Chapter Text
"Tonight's going to be another dud." Mike said softly, as he opened his bag on the table in front of the projector.
"I just know it." He tried again, adding a bit more reassurance to his tone.
He looked up at Will across the table, who had a hardened look on his face as he helped Mike arrange the items he needed for the crawl tonight.
Moments ago, Joyce had aimed her usual, stern no in Will's direction after he had begged to accompany Dustin and Steve in the WSQK van.
Will was quiet but Mike knew him better than he knew himself, observing as the former shoved a set of binoculars into the pack so forcefully that the fabric scuffed uncomfortably against the wooden surface of the table.
"Hey." Mike tried again, his hand itching to place itself over Will's as he gripped onto the bag tightly.
"Will, look at me."
Will snapped his gaze up at him, the green in his eyes edged with tension as he looked him dead in the eye. He pursed his lips, trying to mask the irritation that was attempting to fight its way through.
Mike wanted to do anything, absolutely anything, to erase that expression from his face.
He’d already tried picking a fight with Joyce about this exact issue in previous crawls, and he was well aware it would be a losing battle if he tried to start one with her again right now.
Mike didn’t feel brave enough to reach for Will’s hand, and raised it instead to rest on his shoulder, squeezing it tightly. He wanted to communicate how badly he sympathised with Will, without betraying what a hypocrite he actually was.
He cared about Will’s safety, over anything else in this world. He knew Joyce had a point beneath all that overprotective coddling.
Something settled in Will’s face at Mike’s touch. The sharpness fell away into something softer, something anyone else would have interpreted as calming down from an argument, but Mike knew it as a defeated retreat further into Will’s secret internal world.
Mike was a part of it once.
Before California. Before everything that happened after El walked into their lives… before he got kidnapped to the Upside Down.
Now he was just left with this never-ending ache…to be invited back in.
"Just forget it, Mike." Will sighed, zipping up the bag after placing the last item inside it and pushing it towards Mike.
Mike lingered, an idea suddenly taking root in his mind as he shouldered the bag and fixed the straps in place.
Lucas appeared from a supply closet to the side, shouldering his own bag as he conversed with El about something. Her gaze strayed to him, clear and assessing, and lately Mike always felt struck guilty by it.
He had no idea how she did it; even when he felt he wasn't doing anything particularly guilt-inducing, she always found a way to look at him as if she could see right through his bullshit.
Mike held onto his tongue like the coward he was and followed behind Dustin, Steve, and Lucas as they climbed out of the WSQK basement together and exited the building to head for their respective vehicles.
Behind him, Joyce and Hopper spoke in whispered murmurs, darting not-so-subtle parental glances at Will and El, who were following behind them. El held Will’s hand in silent solidarity, her request to Hopper to join the crawl tonight having also been shot down.
As soon as they stepped outside, the bite of the sharp September air hit them, signalling the end of the month and the arrival of fall in 1986.
Mike trudged down the pebbled path outside the building, following Lucas toward where their bikes were parked a little way from the WSQK van. He could hear Dustin and Steve squabbling about something stupid, their voices muting as the van doors shut behind them.
"Be careful."
Will’s voice cut through the chilly night and hit Mike right in the chest, causing his raised leg to miss the leap over the bike seat and slam straight into a spoke of the rear wheel.
Mike grunted loudly, pain shooting up his leg, sharp and embarrassing. He spun around swiftly to find Will standing right behind him, leaving Mike bewildered at how he’d managed to creep up so soundlessly.
A pleased chuckle escaped Will, and Mike watched, transfixed, as Will’s front bunny teeth flashed for a second: his lips pink from the cold air, his cheeks flushed from the sudden change in temperature as they stepped outside.
He hadn’t even biked for a second yet, and he was already feeling breathless. What was that about?
Mike nodded and smiled back stupidly, the echo of Will’s chuckle still reverberating in his chest.
"We will."
Lucas suddenly appeared beside them, giving Will a friendly fist bump against his shoulder.
Mike jumped, having almost forgotten Lucas was even there. He cleared his throat and nodded along.
“Don’t worry, I will.” He said softly to Will, after Lucas stepped away to mount his own bike.
Will nodded back and reflexively shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, before looking down at his shoes.
Mike swung onto his bike, ready to take off, but hesitated as the idea from before came back to him.
Something in his chest skipped and his palms went sweaty around the handlebars.
He looked back at Will just as a breeze whipped his bangs out of place, making him look so endearing that Mike had to grip the bars hard enough to nearly cut off the circulation in his fingers.
“I know it’s a school night, but…uh, what if we did a movie night. Tonight?”
Mike stumbled over the words, barely hearing them over the pounding of his own heart.
Will blinked rapidly, his gaze flicking up to meet Mike’s for a moment before his lips parted in surprise.
“You don’t have to do that, Mike,” Will said softly, swallowing. “It’s okay.”
“I know.” Mike frowned, immediately thrown by what Will seemed to be implying.
“I want to, though.”
The implication hit him immediately, warmth flooding his neck as Will’s cheeks tinted pink at the same time.
"I- I mean…I want to have a movie night too." Mike stammered.
"R-right. Yeah." Will managed.
“Well, um. You can pick the movie!” Mike blurted, and then before he could think better of it, he took off down the path through the WSQK lot.
Mike almost lost his balance a few yards down when he caught Lucas giving him a strange look, his gaze drifting past Mike to Will, still standing outside the WSQK, before he pedalled ahead.
Mike was in deep shit. He didn’t know exactly what it was yet, but he knew he was in it.
***
"Hey man, you okay?"
Finn didn’t realise how rapidly his right knee was shaking until Charlie reached over from the seat to his right, and placed a concerned hand on it.
He snapped his gaze toward the source of the voice, his mouth already twitching into a tense smile for Charlie.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Finn nodded, sparing Charlie a quick glance before turning his attention back to Noah’s head in the row ahead, where he sat between Sadie and Caleb.
Before Charlie could respond, one of the Duffers’ personal assistants walked down the aisle in front of their rows. The cast sat in the Paris Theatre screening room, waiting to watch the series finale, as she asked everyone to smile for a photo for their socials.
Finn could physically feel the entire cast scrounging up every ounce of willpower to look excited for the camera, offering a few artificial words of praise to Matt and Ross for their “hard work” before settling in for two hours of the monstrosity that was supposedly the genius culmination of a decade’s effort.
None of it mattered. The only thing Finn could think about was Noah, and the worry tightening in his chest.
Noah, who’d chosen to sit far away from him for the PR photo-op, but hadn’t bothered to switch seats with Gaten afterward to sit beside him.
Noah, who’d been uncommonly quiet the entire car ride, his gaze refusing to meet Finn’s despite their interlocked hands resting between them.
Noah, who was trying his best to keep it together while the Duffers went on and on about how proud they were of his work in the final episode. As if the way they’d written the ending wasn’t a resounding slap in the face to his character, and to all the work he’d put into it.
Finn didn’t even want to get into the mess that was the ending for his own character. He’d spent his entire childhood playing Mike with a certain nuanced intention, only for him to finish the show with the same energy as a deranged clown.
He ached to reach for Noah, to squeeze his shoulder, but he didn’t. Not here. Not with the Duffers watching, not when it would only lead to another fight in the car ride back to their hotel.
As the lights dimmed and the show began, Finn did his best to ignore the nerves twisting in his chest, but his gaze softened immediately when Noah glanced back at him right before the theatre went dark, his expression nervous, almost melancholy.
***
Two excruciating hours later, the Duffers and most of the cast had already left through the Paris Theatre’s private VIP exit, climbing into their respective cars.
Sadie, Joe, Natalia, and Charlie were waiting to be picked up by their assistants while Finn lingered off to one side beside Noah, holding his left hand and shoving it deep into the pocket of his navy Coach coat. They stood close, closer than they usually could in public, safe only in front of the other cast members.
Although they hadn’t talked much after the screening, Finn could tell by the way Noah gripped his hand inside his coat pocket that he was waiting for it to be just the two of them before something vulnerable spilled out of him.
A few minutes later, two dark SUVs rolled up with tinted windows, followed by a valet driver in the silver Mercedes Noah had been renting for the week in New York.
Joe, Natalia, and Charlie exchanged quick hugs with Finn and Noah, each of them giving Noah an extra squeeze in consolation for the unspoken disaster that was the ending of their show. They promised to keep in touch. Joe lingered the longest, pulling Finn into a protective, brotherly hug before finally letting go and climbing into the first SUV after Charlie and Natalia.
When their car pulled away, Sadie hesitated, hugging Finn quickly before her hand found Noah’s arm, rubbing it in quiet affection through the sleeve of his puffer jacket.
"Hey. Don’t let it get to you, okay?" Sadie said gently. "Just focus on your craft. That’s all that matters at the end of the day."
Noah finally looked up, his face slightly ashen, but his eyes a shade lighter than they’d been all evening.
"Thanks, Sadie." Noah leaned down to hug her back.
Then Finn and Noah watched as their friend waved them one last goodbye before climbing into the second SUV.
"You want me to drive?" Finn asked, glancing down at Noah.
"Absolutely not." Noah chuckled lightly, already reaching out to shake the valet’s hand and tip him.
Finn let out a relieved exhale at the sound. It would’ve just been a laugh to anyone else, but to him it felt like something unclenched inside his chest, and he couldn’t help but mirror it with a soft chuckle of his own.
A few minutes later, it started to drizzle. Instead of driving down Madison Avenue and being halfway back to their hotel, Noah took a few turns until they were cruising along Fifth Avenue, the 9 p.m. view of Central Park whisking past the windows.
A Top 40 pop song played softly from the radio, one Finn pretended not to know the name of.
Noah reached over to turn the volume up a notch, sneaking a glance at Finn mouthing the lyrics. He rolled his eyes, amused, before turning his attention back to the road.
"It’s just so weird." Finn said suddenly.
His left hand drifted over and settled on Noah’s right thigh, grazing it as Noah accelerated, the muscle shifting beneath Finn’s palm.
"What is?" Noah asked, immediately turning the volume down. He wanted to hear Finn’s voice more than the song.
He flicked on the indicator and turned onto a quieter street, with fewer cars and more greenery.
"Mike and Will… their story," Finn said, blowing out a frustrated exhale. "It’s so unfinished. Will didn’t even get to confess his feelings. And Mike never….ugh. It just feels incomplete."
Noah scoffed under his breath, the sound caught somewhere between derision and weary agreement.
"Don’t even start, Finn." Noah shook his head, sparing him a glance before returning his focus to the road. "I’m so done."
Finn shook his head at himself with another frustrated sigh, but kept going.
"Most filmmakers won't even get to see that kind of budget in their entire careers…and they just—" Finn trailed off, his hand making a small, frustrated motion.
"Flushed everything down the toilet to stroke their own egos?"
Finn shook his head at himself, withdrawing his hand from Noah’s thigh and dragged both hands down his face, feeling annoyed beyond words.
Before they could continue the conversation, the faint drizzle suddenly sharpened into a torrential downpour, and both Noah and Finn’s phones began buzzing with calls from their respective PAs.
"What the-?" Noah began, flicking on the windshield wipers as Finn pulled his phone from his coat to answer, only for it to fall silent after three rings. Noah’s, meanwhile, kept buzzing.
"Finn, reach into my pocket. If it’s Brooke, just tell her we’ll reach the hotel in ten."
Finn did as he was told, fingers fumbling into Noah’s coat pocket. His eyes kept darting to the road ahead, which was practically invisible now, even with the wipers working overtime.
The rain fell hard and fast, the noise felt like a thousand tiny battering rams against the roof of the car. Finn swiped across the screen and lifted the phone to his ear, Brooke’s panicked voice cutting through the din.
"Whe—… the— he…-are yo—????
Her words kept breaking apart, swallowed by an odd static that dipped in and out between syllables.
"Hello? Brooke? It's Finn! We're on our way back, okay? Hello???"
Noah was about to ask what she’d said when a massive boom erupted nearby. It was so loud it felt like it went off right beside his ear.
"SHIT!" Noah jumped in his seat, the car swerving instinctively to the right as the sound seemed to come from just outside his left window.
"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?" Finn yelped, one hand instinctively shooting out to grab Noah’s arm, the other gripping the handle above the passenger-side window.
There was another similar resounding boom! noise to Finn's right, appearing with a blinding flash this time, colours lashing red and orange for no reason, reflecting onto the windshield.
Another resounding boom! erupted beside Finn’s window, followed by a blinding flash. Red and orange light lashed past the glass, reflecting across the rain-smeared windshield like an unnatural streak of lightning.
"Noah, PULL OVER!" Finn exclaimed, anxiety rippled through him as the terrifying realisation hit: they could barely see anything in front of them, or around them.
The streets of Manhattan had dissolved into a rain-smudged canvas and he couldn't make head or tail of where they were anymore.
"I'M TRYING, THE BRAKES WON'T WORK!" Noah screamed back, his voice cracking as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. The car swayed beneath them while he fought to keep it steady.
"WHAT?" Finn snapped his gaze to him, horror flooding his face.
The realisation that they might actually be about to die in a car accident strangled whatever words he had been about to say next.
He forced his gaze back to the road, ready to shout at Noah to try hitting the brakes again, when something caught his eye: two yellow lights flashing in the distance, cutting through the haze of the torrential rain.
For a second, they blinked out, and Finn almost convinced himself he’d imagined them.
Only for them to appear again. Now much bigger in size and…much closer.
"Noah, pull over…." Finn mumbled, horror draining his voice and cortisol roaring through his veins.
"IT'S NOT WORKING! IT'S NOT—" Noah screamed out of pure adrenaline, not even registering what Finn had seen.
"NOAH PULL THE FUCK OV-
"WAIT WHAT IS THAT—"
There was a horrible sound of metal scraping against metal.
Those round yellow lights surged closer, blasting into Noah and Finn’s eyes…and then everything went black.
The roar of the rain cut out abruptly, deathly quiet, like a song being switched off before it could reach its conclusion.
***
Steve drove at an easy fifty-five miles an hour along the county road just outside the WSQK property. They’d reach their spot before Hopper, Lucas, and Mike anyway, so Steve wasn’t too worried about making time.
From his seat in the back, Dustin let out a frustrated exhale at the sound of Steve chewing loudly on his snack.
“At the rate you’re going, I’ll hardly be able to catch the signal over your deafening mastication,” Dustin remarked, his words sharp with intent.
“My what?” Steve spluttered, the unfamiliar word nearly making him choke on the candy bar.
He shot Dustin a confused look through the rearview mirror.
Dustin rolled his eyes and muttered, “Just eat your damn Bopper.”
Steve held his tongue, even though a retort pressed right up against it. He knew better than to pick a fight with Dustin right before a crawl began. If he was in any way responsible for Hopper not making it back from the Upside Down, he’d have more than just Dustin’s wrath to contend with.
Namely: The entire Hopper-Byers clan.
So he kept his trap shut and drove the van in pointed silence while Dustin fiddled with the radio equipment and the dial connected to the antenna on the roof.
They were almost five minutes from Hawkins proper. The first sign was the boarded-up cracks left behind by Vecna’s earthquake-gates, covered by the military with steel sheets like a bandage over a bullet wound. The van made a dull thud as the tires rolled off asphalt and onto metal.
Steve let out a low hum in the back of his throat, glaring at Dustin through the rearview mirror.
Dustin caught the look and returned it with a withering stare, but he reached down to pick up his walkie from the floor of the van anyway, letting him know he’d understood what Steve was trying to communicate.
Steve was well aware that ever since Eddie died, Dustin had been even more of a little shit than usual. His playful jabs had started becoming razor-sharp more often, like he was trying to push everyone away before they could get too close or vulnerable.
But this was crawl number twelve.
By now, they’d fallen into an unspoken routine: one where they didn’t have to talk about the elephant in the room, and could just focus on the task at hand.
“This is Ham Shack. We’re five minutes out from entering town. Requesting a status update from all teams. Over.” Dustin said into the walkie.
“I’m at the midpoint between the first and third grid.” Hopper responded, punctuated by an annoyed grunt before the line went silent.
A pause followed. Steve caught Dustin in the rearview mirror, pulling a face at the walkie.
“You didn’t say over.” Dustin chided indignantly.
Steve rolled his eyes, knowing full well Hopper’s silence was more than enough to broadcast his irritation with Dustin.
“Man, just give it up already.” Lucas’s voice suddenly crackled through the connection. “He didn’t listen to you for the first eleven crawls. He’s not gonna' start now.”
Dustin aimed a deadpan glare off into the distance in response.
“This is Crow’s Nest. We’ve almost reached our tree and are about to take flight soon. Over.” Mike’s voice cut in.
“See? Now how difficult was that?” Dustin snapped back, glad to have at least one friend being reasonable.
“This is Dungeon Master,” Robin’s snarky voice crackled through, all the way from the WSQK basement.
“Kindly requesting all groups to cease all unnecessary commentary and stop clogging this channel with useless updates. Thank you, and over.”
Dustin made eye contact with Steve over Robin’s smart-ass quip, and for a moment, the tension between them dissolved as they rolled their eyes in solidarity.
For the split second their eyes met in the rearview mirror, they both missed the sudden rip of red and orange lightning overhead, a couple hundred meters down the road.
The path they were on still counted as a county road, an odd stretch of open land before the neighbourhoods began and Hawkins properly started. On either side, there was nothing but dull, flat grass, chilled by the first snap of autumn and sickened by the lingering effects of the Upside Down. The after effects of the spore-cloud rains had spread through the fields like an infection, leaving the landscape looking slightly off.
Suddenly, the impossible happened.
Out of nowhere, a torrent of pattering noises erupted against the van’s roof, startling Dustin and Steve out of their shared look.
Neither of them could quite process the abrupt shift in weather as rain began to lash down, hammering the vehicle and spraying across the windshield. Within seconds, it cut Steve’s visibility of the road, to almost nothing.
“What the hell?” Steve shot Dustin a panicked glance before flicking on the wipers.
“Why’s it raining?” Dustin demanded, squinting through the windshield in confusion.
“I don’t know!” Steve shot back, shifting gears and slowing down.
“What are you doing? It’s not supposed to rain tonight, Steve! Stop slowing down!”
“Are you blind, Henderson?” Steve snapped, his voice pitching higher. “It’s clearly raining, and there’s no way I’m driving any faster. This shitty van’s gonna skid right over the steel plates!”
“If we go any slower, we’re not gonna make it to the checkpoint before the trucks arrive for the burn!”
“There’s not gonna be a burn if it keeps raining like this. Jesus Christ! I thought you were supposed to be the smart one here—”
Steve was about to launch into a full ramble when another red-orange bolt of lightning forked across the near horizon, much closer than the previous one.
This time, both of them saw it. And instantly, their bickering died.
“Did you just—” Steve began, utterly gobsmacked.
“Yeah—” Dustin started, but the word caught in his throat as something appeared in the distance.
Two circular amber lights. Twin headlights, spaced too evenly apart, growing larger with every passing second.
Both of them narrowed their eyes, their brains struggling to process what they were seeing.
Then came the rev of an engine that sounded both smooth and expensive.
And sure enough, illuminated by another jagged flash of red-orange lightning through the battering rain, a silver Mercedes seemed to ripple into existence, as if Cinderella’s godmother herself had waved a fucking wand.
When the car burst out of the ripple, it nearly plunged straight into a crack in the earth, the result of a steel plate on the road having shifted open without warning.
The stretch of road between the van and the car was shrinking fast, because the Mercedes made no move to slow down.
“STEVE!” Dustin screamed, staring in bewildered horror at what had just happened.
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?” Steve shouted back, shifting gears as he tried to gauge which way the Mercedes was going to overtake them.
“I DON’T GIVE A SHIT, WE’RE ABOUT TO CRASH! PULL OVER!” Dustin screeched, half out of his seat in the back as he leaned forward, gripping the front headrest.
“IT’S NOT WORKING!” Steve said, his voice dropping into something terrifyingly quiet. “SON OF A BITCH!”
"WHAT???"
“THE BRAKES! THEY’RE NOT WORKING, GODDAMNIT!” Steve yelled, stomping down harder, but the pedal wouldn’t budge an inch.
Steve almost wanted to curse himself for skipping leg day, because of course the world would end before he ever dragged his sorry ass to the one shitty gym still open in apocalyptic Hawkins, full of steroid-happy jocks and jazzercise moms.
“Oh my god—” Dustin shuddered. “They’re not stopping…WE’RE GONNA DIE—”
Over Dustin's guttural screeching, Steve snapped out of his self-loathing just in time for his instincts took over. He wrenched the wheel to the right, swerving blindly, while praying to God the other driver did the same.
The van jerked violently as the tires screamed against the rain-slick steel plates beneath them, fishtailing in a way that made Dustin’s stomach drop.
For one horrifying second, it felt like they were going to spin clean out, and skid straight into the open, dark countryside and to their imminent deaths.
Steve barely had time to suck in a breath before the side of the van met the side of the Mercedes, with a horrible, dragging scrape.
Both vehicles slid alongside each other far too closely, close enough that Steve could feel the vibration of the unbearable, shrieking friction of metal against metal.
Dustin made a strangled noise from the back seat.
The brakes were useless right up until the van began to lose speed from the force of the sideways collision. Steve pressed down hard on them, and the van shuddered to a stop in the middle of the country road.
He didn't waste a second before rolling down his window to stick his head out, looking back to watch the Mercedes ricochet away from the impact with the van, spinning across the road and veering dangerously toward the dark shape of a stray tree just off the path.
"Oh god.” Dustin leaned over and squeezed his head through the driver’s side window beside Steve.
For a second, Steve was sure the car was going to slam straight into it.
But then, it somehow didn’t.
It stopped just in time, the car sitting at an awkward angle with the engine still running.
While both vehicles stood still in the stilted silence of the aftermath, they realised it had stopped raining.
Not only that, there was no proof of it either. No red-orange lightning, no heavy raindrops left over on the windshield.
It was almost as if—
“It was raining…wasn't it?” Dustin asked the question out loud that Steve was thinking.
They exchanged a baffled look with each other before staring back at the Mercedes, a faint line of steam beginning to rise from its wheels.
The stunned silence in the van was instantly shattered by Dustin’s walkie hissing on with crackling static, before Mike’s voice cut through it.
“Crow’s Nest is in position. Truck arrival is ten minutes ETA, give or take a minute. Requesting update from Ham Shack and Scout Battalion.”
Steve swallowed nervously, turning his head slightly to stare at Dustin, wondering how the hell they were supposed to notify the others about what just happened.
Both of them ignored the radio as Hopper and Robin updated each other about something related to tunnel locations and radio signals.
“Do we just… leave?” Dustin whispered into the night air, suddenly dry and magically devoid of rain or lightning, still staring at the Mercedes with its taillights on and not a single movement from its interior.
“What if they’re…” Steve began the question he was dreading to ask, hoping to God he was wrong.
“…No.” Dustin immediately cut in, aiming to sound confident but coming off as though he was just trying to convince himself. “They didn’t crash into the tree.”
“Right.” Steve responded numbly, his hand hovering over the door handle.
“They’d maybe die instantly if they crashed into the tree. Or us. Definitely, if it was us.”
“But then we’d be dead too.”
"Right…" Dustin trailed off.
“Dungeon Master to Ham Shack. Can we get an update on you guys? Over." Robin’s voice cut through their indecision.
Steve was still staring at the car when his gaze slid to the license plate, his brows furrowing.
“Henderson,” He muttered, “peep that license plate.”
“What?”
Before Dustin could crane his neck further to see what Steve was on about, Steve was already pushing Dustin’s head back into the backseat with one hand and opening the door, promptly jumping out.
“Steve, what are you doing???”
“Grab a flashlight from the back,” Steve threw the words over his shoulder before walking across the road, toward the Mercedes still resting in the grass, just a few meters short of the tree.
Dustin must have registered what was on the license plate, because Steve heard a frantic Shit, shit, shit, before the van door opened and slammed shut again, followed by the sound of feet hitting the steel-asphalt patchwork that passed for a road.
It was practically dark on this section of the road, the nearest headlight at least fifty meters away from where the van had stopped.
“How the hell does someone from New York end up in goddamn Hawkins, Indiana when we’re under lockdown?”
Although Steve appreciated Dustin asking all the real questions in this trying time, he nevertheless felt dread coil in the pit of his stomach as both of them neared the car. He snatched the flashlight from him before he got any stupid ideas, gesturing for Dustin to stay behind him.
The kid had enough trauma for one lifetime from seeing someone die in front of him. Steve didn’t want to add to that, just in case there was a dead driver slumped in the front seat of the Merc.
“I’m serious, Dustin. Stay back.”
“What do you think’s going to happen? An axe murderer jumping out of the car and hacking us to death?”
Steve gave him a displeased glare before slowly stepping onto the grass by the road, his body instinctively moving toward the passenger-side door for some unknown reason, lifting the flashlight to cast a beam through the window.
Nothing…absolutely nothing could have prepared Steve and Dustin for who was sitting in the car, unconscious, their temple pressed up against the glass. The window was slightly cracked from the impact, a thin line of blood trickling down it.
“Holy shit.” Both of them muttered in a single, unified whisper.
The moment grew impossibly sinister when, at that very second, Mike Wheeler’s voice cut through it.
“Crow’s Nest to Ham Shack. Where the hell are you guys? Over.”
Mike’s snappy voice had an unprecedented effect on them: it made their blood run cold.
Dustin was the first to snap out of his stupor, raising the walkie to his mouth and pressing down on the button to speak.
No words came out….only a shocked squeak.
If Steve wasn’t staring down at what looked like a person who looked scarily like Mike Wheeler, pressed unconscious against the glass inside the car, he would have chuckled in disbelief at Dustin Henderson, of all people, being rendered speechless.
There was a scuffling noise, followed by a burst of static, before two sets of voices burst through the channel.
“Scout Battalion has reached its destination. Is everyone in position?” Hopper’s no-nonsense voice filtered through, right as Nancy piped in, her tone tight with tension.
“Ham Shack, your prolonged silence has us worried. We request a status update, ASAP.”
Dustin was about to say something into the walkie when the Mike-lookalike in the car stirred. His eyes fluttered open, his head lolling slightly forward, the movement dragging the thin line of blood along the glass.
Steve and Dustin were frozen in place, their thoughts too scrambled to even check the driver’s side, as the Mike-lookalike slowly stirred awake. His eyes blinked owlishly, his unfocused gaze sharpening a second later, only to lock directly with Steve’s.
“Dustin? Steve? Are you there??? What is going on? You guys are seriously worrying us!” Mike’s frantic voice cut through the radio again.
Dustin exchanged a petrified glance with Steve, both of them processing what Mike’s voice over the radio had just confirmed for them.
Without thinking, Dustin pressed down on the call button.
“Guys…we have a situation.” Dustin swallowed nervously. “Just give us a second.”
“What situation?” Nancy responded immediately.
“Are you in position or not?” Hopper repeated urgently over the channel.
“Truck’s about to leave in five minutes, dude!” Lucas warned. “We don’t have a second to spare!!!”
The Mike-lookalike in the car was now mouthing something, glancing frantically toward the driver’s seat and yelling. Before Steve could even try to lip-read, the passenger door flung open and—
“Joe! Oh my God, thank fucking God—Joe, we need help—” A strangled sob tore out of him. The Mike-lookalike sounded exactly like Mike, except there was something off about him.
He was on the verge of tears, his bottom lip trembling with terror. It was an expression so vulnerable, that Steve swore he had never seen on Mike's face in the three years he’d known him.
“Noah, please, oh my God… wake up, wake up—please, help…”
The boy had taken off his seatbelt and was leaning over with shaking hands toward someone in the driver’s seat who looked like—
Steve had no idea when Dustin had rushed to the other side of the car, but the dented driver’s-side door was already being wrenched open, Dustin’s face appearing from the other side as he reached in to help the Mike-lookalike unbuckle the driver’s seatbelt and turn off the car.
The driver looked like a perfect replica of…Will Byers.
“Steve, stop standing over there like an idiot and help me!” Dustin yelled.
The Mike-clone hurtled out of the passenger seat, shoving Steve aside to reach the other side of the car, where Dustin was trying to tap the unconscious Will-clone — Noah, apparently — on the cheek to wake him up.
“Oh thank God—” the Mike-clone cried out as he and Dustin worked together to help Noah out of the car, whose eyes were beginning to flutter open.
“Easy, easy.” Steve tossed the flashlight onto the grass and grabbed Noah’s legs while the other two lifted him by the shoulders. “Set him down on the grass. Don't worry, he’s probably just shaken up a bit.”
After some shuffling around, they propped Noah up against the side of the car on the grass, the Mike-clone still hyperventilating and clinging to his side.
“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the actual fuck—” the boy kept muttering, his hands cradling Noah’s head where it rested against his chest.
“Finn…” Noah suddenly murmured, his eyes fluttering fully open now as he looked up at Dustin and Steve in confusion before glancing at the boy beside him.
“Are we—are we dead?” Noah mumbled in between Finn’s nervous string of expletives.
“You guys are far from dead, buddy!” Steve spluttered, while Dustin crouched down to stare at them with a mix of utter fascination and bewilderment.
Meanwhile, the radio was going off like crazy. Hopper sounded murderous, Lucas and Mike were talking over each other, and Nancy kept worriedly requesting for an update over and over again.
“Who…exactly are you two?” Dustin ignored the urgent cacophony from the radio, the crawl be damned, as he stared at Noah and Finn like they were some kind of science experiment waiting to be unraveled.
Steve snatched the radio from Dustin and pressed down on the call button.
“Guys, we have a big problem. I don’t think we can make it to the burn today,” Steve spoke into the receiver.
“What is going on Steve???” Nancy responded tensely. “We need answers! It’s been way longer than a second!”
“Uhhhh, long story short: we ran into some weather trouble and nearly totalled the van by almost colliding with a Merc with a New York license plate. We pulled over to check on them and, uh… how should I say this…” Steve trailed off as he looked down at Dustin, who was crouched near the Mike and Will clones, both of whom had now calmed down and were staring at him like he’d grown a second head.
“Gaten, why’s Joe dressed like that?” Noah asked, looking at Dustin before glancing back at Steve in confusion.
“Gaten, who?” Dustin blinked, looking back at Steve before turning to the other two.
“Me?” He pointed a finger at himself.
Once in a blue moon, Steve was struck with a genius idea. It was rare, but it did happen sometimes.
Instead of finishing his sentence into the walkie, he kept his finger pressed down on the call button and headed over to crouch beside Dustin, holding the receiver out in the space between them and Noah and Finn.
“What the hell—yeah.” The Mike-clone had finally stopped tearing up. “Why the hell are you guys in costume? Where are we?”
There was a beat of silence on the channel before it erupted again.
“Who the fuck was that?” Mike’s panicked voice shot into the silence between them, shattering it.
Noah’s gaze snapped immediately toward the source of the voice, his head swivelling between the walkie and Finn’s face, confusion and terror etched clearly across it.
“Mike, what the hell are you talking about?” Nancy and Hopper chimed in simultaneously over the channel.
Dustin stared back at Steve, who already looked like he was about to have a mental breakdown.
This was going to be a long-ass night.
***