Chapter Text
Dark red splattered like fireworks.
Hot and blinding as it oozed from his surroundings.
He felt the physical weight of the toxic air bleeding into his lungs. Each agonizing breath forced him a step closer to fatality.
No, no, no.
This can’t be happening.
He desperately circled to find an exit, but was met with nothing but jagged terrain that stuck out of the darkness like shards of broken glass. Ebony vines snaked across the ground, finding their way up his waist and around his throat.
They threatened to squeeze the soul out of him.
He was trapped, like a songbird in a rusted cage, uselessly screeching for freedom.
Then a raspy voice split through his skull, “William…”
Will Byers shot up in his bed, gasping for air. It was cold and rigid as it filled his mouth, offering no comfort whatsoever.
His blanket had been thrown off in his sleep, and his sheets were a mess. Brown hair clung to his forehead from sweat and heat as his heart pounded against his ribs. By instinct, he stepped (or more so hovered as he didn’t feel completely real yet) to the pale blue telephone mounted on the wall a few feet to the left of his bed. The wooden floor of his dormitory felt like ice under his bare feet, as did many things during winter in Manhattan, New York.
He pressed his shaky finger to the keys, punching in the number he had memorized by heart. The line barely rang twice before a sleepy voice answered.
“Hello?”
His uneven breathing only allowed him to get one thing out— “Mike?”
He heard some shifting on the other end before the boy spoke again, this time sounding more alert, “Will? Did you have another nightmare?”
He nodded his head, which was stupid because Mike wouldn’t even see the action. Of course, he had a nightmare. They’ve been happening routinely, but this one felt different. “Yes, but I-it felt so–” he whispered between gasps, “real.”
Usually Mike’s voice would’ve calmed him down, as it did countless nights before, but for some reason his heart continued to stutter, and it only seemed to get faster and faster.
Suddenly, he dropped the phone— letting it hang from the wire, as his knees hit the ground and a pained sob escaped his lips. The sound was pathetic, really.
Mike’s words sounded from the speaker, but to Will, they were an incoherent blur as panic invaded his bloodstream.
Then the line went dead.
He sat with his back against the cold wall, knees hugged up to his chest, and sweaty palms pressing into his eyelids as he cried.
Weak.
The word echoed in his mind.
That’s what Will was. That’s all he’d ever be.
…
He didn’t know how much time had passed— maybe hours, maybe a few minutes. His breathing had somewhat slowed, and tear tracks dried on his cheeks.
There was a knock on his window.
Will’s eyes widened in fear as he made out a dark silhouette peering through the glass. He sprang to his feet— aching limbs be damned, and pushed himself flat against the door, away from the intruder.
Another knock bounced around the small space, then a muffled voice—“Will! Let me in, I’m gonna freeze to death out here!”
It took him a second before he rushed to the figure and cracked open the window. The gush of cold that hit his face sent a shiver through his body as he squinted against the vast white of the snow that glowed in the moonlight.
A clumsy Mike toppled into his room and landed on the ground beside him, and he quickly shut the outside world back out. It was just the two boys existing between the closing walls of his dorm room.
He stared at the eighteen-year-old sprawled out at his feet and shook his head. “Mike, are you crazy?! It’s practically hailing, and you came all the way here? How? Why??”
Dark eyes bore into his as Mike met his gaze with a grin. His heart sped up again, not from fear this time, though. “I walked.” He said, shaking the pellets of snow from his perfectly messy curls. “Are- are you okay?” He asked, his bravado dissolved, and concern took its place.
Will’s heart gave a tug— it wasn’t sweet— it just cut open a forgotten wound. Leaving him to bleed. “You came all this way… just to ask?”
“Yeah, you’re my best friend.”
Best friend. That's as far as they would ever go. It was fine, though; he had already accepted that boys like him didn’t get what they wanted. It was the punishment for his vile sin. “Oh.” He mumbled.
Mike hopped to his feet; he had a few inches over Will, who had to tilt his head up slightly to look at him. “Well, we should go to sleep. It’s like, 2 am,” he said.
Will blinked. “We?”
“Yeah,” Mike was already grabbing a blanket and settling on the floor beside his bed. “So if you have another nightmare, I can help,” He said casually, “It’s basically a sleepover.”
“Right.”
~•~
“Come on, Will, it’s really late!” Exclaimed the twelve-year-old boy.
Will glanced out the window at the darkness outside and decided, “You can sleep over!”
Mike’s brown eyes glimmered. God, he was beautiful. “Yes!” He cheered, already positioning himself on Will’s bed. It wasn’t big, but he couldn’t let his friend sleep on the floor, right? What kind of host would he be if he did that?
He jumped onto the bed beside him.
~•~
Finally, Will’s body started to function again, and he slipped under his sheets. Despite the weather, the room felt scorching, and his skin was practically melting off him. They didn’t speak after that, but his mind was racing. His thoughts were disgusting; filled with something he knew he’d never deserve—
He was disgusting.
He bit his tongue, a metallic taste pooling in his mouth, as he glanced at the boy in his room. It was too dark to make out much of his features, but Will had them ingrained into his filthy mind ever since he could remember. He watched as Mike’s breathing deepened and his chest rose and fell with the action. But he could sense a tension in his muscles, probably from the cold.
Will lay awake for what felt like eternity.
He could tell Mike to sleep on the soft bed instead of the uncomfortable floorboards. Tell him how he'd give all his warmth to him if he ever asked.
He didn’t.