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freetobeeyouandme · 6 months

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Wrap My Teeth Around the World

Tags: Rated M, Chose Not to Apply Archive Warnings, Bylerween 2023, Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, Possessed!Will, Demonic Possession, Corpses, Blood and Injury, mentions of cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, More or less anyway. It's not too graphic I think but well a demon is running loose in thise one

Words: 4k

Summary:

“You’re a fucking prude,” is all Dustin has to say. “Do you have an idea where he went?” Lucas asks. Mike pauses with the upturned container of flour in his hand, spilling the rest of it onto the floor. He surveys the scene around him, toeing the piles of rice and sugar mixing with the flour on the ground and opening the fridge he’d already closed again, its once organized insides ripped apart like the insides of a deer ravaged by a wolf. There is no Gone to get groceries written on the notepad by the fridge or Out on a killing spree, back later smeared on the hallway mirror in blood. He sighs. “No. He turned over the entire kitchen and then just left. I heard the front door close but I wasn’t quick enough to see where he ran. The bastard’s fast.” - Or, Bylerween Day 3: Demons, Devils & Exorcisms

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A/N:

For today's prompt I picked "Demons, Devils & Exorcisms" and well, if you can recognize what inspired this one you probably deserve financial compensation. I hope you enjoy it anyway, and also sorry @ Benny Hammond, you're just unfortunately so damn killable. CW: Blood, Corpses, mentions of Cannibalism and also a bit of Violence

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“What do you mean he escaped?” Lucas yells at him over the radio, and Mike supposes he almost deserves that.

He’s only half at fault, but still.

“I don’t know!” he all but yells back. Even if he’s partially at fault, he’s not going to admit that to Lucas. “I went to the bathroom and when I came back he was gone! What was I supposed to do?”

“Not go to the bathroom,” Lucas replies.

Lucas’ line goes silent and Dustin’s crackles on. “Dude, you could have just used a bottle!”

“I could not! And besides, I don’t wanna piss or shit in front of my possessed best friend, okay? I thought he was secure. We tied him up!” “You’re a fucking prude,” is all Dustin has to say.

“Do you have an idea where he went?” Lucas asks.

Mike pauses with the upturned container of flour in his hand, spilling the rest of it onto the floor. He surveys the scene around him, toeing the piles of rice and sugar mixing with the flour on the ground and opening the fridge he’d already closed again, its once organized insides ripped apart like the insides of a deer ravaged by a wolf. There is no Gone to get groceries written on the notepad by the fridge or Out on a killing spree, back later smeared on the hallway mirror in blood.

He sighs. “No. He turned over the entire kitchen and then just left. I heard the front door close, but I wasn’t quick enough to see where he ran. The bastard’s fast.”

He wants to curl up and cry because the whole realizing Will wasn’t the same when he showed up for their game and then having to tie him up was more than he thinks he can handle already. He doesn’t want to go looking for the demon inside of his best friend, and he doesn’t want to figure out how to get it out of him either. He wants to forget about the horrid things the demon had said as they secured it, in this sweet voice that was almost like Will’s but so unlike him at the same time. And most of all he just wants his best friend back.

But there is no one to go and ask for help. Their parents would tell them they’re crazy, and Mike’s pretty sure even a man as open-minded as their former science teacher, Mr. Clarke, would have some concerns and reservations. So it’s on the three of them to save Will.

If only the demon had stated some goals as they confronted it, instead of giggling to itself over nothing and insulting them.

“Maybe it was looking for something to eat?” Lucas suggests.

Dustin scoffs. “Why would a demon need to eat?” “I don’t know. But if it ransacked the kitchen maybe it was hungry?”

Mike tosses the radio onto the kitchen island, deciding that Lucas and Dustin can just bicker this out between them. It had been their job to find information on possession at the library, they could figure out what the demon wants. His job had only been to keep an eye on the-thing-that-was-not-Will and failing that he now has a kitchen to clean. Otherwise his mother will kill him when she comes home.

She might just do so anyway, because even cleaned the damage will be noticeable. He’ll need to buy replacements for everything at the Big Buy and his bike won’t fit that many groceries, not to mention he doesn’t have time for several shopping trips and dumping his trash in the big container out behind Benny’s-

The radio almost falls into the trash in his scramble for it. “Benny’s!” he yells, interrupting Lucas mid sentence.

The line goes dead for a second as the boys wait for one another to say something. Finally Lucas prompts: “Repeat that. Over.”

“Benny’s” Mike says. “Any restaurant downtown would draw too much attention, but if he was looking for something to eat-”

“Benny’s,” Dustin says, cutting him off.

Mike drops the bag of trash and hurries downstairs to get the rope and his flashlight. His mother’s welcome to do whatever she wants if he isn’t murdered by a vengeful demon before she can get her hands on him.

“I’m heading over now,” Mike says. “Meet you there.”

He clips his radio to his backpack, picks up his bike where he’d dropped it yesterday, and then he’s off. Lucas and Dustin briefly let him know they’re on the way and then the line goes quiet.

The run down shack that is Benny’s Burgers sits on the outskirts of Hawkins. Taking proper roads it’s quite a bit from the Wheeler’s house, which never bothered any of them, because if the Wheeler’s are eating out Benny’s Burgers is at the bottom of the list of places his mother might pick. But that doesn’t hold for the boys, and neither are their bikes bound to asphalt streets. Cutting through fields and running cross country he makes it there faster than Lucas and Dustin, bound by the laws of traffic as they rush over there from the center of town.

Mike considers waiting out front, but the restaurant looks desolate and eerily quiet. Maybe it’s just his overactive imagination. Probably he’s just jumpy because his best friend got possessed by a freaking demon. There are two cars in the lot, Benny’s pick up and an old Ford belonging to Ratchet Dan, a man Mike doesn’t know what he does but knows he tends to show up to Benny’s before it opens to bum a cup of coffee from its owner. They have to be inside, and the worst case scenario will be Benny tells him they’re technically not open yet and makes him some fries anyway to tide Mike over as he waits for Lucas and Dustin so they can plan their next steps. Best case that thing masquerading as Will is actually inside and–

Well, actually that might be the worst case scenario, even if it’s exactly what he hopes for.

So, after taking a deep breath and hiding his bike in the bushes behind Benny’s truck, he heads inside.

The doorbell dings quietly, announcing his entrance to nobody. The lights are already on even as the windows are still shuttered, but the restaurant is deserted. Dan isn’t at the counter, and neither does Benny stick his head out of the kitchen to check who entered.

His overactive imagination and horror movie education tell him that he’s going to find the thing pretending to be his best friend in the kitchen, hunched over their dead bodies, munching on their brains. When Mike walks in it’s going to turn around, grinning at him with Will’s mouth, blood dripping down its chin. And then red, wet hands are going to reach out to strangle him.

Maybe he should warn Dustin and Lucas.

But before he can reach for his radio, his eyes snatch on the disturbed chairs and table all the way at the back of the room, by the counter. He inches forward slowly, careful not to bump into anything and announce his presence any further. One of the bar stools has fallen over as well, and when he rounds the last table, he sees why: Ratchet Dan is laying on the floor, his cup of coffee shattered by his head. Mike can’t tell if the dark liquid pooling beside him is coffee or blood. Perhaps it is both.

He doesn’t so much as twitch with the shallow breaths of the dying.

Mike clamps a hand over his mouth to stop himself from crying out.

He kicks Dan lightly, but that doesn’t seem to wake him up or get him moving in some way. Reluctantly Mike kneels down and tries to find his pulse. All he comes away with is blood slick fingers though.

Mike doesn’t have to guess at what happened, but he decides that this is definitely the worst case scenario. There is no relief to be had in having found the-thing-that-is-not-Will: Now they have to deal with it, and whatever reluctance it had shown when they first encountered it seems to have given way to murderous intent.

Mike swallows hard and looks about the restaurant for a makeshift weapon. He finds a baseball bat under the cash register and thanks god for the pragmatism of small town business owners. Then he unclips his radio and whispers: “Don’t answer me, but he is here.”

There’s a bang in the kitchen, followed by the shuffling of feet. Mike puts away the radio and grips his weapon more tightly, then takes a tentative step in the direction of the noise. He won’t like what he’ll find, he knows, but he has no other choice. Taking a deep breath, he pushes open the swing doors into the back with the bat.

Where the front of the restaurant had looked undisturbed on the first glance, the kitchen is an obvious mess, the signs of struggle just as visible as the ravaging of the demon. The baskets of the fryer are tossed haphazardly on the counter beside it and one on the floor. Somebody knocked over a shelf with spices, spilling salt, pepper, curry and a dozen other things over the floor. Knives clutter the island in the middle, and Mike doesn't have to take more than two steps into the room to see the pool of blood. Its metallic tang hangs in the air, mixing sickly with the smells of old fat and burnt food.

Two more steps reveal the short buzzed head of Benny and the big knife in his throat that had been the end of him.

As he continues forward, the banging and clanging at the back of the kitchen stop. He holds his breath, waiting for the demon to jump up and rush him. Instead the thing just sniffs, loudly, and then apparently having decided there is no threat, just continues. There’s a wet squish as it digs its fingers into something and then the wet smacks of lips and loud chewing.

Mike forces himself to take another step. Maybe he’s mistaken and this is something else. Maybe a raccoon has gotten lost in the kitchen and-

Stabbed Benny in the neck?

Perhaps that was unrelated. Maybe there had been a robbery and then the raccoon started to empty the pantry. Unlikely, but Mike will take anything that isn’t the demon possessing his best friend, anything that-

His futile hopes stop dead in their tracks with Mike. Will's body kneels on the floor, hunched over by the thing inside of him, digging into a portion of hamburger meat right where it's still in the metal bowl in which it arrived with dozens like it, frozen in the back of a truck. Unseasoned, uncooked.

As Mike watches, the thing grabs a handful of raw meat and stuffs it into Will's mouth. Pieces of it get stuck on his cheeks, some fall down to the floor. Not brains but just as pink. Littered around it lay two mostly empty bowls already and yet it continues to eat with the wild abandon of a starving animal.

The demon looks up at him as it chews, grinning with a full mouth, not caring at Mike cringing away from the ground meat falling out, wet with saliva, leaving a translucent trail behind in its chin. It swallows a portion of its massive bite and then says, never stopping to chew: “Hello, Mike.”

The voice is almost sweet. Almost Will.

It's fully at odds with the mouth it comes from.

Mike gulps and says nothing.

The demon swallows the rest and rises to its feet, apparently not ravenous enough to not leave the half empty bowl of raw meat behind. “Mi-ike,” it singsongs as it steps over its meal.

Mike holds the bat out in front of him in warning. The demon pauses, a grin on its face and its head cocked, watching him with curiosity.

“Don’t come near me,” Mike warns. He’s proud of the way his voice barely shakes.

The demon’s face shifts in an instant, playful teasing replaced with fury. “Don’t say that, Mike!” it hisses.

Mike grabs the bat in both hands, holding it above his head, readying a swing.

The demon laughs coldly and takes another step closer. “You’re not going to.”

“Don’t test me.”

It takes another step.

“Don’t-”

It takes a step.

“try it.”

It takes the last step and grabs the bat, ripping it out of his hands to send it flying across the kitchen. Mike whips his head around to look for one of the many knives.

“Forget about it,” the demon says sweetly. “You’re not going to hit or cut me. Him. Are you, Mike?”

Mike swallows, trying to meet the demons eyes. It’s right, and he can’t let it to know that.

The demon gets up on its tip toes, leaning in further. “Are you, Mike? Mi-ike, Mikey-mike. You'd never hurt me.”

The demon’s breath smells of blood and raw meat. And something else, sharp like spoiled egg. Mike takes a step back.

The demon sinks back down with a laugh, then affects Will’s voice again: “Don't leave me, Mike. Please.”

“What do you want?”

“I’m hungry. Sooo, hungry. He's hungry, Mike. Do you know how hungry he’s been?” The demon places Will’s hands over his stomach and mimes doubling over in pain.

“And you had to kill people because of that?”

The demon shrugs. “No, I just killed them because they were in the way.”

Mike wants to ask if he isn’t in the way as well, but he clamps his mouth shut before he can give the thing any ideas. He stumbles back another step as the demon crosses the distance between them.

“Have you ever been really hungry, Mike? So hungry it drives you crazy? He’s sohungry, Mike. He’s starving. Don’t you care that your best friend is starving, Mike?” “What do you want?” he asks.

He swallows, trying to bring up the courage to dive back to where the knives are and just stab it. Maybe in the leg, that shouldn’t hurt Will too bad. Or the arm. Maybe the stomach, but he’s not sure about that. Better not take any chances with Will’s internal organs when he doesn’t remember where the important bits were.

“I want what he wants. I’m hungry.” It licks its lips and takes a final step forward, pinning Mike against the counter.

And Mike has no defenses. The idea that he might grab a knife is just that, an idea. A heroic fantasy. The reality is he won’t hurt Will, not even a little bit. He can’t. So this is it. This is how he dies.

The demon leans in closer, its rotting breath acrid on his face. Hot and disgusting. Its fatty, dirt encrusted fingers come up to cup his face –

And then the demon kisses him.

Mike’s mouth opens in shock and the demon in Will’s body takes full advantage of that. Their teeth clack as it presses in closer, no idea what it is doing but following some animalistic instinct. Will tastes of the raw meat the demon had been shoveling into his mouth, and his lips are slick with fat. It’s not too bad, a little like plain hamburger patty without the smoky taste of being cooked. A little earthy, and in the aftertaste a little sour. Up close the rotten egg smell – sulfuric, the forgotten memory of a morning in Mr. Clarke’s science class informs him – is inescapable. It turns his stomach.

But Mike can’t push away the demon. When his hands reach out, they only find Will’s hair, Will’s face and he can only hold them gently. Because if this was Will, really him, then-

He won’t think about that right now.

He can’t.

The demon groans in to the kiss, and Mike only holds him close. It bites down on his bottom lip, drawing it into its own mouth with much too much force, drawing blood. It tastes metallic and hot in his own mouth.

The demon sighs happily.

And Mike knows that if the demon starts tearing at him, starts eating him, very literally, he still could not stop it. If this is the moment the cannibalism finally starts, this is the end of him.

Except at the front of the restaurant the bell rings, and the demon freezes.

Mike does the only thing he can think of doing: He wraps his arms around Will’s body, pulls him tightly against himself, and yells: “In the kitchen!”

“What are you doing?” the demon hisses. It tries to free itself, but Mike is squeezing it too tightly for it to be able to bring up Will’s spindly arms and push him away. Its struggle only has Mike holding on more tightly. “Get the rope and tie it up! We’re in the kitchen!”

The demon kicks his shin, and Mike clenches his jaw to keep from crying out. Its fingers find his hip, sharp nails digging into his skin, deep enough to make him bleed, and Mike doesn’t move. Will’s body returns his hug, face burrowing into Mike’s neck, teeth sinking into skin, and still Mike refuses to let go, letting the pain bring him to tears but only kissing Will’s neck, softly, in reply.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers in the hopes his best friend is still in there somewhere.

And then Dustin and Lucas are there. They’ve got the rope ready, and Lucas grabs the demon’s legs before its kicks can get anymore vicious, or worse, it realizes how much damage its knee would do to the soft, squishy meat between Mike’s legs. They tie them together tightly and then with Mike still holding its arms, secure its fists behind its back.

Mike doesn’t let Will go so much as that Dustin and Lucas have to pry him out of his grasp. The demon’s mouth and chin are covered in blood, and the smile it gives Mike is devilish.

“Tastes good,” it says, licking its lips.

Mike wants to throw up. Instead he looks the thing dead in the eye. He knows he will lose the staring contest, but he won’t just lay down and roll over for this fiend. He owes Will better than that.

Dustin pulls the thing away and out of the kitchen before either of them can break eye contact.

“Fucking shit,” Lucas says, turning Mike’s face so he’s looking at him. He pulls Mike’s hair away to examine his neck and grimaces.

“Got me good?” Mike asks and regrets having spoken when the movement sets the wound aflame with pain.

Lucas gestures for him to hold on and goes looking for the first aid kit. He steps around Benny’s corpse with a sour expression and disappears as he rifles through the lower counters.

There’s a small table to the side for Benny and the teens working as servers to take breaks at or hang out when business is slow, and Mike takes a seat. He’s not lightheaded from his injuries, but the smell of the kitchen and the sight of the blood – dripping over Will’s chin, the crazy smile, the taste of raw hamburger meat still clinging to his lips – has his stomach turn. And the adrenaline of the fighting subsiding leaves him in a cold sweat.

Lucas returns, wielding bandages and antiseptic triumphantly. He picks up a clean towel and starts by cleaning up Mike’s neck, then presses a second towel against the wound until it stops bleeding. Then he smears antiseptic over Mike’s neck, burning where it hits raw flesh, bringing fresh tears to Mike’s eyes, and carefully places a big bandage over the wound.

Mike looks at the fluorescent lights above him the whole time, counting their flickers. His jaw hurts from how hard he clenches it, but he’s not going to give the demon the satisfaction of hearing him cry out.

“Sucks that it’s not cold yet,” Lucas says as he cleans up after himself. “Would be much easier to hide if you could just wear a scarf.”

“My mom’s already going to kill me over the kitchen,” Mike says with a huff.

Lucas inhales sharply and gives him a you’re-totally-fucked-dude expression. “Well at least we caught Will. Good job distracting him until we got here.” Mike grimaces and says nothing. He’s not going to tell his friendswhy the demon hadn’t run from Mike. Or how he had gotten close enough to the thing to grab it like he had. He’s going to take the last ten minutes to his grave. Mike just hopes Will doesn’t remember a thing when they get him back.

If they manage to get him back.

“Did you find out what it wants?” Lucas asks.

Mike shakes his head, then amends: “It said it was starving, but I don’t think it really had an idea what for either.”

Really, the thing had kissed him because Will was starving. Because Will wanted that. But Mike’s not sure he wants to believe that. If it’s true then-

He’s not sure how to ask Will, isn’t sure this isn’t going to inevitably wreck something between them, and at the same time he wants it to be true.

If Will doesn’t remember, though, can he forget about it?

“That’s odd,” Lucas says but nothing more.

Mike gives him a tight smile and rises to his feet, not wanting to talk about it more. It’s almost a relief to think that the grave to which he’ll take this secret might come quicker than he expects it to.

In the restaurant, Dustin has forced Will’s body into a chair and is standing guard, his arms crossed.

“We should probably clean up and get out of here, right?” Dustin says. “Should we call the police? Give an anonymous tip?”

Mike shakes his head. “No, no tip. We leave no trace, but-”

“No!” the demon yells. Having realized its struggle was useless it had accepted its bonds with the patience and the quiet of a saint. But now it starts thrashing again. “Not her! No! No no no! Get me out of here!”

As if on cue, tires crunch the gravel outside. Dustin and Mike share a look with Lucas, just entering from the kitchen.

Dustin hurries to the shuttered windows. “It’s the sheriff. Shit.”

“Get me away from her!” the demon shrieks.

Mike frowns at it, somehow feeling no hurry despite Dustin’s announcement because of the way the demon is acting. If it wants to run, perhaps they should stay.

Gesturing for Lucas to keep an eye on Will, he joins Dustin at the window. The sheriff’s truck rolls into view, coming to a hurried standstill in the middle of the parking lot. There’s someone in the truck with the Chief, but only when she gets out do they get a good look at her. Mike’s only sure it is a girl because of the demon’s words: She’s about their age, but her head is shaven down to her scalp and her thin body drown in clothes that look borrowed from the sheriff, a loose flannel thrown over an even looser t-shirt.

“We need go,” Lucas says.

“No,” Mike says. He meets the demons eyes as he does. “Hop’s in a hurry but he’s driving with no sirens. And he has a strange girl with him. This doesn’t seem right.”

“She’s evil!” the demon quakes. “She’s the devil!”

Lucas frowns at their former best friend and seems to come to the same conclusion Mike had come to. Slowly he nods.

Mike looks from Dustin to Lucas to the demon and then back outside where Sheriff Hopper is putting on his hat and quietly conferring with the strange girl, then takes a deep breath. And then he pulls the door open and hopes he isn’t making a mistake.

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written for @bylerween2023

#bylerween2023 #Day 3 #Demons devils & exorcisms #cw blood #cw corpses #cw mentions of cannibalism #byler #mike wheeler #will byers #my fic

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