Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Holly arrived at Henry’s house, the world around her felt strange. Off.

Wrong.

She’d brushed it off with the ease of a gentle smile and her favourite song, but it hadn’t let up. Not entirely. She’d held the charm of her necklace with a hope of protection, a self-reassured shake of the head. Henry had just told her that the world was in danger, that her family and friends could get hurt if not for his assistance.

Of course she’d felt off. 

The feeling never went away, is the thing. It held up, perched on her shoulder like a parrot, as the feeling of soft paper replaced fancy dresses in her hands. It dropped into her stomach as she realized Henry was in danger, just like he’d foretold about her loved ones. 

Battle armour replaced soft paper replaced fancy dresses, following that. She’d stomped back up the hollow staircase and pushed her shoulders back with every new discovery of Holly the Heroic’s new look. If she was going to rescue her new friend, she had to look the part, had to feel the part. 

Excitement briefly enveloped fear and strangeness, then. Or—maybe it was more like adrenaline, neutral in its tipping point between good and bad. Wherever it fell, it motivated her to go on, to save Henry, to march out into the great forest of monsters and shrubbery like the hero resting from her neck. Mike had created her because he believed in Holly. Otherwise, why wouldn’t she be some lame elf, or back-of-the-party human who only weighed the others down?

Okay, just because she doesn’t know anything about that Dungeons game doesn’t mean she can’t understand that being a heroic cleric means good, brave, powerful, helpful. Useful.

Maybe somebody else, somebody in her class, or a girl who came before, they wouldn’t have undertaken the risk. Maybe she really wasn’t the first to be brought in by Henry. She couldn’t know, not now when he was taken and endangered and needed rescuing before answering her questions. 

Maybe Holly was special, just like Mike had thought. She didn’t know any of her classmates whose older brothers made them special characters just for them. 

She was special, and she was heroic, and that strangeness that follows her through the woods? It’s passion, motivation to save her friend. It has to be.

So why does this feel different?

Holly’s known Max for all of ten minutes and she believes her more than anybody else she’s met—well, maybe except for Mom. And Nancy. And…

Holly squints in the bright sandiness of the cave. It feels like she’s stepped into another world, the way the sun shimmers off the rocks. The light had felt so foggy, almost faded back through the forest. The sun in here, it’s interrogating. Challenging. 

There’s a look in Max’s eyes that weighs Holly’s arms down when she catches them staring back at her. She knows very well Max could be a monster—she was told there were monsters out there. But why would a monster disguise itself as Mike’s weird angry friend who used to draw with her before she got hurt?

Max isn’t…she would never tell her this, but she isn’t even Holly’s favourite of Mike’s friends. She’s up there, sure, she likes her loads, but if a monster wanted to trick her, lure her into a terrible trap, wouldn’t Will’s likeness be a better contender?

A sour taste fills her mouth at the thought of Mike’s friends. What’s that about? 

Will, Lucas, Dustin, Max. Will Lucas Dustin Max. It sticks to the back of her teeth like taffy. It isn’t them. 

Will, Lucas, Dustin, Max, Mike. 

Dizziness smacks her upside the head. If she wasn’t already sitting down, perched with her dress falling over her like a fairytale, she might faint. Max seems to notice, as her hands find Holly’s shoulders like a magnet.

“Hey, you okay? I know it’s a lot to take in. We can stop.”

“No, it’s…I want to know. I can handle it. I just, I feel weird.”

Max’s eyes widen, and the grip on Holly’s shoulders tightens. “Is Henry talking to you?”

“No,” she manages to get out, and Max’s expression relaxes, if only a little. Max has never looked at her like this before.

Well, Max hasn’t looked at her much at all. The thought replaces the stickiness in her teeth. She’s barely spoken to Max, only doodled quietly with her when Mom still insisted on pulling her pigtails tight and high in the air. 

It’s been two years, nearly, since she last saw Max. She’s met her in passing, when she’s stayed over at her house and argued with her brother. The look in her eyes, the softness in her voice, it shouldn’t make the sunshine shining in buzz so harshly in her ears. She isn’t a family member, she isn’t one of her friends, not really, but it sticks in her teeth and falls down when she swallows.

It wipes all the other thoughts from the front of her mind when it comes.

Max has never looked at her like this before. 

Holly breathes it in and out like sharp, minty toothpaste. If she lets enough time pass, the feeling will go away. She grips onto her necklace until it leaves imprints in her fingers, and follows Max’s instructions because she is brave and strong but Max is still older and taller and knows much more about this sandy, evil place than Holly does.

Hiking back to Henry makes Holly feel less than brave and strong. Her boots find purpose shaking through the muddy grass of the forest, but they’re the only part of her with bravery because they aren’t really her.

When she asked Max what she needed to do to get them out of here, she, maybe stupidly, didn’t expect go back into Mordor to fall out of Max’s lips. 

Pause. Holly’s boots skid to a halt, nearly sending her tumbling down in the slippery mud. What the hell is Morder? Jesus, being here is messing with her head. She tries not to, but the strangeness of it all draws her teeth to her lips as she bites down, hard enough to hurt.

It’s just scary, okay? A couple years ago, nobody had ever expected more of her than to glue her art projects together well enough to withstand the trek to school. Now she’s being instructed to return to the dragon’s den and suck up to the big, scary fricken lizard that’s pretending to be a unicorn.

She’s never been a writer, sue her. That’s her…that’s somebody else she knows. 

When Henry’s house breaches into view, her breath catches like the sharp mintiness never left her mouth. She swallows it down but it feels like drinking ice water after brushing her teeth, cold and hot at the same time and all wrong no matter how fine she’ll apparently be after it stops. 

Max said she’ll be okay, and Max has been here months and months and months longer than she has. She trusts Max, no matter how she’s treated her before.

Holly grips her necklace and hopes it leaves marks more permanent this time, if only to know her bravery, no matter how scared she is, existed once in time. Nancy once told her that being brave doesn’t mean doing something and not being afraid, but being scared and doing it anyway, okay Mi—

She picks her feet up and forces them down as blue and white engulfs her vision. She can do this and she can be brave and heroic and her bravery did not disappear just because she learned the truth about this place. She just isn’t saving Henry this time, but Max.

Yes. She can do this. 

She flings open the heavy blue door and is met with silence. Henry isn’t back.

A bubble of relief pops in her chest. Henry doesn’t know! She isn’t gonna be caught!

Holly stumbles into the living room, not wanting to risk her shaky legs tumbling up the stairs to one of the bedrooms. Collapsing onto the couch, she lets her dirty shoes stay on the clean fabric like a spoiled dog. It’s the least Henry deserves, for lying to her, embarrassing her. For hurting Max and trapping her here.

Sinking further into the couch, she exhales around the faded sunlight and lets the peace of the perfectly quiet house slow her breaths. Just for this moment, she’ll relax.

It’s when the familiar chorus of noise creeps closer to the front door that tension returns to her shoulders. Over the cacophony of sounds, of laughter and pitter patters of sneakers, she hears him. Dipshit Derek. 

So that’s why Henry was gone. He was too busy kidnapping her whole damn class. 

It brings her Mary, at least, but that only means she’s been caught in this terrible plan that neither Max nor Holly understand. She’ll get to her mission soon, but before she pops her bubble of peace, she lets herself melt into Mary’s hug, and lets her lead her upstairs to choose her best friend a new dress.

Yours looks so good! You look like Alice in Wonderland, Holly!

As she lets her legs dangle over Henry’s sister’s bed, acting as support and fashion judge supreme while Mary pulls and pulls more dresses out of the closet, she lets her eyes unfocus over the muted noise coming from downstairs. 

Ever since Max had told her everything, back in the cave, Holly’s been feeling weirder. In fact, she kind of misses that original strangeness, when all that felt off was the unfamiliar environment. Now, she finds a pluckiness in the depths of her head that she just wants to swat away. That dizziness she’d felt in the cave was so unpleasant she’s been all but shoving the thoughts of her life back home away when they threaten to float in.

But it isn’t her life. She can think about Mary all she likes, and Mary’s her best fricken friend. It’s somebody else, somebody close to her, that she…misses. 

Is that what it is?

Mary’s still busy digging around in the seemingly never ending closet, so she lets herself test it out. 

Mom. Her heart hurts. She misses mom. Is she okay? She’d been so hurt when Holly was taken. It hurts, bad really badly, but not weird. Sad. Scared. 

Dad. She doesn’t know how he is, didn’t see him. Is he okay? Did the monster even get him? She hopes it didn’t, but it isn’t fair if it got mommy and not dad. 

Nancy. Nancy Nancy Nancy she wants Nancy more than anything. Nancy would fix all of this, she’d be brave for her and even tougher than Max. Sorry, Max. She’d probably agree.

Mike. 

BANG. 

It shoots into her like lead, the dizziness filtering her thoughts out like powdered sugar. Her head bows without her permission, eyes swimming to the floor, and Mary’s gonna notice, but it hurts. She misses mommy and dad and Nancy and this isn’t just missing this is bad. 

Static spills out through her eyes and she can’t see for a few seconds, and she knows if she thinks about something else it’ll go away, she doesn’t know how but she knows, but she promised she’d be brave and she’s scared but she has to figure out what’s happening to her.

Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike

Her hands fly to her temples, her knees lifting to hold her head up. Mary’s voice muffles through the cracks of the breaking of the universe, but all that plays in her mind is—

MIKE.

“Holly! Holly, what’s wrong?”

It hurts too much it hurts it hurts it hurts, mommy dad Nancy Max Will—

Green static shoots through her temples and she squeezes harder over the sides of her head, but it lets up, slowly slowly, as Mary cries worrying pleas in front of her face.

The pain slows, numbing as it eventually sizzles out, fire strangled out by her thoughts straying further and further from its oxygen.

“Ma—Mary,” she croaks out, throat burning. She coughs out the last of the pain as Mary breathes out a sigh of relief and concern. 

“I’m here, Holly, what happened? Are you hurt?”

“I—I’m fine, sorry. I got…scared.” It’s a weak excuse for something she can’t articulate to Mary, but her eyes, enlarged by her big round glasses, calm as she holds onto Holly like Max had done just an hour earlier. It dims the last of the damage and Holly can finally breathe, so it’s enough.

She has to get back to Max, but their plan involves patience, so she keeps an ear out for the click of the front door and smiles at Mary to show her the dresses she’s picked out. 

When Henry returns, Holly is back to herself. She knows it, because the fear that crawls up her throat is the same fear she feels when Miss Laura curses them all with a pop quiz or Mary stays home sick from school. It’s awful, but it’s her, and it isn’t confusing. She knows the feeling, recognizes it safely in her chest no matter how badly it could go. She needs to do this, for Max. For herself. For Mary and…the rest of her classmates, she supposes.

Okay, her mom cannot ever know she thought this, but FUCK. Henry’s not ever leaving her alone, ever again? Ever? 

This won’t do. She has to keep being brave, and keep avoiding the static.

She bolts out the door the second Henry turns his head and steps upstairs. She doesn’t care what he’s doing up there—probably plotting the end of the world. She just runs. Sorry, Mary. Rescue ya later. 

Max meets her far too early. “Holly!” she shouts. Whispers, shouts? “What are you doing? You were supposed to wait!” 

“I know,” she insists. Listen to me! “But he said he wasn’t ever gonna leave me alone again, and I got scared! I don’t wanna be trapped there!”

Max relents, thankfully. An understanding sort of concern flashes down her face, and she grabs Holly’s hand, squeezing it and tugging her forward. They sprint to where Holly knows leads to the cave, and she doesn’t let go of Max’s warm hold. As they run, Max cries out, “okay, we’re just gonna have to do this another way.” They’re far enough away from the house that Henry won’t hear them, but Holly doesn’t risk replying back. She nods, eyes down on the ground as they run back through the woods. 

Her boots hit mud every few minutes, Max’s strong grip on her hand the only thing keeping her from slipping. The static, lime green and choppy, keeps trying to slip back into her face like a headache, and she tries to stomp it out as they run. 

She doesn’t get it! She knows fear, knows the shakiness of a test she didn’t study for or a day without her best friend. She knows when it makes sense to be scared, and it makes sense for her to be scared right now. But she…isn’t? 

She is. She’s terribly afraid.

But more than that, she’s shifting in between wrongness and hot pink rainbows. Her body wants to sway to the left into the blue of the sparkling river she and Max sprint past. Her head won’t stop flashing yellow-green sketchbooks and eraser marks she wants to rub against her skin until they go away. 

Hyper-bright rainbows flicker in and out of her vision, the texture of her bedroom walls so close so far and so taunting. The white of a door that isn’t quite her basement’s, socks a colour she doesn’t own padding through supporting legs longer than hers as they collapse onto a bed too big for her. She keeps running, the cave not quite in sight as she runs runs runs away from the blinks of half-shut eyes scratchy under dark, curly hair. 

Holly’s pigtails jump, swaying right as her ankle rolls towards the ground. She cries, the pain—ow! realer than anything’s felt in this world. Max stops, turning and crying out like she’s the one hurt. 

The branch hits her back as she twists like a slap in the face—wake up—! and she’s tired, tired of the bumper carts in her head, tired of fighting. She can be brave but she can’t do this, can’t figure out what’s happening to her as yellow static hits her head. Her back hurts but it’s nothing to the desire to reach out and yank her dark curls down, down, just to feel something, anything other than confusion and fear and homesickness for a place she hasn’t felt welcomed in years.

She reaches her arms up, ignoring Max’s calls, and tugs her hair. It’s so long, when’d it get so long, didn’t he cut it last Fall? Max has a hand on her cheek, soft and worried, and Holly can just barely etch out a response that he’s fine, didn’t hit her head, before focusing back to yanking her hair down the way it’s always calmed him, in rough weeks at home, at school, beside Wi—Mary as she watched the ever-ticking clock through glassy eyes. 

When she opens her eyes through long, heavy eyelashes, Max is there. Of course she is, she’s been here the whole time.

Max? “Max?” he whines.

“Yeah, hey Holly. You okay? Where’s it hurt?”

Holly blinks something slow and translucent. “Ankle,” she stammers. Thinks it over. “And, my head. Didn’t hit it.”

“Alright, Holly, hold on—I’m gonna look at your ankle. I can carry you back to the cave, okay?” 

“Okay,” she whimpers. She’s so tired and Max is gonna carry her and she’s gonna be safe and nobody’s carried her in years. Something in her throat cries like the morning after the first time Lucas had brought beer through the basement door and he lets it. She lays over the branch like a leaf resting over a river, and it starts to comfort her like the soft flatness of her mattress back home.

Her eyes ask to flutter shut and she tells them yes, in some way she wouldn’t have before but Max is gonna carry her home like her mommy does when she fell asleep in the basement before Jonathan and Will moved in down there.

Will, where’s Will? 

“Holly, hey, I need you to stay awake, okay?”

Fine, she sighs. She peels her eyes open instead of answering, but Max seems satisfied. 

“Good news is, it doesn’t seem broken. Not even sprained. Just a little hurt, yeah?” 

Holly nods. It hurts, but not like it did when she fell. It’s already better. That’s good. 

Good.

Something’s happening to her.

“Kay Holly, I’m gonna pick you up. Can you sit up for me?” She nods. She can do that. Pushing herself up with grassy hands, she almost apologizes in advance for staining Max’s shirt, but—

She’s too tired.

Translucent. Light’s shining through her, but the static’s diffusing it. Sunshine filters out from her eyes—

Something’s happening.

Max slides her hands under her and lifts her up and Holly’s heart settles. When Max stands, Holly’s head falls into the crook of her neck, humming as Max asks if she’s comfortable. Max has never done this before. Why’s she picking her up? She hates him.

He’s tired, and Max is warmer than she ever is when he holds her hand in the hospital, so he shuts his eyes, and Max doesn’t argue.

Holly doesn’t fall asleep, but when she opens her eyes, she’s rested. They’re back in the cave, and her shoulders finally drop. 

It’s so bright in here.

Max lowers her gently down onto one of the softer looking rocks, if that’s possible, and lets out an exhale like she hadn’t expected them to make it. Why? She’d only fell.

“Max,” Holly starts, the sound round and unfamiliar. 

Max’s voice burns, opaque as it dances in Holly’s ears. “Yeah?”

“What do we do now?”

“Nothing, for now. You need to rest.”

She wants to fight. She’s been so brave, hasn’t she? She can’t stop now, not after Mike had made her—

Static, screaming—her temples sharp like swords. 

“Max,” she sobs, the pain sudden and once again unbearable. Max is at her side in an instant and she doesn’t understand! She squeezes her necklace charm with every inch of strength left in her body, much too small and flickering between here and there—where is there?

“Holly, hey, breathe- what hurts? You sure you didn’t hit your head?”

The static slams against her skull and she wishes she could fall asleep, let whatever’s happening to her subside until it’s safe to wake back up. She wants to go home. 

Holly whines, the sound vibrating through her chest. It brings her back, just a little, but she’s still so tired. So tired. 

“Max, can you sleep here?”

Max pauses, before thinking it over. “You—can, you just don’t need to. Do you…want to? Will that help?”

She nods something fierce. She needs out of here, just for a little while. “Then I’ll be brave again.”

Max huffs a humourless laugh. “Okay, Holly the Heroic. You sleep, and we’ll pick back up tomorrow.”

Exhaustion drifts closer after being given permission, and before darkness completely engulfs her, a word bubbles up in her throat. It’s important, for some reason, the distinction. As the rest of her body falls into sleep, she breathes out, “the Brave.”

Holly wakes to the sound of shoes padding circles around loose ground. When her eyes finally decide to flutter open, deciding it’s worth it to face the fake world around her, Max blurs into view. She’s pacing, hands at her hips and teeth chewing at her bottom lip. 

Holly sits up, slowly enough to gauge her headache, and is so very grateful only a small pinch remains. Max halts when she turns back, wasting no time to run over to her.

“Hey, how’re you feeling? Any pain?”

“No, ‘m good now. How…long has it been?”

“No idea, no clocks in here.” 

“Right. Um…” Holly pauses, taking in Max’s appearance. Her hair is frizzier than it was before she melted into sleep. She won’t stop pacing. “Are you okay?” 

Max coughs out a laugh. “Me? I’m fine, Holly. Are you? You kind of freaked me out back there.”

Holly squints, searching for the memory. She…oh, right. 

She fell.

She lifts her ankle off the rock an inch, spinning it in the air. Nothing screams back. “My ankle’s better.” 

Max stops pacing. “Okay, that’s good.” She replies, but her eyes are sharp as the sunlight. 

Holly sits, slowly, deciding if Max has something to say she’ll say it. “So, what do we do next?”

“Right. Um—that’s what I’ve been thinking about. And…” Max swallows, tearing her eyes away from Holly. Why’s she so unsure? It can’t be that bad of a plan. “I’m…worried.” she grits out, like it hurts her to say. “I’m worried we can’t get out, not without you facing Henry. And I know—I know you don’t want to go back. I’m not gonna…make you. But I don’t know what else to do.”

Not funny. "What?" No way. She’s just giving up? Like that? “What about door three? What about those memories?”

Max shuts her eyes. “Holly, I told you. My memories just brought me back here.”

“What about mine?”

“What?”

“Henry doesn’t know I know. He knew you knew he was evil, right?” Max nods. “Sooooo, he had an advantage. But he thinks I still believe him, so he won’t be able to just send me back here!” she finishes, hopping up to face Max. 

Max opens her mouth, probably ready to shut it down. No, Holly won’t have that. “We might as well try!” she emphasizes, swaying side to side in her dress. It feels good, free, for a few seconds, until her cape hits her arm and it feels like static. She shakes it off. 

“You really remind me of your brother, you know?” Max says. And—

There it is again. 

Holly—tilts. 

Sunlight foams under her eyelashes, static spilling out of her eyes once again, vision stolen by the static, static, static that won’t leave. Her hands lie by her sides, useless as she flinches back.

“Holly?” asks a voice, floaty at the top of the rainbow. Holly’s mouth opens. Nothing comes out. They have to leave, they have to get out of here.

Get out, get out, get out. 

Static fizzles out as quickly as it came, and Holly’s back. She bares Max no mind as she rolls her shoulders back, clears her fuzzy throat, and stomps up to the top of the cave. 

When she doesn’t hear footsteps behind her, she whips her head back, her trusty little cape turning with her in support. “Are you coming, or what?”

Max gawks at her, like Holly’s missed something important. She recovers with a laugh Holly can’t quite decipher, and huffs out, “I take it back, you don’t remind me of your brother! You are your brother!”

It hits Holly a second late, nearly stopping her in her tracks. The sunlight shines sharp, yellow light onto her pigtails as Max’s boots pick up speed behind her. 

Holly shakes her head, sunny pigtails twisting about in the desert. 

She isn’t—she isn’t her brother. She’s Holly.

Vecna took Holly. Mi—he is fine, safe, spared.

The sky is so blue above Holly’s head she thinks, dizzily, that she could hop up into it and land in a pool. The thought makes her giggle, and it settles into her stomach, sticky-sweet. She hasn’t been allowed to be like this, like a kid, in a while now. Not after all the hurt, the trauma, the lingering, gnawing fear that he has to be ready for whatever’s coming for them next.

What?

Max is here.

Max is here, because she followed her. She isn’t letting him wander off into the desert alone. Not that Holly needs her to, she could totally survive out here by herself. Apparently Henry won’t stop foot into the cave, and they’re well past that point now.

“Jesus, your little legs are fast.”

Holly laughs. Little? His legs are long. Nobody will shut up about it. Mom and Ted and Dustin and Lucas keep teasing him for it, Dustin shouting from behind him ever since Will’s passed him in height. Holly laughs and laughs as Max looks at her like—

Like something. Huh, what’s Max doing here?

The sun is so bright. He’d shut his eyes but the thought scares him too much, like he just wants to keep them open after being forced shut for too long. 

Fizzy black concrete creeps into his vision, but he can’t chase it fast enough to see the details. He’s back in the sun. Max is here. Max is here. 

She said something. Legs. Right, his long legs. 

Max is standing in front of her. They should be walking, shouldn’t they?

Holly picks up a foot, starting to head out further into the desert. Max follows, but she’s in front of her, if only by a few inches.

Holly pouts. 

Wasn’t she faster? How did Max get in front of her? Static falls out of her mouth. “How’d you win? This is like Dig Dug all over again,” she whines, barely hearing the sound. The static falls down to her feet like raindrops on a car window. 

The sand underneath Max’s shoes skids as she stops walking. “Dig Dug?” she asks, bewildered.

“Yeah, when you won.” Holly reminds her, because shouldn’t Max remember her own high score?

“You…did your brother tell you I beat his ass at Dig Dug?”

Oh.

Yeah. Probably.

How else would she know about that? But he—Mi—

He doesn’t exactly like Max that much, does he? Why would he ever—when did he—why would he ever confess to losing to her? 

“Uh, I don’t know.” 

The sun’s getting brighter, burning into her pigtails. Making it darker.

Curlier.

“Hey, you feeling okay? Realizing your brother isn’t all you thought he was, losing his favourite game to me?”

There it is again, your brother. Holly has a brother. Mi—he does not. 

Holly has a brother.

It’s like—it’s—all the air shoots out of her, right from under her shoes. It’s hard to breathe, hard to exist, because something is very, very wrong.

Holly has a brother. Where is he? He isn’t at home, is he?

He’s been in the static, the whole time, hasn’t he?

When did he—

“Max?” Holly whimpers, and it sounds tiny, and like Holly, little Holly, and something is wrong. 

“Woah—hey, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

“No, Max, I—I don’t know, but something is really wrong with me,” she cries, and it doesn’t sound like her at all, something is wrong something is wrong. 

She blinks and she’s on the ground, dress pillowing out on the orange sand. Max has her hands gently clenched around her shoulders, instructing her to breathe alongside terribly concerned eyes.

“Max,” Holly croaks, over tears she wants nothing more than to scrape off her cheeks. She can’t move, because it’ll just remind her. Remind her that— “I don’t think I’m me.”

Max falters, grip loosening on her shoulders. “What do you mean, Holly?”

“I mean, I don’t think I’m Holly,” she cries, the sound high and whiny like how he gets when he’s sad.

Max looks terrified, mildly, but straightens her expression, hardening her eyes. “Is it Henry?”

“No, no—it’s not him. I think,” he inhales, air coming in like fire. “I think I’m my brother.”

Max—laughs, but there’s no humour to it. “Holly, when I said that earlier, I was kidding—”

“No, Max, you have to believe me. Something is wrong, I don’t…I don’t know how, but I’m here. I—I’m Holly but I’m not, I—” she falters, static just at the tips of her toes. It threatens her now, as she cries out the grey, like a last ditch effort to scare her back in. It floats just behind him as he blinks the sunlight in, staring up at Max.

Max studies him like she’s waiting for him to laugh, take it back, jump on up and continue on through the desert. He doesn’t, because all he can do is cry. This is so confusing and he just wants to go home, and it’s like he’s back to being ten, scared of the dark and the world and—

“...Mike?” Max breathes, shakily.

Holly looks up, eyes wide as she slowly, slowly shifts, layers of translucent paperdust coming together in her mind. “Max, I don’t know what’s going on.” 

“So you’re…you’re Mike, then. Not Holly.” Max sounds near hysterical, ready to bolt as she tries to piece it together. 

All Mike can do is nod, glassy eyes finally adjusting to the sunlight.

Max leaps at him, hugging him in a way she’s never approached him before. “Oh, my god.” She cries. “Fuck, Wheeler.”

Mike doesn’t even try to blink away the tears. She’s here, she’s here, alive and moving and even in Vecna’s mind, he’ll take it. He can see for the first time since—

Since h—Holly fell in the forest, and he wants to drink in the sight, feeling like a person again after…

“Max, what the hell is going on,” he swallows.

“No fucking clue, Wheeler. Why are you in your sister’s body?” she asks, nearly a smile, and Mike laughs at the absurdity. “...How long?”

“This is the first time I’ve…been aware. That I’m—me. But the first thing I remember is being in the forest. I was there, somewhere, then…then I was Holly.”

Mike can barely understand it as he explains it. He’s ridiculously grateful Max even believes him, in this weird in-between of him barely believing himself. 

It does hit him, as he speaks, that this means Vecna took him. It seems to hit Max at the same time, because her disbelieving smile is replaced with a sick sort of frown. 

“I don’t remember him…taking me. I saw him, at some point—” it’s fuzzy. Red and damp like his hair, eyes wide and searching for Will. “But he didn’t talk to me.”

Max nods. “He’s switching strategies. He didn’t attack Holly the way he got me.”

Thank God, crosses his mind before he sweeps it away. 

“Speaking of which, um—how are you?” Mike feels stupid as he asks it.

“Bad,” she deadpans, then melts into a grin. “I can’t believe you’re the first one I’m seeing again. Even if you aren’t—you, right now.”

“Remind me to avoid you when we get back.”

“Shut up, Wheeler. You’re thrilled to see me.”

Mike flips her off, which he’s sure looks hilarious in his current form, and stumbles to stand. Now that he’s almost all himself, being in Holly’s body is dizzying and energizing all at once. 

It’s less uncomfortable than it is…a shift, so strong he can taste it, in the way his mouth moves around words so strangely, so unlike himself. He very, very much does not feel like he’s in his own body. He feels bright and small and his mind wants to meld with Holly’s and it should scare him but he feels little again and they’re on a mission and he just wants to go go go. 

Once he’s up, he’s raring to run. The sand sparkles underneath his boots and his cape wooshes behind him as he brushes his hands on the dress Holly’s picked out. He doesn’t remember when she did that, so he must have still been—floating around, wherever Vecna plucked him out and chucked him. 

It’s a nice dress. Blue and white and cool under the cape, which almost blends in with the sand dancing around the soles of his little boots. 

He shifts his gaze back up to the desert ahead, and exhales through his nose. 

Time to go home.

More importantly, time to get Max and Holly home.

If Mike were here in his own body, he’s sure he would have tapped out by now. The walk is long and warm as orange fades into green, uneven grasshills. 

Henry’s world requires patience. 

It gives them time to catch up, at least.

Mike fills Max in on Lucas, unsure whether or not to include just how distraught he’s been since Max landed in that hospital bed. Max pushes, of course, and it seems to help, in some strange way.

Mike supposes he understands. If anybody had told Will that Mike was managing just fine, don’t worry at all when he had gone missing or been possessed, it’d feel wrong. Why lie, when Max should know that she isn’t the only one suffering, the only one weighed down with missing?

But Mike—Mike doesn’t think about him and Will that way. They aren’t like Lucas and Max. So, you know. 

Anyway.

Mike tells Max that El broke up with him, and the sigh of relief she gives him makes him feel oceans better than Dustin and Lucas’s winces. 

Of course Max, of all people, sees it as a good thing. She’s never liked their relationship, and though Mike hadn’t understood it before, he thinks it’s becoming clearer. 

She’s always seen him. To an uncomfortable degree, really. It still angers him, but it’s quieted since she was taken. The worst in him shone through to her like cracked glass, and it made it impossibly hard to pretend around her.

With every step through the grassy landscapes past the cave’s desert, Mike finds it easier to walk in Holly’s boots. They’ve got a slight platform to them that he isn’t used to, not needing the height back at home, but his legs still feel just as short. 

There’s a part of him that doesn’t want to give in, that argues a need for wariness as he waits for the pin to drop—for him to fall back into his own body, where he’ll have to readjust all over again if he softens into the comfort of Holly’s joyful step.

But—

He can feel it, the desire to relax into it. His mind wants to fall into the uncomplicated cosmos of Holly’s mind. Fighting it feels so silly as he walks further and further into the mindscape. He doesn’t find any of that sour misery he’s become such close friends with in his own mind.

He smiles so easily here. He skips across the grass just because he can, and he hears Max snort beside him. Is this how it used to feel? Is this what he’s been missing out on?

Is Mike allowed to live like this? 

He knows he’ll have to return home, to his own body. It’s what he’s skipping towards. But maybe, for now, he’ll—he’ll let himself be. He’ll be a kid again.

Grassy flatlands swarm his vision as he refocuses, and he shakes his head, eyeing the windy patches of green for anything out of the ordinary. It’s with a turn to the right that he finally spots it—

A door. Pristine white and familiar. 

Mike’s eyes widen, and he runs towards it, boots kicking blades of grass up behind him.

“Mike! Wait up, asshole!” he hears, and he’ll wait for Max once he reaches the door. He isn’t that mean. But try, he wants to shout back, having this much energy again, and see how much you feel like walking anywhere when you can skip into a sprint instead.

When he reaches the door, he squints down at its legs. What kind of door has legs? 

If he masks the legs with his hand, it looks identical to one in his house. It’s just pure white, which isn’t entirely helpful. This could be the basement, or his own bedroom.

Either way, this is a door in his house. Mike is sure of it. 

He’s kneeling down in front of the strange little legs (he’s decided to acknowledge them again) when Max catches up to him, a little out of breath. “When’d you get so fast?”

“Ts not me, it’s Holly.” He rushes out, eyes fixated on the wooden slats inches away from his face. “This door has legs.”

“Sure does,” Mike drawls, words dragged out like she’s talking to a toddler. It pisses Mike off. He turns around so fast his hair wacks him in the face.

“You don’t have to talk to me like I’m five.”

Max’s eyebrows shoot up, mouth agape in a way that’s so familiar to Mike it feels, for a moment, like they’re back at home. “You literally said that being like this makes you feel like you’re Holly’s age again, and you act like you’re twelve again most of the time anyway. So you might as well be.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense! If anything I’d be eleven, then!” His words cause Max to falter, and he’s about to ask if she really doesn’t know her math, but—

Eleven. 

They haven’t talked much about El, side for their amicable breakup, and that shifted to Max’s thoughts on Mike himself so quick they hadn’t uttered her name again. She’s a topic they tend to avoid with each other, a mutual misunderstanding since ‘85. 

Even her name, in no relation to her, seems to drag Max into her head, and Mike can’t have that. Mike isn’t stupid—Max misses her, probably just as much as she misses Lucas. He can’t keep fighting with her now, not while she’s sad. They don’t cross that line. 

Mike clears his throat, pushes himself up, and wipes the grass off his hands. “We should go.”

Max clears her throat. “Yeah.”

The door creaks as they open it. Mike isn’t sure why he expected it to be harder, like Vecna had found them remotely—they are in his head—and set it up as a trap.

Apparently not. It’s his basement after all, a relief as he twists the knob open to find the familiar descent of stairs. In the last two years, he’s come to walk down these more than the stairs up to his own room. 

It’s strange, as they start down, because he has no idea what memory could be down here. The basement is filled to the brim with memories for Mike, good and bad alike.

The sounds he hears aren’t familiar at all.

Well, they are, sort of. He’s seen this movie, with Will and Lucas and Dustin. It was fun, if not a terribly normal hangout. Nothing worth being the first memory they find.

Then he spots her.

Holly’s curled up in a blanket fort with her friend Mary, watching the third Nightmare on Elm Street on the TV. It’s pouring out, the rain hitting the windows so hard it sounds like it’ll shatter the glass. The last time that’d happened, it was…Halloween.

Mike’s stomach drops. He has to go through Holly’s memories? 

He doesn’t—he doesn’t know her memories, not the significant ones, not really. How’s he meant to notice those inconsistencies Max had found, the strange little specks of wrongness? How’s he supposed to get them out?

Max seems to have the same thought, because she takes a gentle hold on Mike’s wrist, and squeezes. “Hey, we’ll figure it out,” she says, more kindly than she’s ever spoken to him. 

Maybe she forgot that he isn’t really Holly.

Nevertheless, he nods. They can’t stay up here. He braves one step down, the sound of the TV growing louder and louder as they descend the stairs. They spot Vecna, watching through the window. Max flips him off, and Mike sort of wishes she’d push open the glass and strangle him, but this is just a memory.

Over the sound of the TV Mike also wishes they could shut off to better concentrate, Max starts to play detective around the basement.

“Does this drawing look off?”

“No, it’s the same.”

“You barely looked.”

“Max,” he snaps. “I know what Will’s drawings look like.”

He’s about to give up and stomp back upstairs when Max stalks over to the desk buried in the corner like she knows it as well as Mike. “What about these?” she points to the books that…well, they do look off.

“Wait, that—those shouldn’t be down here. Those are on my bookshelf upstairs.”

“Bingo.”

Max shoves half his comics to the side, which he nearly chastises her for before remembering that they aren’t really his comics. Thunder roars outside as Max climbs up on the desk and gestures for Mike to take her hand.

“Come on,” she grins. Mike grabs her hand, pulling him onto the desk. Propped up on his knees, he peeks through for the first time, eyes widening when he sees what’s through the clearing in the shelf.

His room, illuminated only by a desk lamp and a crack of lightning, sits pretty where only solid wall should be.

He spots himself on his bed, legs up as he balances a Stephen King novel open. 

Holy shit, it’s his room on Halloween.

He remembers this, knows he wasn’t really reading the book at all. He’d picked a reread on purpose, knowing he’d be too busy looking at—

Will, who’s drawing at Mike’s desk. He jumps slightly at every flash of lightning, but gets right back to sketching like it never happened.

Apparently he gets far too invested in watching his own memory, because Max is gently shoving his arm and nodding for him to climb through.

It isn’t a scary memory. She can see that. There’s no reason not to go. So, Mike pushes through, and gracefully tumbles onto his bedroom floor.

“Mike!” Max calls from behind him. “Just because you can’t get hurt in here doesn’t mean you should try to!”

As soon as she’s solid on the floor, Mike throws her the finger. “Holly’s legs are a lot shorter than mine, shut up.”

When he turns to face the scene, he wants nothing more than to run back into Holly’s memory. Nightmare on Elm Street 3’s a blast, surely he can busy himself there until Vecna catches up to him. The idea of Max seeing…this, as the two of them have to search for the next memory?

Maybe if he just…keeps his eyes down, and tells Max to mind her own goddamn business, neither of them have to acknowledge anything that happened here.

Yeah.

“So…what happened here?”

Honestly, fuck Max Mayfield.

“Nothing,” Mike insists. When she says nothing, “Holly had called dibs on the basement, so I told Will we could hang out in my room.

“You guys didn’t go out for Halloween?” 

“No, why do you care? Will likes to spend it inside, ever since…that Halloween after you showed up. And Lucas was with you and Dustin was at the Squawk. So we just hung out.”

Together.

“What’s the Squawk?”

Mike huffs, grateful for the chance to change the subject. “It’s Robin and Steve’s radio show. We’ve been using it as a cover to communicate about crawl missions.”

When Max leaves it at a hum, Mike gets to work investigating his actual bookshelves, avoiding looking at himself or Will as he waits for the soft pads of Max’s shoes behind him that never come.

“Are you even reading that?” she laughs. Mike hates her. 

“Can you just get back to looking for something?” he snaps. 

“Sorry, Wheeler, but I don’t know your room.”

It’s—true, unfortunately. Unless something pops out in their faces, Max won’t notice anything off about his bedroom. It doesn’t mean she should just stand there and watch this, though.

Maybe if he figures out the way to the next memory, she won’t even have time to. So he speeds up, ducking under his bed in search of a portal underneath and ignoring the discreet little boxes filled with more words than he’s ever been able to say out loud. 

“Mike?” he hears from above. Oh, shit.

“Will?” he hears himself respond, that embarrassing, breathy little sound. He knows he’s blushing awfully where he sits up on his bed. 

He’s going to curl up underneath and stay here forever. Max can find her own way out.

“You’re staring, is there something on my face?”

“No, no. Sorry, I—you’re just a lot more interesting than this,” he holds up the book, losing his page and completely uncaring of it.

Will gapes back at him, mouth opened so prettily. Mike doesn’t know where it comes from, the urge to push, to try, to be honest. The darkness maybe, only fazed out by the soft glow beside Will. Is it even the desk lamp, or is it Will himself? Will, whose eyes are shining as they stare, barely blinking, back at Mike?

“Why don’t you come over here, then?” Will whispers back. Mike’s heart threatens to stop, the flush on his ace so hot it could have turned to Summer outside. He gulps, barely able to nod. He’s tumbling off his bed and sock-feet stepping over to hop up onto his desk, beside where Will’s sketchbook lies flat open.

Mike’s never been so forward before as he stares down into Will’s eyes, and he doesn’t entirely know where it’s come from. It could be—could be written off as giddy with holiday spirit. They’ve always both loved Halloween, and the TV’s taken, so. He’s got to make the most of it somehow.

Maybe, though…maybe it’s being alone with Will for the first time in what feels like months on end. Living with him is hard on his heart, but it’s harder knowing there’s far too many people in his house, preventing him from being alone with Will. He’s always downstairs with Jonathan, or drawing with Holly, and even when he is alone in his makeshift room, Mike has to brave the kitchen that’s full of his parents or Nancy or Ms. Byers.

Now, though? Now it’s only them, uninterrupted. Alone. Will’s wearing an Exorcist longsleeve that’s a little too big on him, no doubt from Jonathan’s closet, and it’s darker than anything in his own possession. It all but hangs off his shoulders, the sleeves a little too long over his wrists. He’s drawing in Mike’s room like they’re kids again, and they’ve been sharing little looks over dinners, and it feels like maybe, maybe, Mike isn’t the only one who’s noticed. Noticed this…

“Mike,” Max breathes in awe, and Mike is seriously going to stay under the bed and never face her again. “Are you guys about to kiss?”

“What?!” he cries, lifting his head to face her, and—BANG! He whacks his head on the bedframe, yelping pathetically. The pain radiates down to his temples as he crawls backwards out into the battlefield.

“Shit, are you okay?”

“M fine. No, we didn’t kiss! We just…” Well, what did they do? What would have happened if—

“You look good in that,” Mike wants to run his hands down the front of his shirt. Seriously, where the hell did this come from? He’s been biting his tongue around Will for months, trying to behave, trying desperately not to let it out. 

“Mike,” Will breathes, disbelieving. “You, um. You look good, too.” he stutters.

Mike giggles. “I’m just wearing my Hellfire shirt.”

“Yeah, well.” Will ducks his head down. “You never wear it anymore. It’s nice.”

“I could wear it more, if you want.”

Mike avoids eye contact with Max entirely as he stands up, rubbing his head where he’d hit it. Max looks torn between watching the scene and checking on him, and for once, he’d actually prefer Max Mayfield to pay attention to him than…well, pay attention to him. 

They should be in a rush to find the next memory, anyway. She pushes gently down on where he’d hit it, asking where it hurts the most. Once she deems it not bleeding or anything too bad, she looks back to where Mike and Will’s faces are growing closer to each other.

Mike hits her arm. “Max! Come on, just look for something.” 

He can feel Max’s eyes burning into his back as he flies around the room in search of an anomaly. It’s only when he turns to check the closet again that he sees it—through the window, the wrong view. 

It isn’t the cul-de-sac that stares back at him, but a dirt road with a few stray trees. 

It’s Will’s old driveway.

It’s a huge relief, except for the fact that they have to climb past where he and Will are whispering in each other’s ears, unaware they’re about to be interrupted by Nancy’s pounding on the door. Mike takes a big breath, then steels himself to climb up on the desk. He takes the lead, letting Max follow him. 

He unlocks the window and all but jumps out, ready to forget about this memory. Max, apparently, is not. When they’re through, she’s on him without a second to breathe.

His boots stomp down on the dirt path leading up to the Byers’ old front door as Max starts to interrogate him. “So you’re telling me you didn’t end up kissing? Is that how you think you treat the rest of your friends? Because if you leaned in like that to me I would—”

“Nancy interrupted us,” he grumbles. 

“So you would have then, if she didn’t?”

“I—I don’t know, Max, probably not!” It feels wrong as soon as it leaves his mouth. He knows he wanted to, that he would have if he could. 

“Why not?” She presses. 

Mike is in awe. “Because? Max, can you imagine how people would—how my family would react if they found out?” 

He’s barely dancing around saying it. He never, never could have imagined talking about this, let alone with Max, but she isn’t dancing around it. Isn’t treating it any differently than the idea of her and Lucas, or Nancy and Jonathan. 

She’s just—asking. Asking why he didn’t kiss his…his crush. Like that’s normal, like it’s possible. 

Only the sound of gravel under their feet responds, until they make it inside. Once the door shuts, Max seems to deem it safe to talk again. Or maybe she’s just letting him cool down, before cornering him again.

“You wouldn’t have to tell them,” she presses.

Mike turns, ignoring the sickening nostalgia he feels being back in the Byers’ house. “I—that doesn’t. That doesn’t make it okay.”

“Why isn’t it okay?”

“Are you being dense on purpose?”

“I just want to know. Why’s it so bad?”

“Because it isn’t allowed, Max.”

“Do you think that?”

“It’s not up to me!”

“So you’re just gonna live in fear your whole life?”

“Yes!” 

Max doesn’t falter. She squints her eyes, stepping a foot closer to Mike. “Is that what you’re doing now?”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Right now. Getting us out. You have Holly’s memories, right?” Mike nods, tentatively. “So you know what I told her, about the three doors. You chose door three, without a second of hesitation.”

“That’s different—”

“How? You could have given up at any point, Mike. You’re gonna get all this way, escape something nobody else has, and just…go back to being afraid? Forever? Because Ted Wheeler might get mad?”

Mike’s eyes drop down to the floor. Max’s shoes are dirty, worn. She’s been in here for so long. 

“Mike. I know it’s not easy. It’s not fair that you and Will would have to hide. But isn’t it worth it to try? You love him, right?”

“More than anything,” Mike whispers. 

“Then, Mike, let yourself try. We’ll be here for you. You know that, right?”

“I…guess.”

“None of us are normal, Mike. We wouldn’t stop loving you, not for this of all things.”

“You don’t love me, you hate me.” he argues, whiney. Pushing. 

“No,” Max sighs, rolling her eyes. “I don’t. You’re annoying as hell, but you’re my friend. Unfortunately.”

Mike sniffs, wiping his face. He is not crying. “You promise?”

“I promise. We can…we can go on double dates, together. Me and Lucas and you and Will. And if anybody tries to hurt you, we’ll kill them.” She finishes, sharp and resolute. 

“You really think he…”

“Likes you too? Yes, Mike, he would have kissed you back. I could see it.”

“...Okay,” he sniffles, because maybe he’s crying a little bit. Whatever. And…maybe, well—now that she’s mentioned it, the idea of Will…kissing him, it’s hard to think of much else, let alone argue. 

“Come on, let’s find the next memory. Kay?” Max’s smile is calm, safe. Okay. 

“Kay.”

The final memory brings them back to Holly. It makes sense, and it’s hardly difficult to figure out the way out.

It doesn’t make it any easier to watch. 

The demogorgon slashes across Mike’s mom’s chest with a sticky ease that brings Mike’s heart back to watching through Hawkins Lab, the harrowed screams of Ms. Byers swimming in and out of his frightened little ears. He tries to look away now, but everywhere he looks fills his vision with red. Holly, covered in blood, knocked down and taken. His mom, phone ringing out beside her body like a flatline.

Somewhere beside him, Max has a hand on his shoulder as she reminds him once again that it isn’t real, your mom’s being taken care of, but it doesn’t rid the fact that it happened in the first place.

It happened, and he wasn’t there. 

Like she can read his mind, Max shakes him a little, huffing out, “Hey, you’re here. That means Holly is safe. You’re keeping her safe.” 

Mike nods, swallowing around nausea at the sight of his mom. He borrows a page from Max and shakes his head, eyes shut like the child he’s felt more and more like the more time he spends in Holly’s body. 

Max drops her hand from his shoulder, taking instead his hand, and leads them past the kitchen and away from the scene. As they round the corner Mike wants to weep. The front door, typically a sight of green and dirt and an unnecessarily long driveway, houses a red hot sky, pillars and blood taking the place of trees and neighbouring homes.

Max tugs on his hand as they run towards it, their hands overlapping on the doorknob as they twist and twist away. 

Nothing happens as they pull, twist, pound on the wood. Max grunts, anger and desperation coating her every slam on the door’s window. Mike ducks down to the floor, searching for a hidden lock, a button, a get out of Hell free card, something. 

“Come on!” she shouts, tapping on Mike’s back to stand him up and follow her. She leads him to the windows, that same bloody red reflecting off Max’s fiery expression as she pounds the glass here, too. 

This is Mike’s house, for God’s sake. There has to be something in here—he turns, eyes bouncing off every red-tinted surface and overpriced decoration in this stupid room. His vision lands on the fire-stick, one Mike’s never been allowed to touch when it grew cold enough for Ted to decide the fireplace worth messing with. 

He runs over, plucking the metal out of its hold. It isn’t a knife, or a crowbar, but it’ll do. The metal is dark and heavy and threatening enough that he could maybe try it against a demogorgon, so glass shouldn’t stand a chance. 

“Max, let me try!” 

With her out of the way of the window, Mike attacks the glass, the metal nearly slipping out of his hand with the force. He grips it tighter still, making holes in both the higher and lower panels, so they should both be able to fit through. 

BANG. BANG. BANG. 

Footsteps loud as gunshots descend the stairs. They’re slow, methodical, like Henry knows no rush, fear of Mike and Max’s escape not even a whisper in his mind. 

“What do we do, once we’re out?” he whispers to Max, his voice the only thing working in his favour as he shakes, spine bolt straight. 

She leans down, eyes glued to the staircase. “Run like hell, then find your portal. Mine will have my song playing through it. Yours…will be the other one.” It’s enough. Mike nods, turning back to the windows. With every hit, the glass grows thicker, like Henry’s hold on the world, on their way out, is strengthening. He tries to ignore it, keeping his grunts as quiet as he can in the tiny, tiny chance he doesn’t know where they are.

Max seems to notice it too, the fire-stick’s strength weakening against the glass, because she’s off in search for her own weapon. Each one of Henry’s footsteps shoot through his chest, their impact on the soft Wheeler family carpet impossibly loud. He keeps going, breaking less and less glass as he tries harder and harder to shove the old metal through. 

When Henry reaches the bottom, he can feel it. He turns, slow as Henry’s footsteps had sauntered down the stairs. Henry’s face is like nothing he’s ever seen before. He is human, far more human than when Mike had seen him at the MAC-Z, but there is a tinge of…off. It feels like he’s stepped foot into uncanny valley as Mike dares to make eye contact, Henry’s shoulders under his stark white uniform tilting at an angle that throws his entire posture off. He was born human, Mike does not doubt it, but he has become something far worse than the demogorgons. He is evil, calculated and aware. Mike decides he hates it more than anything else in the world. 

When he opens his mouth, Mike half expects a fly to crawl out, wingless and beaten just by living in a body as cruel as Henry’s. Instead, his voice, one that betrays his face as it climbs out of his throat, breathes a deep, growling, “Hello, Holly.” 

He sounds like death all grown up. 

Mike wants to turn his head, find where Max has gone off to, beg her to promise him she hasn’t left him here, but his body won’t move. Henry has him paralyzed just by looking at him, and all Mike can do is stare back. Shifting from his face to the rest of his body makes Mike nauseous, as the blood on his otherwise crisp white uniform pops out like a statement piece. 

He’s forced to look back up as Henry breathes a terrible growl, and his entire face shifts. His eyebrows twist upwards like he’s seeing through Mike’s soul, picking him apart with only his eyes. 

“Or, that’s not right, is it,” he drawls, as Mike remembers the stick in his hand, gripping tighter onto what had been all but useless as Henry drew closer. “...Michael?”

Mike’s chest heaves. How does he—how can he—He turns, searching for Max where she’s disappeared in his house. His neck pangs with ache, Henry’s hold on him seemingly not just in his head. Every shift of his body screams back at him, but he can’t let it end here, not now, not when it isn’t his body that’ll die. 

Where the hell is she? Mike forces his eyes away from Vecna, searching for Max, but it hurts. Holly’s mind pulls him as the urge to cry envelopes him. He’s half a breath away from trying to scream, when—

Vecna’s arm shoots out, vine-like as it twists around his neck. Mike gags, his vision green and decay as his feet lift from the ground. If the hold Vecna just had on him was painful, this is agonizing. He can’t breathe, can’t think, can only feel the sharp pain like a knife fitted around his neck. 

He’s going to get Holly killed he’s going to get his baby sister killed she’s going to die and she didn’t even get a chance to fight—

“How,” Vecna growls, his voice inching closer and closer as he pulls Mike in. “Did you get in?” He demands, anger pulsing through his grip on Mike. 

Mike opens his eyes. When had they shut? He struggles in Vecna’s grasp, the sudden sight of the form Mike had seen at the MAC-Z close, too close to his face. The blood red of Vecna’s viney body is dreadful, and Mike tries to shut his eyes again, to escape, but his body—Vecna, won’t even give that to him. 

It’s a terrible thing to see before he dies. Max is gone, and Mike won’t even die as himself. He had to bring Holly into this. God, he hopes she can’t see this. 

His vision fades with every second, time stretching and pulling as he tries to scream, to make his last moments useful, but to nothing. His eyes, finally giving way, flutter shut, one blade of grass at a time, until—

Until, 

Until…

“AGH!” 

Darkness slaps Mike awake as his cheek hits the floor, a cold kiss to his recovering throat as he gags, breaths flying in and out of his lungs. He forces his eyes open as Vecna cries out, thrashing on the floor as his leg twists unnaturally, further and further, until it snaps. 

Mike watches in awe as Vecna screams, black-red blood forming a small pool under his leg. As he moves to stand, eyes still on the monster as he pushes himself up with shaky hands, he hears footsteps run to his side.

“Mike!” Max cries, and Mike breathes out a sob, finding her above him. She’s holding out her hands for him to take, and she looks unscathed, and alive, and she didn’t abandon him. 

“Max,” he croaks, throat just barely working again. She tugs him up after a second of concern, and holds him for a second longer than they probably have, transfixed as she watches the scene in front of them. 

Vecna is sitting up, but it’s strained, unnatural. Max heaves against Mike, the two of them clutching onto each other as Vecna’s head creeps to face them, forceful like it pains him to do so.

“Max,” he roars, grating like nails on a chalkboard. “Holly, if you can hear me, you need to run! RUN!” 

Max yanks Mike towards the window as Vecna collapses. Something in the room pops, and Mike halts to pick up his fire-stick where he dropped it mid-strangulation. He slams it into the window, where—thank fucking God—the glass has weakened again, like Vecna can no longer hold it. It sends a shockwave of relief up Mike’s arms, confirming Vecna is out, even if temporarily. 

“Was that—”

“El. It has to be. Mike, she knows we’re in here,” Max finishes for him, relief like frosting on her voice. As Mike shatters the last few glass panels, she inhales something sharp. 

“I’m so sorry I didn’t come sooner,” she huffs. “I tried to run back, but he had me—paralyzed, or something.”

“It’s okay,” Mike assures, crouching down to climb through one of the lower panels, letting Max take the taller way through. “He did it to me too. Strangled me while he was at it.” 

“Fuck, Mike, are you okay?”

Nodding, Mike just wants to move on. “We need to go.” 

They shove themselves through the windows with no cuts, somehow, which Mike thinks is totally deserved after everything they just survived. His boots hit the ground with an awful squelch, and he isn’t about to investigate, but Max is even quicker than he is to recover.

She’s been here before, Mike notes. She’s lived this, before she got snapped back into it. Her face is resolute, shut off. 

“Ready?” she asks, eyes piercing like she needs to hear his answer, like she’ll listen if it’s no. 

Mike nods, the movement sore and almost real. It feels different in here, like they’re floating towards the real world. He supposes they are, if this is the home of their portals. 

With a full body-shaking exhale, Mike starts to run, knowing Max will follow. 

Stained glass windows hurtle past them and Max pays them no mind past ducking out of the way. She points to the empty expanse beyond the slabs of wood and pillars, and he doesn’t ask questions when she has him shut his eyes and hold her hand, no doubt not letting him see…something.

He’s grateful. But they’re almost there, almost home, almost safe, and only stray vines snake up towards them. His eyes fly to Max’s feet, who’s dodging them with an ease Mike tries very, very hard to replicate.

Run, run, you’re almost there, run—

Max stops. Mike skids to follow, nearly tripping over his boots.

“Okay,” Max breathes, awe coating the word. Mike dares a glance up, finding only walls of translucent, foggy walls in front of them. Max opens her mouth to speak again when she pauses, eyes on the back of her hand. 

He wants to interject, ask what’s wrong, what possibly could be as important as finding their portals, when a distant blow of wind gusts ahead of them. 

Her portal, through which is—Lucas. Holding her hand. 

“Max,” he whispers. She’s near tears beside him, transfixed on the sight ahead. Hell, Mike wants to cry seeing Lucas. Knowing he’s okay, after being away from him for only a few days, he can’t bear to imagine how Max feels. 

She looks ready to bolt, and he honestly expects her to, but Max only turns, hands on Mike’s shoulders like they’ve come to land so often since he fell into Holly’s head, and tearily confesses, “I’m not leaving until your portal opens.”

The intensity in her eyes stuns him. “O-okay.” He can’t help looking back to Max’s portal, fearing the moment it closes without her. He can’t, he can’t be the reason she doesn’t escape.

“You’ll probably end up in Holly’s body, back in the Upside Down, but I don’t know for sure. Either way, everybody back home probably knows you’re in here. When I get back, I will make sure we get you out, okay?” He doesn’t know if she’s only talking to him like this because he’s in Holly’s body, but it’s terrible for the tears springing to his eyes.

When was the last time anybody talked to him like this? Patient, caring, protective? Where was this when he was unlucky enough to be ten years old?

“Max, I don’t know how to find her portal,” he whispers, miserably. 

“Will it be her portal, or yours?” she asks, like he’s supposed to know the answer.

“I don’t know! I don’t know, Max, but clearly nobody is with her, or me, or whatever, because nothing is happening!”

Max’s lip quivers. “You are absolutely not alone if they know he took you. Maybe…maybe it is Holly’s, then, if she’s in the Upside Down. Can you…I don’t know.” Cutting herself off, Max searches Mike’s face. He feels utterly useless, mind totally blank of solutions. “Lucas is what connects me back to the real world. Can you think of what that is for Holly?” she pauses, then looks down where his hand—

Max smiles. At the attention, Mike looks down. He’s got his hand wrapped around Holly the Heroic, but—he doesn’t remember moving his arm. 

“Think of when you made that for her,” she whispers.

“Will actually painted it—” he interrupts. Max rolls her eyes. 

“I bet he did. Mike, think of when you gave it to her. How you felt, how much she loved it. If this is like, a thing…think about how she feels about it, now. How does it feel to hold onto it, Holly?”

School corridors, muffled politeness. A soft pocket of safety, a promise, a belief. His mouth opens to answer, but— “It makes me feel…safe. And brave.” Somebody else answers for him. Mike’s eyes widen, shooting up to Max. She’s grinning something tearful.

“There she is. Mike, you two are brave. Strong. Heroic. You’re Wheelers. You’re stubborn and loud and you don’t give up. You discovered an alternate dimension when everybody said Will was dead. Holly, you faced Henry even after I told you he was evil. Who else would be brave enough to do that? Hm?” she sniffs, eyes fierce as she lets stray tears fall. Mike knows he’s no better, cheeks wet as he cries for Holly, for Will, for him. For Max, finally getting to go home.

A distant, echoing woosh brings his eyes over past Max. A—

A portal, big and wispy and Holly. Deep blue, cold, but Holly. 

It flashes. A lightning strike later, Mike sees… himself. He’s passed out, somewhere soft, and there’s a hand in his hair, another over his eyes. Strike. Holly. Flash. Mike. 

Max turns, beaming the moment she spots it. “Holy shit,” she whispers. “Holy shit! Mike,” she turns back, finding Mike’s eyes. “Go, get yourselves to your house. We’ll come find you, okay?”

“Okay,” Mike sniffles, feeling a tickle near his scalp. That hand, somewhere in the real world, pulling him home. “Okay. I’ll see you soon?”

“Race you home, Wheeler,” Max winks. She turns, facing her portal. Mike gulps, and—

Runs. 

It’s time to go home. 

Vines snake faster now as he runs, and he doesn’t care. He stomps down on them as he sprints, for Holly, for Holly, for Holly. 

Their portal flashes in tandem with Mike’s racing heartbeat as he inches closer and closer, the wind around it loud as rushing waves. He barely hears it. Not over the soft voice every other flash, whose hand gently plays with his curls.

Come back to me, Mike. 

3 steps.

2 steps.

1…step…

FLASH.

Mike falls.

Mike can’t breathe, not fully.

His mouth is open but it won’t let him take in any air and he panics, pain shooting through his entire body. His nose hates whatever surrounds him, but he can breathe through it, just barely, so it’ll do. 

He feels infinitely worse than he did in—

Oh, God.

He tries to move his arms to check, to feel where his hair ends, if pigtails fall over his shoulders, but something is blocking them. His eyes feel glued shut, but he forces, wills them to open, until he can just make out where he even is.

Deep blue, cold and wet, surrounds him. He’s in the Upside Down. He knew it, expected it, but he can’t help the shudder that shoots through his body. Stretching his tired eyes up, he sees a low ceiling. He’s inside, which feels…better. Better than the great outdoors, where a demo could easily tear him to shreds if he steps on the wrong tree branch.

Okay. He breathes, steady through his nose, and looks down. He can’t see his feet, blocked by the dark…nest? he’s wrapped in.

Oh, God. 

He struggles against it, because it’s all he can do, not expecting much. Not until it begins to rip. He hears it coming from behind, where it connects him to the wall. That means—he pushes his arms up against the front, pulling his hands up until they can pierce through it. 

The material, whatever it is, is thin. Thinner than he’d expected as he pushes through the flesh with his nails, but he doesn’t fall. Mike gags. Something is still…inside of him.

His hands fly to his mouth, where a thick, pulsing vine shoots down his throat. He yanks it out without a thought, gagging more as it shifts around inside his stomach. Ohgodohgodohgod. He hopes to everything good in the universe Holly can’t feel this. 

With the last of the vine out from him, he falls to the ground, nausea keeping him glued to the floor for minutes more than he’d like. He needs to get out, find their house, but—

God. He’ll give himself this, just the once. The time to gag the feeling out of him. He’s about to stand, little hands pushing himself up, when something threatens to choke him from the inside out. He tilts his head up, his eyes finding religion in the ceiling as his body cries out, and watches as the feeling shoves itself out of his mouth. A dark, grey cloud of despair crawls out of his mouth, up and out to the right, where his head is forced to turn. 

Up the stairs. He breathes, gagging, swallowing around nothing. 

He knows those stairs—gag. He’s in the library. 

He’s where Vecna kept Will. Inhale, gag. 

One more minute.

When he can breathe smoothly enough to stand, about two minutes later, he pushes himself up and blinks the spores out of his eyes. He knows how to get to his house from the library, he’s done it hundreds of times. 

Mike stands up, wobbly but no, straight and tough as he can, and shoots daggers at the slimy vines coating the staircase with his eyes. He can do this. Max said so. 

He doesn’t let himself overthink it. Eyeing a path clear of vines, he grips onto the banister where the vines give way, and climbs his way up, one step at a time. He winces as the ends of Holly’s pants get wet at the edges with slime, but discomfort is better than death. 

He shoves the double door of the library open, grunting with all his strength, and braces himself for what lies ahead. Demogorgons, demodogs, demobats—he can’t let them take him down. Not now.

He’s Mike Wheeler. He’s Holly Wheeler. He is brave and strong and heroic and he will not die at the claws of something as pathetic as Vecna’s pawns. 

He sees none, anyway. Maybe El really did knock Vecna out good, and all his little soldiers are too busy tending to their boss’s wounds. Mike sniffs, hands on his hips, and ducks behind the side of the library. Red lightning flashes above, betraying its master as it brightly draws Mike’s path back to his house.

He nearly weeps when the front door falls open under his hands. Vines coat the floor, but nothing more than he’s faced in his path here, so he doesn’t dare relax, but he exhales. He made it. Now his only job is to hide, until his friends find him.

Maybe he’s supposed to wait in Holly’s room. Maybe it’s only fair to her, if she’s at all conscious, to surround her in her own room. 

But her room, coated in wet, cold vines, controlled by the monster who took her, who hurt her parents? He doesn’t want her to see that. 

He eyes her door as he runs to his room at the end of the hall, pushing the door open. 

He hasn’t seen it like this in…a long time. How could he forget, Nancy’s frightened exhales about the Upside Down being stuck on the day Will went missing? 

It feels like a gut punch, to see his room trapped in a time he last felt like a child, after everything. What’s he supposed to do, huh? He’s sixteen now, he isn’t allowed to—he can’t—

He isn’t a kid anymore. He isn’t allowed to be.

But, maybe…

Maybe until he gets back, while he’s still…like this, he can…he can let himself be.

Is that so terrible? 

Mike tip-toes over the vines until he can fall into his bottom bunk, the bunk he hasn’t slept in since those days Will had just come back home. It isn’t safe to sleep, he knows. He just wants to rest.

He pulls the blanket up, letting the vines fall off the bed frame, and faces the bedroom he hasn’t had in years. It’s still his, even in Vecna’s territory. Roary—Roary, sits on his bedside table, untouched by vines, and he reaches out to hold him. 

Roaaarrrrr! 

Mike smiles, kicking his feet. (He lets them.) He still roars, even here. 

He holds Roary close to his chest. His pigtails fall onto the dinosaur’s plastic body, and he hopes Roary feels warm under them. He can’t imagine how cold he’s been down here. Pouting, Mike brings Roary up to his face.

“You can come home with me, okay Roary?” he promises. Roary nods in Mike’s hands. (He makes sure of it.) 

Well, he has to pass the time somehow. Nobody’s here, nothing other than the lazy slinks of vines over his walls. No threats of Vecna’s haunting footsteps crowd his ears, so he starts to hum, cuddling Roary close to him. 

He’s five songs in, alternating between his and Will’s favourite songs, when he hears those dreaded footsteps.

But—they don’t echo like Vecna’s had, weighing sharp on his bones. They pit-pat-pit-pat closer to the house, and Mike jumps up as pairs of shoes run towards him. He hops over the floor vines, tip-toeing his boots over to the window, and searches.

There, only a hundred feet or so from the front door, is—

Will, Lucas, Dustin.

Will, Lucas, Dustin! 

Weapons strapped to their sides, they dodge vines with Will’s instruction, eyes on the house in front of them. Mike gasps, turning back to his room. Grabbing Roary, he runs to the stairs. By the time he’s there, the front door is open, his best friends piling in.

“Mike!” Will calls, not yet seeing him. He’s got his gun in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. 

“Will!” he calls down, uncaring of the volume. All three heads shoot up, Will’s eyes softening as he sees Mike—well, Holly.

Does—Do they even know?

“Mike!” Will calls again, relief audible in his voice. They know. 

Lucas and Dustin look to Will, who doesn’t spare them a glance. He starts up the stairs, holding out a hand once he’s close enough to Mike. 

“Oh my god, are you okay? Are you hurt?” Will breathes, and Mike nearly collapses at the sight of him. He’s alive, he’s okay, he’s saving Mike. 

“I’m not hurt, ‘m okay.” He is. He is, now. God, he loves him. 

Mike doesn’t even pause. Something about being in Holly’s body, it simplifies things. There’s no time for Mike’s spirals, digging him deeper into a hole of his own misery. Holly just…feels what she feels, and thinks what she thinks, and it isn’t all easy, but at least it’s true.

Will’s smile could bring him back to life. He helps him down the stairs he’d climbed up bravely by himself, but he isn’t complaining. 

Dustin and Lucas are overjoyed to see him at the bottom of the stairs—Wheeler! Holy shit, Mike, and he pulls them all into hugs he hasn’t given them in years. If they’re surprised, they leave it, only cradling him back.

They’ve got a dimension to escape from.

According to Lucas, the gate is in the police station, and Mike’s feet hurt just thinking about it. He doesn’t want to complain, really, not while being saved, but he’s about to travel back the way he came, and his body cries of exhaustion. 

They start down Cherry, Mike keeping his mouth shut because he can’t ask for more than a rescue mission from his best friends, when Will shuffles closer to him. His right hand, furthest away from Mike, has had a solid grip on his gun since they left the Wheeler house. 

Mike takes his eyes off Will’s shoes, which have been avoiding vines with a smooth precision only rivaled by Max’s tiptoes through the mindscape. Is Mike the only one who doesn’t know how to walk in this place? When he looks up, Will’s got his eyes on him, something unreadable in his expression.

“Hi,” Mike tries.

“Hi,” Will responds a beat late, like he hadn’t realized Mike could see him. “Are you doing okay?”

“Oh, um. Yeah, I’m fine.” Tired, and gross feeling, and still in his sister’s body, but fine.

“You sure?” Will presses, and really looks at him. Mike shrinks under his gaze, but there’s no fear—neither he nor Holly fear Will’s eyes. It isn’t fear. It’s knowing Will doesn’t let things go.

“I guess my legs are a little…tired. It’s hard to—” he stops, hands helping him as he gestures toward the vines. “Hard to avoid them.”

Hazel eyes widen. “Do you need help? I can—we could carry you.” It’s such a silly thing to suggest, Mike wants to laugh, but Will’s face is entirely serious. 

Mike blinks. He does kind of…want to be…carried. He’d felt so safe when Max carried him back to the cave, but that—that hadn’t been entirely him. What will they think, when Mike gets back to his body? How embarrassing, that he had them carry him because he couldn’t even make the trek down Cherry.

He’s about to shut it down, really—he is, when a whisper of Holly’s mind scuttles into his ear.

Aren’t you tired? 

He is, he—he’s so tired.

As if to make a point, his knee gives out—not enough to fall, no. Will’s arms shoot out before he gets the chance to. 

“Lucas, can you—” 

“I’ve got him.” Lucas swears, arms out for Mike to climb into. At his hesitation, he adds, “I carried Max through the hospital. I can carry you like this.”

Mike swallows, shame trying its best to infiltrate his mind. He hates it. He wants to go back to Holly’s quiet way of feeling that’s so much easier to live in. He lets his eyes shut as Lucas scoops him up, Dustin eyeing him with a concern Mike’s making note of to add to the way my friends have looked at me differently since I fell into Holly’s body list.

He’s gonna have to buy a new notebook.

“Is this okay?”

“Yeah,” Mike whispers. Will’s back at his side, and he isn’t the only one who can read Mike’s mind because he can tell Will wants to say something, has hours of words going unsaid.

“Is that…Roary?”

Oh. Oh! Mike nods, letting plastic imprint his palms. “He was in my room, I had to save him.”

“Cute,” Dustin pipes up, but Mike can’t keep his eyes off Will. 

“Cute,” he echoes. “I’m glad you found him. I haven’t seen him in a while.”

No, Mike hasn’t either. He nods, saying nothing, as soft rainbows hush his mind. Lucas is comfortable, and strong, and warm, and he’s stepping over vines so Mike doesn’t have to, and—

He barely hears the quiet sounds of Dustin and Lucas’s voices as he drifts off to sleep. 

Mike wakes to being lunged to the side, the hushed swear following it making it hard to fall back asleep. “What…?” he mumbles, eyes fluttering open to the sight of dark shine.

“Lucas!”

Hands are on him before he can blink, warm and soft and taking him from the not-bed he’s fallen into. A clipped metallic shove flirts by his ear, a familiar voice muttering something before Mike’s being cradled in another chest.

Chest, right. Lucas’s. Whose—

“Mike, hey, is this okay?”

Will. Mike’s heart isn’t strong enough to be so close to Will’s. “Mhm,” he hums, as Will holds him tighter to his chest. Every second close to Will brings Mike back to where they are, what he’d fallen asleep around, and he risks his eyes back open. The entrance to the police station stands only feet away. With a flutter to the left, Mike spots Lucas leaning on Dustin for support.

“Is he,” Mike mumbles. Okay? he wants to ask, but he’s tired, his body his mind exhausted beyond what he’d felt before sinking into slumber. He whines, barely audible but—

“He’s okay,” Will whispers, because Will had heard it, of course Will heard it. “He just tripped on a vine. Dustin got it.” 

“Oh, okay.” Sure. That makes sense. 

Mike’s so tired. 

“Just keep your eyes open a little longer, okay Mike? We’re at the station—we’re going home.” Will promises, his voice soft against Mike’s chest. 

His eyelids weigh heavier, heavier but Mike doesn’t let them fall, as the door is held open for Will to bring him through. 

A large, red gash pulses down into the blue dusk of the police station. It’s larger than any of them as it sits unnaturally on the ceiling, and Mike holds Roary tighter, cowering into himself, into Will’s hold, the memory of the gate that Holly was taken through still fresh in his mind.

Will only cradles him closer. Dustin takes the lead, hands clutching a chair under the gate Mike hadn’t even noticed before. He gives Lucas a solid thumbs up, who’s quick to hold the legs in support as Dustin pulls out—Will’s gun, resting on his hip.

“When’d this close?” he grumbles, lifting the metal to the gash. Mike groggily lifts his hands to his ears to cover the noise before—Dustin sloppily fishes the gun around in the gate. 

Mike can feel Will’s eye roll above him as Dustin, pleased, tucks the slimy gun back onto his hip, smiling down at the others with his hands at his hips. “It’s ready!”

“Alright, get up there.” Lucas drawls, Dustin lifting his hands up and making eye contact with Mike. Can you believe—? 

Dustin sighs, terribly dramatic, as he grabs the sides of the gash, tumbling onto—what Mike imagines is their Hawkins. It pulls on his heart, home being so close. 

When they hear a, “Made it!” Lucas nods just about Mike’s head toward Will, who walks over to place Mike down on the chair. Mike stands there, waiting for instruction, because. Um, it’s just—he can’t exactly reach the top. 

“Okay,” Will grunts, climbing up onto the chair as well. Oh. Okay. “Is it okay if I pick you up again? I’m gonna pass you to Dustin,” he asks, and he sounds so genuine, almost unsure, as if Mike would ever say no. 

Mike nods what his heart can’t say. Will picks him up, so gently under his arms, and waits for Dustin’s arms to reach up as well, before Mike’s—

Out. 

He panics as his eyes shut—no, no! It isn’t fair, he doesn’t want to sleep, not again, not so soon! Not before he knows they’re all safe!

The world doesn’t listen. Darkness bites at his edges, and he’s gone.

Soft fabric, a pillow warm from splayed out hair preventing anyone from flipping it over. His eyes, achy and shut, silently scream over the tender buzz of an open window. 

Mike grumbles, feeling it deep in his stomach, and it feels…different. Deeper. He turns toward the light without opening his eyes, wishing for that calm to hold him just a little bit longer. It cradles him like soft arms, pulling him closer closer like he’s important, like he’s to be protected, saved, held, loved—

With the light on his face, his eyes betray him as they open, even the smallest amount so painful behind his eyelids. He groans, loud as it hits him in the head, curling further into himself as he squeezes them shut again. 

“Mike? Mike?” So much for more sleep. Mike stretches his legs, the movement shockingly painless. “Are you awake?”

No. “Mm,” he moans. He feels hungover, and like his eyes have been torn apart.

“Does anything hurt?” That voice again. 

Mike’s eyebrows pinch together as the question registers. His eyes burn, the sensation of even moving them behind closed lids stinging needles through his face. He should nod, should inform the mysterious, comforting voice lingering nearby about how much it hurts.

As exhausted as he feels, Mike nods, his body coming back to awareness alongside the gentle movement. It brings his attention to the soft heaviness resting over him, and Mike sinks further into—bed. His bed. It has to be.

“What hurts?”

“M…my eyes.”

A wince. “Okay,” the voice responds, soft as it grows closer. “They’ll probably hurt for a while. Just try to take it easy, okay?”

The voice—so close, familiar and nearby, lowers in volume as it sinks onto the side of his bed. Mike has to see, he has to know he’s here. 

Will. His eyes oppose it immediately, weeping shut at the first hit of air, but Mike forces them open again, ignoring the tears that form. 

Will looks beautiful. Concern paints his eyes, his lips, teeth finding a home in his bottom lip as he worries it, and his face is pale with sleeplessness, but he’s—he’s gorgeous. He’s upset. Why is he upset? Will should never have to be upset.

“Will?” Mike croaks, coughing the second his lips part. 

“Don’t talk if it hurts—does, does anything else hurt? Are you able to sit up and eat something? Worry coats his words as he avoids touching Mike, even as close as they are on the bed, and it has Mike racking his brain for what could possibly have him so concerned, so…upset, still.

He’d been passed out, asleep, whatever. His eyes, the strange return to his body, h—

Holly. 

Mike bolts to sit upright, face to face with Will as dizziness threatens to send him right back down. “Is Holly okay?” 

Will’s eyes dart open, mouth parted in shock before he relaxes, a timid smile fighting to respond to Mike. “She’s fine, she’s resting too. Same with Max, the kids, your mom—everybody’s okay, Mike, it’s okay.” 

Mike’s body drops, spine sinking into the pillow propped up behind him. He hadn’t realized just how many—three pillows sit stacked on top of each other. Mike blinks at them, knowing very well his bed has one, maybe two pillows at one time.

When he turns back, Will is blushing, mouth open as he stares down at the mattress. “I, um—we wanted to make sure you were comfortable.”

“I was. I am,” Mike assures. Out of everything, all the aches in his body, his head hurts the least. Maybe he needs to start sleeping with three, actually. 

“Good, good. Um, so—food?” Will replies, his eyes expectant. Mike isn’t that hungry, can’t feel much other than the pain in his eyes and the longing in his heart, but—

For Will? Yeah, yeah he can eat.

Two buttered pieces of toast later, Mike’s feeling slightly more alive, and slightly more ready to talk to Will, who keeps sending him looks like Mike’s about to fall back into Vecna’s arms. It’s—scaring him, really, because he’s only just piecing together what happened to him.

He remembers the feeling of being in Holly’s body, the effect her mind had on him. He remembers tumbling through memories, Vecna’s piercing arm around his throat. Glass under his knees, red fog creeping around his hair. He remembers deep, lifeless blue everywhere he turned, and strong hands holding him up, not letting him trip. 

He remembers darkness, fast and hungry, swallowing his consciousness as he fell through to safety. 

Now that his eyes are open, he never wants to shut them again. Every blink is accompanied by the flash of pure, neverending darkness. His fingers are like magnets to his hair, twirling the black curls around every few seconds just to remind himself he’s back in his own body. 

As he sits back in his bed, pillows supporting his tense shoulders, he stares at Will, words flying out the moment he sets his plate down beside him.

“Is he gone?”

Will’s face hardens, but it’s resolved—an unshaken sort of anger Mike knows isn’t toward him. “He’s gone. For good, Mike.”

Jesus. That—Mike’s been dreaming of those words for years. Before Vecna existed beyond a D&D board, Mike’s been wishing, praying under foggy nights for whatever took Will to suffer, to die like it’d done to their friends, their family, their town.

Relief sinks through his bones, and a million more questions fly through his head. Vecna is dead. Vecna is dead. What else? 

“What happened? After we got back? I got—I passed out,” he finishes, just…just in case Will doesn’t know. Somehow.

“I know,” Will whispers, shifting his position on Mike’s bed. “You…after you passed out, we all kind of freaked out. We thought he got you again, but El had been with him, and she would have…” he looks up, painfully slowly, up at Mike. 

Mike nods. Will waits, still.

Back to looking away, “She would have told us. Anyway, uh, we figured out—well, we think getting you out of the Upside Down was what sent you back into your own body. We came back here, and Nancy—she insisted on taking over watching you, she like, screamed that your eyes shut the second we ran through the door.” He laughs, fingers covering his mouth. Mike blinks, the words not clicking. “We set Holly down and checked on you, and, well—”

“Wait, what do you mean my eyes shut?

“Oh—um. When you were…when Vecna had you,” Will’s expression sombers, eyes almost…guilty. “Your eyes were white, like how Max’s were, when—” When Lucas recounted that terrible night to them, he doesn’t say. “And they wouldn’t shut. I tried to close them, I—it looked so painful. But they’d only stay closed for a minute at a time. It was like he was keeping them open on purpose, to torture you even here.” he spits out, angrily. 

“...That’s why my eyes hurt?”

Will nods, eyes wet. “I tried, Mike, I’m so sorry.”

Mike’s heart spikes. “It’s not your fault, Will, what? You did enough, getting me and Holly out. Okay? Don’t blame yourself.”

Will looks unsure, but he nods, scooting closer to Mike. “I’m just glad I was able to help at all. I mean, even if it was just his leg.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, I—oh, wait. Do you not know?”

“Know what?” 

Holy shit.

Holy fucking shit.

Mike is losing his fucking mind. Why didn’t Will wake up screaming I’M A SORCERER and flaunting his newfound powers the second he could? Why did Mike only just find this out? 

“I’m not really a sorcerer—”

“Are you kidding me, Will? You saved me! Twice! That was you? That was awesome, I—he was about to kill me and Holly, Will, you saved both of us!”

“Well…”

“And three demogorgons? All at once?”

“I mean, I don’t have them anymore, now that he’s dead,” he murmurs, low and uncertain, as if Mike cares.

“So? That doesn’t make you any less incredible. I told you, Will, I knew you were a sorcerer. Only in DnD, my ass.”

“Shut up,” Will giggles, the sound sticking in Mike’s chest. He sighs, feeling terribly giddy. “What?”

“Nothing,” Mike smiles. “You’re just…you’re amazing.”

“Mike.”

“You are,” he promises, and he’s never meant anything more in his life. He falters, eyes finding the blanket still resting over his legs, as the memory of the Byers house flashes through his mind. 

So you’re just gonna live in fear your whole life?

“Will?” he breathes, his mouth going dry.

“Yeah?”

“I, uh. I have something I need to tell you.” Oh god oh fuck oh shit oh no what is he doing. 

“When I was in Holly’s body…” Will nods, go on. “Her mind is a lot less…she overthinks things a lot less, than I do. And I guess—I guess I got the chance to see what it was like, you know? To, uh. To think things more clearly. Max was a big help, too, which—don’t ever let her know that—”

“Mike,” Will pushes, ever gentle. Mike swallows. Do it, tell him. Tell him. You survived. 

“I like you. I like you so much, Will, and I missed you so much it felt like I was missing a limb, and—” he gasps, inhale sharp but real, home. “I’ve been so stupid. I’m so, so sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier. It isn’t your fault, it isn’t because of anything you did, I just. I like you. I love you.”

There. There it is, Mike exhales. The room draws quiet, quieter than he likes but Will’s not leaving, he’s not—he’s just…looking. Staring, really, back and forth between Mike’s eyes like he’s searching for something, but everything he could find, Mike just said.

“Are—” Will starts, cut off as he keeps searching, begging Mike’s eyes to come clean, say more, tell him the truth, but he did. “Are you sure?” He asks it so quietly, so timid, only a touch louder than Mike’s own breath.

“I am. I am, Will, I promise. Is that…okay?” 

He knows Will. He has for a long time. He knows the twitch of his eyebrows when he gets angry. It’s rare, and Mike’s only seen it directed at him once or twice. It’s the worst feeling in the world. Venom locks in on his neck, seeping his lifeforce from his soul. 

Mike waits for the pinch, the venom to leach into his blood and burn him from the inside out. He waits for the punch of laughter, of, did you really think I’d ever— 

It never comes. His throat constricts, but it isn’t because of the venom. 

It’s because Will starts to cry.

“Will?” Mike’s heart spikes in alarm. “I—I’m sorry.”

“I—” he sniffles, and Mike backs up from his seat on the bed, giving him space. “I love you too,” shoots out of him.

Pause.

If Max was here right now, she would slap him in the face, because— “Wait, you do?”

“Yes!” Will cries. “Did you—you didn’t know?”

“No?"

“Mike, I’ve been in love with you for forever! I thought you were joking!”

“Will, I would never—”

“I…you love me. You love me?” he gasps, like it’s only hitting him now. God, Mike loves him. If only Will could read his mind. 

Well, he can’t. And Mike isn’t supposed to live in fear anymore, thank you Max Mayfield. He inches closer again to Will, lets their knees brush, and moves his hands to rest on top of Will’s. Gentle, easy for Will to pull away from. He doesn’t.

“I love you, Will. My sorcerer,” he smiles. Will’s face relaxes into a giggle, disbelieving. 

“I shouldn’t have told you.”

Mike gapes. “How dare you?” 

With Will across from him, knees still touching ever gently, Mike’s bed feels infinitely less lonely. Less large for the sake of being large. Now, it fits the two of them, closer than Mike’s let himself get to Will in a long time. His heart soars up to the ceiling whenever Will looks at him, which apparently is a lot, now that—well, probably now that Will is letting himself, too.

“What was it like, being in Holly’s mind? I know…I heard from Max, a little, but what did it feel like?” Will asks, eyes big and curious. 

There’s a twitch in his expression, though, that Mike can’t take his eyes off. How bad was it? 

“It was…weird. You know the worst of it,” he swears, and Will’s shoulders drop a little. Mike flirts his hand around Will’s, squeezing. I’m okay now. “You know how I said that her mind was, like, affecting me? And how I thought?” 

A nod. 

“My own mind kept trying to…take back over. I have no idea how, but it’s like I didn’t want to let myself relax. Holly’s brain is a lot more, uh. Calm.”

“Do you think Vecna wanted you to relax? I mean, to be able to…take you both out, at the same time?” Will winces as he says it, but Mike’s shaking his head and tightening his hold around Will’s hand again.

“That’s the thing, um. I don’t know if it was supposed to happen, at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“When he…got me,” Had his arm wrapped around my throat, “He asked me how I got in. And he was—I mean, he’s probably always mad, but he seemed really angry. Like I had ruined something.”

Will looks horrified. Now it’s Mike’s turn to ask.

“What?”

Will worries his bottom lip between his teeth, breaking eye contact with Mike. He thinks for a moment too long for Mike, whose seen Will stressed, upset, sad enough to last a lifetime. “Will.”

He swallows, looking around Mike’s room. Reminding himself where he is. “He talked to me, after you got knocked out—”

“What?” 

“It’s okay, Mike. That’s when I got my…” he gestures. My sickass awesome powers that I saved everybody with. That’s how Mike would describe it, anyway. 

“But he, he told me something, and I thought it was about me. It was, but I think…he was talking about you, too. He told me that—um, that some minds don’t belong in this world.” Will pauses as he chokes up at the memory. Swallows. “They belong in his.”

Oh. 

“And then when you were…gone, he talked to me again. He…he was talking about you, but it wasn’t like how he talked about Holly. He talked about using her, having a vessel, but when he talked about you, he—he was acting like you were already gone. Dead, or—or,”

“Lost,” Mike supplies. Will nods like he wants to deny it, but they both feel it. Mike’s face pinches. “But I was there. Floating, somewhere in his mind. I just didn’t…have a body.” 

A twitch, somewhere in his mind. You know, it cries. You felt it, back there. 

“Which is what he wanted. He…he wanted my mind to get lost there, so you couldn’t find me.”

Something awfully similar to a sob escapes Will’s throat, and Mike’s arms fly around him in a heartbeat. “Hey—I’m here. I’m here, Will. It’s okay, you saved me. It didn’t work.”

He feels Will nod into his shoulder. “I’m so glad it didn’t.” He sniffles. “I just still—I still don’t understand. How did you…Holly?”

“I guess…maybe my mind could feel her there, knew she was safe to…be?” He cringes as he says it, then immediately misses the kindness of Holly’s way of thinking.

Will pulls back when Mike doesn’t continue, hands steadying on his shoulders. “When we found you, in the Upside Down, you were—I mean,”

Mike nods, knowing what he’s about to say, and it’s fine.

“You were acting like her. Like a kid. So that means you did feel safe?” he asks, searching again. Mike sort of feels awful, at how insistent Will is about his feelings when he was taken. Will had to hide in the cold, the damp that Mike had been carried through, for a week. 

Mike inhales, “Yeah. Yeah, I felt safe, Will. It was—it was…” he shouldn’t say this. It’s so unfair to Will. But he knows he’s going to ask again, if Mike isn’t honest. 

If he thinks he’s hiding something, it’ll be, in Will’s mind, because it was something horrible. 

“It was kind of nice, because. Because I was in Holly’s mind.” he winces.

Will breathes out a sigh. He doesn’t seem mad. “So, when we found you, and we treated you like a kid. That was…okay?” 

“Wait, that’s what you were worried about?”

“I mean, kinda, yeah. I was scared you’d find it weird.”

“No, no. I—Did Max tell you guys to talk to me like that?” He’s had this…thought, on the tip of his tongue, since he woke up. An embarrassment, lodged in his mind. 

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No, I mean—well, like. I don’t know.” He pauses, the thought unlodging itself, threatening to spill out. He looks at Will, really looks, and finds nothing but concern and kindness. It’s just Will. Will, who knows his biggest secret, now. What’s one more?

“...I guess like, being Holly—being in her body, it made me realize nobody’s talked to me like that in a long time. Like I’m a kid. And I know, like, of course not. I’m not a kid anymore. But even when I was her age, how many people talked to me like that? With…patience? My parents didn’t, and Nancy…I love her, you know? But she started getting fed up with me before I even turned ten. I guess teachers were there, but they were never gonna talk to me like an older sibling would, obviously. So…I don’t know, I guess it was just. Nice. When Max talked to me like that. And when you guys got there, and you rescued me, my little Holly brain,” he huffs, laughing humourlessly. “It got excited. When you…looked out for me.”

Will’s quiet for a moment, and Mike’s worried he fucked it all up, went too far, when, “You want to be a kid again. Get a redo.”

“...Yeah.”

“That’s what I wanted, after the mindflayer. The first time, I mean.”

Mike’s stomach drops. “And I brushed you off.”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“Will, I’m—”

“I know, I know, Mike. It’s okay. I get it. I’m not bringing it up to make you feel bad, okay? I’m saying it because I want you to know that I understand.”

“I still want to apologize.”

“Okay, Mike.” Will smiles, tiny. 

“I’m sorry, Will. You deserved a lot better. Like, a lot better. I’m sorry I was such an asshole to you.”

“I forgive you,” Will whispers, inching closer to Mike. A promise. “And…I want you to know that you can be a kid around me. We can play D&D, we can have sleepovers in the basement again. We can draw with Holly.”

“I’m a terrible artist—”

“So was I, when I was little.”

“What the hell? No you were not, you’ve always been amazing.”

Will laughs. “Okay, well I had to start somewhere, and it’s fine if you aren’t ‘good.’ It’d just be for fun.” 

“Fine,” Mike huffs, then grins. Will is—

An angel.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “Have I ever told you how incredible you are?”

“Once or twice.” A hand in Mike’s hair, tucking a strand behind his ear. “So…is that a yes?”

“Yeah, yeah. Of course.”

“Good. I miss being a kid with you.” Will says, like a vow.

Mike has a thousand vows for Will. "Me too." 

Mike’s eyes ache, still. Staring at Will was—well, he’ll tell him this later when he wants to see that pretty blush again—incredibly distracting. The moment he tears his sight away, sparing a glance outside the window, he feels it again. The need to shut them tight, hide their sensitivity from the sunlight.

Will insists Mike rest back down on his mountain of pillows, shyly proposing he’ll lie with him if he does, and Mike’s out within five minutes. 

He’s able to eat a little more when he wakes, a waffle Nancy had brought in recently enough that there’s still a hint of warmth to each bite. 

With more sleep than he’d argue he needs, more to eat, and his biggest secret out and granting him the arm curling around his waist, Mike feels…alive. More alive than he’s felt in a long, long time. 

There’s just something else, somebody he’s yet to sit down with. 

Two somebodies, really, but he can’t exactly ask to speak to Max. He has a reputation to uphold.

Mike stands at Holly’s door, heart thumping behind his ribs. Worry grips him like a vine around his neck, and he struggles to breathe it out. 

A tentative knock on the door, away from any drawings she’s lovingly stuck to it. “Come in!”

He creaks open the door like she’ll throw him out once she sees his face.

“Mike!” she cries, running and jumping to hug him. 

Well, nevermind, then. 

Mike moves to sit down, holding her tight. Seeing her safe, unharmed, and not mad at him not angry that he dared hide in her mind—it settles something in him. 

“Holls,” he breathes. “Are you okay?”

She is. She’s more than okay, apparently, as she rambles on—he has no idea where she got that from—about how he saved her, how he and Max and Will are her superheroes (El too, once she lets him get a breath in about who killed the big bad). Her necklace charm dangles gently from her neck, and she keeps grabbing it as she recalls the story from her perspective. 

Mike just watches, sitting on the soft rainbow of her carpet, as she races around where violet melts into pink, acting out any and everything she remembers.

“—and then Max asked how it made me feel, and you were about to answer, but then I was like wait I should tell her! And I didn’t need to try to talk before because I knew you could get us out but I told her how Holly the Heroic makes me feel, and she got so excited, Mike! And then when you started running toward the—”

He sits there until she exhausts her vocal chords and her legs, collapsing lazily onto her bed, her hair flopping into her pillow. “Are you hungry?” he asks, smile audible.

“How’d you know?”

“I mean,” he checks his watch. 6:16. “It’s almost dinner time.”

“Yeah, but.” She sits up, strands of blonde falling into her eyes. “I just got hungry. Like, right as you said it.”

“I…okay?”

“Do you think—” Holly’s big eyes grow even bigger, as she gasps. “Do we have a connection now?”

“I think—”

“You’re about to say no!”

“Well, yeah.”

“I knew it! Because we have a connection now! Like how Will and El have powers! Do you think we could—well maybe we could use them for good but now that Henry is gone what evil even is there to—”

They eat at the Squawk. The food sits on the edge of cold, but Mike doesn’t care. The party is all here, and the basement is louder than even the Wheeler-Byers breakfast table. It’s alive. It’s wonderful.

Mike and Will sit thighs touching on the couch, Holly on the other side of Mike. She’s all but attached herself to him now, and it’s more physical contact than he’s been given in years. 

Max keeps sending him happy little glances from the other side of the room whenever Lucas stands from his chair to fetch her another glass of water. He smiles back, nodding. A promise they’ll talk later.

“—and then Mike knew exactly when I realized I was hungry! We totally have a connection now. Right, Will?”

Mike groans, pleading to—to his Will.

His boyfriend.

“Please tell her I don’t have powers. She’s been on this for hours.”

“Sounds an awful lot like superpowers to me,” Will teases, grabbing Mike’s plate from his lap before it falls as he shouts—

“Will!”

“Guess I’m not the only one?” he grins, giddy. 

Mike whines, “Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not!”

“No, only one of us is magical, sorcerer.”

“Oh my god, you’re never letting that go.”

“How could I?” 

Will shoves him in the chest, a playful thing, filling Mike’s heart with songbirds and autumn breeze. 

“Hey lovebirds, spare us the details.” Max pipes up.

“Didn’t I tell you I was gonna ignore you when we got back?” Mike bites back, an empty threat. Well, depending.

“Didn’t I tell you I’d race you home? Which one of us woke up first?”

“Took your sweet time, didn’t you?”

“Screw you, Wheeler!”

Will giggles from beside him, pulling him in by the waist. Mike’s heart sighs, solid and steady. 

Every one of his friends surrounds him, his—his boyfriend carding his hands through his hair. His sister, safe and free, laughs on the other side of him, while the other rolls her eyes at him. Safe, too. Max, Lucas, Dustin, El. They’re all here, safe. Out. Away from the danger, because the danger is dead. 

When they head home later, Karen will squeeze Mike close with a kiss on his head, no matter how tall he’s gotten. He’ll pull Will up to his bedroom, banishing him from ever having to sleep in the basement again. Maybe he’ll even…maybe he’ll even kiss him.

On the lips, maybe. 

Maybe.

Nance will hover over him, and Mike will pretend to be annoyed, and in the morning she’ll pass him the syrup for his eggs, her turn to feign disgust. Jonathan will ruffle his hair, and Mike will tell him he spent hours on those curls, and his boyfriend will deny it because he literally was there with him all morning. 

Holly will cling to him, fiercely interrogating him on what she’s thinking, and Mike will roll his eyes before muttering what’s apparently right on the money.

He thinks he and Max are still arguing, smiles creeping up on both their faces. He doesn’t know. All he can feel is the steady stream of comfort in his chest, static-free and opaque. He’s home. He’s home. A kiss on his temple, a middle finger thrown toward him from the other side of the room.

He made it out. It’s over.

He supposes he’ll let himself live now. He has a feeling his party will make sure of it.