He may walk down to the street, guilt of an hour-long kill, living on the memory of the person’s last scream and nobody would even suspect it.

“No.”

“Get in, Will.”

Will smirks stupidly, then says--

“Make me.”

He almost screams when M starts off.

When he lunges for him, and Will reflexively turns to begin running-- but M’s legs are long, he’s fast, his arms wrap around Will, one holding him by the waist, the other shutting him up.

He hauls him to the car in no time, and then shuts the door.

“You reckless little whore.”

The slap that arrives isn’t hard, just insulting. It turns Will’s face and stings and in shock, his struggle stills, eyes staring up at M in offense.

M chuckles.

“Apologize.”

He looms over Will, holding him down in the backseat of his car with only a small ceiling light turned on.

Will clenches his jaw. “Make me.”

Another slap-- just as offensive. Weak and upsetting to the point he almost begs to be beaten brutally.

In M’s painted eyes, he can see the promise: he will do it.

It makes Will go absolutely still.

In the seconds that follow, he becomes aware of M’s familiar position between his legs. It cannot be helped how his body reacts, blushing with unwanted interest. He tries killing his appetite by reminding himself of the bitchslaps, and the bag of groceries lying on the floor of the parking lot, ruining what was supposed to be a quick and easy haul.

Defiance shines in his eyes.

“I said make me, you fucking coward.”

Another slap, and another, his front grabbed as M mistreats him without ado, leaving Will’s face red and puffy by the end of it, and his head actually dizzy from the constant smacking.

They hurt his pride mostly-- they sting. His cheeks throb from the insult and pain of it and just as Will is about to cradle his face, sore and burning, M flips him over.

In the confined backseat of his car, he acts like the space is unlimited, getting Will down on his stomach with a grunt before his belt’s grabbed at his back, and Will can only muster a weak--

“Wait.”

--then, his ass is bared.

A second later, another slap arrives.

This one is hard.

He jumps, moaning in surprise as M yanks Will’s ass up, and proceeds to beat it ruthlessly with his full palm, leaving behind angry imprints. He doesn’t stop for whole minutes. He smacks into him, making Will’s body jump with each collision, his other hand pushing Will’s face into the seat where he moans and groans, until tears spill from his cheeks.

It’s their presence that makes the hand stop, but rather than end the punishment entirely, it progresses it into the next step.

Without warning, two gloved fingers slot between Will’s tender cheeks, discovering the hole of him, and ease in.

Will tenses at once.

“Easy now, or it’ll hurt.”

He grunts at the words, holding tightly onto the seat.

“You’ve been such a naughty boy,” growls M, fucking him slow. There’s an obvious burn from the lack of lube and the increasing friction, but somewhere inside Will, a hum of approval happens, embarrassing him with further humiliation. When the fingers come close to his prostate, and then refuse to tease it, Will stops himself from bucking into M.

“I-- I haven’t, you’re just--”

“I’m what? Too good at what I do? I am. You’re right. And you know what you are? Hard.”

Heaving under its own blood-filled weight, the cock twitches, its tip weeping precum in constant drops, and Will groans, then shakes his head.

“No, I’m not. You’re just--”

Before he can continue, the fingers pound his hole.

He screams at once as they assault him without touching what’s important, stretching him with a vile conviction and yet he’s oddly hot for this, trembling with an echo of an orgasm that he fails to understand.

And when he whimpers--

“I’ll be good, I’ll be good, I promise I’ll be good.”

M’s voice hits his ear. “And if you lie to me, what do I get to do?”

“Anything, anything.”

“What an unwise thing to tell a serial killer. Let me give you a second chance before you screw over more people: if you lie to me, what do I get to do?”

Will’s mind is hot from shame and need.

“Anything to my body.”

The fucking stops-- and M’s voice is silken smooth and hot.

“Good boy.”

The pulls the fingers out, caressing the tender, throbbing cheeks.

Will suppresses a wince.

“Now… let’s try this again, Will. Do you still doubt me?”

“I, I--”

Shit.

Will tries turning his head enough to slant a look at M.

“A… a little bit.”

The fingers re-enter, claiming a keening yelp from him, but they don’t continue and M’s voice gets rougher.

“Really now? Don’t tell me you need me to kill someone just to make you believe me?”

“I-- I-- well, no, but…”

“But?”

“... But why would you want me?”

The mood should soften. Will’s self-doubt is a personal, human demon but somehow it thickens the air in the car, and M licks the side of Will’s face, from his cheek to his temple.

“How would someone not want you?” he answers, his voice raw. “You were such a staple in this godforgotten hellhole that there’s no-one else I could have picked but you…But then I actually watched you and saw myself thinking highly of you. You didn’t annoy me. You were adorable. You shut yourself in your room in a home you bought and treated like your mother’s and secretly fucked your ass with big toys that you tried your best to keep hidden. You flirted with pretty, simple boys and the moment they proved to be too simple, you treated them like they didn’t exist. It’s when I knew you needed me.”

His fingers curl down, teasing over Will’s prostate.

They earn a loud gasp, a sudden break in a space molten hot from M’s reverent words.

“You needed to be saved, Will. You, the prettiest person I’ve ever seen. You’re not even wearing the pink panties I gave you. And you’re covering my mark I left on you. I guess you do like playing hard to get. That’s not a problem. I can rape just you.”

Will goes pale.

“Ha-have you… ever…”

“Raped? No. Never wanted to. And with you, I’m pretty sure it won’t be a real thing. You want me to take the power from you, don’t you, Will?”

He pushes into the prostate again, getting Will’s eyes to further water.

“You want your surrender to be forced through a rite of humiliation. I’ll humiliate you alright. I’ll chase you and make you scream into the night until you actually know you’re mine. How about that, Will? Shall we play a game?”

Will imagines M’s big, hard cock shoving into him with violence. It excites him. But it shouldn’t. He's a sick, sick freak who needs to talk to someone about this, arguing in favor of choosing a peaceful option. After all, that kind of invasion would hurt. It would tear him. Scream him and then it would become the actual thing and Will shivers, realizing he doesn’t want the reality of it.

Just the fantasy.

“You’d… you’d actually hurt me and I-- I don’t… I don’t want that, I want--”

“To be conquered like a whore.”

“W-what?”

The fingers pull out. Gently, Will gets lowered over the backseat, and M comes down over him, their bodies aligned, his tall and hot and strong, leaving Will dizzy with shameful ideas.

His hot breath hits the inside of Will’s ear.

“C’mon, don’t be such a prude. We already did that last night. You went from fear to utter desire. And you want a repeat of that, I bet. I can give it to you. I can break you exactly how you want to be broken…”

Possessively, he cups Will’s ass, delighting in the pained gasp.

“I can find creative ways of breaking you. You enjoy the thought of being sinful enough to commit crimes for and tonight, I claim someone new and dedicate their death to you. That will do the trick.”

Will’s breath hitches, but his mind is swimming in too many ideas. There’s horror, repulsion, and rejection of everything M offers, there’s shame as well, buried not that deep in his pit, a loud and obnoxious voice that blushes wantonly to everything M suggested.

God, he’s so right. He broke something in Will last night and it was the most delicious few hours of his life. He remembers his first gallery exhibition, then the subsequent auction. His first ten pieces sold for two million altogether because he’d networked well in college, met the right people, had a nice ass and a gorgeous smile that worked like a charm. He isn’t a celebrity. He doesn’t go on TV. He doesn’t do podcasts or care about appeasing influencers. He is an artist who considers his work to be pure, untouched by modern conceptions and spared the scorch of the spotlight.

But none of the related joy compares to the ecstasy of being broken into submission.

The thought is a compelling monster, desiring to see him pushed into subservience, kneeling with his mouth open for the cock.

He resists it only for a second longer, or two, or several. There’s a count involved. Three, four, five…

“Break me. Please.”

He feels M’s full-body shudder, visceral, followed by a needy whimper and then M’s yanking his own pants down, his cock’s out, it slips between Will’s cheeks and slick from the precum, it enters him.

“M, wait, wait--”

“Michael.”

Corrected just as the bottoms out to Will’s genuine, guttural shock.

“My name is Michael.”

He noses against the soft hair at the base of Will’s head, inhaling Will’s sweat of heat and stress.

And inside Will’s body, he rests.

For long seconds, Will only gasps. The pain is sudden, unrelenting, and unavoidable. It’s unlike being fucked with a lot of lubrication, where the friction was non-existent, and the man just slipped in and out of him, free to fuck like Will was a toy built for this.

Now, he twitches inside Will, leaving him to feel stuffed, stretched, and somewhat closer to genuinely believing Michael is more than dangerous.

He’s actually insane.

“Mi-mike… you’re… you’re too big for me.”

“Nonsense, I’ve seen the toys you fucked yourself with.”

He feels Mike’s mocking smile against his skin.

“But don’t worry… I won’t fuck you like this. But you’ll wish I had.”

He rolls his hips, teasing Will’s entrance with friction. It makes Will stutter, tears of pain and humiliation trailing down his cheeks…

He’s so hard he wants to scream.

Just then, Mike pulls out.

“Stay, don’t move.”

The sounds of him stroking himself frenetically fill the spaces. They’re hot and compelling, prompting Will to lick his lips in desire, but he doesn’t dare to share his thoughts. He feels relieved but also empty, and when Mike keeps his cheeks spread using one hand, the tip of his cock positioned at his hole, he can only hope he’ll re-enter him and take him despite his no’s. It’ll be such a wonderful breaking. Will’s body craves the humiliation that Mike’s touch promises and when Mike groans and slips the tip inside Will’s body, Will shudders, delighting at the sensation of the hot cum filling him.

It takes long enough to make him wonder how often Mike does this. The very idea of him having a whore in every town he visits becomes the true poison here, darkening Will’s expression of sweetness and agony.

He refuses to address it, though. As far as he’s concerned, he didn’t have the thought, and being filled with Mike’s cum is the last thing anything between them happened.

If he sticks to the denial, it resets every interaction.

“Now--”

Mike pulls both their pants up, then kicks the door open to a dark outside.

There are more cars now. The grocery bag has been left untouched, because there’s a ruling impression in small towns like these that if everyone knows everybody, you can’t get away with stealing.

But then Mike yanks Will out of the car and just leaves him standing against the side of it, Will isn’t thinking about stolen groceries or people.

Mike just rolls his mask up again, claiming Will’s lips in another kiss that’s as dirty as what just happened, before he collects a teardrop from his face, and sucks it off his fingertips.

“I love your suffering.”

Will’s knees go weak. “I love you hurting me.”

Mike groans, pinning Will against the car, a knee wedged between his legs as he cups Will’s face, licking a tear off it before kissing him again.

It’s hungry, and impatient.

When he breaks it off, his thigh rubs against Will’s neglected hard-on, and he growls into his mouth, “Wait for me, yeah?”

”Yeah.”

“You’ll be a good boy now, yeah?”

”Yeah.”

“No more attitude unless you want to get punished, yeah?”

”Yeah.”

“Good. What a pretty princess you make, crying like you’re a model on the runway. You’re the prettiest crier I’ve ever seen, and I made all my victims cry before I bled them out.”

Will responds with a pathetic, shameful smile.

Mike grins wickedly, then rolls the mask down. The grin remains reflected in his eyes.

“See you later, princess. Have a safe journey home. And don’t worry-- nobody is touching you ever again.”

He drives off fast while Will stands there. His body aches and his heart still beats hard.

When he cries next, it’s a simple result of processing the levels of fucked up.

***

“Baby, are you alright? You don’t look alright. And yes, you keep telling me you are but-- are you really?”

Will looks at his mom, knowing he could never tell her the truth.

“I’m just a bit…”

Fucked up.

“Tired, I guess.”

He rushed into the shower immediately upon returning. It was around 4 pm. He scrubbed himself clean as the horror of all the bad decisions he’d been making began to catch up with him, and when nothing stung enough to help him forget, he made peace with a simple fact:

Denial was all he had left.

Now, he sits in the kitchen at the dining table, unable to enjoy one of the microwavable meals he bought earlier today, and his mom’s worried eyes riddle him with guilt like bullets.

Will takes another weak bite from the food, then pushes the rest at her. “Seriously, finish mine too please, I swear I’m just fine, but I guess I got a bit freaked out last night… I mean, like, obviously with you overhearing and all that.”

She confronted him with that in the morning. She was calm and empathetic, communicating her discomfort with hearing her son’s personal sexual business but, as she let him know, he’s definitely welcome to explore.

Just maybe not where she can hear it.

He nodded, feeling tiny and apologetic, but now it’s ironically a good reason to explain his sullen demeanor, at least judging by the way Joyce smiles, awkwardly saying, “Well, yeah, obviously not intended… I mean, sure, you’re young, you are eager to explore, I understand all that and I hold nothing against you. I was just-- god, when I heard the window open, I was so worried that--”

She doesn’t finish.

It serves as a perfect warning that Will files under don’t let that happen, and when he places his hand over hers supportively, muttering a soft, “I know. And I understand. Don’t worry. I was perfectly safe”, he feels like the biggest liar in the world.

She smiles back, her relief palpable.

It sickens him so well he doesn’t lie when he says, “Okay, gotta use the bathroom now. Must be the cheesecake earlier today or something”, pretending he doesn’t need to rush.

But when he reaches the upstairs bathroom, he only rinses his face. He uses his reflection to anchor himself, spending minutes on various breathing exercises, but at the end, there’s only one thing for him to do.

Will peers inside his pants, spotting the pretty pink underwear.

With a blush, he pulls his pants up, making sure not even the lace band is visible, then calms himself with thought of all this being nonsense and over the top. Tomorrow, he’ll go to his atelier in the town, paint some-- there’s a few commissions he’s almost done with and that should be done by the end of the next week, and the plan soothes him. It’s so basic and mundane that the lull he gets from it feels a bit like falling asleep.

Will reminds himself this is how life should be lived, this is what he should want and actually wants, and when nothing inside him resists the lie, it makes it the truth.

He checks all the windows on the second floor, and when he pauses by the guest room, he randomly looks at it.

Come to think of it, where was Mike hiding?

No, can’t have been… but. It wasn’t the bathroom, not the master bedroom, not his room…

Will experimentally tries the door…

Locked. Just as always. But his attention won’t abandon it, suspicion alive.

“Baby? Hey, Will!”

Curious, he wanders by the staircase, folding his arms down on the ceiling as he peers at his mom over its edge. “Yeah?”

“I was thinking of watching more shows. Jim will be coming soon eventually, maybe like within an hour or so. Wanna join me?”

And, what, not spend the following hours wondering when exactly will Mike strike back?

“Totally.”

****

“God, gotta love Suzanne Somers, what a queen.”

“For me, it was always Patrick Duffy.”

“Patrick Duffy, huh? See, not into dudes at all but that man-- what a fella. Would have definitely grabbed a drink with him.”

Tucked into Hopper’s side and nursing a glass of white wine, Joyce giggles, and seated on an armchair several feet too close for comfort, Will watches them, helplessly amused.

“But what about you, kid? Who do you like?” asks Hopper, prompting Will to look at the TV screen, the sound turned off while the intro plays, and he thinks.

“Hmmm, maybe Sasha Mitchell.”

“Cody? Never liked Cody, gotta tell you. Kid acted like a fool.”

“Sure, but a hot fool.”

Hopper scoffs, toasting that with his bottle of beer. “Dunno about that, but you do you, kid.”

Unable to help it, Will leans slyly on his side, but just as he’s about to say something utterly filthy just to get the ol’ man uncomfortable, Joyce gives him a wide-eyed, and Will slinks back, smiling coyly.

“Anything you wanted to say?” tries Hopper, squinting.

“No, not at all.”

“You swear, kid?”

“On my innocence.”

He scoffs and though Will won’t say it, it's for a good reason.

There’s a pizza box on the table. Only one slice remains, since Hopper arrived two hours earlier, bringing presents of wine, beer and pizza and a tacky apology about the work day dragging on but, hey, at least we don’t get a serial killer loose on our streets, eh?

Joyce answered with that eternal chagrined smile that confessed she was done with his shit, but had been raised to be soft and womanly and women don’t criticize their men. They say, “You ass” in indulgent impatience, getting Hopper to spend the next ten minutes on apologies.

Afterwards, they sat down to watch TV. Hopper did seem a bit offended they continued without him, but the reruns don’t wait, Joyce said, and Hopper had to begrudgingly accept that only his life revolved around him.

Now, they’re cozy and comfortable, and Will declined the offer of alcohol, happily huddled up under a patchwork blanket his mom made, watching enough TV to successfully ignore the constant stinking of the red bruises on his face. At least his face quickly paled. At least he got to excuse its initial redness by mentioning the wintry bite.

Someone rings the door.

With a huff, Hopper stands up, saying, “Let me answer that” with nobody stopping him, and moments later, the door is open, and he’s talking to someone. Their voices are too muffled to hear what they’re saying. It seems like a full-length conversation with a lot of back and forth, and when Hopper waddles by the living once more, Will turns to him, expecting him to dismissively comment on annoying neighbors.

Instead--

“Will,” he begins, but Will is no longer listening.

He’s sitting up, the blanket is down on the floor and behind Hopper he stands, all smiles and crazy eyes.

“Your ex-boyfriend Mike is here. Tell me this guy is full of shit, I’ll happily kick him out.”

Will isn’t processing.

Hopper jabs a thumb at Mike, and all Will can think is that no, you can’t let Mike stand behind you, you always gotta know where to find him. Don’t do this, Hopper. Do not taunt him.

Everyone but him.

“Something wrong, kid?”

“Not at all,” answers Mike, startling Hopper in a moment of realization that instead of waiting outside as he should have, he slipped in after him, silent like a thief.

Before Hopper can comment on it, Mike is already moving to Will, and the room has gone bitterly silent, the spaces humming with tension and electricity.

“How you been, Will? It’s been a while. I missed you.”

He pulls Will into a hug, and Will stands frozen for a while longer.

Mike’s lips are at his ear. ”Be smart.”

“Yeah-- yeah it has been a while. I think, god, I can’t even remember right now. Forever, I’m sure,” Will says awkwardly, returning the embrace and when his arms tighten around Mike’s body-- god, he missed him.

He’s a tall, mentally unstable killing machine but he feels familiar and Will’s eyes close-- and at that moment as he inhales him, the trap is complete. His rosy little blush confirms the lie, their bodies rocking as though they’re children enjoying an innocent touch.

“Will, you mentioned no Mike,” speaks Joyce, already standing up.

She lowers her wine on the coffee table, hands rubbed down her sides before she extends one politely, and Mike separates from Will, looking at her palm like it’s fucking disgusting.

“Yeah. I bet he didn’t.”

He shakes it.

“But we had a very short tumultuous thing so… I can’t blame him.”

“Oh, really? My god, well, please don’t tell me you hurt my son, because, honest to god, Mike, you might look like a total charmer but I pack a punch.”

Mike.

Laughs.

“Yeah. Don’t worry. It was all fine.”

Will watches the exchange, his stomach knotting. The handshake lasts forever from his perspective, the words are all gunshot wounds and when he looks at Hopper from the corner of his eyes, the man’s attention is similarly doubtful.

It actually makes everything worse.

“So would you like anything, Michael? A drink, maybe something to eat--”

Joyce is already rushing to the kitchen, but Mike chuckles, dismissing, “Not at all, Mrs Byers. I was honestly just passing through Hawkins, figured I could drop by at Will’s to see if he’s home. I’m happy to see he is.”

“Oh, yes, absolutely, my boy only leaves home for his exhibitions in Chicago. Did you meet there, by the way?”

She sits back down, reclaiming her drink.

“Yeah,” says Hopper, staring at Mike. “Where did you meet?”

He spots the startled look in Will’s eyes, honing in on him like an actual thief.

“Exactly as Mrs Byers said, in Chicago.”

“But when?”

Shit. He doesn’t know. He’s been stalking me too little. Oh god, I can’t believe I’m bothered by that. Hopper’s going to realize. He already suspects something.

Will’s attention swings to Hopper’s gun at his waist--

And Mike answers, smooth and casual.

“Two years ago, actually. Summer 2022, think we met, like, one week into his holiday in the city. If I’m not mistaken, I just saw you at a cafe, enjoying this ridiculously large cup of cappuccino and I just couldn’t help but sit down next to you and start asking you questions. I never knew it would lead into something more. Sometimes, a very small moment can lead to life-changing events.”

Will’s heart plummets.

How does he know?

He spent almost two whole months away from Hawkins, renting out a nice apartment in the city and enjoying a significantly debauched living. It was the time that he attempted to explore what he wanted and get to the hang of the no-sex mystery. He returned home, fulfilled but also disappointed, and when his mom pressed him for more details, he said he’d tell her more one day. She cooed and laughed at him. He felt like a walking mystery.

The only real mystery here is Mike.

Hopper slants Will a look. “Is that why you returned all weird from Chicago?”

Will just a bit, and nods. “Yeah, for sure. I mean, we just had a short thing and--”

“Ouch,” says Mike.

“Oh, I meant, like--”

“Boys,” admonishes Joyce gently, nodding in the direction of the kitchen. “Maybe you need to have a more private conversation elsewhere.”

“Yeah, but not upstairs,” warns Hopper, begrudgingly sitting down beside her. “Not after what your mother told me.”

Will gets a startled look and Mike laughs.

“Yeah.” He’s already grabbing Will’s hand. “Let’s talk in the kitchen.”

His is warm and big.

With one final nod of confirmation, Will lets Mike lead him into the kitchen which is just across the hallway. The only lefts on are in the living room.

“Mike--”

“Hush, pet, you don’t want them to know, do you?”

Without ado, he’s pushing Will into a kitchen counter, strafing back to check they’re not being watched, before he roughly grabs Will’s pants, and stares into them.

His laughter is pure elevation.

“You wore them… Good. You deserve a treat.”

“I’m not a dog.”

“You’re whatever I want to be.”

“Is this how it’s going to be?”

“Baby, you know I’m not sane, what on earth were you expecting?” he asks, clutching Will’s face. His smile is wild-- it underscores everything he says.

Will’s voice stutters. “I, I just… Why are you here?”

Mike’s smile widens.

“Because, you. Are. Mine. And because…”

He directs one of Will’s hands to his waistband, and Will comprehends the trickery of cold months; they can hide anything under thick, warm clothes.

Such as a knife.

And when Mike forces him to feel its shape, the last time replays in Will’s mind; there’s a hole in his bed his mom hasn’t noticed yet. And he hasn’t even planned how to hide it yet. The hilt is a rowdy reminder, slicked in something slippery to make the motions easier, and he nervously stutters.

When his face goes perfectly pale, Mike laughs into his lips, and the moment goes uncomfortably silent.

“Did you miss it?”

“N-no. I didn’t.”

“Liar.”

He forces Will’s hand to jerk it off like a cock, and when the motions bury heat into the pit of Will’s stomach, he attempts to escape the moment by looking away.

“I think you missed it very much actually,” whispers Mike, chasing Will’s lips with his own-- when they align, he talks into them, brushing them together with every carefully enunciated word. “In fact, I’m convinced you’re absolutely crazy for it. You looked so good riding it, Will, so good…”

Will knows where this is going before Mike finishes. He focuses on the sounds of the TV. He despairs to return into that warm, well-lit world with stupid jokes and old actors where his biggest concern is doom-scrolling on his phone and being too lazy to sit down for dinner for a few hours.

“Turn around, Will, and bend over.”

He pulls the knife out.

Will is close to begging.

Will sees the look in Mike’s eyes, asking him without a word, give me a reason.

For a moment, he’s sure Hopper could take him. He’s got a gun. And if Will shouted for him, perhaps Mike’s upper hand would be their closeness. He could stab him. He’s certainly got the appetite. But one good bullet between his eyes would end the reign of a Slasher who’s realistically a frightening enemy of the people, and when Will moves too slowly, when he doesn’t turn with the urgency Mike expects from him, Mike smirks.

“You need extra motivation, huh? Alright. How about this?”

He’s wearing a glove. It grips the edge of the knife tight enough it should leave a thin slice on the palm-- but the material is thick, sturdy leather. When his hand clenches, it creaks.

And the hilt is presented.

“One thrust, one question.”

Will stares at it, actually thinking. “Here?” he asks, slanting a look at the kitchen.

The counters form an L shape, and if they stand at its tail, the microwave will be in the way. He’ll have a direct view of the living room door and if anyone stands up to check on them, his face will be the first thing they see. They won’t be able to notice the knife inside him, or the reality of his lowered pants. It’ll be perfect. Sneaky.

And insane.

When Mike nods, brushing their noses together, Will’s breath shudders. “And… is it any question?”

Another nod, and warning glint in Mike’s expression.

One more question.

“And will you answer honestly?”

“Yes.”

Will tenses for a moment, three, two, one-- then in Mike’s hold, he turns, and positions himself right at the short end of the counters, hands braced on its surface, his ass offered.

A moment later, his pants are tugged all the way down to ankles.

“Mi-mike, wait, that’s too--”

“Sh.”

He fits right behind him, squeezing his cheeks.

Will flinches.

“See? Still so tender for me. I’d hope you’d remember your punishment. Unless you’d enjoy that reminder.”

“No. No need.”

Heart down in his stomach, Will stalks the living room door with unprecedented fear. It has the potential to suffocate him.

“Just-- just hurry please and put it and--”

Wrong answer.

Mike places his knife on the counter-top-- gentle, slow.

“It’s killed dozens of people, what’s two more?”

Will’s eyes fly to the living room, to the couch he can’t see at all, the armchair he sat on, but he knows where Hopper and his mom are. He can still see the way they prefer to sit, leaning into each other like the lovebirds they are. The couch doesn’t line the wall. They wouldn’t know what was happening until it was too late.

Mike’s voice flows like pure poison into Will’s ear.

“See, I’d just knock you out first. There’s a lot of ways to do it that cause no noise. Then I’d come to them. I’d creep behind them, careful not to be spotted as a reflection in furniture, as a shadow. I’d get him first.”

Will can see it already. Mike would move like a ghost, exactly as he did in his room; he’d become tangible only when he made that choice.

“I’d stab him in his head, a quick, even merciful death. Then her. Do you know she’d go into shock? They always do. See, they say it’s forty-seven victims. But once, I had very awkward beginnings. I got to play. I got to try. I became the Bedside Slasher only once I decided on my MO. But once…”

Their laughter echoes from the living room.

“I killed pretty little families like yours.”

Will’s world tilts, and the world fades away.

“The dad, the mom, the children. I always took out the men first. They like to put on a front. They’re strong. They have muscles. But most commonly, if you earn the trust of the children, you earn the trust of the parents. It begins with a child, progresses to the mother, ends in the father. I learned to kill them in that order. From the strongest, to the weakest. You know what a dying child sounds like, William? A stuck fucking pig. I wonder what your mom would sound like. That little visceral scream of shock as she saw blood come down Hopper’s face--”

“Stop it.”

Will’s shaking.

“I get it. I understand. I’m sorry. Proceed at your pace. I won’t do that again.”

He feels Mike’s smile.

“My precious little princess. You’re so pretty when you cry.”

He turns Will’s head to himself, and licks a tear off his face.

“Glad you are learning.”

“How’re you doing, boys? Anything you need?”

There’s a lull in the reruns.

Mike grins, letting the trustworthiness of the expression bleed into his tone as he answers, "Absolutely alright, Mrs Byers! Sorry about being quiet!”

He reclaims his knife.

“We’ll make sure to make more noise! Right, Will?”

And wedges its hilt into Will’s hole.

Will whimpers.

“Y-yeah!”

Oh, god, oh god.

“We’re just talking, mom…”

Until it breaches the stubborn ring of muscle, sucked right into his hot body.

“Enjoy your show.”

Then, it’s right up to the hilt.

“You remember the deal,” Mike mutters into his ear. As though in apology, he kisses the top of it. “Ask a question.”

Panting, Will nods. “Okay, just gimme a second. I need to-- I need to adjust.”

Mike chuckles. “Since you’re being so servile-- why not? Have your second.”

His words turn dark.

“And now that you’ve had it--”

He twists the knife.

“Ask.”

Will redirects the shudder down to his ankles, letting the sounds of the TV show wash over him in comfort.

“I-- are you planning to kill me?”

Mike clucks his tongue.

“Starting with the hard questions, huh? Alright. If anything gets in my way, yes.”

Will shudders.

“Imagine this,” Mike continues, nuzzling the side of Will’s throat.“You try to alert the authorities-- I kill you. You try to leave-- I kill you. You leave-- I kill everyone you love, then you. If I can’t have you, nobody will.”

There’s a quality to his tone that makes the statements conversational. A smoothness, a suave effect that demands docility with success.

But it doesn’t last.

And when Mike adds, “Bite down on something”, Will knows the thrust will punish him for an attraction he cannot help.

Mike pulls the knife almost out--

And though Will clenches his mouth tight, though he tenses up, nothing prepares him for that ruthless thrust into his prostate, so perfectly aimed that his body doesn’t sing; it screams.

And Will’s tension breaks, his knees buckle, he collapses, and a sound comes out: a guttural, heady cry.

“Hey, hey, HEY, what’s going on there?”

“I’m sorry!”

It comes out of him next, a trained and smart response as he pulls the sex out of his voice, spluttering out a lame, “I swear we’re just talking.”

“Just talking, huh?” shouts back Hopper. “Well, talk softer.”

“Jim,” they hear next, a gentle admonishment.

“I swear to god if--”

The TV steals the rest of his words. Into Will’s ear, Mike chuckles.

“Smart.”

“I know.”

Mike drags his lips over the side of Will’s throat, then pauses at the jaw. He nips there. He leaves a hot trail of kisses there, inhaling Will repeatedly.

Mine.

“Question, love.”

“Why me?”

“Boring, Will, I’ve already answered it.”

“Have you really? Then let me ask differently-- what do you really plan on doing with me?”

Mike stays silent, like anything he’s said before was just a partial, digestible truth. Now he is confronted with being honest, even if he refused to be. Perhaps he fears himself. Perhaps the depth of what he feels for Will is startlingly real. Any other person in his place would be forced to re-assess their reactions.

But for Mike, the subsequent realization becomes the final nail in the coffin.

“You know… that is a fantastic question. Yet another hard-hitter. Let me put it this way… I’ve had beautiful women under me. I’ve had beautiful men under me. I’ve watched the lives of people everyone else could envy. Young, in the prime of their lives, strong, flexible, and so attractive… I’ve been begged. I’ve had them kneel at my feet, offering any hole for fucking. It’s how it goes. Hours of breaking their minds yield very interesting results once I let them talk. Did you know that? You wouldn’t. Not even the forensic analysts know… They get to talk, Will, they get to beg. I always choose them with one end-goal: see if somehow, they can make me change my mind…”

He pulls the knife out-- and then slides it back in, then out and in again and he starts fucking Will, mixing in his honeyed words.

“They can’t, Will, they never can. And do you know how that makes me feel? How I look at their wild success and useless beauty?”

Pleasure addles Will’s thoughts, and Mike wraps his other hand around Will’s mouth, stifling his moans.

“Mad.”

The pace picks up-- pounding his prostate to hard, and vulgar sounds.

“It makes me so mad, Will, to know that in a moment where we’re so intimate, when they’re fighting for their life, they fail to do that one thing that would save them: interest me.”

Ecstasy whitens Will’s vision. The orgasm that creeps up along his spine is sharp, unhinged, and the presence of the hand does something filthy to him; it makes him moan. It makes him time his sounds to the laugh tracks, to tread the line between safety and being found out.

It occurs to him then that Mike could whip his cock out and fuck him well-- he wants him, hard and leaking his precum all over the floor.

He’ll lick it off while Mike watches him go low.

His thoughts devolve to something beyond sultry, adopting a shade of deranged that feels as foreign as the most natural expression.

Then, the hand slides away.

Nothing remains but the unfaltering pace, leaving his hole gaping open. Nothing but the thickness of the hilt, hard and unforgiving, but the beating rhythm it delivers is somehow exactly what Will needs. Legs spread, cock twitching, whining secretly while Mike ravages him and watches his ass devour the hilt eagerly.

It makes Will so eager to see the face he’s making.

In a moment of incomprehensible debauchery, Will angles Mike a look over the top of his shoulder, catching the dark expression.

“Do I interest you, monster?”

“You do, monster.”

“Then use your cock.”

Mike’s expression defines ardor, and possession.

He pulls the hilt out-- sheathes it. Looks at the living room door-- their cheeks pressed together.

When he lowers his pants, when Will feels the full weight of the cock, it doesn’t happen just yet. Instead, in a sequence of motions, Mike coats himself in a cool liquid that will make everything better, and Will cannot help but feel the gratitude that Mike isn’t such a monster.

But he is a monster.

He enters Will in a single quick slide and Will leans into him, head falling back on Mike’s shoulder and he sighs--

“Why do you feel so good inside me?”

“Because we’re meant to be.”

He delivers careful, shallow thrusts. He won’t fuck to the hilt, lest he’ll slap their bodies together, but he fucks him anyway, all questions forgotten, just them in a dangerous moment.

Both watch the door, hypnotizing the light there-- both stare, fighting to remain in any kind of focus as Mike buries himself into Will in repeats, turned on by the thought of being discovered, the heat of still getting away with it.

When Will lifts one hand to cup Mike’s cheek, it feels all too intimate like it isn’t their bodies coming together that carries the utmost weight-- but that moment when Will tilts Mike’s head towards himself--

When they both look away from the door and kiss, wet and hot.

Then, Mike dares to fuck harder.

He slams to the hilt-- because the TV is loud.

He slams hard-- Will’s lashes flutter, and---

“Mine.”

Mike moans it as he grabs a fistful of Will’s hair and tips his head back.

He segues from kissing his lips to kissing his throat.

And Will watches the living room, seeing Hopper get up.

It’s slow.

So is the orgasm that builds up in his lower body, spiking harder when the threat of discovery peaks. There Hopper is, engaged in a conversation with Joyce, leaving the living room and then constantly returning as she continues to drag him back into the conversation, and Will is so close, god, so close, he’s stalking Hopper’s figure and he’s so fucking close.

When it fully hits, he almost collapses.

It courses throughout his body, blinding.

And his lips part in a soundless moan as he clamps around Mike, squeezing his hard length that won’t stop plunging inside.

It’s how he comes too, stifling his own moan into Will’s neck and then they’re pulling apart--

Mike’s ducking down, pulling Will’s pants up and he’s turned around and Hopper enters, turning the lights on.

He shoots them a suspicious glare.

“Yeah, three feet of distance between you two, exactly how I prefer it.”

Mike’s cum trickles down Will’s thigh.

“Ah, yeah, um--”

Voice pitched too raw and high, he fails to talk and Mike coughs, brushing hair from his sweaty face.

When Hopper gives them a suspicious look, Mike grins. “Can’t even kiss?”

“Sure, kiss away. Maybe upstairs.”

“I’m actually about to leave.”

“You are?”

Mike smiles, tickled by Will’s tender shock. “I am,” he answers, holding out his hand-- “Wanna see me out?”

Will shakily straightens up, and nods. “Sure.”

Knowing well that walking won’t be his forte, Mike reaches him, acting the part of a rekindled frame as his arm around Will’s waist steadies him.

“Let’s go now,” he whispers, something wild burning in his expression.

They reach the door, ignoring Hopper’s annoyingly perceptive expression, and when Will opens it, Mike pulls him out first.

It closes behind them and they’re kissing, hungry and vulgar as Will pulls him in, and his back hits the door, and Mike’s hand ventures between Will’s legs, teasing over the abused hole.

When he tucks his cum back inside him, Will shudders, pausing the kiss.

Mike sucks on his tongue, then pulls his hand out, placing it between Will’s lips.

He takes them in obediently, their eyes locking.

“My fellow madman,” he gushes.

His smile is as smitten as it’s dangerous.

“I’m gonna leave you a present tonight, alright?”

“Yeah.”

“And then you’ll believe it’s me, alright?”

“Yeah.”

In awe, Mike strokes Will’s cheek. “You’re so pretty… and you’re mine.”

He laughs, as though unable to believe his luck. It’s a giddy, and concerning sound.

“Good night, Will.”

With that, he begins to sink into the early night.

“Good night, my love.”

His voice is sweet, and romantic as he departs.

The present he delivers is forty-eight stab wounds far from being sweet.