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light-lanterne · 11 months

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This story follows the general concept of @foodiewithdahoodie's cannibal Will / serial killer Mike AU, the likes of which is vaguely inspired by 'Bones and All' and other cannibal and vampire media. It’s important to note that this story is rated Mature and gets quite descriptive and dark, so please be mindful when reading. For context, this happens after S2, with Will finally free of the Mind Flayer and things returning to normal… except Will didn't return quite "right", and now has an insatiable hunger he can't quench with normal food. CW: cannibalism, murder and violence. - - - - - - - - - - - - - ☽ - - - - - - - - - - - - - 𐕣 read on ao3 (tba) || support me on ko-fi! 𐕣 @foodiewithdahoodie's posts: i - ii - iii - iv - tag 𐕣 @fluffyfangirl's incredible art: ♡ - - - - - - - - - - - - - ☽ - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This wasn’t supposed to happen, was the first coherent thought Will had since he abruptly left class earlier, thoughts fuzzy and limbs heavy after wandering the empty hallways of Hawkins Middle School in a daze for what felt like hours. He vaguely remembered someone calling his name, followed by some snickers and the louder voice of Mrs. Grabowski trying to catch his attention as he exited the classroom, not a word spoken to justify his sudden departure.

Of course, it was weird, and one would think that considering the circumstances someone would’ve said something or even chased after him. But no, no one followed him and why would they? No one in that classroom was his friend. After all, he was Will Byers, the quiet kid that had never really fit in and, more recently, the boy that had gone missing and had mysteriously come back to life. The weirdo. The freak. Zombie Boy. An abomination, someone who’d been acting strange for a while and was finally back to school for the first time in a week. Unwelcomed. Unwanted. Unknown.

Different.

Will was different and everyone had been able to tell for a long time, except his oddity now extended far beyond what his classmates, teachers, friends and family could ever imagine and he himself found it hard to understand what was happening to him.

All he knew was that ever since he was freed from the Mind Flayer’s possession, things had been strange.

He first became aware of it when he woke up in the hospital, Chief Hopper somehow managing to convince his mom to take him there to spend the rest of the week recovering. And it made sense, to a degree, for his possession hadn’t been too different from a terrible flu and he really needed all the help he could get to recover.

But the second he woke up he could tell something was wrong. He could tell something was not quite right the second he noticed his own eyes lingering as a nurse walked by the door with blood bags in hand, stomach rumbling with a vengeance at the sight. Naturally, this then prompted the nurses to fetch him something to eat, and Will was immediately invaded with memories of one of his last “meals”, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he remembered the snacks he’d eaten all those days ago, in Mike’s basement during Halloween night. Back when everything was normal and he was still just himself, the son of Joyce Byers and brother of Jonathan; friend of Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, the new girl Max Mayfield, and Mike Wheeler. He could almost savour the cheesy Doritos and sweet Kit-Kats; the fizzy Fanta and the delicious Reese’s snacks Mike had collected and slipped into his candy bag all throughout the night.

A stark contrast to what he’d been given to eat then, by the nurses.

And hospital food was never supposed to taste good, he knew this, but it was at the very least supposed to be filling and it’d been weird to find out just how empty he still felt even after what was objectively a rather full meal. Not even three jellies had been enough to quench his hunger and the nurses believed it to be a side effect of his week-long illness, their reassuring words directed at his mom moreso than him because it was clear she was beyond concerned.

But Will had known better. Even if he hadn’t had a name for it then, and even if he still couldn’t grasp the reality of the situation, he knew that wasn’t the reason behind his insatiable hunger.

It wasn’t hard to figure it out, to be completely fair. The dreams… the nightmares he’d been having were enough to clue him into the severity of his condition, visions of death and murder a clear indicator that something was terribly wrong with him. Pictures of himself hunched over, feasting on the rotten corpse of the sweet Barbara Holland something that would haunt even the strongest of men. He looked… Animalistic. Desperate. Hungry.

(He’d been hungry as he bit into Barbara’s side, once the Demogorgon was gone and his starving twelve-year-old self was able to eat something for the first time in days.)

It was… wrong. He was wrong. An error. A mistake, just like his dad had always said he was, except his depravity was now far darker than anything anyone could’ve foretold. Flawed. Messed up. Fucked up. So very fucked up.

And at first, it had repulsed him. Humans were not supposed to dream about killing and eating other people, and the fact that Will was having these confusing fantasies was enough to scare him into not wanting to eat any meat for the rest of his time in the hospital, his refusal a constant point of contention between himself, his mom and the nurses. ‘You need to eat if you want to go home,’ they’d tell him, and he’d shake his head with vehemence and bury himself under the covers until they agreed to let him have more soup instead. He’d find excuses and lies to tell Jonathan whenever their mother sent him in to try to convince Will of giving up his fight.

But he couldn’t lie to himself for much longer, not when the hunger was so strong, and not when the nightmares became a part of his daily life. When the yearning for blood became the only thing he was able to think about the whole day, eyes trailing over the translucent skin of those around him in the search for blue veins, fingers twitching to wrap themselves around frail necks and press until life vacated its vessel… Not when his mouth salivated at the idea of ripping skin open and snapping people’s bones to expose what laid within, and certainly not when his heart picked up speed whenever the desire to sink teeth into supple flesh and bite and tear and feed popped back up in the forefront of his mind.

Will was not a liar by nature, and each passing day he found it harder and harder to deny that whoever his mom, Jonathan and Nancy had rescued was not the Will they’d known. They’d gone into the cabin searching to get rid of the parasitic entity that had invaded him, and had left with something that was not entirely human. Not fully. Not anymore.

It was sad. He should be sad. Life had thrown him nothing but punches ever since he had memory, and this felt like the biggest middle finger the universe could have possibly ever given him. It wasn’t enough to send him into another dimension full of nothing but fear and agony, a monster constantly hunting for him for some reason and his home —the place he was supposed to feel safe at— suddenly a maze of horror and desperation. It wasn’t enough to let him listen to his loved ones search for him relentlessly, their pain everything he could hear as he hid from the horrors, their voices a constant reminder of the love and life he was sure he’d lose for there was no way they could reach him in that purgatory. It wasn’t enough to bring his misery back a year later, his body becoming host to the very creature that was behind everything that had happened to him since that horrible night in November when he was only twelve, his mind slowly slipping away into oblivion as everyone he loved succumbed to his treason.

No, that hadn’t been enough. Now he was cursed and tainted and was infested with something from Hell itself and he had no way of escaping it. This terrible emptiness that now riddled his twisted soul was a constant reminder of everything bad that had ever happened to him, and he should be angry at the way fate kept mocking and taunting him at every waking moment.

He should be annoyed. Pissed. Enraged.

And he was, at least for a bit. Bitter, that was. But he stopped caring as soon as he realised something. Found something. And it wasn’t anything he thought he’d ever have, but the fact that he did was enough to ease his pain and loneliness and transform them into something much better. Much purer.

Mike’s acceptance.

Granted, he hadn’t necessarily been searching for it and he was still in absolute disbelief that Mike had even found out about it in the first place, but it was a fact that Mike was okay with… whatever this was, and Will wasn’t going to pretend that it wasn’t the best feeling in the world to know that Mike still thought of Will as a friend, despite what he knew. That Mike still saw him as someone worthy of his affection and care, despite Will’s new… nature.

It’d happened a few days earlier, on Will’s first day out of the hospital and back home. The rest of the Party wasn’t there, for everyone thought it’d be better to let him readapt slowly, but Mike had always been stubborn and Will’s mom had found it really hard to send him away the moment he showed up in their front door with an armful of snacks and the entirety of the Star Wars film saga shoved into his backpack, right under Mike’s sleeping bag and pajamas. Will’s mom had always had a soft spot for Mike, after all, and it wasn��t like Mike hadn’t been of huge help during the entire Mind Flayer ordeal, so he’d definitely earned his way into spending the night over.

For the first few hours, things were normal, their favourite movie playing as they whispered useless gossip to one another in between chips like they’d always done. Then everything got awkward for a few minutes, when Luke lost his hand on screen and Mike interpreted Will’s sudden tension as fear, as opposed to overbearing hunger and desire; excusing himself to the bathroom in order to try and regain some semblance of composure, Will then spent a good ten minutes staring into his reflection, eyes dark and hands jittery as he imagined himself consuming the flesh off of someone, anyone’s bony hand. After what felt like forever, he was able to return to the living room and it wasn’t easy to convince Mike that everything was okay, but eventually Will managed and they finished the rest of their marathon in peace.

And that’s when things changed. When Will couldn’t control his urges any further.

In retrospect, there was no way he could've held back, no matter how hard he tried. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, for him to grab Mike’s finger after the lovable idiot cut himself with the edge of their Cocoa Puffs box, Mike’s skin always so soft and delicate that the thin cardboard was enough to cause him such an injury. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, for him to bring the slender finger close to his lips, the motion not too different from what they both did to each other as kids whenever they got hurt, except this time Will wasn’t planning on giving the injury a little peck. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, for him to open his mouth and slowly, tenderly, lap at the small cut with his tongue not unlike a cat cleaning itself, the fact that he’d just grabbed Mike’s hand to taste his blood only registering in his mind well over a minute after he was done savouring the delicious, forbidden crimson nectar that he’d been craving all week.

All he knew was that one moment he was looking at Mike as he got a small paper cut, and the next moment he was blurting out apologies and excuses for what he’d just done, his ranting interrupted only by the way Mike wrapped his secure, grounding arms around Will’s torso, pulling him impossibly close and whispering sweet nothings into his ear, not stopping until he was convinced that Will had calmed down.

He told Mike everything after that. The nightmares, his odd yearnings, his fears. Exposed at last, all laid out for Mike to judge and repudiate him for and to a degree, he wished Mike would’ve told him it was wrong. That he was a monster, a freak, and that they needed to find a way to get Will’s destructive thoughts to end before he ended up hurting someone. That they needed to go to his mom’s room and get her to gather the troops, get a hold of doctor Owens so he could figure things out, something.

Everything would’ve been better if Mike had rejected him. It was the moral thing to do, and Will considered himself a good enough person to recognise this.

If Mike had told him this was wrong, Will would’ve clung to everything he’d ever learned about good and evil, would’ve tried harder to get better, would’ve tried to be satiated with normal food. He would’ve done everything in his power to reject that with which he’d been left behind by the Upside Down, would’ve listened attentively to anything the shady government doctors told him to do… Hell, he would have even prayed every night until he could confidently say that he was over that weird phase of his life and everything was behind him, the fact that his soul had been corrupted for way longer than his strange appetite nothing in comparison to the things he wished he could do to Mike now that he’d tasted his sweet alluring blood.

Mike should’ve told him off. If he had, this wouldn’t be happening.

But he hadn’t and now Will didn’t care that it was wrong. He didn’t care that his desires made him a monster, and he didn’t care that his instincts had taken a hold of him and he’d let go of control the second Troy cornered him in the empty hallway.

Why would he care, anyway? Mike had told him it was okay, that he should do whatever felt right at any moment because it was his body requesting what it needed to recover. The world had already failed them all one too many times, anyway, so it wasn’t wrong for him to take something back, right? At least that’s what Mike had reasoned with him, once he was sure Will finally accepted that he didn’t mind just how weird things had gotten, his eyes warm as he reassured Will into accepting his new needs. His new self. Crooked and perverted. Savage and insatiable. Ready to devour anyone that crossed his path, an emerging predator in a world so full of prey no one would miss a few people.

And sure, part of Will still wished Mike had dissuaded his disturbing thoughts because now it was impossible to muffle them once they took a hold of his soul. Now it was impossible to keep the freak on a leash.

Hence his current conundrum.

But it didn’t matter. What was done, was done and for what it was worth, Will had enjoyed it. Granted, he couldn’t remember all the details of what’d happened, but he knew enough to put the missing pieces together: he’d been aimlessly wandering the halls in a trance, wound up in the closed-for-renovation section of the school, and Troy had tried to mess with him. So, Will had naturally lunged at him and tore his throat open with teeth and nails, blood sputtering out from the carotid and straight into Will’s greedy mouth as they both fell to the floor and Will found enough grip to shred a piece of some muscle apart, nearly choking at the mouthful for he was seemingly too delirious to chew slowly or wait before taking another bite. And then another. And another.

Because that’s what he did now, apparently. It’s what his inner beast demanded and Mike had told him to listen to it, so Will was just doing what he was told and frankly, he should’ve never questioned Mike’s judgement. Mike had always been smart, after all, so Will couldn’t understand why he was so surprised at the fact that following his advice could end up in something that felt so… fulfilling. Ecstatic. It was like watching his favourite film or eating Reese’s Pieces for the first time again, opening Christmas presents or winning a D&D campaign. It felt great, the thrill of each bite bringing him to a new level of euphoria he’d never experienced and he wasn’t sure how he’d ever lived without this. Wasn’t sure how he’d ever go back to an existence without this bliss. And cognitively he knew that this was the Mind Flayer’s fault, and that a month ago he never would’ve wanted or needed to do this.

But now he did, and he couldn’t find it in himself to feel guilty about how good it felt, the pit in his stomach gone for the first time in a week, and his hunger quelled at last. His new self was satisfied, the amalgamation of Will Byers and the being from the Upside Down finally synchronised and united in harmony, and a dopey smile adorning his features as he showered in the rapture of his new awakening.

Even in his floaty state, however, he could tell when someone approached. It was as though he had reached enlightenment, now that his innards were filled to the brim with warm blood and flesh, and he was now suddenly hyperaware of every little movement in his inner and outer world. And of course, he was satisfied with the meal he’d just had —or else he would’ve kept eating until nothing was left behind—, but the idea of eating some more didn’t sound too displeasing. In fact, now that the thought had crossed his mind he found himself… eager. Defiant. It was irrational and dangerous, but he really wished that whoever was coming stumbled across him and what he’d done, if only to get the excuse to hurt and kill and feast again.

He wanted it. Craved it. He’d always been curious and now he really wanted to know if all humans tasted the same or if there were subtle differences and he knew it wasn’t him thinking about these things, it was the beast that now lived within him. But they were now one and the same and Will was ready to let that side of himself take control and paint the walls in beautiful patterns of red as he ripped into someone’s skin once more; ready to let himself fill his stomach with someone else until there was no more room and he felt sick.

Alas, he didn’t get the chance to kill again. Not because he didn’t want to, for he couldn’t ignore that a part of him was really desperate to enact such violence upon his unexpected visitor, but because he couldn’t. Not to him, not after everything they’d been through together and after the promises they’d made.

He owed it to Mike to try to at least be a little normal around him and, perhaps more importantly, maybe not kill him.

“Will?” Mike asked, eyes wide open as he stepped through a plastic sheet someone had put in place to protect the rest of the hallway from dust and now blood. His hair was wild, ruffled by wind as if he’d been running, and it didn’t take a genius to understand that Mike had probably been searching for him, rumours quick to spread across school even if it’d only been about fifteen minutes since he left and everyone was supposed to still be in class.

Mike looked… pretty. With his pink cheeks and parted red lips, sparkly eyes and tender round cheeks. Poking from under his soft sweater, Mike’s slim neck seemed to beckon to Will, the bare skin glistening with a thin layer of sweat in a way that was really hard to ignore, the angle at which Mike had tilted his head exposing the delicious dips and cliffs of muscle and vessels that Will was buzzing with excitement to take into his mouth and destroy. It was hard to ignore it, the urge, but just like the beast had taken control of him, Will knew he could control it back if need be.

So he did. He stood up slowly and didn’t lunge at Mike as he spoke, words slurred like every time he ate a lot and needed a nap.

“I was hungry,” was all he could say, sheepish as the realisation that he’d just succumbed to his twisted desires dawned on him for the first time. The horrors he’d shared with Mike… The nightmares he’d been trying to avoid… It all felt like a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, one he didn’t even try to fight back and couldn’t be bothered to feel bad about.

All he could feel was shame and fear. Shame that someone he cared so much for saw him like that, covered in Troy Walsh’s blood with a potentially mad look in his eyes, and fear that Mike’s promises had been empty and, now that he saw the extent of Will’s insanity, he left him alone.

Once again, however, Will was reminded of the fact that he should never doubt Mike. “I can see that,” his friend scoffed once he was free of his shock, his eyes scanning the scene with apparent disinterest right before setting on Will, warmth inundating them as if he’d just seen a puppy or a beautiful sunrise and Will could almost cry at the realisation that yes, Mike would honour his promise to be by Will’s side as they explored this new side of his and no, he wouldn’t leave him alone.

Despite knowing each other for eight years, Mike Wheeler continued to impress him every single day.

“Sorry; I know it’s a mess,” Will shot back, tentative smile on his lips as he, unreasonably, kept expecting things to go South. After all, he was Will Byers and his luck was never the best. No one should blame him for expecting the worst.

This time, however, his concern was completely unnecessary. “Don’t worry, we can fix it,” Mike simply said, and that was all it took for Will’s smile to become sincere. Smiling back as if they’d just shared a private joke, Mike approached and poked his arm, gentle eyes searching for his as he asked his next question. “Do you feel any better?” He said, and Will could only nod because he was still not sure of how much Mike would want to hear about his little escapade.

“I think it’s what I was missing.”

Mike beamed at his words, clearly happy to see Will recovering his health at long last even if the price was an unconventional one and it took all of Will’s willpower not to jump him and bite into the folds of his smile. “Good,” Mike giggled, then looked around at the small, plastic-wrapped alcove Will had chosen to commit his horrible crime and nodded to himself. “We should get started now. You up for it?” Will nodded again, his smile faltering slightly as he heard what Mike had to say next. “Great! I’m going to need your help; I can’t carry his corpse by myself.”

Right, about that…

“He’s still alive,” Will declared, a frown now between his eyebrows because despite all the damage he’d caused to Troy’s neck and shoulder, the asshole was still very much breathing and —perhaps more importantly— awake.

Awake and with wide eyes, terror clear in his pupils as he desperately tried to yell, say something, make a singular noise. But he couldn’t, not after what Will had done to his throat, not after his larynx was nearly ripped out of his body at the crux of Will’s frenzy, voice box reduced to a mangled mess that Will had only left behind because of how tendony and unpleasant that area had felt when he bit into it, the swelling his failed bite had caused somehow managing to slow down the haemorrhage so much that Troy was still holding on for dear life, a whole five minutes after the original attack.

It was… odd, to see someone so loud and obnoxious like Troy suddenly reduced to a quivering mess, unable to move out of fear of bleeding out and unable to make a sound as if Will had designed his attack to render him powerless in retribution for the years of abuse the entire Party had endured at the hands of his current victim when, in reality, Will had only attacked in blind hunger. Now that Troy was laying in a pool of his own blood, however, Will couldn’t help the perverse satisfaction that took over his brain as he realised that he’d done it: he’d fulfilled his years-long desire to get back at Troy for everything he’d done and no matter how this all ended, it was a fact that the bully would never, ever, touch any of his friends again.

It was deliciously twisted, and the grumble in Will’s stomach was enough indication that such trail of thoughts was reawakening the side of his that would never stop being hungry, the idea of depriving Troy of the arms and hands he’d used to harm them for years almost loud enough to obfuscate Mike’s voice.

Almost.

Like a bee to honey, he could never fully ignore Mike Wheeler, his soft voice doing little to hide the darkness in his words and perhaps that was the reason Will was able to ignore his renewed appetite for a few more seconds.

“Not for long,” Mike mumbled, dark eyes fixed on the writhing shape that laid on the floor in front of them. Noticing he had Will’s entire attention on him, Mike forced a smile and dismissively gestured towards Troy’s body. “Tell me when you’re ready to go,” he said and, when Will only nodded again, he continued speaking. “Good. Give me a second.”

And with that, putting on a gym-class jacket atop his outfit and clenching his hand around the handle of a hammer Will hadn’t noticed he’d grabbed, the sweet, adorable-looking Mike Wheeler he’d known his whole life rose his arm with determination and, after a beat, swung the hammer right into Troy’s head, the mute boy letting out a weak breath in lieu of a scream for Will had already deprived him of the chance to let his death be known to the world. When that didn’t kill him, Mike swung the hammer again. And again. Over and over until Troy’s face became unrecognisable mush, whatever skull structure he’d ever had being reduced to nothing but bone splinters and blood. They could easily leave the body there and no one would ever be able to tell who it belonged to at that point, the viciousness with which his friend turned their once-bully into a pulp something Will had never expected to witness from someone as gentle and kind-hearted as Mike.

It was a brutal attack, one that Will’s dark self very much enjoyed watching, and the satisfaction of knowing that he wasn’t the only messed up one in their friend group was something he’d have to process once they were back home playing with their Atari and stuffing their cheeks full of popcorn.

For now, however, he smiled, watching Mike’s handiwork as his beloved best friend finally let go of the hammer and sank to the floor in exhaustion, a good three metres away from their mess in order to keep his pants and shoes in pristine condition because of course he was smart enough to keep his own clothes clean from the incriminating blood. Eyeing the rise and fall of Mike’s chest as he fought to catch his breath to say something, Will decided this was as good of a time as any to mention the fact that, for some reason, he was once again in desperate need of a snack.

“Actually, I’m already hungry again,” Will spoke, his voice seemingly snapping Mike out of some trance, dark pupils dilated in what Will could only imagine was a mirror reflection of his own. When Mike arched an eyebrow in mild disbelief, Will could only shrug and smirk teasingly. “The less weight we have to carry the better, right?” He asked, and his words made Mike roll his eyes in faux annoyance.

“Just don’t overeat. You know it makes you feel sick for like a week.”

Will chuckled at that, kneeling next to Troy’s incredibly bloody corpse and grabbing one of his hands with both of his, mouth filling with saliva as plans to strip both arms down to the bone formulated in his very sick, very wretched brain. To be entirely honest, Will wasn’t sure he was capable of overeating anymore, the fact that he could probably eat Troy’s entire corpse in a day something he’d be sure to share with Mike later, when they were safe and he was done eating.

Before he took a bite, however, he was mindful enough to shoot his best friend a wide smile and a message. “Thanks, Mike,” he said, then clarified what he meant once he noticed the other’s confusion. “For having my back.”

Mike scoffed, removing the bloodied jacket from his slender body as he light-heartedly replied with two simple words.

“Crazy together.”

The callback had Will smiling from ear to ear.

“Crazy together,” he said, then let go of his conscious mind as his animal side took over and sunk his teeth into the still warm flesh of his and Mike’s first victim.

And it didn’t make much sense, and he might’ve very well imagined it in his delusional state, but as Will fed he glanced up at Mike a couple times and he could almost swear that he saw Mike’s pupils dilate again as a powerful emotion, one Will had seen a few times in the past, took over his expression. And irrational, feral and insane as he was, he was pretty certain that he’d gotten it wrong but, if Will didn’t know any better, he’d almost think Mike was jealous he wasn’t the one being eaten, torn apart and consumed by Will. Wasn’t the one eliciting such sounds of happiness and delight from him, the sweet taste of human flesh satisfying his body’s new needs and desires.

And despite being certain about the fact that he’d imagined such a reaction, Will couldn’t help but to scoff.

He’d only tasted a droplet of his blood, but Will knew for a fact that Mike was by far the most delicious person in the entirety of Hawkins; one he’d very much like to devour bit by bit, savouring every bite as he reached even higher levels of bliss he knew he’d never be able to imagine, the promise of eternal happiness something he’d only achieve the day he gave into his strongest temptation and gave Mike what he apparently desired.

Mike had no reason to be jealous at all.

#🔨#✨#🧸#byler #byler fanfiction #byler fanfic #byler ficlet #will byers #mike wheeler #dark byler agenda #cannibyler #w // graphic depictions of violence #w // cannibalism #w // murder

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