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“You need to go to my house, Will. Holly’s there, I need- I need- oh fuck…You can get there faster, okay? Radio to Dustin once you’re there, he’s on his way with Holly. Thank you I-” Will’s heart clenches at the desperation coming from Mike.
“It’s okay Mike,” Will interrupts, “She’s gonna be okay, I promise. I’m gonna go get her and then she’ll be safe, okay?”
“Okay, yeah okay. I’ll uh, see you soon,” Mike hiccups and Will realizes he’s trying not to cry.
Will turns off his walkie and immediately yells out to Joyce, “MOM! We need to go now! They found Holly, she’s going to Mike’s house.” He quickly stuffs the walkie and his jacket into a backpack before running out of the room to find Joyce.
As dire as the situation is, he can’t help but smile a little knowing that Mike trusts him to get Holly. It seems silly. Of course Mike would trust him, why wouldn’t he? But after so many months of them slowly building their friendship back up since Will moved back to Hawkins, it feels like they’re finally just as close as they used to be. As happy as that makes him, he still wishes it could be more, even if he won’t admit it.
“Will, baby, are you sure this is safe? Why aren’t Mike and the others going to find her?” Joyce’s motherly panic has become a constant in Will’s life, but he isn’t going to let it override what he needs to do. Not today.
“Mom, it's Holly, okay? And Mike trusted me to find her and keep her safe until he gets here from the hospital. I need to do this,” He feels that familiar prickly feeling in his eyes and quickly blinks away the incoming tears. He can’t cry right now, Mike needs him. For once in Will’s life he's going to be the one taking care of Mike, not the other way around.
Will looks up at the Wheeler’s destroyed house as he steps out of his moms car, this house that holds some of his favorite memories. For most of his life, Will hated going home. Back to Lonnie and his parents' constant arguments. But when he went to Mike’s house, that all went away. They’d play pretend fantasy games for hours just trying to distract Will from his fractured reality, spending hours coming up with new campaigns to do with Dustin and Lucas. And when it was time to go to bed, Mike would get out one of his shiny new comic books for them to read before they both fell asleep, crashing from their sugar highs.
After spending the last 18 months living with Mike and his family, he’d grown to love Holly like a sister too. They’d bonded over Holly’s crayon pack and Will helped her with every drawing she did. Will might never love Holly as much as Mike, but he’s still over the moon that the party’s finally found her and she’s going to be safe.
He sees the front door standing ajar from the Demogorgon’s attack, and slowly pushes it open to reveal the damage.
The house is wrecked. Furniture thrown all around the place, blood smeared to the kitchen floor from where Nancy and El found Mrs. Wheeler's unconscious body. Will sits down on one of the undamaged couches in the living room and his mom wraps an arm around him.
“What do we do now?” Joyce asks as she pulls a long breath in.
“We wait,” Will responds and turns his head into Joyce’s neck, he can feel tears creeping their way back into his eyes again. “Mike said that Dustin, Steve, Jonathan, and Nancy are with Holly, and they’re going to shoot a hole in the front door where the gate the Demogorgon made was.”
Just as Joyce opens her mouth to say something, they both shoot their heads up at the sound of a gun shot nearby.
“Well, that must be them.” She whispers into Will’s hair.
A series of 20-something shots are fired at the door, until an opening appears in the middle, covered in red, glowing goo.
Will stands up as soon as he sees Holly’s blonde pigtails peeping through the opening, “Holly! You're okay!”
He grabs Holly and wraps her up into a long hug, “Uh, Will? You’re kind of crushing me. I can’t–” She gasps as Will backs away and smiles at her.
The others slowly file through the opening and Joyce embraces Johnathon making sure that he's fine. Dustin makes his way over to Will and he hugs him too, “Thank god you guys are okay.”
“Yeah, it was a close call but we’re all good,” Dustin responds.
“What do you mean? What happened?” Will crinkles his eyebrows and backs away to look at Dustin.
“Well Nance almost destroyed the entire Upside Down,” Dustin murmurs and glares at Nancy who's talking with Joyce and Holly.
“How?” Will asks.
“Long story short, the Upside Down isn’t what we thought. But I’m not explaining all of this until everyone's here. Speaking of, where the hell is the rest of the party?” Dustin looks around the room, searching for the rest of their friends.
“They’re at the hospital. Max woke up, that’s how we knew to go here, she's the one who told Holly to come here. But Mike sent me and mom to come find you guys because he knew we’d get here faster, they should be here any minute,” And at that Mike bursts through the back door and runs towards them.
“HOLLY!” Mike yells and wraps her up into another crushing embrace.
“Ugh, seriously, again?” She struggles to get out over Mike’s shoulder, “Mike! Put me down!”
“Sorry, sorry. Are you okay?” He nervously searches over here for any scratches and turns to Nancy when he sees none.
“Nancy, what the hell happened?” Mike’s eyes scan the room until they land on Will. Maybe he’s imagining it but it seemed like Mike’s face softened when he made eye contact with Will. He walks over to him and Dustin and pulls them both into a hug.
“Well I can explain if you guys stop crushing me,” Dustin huffs out.
“Oh. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead,” Mike lets them go and looks back down to Will before quickly averting his eyes back to Dustin. Why is he acting so skittish?
“Okay, is everyone here?” It takes until then for Will to realize that the rest of their group has filed into the Wheeler’s entry way.
A series of nods and mumbled yeses follow and Dustin clears his throat, “Good. Okay, I’m not gonna explain the logistics of it, but the Upside Down is completely different from what we’ve always assumed. It isn’t a different dimension, it’s a bridge between our world and another. And what Vecna’s trying to do is pull our two worlds together. I’m not sure where we should go from here, but I think we should head back to our base of operations and figure out how we’re going to kill this motherfucker.”
Chatter erupts through the room and Mike pulls Will towards Lucas and El, but once they get closer, he also sees Max in a wheelchair, blocked from where they were standing by everyone in the room.
“Max! You’re back!” Will wraps her up in a hug and she laughs.
“Not so hard Byers, I’m still fragile,” Will backs up and smiles down at her and then back up at their completed party, circled up together like always.
Hopper’s voice cuts through everyone else as he yells, “Everyone! You heard Dustin, we need to go back to the Squawk and set up a plan. Who’s taking care of Holly? We’ve done this with kids in the past, and I don’t want to again.” As Hopper continues talking El turns to Max and crouches beside her wheelchair to whisper something into her ear. Will can’t help but smile knowing that his sister finally has her best-friend back.
“I can. I’ll stay with her,” Mike responds and Will feels one of his fingers brush against Will’s. He looks up at Mike and he sees him pleading with Will to stay with them through his eyes.
As if she can read Mike’s mind, Joyce says, “Will why don’t you stay back with them too, okay? I don’t want you in harm's way.”
“Okay,” Will responds. He feels Mike’s pinky finger touch his again, but this time, Mike wraps it all the way around Will’s and squeezes them together before letting go.
Did Will just imagine that?
Did Mike basically just hold his hand and squeeze it?
Mike timidly smiles down to Will and he feels those familiar butterflies going berserk in his stomach. He smiles back and searches the room for Robin, finding her deep in conversation with Steve and Nancy.
“I’ll be right back, okay?” Will says to Mike and turns towards Robin before Mike can respond.
As he walks across the room Robin notices him heading towards her and excuses herself from whatever they were talking about. He’s always wondered why Steve hasn’t given up on Nance, but from the way that she looks up at him, it seems like maybe she hasn’t either.
“What’s up Byers?” Robin asks Will, “Why do you look like you just saw a ghost or something? Actually I don’t put that out of the realm of possibility at this point. Did you see a ghost?”
“What? No. I just–I,” Will sighs and drags his hands down his face as he walks down to the basement, “Remember how I asked you about trying to find signs or whatever?”
Robin closes the basement door behind her and they walk down the familiar steps to Will’s temporary room. “Uhh, yeah? Why…What happened?”
“Well, I um–I think I uh, UGH!” Will covers his face with his hands and sits down on his makeshift bed. Robin settles across from him on Johnathon’s bed and waits for Will to continue. “I think that the uh, the person I was asking about is maybe sending me signals”
“Oh. My. GOD!!!!” Robin squeals and grabs Will’s hands. “Who is it? What signal did they send? Did the snowball turn into an avalanche or are we still talking snowman level?”
“Don’t get too ahead of yourself,” Will laughs. “They um, they held my pinky finger. With their own. You know? Like, um, holding hands but just with your pinky fingers. Then he smiled at me and squeezed my finger.”
Will blushes at the memory of Mike casually being affectionate and then turns bright red as he realizes what he just admitted to. “I um–I didn’t mean to say–”
Robin stops him before he can say anything else. “Relax Byers, you made it pretty clear we were talking about a he when you decided to get advice from me instead of Steve the Hair Harrington.”
“Oh, okay,” Will releases a breath of relaxation.
“Wait. Does this mean it’s someone up there? Holy shit it is,” Robin’s face lights up and she gets up to go back upstairs before Will drags her back from the stairs.
“Robin you cannot go up there and try to figure out who I’m talking about,” He pleads with her.
“Is it Mike? Because I’ve always kind of gotten a vibe from him, but I never knew because it seemed like he was into El, but then again overcompensating has always been a thing. I knew there was something going on between you two in the meadow, you shoved him! Oh my gosh you were trying to send him signals weren’t you! Wow you act fast it took me a long time after I met Vickie to work up the courage to do a playful sh–” Robin doesn’t stop talking to Will until they hear a loud bang from upstairs.
Will quickly recovers from the interruption and hurries to finish what he was saying before someone actually does interrupt them, “Okay yeah, it is Mike. But Robin you cannot say a word of this to anyone, okay?” Will looks her in the eyes before looking back up to the basement door, “But also, yeah of course he’s into El? They’re dating?”
Robin gives him a quizzical look. “Uhhh are you sure? They don’t exactly seem very coupley. But anyways, who would I even tell? Steve? I mean I guess logistically I could tell Steve seeing as he knows about me and Vickie but that–”
“Steve? You told Steve?” Will raises his eyebrows in surprise.
“Well yeah, I mean I needed to tell someone, trust me you feel a lot better when you tell someone. Steve’s my best friend. I know it might seem scary, but once you tell someone, another part of the burden goes away. I know you told me, but I’m not counting myself as I am in the same situation as you. Well. Not exactly. I get to kiss my person, and you’re not there quite yet, but I have faith that you will be soon! Now I would love to continue this conversation because I really think you need to talk about this more, but we should probably go back up there and finish saving the world and all, right?” Will nods his head but stops Robin before she reaches the first step of the stairs.
“Wait, what do you mean they don’t seem very coupley? I’ve stopped myself from even thinking about the possibility of Mike liking me back for years because I didn’t want to hurt El. She’s my sister. I could never do something like that to her.”
“I don’t know anything, Steve’s the group babysitter and vaguely therapist, only you tell me things. But they sure as hell don’t seem to be dating. I’ve never even seen them kiss. Like ever. If my time in high school was informative on any issue it’s that highschoolers like to kiss each other. If anything, Mini Wheeler up there seems more comfortable and affectionate around you than he does around El. I’m not trying to give you false hope or anything I just think that maybe you’ve been a little blinded by your guilt. Pay more attention to them when you go upstairs. Just think about what I said.” And with that Robin sprints up the stairs to rejoin Steve, Nancy, and now Johnathon.
Will stays at the foot of the stairs for a moment thinking about what robin said before he heads back upstairs. Mike has seemed more distant from El, but Will just chalked that up to one of their run-of-the-mill arguments. Could they have broken up? Will trudges up to the party as they talk about some old joke, laughing and smiling with each other in the face of an apocalypse.
“What was that about?” Mike whispers into Will’s ear. He looks up at Mike to find he has a different facial expression that he's never seen before.
What is that?
Jealousy?
No. There's no way. Will is imagining things.
“Nothing, we just needed to talk about something. Nothing important,” Will replies and he can almost hear what Mike grumbles under his breath, “What was that?” He asks.
“I said, It didn’t seem like ‘nothing important’ seeing as you up and walked away from me– I mean, uh, our conversation.” Mike crosses his arms over his chest and puffs out a breath.
Will can’t believe it.
Mike is jealous.
He chuckles to himself and looks around the room to make eye contact with Robin again. Will sees her already looking at them and smiles at her and nods. Maybe the avalanche is coming soon.
Hopper rounds up the troops and everyone piles into the various cars they took to the Wheeler’s house, leaving Mike, Will, and Holly in silence.
“Why don’t you go and see if you can salvage anything from your room, okay, Holly?” Mike instructs his sister and then turns towards Will when she bounds up the stairs. “Whatcha wanna do?”
The air around them feels tacky, like they’re stuck, time standing still. Will’s never experienced being this far removed from the fighting, and while he is worried about everyone, it’s nice to have just a few minutes of calm again.
“Why don’t we try and salvage your room?” Will responds with a cheeky smile and walks up the stairs leading to Mike’s room.
“It should be fine shouldn’t it? The demogorgon came through Holly’s room,” Mike stops short at the hole in the wall leading into this closet. “Oh.”
Will looks at the wreckage in shock and slowly opens the door to Mike’s room, praying opening the door won’t cause anything to fall out of place. The door creaks open until they can see the full room.
It’s destroyed.
The only preserved part of the room seems to be his desk. Funnily enough, Mike’s closet has been completely demolished. Mike walks over to it and frantically searches for something as Will watches him.
“What are you trying to find?” Will asks.
“Um, nothing, uh, just some important things.” Mike just barely looks over his shoulder, only enough for Will to see pink blossoming across his cheeks.
Will joins him at the desk and starts rifling through his drawers trying to find anything he thought Mike might want. Mike looks at him, clearly flustered, and shoves his hand through his hair.
“You don’t–” Mike sighs angrily, “You don’t have to help me.”
“Well you clearly can’t find whatever you’re trying to get, so I’m just trying to help.” Will throws his hands up in the air dramatically, a habit he’d picked up from Mike years ago.
Mike turns around and groans, putting his hands on his head. Will’s about to step away and let Mike find whatever he needs so desperately when he opens up a drawer just an inch, but that inch is enough. He can clearly see his old address in Lenora and his name scrawled in Mike’s familiar messy handwriting on an envelope. It seems like there’s many more underneath the top envelope, but he’s distracted by the cardboard tube that looks almost identical to the one Will had given Mike two years ago.
No.
There’s no way.
Had Mike written Will letters while he was in California?
But if he had, why didn’t he send them?
Will’s bright red cheeks turn a shade darker when he confirms that the cardboard tube is in fact holding the painting he had spent so many hours on. His lie comes back into his mind and he wonders if Mike still thinks El commissioned the painting.
He quietly closes the drawer right before Mike turns back around and starts rummaging again. Was that what Mike was looking for?
“I’m gonna go check on Holly.” Will rushes out the door and tries to calm himself.
“Okay.” Mike calls out but Will can barely hear him over the sound of his heart pounding.
Did he really just see that?
Will put everything he had into that painting, he still can’t believe that he didn’t just tell Mike the truth. He’s regretted lying to Mike like that since the day it happened, but some part of him has always held out hope that maybe Mike will finally realize what he had meant in the van.
And why hadn’t Mike sent any of those letters? Why had he never called if he cared enough to write what looked like more than fifty letters? Sure, Will could have reached out more, but he couldn’t ever call with his mom taking up the line, and he figured if Mike really wanted to talk to him, he could send Will letters like he did El. How does he even bring this up to Mike? There doesn’t seem to be a way that wouldn’t result in awkward silence, but he knows he can’t just sit with this. He needs to talk to Mike.
Will crouches on the floor and rests his head in his hands, trying to calm himself down, distracting himself with the tears the Demogorgon had made in the Wheeler’s beige carpet. When he felt like he could get up again without the world spinning he peaks his head into Holly’s room to see her asleep on her bed, curled up with one of her favorite stuffed animals. Even though Holly’s room was where the Demogorgon came in, her room is a lot less damaged than Mike’s.
Will slowly backs out of Holly’s room, attempting not to make any noise that could wake her. When he walks back into Mike’s room he sees Mike kneeling on the ground stuffing things into a backpack.
“Dustin just radioed. Their plan kind of needs us, so Murray is going to come pick the three of us up and Holly will stay back at the station with Max and Vickie. Are you okay, Will? You look, like, really pale,” Mike rushes over to Will and grabs both of his arms steadying him.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m–uh, I’m okay,” The world starts spinning around Will all over again, but this time instead of it being because of Mike, it’s because of Vecna.
He's been trying to completely forget about what Vecna showed him, but this is exactly how it had started.