Chapter Text
On the night of November 6, 1983, little Will Byers disappeared on his way home. They thought he had fallen into the local quarry, and they even found a fake body that resembled him. A week later, he was found thanks to the town sheriff, Hopper, who got to the bottom of the matter and managed to rescue him from his captors.
Will was never the same again. At first, his memories were blocked, but when the anniversary of what had happened approached the following year, he began to remember more clearly. Those memories tormented him when it was time to sleep; he could only feel disgusted when recalling them.
They were always the same: the hand of that blond man with a piercing gaze stroking his face while whispering that they would do wonderful things together. His body and mind stopped being his own; they now belonged to The Mindflayer, a russian criminal network whose goal was to dominate America. Among its activities was human trafficking, Will would have been one of it's victims if he hadn’t been rescued in time.
He preferred not to dwell on that possibility, focusing instead on what he did experience during those days away from home. He was possessed by members of the Mindflayer, and still feels them everywhere. He could never change that, but he was lucky it didn’t last long. Will tried to comfort himself with that idea, but he knew he was marked for life. Not only had he suffered abuse from his father and bullying from other kids for being different, but he also went from being the ‘fairy boy’ to the ‘zombie boy’—What an upgrade!
At least he had his best friends. If it weren’t for them, he would already be on the other side, resting with all the bodies the Mindflayer left behind. Like Barbara Holland, Nancy’s best friend, who sadly never managed to escape the Mindflayer’s grasp.
Thanks to the party, Will was able to survive for so long. Above all, he was grateful for having Mike, who had been his best friend ever since that day on the swings. Those feelings of affection would grow into something deeper over the years, only to be silenced by what society would think of them.
During his absence, a girl also escaped from the Mindflayer. Unlike Will, she wasn’t being trafficked for perverse purposes; she was being trained to become part of the mafia, as just another weapon. She barely knew how to speak, but she was nicknamed Eleven because of the tattoo on her wrist, with which she had been marked like a lamb to the slaughter. Fortunately, it never came to that, she was found by Will’s friends first.
It was thanks to her that Will could be found, and that debt was repaid when Joyce and Hopper decided to adopt her. They discovered who her mother was and her real name as well: Jane, now Hopper-Byers. The first thing she did when she saw Will safe and sound was run to hug him tightly, and he returned it with the same enthusiasm.
Max also joined the party, a girl who challenged every idea of what a girl was supposed to be, according to Will. Mike acted very strangely when she showed interest in him, but Will never gave it much thought. After all, they had sworn to go crazy together, and no misunderstanding would change that. It wasn’t until Max started dating Lucas that Mike began to accept her into the group.
Nancy and Jonathan went from good friends to a couple in no time. They teamed up to search for their loved ones together, and even though they never found Barb, they’ve been inseparable ever since. Steve didn’t like the idea very much, but when—in his attempt to fix things with Nancy—they were attacked by the demogorgons—cold-blooded killers who are part of the Mindflayer—, he concluded there were bigger problems.
The madness seemed to have come to an end. They lived the summer of ’85 as if they were rebellious teenagers (even though they were only fourteen). Dustin had Suzie, Lucas had Max, Mike started dating El, everyone had someone except Will. Even his mother and brother had someone special! Will couldn’t help but feel more and more distant from the party, or rather, totally displaced from the world.
His best friend (whom he has been in love with since childhood) had a girlfriend, his sister, no less. How was he supposed to keep smiling with a broken heart? If the person who always made him smile wouldn’t even look at him anymore, how was he supposed to love himself if he was broken for life? His soul was in pieces, and with those fragments he hurt himself even more than he already did in silence. The only one who noticed was Lucas, who always tried to cheer him up whenever he saw him looking down during the party hangouts.
Mike could bike through the rain just to apologize to him and make things right, but he was so focused on pretending to be normal that he was completely oblivious to the scars on his best friend’s thighs. He couldn’t really be blamed, he avoided looking at them (or at his pants) at all costs so as not to raise suspicions about his true self.
One day, when Steve snuck them into the cinema, he realized something was wrong with his dear friend. He was nervous, constantly bringing his left hand to the back of his neck, trying to hide his arm by pressing it against his body as much as possible. Lucas had already warned him that Will had seemed very down lately, but it wasn’t until the movie started that he understood what was happening.
In the darkness of the theater, lit by the big screen in front of them, Mike lowered his gaze to look beyond Will’s top. Beneath his shorts, slightly lifted by the movement of sitting down, he could see one burn after another on the inside of his thighs. His breathing hitched, catching Will’s attention, who went from confused to panicked.
— Uh… I need to go to the bathroom — Will mumbled, standing up while hugging himself, eager to get out of there as fast as possible.
Mike quickly stood up and chased after him, ignoring the confused looks the rest of the party gave him, just as he had ignored all the signs that Will wasn’t okay. He caught up with him in seconds, right on his heels from the moment they left the theater.
The door was about to close behind the brunet, but Mike didn’t allow it, stopping it with a sharp slap. The sound was deafening, startling Will, who was trembling and crying uncontrollably. They both froze, eyes locked on each other, assimilating the situation. Their breathing was ragged, Will’s from crying, Mike’s from running after him.
Slowly, Mike moved his hand away from the door (which he had been gripping with his fingers) and closed it, stepping closer to Will. Will backed up until his lower back hit the sinks, forced to brace himself by placing his hands on the edge. He looked at Mike patiently. Will could feel Mike's breath so close that he worried he was delirious, that this was just another hallucination.
Then Mike hugged him in complete silence, because that gesture said everything. Without needing to say it out loud, he let Will know he was there for him and willing to share his burden, he wouldn’t leave him alone. Will let himself be loved for the first time in a long while, stopped pretending to be strong, and crumbled against his shoulder.
Just thinking that the one comforting him was Mike spilled more tears, because he knew this was platonic and that Mike would never love him the same way he loved El. Mike replied by running his fingers through Will’s hair while whispering words of encouragement to calm him down, but Will only grew more agitated.
He began to hyperventilate and clutched Mike’s shirt in his hands, leaving a damp stain, a mix of tears and spittle. Mike took hold of Will's shoulders and gently pulled back, sliding his hands from biceps to forearms with care, rubbing them in a soothing back-and-forth motion that eased Will within seconds. His breathing balanced; he took one last deep breath before letting it out and he recovered.
— Better? — Mike asked, in that soft voice he reserved only for him. Will nodded. — Good, good… then… —
Mike let his gaze travel down Will’s body, stopping at a scar on his left forearm. He looked back up at him, silently asking permission to look closer. Will nodded, hesitant. Without rushing, Mike grasped his left arm from underneath and lifted it, leaning in to look at it carefully. He turned it, searching for other marks he might have missed, discovering some old cuts. He felt Will tremble beneath his fingers.
Without thinking twice, he lowered his head and pressed a chaste kiss on one of the cuts. It looked recent, but he chose not to ask, the last thing he wanted was to press him or make him cry again. Will shuddered instantly, startled by the unexpected touch from Mike.
He had seen Mike kiss El countless times, each one more disgusting than the last, until that disgust turned into pain, one stab after another to his already wounded heart. He tried to pull away when Mike lifted his lips, but Mike didn’t let him, placing as many kisses along his arm as there were scars, while gently stroking the other arm in a soothing rhythm.
— Mike, stop… — Will mumbled in protest. Mike stopped immediately, just inches away from the damaged skin. He looked up to meet Will’s eyes, waiting patiently. — Why did you do that? — Will asked, confused by Mike's affectionate behavior. Mike slowly straightened until they were face to face, his cheeks flushed.
Many ideas crossed Will’s mind, but none of them made sense. It was impossible that Mike felt anything for him. No, there had to be another explanation. Like when he rejected Max joining the party, or when he held Will’s restless hand and swore he wouldn’t leave him alone, or when, during one of his episodes, he told him that being his friend was the best thing he had ever done in his life.
All of those moments had a perfectly logical explanation: that’s what friends do. Mike must think he was weak, easy to break, and that was why he wanted to protect him. “It’s not romantic, it’s pathetic,” Will repeated to himself, as part of his torturous mantra. And this only proved it further; Mike pitied him, and that was why he was doing this.
Will shook his head before clumsily pushing the boy of his dreams away, frowning. But Mike didn’t budge, keeping his gaze fixed on Will, the concern in his eyes unchanged. Will’s anger didn’t last long; his expression crumbled and he began to cry again.
— Stop looking at me like that! — Will covered his face with his hands. He didn’t want to feel pitied anymore; he was sick of humiliating himself for a bit of affection.
— Will! — Mike stepped closer again, wrapping his fingers around Will’s wrists. — Why would you say that? I’m not looking at you in any way, I swear —
He swallowed as he said that, because he was lying. He always looked at him under different excuses, but never in a bad way. Right now, he was just worried about him. He was afraid of losing him, and countless doubts raced through his mind; he hoped Will would answer them when he was ready. He gently moved Will’s hands away from his face, and Will didn’t resist, he didn’t have the strength to at that moment.
“Talk to me, Will,” he pleaded softly, brushing his thumbs over his wrists. “Please. If we both go crazy, then we’ll go crazy together, right?”
Those words managed to quiet Will’s intrusive thoughts for a moment. Was he wrong? Was Mike really worried about him? Then… did Mike still care? He had never questioned any interaction with him, because he knew Mike was straight and that he had no chance. But then moments like this happened, intimate moments that made him question everything.
Deep down, there was still a sliver of hope that one day, no matter how remote, Mike might share his feelings and they could be more than best friends. Until then, he would settle for Mike stroking his arms, holding him while he cried against his chest.
That day, the rift that had grown between them was fixed, and Will trusted Mike again the way he used to. He told him how much he hated himself for being different, officially coming out, and that that was why he hurt himself. He couldn’t bring himself to confess how he felt about Mike, nor that the pain in his arm and thighs was meant to distract him from the pain in his heart.
Just when everything was going well between them, the Mindflayer attacked again. They wouldn’t stop until they had taken revenge on Will, El, and everyone they loved. They recruited Billy, Max’s stepbrother, as part of their army, and he recruited others in town, manipulating them until forming a new army from the shadows. The goal? Simple: to destroy Hawkins from within.
They allied themselves with the Russian government to carry out experiments in the town as a secret base, with the aim of granting supernatural powers to soldiers. As insane as the plan seemed, they achieved their goal. The party had to face them once again, destroying the underground lab they had built.
In its destruction, Hopper disappeared, and everyone thought he had died. Billy was killed by the Mindflayer for disobeying the order to kill El. His sacrifice would always be remembered, especially by Max, who struggled greatly to overcome his death. Everyone lost something that day, and soon it would be Mike’s turn to lose someone.
At the end of the summer, Joyce made the decision to leave Hawkins. She wanted a fresh start in Lenora Hills, California. It shattered Mike. Why, just when everything was starting to go well between him and Will, did they have to drift away? He had already lost him once, and now he was leaving again, maybe forever.
❣︎┈๑⋅⋯꒰end of prologue꒱⋯⋅๑┈❣︎