Chapter Text
November 6. 1983.
Will squeezed his eyes shut and made another attempt to control his breathing.
in.
out.
in.
out.
It had only been a few hours since the thing had dragged him from the shed and into this place, hours since Hawkins and all that came with it slipped away.
After a moment, his shaky breaths began to even out, and he let his eyelids open bit by bit, as if opening them too fast would somehow alert the thing that had taken him in the first place.
The world came to focus in pieces.
Thick vines covered almost everything in his vision and white spores floated freely in the air, catching in his hair, his eyelashes, his lungs. It looked as though someone had drained all of the color and vibrancy out of Castle Byers and shaped it into this nightmarish shack. Nothing here was alive in the way it should have been.
Wood sagged, metal flaked, the walls bowed inward as if they were tired of holding themselves up. The smell of rot perpetuated it all, overwhelming his senses and making him gag.
Will swallowed hard, a sick thought rooting itself in his chest and sticking there. He couldn’t help but wonder if that’s how he’d end up if he stayed here too long. Rotten, sinking, in some state of decay.
At that, a realization settled over him. Wherever he was now—in this cold, lifeless place—it wasn’t Hawkins, and he was alone.
—
November 8. 1983.
Mike stared in shock as the state troopers loaded a body onto a stretcher.
Not a body. Will’s body.
“It’s not Will. It can’t be,” he said faintly, the words brittle in his mouth.
Someone—Lucas, probably—stood beside him, solid and awful and real.
“It’s Will. It’s really Will.”
The gravel beneath his feet shifted with a grinding noise. The trees whispered overhead. The oncoming rain hung in the air, and he felt sick at how peaceful it looked, when Will’s body lay ten yards in front of him.
Will, who drew until his hands ached and clutched his walkie-talkie like it was a lifeline, who was supposed to be cold and hungry and alive , not zipped into a black bag and carried away in the arms of people who didn’t even know him. Will, who was his best friend, and the world kept moving like that meant nothing at all.
Something in his chest squeezed tightly and it was all he could do to not fall to his knees. A hand pressed at his shoulder before he could process it, followed by a small voice.
“Mike—“
Suddenly, he was angrier than he had been in a long time.
“Mike? Mike, what?” He snapped. “You were supposed to help us find him alive. You said he was alive.” His voice shook, but he didn’t care.
El looked at him, heartbroken, but the thing in his chest squeezed harder and so he kept on going.
“Why did you lie to us? What’s wrong with you? What is wrong with you?”
“Mike…”
“What!” He gestured sharply and El could only shake her head in return. His friend was dead and she couldn’t tell him why.
He pushed past her before she could see his face and stormed toward his bike, droning out the voices of Dustin and Lucas as he grabbed the handles and kicked off. He didn’t spare a glance in their direction, legs aching with the effort to get as far away as he could—from his friends, from El, from the thing in the water that couldn’t possibly be Will but somehow was.
Tears, warm and wet, slid down his face and soaked into the collar of his shirt. Will was dead. The search was over. There’d be a funeral, and everyone would move on, and it’d be like Will had never existed at all.
Mike couldn’t do that. He couldn’t just move on. Not now, not ever.
By the time he reached his house, it was like he was moving on autopilot. He moved quickly, but he didn’t know why, or what for. As he stepped up to the front door he found himself wishing the house was empty. He didn’t want questions or comfort, he just wanted to pretend none of this was real.
Mike flung open the door and closed it all in the same breath. He barely made it toward the stairs when his mother’s voice called from the living room.
“Michael? What’s wrong?”
The concern written on her face broke whatever was holding him together. He crossed the room and folded into her arms, clinging tightly, his eyes squeezed shut as the rest of the world fell away.
—
One year later.
November 8. 1984.
The rotting wood table barely supported Will’s weight as he leaned against it, closing his eyes and trying to ignore the throbbing in his left arm.
“Shit,” he muttered.
This was the third time this week he’d reopened his wound, and frankly it was getting annoying.
With a tentative hand he slowly unraveled the once-white fabric tied around his forearm, biting his lip in as the dried blood clung stubbornly to the bandage.
You’d think he’d have found a better way to dress wounds by now. But it had worked so far, and there were more pressing things to worry about. Like restocking his water.
And finding a way out.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”
He winced in pain as the last of the filthy bandage peeled away. He really needed a better system for this. With a sigh, he opened his backpack and pulled out another, slightly less disgusting, piece of fabric to use as a replacement. It was impossible to avoid when everything in the Otherworld was steeped in rot.
Midway through tying the final knot on his multi-dimensional Band-aid, a screech echoed a couple blocks down.
Will let out an annoyed groan. He’d only been staying here for three days, and now he had to move again. He supposed it was to be expected.
Recently, the demogorgons (and yes, that was a DnD reference, but can you blame him?) had been hunting more often. He had no real way of knowing, but he thought it might be a seasonal thing—hunting in the winter, hibernation in the summer. Things had been calmer, then. He missed it, when he could stay in one place for two weeks at a time. In the Otherworld, survival came first, but Will still missed having a home.
With another sigh (he’d been doing that a lot), he started to collect his things.
He triple checked his backpack, confirming everything was there.
His water bottle, his food cans, his lighter, a bottle of alcohol, his rifle, his bandages, and finally, his watch. Mike had a matching one, which was what made it valuable in the first place.
Miraculously, it was the only piece of technology that still worked in the Otherworld, emitting a faint green-blue light as it displayed the time. In earlier days, Will used to entertain himself by thinking it was his connection with Mike that had done that, not just a fluke. It made him giddy to think of Mike on the other side, wearing the matching one.
But it was silly, and stupid, which Will couldn’t afford to be. Not here, not anymore.
Stepping carefully over the vines on the tiled floor, he made his way outside, adjusting his bandana over his nose and mouth.
The screech echoed outside again, closer this time.
Will froze just outside beyond the doorway, breath catching in his throat as the sound reverberated through the empty street. Eight houses away, maybe less. Too close for comfort. He adjusted the strap of his backpack and turned away from the noise. Change of plans, then.
To get to his next safe house, he’d have to pass through the area the demogorgon was hunting, which meant that unless he wanted to throw months of survival down the drain, he’d have to go elsewhere. He glanced down at his distinctly water-less backpack and let out yet another sigh. If he was going to move anyway, he might as well make it worth it.
The dilapidated sight of the grocery store now sat only a few blocks away, its faded sign barely visible through the drifting spores. He trudged towards it, making extra effort not to step on any vines or make a sound. In the Otherworld, he found, that was what killed you. You had to be completely unnoticeable, or that was it, game over.
Another screech sounded, but it seemed further away now, not closer. Will let himself breathe, just for a second, before he willed the tension back into his shoulders. He couldn’t let himself relax. With his luck, another demogorgon would spring out of the ground the moment he did.
The store came into view, a good thirty yards out, and his heart was thrumming in his chest. No matter how many times he’d done this same maneuver, the fear never dulled. He figured that might actually be a good thing, if it was keeping him alert.
Moving quickly, he shuffled forward until he was behind an incredibly rusted ford pinto, and peered over the top through the glass windows of the store. It seemed he was lucky today—there were only two demo-dogs circling the aisles, looking bored as they nudged different items on the shelf. The monsters seemed to flock to places with more amounts of people in it, likely hearing the sound of voices wafting through from Hawkins. Especially now that it was hunting season.
Time for step one. Will crouched lower, turning his attention to the underside of the car. He reached his hand under, sliding it over the pipes until he found a loose one.
no…no...
Jackpot.
His fingers closed around a loose, rusted section. Using his other hand he put pressure on it, twisting it until the pipe snapped free, practically crumbling in his hands from the amount of rot infested.
Will set the pipe down for a moment before hurriedly rummaging through his bag for one of his bloody rags, then proceeding to tie it around the pipe. The demo-dogs needed a distraction, and what better than a loud noise and the smell of blood?
Setting his sights on a car parked farther down the lot, Will raised his arm and hurled the rag-pipe combination towards it, wincing when the sound of metal on metal rang out.
The demo-dogs jerked their heads up, shrieking as they sprinting out of the store fervently to check it out. As soon as they disappeared, Will found his footing and bolted for the store, slipping through the broken entrance and tearing down the aisles. He skidded to a stop once he happened upon the door that probably used to say “STAFF ONLY” but now only said “AFON.”
Will yanked it open and ran inside, directly going for the stack of boxes in the left-most corner. The storeroom was just as he remembered it. He dutifully completed his routine, ripping the box open and grabbing two of the many packs of glass water bottles. He opened his bag quickly, shoving them inside and desperately pulling the zipper up. It was an imperfect system, but it worked.
Task complete, he shrugged his bag on and turned to leave—and stopped dead. A demogorgon prowling the aisles near the exit. Its head jerked up, flower-like face opening as it scented the air. In a moment, its eyes locked onto Will. The muscles in its back legs tensed and he knew it was a matter of seconds before it lunged at him. There was no time to think.
Will bolted back into the room and shut the door quickly, locking it. He started pushing a heavy metal shelf over the door when a loud thud echoed, followed by another. The monster was throwing itself at the door, and it would only be a matter of time before it got in.
Will opened his bag hurriedly, digging the bottle of alcohol out before opening it and pouring its remnants on the floor between him and the door.
Thud
The metal of the door bowed inward.
Thud
He grabbed his lighter and fumbled with it for a second, pressing his thumb down on the spark wheel to no avail.
Thud
“Shit,” his voice rasped as he tried again and again, the lighter stubbornly refusing to catch fire.
Thud
With a final lunge, the demogorgon burst into the storeroom, and everything happened at once.
The demogorgon caught sight of Will, and let its weight fall on its hind legs as it began to lunge towards him. Will pressed his thumb to the wheel again, and luck had it that the lighter sparked to life. The demogorgon leaped forward, claws extended, and a white-hot pain exploded across his face as something sharp tore into his left eye. Will screamed, dropping the lighter from his fingers as the flame caught the vodka-soaked floor. Fire roared up between them.
The demogorgon shrieked, its body igniting as it stumbled back, thrashing wildly before fleeing into the store, leaving behind scorched footprints and the smell of burning flesh.
Will collapsed to the floor.
Everything hurt. His head rang, his face burned, and when he tried to open his left eye all he saw was black and pain. He sobbed, clawing at his backpack with trembling hands, fingers slick with blood as he tore out his bandages.
He pressed them desperately against his eye, and they soaked through almost instantly.
“No, no, no—“
He wrapped more. And more. Every last strip of fabric he had, tied tight around his head, pressure building until it felt like his skull might split. His breaths came out shallow and uneven, the smoke stinging his lungs as the room filled with fumes.
The world tilted.
The last thing he registered was the fire crackling somewhere nearby before everything went dark.
…
He woke up coughing and with no sense of what happened. A furrow formed in his eyebrows at the smell of smoke. What..? He felt like he was missing something important, but he couldn’t remember what. Then he felt a hot sting at his foot, and it all came back.
Will’s good eye flew open as he realized the hem of his pant leg had caught fire, the fabric smoldering dangerously close to his skin. He let out a small shout and slapped at it, scrambling backward until he managed to stamp it out, chest heaving.
The fire had spread further, now covering half of the storeroom and licking at the cardboard boxes nearest him. It took a second before he registered that those cardboard boxes contained water.
For one long, horrible second, he couldn’t move. Then he ripped open the boxes and smashed one of the glass bottles against the floor, dousing the flames and in turn receiving what felt like a glass shard in his leg. Another followed. And another.
By the time the fire finally died, almost half the water was gone, and his arms felt like they were filled with lead.
Will sagged against the wall, shaking.
“So stupid,” he whispered, to no one in particular.
He didn’t stay to think about it. He grabbed what was left—a cart of water, his bag, his rifle—and ran.
He didn’t stop running for a long time.
…
Will didn’t recognize the house he finally collapsed into at first, until his eyes landed on a familiar set of stairs leading to a basement. Mike’s basement. As if he were in a trance, he worked his way downward, legs burning with each step.
When he finally reached the bottom, his heart sunk. Fuck. He missed it all so much, his chest ached.
He walked slowly, carefully, like if he moved too fast it’d all disappear and he’d be back in that room with fire dancing in his eyes.
Will slid down against the wall, legs giving out beneath him. He rested his head back, trying to ignore the way his hands were shaking, but failing as he looked down suddenly. His eyes surveyed the basement before landing on his bag to the left. He grabbed it, rummaging for a second before pulling out a watch.
It glowed a faint blue-green, and Will held it tightly in his hands. He couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in his eyes, or help the way his nose sniffled, or hide the shivers that ran through his body. It was so cold here, so cold, and Will was tired of it. He missed the warmth of the basement-that-was. He missed the laughter that used to fill this room. He missed home, and Jonathan, and his mom. Most of all, he missed Mike.
Will brought his knees to his chest and hugged them tight, his sniffles echoing in the basement, his hand clutching his watch so that his knuckles turned white. He squeezed his good eye shut, and ignored the pain in the other, and sobbed steadily until he passed out.
—
On the same night, in a too-empty basement, sat a boy with black hair and sad eyes, grieving the anniversary of his best friend’s death.