Work Text:
SCRIPT REWRITE
(S5—Ep.7, The Bridge.)
SCENE [#]
It’s moments before everyone has to leave to execute STEVE’s plan to save the world from VECNA. Plan Beanstalk, or whatever it was called. Most people are leaving, and packing things up into their respective vehicles. They are doing it quite fast because they don't have much time. There's never enough time in the day.
JOYCE is alone on the porch and looking off at most of the other characters. She has a worried and unsure expression on her face. She wonders if she, or any of them, will die soon.
WILL enters the scene from behind JOYCE, exiting the house. JOYCE hears and looks over her shoulder.
WILL
(quietly)
Mom, I have to tell you something.
JOYCE looks surprised, but nods and gets up.
...
Scene [##]
JOYCE locks the door of the meeting room. She did this absentmindedly, something like a force of habit. She settles on the couch, while WILL sits on the plush chair next to it.
He's nervous and fidgeting with his hands. He has to tell his Mom everything he saw, what he is, but he's afraid of how she will react.
JOYCE smiles at him as she always had; warm and comforting.
JOYCE
What is it, honey?
WILL doesn't answer immediately. He has his head down, unable to make eye contact.
JOYCE grabs WILL’s hands and squeezes them.
JOYCE
It’s okay, it's just me.
It’s silent for a minute.
WILL
(stuttering)
I know
JOYCE waits patiently for her son to start talking. She's not annoyed, or mad, but ready to listen. There's a voice in the back of WILL’s head, only a whisper, that tells him that her patience with him is short lived.
Despite that, he continues.
WILL
I didn't tell you everything I saw when I was in VECNA's mind.
JOYCE
Really?
WILL
(oice wavering)
It was so horrible, Mom.
WILL swallows and closes his eyes. He sees flashes of that gross, slimy, and dim place inside VECNA’s mind he had been in. Trapped. Alone, except for VECNA himself standing close to him; his hand nearly touching WILL’s face. The pure terror and panic he had felt in that moment comes back to him.
WILL
He showed me everything. I-I-
JOYCE
(stern)
You know all he does is lie, WILL, what he showed you wasn't real. He's just trying to scare you.
WILL
(shakes his head)
No, he doesn't lie. What he showed...it all came from me.
WILL’s voice fades as the scene pans over to the locked door. Now, a hand grips the door handle, but it doesn't attempt to open said door.
MIKE stands on the other side. He's now wearing a camo jacket and a beanie that covers his hair. He was asked to get WILL and JOYCE as they needed to leave soon, but the door to the meeting room was locked from the inside.
He's staring, unsure of what to do.
MIKE hears quiet voices coming from the meeting room and he's unfortunately curious. He moves closer and presses his ear to the door.
As he does so, the camera cuts back to WILL and JOYCE.
WILL
And-and what I mean is that he uses my memories, my thoughts, my fears against me. I thought I could remember all the happy things like I did before to combat him, but it didn't work.
WILL chokes up. His throat feels rough and it's painful to talk. He thinks just talking about HIM will bring HIM back.
JOYCE rubs her pant leg. She hates imagining whatever things VECNA showed her son. Her eyebrows pinch.
WILL
It didn't work. It didn't-he showed you...showed everyone leaving me—
.
[Flashback]
VECNA’s visions were always horrifically real. They felt real, like a lucid dream, where you could smell, feel, hear everything so vividly.
It started with him confessing his secret to his family and friends. All at once. They were in MIKE’s basement, he thinks.
They sneer at him, hate him, and leave him all in that order. First it was DUSTIN, his face dim and depressed, angry, and going off somewhere far away from WILL and from Hawkins. Then LUCAS and MAX, ELEVEN, and then it stopped at MIKE. It always did.
VECNA knew. He knows everything.
MIKE was particularly cruel. He wore the long wavy hair he had two years ago. The room was bright so WILL could see in painful clarity. That feeling of sick nostalgia for a time he didn't miss, for a time where he felt so damn lonely.
WILL was upset, MIKE seemingly didn't care. MIKE was disgusted by him, disgusted that WILL liked him. He pushed WILL to the hardwood floor and berated him. Cursed him.
His Mom, his brother, everyone left him. They all hated him now. Saw him as a freak. Their blurred figures became smaller and smaller as they all disappeared from his life. MIKE kicked his ribs like all of his hatred was burning out.
VECNA’S VOICE COMING FROM MIKE
(whispering)
Just look at you WILLIAM, not even fighting back! So pathetic.
VECNA then laughed in his ear.
Eventually the vision stopped. WILL couldn't remember when, all he knew was that he still felt a lingering ache in his ribs and the warm touch of someone's hands.
.
JOYCE
(soft)
WILL.
WILL blinks a few times, his vision blurred with tears.
Those fears, ever so irrational, seemed so real.
JOYCE
You hear me? I would never abandon you! Not for anything in the whole world.
WILL
(sniff)
Even if I'm different?
JOYCE
Baby—
WILL
Mom.
JOYCE sucks in a breath.
VECNA wanted WILL to be scared, to surrender and accept his fate. To join him in the destruction of the world. But WILL wouldn't allow that. He would have to bite the bullet, at least this one time with his Mother.
WILL
Y-you know how I got bullied in elementary school?
JOYCE
Those kids were wrong, WILL.
WILL
You don't understand. Mom, what they said was true...I didn't want to think it. That I’m different from everyone else, from my friends, from you. I'm so scared, and it feels like my life will end if I tell everyone.
JOYCE
(worried)
Tell everyone what?
WILL’s heart is pounding so much he can feel it in his ears. Anxiety makes him a coward, and he is crying even more.
JOYCE is looking at him expectedly, with such concern and love. She must know what he's talking about? Must know how he's different? She heard about the bullying and what it was about. How sensitive he was, how introverted he was, when they called him a freak, a fairy, a—
WILL
(shaky voice)
I don't like girls. And-and well I like them, but not in the way my friends do.
JOYCE
Oh—
WILL
But I-I like this boy, I have for years now. I know he doesn't like me back, but I wish every day, every day, that he leaves his girlfriend for me. 'm so selfish, Mom, and I know it'll never happen.
JOYCE gets up from the couch and moves over towards him. She wraps her arms tightly around him. At that, he breaks even more.
WILL
(stuttering)
I love him Mom, I love him! But he's in love with my sister. Every time I look at them together I feel so shitty.
WILL realizes what he had just said and immediately regrets it. He didn't come into this conversation to confess who he has a stupid crush on.
His mother freezes for a moment and breaks away from the hug, but her hands are still on his shoulders.
JOYCE
Your sister? You mean Eleven?
WILL nods his head shamefully.
JOYCE’s eyes widen and suddenly she understands. It all makes sense now. How could she have been so blind to her own son’s struggles? Was he scared she wouldn't accept him? Had she really given off that impression?
She shakes her head.
JOYCE
(small tears in her eyes)
That stupid Mike...!
WILL
(embarrassed)
Mom!
After WILL exclamed that, something on the other side of the door falls. He jumps out of his skin, while JOYCE runs over to the door to see what it was.
When she opens it, there stood the devil himself, also known as Mike Wheeler. He was frozen in place and his walky-talkie on the floor.
Ah shit, She thinks.
WILL got up off the couch and his worst nightmare was reality.
WILL
(petrified)
MIKE?!
MIKE blinks and looks straight at WILL. His face was bright red.
MIKE
Um, the—the rest of the group said to get you guys. We need to uh, go. Right now.
It seems like MIKE is completely ignoring the conversation he had very obviously heard. MIKE picks up his walky-talkie and then promptly runs away.
After he left, JOYCE turns on her heels, but she doesn't move any further. WILL is standing in the middle of the room and completely pale.
At that moment, WILL wanted to run after MIKE and tell him what he heard wasn't true. However, WILL knew it was true, and he couldn't lie about that to MIKE. Now, he just wanted to die.
[End scene.]