Chapter Text
William Byers had been out on a walk when he stumbled upon a trail, as he followed it, the grass became less alive. Browned and wilted. When he reached the end of the path, he was greeted by a large brick castle. It was visibly old and decaying, chunks of stone that were missing, plants and vines climbing up the sides of the structure. The windows had been boarded up with wood along with the door.
Mike, ever curious, drifts out into the upper hallway, his footsteps barely brushing against the stone. He brushes a thin layer of dust from the staircase railing, dark eyes flicking downward as he wonders who would dare wander into his castle uninvited. He lingered there longer than necessary, half-hidden by the shadows, watching…listening.
The flashlight flickered a bit causing Will to bang it against his palm a few times until it began to work properly, waving it around to see his surroundings. He blinked a few times, adjusting his eyes to the now dimly lit room, examining the details of everything around him.
From above, he watched the thin beam of light appear, flinching when it flickered before steadying again. He froze by the railing, fingers curling into the dust, letting a scratch echo. He held his breath out of habit he didn’t need, heart thudding.
The noise was quiet, very quiet, but so was the castle and Will ever-so-slightly heard the tiny scratch from somewhere above him. “Hello? Is someone there?” he said, sounding a little panicked. He pointed the flashlight above him and slowly moved it around the room, eyes searching.
The light crept closer to the railing. He shrank back instinctively, pressing himself into the shadowed wall, pulse hammering even though it shouldn’t—or even couldn’t. “Dunce,” he managed to mutter out, fingers tightening in the dust as if that might anchor him. He hadn’t meant to make a sound, he thought he was being careful.
“..Whatever.” He began to walk around and explore, coming across an old bookshelf in some room towards the right, he wasn’t sure anymore. His fingertips slid across the top of the shelf, collecting dust. “Just how ancient is this place..?” he wondered. The setting sky in a nearby window had been caught in the corner of Will's eye, ultimately leading him to the decision to go home.
Mike doesn’t move. He presses himself back into the wall, holding his breath again even though he doesn’t need to. He thinks about stepping away, about staying quiet and letting Will leave. The castle creaks somewhere else and he hopes—really hopes—that’s enough to cover for him.
Will pauses when the castle creaks, his shoulders tensing slightly. He looks around again, lifting the flashlight and slowly shining it across the walls and ceiling. He waits a moment, listening, before letting out a quiet breath. “This place is seriously creepy…” he mutters to himself. After another second, he lowers the flashlight, turning back toward the way he came, already starting to head for the exit.
Mike thinks that’s it when Will starts toward the exit, and something tight pulls in his chest. He leans forward without thinking, just a little, and the loose stone under his foot shifts. It makes a sharper sound this time, echoing down the stairwell. Before he can pull back, the flashlight snaps upward, the beam climbing the stairs and catching him from below. Mike freaks out, stumbling back from the railing, hand flying up to block the light as a startled hiss slips out of him. His heart slams hard as he presses into the wall, realizing he’s been seen.
Will yelps when the beam lands on something that moves, his flashlight jerking violently as his heart slams against his ribs. “Oh—oh god—” he chokes out, frozen for a second, eyes wide and unblinking. The figure on the stairs doesn’t look human, not really—shaggy dark hair falling into pale, sharp features, a scrawny frame that makes him look almost too fragile, and yet impossibly alive in a way that terrifies Will. Every instinct screams danger. “Stay back—don’t—please!” His voice trembles, sharp and frantic, as he stumbles back, the light shaking in his hands. Shadows twist around the room, the sunset barely reaching the corners, and Will’s chest tightens, breath coming fast.
Mike presses himself against the wall, fingers curling into the dust as he tries to shrink into the shadows. He forces his heartbeat to slow, though it feels impossible. “I… intend no harm,” he whispered, voice hushed, the sound more a murmur against the weight of stone and shadow. Each movement was cautious, deliberate; each breath measured as though he had centuries of practice in silence. The light grazed his features, and he recoiled—not from fear, but from a lifetime of careful observation.
Will stumbles slightly but steadies himself, lowering the beam a fraction, curiosity threading through his fear. “Oh… sorry! Did I startle you? Do you… live here?” His voice is cautious now, softer, attempting to bridge the tension.
Mike hesitates, then shakes his head, eyes flicking up toward him. “No… I probably scared you,” he admits, quiet and deliberate. The confession hangs in the still air, fragile and almost intimate.
Will steps slowly up the stairs, keeping the light angled to avoid Mike’s face, noticing the way he reacts to the brightness. “You… sensitive to light?” he asks softly, genuine concern threading through the words.
Mike lets out a faint, almost shy laugh, brushing hair out of his eyes. “A little,” he says, voice low, tight around the words. He moves a fraction back into the shadows, body relaxing slightly at the careful way Will adjusts the beam.
Will pauses just above him, breathing calm but measured. “Here… let me help you out,” he says suddenly, reaching a hand gently to steady Mike when his foot slips on the stone. Their fingers brush, the contact lingering longer than either expects. Mike swallows hard, heart tightening, and the closeness leaves him conscious of every detail—the sound of Will’s breath, the warmth radiating through the brief touch, the way the light catches the curve of his features.
“Are you okay?” Will asks, tilting his head, eyes soft but alert. Mike nods, barely audible. “Yeah... thank you.” The sound is more intimate than he realizes, carrying something of the quiet connection forming between them.
For a moment, neither moves, suspended in the castle’s thick, still air. Shadows twist gently around them, dust motes catching the last traces of sunset. Mike presses a hand against the railing, grounding himself, aware of Will’s presence more acutely than he has of anyone in decades. Will’s gaze lingers, curiosity and concern intertwining, and something shifts—something delicate and unspoken—that assures Mike he is not entirely alone.
And for another moment longer, they stare into each other's gazes. Quickly adverting the others view after a few seconds too long.
The castle seems to settle around them, stone cooling as the last of the day drains from the sky. The light through the windows fades from gold to gray, then to something closer to blue, and the shadows stretch, long and familiar to Mike in a way they are not to Will. He knows every sound this place makes—the groan of beams shifting, the distant sigh of wind through cracks too narrow for a human body, the way the walls seem to murmur when the night finally takes hold. He’s learned which noises mean danger and which mean nothing at all.
Will, on the other hand, hears everything at once.
The silence presses in, thick and heavy, and the awareness that he is standing in the dark with someone—or something—he doesn’t fully understand makes his pulse jump again. Still, he doesn’t raise the flashlight. He doesn’t step back.
Mike notices.
He’s always been good at noticing things. Small things. Shifts in posture. Hesitation. The difference between fear that’s about to turn into panic and fear that’s being carefully reined in. He used to read people that way when he was alive—back when the world was loud and bright and full of other people’s voices. He learned it even better when he was alone.
“You don’t have to stay,” Mike says again, quieter this time, almost tired. There’s no bite to it. No threat. Just the truth, stated plainly. “Most people don’t.”
Will swallows, fingers tightening around the flashlight handle. “I was already leaving,” he says, though it comes out less convincing than he probably intended. After a beat, he adds, “I just… didn’t expect anyone else to be here.”
“Neither did I,” Mike replies automatically.
The words slip out before he can stop them, edged with something dry and familiar—something that almost sounds like the sarcastic humor he used to have, the kind he used to throw around to mask nerves or deflect attention. The realization makes his jaw tighten. He hasn’t sounded like that in a long time.
Will huffs a small, startled laugh before he can stop himself. It’s quiet, unsure, but real. “Yeah,” he says. “Guess that makes two of us.”
The sound of it echoes faintly, swallowed by stone.
Mike exhales through his nose, shoulders loosening just a fraction. He shifts his weight, one hand still resting against the railing like it’s an anchor. He doesn’t move closer. He doesn’t move away. He’s learned that sudden movements make people nervous, and he doesn’t want Will bolting down the stairs and never coming back—not because he plans to stop him, but because the idea of this brief, strange connection snapping off so abruptly leaves something hollow in his chest.
“How did you manage to enter?” Mike asks, glancing toward the boarded windows, the door he sealed years ago with wood and iron and stubborn determination. “I thought I had barricaded everything.”
Will follows his gaze, brow furrowing. “There’s a broken wall on the east side,” he says. “Mostly hidden by vines. I kinda… squeezed through.”
Mike blinks.
Then, despite himself, he snorts. “Well that explains a lot.”
Will tilts his head. “What?”
“The East wall had always been the worst,” Mike mutters. “I fix it, and the stone seems to… give up again. As if it's tired.”
He freezes for half a second after saying it, realizing how that must sound. Like he’s been here long enough to patch walls. Long enough to watch them crumble more than once.
Will notices the pause.
“How long have you been here?” he asks carefully.
Mike doesn’t answer right away.
The question sits between them, heavier than the others. Time is a complicated thing when you’ve had too much of it. When days blur together and seasons pass without meaning, when years stack up quietly until counting them feels pointless.
“Quite the while,” he says finally.
It’s not a lie. It’s just not the whole truth.
Will nods, accepting it for what it is. He shifts his stance on the stairs, careful not to step too close, careful not to crowd him. “You… take care of this place?” he asks, gesturing vaguely at the castle.
Mike’s mouth twitches. “I attempt to.”
The admission is softer than he means it to be. He thinks of the rooms he’s sealed off, the furniture he’s pushed against broken walls, the way he’s swept the same halls over and over just to keep the dust from swallowing everything whole. He thinks of how quiet it gets when he stops moving.
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in years,” Will says.
“Because they haven't.”
The words come out sharper than intended, and Mike winces almost immediately. He shakes his head, rubbing at the back of his neck, dark hair falling into his eyes. “Apologies. I just—people don’t normally… linger any longer than they have to.”
Will studies him for a moment, then nods slowly. “Yeah,” he says. “I get that.”
That, more than anything else, throws Mike off.
He looks at Will properly now—not just as an intruder, not just as a source of light and noise, but as a person. Someone thin and a little hunched, like he’s used to making himself smaller. Someone whose eyes flick to the corners of the room the way Mike’s own once did, always watching, always listening. Someone who doesn’t quite look like he belongs anywhere else either.
“You do?” Mike asks, skeptical despite himself.
Will shrugs one shoulder. “Sometimes it’s easier to be alone,” he says. Then, after a pause, “Even when it kinda sucks.”
Something in Mike’s chest tightens, sharp and unexpected.
“Yes,” he says quietly. “I suppose it does.”
Another silence stretches between them, but it’s not uncomfortable. Not exactly. It’s the kind of silence that comes from two people who don’t feel the need to fill every gap with noise, who understand that quiet can mean safety just as much as it can mean isolation.
The castle creaks again, louder this time, and Will flinches despite himself.
“I am sorry,” Mike says automatically, as if the sound is somehow his fault. “That tends to happen when the temperature cools.”
Will lets out a breath, steadying himself. “You ever think about leaving?” he asks, the question gentle but direct.
Mike’s first instinct is to deflect it. To brush it off with something sarcastic, something easy. Instead, he finds himself staring past Will, down the staircase, toward the darkened halls below.
“I did,” he says. “A very long time ago.”
“And now?”
He hesitates.
“I don’t know if I remember how,” Mike admits.
The honesty hangs between them, raw and unpolished. He half expects Will to look at him like he’s broken, like something to be pitied or feared. Instead, Will’s expression softens.
“Well,” he says carefully, “you’re not… stuck here. Not really. You chose to stay.”
Mike laughs under his breath, short and humorless. “That is one way to put it.”
“It matters,” Will insists, surprising himself with the firmness in his voice. “The difference, I mean.”
Mike studies him for a long moment, searching for mockery or disbelief and finding none. Just sincerity. Just quiet conviction.
“Perhaps,” he says. “But choice tends to seem weird when you’ve been alone long enough.”
Will nods again, like that makes sense to him.
gThe night deepens around them. The castle grows colder, the stone leeching warmth from the air. Will shivers slightly, rubbing his arms, and Mike notices immediately.
“Hey,” he says, pushing off the railing at last. Will tenses instinctively, but Mike stops a few steps away, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “There’s a space down there, it's still intact. The fireplace works.”
“You… light fires?” Will asks, surprised.
Mike shrugs. “That or I freeze to my death.”
For a second, Will hesitates, torn between instinct and curiosity, between the sensible part of his brain screaming at him to leave and the quieter part urging him to stay. He looks toward the exit, then back at Mike.
“Okay,” he says finally.
The word feels heavy. Important.
Mike nods once, turning toward the stairs. He moves slowly, deliberately, giving Will plenty of space to follow or not. When Will does follow, careful steps echoing softly behind him, Mike feels something settle in his chest that he hasn’t felt in a very long time.
Company.
Not loud. Not overwhelming. Just… there.
As they descend into the castle’s depths, shadows curling gently along the walls, Mike realizes that for the first time in years, the silence doesn’t feel quite so endless.
And Will, walking a few steps behind him, can’t shake the feeling that he’s stumbled onto something fragile and strange and important—something old and lonely, waiting quietly in the dark.