excerpt from my byler wip. i’m kinda self conscious of my writing again… esp seeing as i haven’t written in months
It’s only after Vecna and the Mindflayer are gone, and his kinda-girlfriend lost in the empty void between worlds, that Mike really has the chance to just stop and think. To let his mind wonder beyond the mission, beyond the weight of the world on their shoulders.
It’s almost silent in his room, of course there are the familiar sounds of squeaky door hinges, or heavy footsteps trailing up and down the stairs, and the dull ache of conversation that drifts up through the gaps in the floorboards, but Mike tries to ignore them. Even if it dredges up a guilty sensation in his chest — he knows he should be embracing his sister, thankful she escaped, or revelling in the fact that everyone made it out safely. Well, everyone but the one person that mattered most to him, and Mike can’t take his thoughts off her, stuck reliving the very moment she was swept away, unable to assuage the cold, damp guilt tiptoeing up his spine.
So yeah, the quiet is worse. He’d rather be stuck in the constant, deafening action of operation beanstalk than be left alone with his thoughts, at least then his hands were busy, and his mind busier. No time left for stupid thoughts or stupid feelings or the stupid deep gaping hole he feels in his chest.
For the first week he refuses to come out of his room. No number of pleading speeches from Nancy, or gentle coaxing from his mom can make him budge. Dustin comes over once but they both just sit together in silence, a reassuring solace in the all consuming vacuum that is Mike’s shitty life right now. A few tears are shed, but Dustin either doesn’t notice it, or is refusing to acknowledge it, if that’s for his sake, or Mike’s; he doesn’t know, nor care.
He barely eats the meals his mom leaves outside his door every night — instead just moving the food aimlessly around his plate, hoping that it looks like he’s at least tried. Maybe, he thinks, she’ll understand that he’s grieving the loss of his girlfriend, and mourning what could have been; the future they were going to share, before that chance was so cruelly ripped away from them by demogorgons and mindflayers and upside downs.
He does a lot of sleeping, and even more dejected staring beyond the walls of his room, trying to let the guilt consume him, hoping that maybe, if it does, his heart will stop feeling like it’s been ripped right out his chest.
It takes the party coming over with a copy of the goonies and copious amounts of popcorn, chips and other of Mike’s favourite candies, to get him to finally emerge from his room, oversized shirt hanging off his bony figure, greasy hair plastered to his forehead and generally looking like shit. They don’t care, or at least if they do, they don’t show it, and they all just bundle together in Mike’s front room and try to forget.
It works, for maybe an hour or so, but Mike can’t forget her, can’t forget the helpless screaming that left his throat raw for so many days after, can’t forget how they were so, so fucking close. For the rest of the run time of the movie he can’t focus, but he also finds he can’t quite bring himself to care — the all consuming guilt is a cancerous lump that sits too heavy in his throat.
Will must notice something’s up, because halfway through, he nudges Mike; a brush of an elbow against his side, so light that Mike could write it off as an accident, but when he glances over at Will, he finds that knowing gaze already trained on him.
gamechangershow
ellievsbear
areudirty
pixelskylines
tangentwithtanner
discoholicmusic
titsay
