Chapter Text
He could feel himself sitting on the cushions of the couch, but they didn’t warm beneath his body heat. They stayed cold, unnaturally cold, as if ice had seeped into the fabric itself. He clung to them anyway. His fingers dug into the cushions, nails pressing in too hard, while the long sleeves of his brown jacket hung loosely over his hands, swallowing them whole.
His mom was sitting closest to him. Her fingers were twitching slightly, restless. She wasn’t holding onto anything, but he knew, he was sure that she wanted to reach for him. She just didn’t know if she should. She never did. Not really. She never knew whether he needed space or closeness, whether to let go or to hold tighter. He was so grown up now, at least that’s what everyone said, but in her eyes he still looked so small. Too small.
He lifted his head, and the words spilled out of his mouth like a waterfall, unstoppable. The second one were his tears, hot and fast. And the third, always the third waterfall, were Mike’s eyes.
They were fixed on him. Wide. Bright. Shining with something that made Will’s chest ache. Will tried not to look at him, tried to keep his gaze low, to not make it obvious, to not let it show how much those eyes mattered.
The others were there. All of them. Every single one. They were listening as he rambled and stumbled through his confession, and he wasn’t even sure what kind of faces they were making. He couldn’t picture them. It was like he wasn’t really there at all, like someone else was talking for him, using his voice, his mouth, his memories.
A silly thought, he told himself. His brain could handle this. He had thought about it for so long, replayed it over and over in his head, that it felt like he didn’t even need to choose his words anymore. They were already lined up, waiting. Even if some of them took longer to come out.
“I… I don’t like girls.” The stammer slipped past his lips, and his tears rushed down his face faster now. His lips trembled. The cushions beneath him still wouldn’t warm, no matter how tightly he pressed into them. That felt strange. Wrong.
Why did he say it like that?
Why those words? Why didn’t he say I like guys? Why didn’t he say I’m queer? Why didn’t he say they were right at school, that this was what they had always seen in him? Why wasn’t he angry? And why wasn’t he more scared, standing in front of these people?
Wait.
Who was even here?
He tried to lift his gaze again, but something pulled it back down, forced his eyes to the floor. At most, he could see Mike. His mom. No one else clearly.
Were those Murray’s shoes? And that skin tone, that was El’s sister. Kali. What was she doing here? Was that Steve’s backpack leaning against the couch? Steve Harrington, who he had never really been close with. And Kali...he had met her yesterday. Or was it this morning?
Why were they here? How many people were in this radio station that didn’t belong here, haven't earned this insight into Will's thoughts and life in general? Inside Will’s mind.
“I had this… I had this crush,” Will heard his own voice say. He pulled his hands away from the cold cushions and placed them nervously in his lap. But beneath the nervousness, there was something else. Something wrong. Something sharp and unsettling.
It wasn’t panic. No... no, it wasn’t that.
It was hard to explain.
“This… crush on someone,” he continued, his voice stuttering, “even though I know they are not like me.”
His head felt dizzy. The room blurred at the edges, bending and warping, and for a terrifying moment he wondered if this was what it truly meant to be afraid. To be filled with regret. With self-hatred. Was that why everything looked wrong? Why he felt like he was standing outside of himself, like a ghost watching his own life unfold?
“But then I realized-”
Will looked up, his gaze drifting across the room until it landed on Robin. She smiled at him, encouraging, gentle.
“He’s just my Tammy.”
Just.
My.
Tammy.
A loud ringing exploded in his ears, sharp and piercing, drilling straight into his skull. His eyes widened as he tried to force his mouth open, tried to breathe.
It was cold.
Not the cushions.
Not his nerves.
The room itself was freezing. Ice-cold. Like his hands. Like his chest. Like everything inside him.
“No,” the whisper slipped from his lips, barely a sound. “No, no, no, no.”
He shook his head frantically, fingers digging into his scalp, nails scraping against skin. That couldn’t be true. He wouldn’t say that. He wouldn’t. That wasn’t the truth.
The ringing didn’t stop.
He leaned forward, folding in on himself on the couch, hunched and curled inward, wrapping his arms tightly around his own body as if that could keep him together. As if that could protect him. It took a moment for anyone to react, a moment that felt far too long.
“Will, honey,” his mom whispered softly. “It’s alright. Do you hear me?”
Her arms reached for him, pulling him into a hug, but they were cold. Slimy. Disgusting. Like the vines from the Upside Down.
They were not his mom.
He stumbled up from the couch, heart racing, and slapped her hand away. She stared at him with a hurt, confused expression, like she didn’t understand what she had done wrong.
“Honey, I’ll always love you, no matter what,” she said again.
But Will had already seen through it.
He wouldn’t say that.
Mike wasn’t a stupid hallway crush. Mike wasn’t some dumb comparison, wasn’t Tammy Thompson. Mike was everything. He was something Will had never been able to put into words, because Mike was the first laugh, the first hope, the first friend he had ever had.
Just Tammy? That was it? That was all?
Was he really supposed to be able to push him away that easily?
“I thought you knew it all, Henry,” Will laughed bitterly. He actually laughed, even as real tears streamed down his cheeks and soaked into his sleeves.
“You know nothing,” he gritted through his teeth, shaking his head, trying to blink the tears away. “Nothing about the love of my life. Because you’re not capable of grasping that something so pure, so simple, yet complicated at the same time, something so unbelievably worth it, could even exist. You only know hate and despair. Because that’s all you ever had. And all you ever will feel.”
The room around him began to twist, pulling in on itself and then stretching outward again, collapsing and expanding in chaotic waves. Everything blurred behind the curtain of his tears, and it became harder and harder to understand what he was seeing.
He reached up, wiping at his eyes aggressively with his sleeves until the skin around them burned and stung.
When he lowered his hands again, the radio station was gone.
The couch.
The cold cushions.
His mom’s vine-covered arms.
Mike’s waterfall eyes.
All of it had disappeared.
He could feel the vines again, their existence slowly seeping back into his consciousness, piece by piece. As they wrapped themselves around his torso, his hands, his legs, holding him tight against the wall of flesh and pulsing mass, against all the rot and disgust they had been created from.
He was still here.
Still trapped by Vecna.
Back where he had been as a child, in the place he had hoped he would only ever return to in nightmares.
He had tricked him.
But why?
What was Henry trying to accomplish by making him relive half of November 6th? Did he want him to feel safe? To feel normal? To give up on Mike?
Why would Vecna, of all people, want that?
Didn’t he feed on Will’s fear? Didn’t he enjoy showing him all those terrible memories? His father with a bloody fist. Mike screaming at him in the rain. Troy’s laughter echoing through the classroom.
Fear.
Pain.
Always fear and pain.
Will couldn’t make sense of it. Not while his body ached with pain, not while he was surrounded by pure evil, pressed into it from all sides.
“Will…”, Someone whispered his name, far away, distant. It sounded like his mom back then, when she tried to wake him up early before kindergarten so his dad wouldn’t hear.
“Will, can you hear me?!” The voice was louder now, panicked. And it still sounded like his mom, but not quite. Something was off.
Then the cold vines snapped. And with them, his eyes flew open.
His vision was bloodshot and red, blurred at the edges, but the first thing he recognized was the familair walls of red. The place he had been captured in before.
“Oh God, Will.”
The female voice spoke again, and now it was obvious. It had been El all along.
He had trouble seeing. Trouble understanding. But there she was, kneeling in front of him, her hands warm against his cheeks.
“Are you alright? We need to leave,” she said, worry etched deeply into her face as her eyes scanned the area around them.
Will nodded weakly. “Yeah… yeah,” he breathed out.
And before he could even process what was happening, he was being pulled up. His consciousness slipped into nothingness for a brief second before snapping back into place, back in the woods, inside the small cabin, lying in a soft, warm bed.
He heard the closet door of the water tank opening, water splashing, and El stepping out of it. Someone was speaking nearby, voice deep and urgent, it had to be Hopper. But El didn’t wait to answer. She hurried back to the bed, water clinging to her clothes, soaking into the sheets, and she didn’t care.
“Will,” she called out.
And with that, the final piece of Will’s consciousness locked back into his body.
After making sure Will was alright and that Joyce was securely by his side, El stepped back from the bed. “He wants to kill Max. We need to go to the hospital right now,” she announced, already pushing her way through the cabin, past everyone else. “We need to go now.”
“Wait... wait,” Will said quickly, turning his head. His gaze flickered to Mike, who was still hovering in the doorway, like he wasn’t sure whether to follow El immediately or check on Will first.
“Mom,” Will said fast, “can you go with El and Hop? Mike can stay here. He needs to.”
“What?” Joyce frowned, confusion creasing her forehead. “Honey, I don’t mind waiting here with you, it’s really no-”
“No,” Will interrupted, firmer this time. He turned completely toward Mike. “He’s also searching for you,” he whispered, sweat dripping down his neck, his fingers trembling slightly. “At least I think he is. I’m still… a bit confused.”
Joyce hesitantly stood up as Hopper called for them to hurry outside. Mike stayed frozen in the doorway, biting his lip like he was weighing something heavy in his mind.
But Will could tell, Mike knew something.
The information didn’t seem to catch him off guard the way Will had expected. There weren’t a million questions, no frantic panic like there usually was with Mike Wheeler. He just stood there, waiting for someone else to decide what he should do.
“Okay… okay,” Joyce said slowly, shaking her head. She was probably even more confused than the two boys combined. “I trust you. Both of you.” She passed Mike in the doorway, then turned back when he didn’t react right away. “Okay?” she asked him directly.
Mike flinched, shaking his head as if trying to get rid of a bad thought, then nodded quickly. “We’ll stay here. Don’t worry,” he said, but his eyes darted nervously around the room, unfocused, like a kid who had been caught sneaking sweets at night and couldn’t look their mom in the eyes now.
Outside, they heard the engine start. Hopper shouted something again. After one last skeptical look at Will and Mike, Joyce stepped out the door.
The cabin grew quiet as they heard the car pull away, the sound fading into the distance.
Mike was still standing there.
Will’s heart was pounding painfully fast, his head throbbing. Everything had happened too quickly. He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know which thoughts were even his own anymore.
Was this reality?
Or just another one of Henry’s tricks?
“Are you really here?” Will whispered, his voice fragile, as his fingers dug into the blanket for stability.
“Of course, Will,” Mike said softly, finally lifting his head and taking a step into the room. He looked more present now, like he, too, had just escaped a terrible nightmare. “It’s me. I’m here.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed, his limbs hanging loosely, his body still angled toward the door.
“You didn’t seem surprised,” Will whispered.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and neck, then slowly crawled closer across the bed. He sat down next to Mike, leaving just enough space between them for it not to look suspicious.
“Oh, what?” Mike turned slightly toward him. “No, I totally was. I didn’t expect him to attack Max out of nowhere.”
He even let out a small laugh before continuing his ramble. “I mean, how would I? I don’t have any cool powers like you and El. I’m just… some guy.”
He shrugged and smiled at Will, hopeful in a way that made it seem like he wanted Will to get lost in it. To forget everything else. To just accept that as the final answer and move on.
“Mike,” Will said, leaning a little closer to him, his expression a careful mix of humor, gentle scolding, and who-do-you-think-you’re-lying-to. “You know I didn’t mean that.”
Mike bit down on his lower lip again and looked away.
The room fell quiet. All there was was the soft creak of the bed beneath them, the snapping of branches outside the window, and the wind pushing through the trees. If only there had been birds. Or distant laughter of children. Anything familiar. But instead there was only the sound of unease, like everything could collapse in on itself at any moment.
“How did you know?” Mike asked quietly, still not looking at him. His eyes stayed fixed on the door, and Will couldn’t tell who he was expecting, or afraid, to see walking through it.
“I’m…” Will hesitated. “I’m not sure, actually.”
And that wasn’t a lie.
While he had been in there, inside that false memory, the thoughts Henry had created, there hadn’t been a single clear conclusion in that direction. But his mind, his thoughts, had been corrupted. Twisted. How was he supposed to trust himself after that?
“He showed me a lot of things while he had me down there,” Will said carefully, unsure what the right words were.
“Showed you things?” Mike repeated, turning back toward him now. Worry etched itself into his face. “Like he did with Nancy? A vision of what’s going to happen?”
Will shook his head. “No. Not exactly.”
This time, his gaze drifted down to the floor. The wooden planks were broken and warped in places, soft with rot. It was surprising there hadn’t been an accident in the cabin in months. Not since Hopper had fallen off that ladder while trying to fix a light.
“What was it?” Mike asked gently, forcing a small, encouraging smile.
Will took a deep breath, steadying himself before letting the words spill out.
“First, there were memories. A lot of them. And not a single good one. You know back at the military base, I only got access to my powers because I focused on good things. The people who stood by me. Things that made me happy. Truly happy.”
He smiled faintly, warmth beginning to spread across his cheeks.
“Really?” Mike grinned now. “I had no idea that’s how you unlocked your powers. That’s… actually really cool.”
Will rolled his eyes, gently nudging Mike with his elbow. Mike laughed softly at that.
“It’s cheesy and embarrassing. El gets stronger when she’s angry. I can only access Vecna’s powers through my happy memories.”
“And?” Mike shook his head, clearly baffled that Will didn’t see it the same way. “That’s just… the Will way. Your way.”
He leaned a little closer, lowering his voice. “Don’t tell anyone, but the Will way of doing things has always been my favorite.”
Oh.
Wow.
The words hit Will straight in the chest. Like flowers blooming in spring, something inside him opened, petal by petal, and warmth flooded through his body. His cheeks were burning now, it was probably visible, but he couldn’t stop smiling at Mike. At Mike in his ridiculously adorable blue sweater, the faint bruise still visible above his right eye.
“Good thing you’re very often included in the Will way,” Will laughed.
Everything felt so warm, so light, that he let himself fall back onto the mattress, bouncing slightly against the worn-out springs.
Mike mirrored him, turning his head on the mattress to face Will and shrugging a little. “Maybe that’s part of why it’s my favorite.”
For a while, there was silence again.
Just two bodies lying side by side. Just two boys looking at each other and smiling.
It was probably shorter than it felt, but for the first time in a long while, there was a sense of hope clinging tightly to Will’s soul.
It didn’t last forever.
Eventually their laughter faded, and they both realized they had to return to the real reason for the conversation.
Will sighed.
Mike groaned at the exact same moment.
The corners of their lips twitched again, just for a second.
“Back to the depressing shit?” Mike asked with a sigh, moving the arm farther away from Will and tucking it behind his head so he could look at him better.
“Yeah,” Will agreed, turning onto his stomach. He grabbed a pillow and tucked it under his head so he could face Mike more comfortably too. “We should.”
“So he showed me these memories,” Will continued, forcing himself not to retreat inward. “Bad memories. You know?”
“Bad memories,” Mike echoed, nodding slowly, still trying to process it. “From how long ago?”
He paused, then quickly added, “I mean, only if you want to talk about this right now. If not, that’s totally fine.”
“No, it’s… uh, no, I mean-” Will rushed out, a nervous laugh slipping past his lips. “Every single one of them. It starts with my dad. And it ends with today, I guess. Everything in between. Me in the Upside Down, scared. Arguments. Disagreements. Insults. Just… everything at once. On an endless loop.”
His eyes dropped to the pillowcase. Plain pattern. Simple fabric. It had been in the cabin for a while.
It wasn’t as beautiful as Mike’s face.
But at least it didn’t look pitiful.
“Shit,” Will heard Mike whisper. “That sounds terrible, Will.”
He could only nod his head, because the images flooded back into his mind all at once. Everything his brain had tried so hard to forget in a desperate attempt to protect him was suddenly there again. Every painful memory, sharp and vivid, present right here, and he didn’t want it to take him. Not again.
“Don’t think about it,” Mike’s voice pulled him back, grounding him. His hand suddenly rested on Will’s wrist.
It didn’t even feel like a real touch at first. Just a hand lying there, right over where his blood, his disgusting blood, flowed beneath his skin.
“Tell me what happened after that,” Mike continued softly. “You couldn’t pull yourself out of it?”
“Yeah,” Will said, his voice trembling, even if he tried to keep it steady. Mike’s hand was warm against his wrist, but Will still felt freezing inside. “My thoughts, my memories. they weren’t happy enough to defeat all of that bad at once. But then…”
He sighed and lifted his head from the pillow.
“Then I was suddenly back home. Or at the cabin, at least. I mean, where even is home?”
Will shook his head again. He didn’t know how to explain any of this to Mike without saying too much, or not nearly enough.
“I mean... okay. What I’m trying to say is, then I woke up. I lived through several hours of November 6th.” His brows furrowed. “It seemed pretty normal. Everyone was there, and we just, uh…”
He trailed off, confusion clouding his thoughts. What had they been doing all day? He had been so sure, while he was in there, that he had experienced hours. He could still grasp fragments, feelings, impressions, but nothing solid enough to hold onto.
“You… don’t know anymore?” Mike offered carefully.
His fingers twitched over Will’s sleeve, and Will thought any second now Mike might realize how close they were and pull away.
But then Mike’s thumb shifted, finding the bare skin of Will’s wrist, brushing over it gently.
“There’s just one thing,” Will whispered. He didn’t lower his voice because he was afraid Mike might hear his heart pounding. “One moment I can really, genuinely recall.”
He let out a soft, disbelieving laugh.
“It’s so weird. Now that I think about it… maybe Vecna wanted to trap me in these flase thoughts. In that moment. I can’t be sure what his goal was. But it turns out, he doesn’t know me that well.”
Mike smiled, small and encouraging, his full attention on Will now. His eyes were bright. Warm. “What was that memory?” he asked. “The one that made you realize?”
Will’s heart leaped painfully in his chest. He felt like he might explode any second.
Of course Mike would ask that.
He needed to tell the truth, his truth, without completely lying. He took a deep breath. He could do this.
“It was like I was holding a speech,” Will said quietly. “In front of everyone. And I mean literally everyone who knows about the Upside Down." He laughed nervously.
“You? A speech?” Mike asked, clearly amused now, one eyebrow raised.
“Mmh,” Will hummed in agreement, the sound pained, like the thought alone made him want to suffocate himself with the pillow. “I was talking about a lot of things, actually. But it felt like one of those speeches before going into war. Encouraging. Confessing things you’d only ever say if you thought you were about to die.”
He swallowed. “But then I said something. And I just knew…”
Will nodded, tears welling in his eyes. Apparently Mike noticed too, because his thumb stilled against Will’s skin.
“You knew it wasn’t really you?” Mike asked carefully.
Will nodded again. A single tear slipped down his right cheek as he blinked.
“But wait,” Mike said suddenly. Confusion returned to his face as he pulled his hand away, leaving a cold ache behind where the warmth had been. “How do you know Vecna is after me?”
“Well, how do you know?” Will shot back, a hint of a sneer in his voice. “Or did I miss something critical while I was gone?”
Mike cursed quietly under his breath and let himself fall back onto the mattress with a soft groan, staring up at the ceiling.
“So you do know,” Will said, his voice more serious now. “How? And who knows about this?”
Mike just grumbled something, still staring at the ceiling, the same way he used to when he was little and his mom wouldn’t let them finish a movie because it was too late.
“Mike, come on,” Will whispered, poking his finger into Mike’s arm.
“No one knows, okay?!” Mike snapped, a little too loudly. He propped himself up on one arm, making himself look bigger in front of Will.
Will flinched. Mike saw it instantly. His face softened, regret and guilt settling in.
“Fuck. Sorry,” he breathed, his hand unconsciously running through his hair. “I just… I wanted to keep it a secret. A secret.”
Will nodded, even though he didn’t understand at all.
“But why?” he asked softly. “Why would you want that? El and me, and everyone, we could protect you from him.”
Mike sighed again and buried his face into the blanket. His hair stuck out in every direction, messy and uncontrolled.
“How do you know about it?” he mumbled. If Will hadn’t known Mike’s voice so well, he might not have understood the words through the fabric.
“Like I said,” Will replied, “the memory gets blurrier every second I try to think about it.” It was a half-lie. But better than a full one.
“It just seemed like he wanted to pull me away from you,” Will continued quietly. “Physically. Mentally. Probably both. Maybe he’s always tried to do that.” He took a shaky breath. “And it felt so natural. Like this was how it was supposed to be. Like we were meant to be separated. And that we were… fine with that.”
He paused, forcing himself to breathe, then glanced at Mike. Mike nodded into the blanket, silently urging him to go on.
“I started questioning my thoughts,” Will said. “The ones that weren’t even my own. Because I wouldn’t say those words. It was all just… wrong.” He swallowed. “It wasn’t the Will way.”
Will laughed softly, and Mike lifted his head from the blanket to blink up at him.
“So you knew he was coming after me just from that?” he asked. “Because you saw a false memory of us being… content with being apart from each other?”
Will groaned, grabbed the pillow from under his head, and gently threw it at Mike’s face. “If you say it like that, it sounds stupid.”
“But it was like that,” Mike laughed, pushing the pillow off his face and immediately shoving it back toward Will, who barely managed to block it in time.
“It was more like an instinct,” Will muttered under his breath.
Just then, Mike reached out to snatch the pillow away from Will’s hands. Their fingers brushed briefly as he did. “Whoa, Will,” Mike gasped, startled. He dropped the pillow and grabbed Will’s hands with both of his, enclosing Will’s fingers between his palms, one above, one below. “You feel like you just came out of the freezer.”
Now that Mike was holding him like that, Will noticed it too. His body temperature felt strangely low all of a sudden. And as if being reminded unlocked it again, the throbbing headache returned, pulsing behind his eyes.
“Okay, okay,” Mike said quickly, squeezing Will’s hands. “It’s fine. We’ll just warm you back up.” He smiled at him, encouraging, determined.
“We can light the fireplace. And I’ll make you soup,” he added proudly. “Not homemade. I mean, from a can.”
“Yeah,” Will laughed quietly. “Of course from a can.”
They were off the bed almost immediately, Mike dragging Will into the main room, sitting him down on the couch and piling blankets over him. A ridiculous amount of blankets. Or at least every single one Mike could find in the cabin, which turned out to be four. “Feel warmer yet?” Mike asked hopefully.
Will nodded, mostly because he wasn’t sure what he was actually feeling. When he thought about Vecna wanting to get to Mike, about being a spy, about whether they were even safe together, he felt ice-cold. But when he focused on Mike’s hands, on his voice, on his presence, everything burned with a comforting warmth.
“Are you sure you know how to do that?” Will asked a minute later, watching Mike struggle a little with the fireplace.
“Trust me, I’ve done this many times,” Mike said confidently, bringing the flame back to the wood and blowing carefully.
It worked this time. The fire caught.
Mike grinned, clearly proud of himself.
“Good morning,” he announced another minute later dramatically as he returned to the couch with three cans of soup stacked in his arms. “I’m your chef today, Mike Wheeler. We’ve got the finest delicacies on the menu just for you.”
“Oh, really?” Will huffed. “I’m dying to know what greatness you have to offer.”
“Indeed,” Mike said seriously. “We have cream of mushroom soup, chicken noodle soup with…” He squinted at the label. “Something green in it. And chili with beans.”
“I think I’ll take the chicken noodle soup,” Will hummed, his mouth half-hidden behind the blanket he’d pulled up. “You really sold me with the something green.”
“Of course, sir. Your main dish will be ready in just a minute.” Mike bowed exaggeratedly and headed toward the kitchen.
“Oh...does it come with dessert?” Will mumbled to himself, watching Mike's back disappear through the doorway and giggling quietly. Who could have blamed a teenage boy if his eyes had shifted lower?
He didn’t stay on the couch for even a full minute before he found himself perched on the kitchen counter, only one blanket still wrapped around his shoulders.
“Normally guests don’t wait in the kitchen for their food,” Mike remarked casually as he pulled a pot from the lowest cabinet. Will half-expected him to complain about Joyce storing pots in such a weird place, but instead Mike stayed quiet and set it on the stove.
“Well, not that Vecna comes to take you while you’re warming up soup for me,” Will joked. It came out too serious. Too worried.
Mike didn’t answer. He just opened the can, and with a few messy splashes that landed on his sleeve, poured the soup into the pot.
“You’d be a lousy househusband,” Will teased softly, tugging the blanket higher under his chin.
Mike shrugged, leaning back against the counter. “Don’t think I’ll be one anytime soon.”
Will frowned. There was something in Mike’s tone, something loaded, something that felt heavier than the words themselves. “Why’s that?” Will asked carefully. “Don’t think El’s such a great cook either.”
He didn’t look away from Mike for even a second, afraid to miss something. Mike hesitated. He turned back to stir the soup with a wooden spoon, the wind outside slamming against the window.
“I don’t…” he started, then stopped. He turned around again, facing Will fully. “Do you think El would even realize… if she fell out of love? If we both did?”
Will was completely caught off guard.
As far as he knew, Mike and El had been planning their future just this week. But it was true, they didn’t spend as much time together anymore. And during the last eighteen months, sharing a roof with Mike, Will had noticed things. El was never really there. She couldn’t go into town, not with the military searching for her. But Mike didn’t visit much either.
The only times he went were when Jonathan and Will went too. It always felt more like a family trip than anything else.
“I… I don’t know,” Will admitted quietly.
And he didn’t.
El wasn’t exactly an expert on romantic relationships. Neither was he.
He stumbled over a few meaningless words before collecting himself again.
“Did you?” Will asked softly. “Fall out of love with her, I mean?”
Mike stirred the soup again, staring down at it like the mix of pale broth and green bits was the most fascinating thing he’d seen all year. He shrugged, opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Will nodded slowly, though he didn’t really understand anything yet.
“Are you cursed?” he asked suddenly.
“By El? What? No.”
“Not by El,” Will clarified. “By Vecna. Obviously.”
Silence settled between them.
It was still better than the crackling firewood in the other room, but it was suffocating in its own way.
“It’s ridiculous,” Mike whispered finally.
The word hung in the air between them. There were many ridiculous things about this situation. Will figured Mike meant all of them. So he didn’t push. Didn’t pry.
“It’s a stupid thought,” Will said after a long pause, “but I think as long as we’re together… he can’t do anything to us.”
Mike looked up. At Will, wrapped in blankets, sitting on the counter, exhausted and shaking but still there.
And Mike smiled up at him like he meant it.
Like he agreed.