#much angst

Summary:

A little short story about Caine as a merman; based off an absolutely INCREDIBLE picture from an artist on Tumblr that goes by @chimkin-samich

Remember the hanahaki post?! Yup!

CW// puppet body horror with flowers, floral angst

[click for better quality]

What you don't need.

A/n: fuck I genuinely love these boys so much this breaks me in pieces.

Warnings!: hurt/no comfort

~~~~🌀~~~~

The thing nobody understood about Mike Wheeler was that loving him had never been the hard part.

Will had loved him for so long that sometimes it felt less like an emotion and more like a condition. Like breathing. Like gravity. Something woven so deeply into him that he couldn't remember what life had looked like before it existed.

The difficult part had always been surviving it.

Because Mike was easy to love.

Painfully easy.

He smiled at people like they mattered. He cared too much. He worried too much. He would drive across town at three in the morning if somebody needed him. He carried other people's pain around like it belonged to him.

And for years, Will had watched him do all of those things while quietly, desperately wishing Mike would look at him the way Will looked at him.

The tragedy was that Mike did look at him.

Just differently.

By the spring after everything ended, Hawkins had developed a strange sort of normalcy.

The scars remained.

You could see them everywhere.

In the roads that still hadn't been fully repaired.

In the empty houses.

In the way conversations occasionally died when somebody accidentally mentioned a name that wasn't around anymore.

The town was healing.

Slowly.

Unevenly.

Like a wound that still hurt when rain was coming.

Most days Will thought he was healing too.

Then Mike would show up at his front door.

And suddenly he was sixteen again.

Then fourteen.

Then twelve.

Then kindergarten.

Every version of himself that had ever loved Mike Wheeler collapsing into one person all at once.

Mike had a habit of making himself at home.

He'd kick off his shoes by the door without asking, steal food directly from Joyce's kitchen, throw himself across Will's bed like he owned it.

The first few times it happened after everything with Vecna, Will thought his heart might actually stop.

Because for months he'd convinced himself things were different now.

That he was different.

That maybe he'd finally gotten over it.

Then Mike would sprawl across his mattress and start talking about absolutely nothing.

A movie he'd watched.

Something Dustin said.

A weird dream he'd had.

And Will would find himself watching the movement of his hands while he talked.

Watching the way sunlight caught in his hair.

Watching the familiar curve of his smile.

And every ounce of progress he'd made would crumble into dust.

Hope was a terrible thing.

People always talked about hope like it was beautiful.

Like it saved people.

Like it was noble.

Will thought hope was cruel.

Hope was what convinced you to stay.

Hope was what made you keep waiting.

Hope was what whispered maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe next year.

Hope was sitting on a couch beside Mike while his knee bumped yours and pretending that it didn't mean everything.

Hope was convincing yourself that if somebody loved you enough, eventually they would love you correctly.

The worst moments were always the small ones.

Not the dramatic ones.

Not the moments that looked heartbreaking from the outside.

The truly devastating moments were the ones nobody else would understand.

Mike falling asleep halfway through a movie and unconsciously leaning against him.

Mike reaching for his wrist to stop him from walking away too quickly during an argument.

Mike looking for him first in crowded rooms.

Mike remembering things.

Little things.

Favorite snacks.

Favorite colors.

The names of childhood drawings Will had forgotten years ago.

Every time Mike remembered something insignificant, something tiny and deeply personal, Will felt another piece of himself break.

Because that was the problem.

Mike loved him.

God.

Mike loved him so much.

Just never in the way Will needed.

-

The realization finally came one evening at Hopper's cabin.

Everybody else had left hours ago.

The sun had disappeared behind the trees, leaving the windows dark mirrors reflecting the room back at itself.

A fire burned quietly in the stone fireplace.The air smelled faintly of smoke and pine.

Mike sat on the floor with his back against the couch while Will occupied one corner, sketchbook forgotten in his lap.Neither of them had spoken for several minutes.

The silence wasn't uncomfortable.

At least it wouldn't have been for anybody else.

Will had spent years becoming fluent in Mike's silences.

He knew which ones meant anger.

Which ones meant exhaustion. Which ones meant Mike was thinking too hard about something.

This silence belonged to the last category.

When Mike finally spoke, his voice sounded oddly distant.

"I think everybody's moving on."

Will glanced up.

Mike was staring into the fire.

The flames painted shifting gold across his face.

"I mean," Mike continued, rubbing his hands together, "look at everybody."

A small laugh escaped him.

"Lucas is planning college."

"Max is finally starting to smile again."

"Dustin practically lives in a science lab."

His smile faded slightly.

"And I feel like I'm standing still."

Something twisted painfully in Will's chest.

Because he understood that feeling.

God, he understood it. He'd spent years standing still. Standing in the same place, looking at the same person, waiting for something that wasn't coming.

Mike finally looked at him.

And there it was.

That familiar expression.

Open.

Trusting.

The expression Mike only ever wore around the people he loved most.The expression that had ruined Will's life.

"What?" Mike asked softly.

Will realized he'd been staring.

Again.

His chest felt tight... Too tight.

Like there wasn't enough air in the room.

Like there hadn't been enough air in years.

"What are we doing?"

The question escaped before he could stop it.

Mike blinked.

The confusion arrived first.

Then concern.

Then something else.

Something that looked dangerously close to understanding.

The room became impossibly quiet. Will could hear the fire crackling.

Could hear the old cabin settling around them.

Could hear his own heartbeat hammering against his ribs hard enough to hurt.

"What do you mean?"

Mike's voice was careful now.

Fragile.

Like he was approaching a wounded animal.

Will laughed. A small sound, a sound that was broken around the edges.

The kind of laugh that happens when crying is only a few seconds away.

Because how was he supposed to explain it?

How was he supposed to explain years?

How was he supposed to explain every look, every touch, every hopeful little moment he'd collected and hidden away like treasures?

How was he supposed to explain that he'd spent so long loving Mike Wheeler that he couldn't imagine where the feeling ended and he began?

His eyes burned.

He looked away before Mike could see it.

"We keep acting like this isn't something."

The words felt raw leaving him.

Like pulling glass from a wound.

"We keep acting like we're just..." His throat tightened. He couldn't finish the sentence. It felt like the all of his feelings from the past weeks couldn't stop showing and tumbling out of his mouth.

Across the room, Mike had gone completely still.

And suddenly Will knew.

Before Mike spoke.

Before he looked up.

Before a single word left his mouth.

Will knew.

Because he'd imagined this moment a thousand times.

A thousand different endings.

A thousand different versions of Mike finally understanding.

Finally choosing him.

Finally saying the thing Will had spent years wanting to hear. The real thing was so much quieter.

When Mike spoke, his voice cracked immediately. "Will..."

And somehow that hurt more than if he'd sounded certain.

Because Mike looked devastated.

Like somebody had handed him a weapon and asked him to use it.

"I love you."

The words came out quickly.

Desperately.

As though Mike needed Will to understand them before anything else.

"I do."

Will closed his eyes because that was never the problem.

That had never been the problem.

Mike loved him. Of course he did.

That was what made it unbearable.

That was what made it impossible to walk away.

That was what made every small kindness feel like a knife.

When Will finally looked back at him, Mike was crying.

Not much.

Just enough.

Enough to make his voice shake.

Enough to make his eyes shine in the firelight.

And for the first time, Will realized Mike's heart was breaking too. Not in the same way, never in the same way.

But breaking nonetheless.

Sometimes there isn't a villain.

Sometimes nobody betrays anybody.

Sometimes nobody chooses wrong.

Sometimes two people love each other with everything they have and still end up standing on opposite sides of an impossible distance.

But now the sight of you haunts him every time he closes his eyes.

-

It’s the way he clings to Johnny, the only remaining piece of his heart, during another sleepless night.

You weren’t originally meant to join that mission.

But now all he can think about is the fear that had been in your eyes that day.

-

It’s the way Johnny is the first to speak this time, “I think… I think it’s time.”

“Bonnie never could sit still, ye know? We cannae, cannae force ‘er ta stay there.”

The way Simon’s voice cracks, helpless once again.

“I know.”

-

It’s the way neither shed tears, watching the ash catch the breeze, while overlooking that cliff.

But both break down on the drive home without you.

-

It’s the way, even once years pass, they keep habits learned from you.

Stick to the schedule they adopted with you.

The way they still use vocabulary and gestures picked up during the time you three were still just that.

Three.

-

It’s the way they both eventually begin to move forward.

"Taken"

"He took everything from me. My heart, my soul, my name. I became his and with that only his eyes could ever see me." Consider this. (╭ರ_•́) Human Zorc and TKB. (More about this piece below) Like, reblog and follow over @ravij!