Chapter Text
So much had happened in a matter of days. Eddie's campaign, spring break, going to California, seeing his best friends after a year, realizing Will changed a lot (in a good way obviously), which did not help Mike with his already confusing feelings, skating rink, fight with Will, El breaking Angela's nose, El getting arrested, travelling in the back of a pizza van which smells of weed for few days, finding out something bad is happening at home, something to Max, reaching Hawkins only to find out that the monster won.
Max is in a coma.
The Upside Down is bleeding into Hawkins.
Which brings him back to now, standing in Hopper's cabin filled with everyone, the party excluding Lucas and Max, Nancy, Jonathan, Argyle, Steve, Robin, Mrs. Byers and Hopper who is very much alive. The room is tense, everyone shaken to their core.
"Okay so can someone please explain everything from the start" Mrs. Byers speaks up first.
After a few seconds of looking around, Nancy explains everything starting from Chrissy's murder in Eddie's trailer all the way up to the present. When she's done, the silence is insanely loud, because ...what?
"Eddie's dead?" Mike asks, almost like a whisper.
Eddie was one of the few good things that happened after the Byers left. He was weird but so were they all, he accepted the 3 of them and that made the year slightly better. Eddie inspired Mike to grow out his hair little longer, to embrace all of himself, well, most of himself. The 3 of them brought up Will a lot and he always listened, they made him promise to do a campaign the next time Will came back.
But now that can't happen.
Because he's dead.
"I'm sorry, Mike", Dustin says, sounding like he's on the verge of crying, "we were so close, but he stayed, he took the bullet for me, for us . I tried to stop him but it was already over, he didn't run away." He's full on sobbing now and Mike wants to too but some how he couldn't. Will goes to Dustin and hugs him whispering, "it's okay, it's okay" until he calms down.
"Okay", Dustin says, sniffing and wiping his tears away, "what do we do now?"
"Well right now the town is in danger." Nancy says,"Vecna may have escaped but he's definitely hurt. So, we try to help out the town while we plan what to do."
"El and I can't be seen at all.", Hopper says for the first time since they grouped, "She's still wanted by government and I was killed in the mall fire a year ago. Seeing me will raise many questions we don't have the time for."
"I can spy on Henry.", El says looking at Hopper, "We get a bath, I spy every day while I practice my powers." She then looks at everyone else, "We all should."
"I don't have powers" Argyle says looking sad.
"Wait a minute, who are you?", Steve asks
"Right, uhm everyone?, Jonathan says clearing his throat, "This is Argyle. My friend from California. He drove us here. Uh, don't worry about him, he has no clue as to what's going on"
"Alright, hi Argyle", Hopper says and Argyle waves sleepily. "Kid is right, we all need to train everyday along with planning if we're going to defeat this...what are we calling him?"
Everyone speaks at the same time, "Vecna" "Henry".
"Why's he even called Vecna?"
"DnD", Dustin, Will, Mike say as if it's obvious.
"Right of course, anyways, here's what I'm thinking. I help El train everyday here along with the spying, the rest of you, take shifts helping out at the school, during the breaks, eat, drink water, sleep, come up with ideas on what we can do. In the evenings, everyone comes here to train, got it?"
Everyone nods.
Will speaks up, "He's getting stronger second by second. He's not here but I can feel him."
He looks at Mike and his heart skips a beat "not the time, Mike", he says in his head.
Will continues, "We need to do this. For Max, for Eddie" he says looking at Mike and Dustin, "for Bob", looking at his mother, "for Barb", at Nancy and finally at El, "for us." El smiles and puts her head on his shoulder.
Mike's happy that Will and El are close now. They look so similar that they can be fooled as twins. His thoughts pause as Nancy speaks up, sniffing, probably from remembering Barb.
"Alright so we spend today making shifts and planning our weapons, and since there's nothing here to plan with, we need to go somewhere else."
Dustin smiles, "I guess we already know where that is"
Nancy looks at Mike, they both silently agree on it.
"Okay then", Mike says, "let's go to our house".