byler oneshots

23 - rebuilding castle byers

*fall of freshman year*
*will and mike aren't together but are close*
*will pov*
*this is my fav chapter so far🫶🏻*

I wake up to the sound of the wind blowing the trees against my window, and look outside to see the sun rising. I stumble out of bed and into the quiet kitchen where I pour myself a bowl of cereal and milk and sit on the couch, watching TV on mute so I don't wake mom and Jonathan up.

When I'm finished, I rummage through my drawer to find a pair of baggy jeans to wear, and in the process I find a little piece of paper that says 'radagast' in messy handwriting.

The password to Castle Byers.

I decide that it's finally time to rebuild it, so I pull on jeans, a brown sweater, and converse and grab some tape and paper before tip toeing through the house and out the door, but not before writing my mom a note to tell her where I am so she doesn't get worried.

I walk through the woods, the leaves crunching under my feet and the cold autumn breeze filling the air as I walk. I shiver and keep walking until I see a pile of old, slightly moldy wood sitting on the ground. I walk over and rummage through the wood, flashbacks filling my head of that night.

That feeling of total betrayal from Mike and my friends. They forgot about me because they grew up quicker then I did, but that's because I was scared to get older. I was scared that if we got older, things would change, and I don't like change.

I biked into the woods in the rain and found the picture of us dressed as ghostbusters, and that's what sent me over the edge. I took a bat and swung at once was my favorite place, and destroyed it.

I felt a little sick to my stomach as I walked farther and collected new sticks and thicker pieces of wood to rebuild it, piling them in my arms and bringing them back slowly. I clear out the unusable pieces of wood and throw them into the bushes nearby, keeping the good wood in a separate stack.

When it was all cleared out, there was still some reminiscence of what was once in Castle Byers, and just as I bend down to look through it, I hear a stick creak behind me and my whip my head around to see Mike.

"Hey, Mike." I say, slightly embarrassed because he is sort of what caused this mess in the first place.

"Hey. I came to see if you wanted to get breakfast but your mom told me that you were out here...rebuilding." he says, hesitating slightly as he looks around.

"Yeah. You can help if you want. I was just about to look through some old stuff left here.

"That sounds good." he says. I kneel down in the leaves and find a few old drawings that are stained by dirt and rain, practically decomposing at this point. When I look up to Mike, he has a bunch of little pieces of something in his hands.

"What's that?" I ask. All I get is silence as he focuses on the pieces. His eyebrows furrow as he pieces them together on the ground, eventually to reveal the picture of us as ghostbusters. I feel a sting in my heart. I remember exactly how I felt when I ripped that picture up.

Disgusting. Forgotten. Alone.

I hear him let out a sad sigh as he looks from the picture and up to me.

"Will I just need to say how sorry I am for making you feel so forgotten last summer. I was a total dick and you didn't deserve anything I said that day in the rain when we fought. I'm so sorry. I was so focused on El and I lost you that day, and I'm glad I have you back, even though I don't deserve you." he says. I feel a little piece of my heart melt back together. The piece that broke off that day of the fight.

"Thanks, Mike." I say, reaching over his legs and gathering up the pieces of the picture to throw away, but before I can reach away, his hand takes mine. All the sudden I can feel myself melt into the ground.

"I know how awful I probably made you feel that day. God, I would do anything to go back." he says quietly. His hand remains on mine as I drop the pieces and turn my hand over, our fingers interlocking. I feel my breath hitch in my throat as he squeezes my hand tighter, and before I can even think, he wraps his arms around my body. It takes me a second to process what's going on, but I collapse into his arms and he holds me tightly.

I can feel tears falling from from my eyes, and he must hear me crying.

"Are you okay?" he says softly.

"Yeah. Just overwhelmed." I say, him holding me even closer to his chest.

This is all I could have asked for. God, this made everything feel like it's
okay again.