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The attic was exactly as he remembered it, yet fundamentally wrong. The air was thick with the scent of stagnant dust and something metallic—the sterile void that always preceded a nightmare. Will Byers blinked, his vision swimming as the jagged silhouettes of the Creel house attic came into focus. He was suspended, his arms and legs splayed out, held fast by the thick, pulsing vines that snaked across the floorboards and climbed the walls like living veins.
He knew he was dreaming, or rather, he knew he was taken. The familiar cold prickle at the base of his neck had become a permanent ice-pick shiver, a constant, unbearable presence.
"Do you remember this place... William?"
The voice was soft, almost melodic, a chilling contrast to the decay surrounding them. Henry Creel stepped out from the shadows, right in the middle of the stifling, silent room. He looked human—too human. His blonde hair was neat, his eyes bright with a terrifying, clinical curiosity that felt like an invasion. He looked at Will with the same intense focus a child might give an insect he was about to pin to a board, observing every tremor of fear.
"No... no, no..." Will breathed, his chest heaving, a frantic, trapped sound in the vast silence. The old wood of the attic groaned and shrieked under the weight of the Upside Down, the floorboards buckling as if the house itself were trying to digest him. The vines tightened, the dark, slick surface of the tendrils pulsing with a rhythmic, sickly heat against his already raw skin.
"Does it... bring back..." Henry paused, his face twitching with a sudden, violent spasm. The polite, orderly flesh began to ripple and peel away like wet, charred paper, revealing the raw sinew beneath. Will watched, nauseated, the horrifying process of transformation take hold—the sound of skin hardening into obsidian scales and the sharp, ozone-scented crackle of pure, malevolent psychic energy.
"No," Will hissed through gritted teeth, his voice trembling despite his desperate effort to project defiance.
Henry’s form distorted further, his frame elongating and twisting into a mockery of the man he once was. The mask of the orderly disintegrated, the skin darkening and hardening into the charred, muscular sinew of the monster he was. The blue eyes, once so bright and predatory, vanished into the white-filmed, sunken pits of Vecna.
"...memories?" Vecna finished, his voice dropping an octave into a gravelly, subterranean rasp that seemed to vibrate the very air in Will's lungs, a sound less like speech and more like tectonic plates shifting beneath the world.
Will struggled against the vines, the rough, bark-like surface scratching his wrists until they bled, the coppery scent of his own fear mixing with the rot. But he forced a bitter, mocking smile onto his face. He wouldn't let him see the terror. Not yet. He had to be the Cleric; he had to find the cracks in the armor. "Max. Holly. They got away, didn't they? Did the leg slow you down, old man?"
Vecna’s head tilted slightly, a slow, predatory movement, like a snake sighting prey. A low, guttural sound—a laugh that sounded like grinding stones—vibrated through the attic, not an expression of humor, but of immense, crushing power. "You think you are clever, don't you? But remember, I am the one. The one who invited you in. You were my vessel. My spy. My builder."
Will’s heart skipped a beat, a cold, sickening dread pooling in his stomach. "Builder?"
"How do you think the tunnels came to be, William?" Vecna stepped closer, his heavy, clawed footsteps echoing on the boards like a death knell. He loomed over Will, the scent of rot and ancient dust rolling off him in sickening waves. "You built them. Each and every night you slept."
Suddenly, the attic was gone, the red haze replaced by a sickening golden light. Will was twelve again, gasping for air in his bed, his eyes rolling back as he dreamed of a vast, subterranean labyrinth. He saw his own small hands, guided by a shadow, sketching the map of the rot beneath Hawkins. He saw the vines growing because he had envisioned them. He hadn't just been a map; he had been the unwitting architect of his own prison.
The vision snapped back to the suffocating confines of the attic. Vecna reached out, his long, spindly fingers brushing Will’s cheek. The touch was freezing, a sensation of pure, unadulterated wrongness, like a sliver of ice deep in his marrow. Will flinched away, a choked sob of disgust catching in his throat.
"There is much power within you," Vecna murmured, his face hovering inches from Will’s, the scent of parched earth and ancient moss clinging to him. "But make no mistake, boy. They are my powers, and they are stronger than ever before. Much stronger. Now at last, it is time. Time for my vessels to lead us to a new world. A better world."
"Too bad your world will never exist," Will spat, his voice cracking with the strain of the vines, his pulse thrumming frantically against the dark, slick coils. "Now that Max has one of your vessels."
"There are ways to smoke a fox from its den, William," Vecna said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low-frequency whisper that seemed to ripple through the floorboards and into Will's bones. He leaned in closer, the shadows of the attic stretching and twisting around them until the walls seemed to pulse with his suffocating intent. "And you are going to help me. You are going to be my spy. One last time."
"No. Never!" Will's defiance was a scream in his mind, a desperate attempt to shore up the collapsing borders of his consciousness.
Vecna didn't argue. He didn't have to. He raised his massive, clawed hand above Will’s head, the black, sharpened tips of his fingers hovering just inches from his scalp. A low, siphoning hum began to vibrate through Will’s skull, a sound like a thousand hornets trapped inside a jar, rattling violently against his temples.
"The more you resist," Vecna warned, his voice a cold weight against Will's psyche, "the more this will hurt."
Will let out a jagged, wheezing scream as the psychic pressure began to crush his brain, a sensation like hot lead being poured into his ears. He fought with everything he had left. He threw up walls of mental static, projecting the frantic, electronic bleeps of Dig Dug and the neon-soaked memories of the Palace Arcade—the smell of popcorn, the clatter of quarters, the safe, loud, comforting world of 1984—trying desperately to drown out the monster’s intrusion.
But Vecna’s power was a flood, an oily, unstoppable tide that surged through the breaches in Will's defense. He felt the monster’s mind rooting through his thoughts, a cold, slimy presence that tore past the shallow layers of his childhood, past the warm, hazy memories of his mother’s face and the comforting smell of the kitchen in autumn, until it struck the hidden, dark corner where he kept the memory of the hospital—the one memory he had tried to bury under a mountain of static and denial.
He saw the white room. He saw Max, her body broken and still, the steady, rhythmic beep of the heart monitor the only sound in the sterile silence. He saw the exact hospital floor, the room number, the way the cruel light hit the linoleum.
"No!" Will shrieked, a sound ripped from the core of his soul.
His eyes rolled back. A sharp, stinging heat flared in his sockets, and he felt a warm, thick liquid begin to trail down his cheeks. Blood. He was weeping blood as Vecna siphoned the location of the final kill from his mind, his last defense shattered.
Then, the agonizing physical pain vanished, replaced by a sudden, terrifying silence.
Everything went blank for a heartbeat—a hollow, soundless gap where Will’s very soul felt suspended in ice. When the world returned, it was with a sensory violence that made his head spin. It wasn't the attic anymore. It was the back of the Surfer Boy Pizza van.
The light was golden and syrupy, the California sun streaming through the dusty glass, mocking him with its warmth and impossible distance. He could smell the stale crusts of pineapple pizza and the cloying scent of Argyle’s incense, a memory so vivid it felt like a physical assault.
Will saw himself sitting next to Mike. He watched the scene play out like a ghost observing his own funeral. He saw the way his fingers trembled as he unfurled the painting—the map of his heart disguised as a message from his sister. He saw the fragile, pathetic hope in his own eyes.
“It’s you, Mike. You’re the heart.”
Vecna was no longer visible in the frame, but Will could feel the static of his overwhelming presence. He heard the voice as if it were leaning over his shoulder, cold breath stirring the hair on the back of his neck, the builder having retired so the tormentor could arrive.
"You gave him your heart and told him it was hers," Vecna whispered, his voice like the sliding of scales over stone, utterly devoid of mercy. "You used her name to shield yourself. You hid behind a girl's love to survive the weight of your own. Coward. You’re more like me than you admit, William. You live in the shadows, watching a world that wasn't built for you, pining for a light that would burn you alive if you ever stepped into it."
"Shut up," Will choked out, his voice sounding small and distant, as if it were coming from the bottom of a cold, deep well.
"The guilt is a heavy thing, isn't it? It’s the rot that lets me in. It’s the bridge I built between us, paved with all the things you won't say."
The golden light of the van flickered and died, replaced by the harsh, flickering buzz of fluorescent tubes. The vision twisted, warping into the endless, cold hallway of Hawkins High. The air was cold, tasting of floor wax and stale locker dust. The hallway was crowded, filled with every face he’d ever known. Dustin, Lucas, Erica, Nancy, Steve—they stood in a semi-circle, their expressions frozen in a synchronized, judgment-filled silence that was louder than any shout.
At the center stood Mike. He wasn't the Mike who had promised to go crazy together. His face was twisted into an expression of profound, quiet revulsion, his lip curled as if he were looking at something rotting on the sidewalk, something he had accidentally touched.
"I didn't know," Mike’s voice echoed, amplified by a thousand whispers that seemed to bounce off the metal lockers. "I thought you were just… Will. My best friend. But you’re a freak. A fairy. A mistake. You were looking at me that whole time? It’s disgusting."
Will fell to his knees, his hands scraping against the unforgiving linoleum. The floor beneath him turned to glass, becoming transparent and thin. Beneath the surface, he saw the Hive Mind—a roiling, lightless sea of writhing bodies and pale, sickening vines, all screaming in a voiceless unison. It wasn't just the Upside Down he was seeing; it was the physical manifestation of every wrong thought he’d ever had, every stolen glance in the locker room, every desperate prayer he’d whispered to a God he didn't believe in to make him normal.
"You think they’ll accept you," Vecna hissed, his presence expanding until he filled the entire, suffocating hallway. He placed a hand—heavy, clawed, and damp with the Hive Mind's ichor—on Will’s head. "He’ll give you a hug. They’ll say it doesn't matter. But every time you walk into a room, they’ll remember. They’ll look at their boyfriends, their girlfriends, and they’ll wonder if you’re looking at them. They’ll step back. Just a fraction of an inch. But you’ll feel it, won't you? That inch will be an ocean. You will be alone in a room full of people for the rest of your life."
"It’s not true," Will sobbed, his forehead pressing against the cold glass floor, a desperate denial. "Jonathan… Jonathan knows. He didn't leave."
"And Jonathan pities you," Vecna countered instantly, his voice dripping with a cruel, clinical sort of sympathy that felt like a knife in the ribs. "He looks at you and sees a broken thing, William. A bird with a snapped wing that he has to keep in a cage for its own safety. He doesn't love you for who you are; he protects you because he has to. Because the guilt of failing you in 1983 is the only thing keeping him from walking away. He knows how pathetic you truly are, and it exhausts him. Every hug he gives you is a chore, a performance of duty."
The darkness beneath the glass surged, turning from a shadow into a physical, crushing weight. The glass shattered, and Will felt himself being pulled under into the cold, wet soil of the Mindscape. The vines wound around his throat, the thorns catching in his skin, tasting of ash and decay. He felt the terrifying urge to simply stop fighting. If he stayed here, the lie would die with him. Mike would never have to know. El would never have to feel the betrayal of her "brother" loving the only person she had left.
The world would just… stop hurting. The silence of the void was better than the noise of the judgment.
“Will, I’m here.”
The voice wasn't Mike’s. It didn't have the sharp edge of panic or the weight of a secret. It was a low, steady thrum, vibrating through the very vines that held him. It was the sound of a van engine idling in the desert. The sound of a hand ruffling his hair. It was a distant echo, muffled by the psychic static of his own screaming, but he knew that frequency. He knew that light.
“Will, I’m here. I need you to show me where you are. Show me where you are.”
Will’s eyes snapped open within the Mindscape, his vision still swimming with the blood weeping from his sockets. He could see the scene of his own torture—the attic, the van, the judgmental faces of his friends—playing out in a fractured loop in front of him. Vecna was still there, a towering shadow of rot, but Eleven's voice was a needle of pure white light piercing through the absolute dark.
He tried to focus. He tried to conjure a manifestation, a beacon for her to follow through the chaos. He pictured the Creel house attic, the position of the roof, the specific, jagged brokenness of the windows. He threw the image outward with every ounce of psychic strength he had left, a desperate, final signal.
“Will.”
The voice was closer now, no longer muffled. He felt the ghost of a hand—small, cool, and unmistakably real—pressing against his burning cheek, a touch of absolute reality.
“Will, can you hear me? Will, wake up!”
The Mindscape began to tremble, the ground beneath him shaking. Will fought back against Vecna, his mind a battlefield of neon static and shadow. He felt the vines—those heavy, pulsing tendrils—suddenly being ripped from his body by an invisible, immense force. The pain was astronomical, a physical tearing of his very soul, and then he was falling through the void.
For a second, the loop of his memories accelerated. He saw the exact moment Vecna’s mind had touched the image of the hospital. He heard the monster’s voice, a cold, final click of a trap closing: “Found you.”
Will gasped, his eyes flying open while still trapped in the mind space. He wasn't alone anymore. Eleven was standing there, her face a pale moon in the darkness. Blood was dripping steadily from her nose, her eyes wide with the immense, visible strain of holding the connection across dimensions.
“Will,” she whispered, her voice no longer a distant echo but a fragile, immediate sound. “Will. It’s okay. It’s okay, I’m here.”
“El… El…” Will’s voice was a ruined thing, a rasp of terror and utter exhaustion.
“It’s me, it’s me,” she said, reaching out to steady him as he swayed, his body weightless in the void. “I’m here to bring you home. It’s okay.”
“I tried to stop him,” Will sobbed, the tears of blood staining his shirt, the evidence of his failure burning on his skin. He grabbed her arms, his fingers trembling. “ But I couldn't. He saw.”
Eleven’s expression shifted, a flicker of pure, devastating fear crossing her face, a look Will knew he was responsible for. “He saw what—what did he see?”
“Max,” Will choked out, the weight of the failure crushing him. “He knows where she is now. He knows the hospital. And he sent them after her. They’re coming for her. In Hawkins.”
The Mindscape began to dissolve around them, the white light finally winning the war against the pulsing, red lightning. El’s face was the last thing he saw—her jaw set in a hard line of renewed, fierce determination—before the world finally, mercifully, shattered.
Will woke up gasping, but the sound was smothered by the soft, worn cotton of a pillow.
The physical world didn’t rush back; it trickled in, sluggish and heavy. He could smell old wood, woodsmoke, and the damp, piney scent of the Hawkins woods. He was in a bed—Hopper’s cabin. The dim light of the afternoon filtered through the dusty windows, casting long, skeletal shadows across the room.
"Will? Sweetheart, it's okay. I've got you."
The hands on him were soft, warm, and smelled faintly of lavender and kitchen grease. Joyce, mom. He leaned into her, his body arching in a final, dying spasm of the nightmare before he collapsed against her chest. He sobbed into her shoulder, his fingers clutching her sweater so hard his knuckles ached. He felt hollowed out, as if Vecna had reached inside him and scooped out everything that made him human, leaving only a shivering, fragile shell filled with fear.
There was a commotion outside the bedroom door—heavy footsteps, the low mumble of urgent voices, the clatter of a world moving on without him. He heard a door creak open, and the floorboards groaned.
"Is he alright?"
The voice was Eleven's, strained and immediate. Will turned his head slightly, his eyes raw and burning. El was standing in the doorway, her face smudged with dried blood, her eyes wide with a frantic sort of exhaustion that mirrored his own. Behind her, loomed the solid shadow of Hopper, his jaw set in a grim line, and then—
Mike.
Mike was standing just over El's shoulder. The moment Will's eyes met his, the memory Vecna had planted flared like a fresh burn. He saw the Mike from the vision—the one with the lip curled in revulsion, the one who called him a mistake. The real Mike looked terrified, his knuckles white where they gripped the doorframe, but to Will, that fear looked like hesitation. It looked like the first step of the ocean that was about to swallow them both.
Will looked away quickly, the guilt in his chest expanding until he couldn't breathe.
"Vecna's going to kill Max," El said, her voice dropping into a hard, flat tone that signaled the end of the rescue and the immediate, terrifying beginning of the war.
She turned around, and that’s when Will spotted her—a girl he didn’t know. She had a shaven head like what El used to have, a sharp, piercing gaze, and an aura of coiled energy that felt dangerously similar to El's. Kali watched him for a second, a silent, unreadable judgment in her eyes, before she followed Eleven back into the main room.
"We have to get to the hospital right now," El’s voice echoed from the hallway. "Before they reach her."
There was a flurry of movement, the immediate, panicked efficiency of people who have been through this too many times. Hopper grunted something about the truck; Mike called out to El, his voice tight; the front door of the cabin slammed shut with a finality that made the windows rattle.
Then, the silence returned, heavier than before, filled with the presence of what had just happened.
Will was left alone in the bedroom with Joyce. She was still holding him, her hand stroking his hair, but he couldn't look at her. He felt like a traitor. He had given up Max. He had let the monster look into the darkest parts of his soul, and in doing so, he had doomed the girl who had already suffered enough loss.
He wallowed in the silence, the self-pity tasted like copper in his mouth. He thought about the painting. He thought about Mike’s face. He thought about the way he had used El's name as a shield, and how that shield was now shattered on the floor of a mind-palace that wasn't his, but had become his cage.
"Will?" Joyce whispered, her voice trembling with the weight of everything she wasn't saying, everything she knew was still unsaid. "Talk to me. Please."
Will just shook his head, burying his face deeper into the pillow. He wasn't ready. He couldn't tell her that he was the reason Vecna was winning. He couldn't tell her that his love was the rot that had opened the door.
He just lay there, a ghost in a cabin, listening to the wind howl through the trees and waiting for the world to finish breaking.
The ride from the cabin to the WSQK radio station was a blur of gray asphalt and the skeletal remains of the Hawkins woods. Joyce drove with a white-knuckled intensity, her eyes darting to the rearview mirror every few seconds as if she expected the Upside Down to erupt from the trunk. Will sat in the passenger seat, his forehead pressed against the cold glass of the window, finding a perverse comfort in the chill.
He felt like a map that had been folded too many times, the creases permanent and ready to tear at the slightest touch. The iron taste of Vecna’s Mind Lair still lingered beneath his tongue, a ghostly reminder of the psychic siphoning that had nearly hollowed him out.
"We're almost there, honey," Joyce said, her voice a fragile tether to the sanity of the physical world.
Will didn't answer. He was watching the way the red haze of the rifts caught the weak sunlight, turning the sky into a bruise of sickly crimson. He thought about Max. He thought about the white room in the hospital he had seen through Vecna’s eyes. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the heart monitor's steady green line and heard the monster’s rasping “Found you.”
The guilt was a physical weight, a stone in his stomach that made every breath a labor, a penance.
When the station finally came into view—a low, brick fortress surrounded by chain-link and sandbags—Will saw the movement. People were running, urgent and purposeful. Hopper’s truck was already there, parked haphazardly near the entrance.
But it was the figure in the center of the clearing that made Will’s heart stop its frantic rhythm and skip into a moment of pure, agonizing hope.
There was a wheelchair, the chrome glinting in the sickly, afternoon light. And in it, wrapped in a thin hospital gown that seemed to swallow her small frame with a wool blanket on her lap, was Max Mayfield. She wasn't the broken, sightless thing from the vision. Her eyes were open—those sharp, piercing eyes, looking like shards of glass against the pale, freckled skin of her face. Though she was far from her usual self, she was there. She was breathing. She was real.
Joyce barely had the car in park before Will was out the door. His legs felt like water, stumbling over the uneven gravel, but he moved with a frantic, giddy speed. For a moment, the terror of the Mind Lair was eclipsed by a blinding, white-hot burst of relief that felt like a fever breaking.
"Max!" he shouted, his voice cracking with the sheer force of the sound.
He skidded to a halt beside the chair, his heart drumming against his ribs. Lucas was there, kneeling in front of the wheelchair, his hands steady and careful as he helped Max settle her feet onto the metal pedestals. He looked up at Will, a weary but genuine smile breaking through his exhaustion.
Will didn't wait. He bent down and wrapped his arms around Max’s shoulders, his touch feather-light, terrified of breaking her further but needing the proof of her pulse. He buried his face for a split second in the wool of her blanket, breathing in the scent of hospital soap and the cold, clean Hawkins air—anything but the rot.
Max let out a small, huffed breath—half-laugh, half-wheeze—and leaning her head against his as much as the brace would allow, a silent acknowledgment of the shared trauma. "Easy, Zombie Boy. I’m not going anywhere."
Will pulled back, dropping to his knees in the dirt so he was eye-level with her. He reached out, his hands trembling as he cupped her cheeks. Her skin was cool, but there was a warmth beneath it, a living, breathing heat that Vecna’s visions hadn't been able to replicate. He needed to feel it. He needed to know this wasn't another trick, another layer of the Mindscape designed to break him.
"You're okay," Will whispered, his thumbs tracing the line of her cheekbones, his voice thick with unshed tears. "You're really okay."
Max’s eyes searched his, a flicker of that old, defiant spark returning to her gaze, a fierce light in the dim afternoon. She had been caught up on the events of the last few hours, on the psychic war that had raged while she was in the dark.
"So I leave you alone for a second, and you turn into a sorcerer?" she joked, her voice raspy but carrying that unmistakable Mayfield bite.
Will let out a wet, breathless laugh, his fingers lingering on her face. The giddiness was still there, but beneath it, the guilt flickered like a dying ember. "It was a little more than a second," he countered. He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial whisper. "And I'm not really a sorcerer."
Max smirked, though it looked like it took an immense effort. "Mm, sure seemed like it to me."
The mention of the psychic link, the "sorcerer" comment—it all felt like a reminder of the door he had opened, the part of him that was still inextricably tied to the monster. He felt the weight of the secrets he was still carrying, the rot that Vecna had promised was still there, even if Max was safe for now.
Lucas noticed the shift in Will’s expression and quickly moved to bridge the gap. He stood up, wiping the dust from his jeans, and placed a hand on the back of Max’s wheelchair.
"Hey," Lucas said, his voice bright with a forced but necessary optimism. "You up for a tour? Nancy’s got a whole command center set up inside. It’s very 'WarGames'."
Max rolled her eyes, but she reached down and patted Lucas’s hand. "Fine. Lead the way, Stalker."
Will stood up, wiping his dusty palms on his jeans. He watched as Lucas began to navigate the wheelchair toward the station ramp. The miracle was right in front of him, but as he looked toward the entrance, he saw Mike standing in the shadows of the doorway.
Mike was watching them. He looked relieved—he looked like he wanted to run out and join the circle of safety—but he stayed where he was. The distance between them felt like a physical barrier, a wall of glass that Will had built and Vecna had reinforced with lies.
Will took a deep breath, the air tasting of ozone and iron. The reunion was a gift, a brief reprieve from the darkness, but the war was still coming. And as long as he was hiding, the secret was still rotting.
The next few hours were a frantic, high-pitched blur of markers squeaking against glass and maps being torn at the seams. Dustin paced in front of the partition, his voice a rapid-fire lecture on dimensional bridges and highway nodes, while the group huddled around the mixing boards in a desperate brainstorm that felt more like a frantic prayer. Ideas were thrown out and discarded with surgical speed—reversing signals, psychic perimeters, lures and traps—until Steve blurted out a suggestion that finally made the most sense despite being absurd.
With a heavy sense of finality, the plan was solidified. The station became a hive of motion as everyone began to disperse to their assigned roles—Hopper going to the tunnels to Mac Z, Nancy and Jonathan prepping weaponry, and El retreating into the silence of her own mind to prepare for the psychic toll.
Will moved through the room like a ghost. He provided the directions of the tunnels when Nancy asked. He pointed out the weak spots in the Hive Mind’s connection. He played the part of the Cleric perfectly. But he couldn't look at Mike. Every time Mike laughed at something Dustin said, or every time Mike reached out to touch El’s hand, Will felt the vines of the Mindscape tightening around his throat, a constant, low-frequency terror.
Eventually, the initial bustle died down as the different teams prepped. Will found himself in the small lounge area in front of the recording booth, sitting right in the middle when Max was came in, pushed by Robin’s girlfriend— Vicky.
Will stared at the glass partition where Dustin’s drawing of the dimensional bridge still sat, mocking them with its complexity.
"Gives me a headache just trying to understand all this," Max muttered, her voice raspy, a ghost of its former fire. She stared at the glass, her eyes—still clouded, still recovering—fixed on the white-inked symbols. "But I think I got a C-minus in physics, so I’ll just trust the nerds."
Vickie hovered by the back of the chair, her expression a fragile mask of helpfulness. She looked at the drawing, then at Will, her eyes searching for a reassurance he didn't feel qualified to give. "Do you think it’ll work? The plan?"
Max sighed, her head leaning back against the headrest. "I mean, it has to, right? I just wish I wasn't stuck in this chair. I feel useless."
"Eleven and Kali are gonna need you in the mind, Max," Will said. His voice sounded thin to his own ears, brittle like old paper. "I’m the one who’s useless."
Max turned her head toward him, her focus sharpening with that sudden, intense gravity she possessed. "You can still go there, though. Into the abyss."
"It’s too risky," Will countered, his heart beginning a slow, heavy thud against his ribs. He thought of the van in Nevada, the painting, the suffocating weight of the secret he’d used as a shield. "I’d be at the heart of the Hive Mind. If I go back in, I don’t know what would happen. Last time I got too close, he used me to spy, and it almost got you killed, Max."
"You also saved my life, remember?" Max’s voice dropped, losing its edge and softening into something dangerously like warmth. "Plus, I’ve been almost killed plenty of times at the hands of this asshole so I’m kind of used to it at this point."
Will looked at her, the guilt an open, weeping wound in his chest. He thought of the Red Smoke, the attic, the way Henry’s voice had sounded—not like a monster, but like a bitter, cruel man. "How did you survive in there? This whole time... inside Henry’s mind?"
Max was silent for a long moment. The only sound was the distant hum of the emergency generator. "Honestly? Luck." She looked away, her gaze going distant, as if she were looking at a place miles and dimensions away. "I found this cave. It wasn't like the rest of the place. It was this old memory of his, buried deep beneath the rot. He was terrified of it. He wouldn't go in. Scared the living shit out of him."
Will’s breath hitched, the air suddenly feeling very cold. "He was scared?"
"He was terrified of it," Max nodded, a grim satisfaction touching her lips. "HUnderneath all those scars and the giant ego, he’s still human. A psychopath with a serious god complex, sure, but... human. I guess we’re all scared of something, right? And whatever was in that cave... that was his 'something'. His secret"
Will looked back at the drawing on the glass. The realization hit him with the force of a physical blow, vibrating through his marrow. Vecna wasn't a god; he wasn't some cosmic force of nature that couldn't be reasoned with. He was a man who had built a throne out of his own shame and turned it into a weapon. He used secrets because he was a creature of secrets, living in the damp, dark cracks of things left unsaid.
If Henry had a cave—if he had a place he was too terrified to enter—then the only way to stop the spy mechanism, the rot that allowed Vecna into Will’s head, was to take away the power of the dark. To shine a light in his own cave until there was nowhere left for the monster to hide.
Will stood up, his heart hammering against his ribs like a panicked bird. He didn't want to be a map anymore. He didn't want to be a vessel or a bridge or a casualty. He wanted to be a person.
He looked across the room and saw Jonathan heading for the back exit, his shoulders hunched, the weight of the world visible in the line of his spine.
"Jonathan?" Will called out. His voice was a thin thread, nearly snapping against the sudden, hollow quiet of the station lounge.
Jonathan stopped, his hand already turning the heavy iron latch of the exit door. He paused, his shoulders hunching slightly as if bracing for a blow, before he turned. His expression was that familiar, weary mask of the older brother—the one who had spent years acting as a buffer between Will and the jagged edges of the world. Seeing Will’s face, that mask shattered instantly into a raw, anchored concern. "Yeah?"
"Can we... can we go outside? I need to talk to you. Please."
Jonathan didn't ask questions. He didn't offer a platitude. He just pushed the door open and held it, a silent invitation into the biting Indiana winter.
They stood on the small concrete loading dock behind the station. The hum of the emergency generator was the only constant, a rhythmic, mechanical heartbeat that seemed to pulse in time with the cold throb at the base of Will’s neck. The air tasted of pine and upcoming snow, sharp enough to scrape the lungs.
Jonathan leaned against the rusted metal railing and pulled a crumpled pack of Camels from his pocket. The match flared—a tiny, defiant spark of orange against the oppressive gray of the sky—and he took a long, shaky drag. He didn't speak. He just watched the smoke vanish, giving Will the kind of space that felt like a sanctuary.
"Jonathan," Will started. His voice felt like dry leaves. He traced the hairline fractures in the concrete with the toe of his sneaker, unable to look up. "In the kitchen... back in Nevada. At the pizza place. I felt like you were trying to tell me something. Without actually saying the words."
Jonathan exhaled a long plume of smoke. He didn't look surprised; Jonathan was rarely surprised by the things Will felt. "I was. I wanted you to know that I’m here. That I’ve been here, Will. No matter what version of yourself you think you have to be for everyone else."
Will swallowed hard, the cold air feeling like shards of glass in his throat. This was the moment where the floor usually fell away. "So... you know? You've known for a while?"
Jonathan finally turned to him, his gaze soft, anchored by a profound, unshakeable kindness that made Will want to scream and weep all at once. "Will. I've known since we were kids. Since you spent three weeks in the woods trying to draw that boy from your art class instead of playing 'War' with Lucas and Dustin. I've known every time Mike walked into a room and the air seemed to leave your lungs. I’ve known that you were carrying that truth like it was a crime—a thing that had to be buried in the dirt so it wouldn't poison the rest of us."
A shuddering breath escaped Will, a jagged sound that was half-sob, half-laugh. "It felt like a crime, Jonathan. Especially lately." He gripped the freezing metal railing until his knuckles were white stones. "Vecna... he didn't just see my memories. He rooted through the parts of me that I’ve spent every second since California trying to burn out. He found the 'rot.'"
Will looked up then, his eyes shimmering with a raw, agonizing vulnerability that looked like a wound. "He saw the painting. He saw the lie I told in the van—how I used El’s name as a shield to hide the fact that I’m... that I love him. He called it a bridge. He said my feelings were the reason the door stayed open, because I was 'broken' enough to let the dark in. He showed me a vision, Jonathan. He showed me Mike. And Mike didn't look like my best friend. He looked at me with this... this absolute revulsion. Like I was something he found on the bottom of his shoe. He called me a freak. And the worst part... the part that’s killing me... is that I believed him. Because that’s what the world says, right? That’s what Dad said. That I'm a mistake."
Jonathan dropped his cigarette and crushed it under his boot with a decisive, final movement. He stepped forward, grabbing Will’s shoulders with a firm, grounding strength.
"That wasn't Mike, Will," Jonathan said, his voice dropping into a low, fierce register. "That was a monster wearing the face of the person you love to try and break the person I love. Do you hear me? Henry is terrified of you. He calls it 'rot' because he’s a hollow shell who can’t understand a connection that he can’t twist or control. It’s not a weakness. It’s a secret, and secrets only have power when you're the only one suffocating under them. Once they're spoken, they stop being his weapon and they start being your armor."
Will leaned his forehead against Jonathan’s shoulder, the tears finally spilling over, hot and messy. "I'm so tired, Jonathan. It’s so heavy. I don’t want to keep hiding behind El. I don’t want to be a ghost in my own life."
Jonathan pulled back just enough to look Will in the eyes, his expression radiating a quiet, older-brother wisdom. "Then don't be. If you want to tell them, Will, you should. I’m sure Mom will love you exactly the same. We all will. But listen to me." He squeezed Will's shoulders. "Don't do it because of the war. Don't do it because you think it's a 'tactical move' to spite Vecna. That’s just another way of letting him own you. If you do this, do it because you’re ready to finally breathe. Do it for the kid who sat in Castle Byers wishing he was someone else."
Will wiped his eyes, a strange, cold clarity settling over him. He realized Jonathan was right. Coming out shouldn't be a weapon of war; it should be the reclamation of his soul.
"I’m ready," Will whispered. "Not for him. For me."
"Then go," Jonathan said, a small, proud smile touching his lips. "She’s in the back. And Will? You’re more than enough. You always have been."
Will found Joyce in the small, cluttered breakroom. The space was claustrophobic, smelling of stale coffee and industrial cleaner. She was trying to fill a mug, her hands shaking so much the spoon rattled against the ceramic like a frantic heartbeat. She looked so small in the oversized jacket, the fluorescent lights overhead humming with a low-frequency anxiety that seemed to vibrate in Will’s very bones.
"Hey," Will said softly.
Joyce jumped, nearly upending the sugar. She let out a shaky breath, her face immediately shifting into that hyper-vigilant mask of maternal protection. "Oh, honey. You scared me. Do you want some? I think there’s some cocoa powder left—"
"Mom, stop," Will said gently. He walked over and took the heavy mugs from her hands, setting them on the counter with a firm click.
Joyce looked at him, her maternal radar pinning him to the spot. The frantic energy faded, replaced by a deep, terrifyingly focused stillness. "Will? What is it? Is it the shadow? Is he... is he back?"
"No," Will said, his throat tight, but his gaze remained steady. "It's not the Upside Down. Not the way you mean. It’s something else. Something I’ve been trying to tell you since we moved to Lenora. Maybe since before that."
He led her to the rickety table in the corner. They sat, and for a long moment, the only sound was the hum of the station’s generator. Will reached out, his fingers tracing the deep scratches in the wood.
"Mom," he started, his voice a mere breath. "For a long time, I’ve felt like I was living in a version of myself that was... curated. A version that wouldn't make you worry more than you already were. I thought if I just stayed quiet, if I just played the part of the 'good kid' who survived the woods, then maybe I wouldn't have to face the fact that I'm different."
Joyce nodded slowly, her hand reaching across the table to cover his. Her skin was warm, a stark contrast to the biting cold outside.
"But I can't be that version anymore," Will said, the words finally beginning to tumble out. "I’ve been so scared that if I was honest about who I am, I’d be the one thing you couldn't 'save.' The one part of our lives that would be too broken for you to fix."
He looked up at her, his eyes raw. "I don’t... I don’t like girls, Mom. Not like that. And I’ve known for a long time. I just didn't think I was allowed to be anything else. Not in Hawkins. Not anywhere."
The silence that followed wasn't the suffocating, red silence of Vecna’s mindscape. It was the silence of a mother listening to her son finally find his voice.
Joyce didn't look shocked. She didn't look disappointed. She just stood up, walked around the table, and pulled Will’s head against her chest. She held him with a strength that defied her small frame, her fingers tangling in his hair.
"Oh, Will," she whispered, her voice thick with a profound, aching relief. "My sweet, brave boy. Did you really think I didn't see you?"
Will froze, his hands clutching her sleeves. "You... you knew?"
Joyce pulled back just enough to look him in the eyes, her thumbs wiping away the hot tears on his cheeks. "I’m your mother, Will. I’ve known since you were six years old and you don’t understand why you can’t marry Mike. I’ve known every time you flinch at your father’s offensive words. I’ve known that you were apologizing for existing, and it broke my heart every single day."
She cupped his face, her touch a solid, living anchor.
"You are not broken. You are not a 'mistake.' And you are certainly not rotting. I was only ever angry that this world made you feel like you had to carry that weight in the dark. You are the most perfect thing I have ever seen. Do you hear me? Every single part of you."
She kissed his forehead, her lips warm, a blessing that felt like it was finally washing away the grime of the Upside Down.
"I love you. Exactly as you are. I don't care who you love, Will. I only care that you can finally tell me."
Will laughed then—a genuine, chest-shaking laugh that felt like it was shattering a decade of ice. He buried his face in her shoulder, the scent of her perfume and the stale coffee grounding him in a way the "Other Side" could never reach. The darkness Vecna had tried to weaponize was gone, replaced by a radiant, fierce heat.
"Jonathan said you'd understand," Will muffled into her coat.
"Your brother knows me almost as well as I know you," Joyce said, squeezing him one last time. "Now, you go. You go do whatever it is you need to do to end this. Because you aren't hiding anymore, Will. And a person who isn't hiding? That’s the one thing Henry can’t beat."
Will walked back into the main hub of the station feeling lighter than he had since the night he disappeared in the woods. He still felt the danger, the looming threat of the final confrontation, but the internal war was over. He was no longer a boy divided by his secrets; he was a unified front, anchored by his truth.
He spotted Robin Buckley in the hallway, leaning heavily against a stack of crates. She wasn't looking at her notebook this time. Instead, her gaze was fixed through the open door of the lounge area, a mirror of his own secret yearning.
Will followed her line of sight. Vickie was there, kneeling beside Max’s wheelchair. She was adjusting the heavy wool blanket with a tenderness that made the air in the room feel softer, safer. Vickie was talking in a low murmur, probably sharing some rambling story to distract Max. And Max was actually smiling—a small, tired, but genuine movement of her lips.
Robin looked as frayed as the rest of them, her hair a mess of static and anxiety, but as she watched Vickie, her expression was filled with a devastatingly quiet longing. It was the look of someone watching their own personal North Star while the world burned around them.
Will stepped up beside her. "She’s really good with her."
Robin jumped, nearly knocking over a crate of audio cables. She scrambled to regain her footing, her eyes wide with the usual Robin-panic before she realized it was just Will. "Will! God, you're like a ninja. A very quiet, slightly traumatized ninja with exceptionally stealthy footwear."
She looked back toward the lounge, her gaze softening instantly as Vickie tucked a stray strand of hair behind Max’s ear. "Yeah. She is. She’s... she’s everything, Will. She’s the person who makes me feel like I’m not just a collection of nervous tics and bad puns. And she’s right there, and the world is literally splitting at the seams, and I just... I’m terrified that I’m going to lose the chance to just be with her."
Will looked at her, seeing past the familiar mask of humor she used to hide her own vulnerability. "I told them."
Robin paused, her playful energy vanishing like a candle being snuffed out. She turned to Will, really looking at him, her brow furrowing with sudden intensity. "Told who?"
"My family," Will said, a genuine, steady smile spreading across his face. "Jonathan and my mom. I told them everything."
Robin’s mouth fell open slightly. She looked around the hallway to make sure the others were out of earshot, then leaned in close, her voice a frantic whisper. "And? Did they— was it— are you still alive? Should I be preparing a celebratory 'Not Disowned' cake or a 'We’re Moving to a Desert Island' kit?"
"It’s okay, Robin," Will said, and the relief in his voice was palpable, a physical warmth. "They already knew. They were just waiting for me to be ready to tell them. They told me I wasn't a mistake."
Robin let out a breath she looked like she’d been holding for a decade. She slumped against the wall, her shoulders dropping as a look of pure, unadulterated relief washed over her. "Oh, thank god. Will, that’s... that’s huge. That’s like, real-deal legendary bravery. Like, you just leveled up past the final boss before the fight even started."
"It feels like it," Will admitted. He leaned his shoulder against the wall next to her, his gaze joining hers in the lounge. "How did it happen? I mean, with Vickie? How did you actually... find the words?"
Robin let out a dry, shaky laugh, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve. "Honestly? It was the earthquake. Or, you know, the 'gate opening.' A few weeks after everything went to hell, we both volunteered at the relief center at the high school. Sorting through boxes of donated clothes that smelled like mothballs and desperation. It was miserable. Everyone was so raw, Will. So close to the edge. And she was just... there. Every day. Hammering nails into floorboards and making sure the little kids had enough juice boxes."
She smiled, a soft, melancholy thing. "A few months of y’know– the snowball falling down the hill, we were in the gym, and she noticed my 'Muist' shirt. You know, the one with the weird bird on it? And she just... she liked it. And I was so tired of being scared that I just let the words fall out. I blurted it out like a total disaster. I thought she’d run, or look at me like I was a different species. But she stayed. She stepped in, Will. She didn't step back. It turns out, when the world is actually ending, you realize you don't have time to be anything but honest."
She looked at Will, her eyes searching his, the humor gone, replaced by a quiet gravity. "Are you going to tell him?"
Will looked across the room. Mike was huddled over a map with Dustin and Lucas, his dark curls messy, his expression focused and intense. He looked like the boy Will had fallen in love with in the swing set—the one who had reached out his hand and changed everything—and he looked like the man Will wanted to stand beside when the final bells rang.
"I have to," Will said, his voice gaining a new, fragile kind of steel. "Vecna used him against me, Robin. He showed me Mike hating me. He showed me the distance between us becoming an ocean that I’d never be able to cross. If I don't tell him, that ocean stays real in my head. Even if we win this war, I’ll have lost him anyway."
Robin nodded, her expression uncharacteristically solemn. She reached out and gave Will’s arm a quick, supportive squeeze. "It’s the scariest thing in the world, Will. More than the Mind Flayer, more than the bats. But you know what Vickie told me when I finally stopped rambling?"
"What?"
"She said that the people who matter don't step back. They step in."
Will watched Mike for a moment longer. He saw the way Mike looked up from the map, his eyes scanning the room as if he were subconsciously looking for a missing piece of himself. When his gaze landed on Will, he didn't flinch. He didn't look away. He gave Will a small, tentative thumbs-up—a silent, awkward check-in to see if his friend was still okay after the Mind Lair.
Will gave a small, certain nod back.
"I'm going to tell him tonight," Will said. "While we wait for the world to merge. I’m done hiding."
"Good," Robin said, snapping her notebook shut with a newfound resolve that matched his own. "Because Hawkins is burning, Will. And we don't have time to be anything but ourselves."
The transition into the Upside Down Lab felt like walking into the throat of a dying god. It was a nightmare frozen in mid-scream, the air painted in a heavy, bruised crimson that didn't just meet the eye—it stained it. Every pulse of distant, silent lightning sent tremors through the red-tinted atmosphere, illuminating the gossamer threads of spores that drifted like radioactive snow. To Will, they tasted of dry static and old copper, the metallic tang of blood and batteries coating the back of his tongue.
The group moved with a hushed, reverent urgency through corridors where the architecture of the Hawkins Lab had begun to surrender to the exotic matter currently residing in its roof. Concrete was being swallowed by weeping vines and the walls on the upper floor melting it’s way down; the line between reality and the other had grown so thin it was transparent.
El and Kali stood at the center of the main laboratory, their faces carved from granite, preparing for the water tanks—the threshold of the psychic abyss. Nancy, Steve, and Jonathan had already fanned out, their silhouettes sharp and jagged against the pulsing ambient glow, while Dustin and Lucas checked the sensory deprivation equipment, their whispers rattling off the cold walls like dry leaves.
Will felt the vibration first at the top of his head slowly going down to his nape—a low-frequency hum that signaled Vecna’s presence. It was a cold prickle at the base of his neck, but today, the rot wasn't finding purchase. For years, he’d viewed his own mind as a map for a monster, a territory he didn't truly own. But now, that connection felt less like a tether and more like a compass. He could feel Henry’s gaze, but it was sliding off him, unable to hook into the jagged edges of his secrets.
He stood by a bank of flickering monitors, his hands trembling as he stared at the dark, stagnant water in the tanks. It looked like ink. Mike was beside him, unusually still, gripping a radio transmitter so hard his knuckles looked like white stones.
"The others are moving into position," Mike said. His voice was a low vibration, brittle with a tension he was trying to bury under the weight of his leadership. He finally turned to Will, and the intensity of his gaze was almost as stifling as the air. "You okay? You’ve been... somewhere else since we crossed."
Will took a long, shaky breath, the red air stinging his lungs. He looked at the shadows stretching across the floor, seeing the way they mimicked the vines of the attic—the place where Henry had tried to skin his soul. He thought about Jonathan’s quiet, knowing protection of his mother in the kitchen, and he thought about the cave Henry was too terrified to enter. Henry lived in the gaps of what went unsaid. He fed on the silence.
"Mike," Will started. The name felt like a jagged piece of glass in his mouth. He didn't look away. He couldn't. If he looked away now, the silence would win. "I need to tell you the truth. About the painting. From the van."
Mike went rigid. The radio transmitter clicked—a sharp, plastic sound in the cavernous room. A flicker of something ancient and guarded crossed Mike's face, a premonition that made the air between them feel thinner than the veil separating worlds.
"Will, you don't have to do this right now," Mike said, his voice dropping to a whisper. There was a plea in it, a desperate, protective urge to keep the status quo, to keep the world from shifting beneath their feet when they were already standing on a fault line. "Not here. Not with everything else."
"I do," Will interrupted, his voice gaining a fragile, desperate momentum. "Because he’s using it against me. He’s using the things I haven't said to make a home in my head. He calls it 'rot.' He wants me to believe that the things I feel are the reason the door stayed open. And I’m done giving him space to live in."
Will took a step closer, his boots crunching on the ashen floor. The distance between them had always felt like years, like miles of desert road, even when they were sitting side by side.
"I lied in the van," Will said. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird, frantic and exhausting. "It wasn't El's idea. She didn't commission it. I painted it because... because the truth is, Mike, I’m different. The way Lonnie said. The way the kids at school said."
The word queer wouldn't come. It was a word that lived in whispers and news reports about dying men in New York. It was a word that felt like a death sentence in 1986. But he pushed through the static.
"I like boys," Will whispered, the words finally breaking free, sounding small and terrifyingly loud against the hum of the lab. "Or, I like one boy. I've always liked him. Since the day we met on that swing set. It’s why I couldn't focus on the game, why I was always 'missing,' even when I was right there. I was hiding from myself so I wouldn't lose him."
The silence that followed was absolute, deeper and heavier than the red haze. The only sound was the rhythmic dripping of water from the tanks and the distant, rhythmic roar of the Hive Mind.
Will waited for the rejection. He waited for the look of disgust he’d seen in his father’s eyes, the one Vecna had sharpened into a weapon in his visions. He expected Mike to pull away, to drop the radio, to see him as a disease.
But Mike didn't move. He just stood there, the red light catching the curls of his hair, his eyes searching Will’s face with a devastating, mournful intensity.
"I know, Will," Mike said softly. The words weren't a shock; they were a confession of their own.
Will blinked, his breath hitching. "You... you know?"
"I’ve known for a long time," Mike admitted, finally looking down at the floor between them. He looked ashamed—not of Will, but of the silence. "I didn't know how to say it. I didn't want to make things weird, or lose the only person who actually gets me. I was so scared that if I said it out loud, I’d be forced to deal with how much I let you hurt alone. I watched you hide, Will. I watched you break yourself into pieces to fit into this... this version of us I thought we needed."
He looked back up, his brow furrowed in a fierce, protective anger. "And he’s wrong. Vecna... Henry... whatever he is. He’s so wrong. He tried to call it 'rot' because he’s a hollow shell. He thinks love is a weakness because he doesn't have any. But your capacity to care about someone... to hold onto that even when the whole world is telling you it’s wrong? That’s not a bridge for him. That’s the only thing he can’t touch."
"He said it was the bridge that let him in," Will whispered, the ghost of the vision still clinging to him.
"It's not his bridge," Mike said, his voice a low, certain growl. He reached out, his hand hesitating for a fraction of a second before he gripped Will’s forearm. His touch was warm—violently, gloriously warm—an anchoring point in a world made of ash. "It's ours. And he doesn't get to have it. He doesn't get to use the best part of you as a weapon."
Mike’s grip tightened, his thumb pressing into Will’s skin, a physical rebuttal to a decade of isolation.
"We'll talk about it," Mike promised. "Really talk. After. Once we’ve ended him. Once we’re back in Hawkins and we can hear ourselves think without all this noise. I’m not going anywhere, Will. I’m staying right here. I’m not losing you again."
Will felt a surge of relief so powerful it made his knees weak. The "ocean" Vecna had promised—the one that would drown them both if the truth ever came out—had vanished. There was just the solid ground of Mike’s hand and the promise of a future that finally had room for the whole of him.
"After," Will agreed, a genuine, tearful smile finally breaking through the terror.
Mike gave him a sharp, determined nod, his eyes clear and fierce. "Now, let’s go finish this. For Holly. For everyone. For us."
Will turned back to the monitors, the cold prickle at his neck finally silent. He wasn't a vessel or a map anymore. He was the pilot of his own mind, and he was finally ready to fight.