Archive of Our Own

In the moment that it all happens, Mike feels frozen in place. Even once the danger lies still on the ground, broken and bleeding—not quite blood, he thinks, just whatever blood-adjacent goop it is that flows through a Demogorgon—even then, he still can’t bring himself to move.

All he can do is gawk at Will, their eyes locked together across the expanse of the MAC-Z as if they were the only people there.

Although Will had wiped away the first trickle of blood from his nose, another seems to follow. The flow hadn’t actually stopped quite yet. He doesn’t move to wipe the fresh blood away, though. He just stays there on his knees, chest rising and falling with each labored breath like it’s something he needs to focus on doing.

Mike wishes he was close enough to just wipe the blood away himself… even if only to get his hands on Will in a way he feels he could get away with in the middle of all of this. He’s always wanted so much from Will, so much he knows he’s not supposed to want. But he thinks he's at least allowed to want things like this—actions that also serve a purpose, that help.

He’s still staring when suddenly Will whips his head to the side. Mike follows his line of sight and Joyce runs into view. She’s shouting, over and over, “Will, are you okay?”

She’s loud enough to be heard across the whole section of downtown ruins they’re standing in, and as soon as she reaches Will she holds on like she’ll never let go, ever again. She spends a few seconds leaning down to hold him where he’s kneeling, before trying to help him up, clumsily. He nearly stumbles forward at first, like his whole sense of balance is off and a strong gust of wind could knock him over.

The mere thought of Will falling over and hurting himself now, after all of that, is finally enough to snap Mike back into action. He runs forward to close the distance, and braces him on the opposite side from Joyce, keeping Will steady as he regains his footing.

“Honey, how did you… what did you—” Joyce cuts herself off, unsure the right questions to even ask. Her eyes keep flitting across her son, his face, his chest, his hands. She even glances in Mike’s direction for a moment, like she’s looking for confirmation that he saw it happen too.

“Mom I’m—I’m okay,” Will’s voice comes out in a soft rasp. He smiles at her weakly, before turning to meet Mike’s eyes once again, far less space between them this time. He steps just the littlest bit closer to Mike, and Joyce drops her arms. It feels electric for that first second of eye contact, until Will breaks it as his gaze flits up and his face drops, “You’re hurt,” he reaches up to graze his fingers across the spot next to Mike’s right eye.

He tries not to shudder at Will’s gentle touch on the sensitive soreness that's sure to become a bruise, but he can feel the way his breath hitches. He’s being way too obvious for where they are right now, for how nearby Will’s mother is, and he hates himself for it.

“It’s nothing,” he forces a smile, trying not to chase after the feeling of Will’s hand as he pulls it away, a few tiny splotches of red on his fingertips. Mike hadn’t even realized he was bleeding, but he doesn't want to focus on that. He just keeps talking instead, “I’ll be fine. Because of you,” his hand still rests on Will’s upper arm from helping him stand—mirroring the way Joyce held him too mere moments ago, so it's not that suspicious… Even though he’s still keeping it there, long after Will could stand up on his own, “You saved my life.”

Will smiles at him for just a second before ducking his face down, as if embarrassed. But it was the truth, and Mike would shout it from the roof of any building.

“You were amazing,” Mike shakes his head in disbelief, even though he’s always believed in Will. It’s more so just that… believing and seeing are two different things, and he’s struggling to contain himself after seeing him be magical for real—seeing just how amazing he looked doing all of that, “You’re a real sorcerer, just like I told you.”

He doesn’t look back up yet, but Will does giggle a little bit in response, and it makes Mike feel practically giddy.

“Boys,” Joyce interrupts the short stretch of silence just as it was starting to set in, putting a hand on each of their shoulders, “We should get out of here.”

“No kidding!” Erica yells from her lookout position, forcing all three to shift around so they can stare up at her, “I don’t know what the hell all of that was, but we do not wanna be here when any of those guys that lived wake up,” she gestures vaguely around at the bodies strewn about the MAC-Z. While most of them are certainly dead, she’s absolutely right that some of them could get up if they wait too long. Or, even if these guys stay down, there’ll be reinforcements coming in sooner or later.

Will doing what he did was incredible, but it also paints a huge target on his back if anyone in power finds out. They do not want to still be here when the military gets back in action.

“We’ll go through the tunnels,” Joyce calls out to her, “Come on,” she gestures for her to follow, to join them.

Mike knows the RadioShack tunnel is still their best option, so he starts leading Will that way without waiting. Joyce will make sure Erica’s with them, there’s no way she’d ever leave any of the kids behind. He knows he can just focus on getting Will out of the open as quickly as possible.

“Lucas is in the tunnels still,” Will speaks quietly as they walk, he’s leaning on Mike—not like he couldn’t walk on his own, more like Mike’s support just makes it easier, “There was a Demo going after him too, and Robin,” his voice softens just a bit at her name, and that fact makes something twist in Mike’s gut.

He ignores it though and carries on, because holy shit, “So you saved all of us,” he whispers in awe. As if thinking Will took down one wasn’t cool enough, he actually took down three?

“Well, no, I couldn’t save the kids,” Will says it plainly, sounding defeated, his brow furrowed as he looks down while still walking ahead.

When they reach the building, Mike opens the door for him and he steps inside.

“Y'know, Vecna still had you in his… grasp or whatever,” Mike doesn’t quite know how to describe it, the way Vecna had been levitating him up and growling cruel words in his face. Mike had only managed to see a little of it, on the edge of consciousness himself from getting thrown around, “You couldn’t have helped yet, when the kids got taken. There just... wasn’t anything you could have done.”

Not that Mike feels great about it, because finding a way to protect those kids was the whole reason they’d been there. But beating themselves up over it instead of planning the next move felt like a waste of time, like it’d only make things worse. He just needs to keep it together a little longer, so they can find the kids, find Holly, and find a way to end all of this. 

“If I had figured out how to tap into it earlier, maybe I could have…” Will shakes his head as he trails off, looking up at Mike with a desperate expression that breaks his heart.

“Hey,” Mike holds onto him again, hands on both shoulders now in a way he hopes is comforting, in a way he’d only dare do when they’re alone like this, “We could all drive ourselves crazy with what-ifs, but that’s not gonna get us anywhere. You did something magical based off of a crackpot theory, that’s insane enough as it is,” he feels bold, dangerous in this moment, like the stakes of it all are really starting to sink in as he stares into Will’s eyes.

He’s frozen, like a statue, jaw dropped open just the tiniest bit.

Mike keeps going, “Will, you’re incredible. I mean, you were before all this, too,” he slowly brings his right hand up along the side of Will’s neck, over the goosebumps dotting his skin, before cupping his face, “But now… it’s like you’ve got a whole new way of showing it,” He brushes his thumb across his cheek, hesitantly, like he’s testing the boundary. Giving Will a chance to stop it, whatever Mike just set in motion. When he doesn’t flinch away, not at all, Mike moves his hand again. To wipe away the last lingering traces of blood, like he'd wanted to in the first place.

It feels like time slows down as he trails down from there, his focus now fixed firmly on Will’s mouth. He swipes his thumb across slowly, watching how Will’s lower lip moves along with his action. Mike feels like his heart’s racing a mile a minute. Like he just jumped off a building and is waiting for the fall, the inevitable conclusion of it all. For Will to scream and push him away for crossing some arbitrary line they drew in the sand some number of years ago.

But he doesn’t. He never lands. Will doesn’t say a thing.

He just looks up at Mike like a deer caught in headlights, with a faint blush visible even in the dim light, “Mike,” his voice eventually comes out low. He’s breathing heavily in and out, his own hands ghosting over Mike’s hips. Like he wants to touch, but something’s holding him back.

“Will,” he wishes the way he says the name could convey so much more than it probably does—to him, it feels like a confession about all the soul-searching that always just led back to Will, Will, Will. If only that could be conveyed by tone alone, “All of… this... we're gonna figure it out. Together,” he lets ‘this’ be ambiguous.

This, as in the situation with Vecna and the kids and Holly? Or, this position they’re finding themselves in right now, where they’re too close to each other and it seems like neither of them has a problem with it—the fact that Mike thinks Will might like it just as much as he does—the fact that Mike wants him more than he thinks he’s wanted anything in his entire life.

Either. Both. Doesn’t matter.

“I can’t breathe when you look at me like that,” Will whispers it, “When you… when you say things like that,” he’s saying it all like more of an inside thought than something really meant for Mike’s ears. He looks torn, happy but scared.

Mike grins in response anyway, because if that means what he thinks it means…

He’s still just been cradling Will’s face like it’s a delicate treasure this whole time, but now he gently pulls, bringing him closer. He can feel Will’s breath on his own face, and it’s driving him crazy. He leans in, closer, closer—

The door is shoved open, and they both jump back like the other’s touch suddenly burns.

“What are you two standing around for?” Erica seems annoyed to even see them still there, instead of already down in the tunnels, “Lucas radioed, he really needs us,” she quickly moves past them and shoves the tunnel's cover out of the way. Joyce is trailing behind, mumbling something about needing to be careful.

Mike tries to look at Will again, but now his gaze is just fixed on his mother, like he’s scared to look at Mike all of a sudden.

Shit.

It takes a bit of effort, but they manage to get everyone gathered back together at WSQK before long. Lucas needs to get patched up the most, with a nasty—but thank god not life-threatening—gash on his chest. Fortunately nobody else got hurt too badly. Robin and Murray had been tossed around in that truck and had their own Demo run-in, just like Will had said, but Robin only needed an ice pack after, it was nothing too severe. They may have all lost the kids, but at least they're alive—so they can try to get them back.

Joyce calls everyone present in for a meeting once things become a little more stable, where she proposes a theory on how to end things—to just have Will entirely flip the script on Vecna. Use his powers to take him down in one fell swoop. Which sounds cool in theory, but Mike fears could be easier said than done. Plus, from the uneasy looks on several of the others' faces, he's pretty sure he's not alone in that line of thinking.

They don’t know shit about Will’s new sorcerer—yes it matters—powers, about how far they actually go. What the rules are, the limits. Though Mike and Erica do make sure that everyone in the room gets on the same page about what happened out there, that Will did real magic. Even if Will seems unable to articulate much about how he did it, aside from apparently being inspired by something Robin had said to him.

By the end of the conversation, it’s generally agreed upon that they should wait until everyone had flipped back to the Rightside Up to put any sort of plan into action. To have El here, too, in particular. Even though Will's new abilities mean he'll surely end up a major player in whatever comes next, it feels wise to have all their super-powered allies working together for the best chance at finally beating Vecna.

It was also just late, everyone exhausted from the last day—the last year and a half really—which made postponing the action all the more appealing.

As their informal meeting adjourned, and Lucas got up to talk to his sister, Mike watched the way Robin slid over to be next to Will on the couch. It’s like he blinked and suddenly her arm was draped around his shoulders. He really couldn’t believe it, that she was just touching him so effortlessly—like it was the easiest thing to do in the world.

He saw the way Will beamed at her, and couldn’t help but think about how Will hasn’t made much if any proper eye contact with him since they got in the tunnels.

She suddenly stands, holding out a hand for Will and he takes it. He takes it and follows her without resistance as she pulls him over to the recording booth. The door shuts behind them and it’s like they’re in their own dimension. Only they’re still visible, because of the glass walls, which makes it worse.

Mike doesn’t let himself feel weird about this. He doesn’t. Will’s allowed to… to have whatever this thing is with Robin. The sneaking around, being all touchy-feeley with one another. Intimate laughs shared even in a crowded room. It feels like it all came out of nowhere over the last few days, but maybe he just hadn’t noticed the build up. Maybe Robin’s announcement about a date the Morning WSQK a few days back was the first part of their plan to tell everyone, and acting like this around everybody now is phase two.

No, he’s not feeling weird about that alone. He’s just feeling weird about that in conjunction with… That moment they had, barely an hour ago, in the RadioShack. Where he and Will almost kissed. Mike would swear to god they almost did. If Erica hadn’t opened that door…

Lucas sits down next to him, cutting off his train of thought, “They’ve sure gotten close lately, huh?” He kind of snickers as he says it, even though his words feel like arrows shoved right through Mike’s heart—and not in a lovey dovey Cupid kind of way, just like something that creates a wound you can’t heal from. Lucas’ gaze is clearly aimed at Robin and Will in the booth, where she’s smiling at him in this knowing way, like there’s something they’re keeping from everybody else in the world. It’s not like Mike can even pretend he doesn’t know what Lucas is talking about, so he shrugs.

“I guess,” he says it dismissively, because really… he just doesn’t wanna think about it. He doesn’t. The more he thinks about Will and Robin, the more he thinks about himself and Will. And the more he thinks about himself and Will, the more he thinks about how badly he wishes they had kissed, that nothing had stopped them. And the more he thinks about that, the more he thinks about how he’s such a piece of shit—for how he’s hurt Will in the past, and thinks he can just swoop in like this now. For how he’s hurting El by acting like this around Will while she’s still his girlfriend.

Thinking about something else, anything else, would be easier. Lucas doesn’t drop it though.

“Come on, I can totally see it. Plus she did say she had a date that same night the two of them snuck off,” he keeps talking, relaxed, like it’s nothing. Just harmless gossip without any bearing on either of them.

Mike feels like he’s going to explode, because he hates how much Lucas is confirming exactly what he’s been thinking. That something between Will and Robin is really happening, that other people can see it too.

But again, if Will was… was with her or something now, then why the hell didn’t he push Mike away? Why did he look at him like that, talk all slow and hushed with an obvious blush across his face?

Well, Mike thinks. Maybe… Maybe it’s just going to be like this, now. Maybe it’s the only way they can… do this. They each have a girlfriend, someone they do care about—but they meet up, have moments together, sneak around, because what they really want…

God, this is all so fucked up.

Maybe it’s more realistic to think it was a fluke. A one-time thing, where they were both just too out of it from the whole fight, emotions high enough that they desperately clung to one another, but it didn’t really mean anything.

Well, it meant something to Mike. He knows that. But he can’t read Will’s mind, not the way it feels like he used to be able to.

He struggles to think of what he can even say out loud next, too lost in his own thoughts.

He’s saved by the metaphorical bell—

“Guys, guys, come in!” Robin suddenly stands by the now-open door into the booth, yelling out into the rest of the room, “We’ve got contact!”

Mike races over, and hears Dustin’s distorted-but-nonetheless-recognizable voice coming over one of the radios in the room, “Hello? You guys?”

“Dustin,” Mike gasps, racing towards the sound, the equipment it’s coming from. He fumbles around, looking for one of the radios, trying to find a way to send a signal back over, but it’s not necessary.

“Mike!” Nancy’s voice comes through the same way Dustin’s had, and it dawns on him—something the group who'd been in Hawkins during spring break last year had figured out.

Those in the Upside Down can generally hear what’s going on in the Rightside Up, if they're in the corresponding location. It’s just that those in the Rightside Up can only really consistently hear from those in the Upside Down through the radio. Or the lights, of course, if they get creative enough with it.

“Thank god you guys are okay,” Lucas calls out.

“We need a way out of here,” Jonathan sounds like he’s trying his very hardest to stay calm, but it’s taking every ounce of effort he’s got, “We found El and Hopper, and…” he trails off, and for half a second Mike thinks he’s going to say Holly.

That maybe at least that part of this nightmare is about to be over.

“My sister,” El’s voice comes out tense. There’s obviously a lot of context everyone in the room is missing, but there are bigger problems to deal with, so she continues, “We need a gate. I am… drained, she is too. So we need the one that already exists. Is it clear?”

“No, we can’t go back there,” Joyce cuts in, “It’s not safe. What’s left of the military’s gonna be swarming the place, and there could be more of those things—those monsters—anywhere around there,” she pauses, “We had a run in with Vecna. He sent monsters, but Will…” she trails off, staring at her son with a look full of both love and an uncertainty that she’s clearly trying to push away for his sake.

“I controlled the hivemind,” Will says simply, as if that explains anything to those who didn’t see, “I… I used Vecna’s powers. I can do it again,” he looks at Robin first, and Mike is starting to lose his ability to stop caring about stuff like that, but he listens as Will keeps talking, “And maybe, I can use them to make a new gate.”

“Vecna opened those gates by killing,” Mike interrupts, “Maybe if one of those Demos was still alive we could try, but you already took care of them.”

At least Will finally looks at him then, but it’s not as satisfying as it was before. Now Will just looks frustrated.

“Well,” Robin’s eyebrows shoot up, “Will broke all their bones and stuff, totally,” she holds up her hands, pointing at nothing as she speaks, “But, the one that went after me and Murray, it was still a little… twitchy,” she purses her lips, posing a question, “Maybe, it was just on that life-or-death brink. Maybe we could zap it back firmly to this side of things, Frankenstein-style. Create our own sacrificial lamb-monster.”

“That’s insane,” Mike shoots her down immediately, practically cutting off her words, but he can tell from the look on Will’s face that he’s taking her seriously.

“I tried your crazy theory and it worked,” Will shrugs at him, before turning to face her again, “Maybe now we should try hers.”

Murray and Robin lead the charge to go back and retrieve the Demo they’d faced, leaving Joyce, Erica, and the boys to get things set up at the WSQK. Step one is shutting off the big radio tower, their main conduit of power, and grabbing all sorts of wires and cables to start getting things connected to it.

Will doesn’t do any of the heavy lifting, not that he was trying to anyway, but Joyce specifically insists he stay inside—that he needs to save his strength for what it is they’re about to do. They all tell Lucas to do the same, since he’s physically hurt and should take it easy. But he still carries what he can, going along with Mike and his sister.

When Mike had last been inside, Will was in the booth, talking with the group still in the Upside Down, through the radios. Asking El about what was normal to expect after using powers, after dealing with gates, for whatever amount of wisdom she could give.

“You’re not gonna believe how cool it looks, Lucas,” Erica stands off to the side by the tower, as he and Lucas start trying to affix the wires they’d brought out there onto it, making new routes for the energy to flow through that they can connect to the monster once it’s here, “Why are all your friends so much cooler than you?”

“Erica,” he groans, rolling his eyes.

“Come on! You were even closer,” she turns, facing Mike now, “Tell me that wasn’t the coolest shit you’ve ever seen? Besides your girlfriend, I guess. But her eyes don’t do that thing his did.”

Mike doesn’t know where to start, but Lucas thankfully cuts in with a more specific question.

“What’s she mean about the eyes?”

“Oh, they were like, glazed over. Or—more so rolled back, I think,” Mike starts, “Totally white, it was… it was nuts. I’m surprised you could even tell from that far away,” he glances at Erica and she shrugs.

“It was better than watching TV, I was paying close attention. Plus, I had binoculars,” she rolls her eyes just like Lucas did only moments ago.

When Mike looks in his direction, though, he’s not smiling anymore, not even in that annoyed-yet-fond way he usually does when he and his sister bicker. No, he looks contemplative, and it makes Mike worried.

“Kinda sounds like Max,” he looks down, then back up at Mike, voice soft as he remembers, “The way her eyes were when she was in Vecna’s trance.”

Mike supposes that makes sense, since Will was tapping into those very same powers. It still makes him feel like he’s gonna throw up, though, even vaguely imagining Will in Max’s situation. He’s already spent more time next to Will in a hospital bed than he ever should have had to.

“Maybe Will having these powers is gonna be the key to getting her back,” Mike offers, trying to find a bright side to this mess.

Lucas’ eyes are wet as he looks back up at Mike, but tears aren’t spilling over as he nods. He holds himself together, for his own sake, for Max’s sake, and tries to smile, “That’d be nice.”

Moments later, Murray’s truck comes barreling up the road.

“I’ll go get them,” Erica speaks before anyone else has a chance to, and runs inside for Joyce and Will.

Once they’ve got the Demogorgon strung up and locked into place, Robin stands by the power switch, glancing nervously between everyone standing there.

Will is the closest to the tower aside from her, with everyone else’s eyes on him.

“Is everybody ready?” Robin calls out.

“Ready on your end?” Lucas speaks into the radio, more as a formality than anything else.

“We are ready,” El’s voice crackles through.

When it comes to utilizing her powers with intent, Eleven is definitely more comfortable closing gates than opening them. She’s also pretty damn exhausted right now, after all she’s done in the Upside Down the last few days. But the line of thinking after some further discussion with Will apparently was, if El does her best to open a gate on that end while he tries to open one here, hopefully at least one of their attempts will work—or maybe chipping away at that boundary between worlds from both directions would manage to get the job done, even if neither one succeeds on their own.

“It’s a go!” Lucas calls out in Robin’s direction.

She does a short countdown, a “Three, two, one!” and pulls on the lever with all her might. Everyone can hear the electricity crackle before they see anything change at all.

The Demo does seem to twitch as power courses through, but it’s hard to tell if that’s a sign of life or just electrocution.

When a distinctive growling sound echoes across the field, though, that’s when they know it worked. When Will flinches, as if that connection to the hivemind just came back online. Like he felt the pain.

“Will,” Mike calls out to him, “It’s working—“

“I know,” he says, but it barely even sounds like him. His voice is more distant, cold. All business. From this angle Mike can’t see his face but he’s sure it’s got that same expression as before. Intense. Powerful.

He wishes he could see it, but he knows there’s no way he could move right now while going unnoticed. Plus, there’s far more important things at stake than what he wants to see of Will.

Robin, on the other hand, has the perfect excuse to move. She’s running away from the tower, trying to avoid getting zapped by any sort of runoff from the random wires that trash around—apparently not secured to the tower as well as they'd thought—until she comes to an abrupt stop at a spot near Mike, on the other side of Will.

Will, who bends over like he’s in pain, before letting out a yell that’s unlike anything Mike’s heard from him before.

Except in 1984. In the lab. In the shed. When Will wasn’t really Will.

He made some sounds sort of like this back then.

“Will—“ he starts, but stops himself as he sees him begin to stand back up straight. Robin flinches away, but Mike stays exactly where he is, watching closely.

“Holy shit,” Lucas says from off to the side—he’s stationed in a spot where he can see Will’s face, “He really does look like Max did.”

Will thrusts an arm forward, palm up to the sky, and the Demogorgon starts getting pulled towards him—straining against the ropes and cables tying it to the tower. Will grunts, bending his arm inward towards himself, and it’s enough to pull the creature free of its bounds. Its limbs are already limply hanging, bones broken earlier in the night. But when he throws his head back it’s like Will snaps each one again the other way, the cracking sound so sudden and visceral it makes Erica jump back behind her brother.

When the Demo falls to the ground, Will takes a few wobbly and uncertain steps back, almost crashing right into Mike.

The earth beneath its lifeless body starts to crack open, moving towards the tower until it meets another split that’s starting to form just a few feet away.

El must have made that one.

The two partial gates crash into each other, forming one larger hole in the ground, with a thin almost glowing membrane stretching across. Something strains against it, the taunt fleshy substance pushed as far as it can handle until it pops, a small hand poking through. It disappears, and then Nancy’s head comes into view.

At the sight of his sister, Mike runs, “Nance!”

He may be the worst brother in the world for leaving his baby sister vulnerable to all of this shit by not telling her about it, but at least he can be here for his older sister right now. She reaches for him, and he yanks her up through the goopy mess, the two of them falling to the ground from a lack of balance once she’s through.

“Help me get the rest of them,” she says before even fully getting off the ground herself, “It’s disorienting, coming through.”

The two of them make quick work of pulling Dustin through next, then Steve and Jonathan. The next person that pops up, though, is someone Mike’s never seen before.

Presumably, the sister El mentioned.

Years ago, during that brief period of time their whole party wasn’t divided by fake deaths, injuries, or distance, she’d briefly recounted the experience she had meeting this sister of hers. She was a kid from Hawkins National Lab that managed to escape, and El found her—spent time with her until parting ways when El had to come back to Hawkins to save the day.

He and Nancy help her up, but she seems particularly dazed—more so than anyone else had been from coming through so far. Mike doesn’t quite expect it, but Nancy seems to, she holds onto her more firmly, “Kali, are you okay?”

The girl—Kali—nods, but still has this confused, hazy look in her eye, something that reminds Mike of how Will looked recovering from that… that vision of the sky spinning that he had in the woods, the day of the last crawl.

Shit, Will.

Mike turns around and sees that Will’s in a similar state yet again. He’s on the ground, being passed into Robin’s arms as Joyce makes her way over to Jonathan. Robin’s pulling him closer and touching him too much, he’s practically in her lap the way she’s holding him. It makes Mike feel itchy just to watch. So he decides to stop watching, to start moving. He thinks Nancy calls out his name as he goes, but he’s really not listening.

He drops down to the grass on Will’s other side, grabbing one of his hands. He doesn’t care that Robin’s right there—that she’s watching him curiously—he just needs Will to know that he’s here too.

“You did it,” Mike smiles down at him, trying to push away all the other feelings threatening to bubble up to the surface, “The gate’s open. They’re back.”

Will opens his eyes, still white for a moment before his irises roll back down. He’s sweaty and out of breath and there’s blood on his face as he stares up at the nighttime sky, but Mike can’t stop staring at him. Can’t stop thinking about how good he looks in spite of it all.

“The… the, you need to,” Will starts speaking quietly, somewhat incoherently.

“What?” Robin looks down at him as he speaks, then back up at Mike with a concerned frown.

“Robin,” Will croaks out her name, rotating his head to face her, leaving his neck exposed in a way that highlights all those burst blood vessels. Mike wants to reach out and touch there too, again, like he did at the MAC-Z, but he doesn’t. He just listens as Will keeps talking, “The hospital. I don’t know when but… They’re going to go to the hospital. I can… I can feel it. They’re… lurking, waiting.”

Will seems to only just then notice that Mike’s holding onto his hand. He tenses for a moment, but doesn’t pull away even as he glances down at where they’re joined together in Mike’s lap.

“Vickie,” Robin whispers in horror, then glances over at Lucas, “And Max, shit!” She starts to stand, passing Will’s weight over to Mike, “You’ve got him, right?”

She doesn’t bother waiting for an answer before running away, like she already knew what he’d say.

“Who’s Vickie?” Mike questions it even though he knows Robin’s out of earshot, mostly just wondering out loud.

“Her… friend,” Will answers anyway. He shifts around, trying to sit up on his own, but Mike still keeps his hands on him. The one that had been holding Will’s slips up further to hold his arm now, the other on his shoulder trying to keep him steady, “Mike, it’s not safe to be around me right now. I don’t… I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know if I can stay in control.”

Will finally looks at him, with so much pain in his eyes that it makes Mike want to cry. Not that he’s sure he even could, at this point. His own emotions feel like they’re a world away sometimes.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he shakes his head, and squeezes him tighter at every point of contact.

Mike knows that there are way too many people nearby for him to be this close to Will, but… but this is too important.

“Mike, it… it almost felt good. To do that. It shouldn’t. What if I can’t stop it next time? What if… what if he uses me to go after you,” Will pleads, “Any of you,” he adds, looking away, at the group coming through the gate. Though when he turns back towards Mike, looking right in his eyes, it suddenly feels like the two of them are the only ones there. Thirteen years old again, Will on the brink of a horror Mike can hardly comprehend, “I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. Run. Get everyone out of here, away from me, please.”

“No,” he says simply. Resolutely. Like it’s the thing he’s most sure of in the world.

“Mike,” Will repeats himself, but this time it sounds different. More serious. Mike picks up on it instantly, and it makes his heart pound—not in excitement or nervousness like before, but fear.

Will pulls himself back entirely, standing up with this scared look on his face.

“You need,” he grunts out the first words as Mike scrambles up to stand himself, “to run!”

He screams on the last word, his eyes going darker than before.

Mike feels all eyes fall on them, but can’t take his off of Will. Not for a second.

He’s convulsing, like he’s having another seizure, but he doesn’t fall down—no, he sways side to side, crumpling in on himself as if he’s in the midst of a one-person war.

“Will,” Mike reaches out for him, but then it suddenly all stops. Will slows, eyes blinking rapidly before they close, and he collapses to the ground. Mike comes face-to-face with Erica—who had snuck up behind him with a syringe of the same stuff they’d used to knock out the Turnbows.

She looks terrified, but determined. She glances down at Will, then back up at Mike.

“Mrs. Byers said that when this happened the first time,” Erica gestures at him on the ground, “The whole possession thing,” she clarifies, “Knocking him out was the way to stop the monsters from finding you guys.”

Mike just stands there in shock, not even realizing he’s shaking until he tries to find some way to respond.

He knows what it must have looked like… like the Mindflayer taking over the way it did before, but… but this was different than that. Will wasn’t just acting as a spy right then and there, showing Vecna their location so he could come attack. Mike feels it in his gut. The danger Erica stopped wasn’t quite so outward, Mike thinks. She saved Will first and foremost, from whatever was bubbling up inside him, trying to sink it’s teeth into his psyche.

Someone grabs Mike by the shoulders and he flinches, before realizing it’s just Jonathan. Before he could even turn his head, Joyce is already on the ground with Will again, holding him close and whispering to him, “Baby, it’s gonna be okay, I promise, just hang in there.”

“Hey,” Jonathan calls Mike’s attention to him, “Breathe,” he squeezes Mike’s shoulder, trying to be reassuring. Mike thinks it’s kind of funny. He should probably be the one reassuring him—this is all about his brother. Yet all Mike can do is stand there, try to listen to him, take deep breaths in and out.

“Yeah,” Mike mumbles, sounding like a scared little kid.

“He needs to rest,” El says as she approaches them, “I fell into a… coma, when I first… broke the barrier between worlds,” she kneels down in front of him, and Joyce looks to her like she’s got all the answers. She’s the only one who knows how any of this works, so it makes sense, really.

“It takes a lot of battery,” she frowns, “He is…. drained. But he will be okay. I think I… should close the gate, weaken the connection. To be safe,” she reaches out to help Joyce lift him up, but it’s more difficult when he’s actually out cold like this. Jonathan leaves Mike’s side then, and goes in to just actually pick him up.

“You need to take it easy too, kid,” Hopper doesn’t quite scold El, but he says it like a concerned parent that’s for sure.

“I will recharge, and then take care of it,” she says resolutely, ending the discussion and heading for the building after Jonathan and Joyce.

Most of the rest of the group follows them inside, too, but Mike stays still watching. Not wanting to get in the way.

“Holy shit,” Dustin says in awe as he comes to stand by Mike’s side, “Now we have three people with powers, this is gonna change everything.”

“Three?” Mike had almost forgotten—

El’s sister comes into view, walking behind Hopper at the tail end of the group going inside. She turns back to face them for just a second, eyes piercing in a way that really does remind Mike of El.

Like she can see right through him.

Will gets laid out on the couch in the main lobby area of WSQK, with Joyce playing guard-dog by his side. Mike tries, a few times, to go sit there with her, but it’s like as soon as he sets his eyes on Will’s unconscious form he loses all his nerve.

So he starts to pace back and forth between there and the basement.

Downstairs, Erica sits by a radio getting updates from Lucas and Robin. Apparently the coast has been clear at the hospital so far, but that might just mean Will’s warning was far enough in advance to get them prepared—rather than a last-ditch effort to salvage an already-bad situation. El and Kali are also down in the basement, talking quietly off in one corner, probably about the gate El just closed outside.

Nancy, Steve, and Dustin seem to be locked in the midst of some conversation about what they saw in the Upside Down—or, at least Nancy and Dustin are. Steve looks like he’s trying to follow along, but also struggling to stay awake. Mike can’t really blame him—it’s not like anyone in the building has gotten much sleep in the last 48 hours.

Mike stares at the group of them, just to have something to look at while he tries to muster up the courage to go see Will again, when Jonathan grabs him by the shoulder. He doesn’t flinch this time, but his head does whip to the side, “Oh, hey.”

“Can we talk?” Jonathan asks it quietly, even softer than his normal speaking voice. He’s like Will that way, generally gentle unless provoked. Though he still sounds sort of urgent, which makes Mike’s brain start racing at full speed—is something wrong? Is it Will? Jonathan had just been upstairs, he’d been sitting with Joyce the last time Mike had made his rounds.

He tries not to let any of that anxiety show, though, so he simply shrugs, “Yeah, sure,” and starts to follow when Jonathan heads back up from whence he came.

“Nothing’s wrong, at least, nothing new,” he says it without even looking back, as if he just somehow omnisciently knew Mike was worried by his tone, “Just, by the way,” he tacks on quietly, to make it more casual. Like Mike’s apparently obvious nerves aren’t actually a big deal at all.

Jonathan’s is just good at reading people, at really seeing them—Mike is no exception to that.

He’s always sort of been like the older brother Mike never had, even long before he was dating Nancy or lived in the Wheelers’ basement. Mike had just spent enough time at the Byers house growing up that he became a familiar friendly face, and it was kind of impossible for the way Will looked up to his older brother to not rub off on him, even if just a little bit.

“My mom wasn’t really… able to explain much,” Jonathan starts as he sits down in what is presumably Steve’s chair during broadcasts in the studio, right next to all the sound effect tapes, “She’s tired. Frazzled,” Jonathan leans back in the chair and crosses his arms, looking off to the side, “You know,” he glances back at Mike.

He sits down awkwardly in Robin’s chair, by the microphone and turntables, “Yeah,” he nods. Joyce Byers is one of the smartest, most determined, and most caring people that Mike had ever met, but she’s also a worried mother and sometimes what she says gets filtered through that, making it hard to unravel for the likes of them.

“So I was hoping you could fill me in some more on what happened with Will,” Jonathan’s face is sort of blank, searching. Like he doesn’t know what to expect, he’s just bracing for impact. Considering everything Will’s gone through over the last few years, Mike can’t really blame him for always preparing himself for the worst case scenario being a possibility.

At least it’s not the worst case scenario this time, Mike thinks. Mike hopes.

“We had this… plan, to sneak all those kids, the ones from Holly’s class, out of Hawkins—so they’d… so they’d be safe,” Mike pauses, “From Vecna,” he clarifies, “And… on the way there we were just talking, me and Will,” he gestures vaguely at nothing in particular, he doesn’t even know why, it’s just like his hands need to move, “And I had this… this stupid but apparently-not-so-stupid-after-all theory that he could… could control it back. Y’know, the—”

“The hivemind,” Jonathan’s brow is furrowed at first, like he’s deeply considering all of it, “You’re saying he just... hijacked the hivemind, because you suggested he could do it,” he shakes his head subtly, something between disbelief and awe on his face.

“Well, it was that, and apparently something... Robin said that inspired him,” Mike tries not to let himself look disappointed at that, the way he kept it together when Will let that little detail drop during the group discussion earlier, “But it was incredible,” Mike can still see it so clearly in his mind, the way Will stood there. Glowing in the light of the flames, body shaking from how hard he concentrated every last bit of power he had into saving them all, “Then the second time, when he and El opened the gates, he pushed himself too far, I think,” Mike pauses, tentative, “I know he’s… scared. Scared of the hivemind taking over again,” he can practically hear his voice, telling him to run, “But… he’s so much more capable than he knows. He was… he was magic out there,” Mike grins again. He feels his face getting warm, but he keeps going, boasting proudly, "Will’s a sorcerer. A real sorcerer. Like, like in—”

Mike’s sure he’s blushing now, so he ducks down, hoping the shadows will keep his secret.

“Like in D&D," Jonathan finishes for him, "I swear, it always comes back to D&D with you and him,” he shakes his head, smirking just a little bit, “I still can’t believe you guys even got the rest of us who don’t care about the game to use all those names for everything.”

He pauses for a moment then, looking like he’s thinking deeply about something. Contemplating.

The silence stretches for just a few seconds, him staring at Mike in a way that feels suspiciously like being seen through a zoomed-in camera lens. He takes a deep breath and starts talking again, now with a faux-casual tone, “Did you ever manage to get El into the game?”

Huh?

That feels random. It catches him off guard, and he’s sure that’s on full display across his face, “Uh, no, not really,” he shakes his head, trying to steady his breathing, “It’s just not her thing, I think.”

“Huh,” Jonathan doesn’t sound too surprised by this, which maybe makes sense. He has been living in the same house as him for a year and a half, he’s aware of how infrequently any of them even get to see El these days due to the circumstances. Plus, he’d been living with her back in Lenora, long enough to know she didn’t seem interested in D&D before they’d all ‘reunited’ either.

“Why?” Mike asks point blank, because he doesn’t know why they’re talking about this at all. He thought they were supposed to be talking about Will.

“Nothing, nothing,” Jonathan shrugs, “Just… I saw some art Will was working on the other day that reminded me of that… that painting,” he makes eye contact with Mike, and he does keep talking, but Mike didn’t need to hear more to know exactly what he’s talking about, “You know, the one he said El had him paint for you.”

Mike gulps, and nods, “Yeah, I know the one,” he tries to say it casually, as if he hasn’t already been wondering if the painting back in his room was still okay after the Demogorgon took Holly and almost killed his parents. He has no clue what state his house is in, his room… This obviously wasn’t his first concern after the attack, but once he’d had eyes on his parents and at least the beginnings of a plan for getting his little sister back, it was one of the many prominent sub-concerns that sprouted up in his brain.

“It always just felt so random, that El would tell him to paint all that meaningful D&D stuff, you with a sword and shield, a dragon, when usually she doesn’t seem to know or care about any of that,” Jonathan shrugs.

Mike freezes in place, because he honestly truly had never even considered that Jonathan had been paying close attention to that conversation in the van all those months ago. He knew he’d been awake, he was the one driving, not Argyle, so, duh. But… he’d assumed Jonathan would want to tune out Mike’s whining through D&D and comics metaphors about how he can’t communicate or connect with his girlfriend. He didn’t think he’d still remember any it, let alone bring it up.

Though really, Mike doesn’t know why he’s so surprised—Jonathan’s always been an observer. Nancy waxed poetic about it enough times in his presence, the way he sees a situation so clearly, the way he searches for the true meaning below the surface. It's so damn obvious that Mike’s practically kicking himself.

The only thing keeping Mike from thinking of himself as a complete and total moron is the fact that what Jonathan is actually saying, set aside from the fact that he’s the one saying it, isn’t really that surprising.

Mike’s wondered about the painting himself. Quite a lot, in fact.

It wasn’t until after the Byers moved into the Wheelers’ house, when the situation at hand about this lockdown being their new normal was really setting in, that Mike finally had a chance to put the painting up in his room. The next time he got to see El, he’d excitedly mentioned it—that he found a place to hang up the painting, and that it looks amazing. She had smiled, seeming interested in what he was saying, but… but she wasn’t excited. She didn’t really seem to know what he was talking about, she just wasn’t making a big deal about it. The conversation had moved on quickly, she’d shifted things to talk about how her training was going before Mike even had a chance to say the ‘thanks for it, by the way,’ that was on the tip of his tongue.

When Mike got home that night, and saw it on his wall, he got a little too fixated. Why would she react like that? Shouldn’t she be excited about how he likes the gift she gave him? Well, Will gave it to him, but… but it was from her. He said.

He said… But… Eventually it dawned on him that if it’s just what Will said, that doesn’t… that doesn’t inherently mean it's true.

Just admitting that to himself kinda flipped his worldview.

As beautiful as the painting was, as much as he loved it, pretty much any time Mike passed by it on his wall, it felt like his mind just went out of control. He probably lied. He did. Will lied. Will lied to you. Will lies to you now.

The same Will he got to sit next to every morning at the breakfast table, who smiles at him and acts like everything’s right as rain. He doesn’t trust you anymore.

Not that he should even be shocked about that. He hasn’t done much to show Will he should be trusted, not in the last few years. Mike had consistently been an asshole for a long while there, and even though Will seemed to forgive him, it had still changed things. He doesn’t know why he thought maybe it hadn’t.

He took the painting down after it just became too much. He couldn’t have all of this at the forefront of his mind, he just couldn’t, not with Will living under the same roof. So he rolled it up and put it in his closet for safekeeping. Hoping that someday they could get on the same page again, that he could proudly display it without doubting their friendship.

Mike’s just been staring at Jonathan this whole time, his mind on overload yet again. Too much buzzing around his brain to form anything even close to a coherent sentence.

“You’ve thought so too,” Jonathan does seem a little surprised at that, at the stunned silence Mike can’t seem to power through, “Haven’t you?”

He nods. It’s only the tiniest bit of movement, but it's there. 

“Yeah,” he spits it out, pushing through the word like it hurts. Because it does, it hurts to acknowledge out loud that Will lies to him now. That he has for over a year.

“Have you talked to him about it?” Jonathan asks, as if he doesn’t already know the most likely answer.

Mike just stares at him unimpressed, eyes half lidded and brow raised.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” he admits, rolling his eyes, “You should, though, it’s not like either of you to keep important stuff from each other,” he says that more earnestly, though Mike fixates on the way he says important. The fact that Jonathan can clearly see how much this is eating him up inside.

“I guess,” Mike dismisses him, tries to just shrug and move on, looking away.

“Look. You know how you were just talking about Will using his powers,” Jonathan vaguely gestures in his direction, “The way you were smiling… That’s how he looks when he talks to you, about you, too,” he sort of crouches down, to meet Mike’s scrunched up position’s eye-level, “You’ve gotta know that, right?”

He’s thought it, of course he has. He swears he’s felt it—back at the RadioShack, and more times than he could count before—the way Will radiates this specific warmth whenever they’re close together… It’s intoxicating. There’s no way he could miss it. But…

But shit, is it different to hear someone else acknowledge it. Someone who isn’t in on this unspoken bond, someone who isn’t them. That just makes it so much more real, more tangible, something that Mike might have to name. This thing between the two of them—that he knows is wrong, that he shouldn’t be instigating the way he does for a myriad of reasons...

This isn’t just Mike thinking that he and Will might feel the same way about each other, no, this is Jonathan saying it looks like he and Will feel the same way about each other from an outside point of view.

“I…” Mike trails off just as soon as he starts, “I mean, I—” he can’t pick a way to phrase this that doesn’t reveal too much, “I’ve liked to… uh, I guess, I guess I’ve thought… so,” he trails off.

Even a mess of words like that shows his cards more than he’d like. But it’s already out there, so he just stares back up at Jonathan, waiting for some sort of reaction.

“So what are you so scared of?” Jonathan smiles at him then, soft and reassuring, like he knows just how big a question that is to ask, “I mean, I know in the world… shit, yeah, it’s definitely… gotta be scary in the grand scheme of things, all of this,” he corrects himself, and Mike can’t quite tell what he’s talking about. The world as in their situation at hand, the Upside Down spilling into Hawkins and all… or the world in general, how people would react to…

To what Mike is. To what he’s scared of being. 

“But I mean with him, with just Will,” Jonathan insists, “If you know how he feels about you, and you… feel it too… what’s stopping you? From at least talking to him, asking him about it?”

Mike knows he mostly means about the painting, but… but it’s more than that too. His words are loaded.

He and Will keep taking action, getting into these moments of physical closeness when they're alone. That stuff back in the RadioShack was the most extreme thus far, the most he's ever pushed those boundaries, but... but over the last several months living together, there had other things almost like that, too. Sitting around the basement practically joined at the hip, brushing up against one another whenever they're walking around. Quiet nights on the couch after watching a movie, eyes locked together in the dim glow of the TV with the distance between them practically begging to be closed. Yet they've never spoken a word about it, like as soon as something—a door slamming, someone entering a room—snaps them back to reality, the spell is broken and they act like nothing happened at all.

“I…”

“And don’t you dare blame El here, say she’s why you and Will are being… weird about this,” he cuts him off, tone sort of joking but with an undercurrent of something more serious as he rolls his eyes, “If she knew the way you both try to hide behind her…” he mutters as he shakes his head.

“She’s still my girlfriend, so yeah, she’s a big part of it,” Mike insists, on the defensive at first, before he cools down a little and shrugs, “I mean, she and I have barely talked about anything besides her training and the crawls, though, in months. It's like since getting back, everything’s been so… focused,” he understands why, but it has made it difficult when the interpersonal shit takes over his brain, “Even if I knew how to say… anything to her about any of this, it’s… I can’t just… she needs me, I can’t abandon her.”

But does she?

Will was the one who said she needed him. Will, who they just established, had probably been lying.

“Mike,” he starts to sound more exasperated now, “You do know you can be there for her—care for her and support her and everything—without being her boyfriend, right?”

Before Mike can even try to respond to that, Nancy is tapping on the glass to the side of them, giving a curt smile, and then heading for the door.

“Jonathan, come on,” she gestures for him to get up and follow, “Dustin wants some physics textbook to explain what he’s thinking to the rest of us, so we’re going on a field trip to the Hawkins High library,” she holds up a set of keys, impatiently shaking them around.

He glances back at Mike, who just nods towards his sister, signaling to go.

"Alright, yeah,” he sort of mumbles as he stands.

“Is everything okay?” Nancy glances between the two of them, and Mike can practically see her going through the shortlist of what conversation topics they could possibly have been discussing.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mike cuts in, also standing, “Just… talking about the Will stuff,” that answer is more truthful than he even means it.

That seems to placate her, enough to drop the subject, at least, “Okay,” she nods, and starts to head out of the room.

Mike follows them just to the lobby, waving in acknowledgement at Dustin as Jonathan and Nancy rejoin the group. They seem to have looped in Erica at some point, too, she's still clutching the radio connecting her to her brother, but she's bickering with Steve as they head out the door.

Dustin nods back, but it’s brief—he’s in the zone, chasing a theory. Mike knows he’ll explain it all later when he’s got the tools to do so.

Once they're all gone, he turns back to the other side of the room, where Will still lays unconscious with Joyce sitting right there in front of him. Her hands are folded under her chin as she stares forward at two empty cups of coffee with a weary look in her eyes.

Hopper sat here with her for quite a while after they’d all first come inside, an additional reason Mike’s first attempts at coming over had faltered. Though after a while, once El closed the gate and was safely back inside, Hopper had taken Murray with him to scope out the tunnels and make sure they were still safe to use after the Demo attack Lucas had dealt with down there. Checking for structural damage more than anything else.

When Mike dares to look at Will again, something feels different. It’s not Will himself being changed at all—he’s still completely out, and Mike hopes it’s at least some good sleep for once—but something in Mike’s own brain. Jonathan’s assertion echoes in his mind, ‘you know how he feels about you’.

He wishes he really did. Will used to feel like such an open book to him, before puberty hit and everything changed. Now it’s like he doesn’t trust himself to read Will anymore, the familiar words are there, sure, but he can’t stop doubting himself, wondering if he’s misunderstanding it all.

“You don’t just have to stand there, y’know,” Joyce says quietly, like she’s willing to pretend she didn’t speak loud enough to be heard, if he wants to ignore her.

“I’m just worried about him,” Mike responds, still staring at his sleeping form.

She turns over her shoulder, brows twisted up in concern, “Me too, sweetie,” she shakes her head as she turns back to face forward, as Mike comes over to sit by her side, “I don’t know what I was thinking, that plan I had earlier,” she laughs bitterly, staring up at the ceiling, “I know I can be… I’m protective, way too much sometimes, so I was trying to just trust him,” she moves her shoulders for emphasis, “To show how much I believe in him, because I do, I do,” she turns to him then, “He’s such an amazing kid.”

Mike nods, “He is,” he smiles, “He is.”

“But finding that balance—between trust and care… belief and protection… That’s some of the hardest stuff to navigate when your kids are growing up so fast,” she smiles, but it’s loaded with so much, so much that Mike can’t even begin to understand.

So he just nods again, to show he’s listening if nothing else.

“I’m so glad he has you,” she whispers, “You’ve always been there. Always believed, even when it felt like nobody else did,” she looks at him properly now, and he just knows she still sees him like that thirteen-year-old kid who refused to leave Will’s side when they were dealing with the Mindflayer the first time, “You mean the world to him.”

She says it so sincerely it pulls on something in his heart, “He’s—he, uh,” Mike stumbles through what he’s trying to say, “Yeah, it’s… it’s like that… With, with me too,” it comes out all jumbled. But she doesn’t seem to mind. She knows what he means, he thinks. That the feeling is mutual.

“Mike,” El suddenly announces as she comes up the stairs, “Joyce,” she adds her name on as she sees the two of them sitting next to each other. Kali is right on her tail, following her as she comes to sit on the table across from them. “We have an idea, I want to run it with you.”

“Your friend, your son,” Kali turns from Mike to Joyce as she describes Will, then back to Mike, “He's connected to One,” as she speaks, Mike realizes this is the first time he’s actually heard her voice, “If Jane goes into his mind, maybe there’s a backdoor to One’s that she could find in there.”

“Piggybacking, like I did with Max,” El continues the thought, “Except, he is not using himself as bait, the connection is already established. Henry won’t be right there going after him. So it would be safer.”

“She just needs to find the backdoor, and use it,” Kali smiles at her, “Once in his mindscape, without him right on her trail, she can look for a weakness.”

“And clues about Holly… and Max,” she has so much hope in her voice.

“El, that still feels risky,” Mike furrows his brow, trying not to shoot it down altogether.

Kali frowns.

“We can take it slow,” El reaches for him, placing a hand on his knee. He’s confused about why she does that for just a second—almost like he forgot she’s his fucking girlfriend. That touching him like that should be the most normal thing in the world.

But truly, nothing has ever been ‘normal’ between the two of them, even from the very start, and he thinks they both know it. They just dance around it, always a bigger problem to deal with than that.

“I want to go in Will's mind now, while he’s asleep. Not to make the jump yet, just to scope things out,” she continues, “I promise to be careful.”

Mike doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like any of this. El was the one so insistent on him needing to rest in the first place, this feels like a course of action directly interrupting that. He turns to Joyce, to try to gauge what she’s thinking.

Mike recalls about what she’d said, just a few minutes ago—about finding the right balance, the right amount of trust. El is practically one of her kids, too, and he can see her weighing the options.

“If you think this is safe,” Joyce starts, “Not going after Vecna right now, just… just taking a look,” she emphasizes the smallness of this individual action, separating it from the larger plan, the things that she knows all of them would need to think a lot more carefully about, “Then I think it’s okay.”

Joyce glances at Mike, and even though he kinda wishes she’d shot the whole thing down, he doesn’t push back.

El sets up in the main station room, where Robin sends out her broadcasts from—right where Mike and Jonathan had just been—sitting at the center of all the equipment and readying herself.

Kali stands just outside, staring at her through the glass. She looks so sad, concerned. For El more than Will, he’s sure. He tries not to let that annoy him, because he’s well aware that this girl doesn’t really know anybody here besides her sister.

“El knows what she’s doing,” Mike offers as he comes to stand by her side, looking down at her tiny form, “But I’m worried too, if it makes you feel any better.”

She doesn’t say anything, just keeps her gaze fixed forward as the seconds tick by on the clock over El’s head.

“‘El. Eleven,” She speaks suddenly, turning up to face him, “Why do you still call her those things?”

“Uh—um,” he stammers, “I mean, El was the nickname I gave her right when we first—“

“That was years ago,” Kali frowns, “Once you knew she had a real name, why didn’t you—” she shakes her head, cutting herself off, “As if we don’t already have to remember what we went through in that lab, every single day.”

He doesn’t mean to, but in the uncomfortable silence that settles between them, that spot catches his eye. Of course it does. 008, tattooed on her wrist, plain as day.

She crosses her arms.

“She’s never asked me to call her something else,” Mike shrugs, “Except during that one trip to California, for keeping up public appearances,” he shoves his hands in his pockets, watching her as she still sits there exploring Will’s mind.

“But did you ever ask her how it felt—” Kali challenges, “That her own boyfriend so easily refers to her like she’s still some lab experiment?”

The way she says boyfriend feels like nails scraping down a chalkboard. By his calculation, the last time before all this that El and Kali had seen each other, he and El weren’t even together yet. That means she’s gotten filled in on all of that recently—and with how distant they’ve been, he’s sure that does not paint him in a terribly favorable light.

He still hasn’t said ‘I love you’ to her fully conscious face. Even after mustering through it at Surfer Boy Pizza last year, to try to pull her back out of Vecna’s mind, he couldn’t do it again. She’d dropped the issue when they got back—bigger problems at hand. Yet he knows it must still hurt her the way it did then. That not only was he unable to show her he loved her, he still could barely even say it.

Not to mention what he’s done to hurt her that she doesn’t even know about.

God, he’s such a piece of shit.

He’s just too goddamn scared to face any of this. Things with El. Things with—

Will gasps on the couch, shooting straight up with his eyes flying wide open. Joyce clings to his side, grabbing onto him for dear life, “Will, sweetheart!”

El tears the goggles off her face, jumping off the stool and racing out the door of the booth, blasting right past Mike and Kali to head for Will.

“El,” he starts, with a scared look on his face. His mouth hangs open, jaw quivering like he’s trying to put more words together, but he just can’t do it.

She just pulls him into a hug, “It’s okay,” she strokes at his hair, hugging in the exact same way Hopper does. She doesn’t pull away as she keeps talking, “It’s okay, I found the door, the way to find Henry.”

El explains it all in more detail to Joyce, what exactly it is she wants to do here—but Mike is barely able to process any of it. He’s just staring at Will, who seems to be nursing a headache that surpasses the stories Lucas told about his first hangover.

Soon enough Joyce radios Hopper, telling him that they need to head to the cabin. Over the last 18 months since the start of the end of the world, El and Hopper had transformed their cabin into not only a living space but also the home of a more permanent sensory deprivation tank. The more she practiced, the more she could do with her powers without needing that whole set-up—yet certain tasks, the really big ones, still need it.

They take to the tunnels to get there, moving swiftly and running into Hopper about halfway there. Murray’s with him too, at first, but he keeps going with the tunnel investigation while Hopper joins the rest of them. 

“So, this is where you lived with your police man?” Kali mumbles to El as they start making their way out of the tunnel, the cabin entering view. She looks between the house and Hopper.

“It's a little different now than when I first told you,” she smiles, “But yes,” they walk through the doorway together, heading straight to El’s room.

Will is silent by Mike’s side, staring down at the floorboards as they follow, but hang back in the main living room.

“Could you… feel her in there?” Mike asks the question that had been on the tip of his tongue the whole walk over. He’d wanted to wait until they were really alone, like right now—Joyce and Hopper talking outside, El and Kali in another room.

Will startles at the question, but nods, “Yeah. It was weird,” his mouth twitches, like he’s thinking really hard about what words to use, “I swear I could almost… feel him looking through my eyes at her,” he frowns, “Maybe that’s stupid. Maybe I’m just freaked out, paranoid,” he pauses, then his voice drops to a barely-there whisper, “I know you were joking when you said I was Vecna, but god, it’s… It’s getting harder to tell where the line between us is.”

Mike stops abruptly, holding onto Will again because he just can’t fucking help himself, hand grasping at the fabric of his t-shirt along his shoulder, “You are nothing like him,” he shakes his head, “You can steal his powers and use them for good, but you’re not him.”

He looks so tired. So defeated. Like he wishes he could believe what Mike’s saying, but he just can’t bring himself to do it.

“I hope you’re right,” he whispers.

Will heads off into Hopper’s room shortly after that, and as much as Mike wants to follow him… he knows that he hasn’t really had a conscious moment to himself since all of this started. So he turns away, gives him space, and starts busying himself with helping Joyce and Hopper fill the tub once they come inside.

They all work quietly, Joyce glancing back towards the room Will had slipped into, until Hopper finally gives her a little nudge, “Mike and I’ll finish getting this ready.”

Joyce nods, and heads off to sit on the bed in there with him. Mike tries not to look through the still-partially-open door, but can’t help glancing their way every now and then.

“Thanks, kid,” Hopper says once Joyce is out of earshot, and it almost makes Mike jump. While Hop hates his guts a lot less now than he did that first summer he and El were together, things have always still felt awkward when they’re alone.

“For—For what?” Mike keeps stirring the salt into the water, only just glancing up for a moment to meet his eyes.

“Watching over them,” Hopper nods his head towards his room, and El’s, “I might not like you dating my daughter,” he pauses, that threatening undertone still always present, “But I know you’d do a lot to keep her safe. And you’ve always been by that boy’s side when he needed it, and that means a lot to Joyce.”

Mike nods, not sure what to say.

Not sure what he even can say without giving too much away. Without somehow confirming that the feeling Hopper’s always had that something was off about his & El’s romantic relationship was right on the money. That the way he is around Will is the way he should be around El—but that he’s just never been able to act that way. Not enough.

That he does love Hopper’s daughter, so, so much. Just not in the way that she wants, not the way he’s supposed to.

El’s door suddenly swings open, and she steps out in a wetsuit Mike hasn’t seen before. The bright colors stand in stark contrast to the white one Kali had been wearing when they’d first come into the cabin.

Now, though, Kali is wearing some of El’s old clothes. She’s shorter, so the pants run a bit long—but she’s rolled up the sleeves on her oversized shirt and smudged some sort of makeup around her eyes. A bandana is tied around her wrist, the way El had worn it when she showed up back when they first learned she wasn’t dead.

She looks more comfortable, but still stares wearily at El as she steps towards the bathroom, towards the tank.

“Mike, can we talk,” El doesn’t say it like a question, just a statement. She comes over and sits on the edge of the tub, then glances at Hopper. They communicate in that unspoken way they do, one of the many codes they’d developed over the years. He starts to head outside with just a nod, Kali following after him once she’s given a similar look to El.

Jane. Kali wouldn’t like him calling her El in reference to her own actions, Mike thinks. Even just in his own head. Mike also, frankly, doesn’t know enough about how Kali’s powers work to know for sure she can’t read his thoughts or something to hear it.

He joins El on the edge of the tub, close but not too close.

“When we talked about happy endings,” she starts, “What comes after this…” she frowns, “It’s getting harder to imagine all of it... being like what you said.”

Mike shakes his head, “What? I mean, now we’ve got you and Kali,” he smiles, trying to be reassuring and unsure if he’s succeeding, “And Will’s a sorcerer. With all three of you, there’s no way we won’t win this thing and get a happy ending," he laughs a little, knowing how silly it sounds as he tacks on,"Waterfalls and all—“

“Mike," she cuts him off, "This isn’t one of your campaigns,” she reaches for his face, cupping his cheek, and Mike hates himself for remembering when he did the same to Will, maybe 12 hours ago.

“I know, but—“ he tries to interject, but she shuts him down.

“You don’t get to write the ending. Not this time. It won’t just be like your games’ happy ever afters,” she sounds so sad as she pulls her hand back, holding onto one of his now in her lap.

“I don’t understand,” Mike meets her eyes, “You have a plan, that’s what we’re doing here. You’ll find Vecna, then... find Holly, and maybe with whatever it is Nancy and Dustin figure out we’ll end all of this.”

“We will end it,” she forces a smile, “But it won’t be… easy,” she plays with his hand in hers, staring down at it, “I just... I know, that things won’t be the same after. They already aren’t… how we act like they are.”

She moves his hand from where she’d dragged it between them, over to his own knee. She places it down, then gives one good pat before pulling away, her hands now resting in her own lap.

Mike stares at her, and when she looks back up at him, she’s not angry or confused or sad. She just looks resigned.

She’s not saying the exact words, but it feels…

It feels like an ending.

Mike can’t help but wonder if this has to do with something she saw in there, inside Will’s head. Did she see them in the RadioShack? Does she… know... what he... is?

He can’t ask her that. He can't. So instead, he switches the subject, “El, I’m—I’m sorry I still call you that. El. Eleven.”

She looks surprised, before glancing towards the door, then back at him again. She sighs, “Kali said something, didn’t she?”

Mike nods. El takes a deep breath.

“Kali means well, but she doesn’t… she doesn’t know everything,” she smiles fondly, “El is still okay,” she looks at him tentatively, “But… maybe not Eleven, anymore. And… maybe I could be Jane, sometimes, too?”

It goes silent between them for a moment, eyes locked together and he feels like he’s really seeing her in a way he hasn’t in a long time. Not since that first week they knew each other, when he knew that what she needed most of all was a friend, a home, a place to belong. He reaches forward to hold her in a tight hug, like it’s the only thing he knows how to do.

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a shitty boyfriend to you,” he pauses, and makes a quick decision, “Jane,” the name feels odd as it comes out of his mouth, but it seems right for that moment. She laughs, in that choked up way she does when she’s feeling more than she knows how to describe.

“Just promise to be a better friend,” her voice is watery when she finally speaks. She sniffs as she holds onto him, and he’s unsure if she’s actually crying or just trying very hard to hold it in, but that distinction doesn’t really matter. He doesn’t let go, he just holds her there until she backs away of her own accord.

"I promise," he says, once they're face to face again.

She wipes at her eyes, drying the tears Mike now knows were really there. It feels like only a few seconds pass before Will re-enters the room. His eyes are just as red as hers, and Joyce has her arm on his.

“I’m ready if you are,” he stares right at her, his intense eyes meeting hers. She nods, and gets up to head for the door. Surely grabbing Hopper, so they can begin.

They all sit on the floor around the tub, with the door closed over it as a makeshift lid. Kali and Will are the closest to it—holding one another’s hands, sitting down with their eyes covered, waiting for something to start.

El had insisted Kali try to come along with her this time. This was new territory for her powers, trying to bring someone else not only into her void, but into another person’s mind—but considering Kali’s own powers, she figured it had a shot at working. She mostly wanted her there so that if they actually encountered Vecna in there, she could create some sort of illusion to distract him—to give them time to escape.

Mike still wasn’t completely sure how Kali’s powers worked, but that seemed like sound enough reasoning to him.

He sort of wishes he could go in with them, even if just to be there for Will. He sits right by Will’s side, with Joyce behind the two of them. Hopper hovers nearby, ready to open the door and end this whole thing at a moment’s notice.

“Kali, can you see me?” El speaks out loud, muffled voice unsure.

Kali gasps, before nodding, “Yes,” she breathes in and out, it’s the only sound in the room, “This is…” she trails off.

Mike wishes she hadn’t. That she’d keep talking, that at least one of them would explain everything that’s going on right now. Sitting on the sidelines during these kinds of things isn’t new to him, not anymore, but it’s just as stressful as it's always been. Plus it’s still just as annoying as ever that he can only know a fraction of what’s happening.

“I am going to try entering Will,” El announces, “Hold on.”

That’s probably directed to Kali, and meant in the more metaphorical sense, but Mike can see the way Will tightens his grip on the girl’s hands.

The room goes silent again, and it’s driving him insane not knowing what’s happening. He can practically feel the nervous energy radiating off of Joyce, so he’s willing to bet she’s going through the same thing.

“Here?” Will suddenly asks, then he tacks on hesitantly, “Are you sure?”

“Where?” Mike hears himself ask, even though he knows he shouldn’t interrupt. Hopper glares at him, and he puts a hand over his own mouth.

“This is when he made contact with Holly, the first time,” El says matter-of-factly, “This is where I can find it.”

They fall back into silence, and Mike wonders if they’ve just all now figured out how to talk in there, rather than out here.

She had described it to him a little bit before, how there’s both an inside–the-mind voice and an out-loud-in-the-real-world voice—how while using her powers like this, she needs to really concentrate and think about if she wants to say something through one, the other, or both simultaneously.

He notices Will start to twitch, really slightly at first, but Joyce picks up on it too.

“Will, sweetie, everything okay?” She tentatively rubs his back.

“He’s close,” Will says, but it doesn’t sound like a response to Joyce.

“Jane,” Kali speaks quickly, “Jane we need to go.”

Everything goes silent one last time, before Will is sputtering and coughing, falling forward onto Kali while their hands are still locked together.

She lets go of his hands and grabs him, holding on for dear life it looks like.

“Jane!” Kali shouts it this time, and Mike can see a small trail of blood trickling down her nose.

“That’s enough,” Hopper cuts in at the sight of it, opening the door and bringing everyone back into the real world. El’s eyes snap open, and she looks like she’s about to cry.

“Max,” her lip quivers as she sits up, but her face blossoms into a smile, despite the tears rolling down her cheeks, “I saw her. I saw her. She’s okay.”

She’s still talking when Mike practically rips the blindfold off of Will, who is still shaking—it almost looks like another seizure. His eyes are normal this time, at least, and there’s no blood on his face. His powers hadn’t really been tapped into, Mike thinks. He’s just freaked out.

Kali takes off her own eye covering, wipes the blood off her face, and watches Will like a hawk.

“Will, Will,” Mike repeats himself, overlapping with Joyce who seems to be calling out the same thing.

“It’s soon,” Will says, locking eyes with Mike, “The hospital. That was just a warning before, it’s happening soon.”

“Because Max is trying to escape,” El says as she pulls herself out of the tub, “It’s going to work, and Henry is scared.”

She walks across the room, over to one of the radios, “I will warn Lucas. But I need to talk to Dustin. His… circle. The center… that’s how to get to Holly. To all of them,” she stares back at the group still in the bathroom for a second, before going back to messing with the knobs, “The kids.”

Mike expects Kali to go over to her, but instead she just sits there, still staring at Will.

Will, who is in Mike’s arms, pulled close to his chest, and Mike would feel more self-conscious about it if he weren’t so goddamn scared by the way he’s still shaking.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he whispers into his hair. Joyce has her arms around the both of them. Mike silently thanks her in his mind for not taking him out of his grasp, it’s like she knew that he needed to hold onto Will right now, just as much as Will needed to be held.

Once Will stops convulsing and El gets through to Dustin to arrange a rendezvous point, they all take to the tunnels again. Hopper goes with Kali and El, to meet up with the others and figure out the next step. Joyce takes Will and Mike on the path towards the Wheeler house. Ideally, they’ll grab some supplies, maybe a change of clothes, and then steal Ted’s car to head for the hospital.

Mike knows that Lucas would do anything to protect Max, and while he’s a little less clear on why exactly Robin also felt the need to go just as urgently, he bets she’s gonna protect her friend too. Knowing all that doesn’t make him any less worried for them, though. They need to get to them, and get them out of there.

“Shit,” Mike says as soon as he steps into the kitchen of the only house he’s ever lived in. He hasn’t been back since before his parents were attacked. Since before Holly was taken. 

Seeing his mother’s blood on the floor, dried into a deep dark brownish color, makes him feel like he’s gonna throw up. Not that seeing her in person had been easy, but at least he had her right there—living proof that she survived. Right now all he’s seeing is the evidence that proves she very nearly didn’t.

“Come on,” Will places a hand on his shoulder this time, his touch gentle at first, but soon he’s almost pushing—towards the stairs, “Lets just get what we need and get out of here.”

Mike nods, and tears his eyes away from the kitchen floor. He leads the way up to his room, and even though he knew there’d be signs of damage all around the house, even though it had obviously crossed his mind that there could be some here… it was still so different to see it like this.

His bedroom.

“No,” he whispers, like can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. The entire wall that his closet had been built into is broken into pieces, splintered wood and all his clothes strewn about everywhere—and there’s blood too, of course there is. He’s not sure if it’s Holly’s or his dad’s, but neither answer is good. 

“Mike, I’m so sorry,” Will says quietly as he comes up right behind him, taking it all in.

This place meant a lot to him, too. They’d spent plenty of time here as kids, playing and laughing and staying up way too late during sleepovers.

There couldn’t be a more clear sign that their childhoods are dead and gone.

“Shit, shit,” Mike runs forward, as the shock wears off and a thought suddenly hits him. He heads right into all the debris, not quite caring if he gets hurt. He just needs to find it. He had it in his closet, rolled up and kept safe. But now apparently nothing in his life is allowed to be safe—he needs to get his eyes on it, make sure it’s not ripped—

“Mike, Mike!” Will calls after him and grabs him by the shoulders, far more forcefully this time than downstairs, trying to pull him back, “What are you doing? You’re gonna hurt yourself,” he tugs again but Mike doesn’t budge, so he gives up. Will just kneels beside him instead, pulling his sleeves down over his hands to avoid splinters, and starts rummaging through the mess, too, “What are we looking for here?”

“The painting,” Mike says, like it’s obvious, “The one you gave me,” he doesn’t bring up the El of it all—not yet.

He thinks back to his talk with Jonathan about all of this. Could now be the chance? To actually just ask him about it? About how all signs point to Will having lied? About… about what that could possibly mean?

Now that he and El… He supposes they didn’t say the exact words, but… She said she wants him to be a better friend, right after he said how shit he was as a boyfriend. It felt like an ending.

If something actually happened with him and Will, it wouldn't be going behind her back—not now.

So what is he still so scared of?

The only thing he can think of is the Robin factor—that even if Jonathan was right and Will had felt the same way about him at one point, maybe he moved on. Mike took too long to come around, so he found something special in someone else—in her—and that’s why the two of them have gotten so close.

But… but that still wouldn't really make sense. It doesn't explain… It doesn't explain the way Will’s looking at him right now, saying something that Mike’s just not hearing because he’s a little too focused on the way his lips look when they move.

“Huh?” he asks belatedly, trying to tune back in.

“I said, I think I found it,” Will struggles to grab at the rolled up canvas with his sleeves over his hands like that, but after a glance at the rolled up canvas that doesn't visibly have any splintered wood on it, he frees his hands and holds it more properly.

“Thank god,” Mike takes it from him, unfurling just enough to confirm what it is.

Even if this thing serves as a reminder of the fact that there's some big disconnect between them now, it’s still a whole painting that Will made just for him. It’s a gorgeous piece of artwork that Mike wants to keep for the rest of his life. Even if Will goes on to become some famous painter, leaving him behind and going on to create all sorts of amazing works, Mike still wants this one that’s all his.

“Y’know, that’s really not worth hurting yourself over,” Will sighs, eyeing the visible scratches on Mike’s hands.

“Shut up,” Mike rolls his eyes, tone fond even if his words are dismissive, “Yes it is.”

He pushes off the ground to stand, and Will follows suit. He just stands there awkwardly, watching Mike inspect the painting once again. It feels like they’ve lived a lifetime since that spring break from hell, but for a moment it’s as if they’re both sent back there.

“Right, cause it’s a gift from El,” Will mumbles.

Mike sees the opportunity, and he takes it, “Is it, though?” he asks, glancing in Will’s direction, just in time to catch his eyes go wide. He looks terrified.

“Uh, I—“ He stammers, forcing a weird sort of smile, “Of—Of course it is,” he scoffs, stepping back just a little, nearly tripping over a piece of Mike’s broken closet door. He won’t meet Mike’s eyes.

“Boys!” Joyce calls up from the ground level, “I found the spare keys. Let’s get going.”

Mike keeps staring at Will, his question still hanging in the air. It was answered, but not terribly convincingly.

“She sounds serious,” Will says as he darts past Mike, gaze fixed across the room, heading for his drawers and grabbing shirts randomly to throw into a backpack he picked up off the floor, “We should hurry up.”

“Will,” Mike turns to watch him. He knows he should be doing the same, he knows that their friends need them, but he’s just… he needs to know. He needs Will to open up, to—


Will suddenly groans, leaning forward onto Mike’s bureau for support, “Shit,” he sounds like he’s in pain, like he’s about to cry, “I think they just, they just crossed through a gate,” Will turns over his shoulder to face him, face twisted up in fear, “We need to get to the hospital, now. I need to be there.”

He doesn’t elaborate further, but Mike understands the danger instantly.

Lucas and Robin don’t stand a chance up against what’s heading their way, not if Will isn’t there to slow it all down.

The second Joyce sees the look on Will’s face as he runs down the stairs, she knows that she’s gonna need to break a few traffic laws to get them where they need to be fast enough. She’d do anything for these kids, though. Anything.

It’s a quick and silent ride through Hawkins, Will trying to hold himself together, Joyce trying to focus on the road ahead, and Mike… Mike’s brain is racing in a million different directions all at once.

Will had absolutely just lied to him, again. Well, it was the same lie as before, told in a far flimsier way, but still.

He wouldn’t have looked so scared if it was the truth, right?

Mike’s eyes keep falling back on the rolled-up painting, where it lays in the backseat with him. It makes him feel sort of sick, for a lot of reasons—most prominent of all that he’s so goddamn selfish to be freaking out over something like this while Lucas is probably about to get eaten by a monster.

When they finally reach the parking lot and jump out of the car, Mike almost feels a sense of relief—that at least his mind spiral is going to pause. It’s a bit fucked up, he thinks, to feel relieved about going into a life threatening situation. But he can’t focus on that either, not right now.

The hospital lobby is empty, lights mostly off though a few bulbs keep trying to flicker. There’s a buzzing sound coming from down the hall, like equipment got knocked over while it was still turned on. They just start running down the only hallway that isn’t blocked off by overturned furniture. Even if they don’t know where they’re going, they can’t stay in one place. They just need to find—

“Follow me,” Will breaks the silence the three of them had slipped into, stopping for just a second at a fork in the hallways. His shoulders are tense, his posture rigid, each movement almost robotic as he leads them through the building. Mike knows it in his gut before he sees it in a reflection, that Will’s eyes are glazed over and whitened-out again.

He just hopes that Will’s still the one in control, here. Not the other way around.

Someone screams—upstairs by the sound of it. Will darts toward the nearest stairwell, and the three of them race up. He skips a few floors' landings and keeps heading up, but Mike trusts him. He'd follow him anywhere, he thinks. To hell and back. 

When he bursts out of the stairwell, through a set of doors, the first thing to catch Mike eye isn’t whatever’s snarling down the hall. It’s Robin—on the ground in an otherwise empty room, one that's door seems to be entirely missing—body curled protectively around a redheaded girl in a Candy Striper uniform. She’s got a hand over the smaller girl’s head, gently stroking her hair and talking to her, at least based on the way her jaw moves… and the fact that it’s Robin, she’s always saying something.

That girl must be Vickie.

Something about Will and Robin sharing so many knowing looks, like there was some secret they were keeping from everybody else in the room… the way Will knew Robin would want to be here, to protect this girl… It's making Mike feel stupid for getting so jealous before. It seems so obvious laid out in front of him. Robin was never into Will at all. She just trusted him. Because Will somehow knew about this.

The Demo in the hall snarls again, and finally gets Mike’s attention. He can see Lucas at the other end of the hallway in an elevator, doors closing maddeningly slow. He’s got Max in his arms and a boombox hanging off his hand.

In between them, the Demo is posed mid-jump, frozen in that way Will can cause now. He moves so much faster this time, almost like it’s starting to get easier—which is concerning. Killing shouldn’t be easy.

But it’s saving their lives right now, so it’s fine. Really. The lights flicker all around them, and bones start crunching. It sounds utterly disgusting as it echoes off the walls, this space far more enclosed than where he's done this before, until it finally ends with a thud as the thing falls to the floor. The elevator doors finally close—Lucas and Max disappearing from view, hopefully able to escape without much trouble. Will turns back around to face the rest of them, but doesn’t make a move to wipe away the blood on his face, not yet.

His eyes haven’t gone back to normal either, actually. He’s still just staring blankly, twitching every so often, like something’s coursing through him and he can’t quite keep it under wraps. His head jerks to the side, then the other way, then back to center. The blood is still flowing, dripping down his chin, now.

He looks like he's in another world. Mike doesn't think that’s a good thing. He glances back at Joyce, who watches with wide eyes as her boy writhes around. He needs to do something, anything.

“Will,” he speaks softly, approaching like he’s going towards a wounded animal, something normally gentle and kind but scared into a kind of ferocity that’s hard to control, “Will, it’s me. Mike.”

He doesn’t say anything. Though his mouth twitches, like he’s trying to.

“I think you did it, you got the monster,” Mike steps closer, “You saved Lucas and Max, and Robin and her—her friend,” out of the corner of his eye, he sees the two girls crawl towards Joyce, where she still stands in front of the door they’d come through, “So you can come back now, okay?”

Will steps back, away from Mike, towards the elevator. He’s breathing heavily as he twitches and jerks around. Blood is dripping all over now, in a way he’s only ever heard El describe, but never actually seen himself. Coming from his nose, his eyes, his ears, it’s horrific.

Mike takes a few steps to try to close the distance, but as he tries to reach out towards Will’s face—to wipe at least some of that blood away—Will’s arm flies out between them, flinging Mike backwards through the air.

“Mike!” He hears Joyce call out his name as he crashes into a wall. Pain shoots up his back, and he hisses, trying to focus on literally anything else aside from how badly it hurts.

Because he knows Will wouldn’t hurt him on purpose, he wouldn’t. Will’s not the one who did that. Will’s the one who needs saving.

“Will,” Mike calls out to him again, as he starts to stand up, “Will, I need you to come back, to take back control,” he doesn’t get closer again, not yet, he just stares at him across the hall, “There’s a lot we’ve gotta talk about, and we can’t do it like this.”

He tries to step forward, then, to get closer, but it’s like something’s keeping him right where he is. It feels… odd. Not as violent as before, though, it’s not a push. It’s more like he’s being held.

“Mike,” Will manages to croak out the name, like something between a prayer and a curse. There are tears slipping down his face, mingling with all the blood.

That little flicker of the real him… that’s what’s holding Mike in place. Even as he's slipping away, he’s still just trying to keep Mike safe.

Mike just needs to reach him, that part of him, the real him. Any way he can.

“I know that you lied, okay?” Mike takes a risk, wondering if maybe he can shock him out of this state, “About the painting,” he sees Will’s brows fly up, and thinks this just might work.

“The what?” He hears Robin ask, somewhere behind him.

He ignores her, and keeps looking at Will.

“I’m not… I’m not mad,” he tries to speak like normal, like he’s talking to his friend, like that’ll bring him back, “I mean, I don’t like that you lied to me, but… but It's not like I've always been... honest, with you. So what right do I have to hold it against you?”

Mike laughs then, but it’s not funny. It’s sad. It’s so sad.

He tries to take a step closer, and finds that he can, this time. Like Will’s distracted enough to let him in. So he does, he moves forward more and more until he’s close enough to look deep into the unsettlingly empty place Will’s irises usually are.

There’s a strength coursing through Will right now that’s unfamiliar and scary, but he doesn’t let that stop him.

“Will,” he practically pleads his name, “Will, I don’t… I don’t like who I am when you’re not there with me,” his voice cracks on there, “I’m an asshole. I’m… I’m overly defensive, and I get in my own head about everything,” he shakes his head, “And… I know I can get like that around you too. That I’ve taken that out on you,” he winces, thinking back to the summer of ‘85, “And I’m sorry, I’ll never stop being sorry. But at least being around you… You make me want to be better—a better friend, a better person,” he feels a tear drip down his own cheek, and it’s such an unfamiliar feeling it catches him off guard, “Because I don’t want to let you down—to wreck things between us. Push you too far away. Lose you. I’ve already lost you too many times.”

He actually smiles, then, which he’s sure looks odd matched with his red eyes and tear-stained face, “We said we’d be a team, right? You gotta come back, so that we can be toge—can work together, to end all of this,” he reaches forward, placing his hand on Will’s shoulder, and even though Will’s still shaking, he doesn’t stop him, “You and me, and… and everybody else. We’ve gotta stop Vecna, this whole mess.”

Mike starts pulling him in, slowly at first, until the lack of resistance tells him the coast is clear—to wrap both arms around him in a proper hug.

“So come back to me,” he whispers, like a secret. Like a confession, “Please.”

Will gasps in his arms, scrambling around as he realizes where he is, what’s going on. He grasps around wildly, until one hand’s fingers tangle up in Mike’s hair, the other twists up his jacket, and he presses his face into the crook of his neck.

“I’m here,” Will says it as loudly as he can, but it sounds like it hurts, “I’m here, I’m here,” he says it over and over. Like the more he says it the more true it becomes.

Mike just holds him closer, lets him cry, cries with him.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Robin throws her arms around the both of them, matching Will’s cadence with her ‘heys’, “That was insane, insane, you’re something else Byers, truly,” she laughs and for once the sound of it doesn’t burn in Mike’s ears. He laughs too, in between sobs.

“He really is,” Mike mutters, staring down at him as he pulls back ever so slightly, enough to see his face.

“You too, Wheeler,” she says more quietly, just to him, “That was brave, saying all that."

“I… thanks,” he says, unsure what else to even say. It didn’t feel particularly brave to him, it was all just the truth. Though maybe, maybe telling the truth when it’s been bottled up for so long is brave, in a way.

He doesn’t have time to contemplate it more, “Robin,” Vickie calls out to her as she pulls her back, tear-filled face pleading, “Robin what is going on? What was that thing?”

“I’ll… I’ll explain,” she takes both her hands, holding them close to her heart, “I promise,” she glances around the hallway, only Will, Mike, and Joyce are conscious there. The other hospital staff in sight are all passed out or worse, so she seems to take a calculated risk. She leans in to give Vickie a peck on the lips, sealing her statement with a kiss, before pulling back with a shy smile, “But not until we’re somewhere that's for sure safe.”

“She’s right,” Joyce calls attention back to the stairs, “We can’t stay here. And Lucas can’t just carry Max back to the WSQK,” she glances at Will, “Honey, are you okay to go?”

Mike’s still holding onto him, but he’s able to stand just fine on his own. He nods.

“Let’s go.”

They all scramble down the stairs, retracing the steps they took to get there, until bursting out onto the front lawn. There are littered corpses of Demogorgons everywhere, and it only then truly sinks in the actual scope of what Will did. He hadn’t just taken down that one in front of them.

“Holy shit,” Mike still has an arm around Will, not letting him out of his sight, as he spins the both of them around to look at the damage.

They also spot among them, sitting on the grass laughing, Lucas and—

Max.

She’s… She’s sitting up, though leaning so very heavily on Lucas, like her spine has forgotten how to keep that position on its own over the last year and a half. But her mouth is moving, he can almost make out her voice, and she’s blinking—even if her eyes look the tiniest bit cloudier than before.

Mike starts running towards her, pulling Will along with him. Once he sees where they're going, though, he's running just as fast by his side. They crash down onto the grass in front of them, Mike laughing along with the two of them even though he didn’t hear the joke.

She turns at the sound, squinting for a second, like it’s taking a lot more effort to see anything, but then her eyes go wide.

“Mike?” Max asks in near disbelief, “Is that you? And…” she looks next to him, at Will, “Sorry, I, uh…” she’s squinting again, studying him closely.

“That's Will,” Lucas says as he points at him.

"Hi," he waves awkwardly, "We moved back to Hawkins," he shrugs.

“Oh my god,” she giggles, and keeps eyeing him up and down, “I can see it now, but… You look like a completely different person,” she laughs even more, “You sound different too.”

Will blushes and smiles as he runs his hand through his hair self consciously. It’s adorable, even with some traces of now-mostly-wiped-away blood, sweat, and tears still lingering. Mike can’t help but smile, too, as he stares at him again.

At first it kind of looks like Will’s glowing, and Mike thinks his imagination is just kicking into overdrive, but soon it gets blinding, to the point where it’s uncomfortable and even Will himself starts squinting—

Then he hears the honk. Headlights.

“El thought you guys might need another car, to get everyone back together,” Nancy announces as she steps out of the vehicle and onto the asphalt. As she surveys the area, she grins in Max’s direction, but she doesn’t look surprised to see her.

El did say she knew Max had a plan. She must have filled in the others.

“We need to get back to the WSQK,” Nancy continues, "To regroup."

“Everyone, get in,” Joyce calls out. Lucas moves quickly to pick up Max, running for the backseat. Robin and Vickie had already been near the car with Joyce when Nancy arrived, so they made quick work of getting in. Will starts heading over, and Mike follows—

Until Nancy grabs his arm, “Mike, there’s already too many people in that car. You come with me,” she pulls him towards the car she arrived in—Steve's.

“We’ll meet you there!” Joyce calls out the window as her packed tight car starts to move.

Nancy buckles her seatbelt and ties up her hair, before starting the car and getting them on the road.

“It would have made more sense for Lucas and Max to get a whole backseat to themselves, more than it makes for me to get shotgun,” Mike grouses as they speed down the road, “I wanted to stay with Will.”

“Sorry,” she says, but she doesn’t really sound very sorry at all, “They were already in there. You weren’t gonna fit in too.”

She keeps her eyes on the road for the most part, but glances at him every now and then, “Speaking of Will, though,” she starts tentatively, “Are we gonna talk about how earlier you totally dropped helping everyone else—including your girlfriend—just to go check on him,” she ends her question with a condescending shrug that makes Mike want to scream.

Mike mumbles, “She’s not my girlfriend anymore,” and at first he thinks it wasn’t quite loud enough for her to hear.

“Since when?” She responds though, surprise and intrigue coming clear across.

“It doesn’t matter,” he still doesn't know if it's entirely official to begin with, so he doesn’t want to get that specific, “We’re still friends, though, this time.”

She laughs a little bit, “Well that’s good. The last thing we need is you guys fighting in the middle of all of this.”

Mike remembers that last time he and El broke up, the explosive dumping-of-his-ass that had not helped the situation they were dealing with. This couldn’t be more different than that.

“Yeah,” he just nods, staring out the window. Hoping Will’s okay.

“But, um,” she keeps talking, not letting the silence last for long, “Back to Will,” she pivots, like she’s reading his mind or something, “I don’t know what’s going on with the two of you but… you know you can talk to me about it, right?”

She glances over in his direction as the car comes to rest at a stop sign, but he just stares back. Eyes wide, unsure how to proceed.

“Look, there’s no way you and Jonathan were just talking about this powers situation with him," she shakes her head as she looks forward again, moving the car forward, “I saw the look on your face. You guys were in a room with glass walls,” she rolls her eyes, “That wasn’t just concern, that was... something else entirely.”

He looks down at his hands in his lap, some of Will’s blood still caked on them. He still doesn’t say anything.

“Mike,” her voice softens when she speaks again, like she’s no longer laying out evidence of something, she’s just his big sister again, “Please talk to me,” she pleads, “We said no more regrets, no more secrets, right? There’s so much happening right now, and it’s all so important. We can’t be… distracted. So just talk to me.”

He sighs, mouth twisted up while he thinks of what he could even say.

“Nance, it’s just… complicated, alright,” he relents, glancing over at her, “I don’t… I don’t wanna talk about this.”

Not until he’s had a chance to talk about it with Will, at least. He doesn’t even really know exactly how much Will’s gonna remember from what he said back at the hospital.

“Fine,” she nods, “I get that, totally,” she shrugs, but it’s so fake-casual it’s almost comical, “I just… I just wanted to say, that, y’know,” she delays her actual point as she drives up field to the WSQK, bringing the car to a stop right next to Joyce’s and finally turning to properly face him, “If it’s that… If you and him are…" she trails off, then whispers, "Together…" she pauses, bringing her voice back up just a little bit, "That’s okay,” she smiles, her brows are twisted up in concern, like she thinks she’s crossing a line she shouldn’t, but she still smiles.

Mike doesn’t realize he’s shaking until she reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder, “Mike?”

“Yeah?” He looks at her with wide eyes, like he’s searching for confirmation that she means what she just said. He knows she does, deep down, but it’s still… It’s just a lot to process. Her saying it so plainly.

“Are you okay?” She squeezes his arm before letting go, looking at him curiously.

“Yeah,” he says the word again, but it sounds far more sure, “Yeah, I think so.”

Neither say anything else as they each start to unbuckle, shove open their doors, and jump out of the car.

Much of the group is lingering outside, he can see Robin chatting with Vickie, Steve, and Jonathan while sitting on the grass, then Murray, Hopper, and Joyce lingering by the big truck. Dustin, El, Lucas, Max, and Erica seem to be on the roof—locked in a deep discussion and passing books back and forth among one another. Dustin points somewhere across the field, then writes something down. Mike can't help but wonder how they even got Max up there, but he doesn't stick on that for long.

He doesn’t see Will anywhere, which is worrisome at first. Yet Joyce seems calm, so he can’t be far. Mike starts heading right for the building, and as soon as he flings open the door, there he is.

Standing around awkwardly, looking at some of the records on display.

“Will,” Mike calls out to him, and he turns his head.

“Oh, hey,” he smiles, its a little nervous, but Mike can’t blame him after all of that, “Dustin and El need another little bit to finish gathering their notes, but then they wanna talk strategy with everyone,” he awkwardly shoves his hands in his pockets as he talks, like he doesn’t know what else to do with them.

It looks like he’s cleaned himself up a bit, no more traces of visible blood.

“Cool, cool,” Mike nods, and then glances towards the basement, “Is anyone down there right now?”

“Nope, Dustin wanted to be on the roof for whatever reason, to see some distances better or something, so the usual planning stuff’s all untouched, and I think everyone else is outside” he stares at Mike as he fiddles with the door, eventually shoving it open.

“C’mon,” he gestures as he starts to head down, “Lock the door behind you, maybe? Up to you. I wanna talk,” he hopes that doesn’t come off too ominously.

He just… thinks privacy would be good.

Will doesn’t say anything, but he does follow, and Mike hears the lock click.

Mike sits down on the couch, very close to one end, leaving potential space between them for at least the start of… whatever this is going to be.

“How’re you holding up?” Mike asks, staring up at Will as he stands there awkwardly.

He shrugs, “I mean, all things considered, it could be worse,” he finally meets Mike’s eyes, but just for a moment, “Thanks, by the way,” he says as he comes closer and sits down, as far away as he can be while still sharing the same piece of furniture, “For… what you did back there. Some of it’s still a little… fuzzy,” he shifts his head back and forth, “But on the ride over, Robin was adamant that you brought me back.”

“Any time,” Mike grins at him. Then he bites at his lip, thinking, trying to figure out the right thing to ask, “So, uh, what… what do you remember?”

“Well, it was like… After taking down the Demo that was going after Lucas,” he hikes one leg up onto the couch and turns to face the center—to face Mike, again, “I could feel all the other ones coming. So I had to… had to stretch myself really thin, across all of them, to take care of it.”

There were so many outside.

“And when I did that, it’s… It’s like something else tried to slip into my body,” he’s got this grossed-out look on his face, “To puppet me around again, like, when I was the spy,” he shakes his head, “But it was kind of… different than that. I don’t know. I could hear things, see them, but it was like it was… far away. Like it was on a TV screen, and I was forced to just sit there and watch. When it… when it hurt you,” he frowns, “But… but when you said something about the painting, it…” he shakes his head again, but laughs this time, “It’s like, that scared me deep enough in my core that it even threw the Mindflayer off for a second,” he looks up at Mike.

He smiles right back.

“After that’s when it gets… harder to remember what was actually going on in the real world. I was just doing whatever I could to fight back for control of my mind, concentrating on… on the same stuff I did that first time I tapped into any of this. How I felt as a kid, around you and mom and Jonathan,” he looks down at his upturned hand. Curling his fingers in and out of a fist, watching it move.

“Me?” Mike can’t help himself from asking, he inches closer, “Thinking about me, was… part of what gave you superpowers?”

Will blushes, nose scrunched up in the cutest way when he talks, “Sorry if that’s weird.”

“Oh, it’s not, I’m…” Mike trails off, smiling wide, “I’m honored.”

He kind of thinks Will might have scooted a little closer too when he’d looked away for a second there. They’re right up in each other’s personal space now, knees bumping together, warm breath hitting each other’s faces.

Will looks up at him, his smile more subtle now as silence falls between them.

Mike glances down at his lips, then back up at his eyes, “Hi,” he says, dumbly, because Will looks so beautiful his brain has seemed to cease functioning.

He lets out a startled laugh at that, but he doesn’t look away, “Hey.”

Mike knows there’s still a lot to talk about, that as much as they like to let a lot of things be understood-yet-unspoken between the two of them, they do need to make sure they’re on the same page.

But he can use his words later, he decides, as he brings a hand up to cup Will’s cheek, gently angling his face just the right way so he can pull him into a kiss.

It’s soft, tentative, barely more than a brush of the lips. When Mike tries to pull away, though, to look in Will’s eyes and make sure he didn’t just somehow irrevocably fuck up everything between them—Will tangles a hand in Mike’s hair to pull him right back in. They each actually move their lips this time, and the way they slide together feels like magic.

Mike leans forward as they stay connected at the mouth, pushing Will down until his back hits the couch cushion, just trying to get closer. When he hooks the leg that had been up on the couch around Mike, whatever’s left of his brain turns to mush. Wills trying to keep him just as close, Will wants this just as much as he does, it’s… It almost feels too good to be true.

He pulls back, mostly to catch his breath, but he stares down at Will’s flushed face and asks anyway, “This is real, right? You’re… you’re really… you?”

Will giggles, one hand still in Mike’s hair, the other resting on his chest, over his heart, “Y’know, I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

“Pfft, copycat,” Mike teases, gently stroking his cheek, “Well, I asked first. So…”

He trails off, looking away, but still staying just as close.

Will tugs on his hair—and wow, Mike files away how that feels for later—to bring his attention back to him, then he pulls him close again, bringing them basically nose-to-nose, “This is real,” he whispers, “This is what I’ve wanted for… for such a long time.”

“I’m sorry I made you wait,” Mike doesn’t want to dwell on that, but… but he knows this could have happened a lot sooner if he’d gotten his head out of his ass years ago.

“Shh,” Will shushes him quietly, closing the distance between them again—this kiss less frantic than the last one. Slower, languid, more exploratory. Mike knows Will can’t have much, if any, experience with this kind of thing, so he’s not trying to push too far. But then Will licks at the line of Mike’s lips, and he opens his mouth on a sigh, bringing on a whole new kind of kissing.

Until they need air, again, and Will pulls away. He leans back on the couch and his hair is a mess, his lips are red and swollen, his face is flushed… he looks like an angel. Mike wants to say something, anything, but he just can’t stop staring. Will manages to put a coherent sentence together first.

“It was worth the wait.”