Chapter Text
Will’s been having… thoughts.
Whatever kind of thoughts you’re thinking are probably wrong, mind you. It’s not idle musings about the weather, or what to eat for lunch, not even about Mike – Mike, Mike, Mike…
No. They’re more like whispers, concepts, vague thoughts he can’t quite understand but gets a general impression of.
Thoughts of hate, of hurt, of death.
It started when he got back to Hawkins, when he felt him for the first time since he left, cold and burning on the back of his neck. It started as dreams, details forgotten but heart still racing and a stone in his stomach upon waking. Headaches, during which he felt floaty and weightless, like his sense of self was slipping through his fingers like grains of sand. The thoughts, whispers of the devil on his shoulder. Unintelligible, but leaving him feeling wrong all the same.
But it was probably nothing.
He tells himself it's nothing as he wakes up from another dream. Nightmare, really, although he hesitates to call it that seeing as though he never screams, or cries, or even remembers what happened beyond the shiver down his spine and burning on his neck. He feels groggy, floaty, not-quite-there, in the way you do when you wake from a deep, deep sleep.
Will blinks slowly as he sits up, shirt sticky with sweat. The Wheeler’s basement is stuffy, air almost damp with the scent of laundry detergent in the air. The red numbers of the alarm clock next to him blinked steadily, 3:12 AM.
His heart still races, dread burning in his stomach, running a hand through his sweaty hair, pushing it back from his forehead. Despite the stuffy heat of the room, he feels cold. He’s been feeling cold, recently.
But it’s probably nothing.
Will grimaces as he finally takes in the state of his shirt, soaked through and stuck to his body. The sheets underneath him are sweaty, as well. It’s all very gross.
“Jesus…” he breathes, quiet and soft in the silence of the room. He begins to peel off his shirt as he stands from the air mattress on the ground; as soon as he stands, however, the world tilts.
Will barely puts his hands out in time to stop himself from smashing his head on the side table. He feels incredibly dizzy, the fogginess from earlier increasing tenfold, stomach lurching with nausea and unease.
He feels something warm on his top lip, and as he sits on his knees, he reaches one shaking hand up to touch it when –
William.
Will’s breath stutters, his pounding heart skips, and it feels like he’s been dunked in ice cold water.
His lungs constrict, icy cold hands holding his chest with a vice grip as he looks desperately around the empty basement.
He swallows, his mouth desert dry, trying desperately to keep the fear from his voice.
“Hello..?”
There’s no response, and his scan of the basement reveals nothing out of the ordinary.
But as his neck burns, and his stomach churns, and the warm liquid on his top lip begins to drip into his mouth, he hears it again.
William.
Deep, raspy, sickly. Damaged. It echoes in his skull, filling his mind so completely it’s like a flashbomb, interrupting any thoughts of anything else.
He feels a sharp pain behind his left eye, hot like a live wire touching raw nerves. An ice pick through his skull, unrelenting.
Will cries out in pain, hands instinctively reaching up to clutch his face. He’s doubled over, squeezed between the mattress and the side table, sweaty shirt blessedly discarded in a ball in front of him.
His body shakes, whether in pain or fear or the sudden ice coursing through his veins he doesn’t know.
Maybe all three.
As the pain grows, so too does the voice.
William. At long last.
There’s buzzing in his ears and starbursts dancing in his open eyes. His head is pounding, the area behind his left eye still screaming in white-hot pain, his stomach flipping inside out with nausea as he heaves in breaths. No matter how much he breathes, he can’t get enough air, and his open mouth is letting in the blood, coppery, tangy blood, pouring steadily from both nostrils.
His skin feels like it’s on fire, cold fire, icy fingers dancing underneath his skin, the muscles and sinew sparking like the pop-its they would use on the Fourth of July.
Distantly, he tastes the blood in his mouth and thinks he must be screaming; or maybe he bit his tongue. He can’t hear anything over the buzzing in his ears, see past the starbursts in his eyes, and all he feels is pain, pain, pain.
But just as soon as it began, it stopped.
He distantly heard the buzzing come to a stop with the pop! of something breaking, something bursting. And just like that, the pain stops.
It’s as though a switch was flicked, instantly removing the live wire from his nerves, leaving only a remnant of painful buzzing behind.
He sucks in deep, heavy breaths, no longer feeling the vice-like grip on his chest preventing him from getting oxygen. His eyes clear, and he blinks them rapidly as though to make sure there’s nothing actually in them.
He reaches blindly up to the side table next to him, fumbling around for the switch on the lamp. He finds it, clicking back and forth, but the lamp doesn’t turn on.
He blinks through heavy eyes, pulling himself up from the awkward folded position he was in, knees burning from being pressed against the floor for so long.
He goes to turn the lamp switch again, only to find that –
The lightbulb burst.
That must have been the popping noise he heard, at the end of that – whatever it was.
The glass shards lay scattered on the table, some on the floor, and he finally, distantly, recognizes pain coming from his bare back; some shards must have landed on him from where he was crouched.
He still felt foggy, groggy, not-quite-there, but he still knew he had to assess the damage.
He reaches out, laying his hands on the edge of the table and lifts himself up on trembling legs.
Dizziness comes back for a vengeance, but he is able to keep standing as he takes a large, careful step over the glass shards on the ground and stumbles his way to the small basement bathroom.
He fumbles for the lightswitch, shaking hands reaching around in the dark. Finally, he finds it, flicks it on, and the warm light is blinding at first.
But as his eyes adjust, the image in the mirror is shocking.
There he stands, Will Byers, sickly and pale. His skin is shining with sweat, deep circles under his eyes, but what is most stark is the bright red blood pouring from his nostrils. It pooled in his top lip before dripping down his mouth and down his chin, and he watches as a lone droplet falls onto his chest.
His brows draw together in confusion as he reaches up to wipe some of the blood away. It’s sticky and warm on his fingertips, and he focuses on the taste of copper in his mouth and how fuzzy he feels.
It’s like he’s still not quite here, that despite the pain he felt and how real it was, this could all be a.. dream.
He blinks, and for a moment the buzzing in his ears returns, but he shakes his head and it dissipates. Not good for his nausea, as his stomach once again flips, but he can’t let... whatever that was… happen again.
Mechanically, distantly, Will reaches out to turn on the faucet, hot. It burns his hand if he holds it underneath too long, heating quickly due to the water heater being here in the basement, but that’s good. He feels far, far too cold, and the heat will keep him away, the heat of the water will keep him safe.
He uses toilet paper to clean up the blood as best as he can, not wanting to stain Mrs. Wheeler’s nice white towels, swishing his mouth with water to get rid of the copper taste. He hisses a bit as he turns around, looking over his shoulder in the mirror at his back.
While it wasn’t particularly bad, there were about a dozen small scratches, each of them burning faintly. Luckily it didn’t look like there was any glass from the lightbulb stuck in them, so he just tried his best to reach over his shoulder and wipe the scratches with a damp towel. They weren’t too bloody.
Finally cleaned up, Will looks in the mirror.
While much better with the lack of blood streaming down his face, he still looks… not great. His eyes are bloodshot, his hair sweaty and mussed from when he was no doubt grasping at anything, anything, to stop the pain earlier. As he continues to stare, he thinks back to the voice, speaking his name, echoing in his skull, and he feels himself begin to blur.
His eyes lose focus, his lids begin to droop, and he is hit with bone deep exhaustion like he was hit by a ten ton truck. It was all he could do to stumble back to bed, uncaring of the damp circle of sweat on the sheets.
As soon as his head hit the pillow, he was asleep.