Archive of Our Own

Dark, viscous cold wraps around him like a snake that Will has a hard time thinking about the present.

He should be focusing on Dimension X and the fact that it’s a desolate wasteland rimmed with orange and sandy haze and this is the villain’s lair that they’re marching right into. There’s also the fact that they’ve never been to this place before—they never even knew it existed before now. On paper, these things should unnerve him greatly. As it goes, Will is distracted.

There’s no breeze. There’s no town. There’s sunlight but it’s deceivingly frigid. Unlike the upside down, it’s not even pretending to be familiar, but as his gaze wanders across the sandy, jagged terrain, he can’t help feeling like he’s lived in it for years already.

Will has never stepped foot in this place before. How could he have? When they get closer and the fingered spires of Vecna’s castle grow like a skeletal hand, the cold slithers under his skin like a memory and his vision gets fuzzy. He stops walking.

He’s back with Vecna and those dark vines, unable to move as Vecna gains all the information he needs. “A spy,” he had said and had raised his claw to his forehead. Will tried resisting at first, it’s not like he was a willing participant, but his head felt like it wanted to split apart and there’s only so much of it he could do before his mind gave Vecna exactly what he wanted.

And so he gave and gave and gave and by the end of it all, he just felt empty and cold. Struggling became pointless because he was alone for who knows how long and there’s been nothing he’s been able to hide that couldn’t be seeped out. Vecna was cycling through his memories one by one, Max’s hospital room, Mike in the field, the Turnbow plans, it was all being shifted and sorted like changing channels.

Then he started seeing things that Will hadn’t recognized. His mom being repulsed, his friends icing him out, Mike being disgusted with him. The first two are heartbreaking, but with Mike it would be particularly annoying because as if Vecna knew he had hit a weak point, he kept hammering it. He’d see Mike catch on and find it incredibly gross and selfish that he’d want to ruin their friendship like that. He’d see Mike stiffen and go out of his way to avoid him. He’d see Mike call him nasty names like Lonnie had used. He even saw right after the Squawk when Will had come out, Mike had lagged and their friendship would be forever stilted because Mike no longer supports him.

Will didn’t know what the point was of showing this information that never happened, but after enough time, his morale was dipping. Any hope he had was crumbling like charred bones.

It’s not real, Will would try to remind himself, but it didn’t do much because it sure felt real. And maybe it was.

The hours blurred until the real world was bleeding into the upside down and the upside down into the real world and Will was no longer sure which one was which. The upside down was tied to him and it had him convinced that no matter where he went, it would follow and expand with him. Other times, Will would wonder if he was still 12 years old and had ever escaped the upside down at all. It was dark, Will was cold, and he was alone, and perhaps Will has been here this whole time and he only imagined he had escaped.

Will had heard stories of prisoners in isolation where the dark quiet cell had rid them of their minds and they’d start thinking nonsense. He was sure that this would be what that would feel like.

But then every now and then, Will would catch something and it would snap through to him, just for a second. Like a thought that slipped out and it would strike him because he was sure it wasn’t his own. Will knows his misery like the back of his hand. So when there was something new, a thought or image that was definitely not his own, he noticed.

There’d be a barren landscape, sharp edged spikes, large nasty bats and demogorgons parading the rocks. A giant, creeping spider emerging from its den. This, he knows now, was Dimension X after Dustin launched into his explanation about the wormhole. Will nodded. “It’s important to him.” He said because it was true. It was important at the time. It was important for them to get here. Though whose thought was that one? Was it Will’s? He had thought so when he led them here and now? He’s not so sure anymore. His stomach churns like someone let out a can of roaches crawl in his gut.

Will jostles from his own memories and scans over the dimension again. Canyons layer the far wall and the tall golden spikes are scattered all over. The sky is murky and the Mind Flayer isn’t in the clouds. Will frowns. The place is completely empty.

“Hey, you alright?” Someone says and he looks over. Mike is keeping step with him and looks him over, searching in that gentle way he does when he’s worried. Will refocuses. His mom is next to him on the other side with a downturned expression. The others have turned back too, but they’re a little further ahead. Mike prods some more, “Is he here? Do you feel him?”

Will frowns. Does he feel him? He treads through his mind and all he can come up with is how uneasy this all feels. “This isn’t right.”

“What isn’t?”

“This place, I’ve seen it before. Something should be here.”

“Maybe he wasn’t expecting us?”

“He was.” Will looks behind him at the gash in the floor they came from. He feels that sinking sensation as he comes to the conclusion he’d been played. “I’m sorry,” is what he says. The guilt he can at least be sure of, is his own.

Mike’s hand lifts, still searching. “For what?” He asks, and then with more urgency. “For what?”

“This was a mistake. We should never have come here. This is my fault.”

Mike looks around nervously. “What? What do you mean?”

“He’s spying. I don’t think he stopped. He knows, Mike.”

Mike takes a step back and now just like Will, he’s struck by the weight of the land and pivots in the sand. He yells for the others to stop, but right as he does, the fingertips on the spire twitch and those nasty, creepy little bats come pouring out. They’re trilling in a sickeningly high pitched choir and some demogorgons jump out from their posts of jutted rocks.

Will braces and plugs his ears from the sound. The bats circle the air and start diving wildly at them.

“Get down!” He hears Mike order amidst the chaos. Dozens of monsters rise from their post and Will feels a little hopeless at the sheer amount of them.

Why had he betrayed them again? How stupid was he? Of course it was a trap; Vecna had been sorting through his mind just hours prior, of course he’d place things in there to trick him. It seemed obvious looking back at it. He was naive to think that he had more control of the hive mind this time around.

Everyone ducks and scatters away. Will sees it through the lens of thousands of eyes. He slinks in between the rocks, trying to cover. No wait, what is he doing? He can protect them. One of the bats is crashing towards Jonathan and Will snaps its neck before its fangs can land.

He breaks a demogorgons arm when it tries to slash Steve so the claws land on nothing. He snaps the head next and its body falls limp. He breaks dozens of bats wings and they fall out of the sky like rain.

He’s about to slash open some other demogorgons when the acute fear hits him. Will finds it hard to focus when his heart is starting to hammer and his vision shifts in and out of the maw of a cave.

“Will? Will?! What’s happening?” Mike is saying to him. He can hear the gunfire from Nancy but it’s starting to feel further away. “Stay focused!”

“It’s something with Vecna.” Will bites through, feeling entirely thrown off guard. “He’s trying to show me something.”

“Well, tell him now’s not a good time!”

He would gladly relay the message if he could, but as it goes, he isn’t even quite sure Henry wants to share this emotion.

Will’s vision goes a little fuzzy. He freezes a demogorgon from taking a swing at his mom, but it’s sloppy and he sees a claw nick her arm and he winces, feeling deathly afraid of the dying man with the suitcase pointing a gun.

Will pants. He’s trying to run somewhere with Mike but the fear that Henry is feeling feels impossible to ignore. He tries his hardest to kill some of the remaining monsters, but hinders them at best. He leans against a spire and tries to control his rapidly beating heart, but he’s failing. The man had just shot him in the hand.

“What’s happening now?” Mike asks from beside him.

He sees himself running at him, and strikes him with a rock. The suitcase stares at him, wanting, waiting, begging to be opened.

“I think it’s a memory.” Will says, but he isn’t even sure if there’s anyone to hear him. It’s only him alone in the mine shaft. He tries to stir himself out of it. He knows how important it is not to get distracted with Vecna’s stupid mind and especially now of all times. But his gaze narrows on that black demanding suitcase and Will’s thoughts go dead.

With blood on his hands, he snaps open the clips and swings the suitcase open. Held in his hands, a black crystal shard. Will (Henry?) turns it around in his hands and then it feels like it swallows him whole. He drops it, trembling and his hand looks withered. Black veins run down his wrist and spread slowly. Will—no this must be Henry, takes an uneven breath and spins his hand around. A cold, lifeless dread fills him as the dying man with a bashed face says, “It will consume you.”

The marks were small and he wasn’t sure what the man had meant at the time and by the time he did start to catch on, he was sure his fate had already been sealed for him.

Henry grew up and over the years, he saw his parents would fight more and more. He wasn’t really sure on what really: the electricity, bills, dad’s work. They’d argue over tiny mundane details as well and no matter what, they still couldn’t be honest about what they really needed to say.

His mom could hardly look at her own son sometimes. She knew he was a strange boy, he’d heard her say so on multiple occasions. On his 14th birthday, his family either forgot or chose to ignore it.

The kids at school were relentlessly mean and he never really found a place among them. They called him all sorts of names and even the other outcasts didn’t know what to do with him either. The teachers smiled kindly at him but it was full of pity because they couldn't understand him either. The marks on his wrist spread.

The spiders were a source of comfort. They called to him when nothing else did. By the time he was a teen and able to control his mind abilities, the voice in his head said that this planet was a dud. Henry hadn’t disagreed. It was full of the most terrible, atrocious, plague-spawned creatures. When he looked in the mirror, the black veins trailed throughout his arm and across his chest.

“Will! Snap out of it, man! Will!”

There was a girl at school, he had liked her. Unlike his own mother, she saw a good in him. “You’re a magician,” she had told him with a look of awe. He certainly didn’t feel like someone who could pull flowers out of a hat as a bead of blood ran down his nose, but appreciated how it made him feel. Like he was someone useful, someone important.

She was spiritual, which was new to Henry since his parents were atheists. She wanted him to reach out to his mom, in a way and Henry wasn’t sure if that was something he could do but for her, he tried. Only when he tried to reach out using his powers, it was most definitely not the peaceful passed-on spirit of Magaret Newby that answered back.

‘Find me.’

The voice had become stronger over time, and no one's word was able to reel him back. He was slipping, distancing, pulling himself further and further and not even she could lift him out the hole he had dug. If only he had listened to the dying man’s warning before Henry had killed with his own hands. Perhaps he had been consumed even before, how could a sane person beat someone to death as violently as he had?

Dr. Brenner had meant to fix him. His mom had called him. She didn’t want her son living with them anymore, not after she’d found the dead neighbor’s cat in his floorboards. Dr. Brenner listened to this story with a sense of fascination though at Mr. Mittens and how he had kept hissing at Henry during his walks home. “How had you done it, Henry?” He’d ask kindly, patiently. Not as though he was waiting for the reply of a monster, but just as curious as one would ask for the time.

He rubbed his wrist with his thumb. It looked decayed. Brenner had said that it was in his blood, that there was something abnormal and they were running more tests.

The true form of the black thing would come in his dreams. Henry had drawn it and longed to be near it like it was a grieving wound. It would understand him, he believed. It knew exactly how rotten everyone in the world was and offered a clean solution to the problem. Forget Brenner, Henry had the real fix. It wasn’t him that needed to change, it was everything around him. He just had to find it; that voice.

“Will! Will?!” Someone says, achingly familiar and thick with panic.

He blinks, a little disorientated and takes him a second to set aside the anger to focus. He follows the voice. On instinct, Henry glances down to his wrist. It’s not withered, it’s not rotting, there’s not even a hint of blackened veins. Mike grabs a hold of his hand and pulls, which is presumably meant to drag him away, but instead it backfires and Will trips over himself and falls. He falls on the ground and the force clears his mind. A demogorgon opens its face and Will remembers that he’s not Henry and the main emotion he feels currently is guilt. The demogorgon’s face opens up and screams, showing rows and rows of gross dental work.

Will freezes.

Across the terrain, Steve’s hacking at the bats wildly, Nancy’s reloading as something charges her, and Lucas is desperately trying to get the monster’s attention for Dustin’s sake. And Mike, Mike clambers back to Will’s side and throws a fistful of sand at the monster’s open mouth which only serves to anger the monster more and give it a dry crunchy taste in its mouth.

The demogorgon howls and is about to launch their claws at the two of them and that’s what finally snaps Will out of his stupor. He catches it before the attack can land. The thing halts, completely still. With another hand, he makes all the rest of the monsters pause as well.

They’re feasted by the hate Henry had felt. They’re thoughts are muddled with disgust Henry had for the world and they don’t really think much more than that. They simply just act. Will understands it now.

When the Mind Flayer had reached him, in a way, he’d felt the pull on his mind too, but he had always had his people on his side. People that would desperately try to reel him back whenever he started straying. He’d never felt alone, not truly and he definitely did not feel the anger and hopelessness that Henry had. Will belonged, he was loved, and he loved. Sometimes so much that it hurt him.

Will pushes against the walls of the hive mind, letting all his happiest memories of his life seep through. He thinks of his friends while they bicker and play games at the arcade, he thinks of his mom and Jonathan jamming to The Cure on the car radio. He thinks of Mike who is endlessly brave and cares for his friends unconditionally. He thinks of anything and everything. He channels it and when the monsters release, they look lost, like they forgot what they were just doing.

Will blinks as the area grows quiet now that they’ve all collectively frozen. The hundreds of bats hover in the air strangely. The shell of the demogorgons slackens and doesn’t so much as twitch. Will’s nose runs and he wipes it with his sleeve.

“What’d you do?” Mike stares at them in wonder. The tension loosens in his shoulders as he looks more bewildered than anything. He peers closer at the demogorgon in front of them with curiosity as if it hadn’t been about to eat their throats out.

Will frowns, straightening up. “I don’t know. I just thought about—I don’t know.”

“You got them all. You saved us.” He turns to him but as soon as his gaze lands on him, his smile drops. Concern tightens back onto his features an instant. “Will, your eye.”

“What?” Will isn’t following. His eye? What did that have to do with anything and why was Mike looking at him like something was wrong? He lifts his hand and touches his cheek. It feels fine. He’s seeing fine. “What about it?”

“It’s…It’s got these black things around it.” He gestures vaguely, pointing up at his own face.

His mind drifts back to Henry’s hand and how it was growing rotten once he picked up the crystal and fear worms into his chest, just like Henry had felt. Growing and traveling, spreading despair like cancer.

“Is it bad?” He asks. He suddenly wishes that there was a mirror so he could see it for himself. How big is it? Is it growing across his face? It will consume you.

“No, it’s—“ Mike hesitates and his stomach drops. It must be bad. “I’ve just never seen it before. Maybe you overstrained yourself?”

It’s a lame explanation. Whenever El overstrains, the pressure around her eyes goes away almost immediately after. They don’t stick around to haunt her face. Mike must know this too since he knows El better than Will does but he doesn't say anything more about it. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Anyway, what happened back there? You said it was a memory? You just sat there and your eyes rolled back and I was calling your name, but I don’t think you heard.”

“I heard you.”

“You did?”

Will nods though he isn’t even sure why that was an important detail he had to correct. He clambers for some better, more relevant answers from the vision. “It was Henry’s memory from before…”

“He went psycho?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” He says. “I thought he was controlling the hive mind but I think he’s just as a part of it as they are. They all run on the same thoughts.”

“Whose thoughts?” Mike asks. “Who’s controlling it then?”

The answer feels obvious to Will, but maybe he’s biased. It was hard to forget the mind flayer when it haunted him so viciously during that fall years prior. But the name pauses in his throat though because it’s dawned on him that something else is wrong. The presence of it sticks like gum under his seat and his eyes drift up. The rest of the land is clear other than the spindly spires of Vecna’s lair.

Find me.

Find me.

Shivers rake his skin. “We need to turn around.” He says quickly. The others are not so far away from each other and with all the monsters being frozen in place, they’re coming closer to them. Joyce is holding a hand over her bloodied arm and it makes Will feel slightly ill.

“What? Why?”

“It’s been waiting for us to get closer.”

Jonathan reaches them first. His gaze rakes from Will and then to Mike and he picks up their matching expression immediately. “What’s wrong?”

Will doesn’t even need to answer because almost as if the thing knows it’s been caught, the ground trembles and the fingertips on the spire twitch. There’s an eerie scuttling as the Mind Flayer emerges from its ambush. The claw turns into spider legs and it flips itself right around. Its body is a solid mass, nothing like the gas version that Will was familiar with, and nothing like the dead rat version. The mouth unhinges and it lets out a piercing cry.

The giant spider seems to get a bearing on walking again after not being on its feet for a little, and it’s come right toward all of them.

Will shuts his eyes and steps back into the hive mind again and just like that, the demogorgon next to them comes back to life. Mike startles, but the monster doesn’t give them a second thought. Instead it runs at one of the legs of the Mind Flayer and tries to claw it off. The dozen of other demos, like a collective thought just popped in their brains, start doing the same and the bats dive into the spider’s face, giving them some time. The spider snaps a few out of the air and eats them like bugs.

“Go, go, go!” Mike calls out and they take the distraction to run towards the outer canyons. They’re all scattered across the field now and he wills himself not to look to see if any of them has got caught up because he can’t slow down. Joyce runs at his side. A giant sharp leg nearly steps right on her but just before it can land, a demogorgon takes the hit and it gets kebabed by the sharp spear of the Mind Flayer’s leg. Will keeps running.

They make it to a tiny opening where the canyon wall has a divot of space. They slide into the cave which is a dead end and really not big at all. Will spins and sees his mom who is about to join them, but before she can, a spidery leg hits the wall and boulders tumble down which block the entrance.

The cave entrance becomes covered in a heap of rubble. He can’t see his mom anymore. Everywhere he is just looking is now blocked by large, immovable rocks.

“Mom!” He screams but it’s pointless. There’s no pulling her into safety and she’s trapped with the Mind Flayer. He listens and hears the buzzing of all the monsters and it’s so loud that he can’t hear anything else. Has she screamed? Is she dying? Will tries to push and shove but to no avail. The rocks weigh tons and Will has never been particularly strong anyway.

Light shines down from the top. There’s a narrow gap up high enough but Will can’t get there to see anything. Without anything else to do, he does the next best thing he can think of. He sees through the hive mind and it feels as if it’s become second nature by now. There’s not much still alive anymore. A couple bats fly overhead and he takes their red blurry vision and sees the Mind Flayer crashing into walls. It’s reckless and clumsy like it’s not used to its body at all. Will strains himself to look closer but he doesn’t see anyone getting mauled to death.

He calms and steps out of it and the exhaustion hits him like a crushing force. He falls to the floor and tries to catch his breath as his eye begins to sting.

“What happened? Where’s the others?” Mike says which nearly startles Will half to death. He forgot there was someone else here.

Pokes of light seep through the cracks and it lights it up enough where he sees all the red-brown rock they’re stuck in. Mike is there with him staring at him worryingly and pacing.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see them.”

“Okay, okay, hold on.” Mike joins him where the entrance is caved. He lays his hands on one of the boulders that’s so clearly lodged tightly in place. “If we work together, we could push the rock out.”

Mike is already pulling his full body weight and leaning. Will rights himself and turns to the rock again.

“Will, you’re not even trying!” And it’s true. Will isn’t. He’s drained and he knows it’s not going anyway so he’s only half in it.

“It’s not gonna move.” Will tells him.

“It might! If you would just try—“

Will cuts him off, “And even if it does, then what? We slingshot a pebble at the Mind Flayer?”

“The gun. Nancy gave it to me. I could shoot its mouth or something.”

“That’s a flare, Mike. She gave you a flare gun.”

“Yeah, well we could—“

“We could what, Mike?” Will snaps. “There’s nothing we can do! The rocks won’t budge and even if they do, then what?”

“Well, we’re no use trapped here! They’re on the other side with it. We have to help them!”

The walls shake as the Mind Flayer bodies itself against the canyon walls. Pebbles flit around the floor and Mike is nearly knocked off balance from the force.

Will shakes his head. “It hasn’t gotten to them yet. Listen to it.” He says and sure enough there’s the rock pounds and the pebbles scatter to the floor as the mind flayers body must shove himself into the walls. “If it’s trying so hard it means that we’re all in the caves. And if I didn’t see them through the hive mind it means that they’re not dying right now.”

Mike isn’t listening to him. He’s using his entire body to shove some of the rocks in place. They show no signs and budging and when he gets tired, he whacks the stone. He makes frustrated
grunt and then finally gives in and slouches against the wall. He holds his hands against his head and Will’s stomach droops at the sight.

“Look, I’m really sorry. This is all my fault.” Will tells him sadly. “He said he was using me as a spy and I just—I feel so stupid again. I missed all the signs. I knew something was off and I could’ve warned everyone.”

For once, Mike is sitting disturbingly still. He’s been increasingly fidgety ever since they left the Squawk and he’s never even been very good at sitting still before then either. Then finally, he shakes his head.

“This wasn’t your fault, don’t think like that. You saved everyone out there. You pulled the strings on the hive mind. You saved us.”

“It doesn’t feel like that.” Will slowly sinks down and sits against the rock next to him. Mike doesn’t look up. “It’s just weird being so connected and feeling all that. Like sometimes it’s hard to tell who is who, you know? There’s Vecna and the Mind flayer and all their pets. It’s so easy to get lost in it.”

“You’re different from them.” Mike tells him with unwavering certainty like it was just a plain fact. Will wished he believed it with as much confidence as Mike felt about it. He swallows and leans his head back. The rock feels cool on his hair.

“When I was in Henry’s memory,” he starts slowly and Mike looks over at him, listening intently. “I saw him just as this little kid. He was even trying to help someone. And that’s the thing is that he was just so normal. But then he got this…disease or whatever he had and it was spreading and he just let it. And I was feeling what he was feeling, and thinking his thoughts, and it was all confusing because for a second, I thought it was me.”

“You’re not.”

“I know that. But this disease he had—“

“Disease?”

“Well, not exactly like that. More like an attuned item.” He corrects.

Mike’s brows furrow. “In D&D.”

“Yeah and you get its curse after.”

“Okay, so Henry got this curse.”

Will nods and the words are coming quicker now that Mike was starting to understand. “It was like this feeling I can’t describe but I felt it. But it was familiar because I think I got cursed too. Back when the Mind Flayer was possessing me and I know we got it out but the connection has always been there.”

“But that’s from Vecna.”

Will looks at him darkly. “They’re all connected, Mike. That’s the problem.”

“Do you feel evil?”

“No, not inherently. But that doesn’t mean down the road I won’t. I mean it took years for Henry to get consumed. He seems to think it’s a matter of time before I help him and now I feel like I already have.” He touches his hand to his eyelid and feels the ridges of the black spindly veins. He doesn’t need a mirror to know exactly what they look like and that’s what scares him.

Will keeps going. “I know we’re not the same. His life seemed like it really sucked but I just can’t shake this feeling that I’m just like him at the same time.”

“Will, you’re not gonna turn into him. You’re not following his master plan, or whatever. And if you are then his plan sucks because it’s not working. The Mind flayer couldn’t sneak up on us, you turned the demos against him and their own hive mind, might I add, and you’re still going out of your way to help us defeat them. That doesn’t sound very evil.”

“His plans can be complex.”

“Stop thinking so hard about this. No one here believes you’re out to get us.” Mike says. “And stop touching your eye. It’s not proof. You’re just strained from seeing into the hive mind for so long.”

Will smiles and puts his hand down. “Alright, alright.” He says, trying to do his best to look annoyed but he already feels significantly calmer. It had been nice to get it off his chest. The thought has been gnawing at him ever since Vecna captured him in his own mind.

The wall shakes again as the Mind Flayer crawls around somewhere. “Henry didn’t have a lot of people by his side that he felt really cared for him.” Will says after another moment. He hopes Mike gets what he means without elaborating much. “We’re different in that way.”

He thinks Mike does because he smiles at him. It’s one of those soft and kind ones that reaches his eyes. Will feels like he’d never in his right mind turn evil when Mike is looking at him like that and the worries ebb away.

Behind them and muffled through the thick rock wall, the Mind Flayer screeches and they look away from each other.

“Has it gotten anyone?” Mike asks him.

“I don’t think so. It’s too antsy.”

He nods. “I wish there was something more we could do. It’s weird not knowing what’s happening out there.” He says. He pauses and his eyebrows furrow, suddenly looking very troubled. “Do you think El is still fighting in Vecna’s mind?”

Will thinks about it for a moment, “I’m not sure. I didn’t see her. From what I saw, Henry was chasing after the children.”

“Do you think something’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

Mike tips his head back against the rock and groans in frustration. “I just hate feeling so useless.” He says. “You know, Holly told me about Mr. Whatsit and how there were monsters here and I told her that they didn’t exist.”

“You couldn’t have known what she meant.”

“It was obvious something was wrong. I told her about Mike the Brave how he’s never scared, but it’s not even true! I think I’m scared all the time and I don’t know how to show it, I don’t even know how to say it.”

Will frowns. In his mind, Mike is always the one to say what he really thinks, no matter how someone else takes it. Will, on the other hand, has been the one to stay quiet and go along with whatever’s happening. He’ll never admit it because he also finds it incredibly irritating, but he admires that Mike is so headstrong. In fact, Will wishes he were a little like that more, but when he tries, it doesn’t fit and he ends up just being overly difficult.

“I think we have a right to be scared.” Will counters instead. It’s a given but for some reason, Mike shakes his head like he disagrees.

“I’m not talking just about Hawkins though. I thought what you did was really brave. At the Squawk, I mean. That was you saying how you felt.”

He laughs. “I was terrified.”

“But you still said it. That’s what made it brave. I just, I don’t know, I wish I could say the things I mean like that.”

Will gets Déjà vu from last year when Mike had said something along the same lines. It’s what Mike and El had gotten into that fight about because Mike had needed to say something that he didn’t. “Is this about El?” He asks him.

Mike blinks, confused. “El?”

“What she wanted you to say last year. That you would still be together if you said that thing.”

“Oh yeah, yeah.” He frowns and it doesn’t seem all that convincing. “Yeah. Some of it, I guess. She called me out on not saying how I felt. It’s the reason why she ended it.”

“I’m sorry,” Will says on instinct. It had been a month or two from the earthquake and Will remembered it was late when Mike had knocked on the basement door. Will had trouble gathering the words to comfort Mike. It was entirely out of his element and even still, he felt incredibly sad for him.

“No, no. Don’t be. God, that was ages ago and it probably should’ve happened earlier to be honest. It’s like those conversations are the hardest because I can screw it up so bad so I just force it all down, you know? And I put myself in a hole because it’s even worse to wait so long because then I think that the moment I say it, that will be what messes everything up.”

Will is having a hard time keeping up. Who is this about? “I don’t think saying how you feel is a bad thing. Unless you’re saying that you feel negatively about that person?”

“What? No, oh my god, no. That’s not—“ Mike rubs his hands over his eyes. “God, I don’t even know why I’m admitting all this. It’s too late and it’s a terrible time, I know. The world is ending and there are way more important things right now.”

“Well, maybe that makes it a good time. I wouldn’t want to leave any regrets.”

Mike looks up at him then, really looks. It’s the first time he held his gaze for this entire conversation and Will’s breath hitches. He truly hasn’t moved on at all despite what he would want to believe. It’s pathetic really how he feels like he may never move on from Mike Wheeler no matter how hard he tries. He may as well meet 100 perfect guys and somehow find a way to return to the one that he’s known for his whole life and will never like him back.

“You think?”

“It’s not illegal to tell the people you care about that you care.”

“Would you tell them?”

“What?”

“That—that person you said you liked.” Mike says, hesitant to get the words out. “Would you tell him?”

The walls pound much louder this time and Will jumps. The Mind Flayer is right outside, he can practically feel it breathing down his neck. One of its black legs slithers into the gap of the cave and the two of them are up in an instant, standing like rods and attempting to take up as little space as possible.

The leg is moving around the cave and none of them dare make a sound. Does it know where they are? Can it feel Will? The light from the cave disappears as something blocks it, and then the light returns as it shifts away.

The walls shake with much more ferocity now as if the Mind Flayer is slamming itself right against their door. Rocks tumble down from the wall and Will ducks his head and hopes for the first time that the rocks are seriously lodged in there.

They inch away against the wall so they’re not at the risk of getting crushed by the boulders, but the Mind Flayer is far too frustrated and relentless at the moment and the ground shakes so much that Mike loses his balance. He falls to the floor with a solid thud and it’s not loud by any means, but the Mind Flayer’s leg pauses.

Will reaches out and tries to pick him up as quietly as he can but as he does, the leg shoots over and grapples Mike’s ankle.

Mike is getting pulled now. Will already has his hand and he’s desperately pulling back and Mike’s yelping in pain. “Get it off me, get it off me!”

He hangs tight and tries to unhook its claws. When it doesn’t work he takes a rock and hacks at the thing wildly. The leg twitches but it’s too armored to do any real damage and Will is trying anything and everything to pull Mike away but he’s slipping.

The panic is thick on his tongue and he hears himself saying Mike’s name as the boy is slowly getting lifted into the gaps of the rocks. Will is pulling so tightly that he fears he’s dislocating an arm and just when Mike is up a foot in the way, they both drop.

Will hits the floor and Mike falls on top of him which knocks the wind out. He lifts his head and sees the long black leg which has been severed cleanly off.

What the?

Mike turns up and as he does, one of the boulders that blocked the entrance vanishes into thin air and the sudden amount of light is blinding. He hears the Mind Flayer make a disgruntled noise of pain though and it is skittering away.

He blinks as another boulder shoots away and the monster winces as it gets flung right at its face.

Will is frozen and wonders what in the world just happened.

A human figure emerges from the cave opening. Eleven looks their way curiously and the two boys spring away from each other. Mike flies to his feet and stands like a light post as far as he can away from where Will had just been.

It’s so quick that Will can barely register what in the world just happened.

“El!” Mike says. “You’re here.”

“Yes.” She responds to him like the eloquent conversationalist she is. Will smiles at her because as dazed as he is, he’s ecstatic to see her. “Are you okay?”

“We’re fine.” Mike responds quickly. He scans her for any signs of injuries but other than her hair looking like it lost the fight with a blow dryer, she looks completely fine. “What about you? What happened?”

Clearly the plan had fallen through. El should be fighting in Vecna’s mind right now with Kali and Max. Maybe she had already tried and they couldn’t get to Vecna’s physical form to do any good. They must be winging it now.

“Where is Vecna?” She asks them.

“We haven’t seen him.” Mike says, but at the same time, Will tells her, “He’s there.”

He feels both of their gaze pointed towards him. El narrows her gaze at him, and then towards the Mind Flayer where he was pointing.

“There’s a room under the mouth, I think it’s the ribcage. It’s where the heart is and Vecna’s there with all the kids.” Will explains, his cheeks reddening at the attention. He knows he’s right about this but at the same time, has enough awareness to understand that if he were anybody else in this situation, he wouldn’t trust himself in the slightest. He led them astray one too many times to be trusted so easily like that. “You’ll see it beating. If you can stop it by using your powers then you’ll be able to kill it.”

The mind flayer seems to reorient itself and lifts the stump of its snapped leg. It focuses and muscle slowly grows and reforms. At last, El nods her head. “Okay. I’ll need it distracted so I can get there.”

“We’ll need the others.” Will says. He scans through the canyon walls and doesn’t have a single clue where they could’ve hid or how in the world they’ll be able to find them in time.

“I can get their attention.” Mike offers like he’s reading his mind. He pulls the gun out of his vest, aims it up past the mind flayer’s head, then up further so it’s straight into the sky and shoots it. It fires with a loud crisp pop and a stream of blue smoke burrows itself distinctly against the backdrop of gold. Mike watches it proudly and leans over to El. “Nancy gave it to me. Pretty useful right? She trusts me with those kinda things.”

“Very cool,” El says distractedly which translates to she doesn’t really care at all and it makes Will laugh.

“Are you sure? I don’t know if you really think so.”

“It’s very cool, Mike.” Will says to him.

“Thank you, Will!”

El throws another rock as the Mind Flayer regains its bearings. It has all of its legs again and it's as if it never even lost one. They run around the canyon edges and Mike reloads his flare. He fires another one just for good measure.

Amazingly, it works. After the third flare is shot into the sky, the rest of the party begins to cautiously peak their head out. When they join them and spot Eleven, they already seem to know the plan. Nancy and Mike rattle off the specifics of the distraction and as quick as that, they’re all on the same page.

They split up to cover as many sides at once. Nancy shoots it, Lucas lights fireworks, Mike keeps trying and failing to aim for its eyes with the flare, and Steve and Dustin begin to poke its legs. They only mildly irritate the thing; it’s too big and its armor is too thick to really do anything to it, but the distraction is all they need. When the thing bends down to try to eat them, Eleven takes full advantage. She hops up, opens his chest and punctures through as if she’s been training for it her whole life.

Will sticks with Mike. Unlike the rest of the hive mind, there is nothing Will can do against it. There feels like there’s an impenetrable barrier between them that for the life of him, he can’t tap into. There are very few bats still alive so he takes their control and makes them flit around its head like horseflies.

Eventually, the spider begins to slow in its movements as Will assumes must be El’s doing. It tries to aim for them with its claws, but his movements become too sloppy to be able to hit anything. Mike and Will back away, giving it plenty of space as it writhes and finally, finally crumples to the floor in a heap and puffs of sand are sent skittering across the field. The legs twitch and shake until they close in on itself and they can be sure that the thing is dead for good.

Cautiously, they make their way closer. As the sand begins to clear, El’s figure emerges from the body. She looks worn-down and exhausted. There’s dried blood under both her nostrils and her hair is partly undone.

Mike rushes toward her and embraces her. “El! You did it!”

She shakes her head with a deep frown on her lips. “Vecna wasn’t there.” She informs them grimly.

“What?”

“It was empty. He’s not in there.”

They both turn to Will, who looks down. That didn’t make sense. He was certain that Vecna was just there, more certain than he felt about anything. He could practically feel his presence, breathing down his neck, watching through the eyes of the spider. It couldn’t be right.

“He was under the heart, I swear I had seen him. He had those cords on his back. He wasn’t there?”

She shakes her head again in response and Will’s heart hammers. There’s something wrong. Vecna must be messing with him? How much is he still rummaging through his mind and filling things that aren’t there? Is he even to be trusted at all?

“Maybe he ran away.” Mike interjects. “Maybe he’s afraid.”

Will knows with certainty that that’s not it. When he was in the memory, he felt when Henry was rippling with fear and emotion, and now he feels nothing as if the water has grown an eerie calm. It isn’t right.

He stares across the land as if he’d spot him on top of the canyons, but the landscape shows nothing. The air feels weighted and when he keeps scanning, and that’s when he’s struck by the fact that there’s nothing at all. Where there was once his friends, his mom, Steve, and Robin, there’s now just an empty wasteland.

In his ears, the distinct chime of a grandfather clock rings. He jumps, spinning forward but Mike and El are gone too. Where the mind flayer’s body was sprawled out just seconds ago is now just an empty plot of land. Will keeps turning, but it’s as if no one else has ever been there at all. The barren and hollowed land stretches for miles and miles, as far as he can see and he’s completely alone in it.

He swallows thickly as the clock rings again. Goosebumps spread alit on his skin causing him to shiver. “Mike?” He calls out, knowing there will be no response. Even still, he needs to try anyway. “El?!”

He feels Vecna's pull like a magnet and his stomach drops. He swallows thickly and already that hopeless feeling is crawling back to him. Will’s feet lift off the ground and he’s pushed like a race car speeding down a track. The scene begins to blur and he squints.

When he focuses, the first thing he notices is how much darker the world has gotten. The sun is gone. There’s no more sky, just a dark foggy haze of gray and he recognizes it immediately. He’s in the woods by his house.

Will stares, unable to do anything else as a small, 12-year-old Will, nearly pale and half-frozen sneaks into his backyard. The young Will keeps looking around as if whatever was out there could find him for just breathing wrong and he looks about as terrified as a child can be.

When he reaches his back door, Will takes one last glance to make sure he wasn’t being followed and slinks in. The older Will follows. His house looks run down and vines trail the walls and floor. Beads of white soot flitter across the rooms and Will hears his mom. She’s muffled, but he picks up her words. “Will? Please talk to me, please tell me you’re here.”

Will then sees his tiny self, pointing towards a trail of Christmas lights and seeing them light under his fingertips. He goes toward the radio and fiddles with the knobs until he hears the muffled, distorted music of those familiar guitar riffs of The Clash.

He sees himself, standing in the living room and hearing his mom ask him where he was and not knowing himself. ‘Right here’, he points to. It isn’t helpful. He’s here but he’s not at all, but he was scared and lost and had no idea what else there was. He’s in his house and yet not at the same time and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out anymore than that.

“I don’t know what that means,” he hears his mom say in a rush, “I don’t know, tell me, I don’t know.”

Tiny-Will can’t tell her though. He doesn’t know either.

He watches as Tiny-Will does his best in the situation even as he’s doing it while shaking in fright. He watches himself run, hide, shiver, try and try to talk to his mom. He watches the monster with no face try to rip out the wall of the room. He listens to himself cry, hum, hears his teeth chatter. He feels what Tiny-Will is feeling and that growing and terrifying dread. That no matter what he does, what he tries, the cold follows. He will die in this dark, damp version of his home. The fear of it feels as fresh as yesterday.

By the time he’s watching himself get fistfuls of sleep in Castle Byers with sullen eyes and fingers blue, he has had enough of watching this.

“Why are you in my mind?” Present, older, still a little scared Will says to no one at all. The world doesn’t answer him. He spins, watching through the picket of boney trees. He knows that someone has heard him.

Sure enough, a low rumbling voice replies to him. “I know your mind better than anyone else, William. You were the easiest to get to.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Why? We make such a good team, you and I? I told you once before that we could do great things together. You were the first, and you could never truly leave our connection.”

“I saw your memory.” Will says, trying to keep his voice steady. He’s still looking around, waiting for his face to appear but he’s just speaking to the ghost of a forest. “You were just a boy. You got corrupted and you felt wronged by the world. The Mind Flayer is dead. You don’t need to keep fighting. You can make the choices the 10 year-old-you would’ve wanted you to make.”

“Not very wise, Will.” He rumbles back in response. “The body is dead. You should know better than anyone what the true form really looks like.”

The scene shifts and now Will is 13 years old and furiously scribbling a stick of charcoal against paper. On the table, there’s at least four different drawings of the same black spindly figure. It stands against the clouds, a silhouette of gas, and hovering over a poorly drawn and colorless version of Hawkins Middle. Will looks closely at the shape and thinks for how long this figure has plagued his dreams.

“This is supposed to make me want to join you?” Will asks him. He’s had enough of this already, but against his will, the scene keeps distorting and shifting and he doesn’t have any control over it.

He’s in his own bathroom now. There’s a slug crawling through the drain of the sink and he looks up to the mirror. In the reflection stands the current version of himself. His haircut is chopped and messy, his sweater is a little filthy from grime and sand, but the thing that catches him most is his left eye. Surrounding it, black veins begin to crawl away into his face. He holds his hand to his cheek and stares.

“You already have.” The voice tells him.

He snaps the bathroom door open and tries to leave, but he’s in his living room and everywhere in his house is littered with papers of connecting lines. On his desk 13-Year-old Will is scratching his crayon like a mad man on a paper before shoves it to the floor and continues on a new page. Now 13-year-old Will is pointing to one of his drawings and telling the lab coats that this is where they need to go. That it’s important because something doesn’t want him to see in there. Will is watching his younger self, sitting in the hospital bed straight-faced as he led a dozen soldiers to their deaths.

“Why me?” He asks, looking away. He feels like there are more slugs tossing around in his stomach and no matter what he does, he’ll never be able to rid this feeling of unease. The doctors work their minds to understand, but no one is able to tell him what exactly is wrong with him. He’ll die in a slow and miserable way because who really knows of the long term effects of breathing in the upside-down? He was there for seven days.

Vecna takes his time with his reply and Will stews around in his own discomfort.

“You were not the one I was looking for.” He answers at last. “Some other kid fled into the woods that night and isn’t it funny that two are now fairly well acquainted." He says it like the prospect is something he is deeply amused by. Will scowls. “But now you must know how connected we are after all this time we spent together. You know my presence, I know yours.”

Vecna does appear now. Except he’s Henry Creel and he too looks a little sad. “I know the feeling of being different. I never felt like I could belong after what had happened to me. Who could understand? Who else could? I was isolated and alone, just like you will be. Because people like us, we will never be able to belong. We are different. But that makes us understand each other, perhaps better than anyone.”

Will shakes his head. “You didn’t try to reach out to anybody else. You gave up.”

“They gave up on me!” He snaps.

Will is back in the woods again. Only he’s watching the 14-year-old version of himself now and the sky has grown deep gray and dark. Rain is pouring down his face and his hair is a mop. The sound of rain pounds in his ears he rips up a picture and un-lodges a stick from the fort. He takes it and beats and hacks until Castle Byers is just a hobble of wood in the mud.

“We are not the same.” Will says. There are tears stinging his face and he’s given up on wiping them away. Henry stands next to him as the scene keeps playing and then 14-year-old Will collapses in the dirt.

He turns to Will, sympathetic. “They treated me differently. My mom knew something had changed when I came back from that trip. She heard the story, but never brought it up. They only treated me like I was something weak and fragile. Like I’d break all over again if they said something wrong.”

“I’m not joining you.”

“But to live is to suffer. I’d make my choice again and again. You too can make that. You can get everything you need here if you just let it.” He says and cups a hand to Will’s face. His fingers feel cold to the touch. “No one will reach you. Just like no one reached me.”

Will’s vision blurs, the feeling of bleak dread clings to him.

“Will? Will?” Someone is saying, somewhere from far away.

“Will? Will, are you listening?”

Will jerks up lazily. He blinks, feeling like he just had spaced out for an eternity. What was he just thinking about? He tries to remember since it felt important but when he tries, it slips from his grasp like sand through his fingers. He stares at the cluttered table in front of him. Dustin, Lucas, Max, and Mike blink back at him expectantly. “Huh?”

“It’s your turn.” Mike explains. “The Thessalhydra is attacking your city of Hawkingvale, the place where you all grew up. It’s screeching menacingly and laying a claw on the town hall. Your action!”

Will stares, frowning at the map. There’s a multi-headed dragon figure centered on the D&D board right in the middle of a town of tiny red house Monopoly pieces. Beneath him, he checks his character sheet for his spells, searching how to best deal with the situation.

“Fireball him!” Dustin eggs on.

Max rolls her eyes. “If I hear Will say he’s gonna cast fireball one more time, I’m going to lose it.”

“That’s the best spell, of course he’s going to cast fireball.” Lucas defends.

“Well?” Max prompts and they all lean closer, waiting for his decision.

“Um,” For some reason his brain feels sluggish and he can’t decide the move he wants to make. Should he start offensive? Should he protect the town? What is the Thessalhydra doing in the city anyway? What had the campaign been about? The details on it slips away and he struggles to think back.

“The Thessalhydra begins to advance on the townsfolk as Will the Wise can’t make up his mind! It’s rearing its nasty heads and it looks like it’s gonna chomp down on Horace the dwarven bartender!”

“Will!”

“Okay, okay!” He says and chews on his lip. He could cast shield and protect himself and the members of his party, but then again, he could prone the creature so they could get an advantage on the next turn. That would probably be helpful. Fireball is always an option. Do they really have a chance against the Thessalhydra? Is it worth it to even fight at all? “I’ll cast Synaptic Static.” He settles on after scanning the list of spells twice over.

“Going for psychic warfare, huh?” Mike muses, throwing some dice on the board for the creature’s saving throw. He checks the number it lands on and pauses dramatically. “The Thessalhydra takes 6 points of damage and its eyes become glossy and confused as if it completely forgot what it was doing!”

His friends cheer and Will smiles as the turn moves to someone else. He takes the moment to peer at his notepad under his character sheet and catches himself up. It’s starting to come back to him now.

The battle continues and Will quickly gets lost in the immersion. Mike’s basement has the same smell it always down and there’s a quilted blanket pulled on his lap. All his friends are entirely invested in defeating the enemy and he doesn’t remember the last time he felt this. Will watches, captivated as Mike makes his overly grand gestures and noises when the Thessalhydra grows weaker. His soft curls are lapping over his ears and stray just barely over the tops of his eyebrows and it makes his dark eyes stand out more. Will has always thought that Mike became hypnotic when he was telling the story he was most excited to tell and this Mike, this Mike is bleeding in enthusiasm.

The battle may as well end with the Thessalhyrdra killing all of them in one blow and Will would think it was the best campaign he ever played. Thankfully, it doesn’t though and they save their hometown.

“Well, did it end?” Max asks while putting on her sweater.

“Next session.” Mike replies.

“Next session? But we killed the villain so what else is there left?”

“Oh, that’s just what we think we did.” Lucas says, grimacing. Besides Max, the rest of them have played enough of Mike’s stories to know that it is never as easy, uncomplicated as that. Max groans and they make their goodbyes for the night. The cold, winter air sneaks through the open door as the group leaves and Will shivers. He’s glad that he doesn’t have to bike home.

The two of them go back downstairs and Will helps Mike clean up the basement and refold all the blankets. It’s nearly midnight and Will wasn’t sure how the hours had flown so quickly. He clears the table and picks up the tiny multi headed figurine. It was laid face down after Dustin had the killing blow with his enchanted axe-guitar. He stares at it, turning it over in his hands. “So is the Thessalhydra really dead?” He asks, looking up.

“Hey!” Mike snags the piece out of his hands playfully and he’s smiling. “I can’t just tell you the ending. You’ll have to wait for the others to see.”

“Or I could just take a peek at your notes while you’re sleeping.”

Mike gives him a leveling look. “I will kick you out of my house, Byers.” He says sternly which only makes Will chuckle because it’s the furthest thing from the truth. It was Mike who had been the one to convince his family to take in Will and Jonathan until they’re able to make more permanent living arrangements in Hawkins. Which, because of the Earthquake, means the for the unforeseeable future. But Mike’s mom is kind, Mike is relentlessly persuasive, and he’s always going out of his way to look after Will.

He moves past Mike’s binder and instead puts the folded quilt blanket back on the top of the couch. While he does, he notices something on the wall that he hadn’t before. There, above the couch and near a couple other hung-up drawings, is Will’s painting.

“You hung it up.” Will says. He feels like it had been forever since he saw it last and he almost forgot the little details that he’d once strained his wrist so meticulously to get. When he looks close, he catches the tiny brushstrokes on their insignias and then the red heart on Mike’s shield. It was strange how he had worked on it for a month straight and now the painting feels like a stranger again.

“What? Oh, I hung it up a while ago.” Mike tells him, frowning. “How long have you been down here and never noticed it?”

Had he? Will has spent countless nights in this basement already and he never had given it a glance. Had it just hidden in plain view and Will had never even batted an eye towards it? He had never really known what Mike had done with it once he gave it to him. “I don’t know. I’m just surprised.”

“Why? It’s a good painting. It’s great, actually and I’m really glad you made it for me.”

“It was nothing.” Will says dismissively. He had a first draft of the painting that he scrapped after the first week because it wasn’t what he pictured in his head. The next day he got a new canvas and tried again.

“No, it’s not. No one’s ever taken the time to make me something like that. I just don’t know if I ever really thanked you for it.”

“Thanked me?” Will echoes, more confused now. Why would Mike thank him? Wouldn’t he be thanking El after Will had told him that the whole thing was her idea? But Mike’s voice has softened and he sounds so genuine about it.

“Sometimes I think back to that year and I was so messed up. I guess I just felt lost, like I wasn't sure if I was doing anything useful. But what you said in the van, I felt like I needed to hear that.”

“It was a weird year,” he agrees but his mind is having a hard time keeping up. Wouldn’t Mike be having this discussion with El? Will had meant everything he said in that van of course. He poured his whole heart as closely he could without actually pouring it because he attributed it all to El.

“Yeah,” Mike says and lets the silence linger between them. He looks like there’s something else he wants to say but he’s holding back.

Not knowing what else to do, Will pulls out the spare mattress and begins to make his bed for the night. Mike is quiet, watching him and alarm bells are already ringing in Will’s mind. What else is going on in that brain? What is he not saying? Does he know? The back of his neck prickles and he smooths the wrinkles in the blanket. Mike must’ve figured it out; he’s not an idiot. The painting had been a terrible idea and he should’ve left that stupid thing in Lenora. It criminalized him too much.

“What?” He turns when he can’t take the silence anymore. What is Mike thinking? What is he turning over in his mind? Has he figured Will’s feelings as plain as day this whole time and he was just pretending to ignore it for his sake. The thought makes him ill. “What is it?”

“What? Oh, no, nothing.” But Mike looks completely caught off guard now and he averts his gaze now. “I was just thinking.”

Obviously, Will thinks to himself and searches his face as if it will give him any answers. It doesn’t. “Is that a new thing?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point.” Mike says. “I was just thinking, you know that it’s pretty cold. In here.”

Is that all? Will untenses because that is an incredibly tame observation. Mike Wheeler has one thought and that’s all he comes up with?

“Well, yeah it’s the middle of winter.”

“But Jonathan’s gonna spend the night with Nancy again. I overheard them talking about it. And the basement has always been the coldest part of the house. The heat doesn’t reach well here, at least that’s what my mom is always saying.”

“Okay?”

“So you don’t have to spend the night alone here. We could set the spare up in my room like how we used to do.”

“Oh.” So that’s what he was building up to. His first instinct is to refuse outright. He’s slept alone in the basement before; he has a lot of the time ever since he moved in, actually. It’s nothing uniquely different and in Will’s context, it would feel like he’s doing something wrong. But Mike had been the one to ask and his eyebrows are raised as he waits, making him look a mixture of pleading and hopeful.

No, Will thinks. I don’t mind the cold, is the answer he is looking for, even if it’s a downright lie. It’s nice down here. “Sure.” Is what his mouth says outloud. He mentally slaps himself.

“Really? Ok, great! This will be fun. I’ll drag up the spare. You grab your stuff, I’ll meet you there.” Mike is already lugging the mattress in such a rush that he bumps his back on one of the pillars and nearly trips over himself. Will laughs at the absurdity and how plainly Mike it is. Always in such a rush.

Will grabs his pajamas and changes in the bathroom before he heads upstairs. He then lets warm water wash over his hands and rubs his face. His reflection looks back at him, droplets spilling over his cheeks and he frowns. He rubs his eyes, feeling strangely disconnected. It all looks like him but it for some reason doesn’t at the same time. He stares harder as if the answer will come to him, he stares and stares and feels like the room has grown colder and darker.

Then, out of nowhere, the door pounds and he launches backward so fast that he nearly hits his back on the tile behind him. “Will! Get out of there! You need to get out!” Mike's voice screams from the other end. Will jumps and someone is still hammering like thunder on the wood.

Will rips the door open in an instant, feeling like he’s jumping out of his skin. The hinges swing open and they whack the frame. In front of him, the empty basement stares back at him. It’s exactly how he left it.

“Mike?” He says weakly, but he sees immediately that there’s no one else there. It’s deadly quiet. Will stands there and thinks that he must have lost his mind because he swore he had just heard him, right on the other side of the door, just one second earlier. He keeps standing until he gets the creeps and he darts to grab his pillow and blankets. He practically sprints up each of the steps as if there was someone chasing him which he knows is stupid and childish because who else would be down there? But he’s too creeped out to care.

He slows when he makes it to the living room and it’s significantly warmer up there. He sneaks past Mr. Wheeler who is snoozing on the recliner and makes it to Mike’s door which is slightly ajar. He pokes it open to see Mike who has set up the mattress right next to his bed and grabbing extra blankets from his closet. Even just the sight of Mike calms him. He’s not even saying anything, he’s just doing the most mundane and normal thing, yet already the effect it has on Will is immediate and his breathing slows.

“You gonna settle in?” Mike turns to look at him then. “Or are you just gonna stand in my doorway all night.”

Will urges himself forward and plops his things on the mattress.

“What? What is it?”

“No, I just—I thought I heard something downstairs.”

Mike frowns, thinking carefully. “Are you sure it wasn’t the heater? It can make these weird sounds through the pipes.”

It was not. Will has slept in the basement long enough to discern exactly those noises that Mike is talking about. More than that, it hadn’t been just the banging, he heard Mike’s voice, clear as day and close enough that he was may as well been a foot away. But Mike was clearly up here throughout all of that, collecting a mountain of blankets and pillows from his closet and stacking them on the mattress.

Will shakes his head, trying to rid the strange feeling that has been clawing at him since D&D. He could’ve imagined it. He’s been too stressed and being alone in the basement was freaking him out. He collapses on the mattress and parses through the quilts, throws, and sheets. Mike had really been generous with making sure he would be warm. It reminds him when they were kids and would try to make a pillow fort to sleep in.

“Do you think this winter is colder than normal?” Will asks him instead. It feels like an apparent topic change but it’s something he’s been wondering anyway. “Like the upside down is infecting our world?”

“Yeah, sometimes.” Mike says. “But we’re gonna find him. It’s only a matter of time before we can find him in one of our crawls. He must be injured somewhere. Why else would he be hiding? He’s scared.”

“Are you sure? I mean, we already scoured every inch of that place twice over. What if he’s in our world? Or what if he’s somewhere else?”

“What? Every inch? There’s a ton more we haven’t gotten to yet. There's an entire quadrant we’ve barely been to.”

Oh. Right. They started their Dungeon Crawls, as Dustin had coined them (and it’s amusing hearing Hopper refer to it as that), only a few months ago. There’s still a lot of ground they need to cover before he can say they searched every inch of it. So why had he said that? Why does he feel like they’ve already done all of that?

“And if he was in our world, wouldn’t you have felt him?” Mike points out which is again, a good counter.

“Yeah, you’re right.” He says. Perhaps he is being overly negative. Just because they haven’t found anything just yet, doesn’t mean they won’t somewhere down the line. He relaxes and sinks down to the mattress on the floor. Mike always has a way to calm his nerves by his logic and he thinks that it’s why he’s so good at rallying the party. “It’s nice that you’re leading us. It suits you.”

“You really think?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“I feel like my sister’s doing all the heavy lifting.”

“I won’t deny it.” Will smiles and tangles himself under the blanket pile. His skin feels warm and toasty under the layers and he feels strangely at home as he stares at Mike’s walls. Some of the posters are new but the wall has always been the same color since they were kids. The smell from the blankets wafts in his nose and it smells like his detergent and his closet and he’s raptured in it.

“Hey, Will?” Mike breathes after a moment. There’s a nightlight next to his bed which illuminates the room in a dull glow and Will shifts over so he can look at him, but Mike isn’t even looking in Will's direction. His gaze is somewhere on the other side of the room, staring off a million of miles away.

“Yeah?” Will answers back, just as quietly like he’s scared of breaking the spell.

“I’m glad you’re here and that you have my back. With Lucas, Max and Dustin, they’re great and all, but you’ve always told me when I needed to hear. It’s easier to think and do all this when you’re around. I don’t know if that makes sense.”

“No, no I get it.” He says. “It’s easier when we’re a team, right?”

“Right.”

Mike does finally turn to look at Will then. It’s too dark to really see much, but Will soaks up the way the shadows cling on his face. He’s seen Mike for what feels like his whole life, has memorized all the details in his face twice over that he could draw it from memory, but somehow he still feels captivated seeing him now. Mike’s eyes trace his face and Will swears he catches them flickering down. He swallows and he feels like his heart is trying to restart on him.

From his bed, Mike lowers his hand halfway. Will, feeling like he’s in a trance and his arm is outstretching by its own accord. He meets Mike’s hand and just barely grazes Mike’s pointer finger. It’s the lightest of touches but he feels warm like he’d just done the most intimate thing in the world. He half expects Mike to retract his hand but he doesn’t. He lowers it further and Will traces the tips of his fingers so light they’re like ghosts. He hears Mike inhale and Will both feels somehow acutely alert and entirely lost at the same time.

Then, the door bangs like gunshots and Will flies up, nearly throwing himself out of bed and snaps out of the moment. He swivels to the door and fully expects it to swing open and reveal Mr. Wheeler, a demogorgon, or someone on the verge of death, or whoever else would be pounding on Mike’s door at this late hour. His eyes are wide, scanning the shut door but now there’s not so much of a footstep on the other side. There’s no other noise but his rampant beating heart.

“What was that?” He whispers, still half ready to jump out of the bed at a moment’s notice.

Mike, however, looks mildly confused. His brows are knitted together and he’s watching Will with curiosity. “What was what?” He asks.

“The knocking. Who’s out there?”

“No one’s out there.” He says, frowning. “I didn’t hear anything.”

But Will had heard it. As quickly as it came, it stopped and he hadn’t even heard a shuffle from the hallway now. He stays there for several moments, listening intently and the only thing he hears is Mike eventually yawning behind him. “It’s late, Will. Let’s just figure it out in the morning, yeah?”

“You didn’t hear that? It was…It was so loud.”

Mike shakes his head. “Open the door and see for yourself.”

Will frowns and slowly, he lifts the blankets and sneaks to the other side of the room. His hand hovers above the door knob and he gets an eerie unsettling feeling in his gut. He swallows before he rips off the bandaid and opens it. The dark of the hallway greets him. He blinks, staring at it.

“See?” Mike says, his head falling back on his pillow. “What’d I say? No one there.”

Will shuts the door again but he doesn’t move back to his bed. His muscles are tired and he feels fatigued, but now his brain is wired. He can't get rid of the feeling that something is wrong here. Trying to calm himself, he checks Mike’s room again. There’s a cluster of comics thrown on his desk and his closet is half-open. As tidy as Mike’s room was, he was never one to shut the closet door since he would have to use it the next day anyway. It’s all exactly as Will remembers.

Mike has sat up now, but he’s still watching him with a sad, downturned expression and it makes Will feel like he’s the basis of some science project. He sighs tiredly, shaking his head to dispel the growing rotten feeling that was settling in his gut.

“We’re just tired, that’s all.” Mike says gently. He’s treading the waters of placating and sympathy. “It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He finally says. Mike was right, it had been a long day and Will’s exhaustion was deep in his bones. His mind is trying to play tricks and freak him out and what he really needs is sleep. But he doesn’t.

He stands over the mattress and waits. The wind howls from outside and he feels the chill from inside the house and for the life of him, he can’t get himself to sink to the bed.

After a long stretch of silence, nothing seems to happen and Mike breaks it to yawn again. “Nothing’s out there.” He says again.

Will’s head throbs and shutters rattle somewhere outside. It’s all normal Maple street noises and he exhales, trying to shake the feeling in his gut. But then there’s a sharp and sudden knock at the door and he whips his head over. “Will!” A voice on the other side of it says.

Breathing quickly, he’s already on the other side of the room in an instant and he swings the door open. Again, the dark empty hallway greets him and he stares at it in disbelief. He had heard it. He knows for a fact he had. He’s not crazy.

“Something’s wrong.” He mutters quietly, but he’s certain of it.

“Nothing’s wrong, Will.” He rubs his eyes sleepily and he doesn’t even look phased in the least which Will doesn’t get. How did he not hear any of it? “Let’s just sleep in my bed tonight, yeah?”

“You’re not listening to me.”

“I am listening. You’re sounding out of your mind.”

He’s not out of his mind. He knows that there’s something wrong even if he has no idea what. Someone’s trying to break the door down to get to him. He’s so sure of it.

“Something’s wrong, Mike.” He repeats because sometimes Mike can be a little dense at times but he would always take his side immediately when he knows Will is serious about something.

He waits for Mike to realize. He waits for Mike to snap into character and go right into investigative mode so he can figure out what’s going on. And then Will can calm down because someone else knows the stakes as much as he does and Mike has always been determined enough to not stop until he gets to the bottom of it. Will is expecting it.

“Look, Will,” Mike starts and Will knows instantly that Mike is straying from the script he had set in his head.

“No.” He cuts him off. “Don’t even start with that.”

“With what?”

“Like everybody else does. You’re supposed to believe me.”

Mike looks conflicted now like he’s not even sure what his script is either. “I do believe you. I do. It’s just—” He pauses, fumbling for the right words.

“Forget it, Mike.” He doesn’t want to hear anymore. He would go downstairs and sleep in the basement if he could but the thought of going there alone makes his skin crawl when he already feels as unsettled as he is. He’s paused under the doorframe but he knows already that he’s not going to decide to leave Mike’s room.

“Will, can you hear me?” Mike says except he’s quiet and distant and he swears it comes from the hallway behind him. Will spins.

“Did you say that?”

Mike scrunches his face. “Say what?”

The back of Will’s eyes burn with the strain and the low light shadows being cast makes him see the whole room double. He squints, trying to focus but his head begins to feel like it’s attempting to split itself in two. “Snap out of it, Will.” The volume is muffled and so faint that once again, he barely picks it up, but he’s not hallucinating. Someone was trying to talk to him.

Maybe they’re in the upside down? Is that possible? Is Will hearing between worlds? Did someone get stuck while in the crawl? He doesn’t think so, the crawls have been uneventfully boring so far and they would’ve seen immediately that someone didn’t come back. And more than that, this is only Mike’s voice he’s hearing, he’s so sure of it and as far as he knows, Mike has been right in front of him this whole time.

A hand rests on his shoulder and Will startles. Mike is standing right in front of him and his features are softened with careful concern.

“Is that you talking?” Will looks at him.

“Yeah.” He says. “I said let’s go to sleep. Nothing’s gonna happen to you, I’ll be right here.”

He frowns. When had Mike said any of that? His brain feels like it’s spinning in a loop and he can’t stop it for long enough to observe what’s going on with it.

“No. You said something else.”

“Look, I understand being freaked out. I’m scared too. But we’re not gonna figure anything out right now.” Mike says gently. His hand is still firmly resting on Will’s shoulder and it should be comforting, but the pressure only makes him feel more caged in. The walls of the room look like they’re closing in and opening up at the same time.

“Listen, Will.” He swears he hears cutting in and out and Will is straining his ears. In front of him, Mike shows no signs he hears it too, but also is not the one speaking right now. “Don’t let it…” He can’t make out the end of it.

“You can’t hear that?” Will whispers, he’s practically pleading at this point.

“You’re tired.” Mike says to him like that’s the only plausible answer right now which it isn’t. Will shakes his head and feels anger simmering beneath him. Mike is not gripping tightly but his hand feels like it’s burning him.

“Get off me.”

“No,” Mike says and inches closer. His eyebrows are knitted in concern and he’s giving that wounded puppydog look. “I’m worried for you, Will. I only want to help.”

“I said get off!” He pushes Mike off so he can take a step back. He doesn’t shove very hard, he really doesn’t. Will knows because he’s not very strong and he doesn’t try to be either. He’s just going for enough of a shove where he gets an extra inch of space, but somehow Mike loses his balance at it and looks like he’s practically thrown across the room. He lands awkwardly on his shoulder and yelps in pain.

Will stands there, completely stunned.

“I’m so sorry!” Will says in a rush once he gains his bearings. Mike is clearly pained; his face is screwed tightly and he’s grabbing his own arm which is limp and at an awkward angle. “I didn't mean—“

“What is wrong with you?”

“I—I don’t know. I thought…” What was wrong with him? What had he done? The guilt washes over him in an instant that he has trouble even remembering what he thought.

A voice cuts through the air interrupts his horrified thoughts. Will’s mouth snaps shut at the sound.

“Will, you said you could hear me before, so I hope—I hope that means you can hear me now.” Mike’s voice rings out again, only the Mike that Will is looking at is not speaking. He didn’t even move his mouth, but the words came and echoed throughout the room.

Will looks around and desperately searches for an explanation. He lands on Mike who is holding his arm with parsed lips. He is not exactly acknowledging the extra voice that sounds just like him, but isn’t him at the same time, but his face looks conflicted and like he’s thinking hard about what to do about it.

“Look, let’s just go to bed.” Mike, the Mike that is in front of him, the real Mike says to Will. “It will all be okay in the morning.” He gets a little closer now and holds out his hand, but he’s learned and there’s a gap of space in between them like he’s scared of closing the contact. Will feels guilty at it. If Mike would lay his hand on his arm and pull him into a hug, he doesn’t think he would object. He might just cry into Mike’s sweater and stay there for the rest of the night, no more questions asked.

But Mike doesn’t move, and neither does Will. His feet are planted like stones on Mike’s carpet and he doesn’t dare make any sounds that might make him miss the extra disembodied voice. Will feels the need to hold onto every word.

“Will, I’m sorry.” The mystery Mike says and it rips through the condensed space of the room. It’s getting louder now and for the life of him, he can’t distinguish where the hell it’s coming from. It’s certainly not from the Mike he is watching currently. “I deserve it. I should’ve been there for you more. I know that now.”

“You do hear it.” Will whispers to the Mike he can see. It’s not a question. Will knows Mike’s expressions like the back of his hand; he’s been reading those expressions since he was five years old. The injured, pained look has fallen past and replaced by one that is foreign and tense and he swallows nervously.

The voice continues, gaining more traction now. “I should’ve been a better friend. I should’ve been there to help you when you needed it because I know I’ve been pretty shitty to you the past couple years.”

“Will,” The one who’s in front of him starts.

“Shut up.”

Will stands there in silence. He barely even dares to breathe wrong in case the voice becomes quiet again and Will can no longer hear it. Luckily, Mike’s words, wherever it’s coming from, keeps tumbling out.

“I just—I’ve just been so distracted by myself and by El and all our problems that you must feel like I forgot about you. But that’s not even true! I never forgot about you and maybe that was the problem. It didn’t feel normal so I just pushed it down and pushed you away and I know that’s unfair. But our friendship means everything to me and I’ve just been so scared. I’ve been so scared.”

“Don’t listen to him.” Mike, the other Mike, interjects sharply. “He’s not real. He’s trying to split us up.”

Will frowns and feels like he fully lost his mind. He’s discombobulated as he tries to search past the room as a hazy orange backdrop begins to make his way through like mist. His eye strains in the process and it feels like someone is stabbing his eyelid, but there, through it all he makes out a rattled Mike in a dirty army vest and his dark hair tousled. His arm is held at an awkward angle at his side and he’s barely avoiding a swarm of evil bats. Black smoke curls around him.

The back of his eye throbs painfully and he shakes through the vision and clutches over it.

Mike is back in his own room. His face is unmarked and clean and his features are pulled in only mild concern. “Youre hurting yourself, Will.” He slowly takes a step forward, voice laced with sympathy. “I just want to look out for you. Let me care. Let me help you.”

“Don’t come close to me.” Will warns him. He means for it to come with more confidence but even he hears the waver. It doesn’t matter though because Mike, always doing what Will tells him, halts regardless.

“Don’t do that to me. I’m your best friend, Will.”

Will isn’t sure who anybody is anymore. He moves his head, completely torn. He doesn’t have to wait long because the other Mike speaks again.

“And now I think about before, knowing what I know, and I feel so stupid! You always tried to tell me, and all I’d done was try to ignore it. So I’m sorry! I am. Saying the things you mean is terrifying, and it’s even more terrifying when you can’t even understand them yourself.”

“He pities you.” The Mike in his own room says. “He can’t give you what you want. If you stay here with me, I can. I’m the best version of him.”

Will ignores him. There’s never been such a thing as a better version of Mike Wheeler. Mike has changed and grown every year and Will finds himself lucky to have known every single one of them. He loves Mike, perhaps more than he wants to admit and way more than he will ever say outloud. It’s a fact he’s come to terms with for a while now and he doesn’t even care. All he wants to do is listen to him right now and certainly not to this fake one.

“But I think you’re miles braver than me, Will. You’re so kind and good and honest and asking to be your friend was the best thing I’ve ever done. I would tell you that all the time but I’m scared of what it means. But this is even more scary cause I can’t lose you! And it’s terrible timing to realize, but you told me it makes it the best time and I don’t even know if you can really hear me but I need you!”

He does see Mike again, more clearly this time. Will’s breath hitches as he’s in worse condition than he first saw. His face is scratched, his arm is clearly broken, and there’s some gashes on it from when the bats punctured him. He looks like a wild man as he tries to get closer to Will without the bats flailing down on him. He tucks his head and his hair is severely unkempt as the wings beat down next to his head, but he keeps trying anyway. A couple of the bats take the opportunity to rake their disturbing claws near his head and Will is already acting before he can think about it.

The bats necks, wings, and tails are snapped in the next instant and Mike flinches and screws his eyes shut as the limp bodies rain down over his head. It takes a second but he seems to realize that they’ve stopped attacking him. He then raises his head and Will catches a new emotion flashing onto his face. Hope.

He continues on, “You make me feel like the best version of myself. You make me want to be better. It makes sense when we’re together and when we’re not, I somehow end up thinking about you anyway and what you’d do if you were here. I shoved all my feelings down and I still do, but I care so much that it scares me! That I feel like I’m going crazy.”

Will’s eye feels like it’s going to pop out of its socket the longer he keeps trying to see Mike. The pain is starting to make him feel woozy but he’s latched onto every word Mike is saying.

“I want you to know what that means. That I’m not like the others either. But I also need you to come back. Get out of there, wherever you are. You’re not Henry and it doesn’t matter what he’s shown you or he wants you to believe. I know you would never try to hurt us. Please, Will!”

“You won’t be able to leave without killing yourself.” Not-Mike says. “It’s why you’re hurting so much. Think about this for one more second!”

But Will doesn’t think about it. His mind is already made up and he doesn’t care what the consequences are. He sees himself in not-Mike’s room and tears through the illusion, snapping it in half like wood splintering. His eye burns so bad that he’s sure it does pop out of its socket then. He screams in pain as he feels the connection as that the stupid hive mind he’s been inadvertently chained to for years, severs like a limb.

He falls to the floor and his knees scrape harshly against the ground of Dimension X. The moment he does, Mike, real-Mike, is somehow already there, leans down and clings his uninjured arm around him. Will breathes him in and wraps his own arms up. Mike is real. Mike is there and he doesn’t feel any shame that he’s saying his name like a lifelife.

“I got you, it’s okay.” Mike exhales and he stays there wrapped around Will like that and holding him tightly. Will scrunches his fingers in Mike’s sweater and screws his eyes shut. He could stay like that until the bomb goes off and would be completely okay with it.

“Your arm.” Will breathes because that’s the thing that’s bothering him. “Did I…?”

“It’s fine.” Mike says quickly. “You’re fine. It doesn’t even hurt.”

“You’re such a bad liar.”

“Okay fine, it hurts like hell but I’ll go to the doctor after so it’s fine.” Mike assures him. He then leans back and studies Will’s face with a deep frown, “I’m more worried about your eye. It’s bleeding.”

He feels like his left eye is absurdly dry and it stings. He’s a little scared to find out what that means but he raises his fingers to his face and once they get close enough, he finds that he can’t see it. When he draws his hand back, blood coats his fingertips.

“The black smoke was all wrapped around you and you were all out of it and it was scary.” Mike explains, watching him carefully. “We were trying to talk to you and I had no idea if you were able to hear anything at first.”

“I heard you.”

“All of it?” He asks him.

Will isn’t quite sure. He looks around the desolate wasteland and the events play back in his memory. “What happened with Vecna?”

“El found him. And your mom went to break the kids out.”

“My connection’s gone.” He says because that's the one thing he’s certain of. He couldn’t really notice the hive mind running around in the back of his brain when it was there, but now that he was free of it, he feels lighter. “I can’t do anything anymore.”

“Good. El’s handling it anyway and everybody went to help her. Vecna’s looking like a decapitated barbeque right about now.”

Will smiles at the description, but his heart is warm at the implication. “And you stayed back for me?”

“We were all trying at first, but there were more demos and El was busy with Vecna. I told them that I could reach through to you. You heard me when you were in the memory so I figured—yeah.”

“Thanks.”

“We should go, though. You made the smoke shoot away when you woke up but I feel like it’s only trying to reform.”

“Right, yeah.” He tilts his head up to where the black gas is in the sky. It carousels dangerously in the air like clouds before a tornado and tiny spindles are starting to poke through.

Mike helps Will up and his hand lingers on Will’s arm before it droops and he knows that he should be prioritizing getting the hell out of this stupid dimension, but unconsciously he thinks back to what Robin had said about signals and then how Mike had cut through the curse. He licks his licks nervously and treads through the sand. The ground is littered with broken and snapped demogorgons and demobats and it’s pretty gross, really.

He sees his mom helping the kids down to the tower. She’s focused intently on the task and undoubtedly doing her best to make them feel safe. He slows his step and Mike notices, turning around to look at him.

“Did you mean what you said?” He asks him. Mike blinks and looks taken aback by the sudden shift.

“What?”

“When you were talking to me. With those things that you said.”

He looks around nervously, “Is this the time you really wanna have this conversation? We really can’t stay here.”

He knows Mike has a point so he continues to walk. “Right,” Will says. He checks behind him and the Mind Flayer’s clouds are still spinning dangerously and there’s multiple rods trying to take shape. There’s a lot to take into account right now. He faces forward and there’s still a lot of land between them and the gash in the floor and he frowns, feeling utterly distracted and pauses in his step.

“What are you doing?” Mike looks over when he realizes Will is no longer next to him. He licks his lips nervously, sneaking another glance at the sky.

On paper, Will knows that they need to get out of this place. He should feel the urgency to leave more than anyone. He wanted to leave right after they came here. But all the urgency dissipates beneath him and he frowns. “I’m just confused.”

Mike tilts his head back and groans. “About what? Which part was unclear?”

“Were you just saying those things to get me out of it?”

Mike snaps his head up. “What? No, Will. Why would you think that?”

Will racks his brain for the bits he could recite. “That I make you the best version of yourself. That you care about me and you’re…” he pauses and thinks for a second that he might be reading too much into it, but goes for it anyway, “not like the others either.”

Mike doesn’t respond right away which adds to Will’s nerves. It could have meant anything, honestly. They’re all freaks in a way. “I meant it.” Mike says then, quiet and sincere.

Will chews on lip, thinking. It should be enough but if anything he feels like he needs even more clarification now. He keeps pushing, “And that it makes sense when we’re together and you think of me when I’m not there.”

“Jesus, did you remember everything I told you?” Mike says, exasperated. “I meant it.”

“And that you never forgot about me and I make you go crazy and—”

“Stop, stop,” Mike holds up a hand, “I meant all of it. Okay? I meant it.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” He says and looks far off and Will has to admit that he feels guilty for pushing this conversation on. Mike angles himself away. “Look, let’s just try to forget about it. I probably just screwed things up.”

Will’s stomach drops. That’s not at all what he wanted out of this. “That’s not true.”

“It isn’t?” He asks. “I just figured—nevermind. It’s stupid.”

“No, say it.”

“It’s just—I don’t know! I just figured…well, no I know actually. I know that the painting wasn’t El’s idea.” Mike starts and he takes a step toward him. “I asked her about it before she ended things and she had no clue what I was talking about. Which threw me so off guard because if she had no idea then how come you told me she said all those things?”

“Mike,” Will breathes, “I think you already know why.”

Mike gives him a saddened expression and Will’s heart churns in his chest. “I didn’t. Not until you said that thing at the Squawk and now I just feel so stupid. I think I’ve been trying so hard to be normal that I got caught up in it and I totally missed how you were feeling. Which is stupid because I should’ve known. I’ve always cared about you so much that it’s hard to know what to do with. And I felt ashamed of it, not of you, but ashamed in myself that it was easier to just ignore it. But I can’t ignore it now because this whole time I thought it was in my head, but maybe it wasn’t in my head, you know?”

Mike is still rushing on and without realizing it, he’s gotten much closer now. “And I’m probably too late and you’re moved on, or realized you didn’t really like this person all that much. Maybe I’m still reading it wrong. It doesn’t really matter but you told me to say the things you feel so there. That’s how I feel. I feel terrified. I’ve been so focused on finding Vecna cause that’s the end goal, but I’m horrified for my family and I don’t know what we’re all supposed to do after all this. I definitely don’t know who I’m supposed to be after this. I mean, without the mission, who even am I? But when I’m with you, it starts to make sense again and it feels right. So, yeah. I meant it. You can decide what you want to do with that.”

So Will does decide. There’s still some inches of space between them and all he has to do is take one step forward and close the gap. So he does. It’s brave and brash, and headstrong in his own right as he leans in and kisses him. Mike stills, looking entirely caught off guard but then he relaxes and kisses back.

“Oh.” Mike blinks, when they pull apart. “So you haven’t moved on then?”

Will rolls his eyes. “I haven't stopped liking you.” He says and it occurs to him that Mike had given him a whole monologue so he inhales and says whatever comes to mind first. “The painting was my idea.”

“Yeah, El doesn’t know much about the campaigns we used to play.”

Will smiles because that was such an obvious plot hole and he hadn’t given it much thought until now.. “I was gonna give it to you from me. But things turned weird and I just wanted you to realize how important you were. To El.”

“I would’ve wanted to hear it from you.”

“I’m telling you now. You’re everything to me. Vecna tried to get me to stay in his mind so he showed me you, and us. It almost worked too, but your voice cut through and it’s always you, Mike. I could never move on.”

“Will Byers, you’re so cheesy.” Mike says and it’s so unexpected that he laughs.

“Says you.”

“Not me. It’s called being in touch with your feelings.” Mike corrects him, holding a stern finger in the air. “There’s a difference.”

“Oh, okay. My bad.”

“And my feelings still say we need to hurry before your mom tries to axe my head off next.”

Will checks over his shoulder and has somehow forgotten where they were. The clouds look as if they will rip open at any second and the black smoke flares dangerously. His mom hoists the last of the kids to safety and he sees her glance curiously in their direction. He nods his head, knowing that that might be a very real possibility.

They’re both battered as they make their way across the land to where the rest of the group is. Will finds that the black smoke could rain down and suffocate him gruesomely and he might not even care. The Mind Flayer could follow them into their own world and tear the whole Earth apart and right now, he wouldn’t even care about that either. He finds it hard to care about much when Mike is walking so closely next to him that their elbows are brushing.

He has to turn his head because his depth perception is screwed to hell and it’s hard to see out of his left eye, but the effort is worth it because Mike gives him a small comforting smile. They still have to make it out of the upside down, make it past the military base, and the Mind Flayer is still looming over them. There’s still a lot of things to consider from now until the end and yet Will is not caring about any of that. The only thing that matters is the boy that walks at his side.