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Will huffed, reaching up another height of the ladders. The past few days had been exhausting enough as it was without a five hundred foot tall tower to escapade. His mouth felt like the Sahara desert by this point, nearly reaching the top. Many of the others had made enough pace to get to the top by now but that didn’t include him.
His hand clambered to the metal as he reached another stopping point. A minute or so wouldn’t hurt, right? Only the world was ending.
Scuffed converse met his eye-line before he pulled himself up to the hatched iron flooring. Ones he was met with at the shoe rack of the home he’d been occupying for the past few months. The ones of Mike Wheeler.
They hadn’t talked much since being inside the Squawk. Damn him for not offering to take the water instead so he didn’t have to have this conversation.
Before he could even speak a word, Mike piped up, taking note to him sneaking up behind, “Want some?”
The bottle held out in-front of him like a tease, as if it was that easy; as if anything was that easy. His hands were uneasy reaching for it, lost at why nothing had been said. Had nothing changed..?
“Hey, uhm..” The voice spoke again before he could finish his sip - here it goes. “What you said earlier at the Squawk.” He took a pause, probably getting ready to yell at him, call him names. “I’m sorry.”
Wait what..?
“I mean, not sorry about what you said. That came out wrong. Or not came out wrong- Jesus Christ.”
Mike continued rambling on and on, getting caught in his wording as he usually did before he cut him off. “It’s okay.”
He couldn’t help but laugh over the man fumbling over each word that came out of his mouth, perfectly messing it up in every way he could like the little dork he was. It all seemed so natural, so lighthearted - why did he ever think Mike would say any otherwise?
“No, it’s… it’s not.” Mike went back on himself in an attempt to keep in line. “I should’ve been there for you, and I wasn’t. And I guess I was just so self-absorbed that I couldn’t see it.” He took a second to look away as if he couldn’t hold his gaze. “I just, I feel like an idiot, and I…” He sighed in trying to come up with the right things to say, “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.” He reassured him, wondering if he would even look back. And he did, he always did. “And you are not an idiot. You’re not. I just… I didn’t even understand it myself for the longest time. I just, I think it needed to happen the way it happened. I needed to find my own way. But what matters is that you’re still here, and you think we can be friends.”
Anxious hope filled his mind as he awaited for what he was to say. Did he really still want to be friends? It was Mike, he never judged before, he didn’t know why he assumed he would now. He just thought it was be different but it wasn’t; it really wasn’t?
“Friends? No thanks, why would you ever think that?” The boy’s eyes pierced towards him, distain spread across his face. “I don’t want to be friends with some queer.”
Will took a step back, suddenly thrown back to harsh reality. “I’m sorry-“
“If you were sorry you would have never chosen this in the first place.” He spat out words like poison, making incisions in his heart. “I mean, seriously? Falling for your guy best friend and expecting him to be a freak like you? You really were living in fairyland.”
A chime fell from behind him.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
Each chime met at his heartbeat. Slow and beaten down. The voice of the man slowly became deeper and clearer as if it wasn’t the person he knew at all.
“What did you expect, William?” The outside faded to black around him, everything disappeared through his hands.
“Did you expect him to feel the same? He doesn’t understand you. They don’t understand you like I do.” He jerked a turn around, a vine-covered creature of what was once a man now stood behind him.
“No- no!” His body moved left from right and right from left. Nothing else was there. No one else was there. Nothing.
“You observed it yourself. You know it’s not too late to join me, William. We can change this world from cruel people like them.” The words echoed through the void. “We can make the change needed.”
“I’m not joining you.” He barely made it past mouthing, a twinge of nerves pulling away at each of his limbs.
A grin of sorts creeped through the flesh Vecna. “Oh but you will William. You Will.”
All he wanted to do was drown him out. To get rid of the torment of his voice. None of this was real. None of any of that was real. Only Vecna would spew words of hatred that from the body of someone so dear.
Will’s eyes shut blurring back to old times - good times. Times which he could become lost in forever. Ones where that monster could never find him.
“Oh William, why so defensive? Is it that little friend of yours? Has he gotten underneath your skin?”
He tried to let it bypass him, memories flourishing through his mind. Not fast enough. His eyes forced open, met with an otherworldly sight.
Mike.
His bones littered the otherwise blank floor as if a scene from his worst nightmare. This wasn’t reality, it couldn’t be.
“This, William, is what can happen when such as you disobey.” The unearthly voice threatened.
None of it was real. None of it ever was. He was just pulling at his strings, right? Right?!
Anything could happen in this war of a world. Hawkins was falling apart as they spoke, who knows what was next. Who knows who was next.
“This will not be the end of it William.” Vecna echoed once more before he let go of his mental grasp upon Will’s presence.
His breath came back but shallow, glaring right at the eyes that worriedly stared back at him.
Mike.
Not dead, not yet.
“Will?! Holy shit you’re back.” Mike all spoke through a quick in and out of breath, seemingly close to the point of tears. “Are you okay? What happened?!”
“Vecna. He’s coming. He’s coming for any of us.” His vision directly met the rest of the steep ladders. “We have to go, now.”
“Will- you just almost got taken. We can’t let that happen again-“
“There’s no time.” Will met the ladder, already taking the first step before Mike could argue against it as he always did. “C’mon.”