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freetobeeyouandme · 1 year ago

Text

Like My Mirror Years Ago

Tags: Rated M, No Archive Warnings Apply, Bylerween 2023, Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, Supernatural Creatures, CW Blood, Vampire!Mike, Aged-Up Character(s)

Words: 5.2k

Summary:

It’s the man’s colors, that haunt him. The pale skin, so white it’s almost translucent, combined with the soft darkness of his hair, falling long past his face in such an antiquated manner. The delicate nose, the cheekbones…Will is an artist, he should know beauty, has set it down in charcoals, watercolors and oils over and over for the history of the future to admire, and yet he has never come across a face so delicate, so attractive. He could paint it a hundred times and never tire of it. He could only paint this man for the rest of eternity and his soul would know no greater joy. Even he, never skilled with the hammer and the chisel, wants to carve marble replica after marble replica, wants to be the Pgymalion to this Galatea. He is Helen and Will is all the suitors, already at war with himself at just the slightest glance. - Or, Bylerween Day 6: Supernatural Creatures

read on Ao3 or below; see whole collection

A/N:

Happy Halloween and to celebrate this most holy day, here's probably actually my favorite fic I've written for Bylerween 2023. Vampires are my favorite type of creature and so this was insanely fun. It was also cool to try out a more flowery writing style as I tried to channel gay irish fin de siècle writer with this. And accordingly it ended up being as horny as I dared to go considering the event limitations. Also a big shout out to this amazing art by @ekza-art, which basically inspired this entire thing. CW: Blood

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Will thinks, before he even enters the dining room, that this has been a mistake. He could have hired someone to bring the picture across town or insisted that Mr. Wheeler send someone to fetch it for him since it was so valuable to him. It meant nothing to Will. He hadn’t even meant to sell it, but then the man had insisted, and well, Will could use the money. He needs paints that haven’t already dried on a canvas decades before he was even born, and if Murray was still here he would have surely done the same thing. He is sure of it.

But here he is, having caught a handsome to personally deliver the painting to the nice townhouse on the other side of London, obligated, now, to have supper with this man he barely knows because he seems to cave like a house of cards whenever the man insists on anything.

He is Helen and Will is all the suitors, already at war with himself at just the slightest glance.

The face waits for him at the head of the table, a glass of red wine before it and nothing else. Mr. Wheeler smiles, brilliant white teeth flashing sharply at Will as he stretches out a hand to gesture to the chair at his right. “Mr. Byers. Please, sit. James will be out with your supper in but a minute.” Will inclines his head and takes the seat offered to him. He’s noticed this particularity of the man before. Your supper, your peers, you English, as if he is exempt from it all. A foreigner in looks and manners, except one would never know from his speech, his English, although at times old-fashioned, is free from even a hint of an accent. And his name, too, hints more that his family has been in this country for centuries, and if the house and his clothes are any indication has even done rather well for itself.

True to his words, the butler is out with Will’s supper just a minute after he has taken his seat. It’s just a simple plate of soup with a side of still warm bread, but Will hadn’t realized how famished he is until the smell of the onion and carrot hits his nose. He takes up his cutlery, then looks to his host, lost because James had only brought out one set of plates and Mr. Wheeler seems not in a hurry to correct his servants mistake.

“Will you not be eating?” Will dares to ask.

Mr. Wheeler smiles, long white fingers playing with the stem of his glass. “My apologies for this rather bare display of hospitality. I am not a man of…much appetite. I never sup, but I felt it would be prudent not to offer such comforts as I could to my guest, so please do start before your soup cools and do not worry yourself about me.”

Will nods and, feeling a little awkward at it anyway, starts to eat, glad at it after the first bite warms his stomach and gives him something to do while he figures out a polite way to start a conversation.

Luckily his host has a greater appetite for talking than he has for food, and so before Will can make a fool of himself, he says: “I don’t believe I ever properly extended my condolences to you for the passing of your mentor. My father only briefly met the man and I never, but one hears things and I have seen some of Mr. Bauman’s work. It is a shame he has gone from us already.”

“Thank you,” Will says warmly. “It truly is a tragedy that his heart gave out so relatively early in life, and this after he had just begun settling down a little. I am very grateful for all that he has done for me, from apprenticing me to now, even in death, looking out for me by making me his sole heir.”

“He had no family then?”

Will gives a quiet laugh at the idea of Murray with a wife and children, as if anyone could have dragged him from his studio or the gentleman’s club he frequented – or from the bottle he so admired. “No, nor do I think Mr. Bauman ever planned on marrying. He had a rather...strong character, and being an artists wife is no easy feat on top of that.”

Mr. Wheeler nods as if he can imagine that, then turns his wineglass as he ponders something. Eventually he says: “You speak from experience then? Has Ophelia complained?”

Will pauses with his spoon to his mouth, taken aback by the question and the implication, needing to take a moment to even figure out what outlandish conclusion Mr. Wheeler had come to. “No,” he says quietly. “Oh, no, not at all. I thought you would have recognized her, but perhaps Mr. Sinclair had no time to introduce you to her, after all Miss Mayfield has been rather preoccupied since the beginning of her mother’s illness. But, no, Ophelia is but a dear friend of mine, and will soon be Mrs. Lucas Sinclair.”

“So there is no family for you, either?” Mr. Wheeler shifts in his seat, leaning forward just a little, as if Will’s answer is important somehow even though Will cannot fathom why. He hopes it is not because he has heard some lady or other make a comment which he is eager to share with Will or because Mr. Wheeler has some lady friend he would like to introduce to Will at his convenience.

“My mother and brother live in London, not so far away from me, but I have no family of my own, no,” Will says, preparing to fend any advances off with his usual arguments about the plight of poor artists and the unwillingness to subject any wife to his ungrateful life.

But Mr. Wheeler says nothing. He blinks a few times and then averts his eyes from Will to stare at his glass with the same intense furrow between his eyes with which he had regarded Will.

When Mr. Wheeler says nothing else, clearly not just contemplating something but having finished with the subject, Will clears his throat and broaches the only polite topic he can think of: “The portrait of your great grandfather’s must have meant a great deal to you, to go to such lengths to acquire it.”

Mr. Wheeler smiles, shaken from his reverie. “He was a man that did a lot of traveling, but he left a lot of things in a lot of places, none of which were wise and none of which benefit his family, now.”

Will nods. “So the painting is to fill up an ancestral family gallery that he desperately tried to avoid in life.”

Mr. Wheeler chuckles. “Ancestral is perhaps too grand a word. But yes, it is meant to come with me to Silverlake Manor, which has been in the family’s possession since my great grandfather’s time and where it will likely find a place in the gallery.”

“And you’ll be returning there shortly?”

Mr. Wheeler blinks. “Have signs of my packing already made it into the parlor?”

Will ducks his head sheepishly as he places the cutlery back next to his now empty plate. “No, not in the slightest. My apologies, I did not mean to insinuate such unprofessional conduct of your staff. No, I simply inferred it by the fact that most people rarely come to London in the summer and you probably only planned to stay as long as it took you to conclude your business. After all, what use is a country house if one does not spend their time there in the summer, when there is lots of fresh air to be had, and sunshine.”

Mr. Wheeler laughs, loud and sudden, as if he had not meant to make a noise at all but could not contain himself. It’s a musical sound, altogether pleasant to the ear, and it seems precious, to Will, so that having evoked it sends his heart fluttering.

When he has composed himself again, his host says: “My apologies. It just reminded me of something a dear friend of mine once said to me.”

“No apologies necessary,” Will assures him. He moves his chair back to indicate that he is done and takes a long look at the darkness visible outside of the window just behind Mr. Wheeler.

His host is quick on the uptake. “I hope supper was to your liking. Should I ring for James to fetch you some more?”

“It was, thank you very much. But no, I think I have had enough. And I believe I should be off soon, too.”

Something flickers in Mr. Wheeler’s eyes, and his jaw clenches, barely perceptible. Before Will has time to wonder how he managed to offend the man, it is gone, replaced, again, by that unnerving smile. “Of course. You probably have a lot of appointments to take care of tomorrow? I heard all of London is abuzz about the prodigal apprentice of the late Mr. Bauman.”

“Thank you, but no, not that I know of, no. It’s possible that I will arrive to a number of calling cards having been left with my housekeeper and there will probably be inquiries enough tomorrow morning. But at the moment I have no clients and my only work is finishing my Ophelias.”

Mr Wheeler is quiet longer than Will would assume it would take to form a response to that statement, but considering how intently Mr. Wheeler stares at his glass of wine Will also feels apprehensive of simply continuing talking. When he finally speaks, the amused aloofness seems to have fled the man completely: “Please do not take my saying so the wrong way, but I believe that should be considered a blessing. Talent like yours should not be squandered on portraits and miniatures.”

Will laughs, surprised: “That is kind of you to say. The Ophelias have let me transition from my old workshop to Murray’s without hurry and with relative ease, but ever artist must earn his keep, I am afraid.”

“What would you draw if you did not have to?”

The question takes Will aback. He bites his tongue to keep that first, instinctual reply inside of his mouth: You. But Mr. Wheeler does not need to know of the pages of Will’s sketchbook that his countenance already fills, and he must even less know of the way Will will render this evening in sharp contrasts until his fingers are stained as black as the bags under his eyes from drawing all night.

He pretends to consider his glass of wine, then answers slowly: “I would perhaps compliment the Ophelia series. There are a...few scenes from Hamlet that I would still like to render, set her warmth apart from the prince with cold tones and deep contrasts. I might also- I think I would render more tragic ladies. If I am to find myself a Clytemnestra, a Desdemona , an Antigone one day. But I have no plans.”

“Mr. Sinclair as Hamlet, perhaps?”

Will laughs. “I have sketched him as Othello, once, but perhaps a Hamlet, sure. Although I think a paler model would work better with the cold tones I envision. But I have no time as it stands, so I do not think this is a serious consideration.”

Again Mr. Wheeler is quiet for a long moment, again Will stills, unwilling to interrupt him. It gives him time to study him, to commit to memory the features he is sure he will not see again for a long time. Perhaps he will need no model for Hamlet. Perhaps, also, he will keep Hamlet to himself, to worship in private.

When Mr. Wheeler speaks next, Will is ill prepared for his suggestion. Leaning forward, his host begins: “William – may I call you that? May we be William and Michael to one another?” He smiles, a small, much more delicate thing than the ones before, when Will nods his agreement. “William,” he says, seeming to find joy in the name. “What would you say about accompanying me to Silverlake Manor? You’d have plenty of time to draw then, and the quiet to do excellent work – I promise, I myself will not be taking up your time and neither will there be many visitors aside from Miss Hopper, who I can also vouch for will not bother you too much, although she might ask you to teach her a thing or two. She renders an excellent still life, but her people are still rather abstract creatures.”

Will swallows, again, and averts his eyes, playing with his glass of wine. The idea is spontaneous but not unwelcome: At Silverlake he would be free to do as he pleases without having many expenses, living at the cost of Mr. Wheeler’s hospitality. He sure that whatever companionship he would have to offer in return for such would not detract too greatly from his time, at the very least less so than commissions for portraits would. And perhaps he might convince Mr. Wheeler to play his Hamlet, at least for one work, even if it will never leave Silverlake – the sudden need to paint him like this, to put to canvas the vision his earlier question had inspired, has his fingertips itching. He already knows which blues he wants to use, what scene he wants to paint.

He’ll need to finish one of his Ophelias, leave it for Dustin to sell, and take the others with him to make sure there will be enough income to keep the atelier and the apartment above it. But he should be able to make this work.

And he wants to make it work. It’s a dangerous desire but he wants more chances to study this face, wants to get to know this strange man better, thinks that with time perhaps they could become friends, and while Will’s heart warns him of becoming friends with such a man, lest his infatuations turn to worse and he leaves Silverlake with shattered hopes and worse prospects than he had arrived, he cannot help but want.

“That would-” he starts, then clears his throat to buy himself a moment to find more appropriate phrasing. “I would be honored to be your guest and meet Miss Hopper – and to teach her, if she so desires. I believe if she is anything like you, her friend, she would make wonderful company and Silverlake should make for an excellent environment to work in.”

Mr. Wheeler – Michael – rises with a small, happy smile, but pauses with his hand already on the bell on the table behind him, some thought, some reservation, perhaps, making him delay with a frown. “You never commented on it. You have a keen eye, and people with less talent or tact certainly have noticed, and they will not shut up about what a gift inheriting my great-grandfather’s features must be for me.”

“I did not see the need to repeat merely what everyone else has already said. The resemblance is close and it certainly must be a gift, but I did not get the impression you required such shallow flattery.”

Michael laughs again, happily, and Will’s heart issues another warning at the way he feels his cheeks heat at the joy of having given the right answer, at being the cause for such happiness: Already he teeters on the edge of infatuation and something else, a boundary he should not cross. But Michael rings the bell, summoning his servant, and Will forgets caution as a summer in the country beckons.

“James, Mr. Byers has just agreed to accompany me to Silverlake. He’ll be leaving with me in the morning, ask his housekeeper to pack for him and then make sure you have his paints and paintings sent after us. We don’t want to separate the artist from his tools, after all.” Will freezes at the quickness of these plans and the predatory precision with which Michael steps away from the bell, back towards the table, back to where Will is sitting, without even so much as glancing at him. “Also send word to Jane that we will have company. And prepare a bed for Mr. Byers, upstairs, please. I have decided to take a little supper after all.”

James’s mouth twitches darkly, but he bows and takes his leave to do as he is bidden.

Will swallows hard as Michael reaches him, and extending his long white fingers, traces the line from his temple down across his cheek and to the point of his chin. Up until then the two of them had never touched beyond shaking hands, and Will feels a shiver run down his spine, settling coldly at the base of it, at the cool touch. His heart screams out a loud warning, but his body, treacherous and needy, is torn on whether to obey.

“Your heartbeat is racing,” Michael observes, tone matter of fact.

Will tries to wet his tongue to answer, finding his mouth dry out as his heart jumps up to start beating in his throat, and wonders how loud it must be that the man standing next to him can hear it.

Michael smiles apologetically. “If I have overwhelmed you, I apologize. I know this is…quite spontaneous, but I am afraid I cannot delay my return much longer and there is a certain…procedure for things.”

Will opens his mouth to start formulating the objection: He could have simply followed behind a day or two, gotten his affairs in order on his own and not interfere with whatever particularities Michael is so intent on. But then Michael’s hand finds his shoulder, settling on it heavy and as if they have done this a million times before, and all Will can do is keep breathing.

“Are you scared?” Michael asks, letting go of him only to pull his chair around the table to take a seat right next to Will and then encircling his wrist with icy fingers. With his other hand he begins rolling up Will’s sleeve.

For a moment Will can’t move, neither to nod or shake his head, too preoccupied with the way his stomach tenses at Michael’s advances and his body decides to smother his heart’s final warnings: He had not been aware that this would be part of the deal, that the invitation to join him at Silverlake must have been as much Michael reflecting Will’s own infatuation and desire as it had been his idealism about Will’s art, and suddenly the situation is much more delicate. He can say no, of course, but if he nods now, says that he is scared, even if it would be the truth, the retreat will be final and complete; There will be no Silverlake for Will, nor will he see Michael again.

So, he shakes his head.

When Michael smiles it’s an open mouthed, wide thing, showing off his teeth – baring his teeth, especially the set of long and sharp canines that Will swears had not been there before. Michael pulls Will’s empty plate in front of him and then holds Will’s bared arm above it.

The last objection Will might have had, that James is sure to return with Micheal’s supper any second and they should perhaps take care not to let his servant see, dies in his throat as he realizes what Michael had meant with supper.

“You’re lying,” Michael says and then presses his cold lips to the inside of Will’s arm. His teeth graze the skin that feels suddenly delicate and precious, only more so when his hand finds Will’s and folds it into a fist.

He pulls back a little, eyes meeting Will’s intensely, wordlessly conveying all that will happen unless Will objects now, his last chance to retreat. But Will doesn’t want to object, cannot object, can do nothing but watch, breathless, his stomach tight with apprehension, wondering stupidly how much of a boundary he’d cross if he reached out and petted Michael’s hair as he leans down to press a delicate kiss to Will’s wrist.

And then Michael bites him.

Will understands, then, why it had mattered that he had said nothing about the painting. He understands, too, why his master’s master had been so enamored with it, why it had been displayed so lovingly in his studio without offering it up to the public. Understands the burden of the secret he is swearing, with his blood, to keep: It had never been Michael’s great-grandfather, for such a man had been dead for centuries, if not millennia. No, the portrait had been his own, a picture of a man from that dark species whose existence Will had only believed in as part of that same superstitious belief that people who believed in fortune telling and telepathy peddled; and now here he sat, his arm offered up, voluntarily and reverentially, to a vampire.

Will gasps when Michael bites him, and it’s only on the second deep breath he takes around the pain in his arm that he realizes it’s not all pain. It’s a sweet sensation, relief of the tightness in his stomach, relief of the tension between the two of them. There’s pleasure in the bite, the likes of which Will only knows from a few glasses of wine too many or the cheap whiskey Lucas is fond of bringing with him when he comes to visit. He’s spellbound by the way Michael’s jaw moves as he sucks on Will’s arm, lips ruby with the blood he’s taking, that gift Will is offering up and so he can only think of running his hands through Michael’s hair, encouraging him as he feeds.

He thinks, too, of those poor souls in the East End, caught in fever dreams inside of their opium dens, slaves to an addiction most of them had not started willingly, the rest of their lives given over to the drug, burning out at a rapid pace as their souls are consumed by want, want, want.

And he knows that this is his own personal Whitechapel.

Michael’s teeth settle against Will’s tender skin as he continues to drink from the small wounds they have made. It’s a strange sensation to feel his blood pumping through his veins, to feel every heavy heartbeat as his body tries to account for the life leaving him, tries to balance out the bleeding even as it can’t stop it because Michael keeps drawing it out. Will thinks he likes it.

It’s over too soon, Michael pulling away with a desperate gasp before licking the wound and his arm clean. Blood wells up in the wake of his tongue anyway, circling Will’s wrist like a glittering armband and dripping onto the table, only reluctantly closing up until Michael draws blood from his own thumb with his teeth and paints it over the bite mark. Will’s skin goes cold and numb for a moment, then sensation returns with a sharp heat as the vampire’s superior healing powers mingle for a few seconds with his blood and the puncture wounds close up. Michael uses Will’s napkin to clean his arm, until no trace of the last few minutes remains at all.

Will wants to tell him to stop.

If he had a voice, still, he might have. He’d tell him he wants the marks, wants to have physical proof of tonight, of the bite and the heady feeling that accompanied it. Because inside of him there will be a scar, this memory forever burned into his soul, even as his skin smooths out and what used to be angry red turns pale white.

Michael looks at him from under long dark eyelashes, and Will understands now why he’s wearing red in the painting, understands the thing that had unnerved him in the beginning, the color that had been missing: it’s there in his lips, on his lips, his chin, his teeth. It reflects in the deep brown of his eyes, looking fully now, no longer half lidded, shy, but intense and predatory, no longer needing to hide his intentions.

He will later say that it was the blood loss that has made him careless and lightheaded. It might be a lie, but he knows, that Michael will never ask, that it doesn’t matter. Reaching up with his still healing arm he cups Michael’s face, swipes at the blood on his chin, and then kisses him.

Michael’s lips are no longer as cold as they had been against his wrist, warmed by Will’s blood, and he tastes of it, metallic and a little bitter. Will has tasted his own blood before, suckling on cuts on his fingers to quell the bleeding, but this is different, this is more intense and more intimate. It’s the only taste in his mouth now, no sweat, no skin, just the cold taste of wet copper on his lips, his tongue, and, when he swallows, his throat.

Michael opens his mouth, gasping into this kiss, and then Will is drowning in his own blood, in the heat of hungry lips on his. And still he cannot pull away, cannot stop himself. Michael’s hands are in his hair, tugging him closer, greedy. His canines, still long and sharp, brush against Will’s lip and he half expects him to bite down and ask for more because he’s starving just as much as Will.

Will wants him to bite down, to drink until there’s nothing left, gladly accepting death if it meant satiating a fraction of that bottomless, hungry pit in his stomach that he knows, now, exists in Michael too.

But Michael, unlike him, has been fed, and so he can drag himself away. He presses his forehead against Will’s and breathes him in with sharp, greedy breaths, then uses his grip on Will’s hair to push him down, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head, when Will tries to chase after him.

“Enough, love,” he says, and with that one word he has Will in the palm of his hand, ready to do whatever he asks of him as long as he will hear it again. “I will have you bloodied, yet, but not tonight.”

It’s this promise that keeps Will where he is as Michael pulls back properly, his fingers slowly uncurling from his hair, his breathing still ragged. Dark strands of hair hang in his face and with blood smeared around his mouth, he looks like a wild thing, looks as shaken by the kiss as Will feels, and somehow that steadies him, to know this thing of the night shares his feelings.

He watches Will swallow with wide, wondrous eyes. “Will,” he says softly. “My love, Will.”

“Mike,” Will whispers, finding his voice far more gone than he anticipated but needing to stake his claim with a name as well. “Darling, Mike.”

Michael��s face lights up when Will says his name like that, as if it’s something special, as if Will’s petty human claim means anything at all to someone so ancient. His smile, sharp teethed and bloody as it is, is the warmest, most genuine one he has given Will all evening. And it feels special.

Mike uses his thumb to wipe away the blood around Will’s mouth, the soft pad of it brushing his lips, and Will can only watch him, stilled. The urge to take it into his mouth, to bite down, bite Mike back, settles unacted upon in his jaw: He will have him bloodied, yet, but not tonight.

“Are you alright?” Mike asks, his hand cupping Will’s face lightly, but the fingers pressing against his skin warn him not to turn away, not to lie.

He swallows and replies with still uneven voice: “Yes.”

His heart beats hard in his chest, but Mike doesn’t call him out on being a liar, and Will, too, doesn’t think he did lie: It doesn’t feel wrong, the blood, the man in front of him, the hunger.

He turns his face into the palm holding it and presses his lips to the fingers. Then he runs his tongue along the bloodied digits. Licks himself off them.

Mike gasps, then pulls his fingers away from Will’s hungry mouth. He brushes a shaking hand through Will’s hair, as if tying to undo the damage he had done to it during the kiss, then gives up and sits back in his chair, removing himself from Will’s reach. His eyes never leave Will’s face, though, tracking him with renewed intensity and doing nothing to calm Will’s heart racing in his chest.

Then Mike says: “You should head to bed. Make the most of the night while it still belongs to you. We keep a different schedule at Silverlake.” Will doesn’t want to rise to his feet, but there is something in Mike’s tone that has his body obeying regardless. Those that believed in the undead sometimes believed they had the power to force others to do their bidding, and Will idly wonders if that is true or if he simply rises because of Mike’s natural charms and his own exhaustion. His body knows better than his heart, which now that it had gotten a taste, wants nothing but to bleed out onto the dining room floor.

Still, even as he crosses the room, taking slow steps as the blood loss leaves him lightheaded, he can’t stop himself from looking back, Orpheus losing Eurydice over and over again except if he is Orpheus then rather than leading his muse out of the underworld Will is going to join her in the eternal dark. And with every glance he finds Eurydice looking back, beckoning him to join her.

The last time their eyes meet that evening, Mike runs his finger along the edge of the plate, where some of Will’s blood has fallen. When he sees that he is caught, Mike takes his time licking his finger clean and Will’s stomach tenses in response with only the desperate yearning of his head for a pillow keeping him standing where he is instead of running back for more.

And he’s hit with the sudden, giddy realization that there’s a chance he won’t make it out of this summer alive.

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written for @bylerween2023

#bylerween2023 #day 6 #Supernatural Creatures #byler #mike wheeler #will byers #cw Blood #Dark Byler #my fic

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freetobeeyouandme · 1 year ago

Text

Hold Me Like Water

Tags: Rated M, Chose Not To Apply Archive Warnings, Bylerween 2023, Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, Attacked by Vecna, Homophobia, Graphic Description of Corpses, Dark Byler

Words: 2.3k

Summary:

Will runs, through the forest, up a hill. Branches tear at his clothes, cut his cheeks. He feels something snatch in his hair, feels something rip. And he doesn’t care. Can’t stop moving, jumping to evade fallen branches and stumbling forward when his legs catch. He runs, the only recourse left and it's not enough and he's running anyway and- The ground gives in before him. He tries to skid to a halt and doesn't make it. The cliff isn’t that high, is the only thought he has as he falls. He doesn't have time to scream. - Or, Bylerween Day 4: Attacked by Vecna

read on Ao3 or below; see whole collection

A/N:

After spending so much time in Will's PoV for the Byler Big Bang fic I've written, I ended up defaulting to Mike's PoV for a lot of these, but here we finally are back in the most tragic boy's head. Sorry @ William Byers but I do love to put you in situations <3 CW: Homophobia (internalized and external), Graphic Description of a Corpse

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Will runs. It’s the only course of action he has left and even so he knows it won’t be enough. He’s certain the others ran too, Chrissy and Fred and Patrick and Max. They must have ran. It’s fight or flight.

Will is good at flight. He’s a good runner; he has outrun demogorgons and the mindflayer. He’s outrun his father’s wrath and almost, almost had managed to outrun his feelings.

Except he’d not outrun any of it after all, because here Lonnie Byers was, eyes aflame as he came after Will, yelling that this was all Will’s mothers fault and he would have made sure he became a real man if she’d only let him. Here is father was, eyes so bright with the knowledge of everything Will had tried to keep secret not only from him but everyone else too, even Mike. Especially Mike. But his father knows.

So, Will runs.

Out of the house he’d lost his childhood in, now covered in dark vines, windows shuttered with boards, a hole in the wall. Hopper had fixed it for them before Will was even released from the hospital, but now he sees it, gaping and raw, the edges pulsing almost as if they’re alive.

He runs past Castle Byers, nothing but a heap of branches now, perfect for a bonfire. Burn it to the ground and dance around it like a wild animal, ululating the death of all he’d held dear. Burn the memories along with the pictures, the gifts, and his heart.

He runs through he forest, completely lost for direction as he keeps moving, just knowing he has to go forward. Branches crack behind him, the underbrush parts. Something is coming. Something hungry for blood. His father. The demogorgon. Vines, shadows, Vecna. It’s all the same, really, and it’s coming for him.

It’s coming to tear him limb to limb.

The ground gives in before him. He tries to skid to a halt and doesn't make it.

The cliff isn’t that high, is the only thought he has as he falls. He doesn't have time to scream.

Water hits him hard and surprisingly solid, battering his side before his weight and the momentum push him past its cement surface and into cool liquid.

And then he’s drowning. Cold water soaks his clothes, the extra weight dragging him down. He falls so fast he loses sense of where is up and where is down. Water fills his lungs, and he’s suffocating, he can’t breathe, he can’t-

Hands grab him from above. They haul him to the surface, where there is air, where he can breathe again even as he still swallows water. A body presses against his, holding him close but not warm, swimming backwards with him towards land, towards safety. His feet hit the ground, but the other still drags him, and together they somehow pull their wet bodies to shore.

It’s the quarry, Will sees. The one they had found his fake body in, the one they had held a funeral for. The version of him that had simply drowned. Falling off the cliff at the far side.

It hadn’t been that cliff that he’d fallen off, he knows. This is still all in his head.

And still he gasps, quietly, when his savior leans over him, long black hair dripping wet, face crinkling in happy relief.

“Will?” Mike asks. His hands seek Will's face, pushing away wet hair. Cradling his cheek. “Are you okay? Will, are you-”

Will pushes himself into a sitting position but cannot bring himself to shove (this thing) Mike off him.

Mike leans in closer and Will swallows his revulsion and the tears. Because this isn’t Mike, this is something else, this is some monster that has crawled up out of the depths of the quarry, knotted, tangled wet hair barely obscuring its grotesque mask of a face. Mike’s skin is paler than usual, tinged blue, his lips a cold, dead purple. When he smiles his gums are the same color, hugging teeth that look like they have been partially shattered. The rest of his face is in no better shape, hanging, partially, off his fractured skull. The whole right side is bruised, and bloodied, his cheek partially flayed where his shattered jawbone pokes through. His eye is red, bloodshot, and unblinking. The fingers that caress Will's face feel too soft, the skin bloated as if he’d stayed in the bath too long.

Except this Mike didn’t stay in a bath too long.

Had Will’s double looked like that when they pulled him out of the water?

“It’s alright,” Mike reassures him. “You’re alright. Everything’s fine.”

You’re not fine, he wants to say but all that comes out is a scared, broken: “Mike.”

“I’m here,” the corpse of his best friend says, smiling its broken smile. Its hands capture Will’s where they’ve involuntarily lifted to grab onto Mike. As if perhaps the touch could dispel the illusion. But like the trees and the water and his father’s wrathful hands Mike is solid. Real enough to hold.

“What happened?” Will asks, dumbly. What happened was that Mike had died.

“I drowned,” Mike informs him in the same tone he might use to tell him lunch today is going to be pizza. “I jumped off that cliff, and then I drowned.”

Will wants to scream, wants to get up and run away – he should keep running. Vecna is in his head, and he should run.

But Mike’s corpse has him spellbound. It’s not just the odd marks of his death that have Will stare, it’s everything else too: The green jacket he’s wearing should be much too small for him and the white sneakers his feet had outgrown years ago. Will helped him throw them into the box of old clothes Mrs. Wheeler had asked Mike to clean out his closet into. He remembers that clearly, the still good shoes on top of too small t-shirts, yet another sign of their childhood gone, this one headed downtown to Goodwill.

“When?” Will asks. He thinks he already knows.

Mike’s corpse’s smile widens. There are so many teeth cracked or missing. “After you did. We lost El and then Troy found us, me and Dustin, and then he threatened to cut Dustin’s teeth out if I didn’t jump. I think he just wanted me to pee myself like he had – like El had made him, but I actually did it. I don’t think we ever told you the whole story, did we?”

They had not. They’d told him of how El had broken Troy’s arm and they’d told him of how Mike shoved him and then El made him pee himself, but that little detail, that small action, those big consequences no one had ever told him. Troy had threatened them, El came back to save the day. Never the whole truth: Mike had jumped.

Why is that, do you think? Lack of trust? Or maybe they wanted to spare you the horrific things they had to face while you were gone. The terrible things they had to do just to get you back.

Would it have been easier for them if Will had really just drowned? If the Upside Down had never caught them?

“But El saved you.”

Mike’s bloodshot eye stares at him, so unfocused, so dead. “Not here she didn’t.” He giggles. “This is what I would have become if she hadn’t. Same as you. Except not really.”

Everything, all of it, just because of you. If only you’d never been, Will.

He needs to get up and run. He needs to get out of here. Now.

“Will? Are you okay?”

He swallows, tries not to throw up. He needs to-

“I’m so cold, Will. It’s so cold- the water.”

Mike looks small, hugging himself. The water still clings to his hair, dripping wet still, dripping wet always. His purple lips are shaking. And Will wants nothing more than to wrap him in his arms, to promise him that everything’s going to be alright and they can figure this out and then Mike is going to feel better – but he won’t. Because Mike is dead.

Aren’t you so glad that El exists now? She saved him.

“It’s alright,” Will says, holding out his hand. Mike takes it, lets himself be pulled closer. “We can get you warm, we just- we can leave here, and we’ll get you dry and under a blanket, okay?”

Mike nods, his shoulders shaking as a shiver passes over him. He whispers: “It’s so cold.”

“It’s okay. Just come here.”

All you can offer him is doom.

He pulls Mike into his arms. The other boy fits there strangely, his head under Will’s chin, his arms around his back, sitting in his lap. If they’ve ever done this before Will doesn’t remember. Usually it was him who needed to be held, Mike the one who wrapped his arms around him and promised him everything was going to be fine. Back when they were just kids and it didn’t matter that they were both boys, that they were monsters for wanting this simple comfort.

If you keep him, you’ll kill him.

“Will?” Mike asks, an unfinished question as he curls further into his chest.

Will feels the tears on his own cheeks, wet but warm. “I have to go,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

He tries to be gentle in pushing Mike away, pulling at the arms that wrap around him and then putting his knees up between them. But Mike is unwilling. Mike clings.

“Please don’t, Will.”

“I’m sorry.”

Dead boys.

“Don’t leave me. Please. Don’t leave me. I’m so cold, Will. I’m scared.” Mike’s hands grab for his face, freezing him in place as if to prove just how cold.

Will covers them with his own, tries to warm them, a futile effort. “I’m coming back. I promise, I’m coming back for you.”

“You’re going to get help?”

If you let your father catch you.

“I’m going to get help,” he lies. There is no helping. Not Mike, anyway. Will might still make it. But only-

Run.

“We’ll fix you right up, okay?” Will says. “I’m coming back for you.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

He’s coming, Will. Run.

He’s not sure why he does it. Maybe because this is in his head, maybe because this Mike is already dead. No more damage Will can do. Maybe because this is only in his head and he’s imagined what this would be like for years, knowing he could never act on his sick desires. Maybe because adrenaline is chasing through his veins, because he needs to run, get out, save himself, and yet he can’t bear to leave Mike behind. Maybe because it’s not real and he needs the comfort anyway.

No matter why, he crashes his lips into Mike’s. It’s a rough kiss; he miscalculates the distance between them and his teeth smash against what remains of Mike’s. Mike’s lips are cold to the touch, hard and dry. His skin is freezing under Will’s fingers where he cups his face to hold him better. He’s so cold it almost burns.

And still Will kisses him, easing up at first and then pushing in more carefully when Mike’s hands fist in his shirt. Mike gasps into the kiss, starving, drowning, already dead, and Will takes the opening, never mind the cold, never mind the metallic tang in his mouth. Mike tastes barely like anything, maybe a little salty, mostly a little earthy.

The kiss leaves numbness behind in his mouth with the way it tastes of nothing. One time they had an issue with the plumbing and Will unknowingly took a big gulp from the unclean water. It had tasted sharp and left his lips and his tongue numb – that is what kissing Mike feels like, and Will doesn’t think it’s the cold. Not really.

But Mike reciprocates the kiss, pushes into him desperately, looking for warmth, for something alive. And for that moment Will wants to give it to him. Wants to give him everything. As his lips lose feeling he thinks perhaps this wouldn’t be the worst way to die, slowly being poisoned by a dead Mike’s kiss.

That’s what will happen if they keep kissing: the rest of his body will follow suit, unraveling, losing feeling, until his brain shuts off and he dies.

Saves your father the hassle of having to bash your brains in.

Will pulls away with a gasp. Under his fingers and his mouth Mike doesn’t feel that dead, doesn’t feel that different, but when he opens his eyes again Mike is still the same watery corpse, his face purple and broken. Unreal.

Just in his head.

Will can’t live in his head, only die. And he doesn’t want to die, not really. Doesn’t want to become like this Mike, rotting and bloated.

“I’m coming back for you, I promise,” Will says, pushing him away, rising to his feet. “I love you.”

The truth feels heavy in his mouth. His father would kill him if he really knew. Troy would push him off a cliff if he found out. The whole world hates him for these three words, thinks he deserves to die, for those three words, and perhaps it is right.

Mike looks up at him with wet eyes. Are the rivulets making their paths down his cheek lake water or tears? Does it matter when it’s all the same? The beautiful face he could never be honest towards is mangled underneath them, purple and black. Dead. Angelic, still, but dead.

All that he’ll be if Will had his way. Cruel how he can love him so and yet only bring him sorrow.

“I’m so sorry,” he tells Mike.

And then he runs.

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written for @bylerween2023

#bylerween2023 #day 4 #attacked by vecna #byler #mike wheeler #will byers #cw homophobia #cw corpses #dark byler #my fic

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