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It never got easier watching Will struggle, even white-eyed with power, when he was tensing every muscle against something completely unseen.
Standing as a useless witness to the showdown under the radio tower went against every instinct in Mike’s body. It was like watching his own heart beat behind jellied chainmail.
There was no way Holly and Max hadn’t heard Will screaming at them to run—not that Mike knew anything about the acoustics of a mindscape, or why the girls were there to begin with. It comforted him knowing his sister wasn’t alone— for about five seconds—and then Will started to convulse.
Mike felt every bit of the November air in his bones. He shook his head as the rest of him was paralyzed with concern. “Will, no—“
To say he was thrown backwards like a rag doll didn’t cover it. He looked like an action figure strapped to an M80. Mike was sure his face would be melted into his shoulders when he hit the ground. He could hear the others calling his name, but his own voice blocked his head like an ear infection. “Wiill!”
Will slammed into the gravel, dust rising and a sharp visible exhale misting into the night air. His eyes closed for the briefest moment and snapped open again. He pounded his fist on the ground. “Get away!” he growled at the cluster of concerned hands coming at him, but Mike didn’t draw back. He cupped the cheek splashed with angry, broken blood vessels and Will’s eyes instantly softened. “Mike—” he gasped, his chest trembling. “-–sorry, residual hive rage.”
Mike was aware that nosebleeds and tears were all connected by the same ductwork, but the sight of blood trickling out of Will’s eyes was overpowering rational thoughts. “Oh my god,” he groaned, thumbing the thick streams from his cheeks. “This is Catholic horror shit.”
“I’m okay.” Will caught Mike’s forearm in his hand, his thumb moving up and down too, until they both hesitantly pulled away. “I-I had him. I really did. The girls ran away, and we just…repelled each other.”
Joyce rubbed his shoulders. “It’s probably for the best. We still don’t know—I-I was impulsive about this. We can’t just kill him willy-nilly, forgive the wording.”
“Mom,” Will sighed. “You knew the risks when you trusted me to do this. Knowing our friends and family are trapped in his mind prison only makes me more determined. My tether…it is what it is.”
Mike’s eyebrows went belly up in protest. “There has to be something we can do for you besides just stand here.”
Will shrugged. “Well? You…made sure the military didn’t like, shoot a net gun at my corporeal form when I was in the hive. It would've been hard to do the whole," he curled his hands inward, "Thing. In a net. That has to count for something.”
“Wha—that’s kind of a given—?“ Mike trembled, looking like he was going to evaporate into the wind with the electrocuted demo particles. “….Will, can we… talk?”
“O-of course.”
Lucas and Robin looked at each other, determined to follow them into the Squawk, but stopped in their tracks behind Joyce’s raised hands, hinting to leave them to it. “Hospital, you guys. Keep watch. I know Will’s not going to stop until Max is free tonight.”
“Here I Go Again” was on the air in the lounge, and frankly Whitesnake could suck it with that born to walk alone shit at the moment. It was always Will alone, Will and the literal army of One.
“Please, Will, just. Take some time to recharge, and decompose—decompress!—“ he stumbled. “Jesus Christ.”
Will chuckled a little, sat down on the couch and sighed. “Mike. Breathe. It’s okay.”
“Y’ know what, it’s obvious I-I need to just lay all my subconscious fears on the line, Freud free.” He sat down on the weak cushion beside him. “My unbridled jubilation about your powers was premature—not like! That. Misguided. I should say misguided.”
“...Why? I thought that was…the best hug we’ve had in a long time.”
“Oh, I agree, it was exhilarating but now? I…feel like I haven’t been able to look you in the eye. I mean, I can’t, like, when they’re white but—something about us has changed.”
In the thick of a “signals” flashback, Will reached for the stubbly softness of his cheek. “You’re…looking at my eyes now,” he said. Mike held his hand there. He would’ve leaned into it if there were hornets in his palm.
“Your powers are incredible and I—can’t stop thinking about them but I didn’t consider how it would make me feel powerless. When you’re in the hive, I can’t do jack shit to protect you. It’s not something I’m used to–-you not needing me anymore.”
Will held his shoulders. “No. Knock it off, okay? I still need you and I always will.”
Mike squinted, picking up the flash of a scent of pizza grease. Then his eyes were wide. Will caught the realization fully. He didn't seem to care.
“…maybe I shouldn’t have egged this whole sorcerer thing on. Maybe your tether wasn’t as strong before you pulled the strings. If you and Vecna repelled each other…that could mean you’re two sides of the same coin now. And…we can’t kill him without…a-and I pushed you past that threshold.”
“Mike, nothing you did set any of that in stone, or would ever change how I feel about you.”
Mike’s throat worked like a bellows, constricting sharply. They could probably hear him swallow in the next county. “You sound hoarse, you should have some water.”
Will’s face had drifted closer. “It’s not…th-that cut next to your eye is still bleeding, I should clean it.”
“You’ve gotta be shitting me right now. Who cares?? Your eyes were bleeding.”
“I know, and it’s ridiculously dramatic looking, but it doesn’t hurt. And don’t think of it as Catholic horror—just a Catholic miracle. Guess I’m never beating the virgin allegations, though.”
Mike shook his head, exhaling a laugh. “Drink something and then you can go to town on—like, heal me. Heal away, cleric.” Mike held a Gatorade squeeze bottle to his lips and it must’ve caught up to Will how parched he was, catching his breath after back-to-back gulps. “Good.” Mike could feel his cheeks boiling pink.
“I feel like a hamster!” Will snickered as Mike put the bottle down. He brought over the first aid supplies and carefully patted the cut with hydrogen peroxide. Mike met the sting with a terrible poker face. “Oh, just make a hissing noise,” Will teased. “Don’t hold it in.”
“Will. I can take it. You’ve been run over and set on fire.”
“And like Madonna, lived to tell. Maybe it could be the same with killing Vecna. We don’t know until we know.” He dabbed the wound gently for probably longer than he needed to, and put everything aside.
“Will. You’re not in this alone. Ever. You die, I die. It’s non-negotiable.”
Will’s eyes froze into a sharper, glistening green. He was shaking his head so fast it was almost undetectable. “Mike,” he said, the shaky syllable a tome. “Stop. You can’t just casually drop that on me. Don’t even think–”
“I’m not coming out on the other side of this exactly the way it started. That wouldn’t make any narrative sense.”
"You’re gonna be fine.”
“Without you I—malfunction. It’s like my whole anatomical right side is numb.”
“Hey. When this is all over, you have so much to think about. College, and junior prom and who you’re gonna ask. And you should wear your dad’s powder blue leisure suit.”
Mike didn’t want to smile, but it was impossible. It trembled across his mouth anyway. “Right. That’lll go over well.”
“Do it. Promise me.”
Mike scraped up his voice from somewhere in his guts to answer. “I promise.” He held on as if the Squawk couch was about to go over a waterfall.
Will snorted awake a little while later with his head on Mike’s shoulder, connected by a string of drool. “Oh. Have I been—?”
“Yeah. Out cold.”
“You too?”
“No. I’ve been really still though. It’s ok. You needed it more.”
“You should’ve tried to.”
“Nah. After a disaster like today, I prefer brumation. Same suspended state, same decreased heart rate. As close as it gets to sleeping, but I can see you.”
Will blinked. “You’re the furthest thing from a reptile.”
“Debatable.”
Will rested his head on his sweater again. “I hate to say this, but I have to get back in the hive,” he said. “God knows what’s happening with Holly and Max.”
Mike’s eyes widened. “Okay. Okay, yeah. We’ll just find another demo to reanimate. Whatever you need.”
“Not to undercut Lucas’s idea, but I’m not sure we needed to do that to begin with. I was thinking about the lake. I could…just kinda lie in there like El’s bath? It could help me concentrate, and I’m sure it’s close enough to the energy at the gate.”
Mike choked at the mere thought. “Uh, yeah, and also to vines trying to drag you underwater?”
“But I can hijack them now. Tie ‘em in knots. As far as crazy theories go, I’ve heard crazier?”
Mike exhaled. He was trying to reign in a smile again, irritated. “…fair enough. Maybe I can…wade in too. Keep my hands on you at all times. Ground you.”
Will nodded intently. “I’d like that. It just makes the most sense to end this without anyone else going to the Upside Down.”
Speaking of which, the Hoppers had returned.
“Well! Look who just rolled up in a hearse that I’m not going to ask about!” Joyce cringed, sweeping into the lounge with Jim, El, and a new addition with shorn hair and wide eyes.
“Uh? Hey!” Mike could only think of one thing to say to El. “This just in: Will’s a sorcerer, no film at 11. Just you Eleven.”
“Huh?”
“Oh. For clarification, like a–real life, honest to God sorcerer.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“Powers?” Will shrugged, his voice cracking. “Like yours but also not, and in no way intending to steal your thunder or detract from your long-established hero arc.”
Hopper sighed. “Oh, we’re fine, thanks for asking.”
Will shot up. “I-I’m sorry, guys, we’re a little in our own heads right now.” He gave El and Jim a hug. “And this is?—“
The buzzcut girl shrugged. “It doesn’t matter," she said plainly. "I’m just going to cast some illusions and probably die a horrible death.”
Mike looked terrified of the girl.
“Oh. Uh,” Will attempted. “Well, you’re— in the right place. Or like good company. We’re basically the inevitable death club–”
Joyce shook her head at him and slashed a finger across her throat.
“This is my sister. Questions later,” El answered their open mouths. “Show me your powers, Will.” El grabbed him by the hand and yanked him away.
“Whoa, it’s not—“ Will faltered. “Did you happen to bring back a live demogorgon….?”
Mike watched them go, shaking his head. “Why is everyone always dragging him around lately?” he grumbled. “If I see him flailing along with squeaking shoes one more time, I’m gonna lose my ever-loving mind.”
Kali sighed. “You must be the ex-boyfriend I’ve heard so much about.”
On the rooftop, El folded her arms with a half grin as Will showed her…nothing. He did have an animated story to tell, which made up for it.
“If it wasn’t such a huge code of this friend group, I would think you were lying,” El teased.
“I know, it’s weird. It’s kinda like stealing cable.”
“So if my powers are from him, maybe you can tap into mine, too.”
“It’s worth a shot.” Will took a few deep breaths, extending an open hand in her direction. His face screwed up and sweat ran down his forehead as El looked on with a concerned face. “Yeah, nope,” Will exhaled hard.
“You’re really intense when you do that, you know.”
“Oh, look who’s talking.”
“Mike must be losing his mind over this.”
“Well. I mean. He gets um. Chatty.”
She raised an eyebrow and they both laughed.
He explained the Lover’s Lake plan to get back into the hive, as El nodded hesitantly at each detail.
“El. C’mon. What’s that face?”
“Why don’t we just put lake water in the bath so there aren’t any, you know? Throbbing sucking gateways under you?”
"I don’t think the water is enough. I need the throbbing sucking gateway under me to hook up. I kinda just know.”
“OK,” she sighed. “It sounds safer than a high voltage demo fire. Which I can still smell, by the way.”
“Sorry. Lucas was very enthusiastic about the microwave popcorn analogy.”
“Alright. I’ll wait to be the second wave of the attack. The others can keep watch for demos and talk Joyce down while she freaks out.”
“You’d be surprised. She’s getting a lot more open to all this sorcery stuff. She only totally backpedaled one time so far.”
“And Mike?”
“He’s…optimistic.”
“Mm. But sometimes that just looks like him pretending not to be scared?”
“I know.” It was quiet for a while, besides the occasional rogue spark from the tower. “So…how do you have a sister?”
“The same way you have one. Luck.”
The water in Lover’s Lake was frigid in November, so the boys put on wetsuits from Murray’s truck stash. The last thing they needed was hypothermia, but the curves of the neoprene around Will’s body were making Mike shiver anyway. Will’s eyes were scaling him up and down too, if he wasn’t imagining it.
“You look good,” Mike said at the lake’s edge, with no babbly backwalking at all.
“Thanks. You do too.” No hesitation.
“I dunno, this so-called ‘Body Glove’ is a little loose on me.”
“C’mon, you fill it out way better than that KISS leotard from second grade.”
“Yeah, that thing was huge. I looked more like a cat clown than a Peter Criss. So…are you sure you don’t want to wait until we hear from Jonathan to do this?”
“I know he’s okay—he’s with Nancy.”
“Yeah. She’s the only family member that I’m not worried about at the moment.”
“I mean obviously.”
“I just wish I could…come into the hive with you. Maybe you can hitch my mind up? Like a guest pass.”
“Mike. I am not “guest passing” you into Vecna’s mind like it’s th-the Hawkins Pool or something. I need you as an anchor to here.”
“Very well. Let’s do this thing.” He thumbed behind him. “Lemme just grab my sword.”
“I’m sorry what?”
“Actually I’m borrowing it from Hopper. If anything comes out of the water from the gate, it will face my blade and….fuuck, that’ll hurt you,” he groaned into his hand. “Why am I such an idiot?”
“Shh. You’re fine. I’m very touched by the gesture. Let’s go.”
With spotlights on the lake, they waded into position, waist deep. Mike somehow looked at him both expectantly and shyly. He carefully pulled him into a hug, head on his shoulder, and Will’s wetsuit felt like rose petals against his chin. “I won’t let you go.”
“You never have.”
“A-and I’ll wear the leisure suit someday. Just not at prom. Just somewhere with you.” He looked down into his eyes. “Anywhere with you. I think that’s what I meant by…things have changed. And what I…really mean when I say you’re the greatest thing in my life.”
Will could’ve been knocked down by a spore. “….mike.”
“Shit! I’m sorry to leave you hanging on that right before you go, I can’t believe–“
Will put his fingers to Mike’s lips, looking up through wet, trembling lashes. “Stoopp apologizing, oh my god—do you even—that image in my head makes this feel like the holy grail of field trips right now.” Mike pressed his forehead against his as Will held his face, sniffing. “Wait for me in the gift shop, ok?”
“Wow.” There was whooping and cheering at the shore. “Shut up!” Mike groaned into the dark.
Will backfloated with ease as Mike spotted him, cradling him under his shoulders and legs.
“Do you feel the signal?”
Will looked up at him. “That kinda means something totally different to me right now, but yeah.”
“Okay. Nice and slow. I’m right here.”
But he wasn’t, not really.
Everything started to curdle.
Will suddenly looked haggard and bloated, like a little surfacing corpse on a morgue cot, in a red and tan vest.
That was the only thing in Mike’s vision until it whited over.
Will opened his eyes to a rocky desert landscape with spiky trees scattered across the dirt. A hawk screeched somewhat inaccurately, as if Henry didn’t quite remember what it sounded like.
He took a few calculating breaths. “Not the basement, but I’ll work with it…”
“Will?? I don’t know what—-a-all of a sudden—your quarry body—and then I—”
Will whipped around. “Ohh my god, how are you here, you can’t be here.”
“Guest pass?”
“Noo no no.“ He tapped Mike’s nose. “Go back. Be gone.”
“Seriously?”
“If I’m not causing this, which I really don’t think I am, it means Vecna has Vecna’d you which means we’re both in the lake with nobody behind the wheel.”
“El’s right there. She’ll know something’s wrong if I don’t say anything for a while.”
“That’s a good point but I just—“ He put his hands to his own head. “El, do you read me, come in El—?—no, I can’t do that either. Ok. Ok, we can work with this, I just need to lay down some ground rules.”
“What do you think I’m gonna do, start vandalizing the rocks? Uprooting the Joshua trees?”
“Stay by me. At all times. Constitution checks every few minutes to make sure your physical body isn’t drowning in the lake. Do not leave my side.”
Mike took his hand. “Done.”
Will’s hand reflexively tightened around it. “Oh god. Duh. Henry knows everything. He brought you here for leverage. Unlike me, he’s not completely stupid.”
Mike squeezed his hand. “You’re not.”
“I think the cruelest thing of all is that my usually sweaty palms are completely dry here.”
“Mine too. Don’t get used to it.”
They heard a girl’s shrill scream and before Mike could say Holly’s name, they saw her standing about twenty feet away with a spyglass aimed at their joined hands.
“It is you!” Mike called out, but his sister was already running into their arms.
Max was right behind and collided with them all in a whirl of warm arms and red hair. “Oh my God, how??”
“This is actually my second leg of the tour,” Will smiled. “When Vecna told you to run, that was me. With my connection I can um, steal his powers, hijack his body, break his bones. That sorta thing.”
“You little shit,” Max beamed. “And apparently you made another…connection? Congrats, or maybe condolences?”
Mike’s nose scrunched into his eyebrows. “Oh, hi to you too, Mayfield. Why do you guys get cool traveling tunics and cowls, and we’re still in these stupid wetsuits?”
Max shook her head, delighted. “Why are you in tight rubber, actually?”
“Oh stop,” Will sighed. “The plan was for Mike to spot me in the lake while I hooked up to the hive again but now he’s. Here.”
“Shit. Henry probably wants someone from my family to watch something horrible happen to me,” Holly said matter-of-factly.
“Whoa, whoa. Language? Morbid?” Mike shrugged. “Personally, I still think Will shazaam’d me here but he says he didn’t. Not sure what my physical body is doing at the moment, but. Here for the party. Heartily."
Max’s eyes iced over with concern. “You need to watch yourself, Wheeler. C’mon, Henry can’t get us in that cave, in fact we should all get back there right now—“
Vines broke through the dry earth, and curled Holly and Max screaming into their clutches.
“I knew the sight of two boys holding hands would lure the nosy girls out of their lair.” A flick of Mr. Whatsit's hand and the vines tightened.
Will opened his hand with jutting, straining tendons. “Go ahead, test me, Principal Creel. I’m just as strong as you here.” He loosened the vines’ hold on the girls. “Anything you do, Hiveboy can cancel out, asshole.”
“God, I love it when you talk like that,” Mike shivered.
“Mike!!” Max cried out as Will steered the vines to put them back in the safety of the cave. “Get in here!!”
“Aw. Just like they’re little dolls. I can relate,” Henry approached them calmly as he took on his grotesque form, looking twice as mangled and pus-weeping as he had at the Mac-Z.
Mike recoiled but looked at Will sternly. “I am in this with you, do not put me in that Hair Bear Bunch hideout!”
Vecna stared at Mike for a bit too long. “I’m like you two in many ways, you know. I have the same…. corrupted desires.”
Will was suddenly motionless.
“—The same curiosity for strong profiles, musky scents. Maybe we share more than powers now. Maybe your feelings are starting to rub off on me, William.”
Vecna’s arm shot out in a twist of bloody, rotted tendons and pulled Mike into an embrace as he struggled against him. He kissed his face with withered, collapsed lips. “Brains and perfect bones, such a sweet thing. Reminds me of someone in high school. He gave me such a soft letdown. What was his name…Robert Newby.”
Will bared his teeth and started a molar-crushing tug of war on the vines, both of them straining. “Don’t touch him!”
Vecna lost control and Mike dropped from his grasp. Will pulled him into his arms, beared down hard and smoked them into another memory.
They were in the Hawkins High hallway, sun dipping outside the windows. Walls covered in posters dated 1959. Will looked Mike over with desperation. “Oh god—are you okay? I’m so sorry, I didn’t know that emotion was…hive transferable!”
“It‘s okay, I um. I-I tried to imagine it was you.”
“Miike. You didn't have t---we’re gonna take this really slow, okay?”
“Agreed. I like slow,” Mike said, his heart pounding in his chest.
“I-I have to hide you in a memory. Maybe here. I’m tempted to shove you in a locker.”
“Mindscape imitates life.“ He looked down the hall. “...Do you hear that?”
“Wait….I do. That intro…”
“Anachronistic music if this is 1959.”
“U2. You love U2. They must be trying to wake you up at the lake with headphones. You have to follow the music out of here.”
“I. Am not. Leaving you.”
El turned the volume up on the Walkman and everyone surrounding Mike’s Vecna’d body on the shore could hear the dreamlike guitars. “C’mon, Mike,” she said. “You have to get out of there.”
Joyce sighed. “It’s not working. He’s stubborn, he won’t leave Will behind.”
“I know,” El nodded. She looked to Will lying on the sand nearby, his white-eyed face tensing.
A vine burst from the shallows of the lake and dragged Mike into the water. El fought to draw him back, trembling with a growl of strain as Mike’s head lolled dangerously close to submersion.
Henry appeared in the atomic era Hawkins hallway in human form again. “So you think you’re as strong as me now, Will? I guess that means you can manipulate the hive here, and in Hawkins and in the Upside Down at the same time?”
“Shit—“ Will trembled, reaching his mind out as far as he could, feeling spread as thin as a strand of hair across all three.
Mike picked up a metal folding chair against the wall. “Can you while I’m kicking your ass?” He bashed it into Henry’s head. “Aw, you can’t hurt me cause you like me, huh?”
“Ok, that awakened something in me," Will trembled. He could see Jonathan in the Upside Down, struggling to escape some kind of all-consuming slime, feet away from the thing with the spires hooked up to all the children. Lake Mike’s head was barely above water. “C'mon, c'mon!”
Henry grinned. “I very, very deliberately hurt people I like, Michael.” He cast out his hand and threw him against the lockers.
"Mike! Orënya, mecin. You have to—-“
“You’re doing all this and comforting me in High Elvish??” Mike moaned.
“Trust me, hold your breath."
“Until you bid me resume, my Lord!” This had never been Mike’s strong point in the days of summer contests, but he inhaled deep and knew it had to stick when his hair started levitating.
Will steered the pulsating liquid away from Jonathan and crew in the Upside Down, and tried to wrench away with the vines pulling Lake Mike under the dark water. The tendrils shifted ownership again and again. Hallway Mike gave him a thumbs up but was very red in the face.
Henry was grinning from ear to ear. “A lot to juggle, isn’t it?”
Will growled, “I’m gonna do all this and kill you!” He raged at the sight of Mike sinking against the locker with deprivation, and snapped the cold lake vines. “It’s okay. Wake up,” he whispered to him. He put his mouth to his, giving him air, a transfer of constitution points that wasn’t even possible in the real game.
Mike opened his eyes to murky lake water, holding Will’s breath, his heart devouring it as he thrashed to the surface and into El and Hopper’s arms.
“We got you, kid,” Hopper said as Mike coughed violently and they dragged him onto the sand and clay, headphones tangled around his neck.
Of course, the first thing that spluttered out of his mouth was “willkissedme—”
“Yeah, unfortunately he’s been acting out a lot of shit while in creepy puppet master mode over here,” Hop said.
Mike turned to Will lying there, his white eyes bulging. He thrashed and opened his hands and panted and pantomimed everything he was casting across three dimensions. Mike dragged himself next to him, distraught and choking on lakewater. “I need to go back. I hit Vecna with a metal chair, WWF style.”
El held his shoulders. “And that is great, but I’m gonna go in now, okay?”
The girl with the wide, frightened eyes and shorn hair stood at her side. “No. You won’t. You’re gonna stay here and be safe, Jane. For once,” the girl said, falling into a trance.
El spun around. “Kali?! Kali, stop it, I know this isn’t real!” El fought past something invisible to everyone else and tore into the woods. “Kallli!!”
“I’ll be damned,” Hopper said, staring at Kali’s closed but moving eyes. “She broke the pact. She won’t let El die.”
“Wait, what pact?? “Joyce punched him in the arm. “Will you fucking tell me things??”
The mysterious sister sparked sudden hope in Mike too, as he raised Will’s knuckles to his lips. “Maybe you can let her deal the final blow. Maybe that’s the only way to break the tether. Do not finish him off yourself, do you hear me, Will??!”
Will’s head rested against the locker where Mike had just been. With his hive eyes in the lake, he watched him on the shore. He couldn’t stop watching him be safe, breathing in sync with him. He knew he had to finish things in the mindscape, but was exhausted.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Your weird boyfriend is okay. Now we finish this,” Kali said.
Will stood tall on the division line of the Hawkins basketball court. This was definitely the only time he’d ever be here.
“Found you,” Henry said, but when Will closed his mind around his throat, Henry took the form of a young boy in a Scout uniform. Will held him in place but released the chokehold immediately.
“Yes,” little Henry croaked. “I knew it. You can’t do this to a scared little boy who’s just like you.”
Will gritted his teeth until he broke down. “No, you’re right. I can’t. I can’t finish you off. This isn’t me. I want to go home.” He began to clutch himself and wither to the parquet floor.
“There he is,” said Henry. “There’s my blubbering victim.”
He curled into a fetal ball. “I can’t do this anymore! All I’ve ever wanted is to just go HOME!!!
He wailed and cried out like never before, like every monster from the last few years was pushing out of his voice box, his tear ducts.
The real Will was standing behind Vecna, ready to deal the final blow as Kali cast the illusion of Weak Will.
The only illusion he’d ever believe was someone being weak.
This is me, Will thought, his mind cradling Vecna’s head almost gently as he twisted it clear off his neck with a dry, satisfying crack.
El fell to the dirt, free of the illusion of Chicago alleyways that had been cast on her, and she sprinted back to the shore of the lake.
When she got to the clearing, what she saw made her feel like she would never fly again.
Joyce, Jim, Mike and Kali surrounded Will, shuddering with tears. Will’s eyes were glassy and open, fixed on the night sky. His body was completely still.
“I-I’m sorry,” Kali cried. “I didn’t know he’d–”
Joyce held her face. “He knew. This is not your fault.”
Mike was trembling with his wet hair splayed across Will’s shoulder. No one had ever seen him completely break down. The sound held every kind of howl from newborn’s to man’s. It was a sound no one would forget.
El stroked Mike’s back gently and put a hand over Will’s heart, trying to make it pump, but it could not be persuaded. She burst into a sob.
Mike suddenly felt like they were alone, oblivious to everything and everyone else. His paladin tears fell into Will’s fixed stare, and he palmed them closed. “I always wanted to be your hero, but when it came down to it, you were always mine…
“And I was crazy for you. I love you,” he said, as clear as night. “More than you’ll ever know.”
A fluke November firefly nosedived and went out.
Then, there was a flicker of eye movement under Will’s lids.
A sudden tremor of the heart and lungs.
An avalanche.
Will jerked to sitting up on his elbows, looking Mike right in the eye as neither of them moved with the exception of insanely beautiful vital signs.
“Will!” Joyce shrieked. “Oh my god, baby, you, you’re!”
“Kali?” Jane said cautiously, “just making sure this isn’t—“
“It’s not. I’ve never cast one that was nice.”
Will looked at all of them in awe. “What. Is there something different about me?” In the same spirit of resilience he’d never lost, he grinned with long front teeth.
Mike finally his first sound since Will drew breath. It was somehow both a squeak and a laugh and the exhalation of something he’d been holding on to for seven hundred years.
Everyone’s arms surrounded him, and surrounded everyone else’s in an imperfect mess. “Knew it was fake all along,” Hopper said, tousling Will's hair like a son.
The splits in Hawkins were closing, but luckily not before Jonathan, Nancy, Dustin and Steve messily surfaced in the lake. With them were Holly and the rest of the children, freed from the thing with the spires. “What the fuck was that?” Derek coughed.
“I know kid, shitty way to travel,” Dustin said.
Everyone was being held by someone at that shore, even the kids, whose embraces from strangers would probably rival their own detached parents. There was a mage and a bard, a smashed tricycle of Wheelers, a grumpy old man and his found daughters. In the hospital, Kate Bush had finally called it a night, her biggest fan holding the boy who never gave up on her—at least, after Lucas positioned her jelly arms.
Missing bones, stolen childhoods, scars developing like Polaroids—but no one would know from the joy they saw.
Steve was totally verklempt, wiping his nose. “I have absolutely no idea what you guys did up here, but thanks."
Jonathan held Will tight, giving him a wet kiss on the cheek. “I have a loott to catch you up on,” Will said.
“Not as much as I do,” Jon laughed, holding Nancy’s ringed hand in his view.
Nancy winked, “Eh. A stand-in til I pick out the real one.”
“Okay!” Will squeaked. “Upside Down proposal—did not see that coming—but still think I have a liiil’ more to tell you?”
Mike leaned an elbow on Jonathan’s shoulder. “I see your interdimensional engagement, frere-in-law, and I raise you ‘the kiss that un-Vecna’d me.’”
The look Will gave him was sweet and devilish. “Slow down, Hot Wheels.”
Epilogue
Well, there was still that whole military problem.
However, every soldier at the Mac-Z had a corroborating story about the gateway exploding, and the Wanted Girls obliterating themselves in sacrifice. The hyper-realistic images of it, at least.
So. Eventually, the tanks pulled out, and Hawkins began to heal—wounds both old and delicately, beautifully new.
Mike and Will did end up going to prom, just their own quiet but musically tasteful one on the Squawk rooftop.
“Are you cold?” Mike asked as they slowdanced to something on The Joshua Tree album that Mike had declared a masterpiece, his powder blue leisure suit coat around Will’s shoulders. “It’s a little nipply up here.”
“I’m the one who wanted to do this on New Year’s Eve, so I really only have myself to blame.”
Mike rubbed his thumbs against Will’s silk tie. “This is the first time I’ve ever had someone to kiss.”
“C’mon, do not count Chester out here. It was…slovenly but very enthusiastic.”
“That describes mine pretty well too, actually.”
Will leaned into his ruffled chest. “Maybe someday it’ll be safer making out somewhere besides abandoned buildings.”
“You never know. We’re heading for lucky ‘88 in just a few.”
“Yeah. 88. The numerical code for Neo-Nazis.”
“Or the number of constellations in the sky.”
“Or on your face.” He kissed each speckled cheek.
“...do you ever miss your powers? You know, besides the ones that turn me into a grilled cheese on a radiator?”
“Hm. Do I miss my violent, evil powers siphoned from a child-maiming madman?” He pursed his lips, looking upwards and pondering. “Gonna go with no, but I wouldn’t change a thing.” He nuzzled their noses. “I mean, maybe I’d change the fact that our first kiss was technically in his rotted brain.”
"Ah. But also, in the year of the first surviving space monkeys.”
“You really do look on the bright side of things. No wonder I love you.”
“Look. Here we are, on a beautiful crisp night, in suits, on New Year’s eve, seconds from the drop. I think we can twist the truth about the first kiss a little. Pull some strings?”
“Friends don’t lie,” Will said.
“But boyfriends do.”
The minute hands on their watches declared a new beginning, but the kiss followed the design of ones all the way to ancient times; two people trying to fall as deeply as they could into each other without tripping.