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The universe has to have some sort of cosmic grudge against Mike. He's been suspecting it for a few years at this point, but now it's been confirmed.
Nancy's going to be so smug about this, if he ever ends up seeing her face again. He can picture it now—her little eyebrow raise, half-smile combo. I told you not to go out alone, she'll say. Fuck off, Mike will reply. Because saying he can't visit Castle Byers, like he does every year, is complete bullshit! He still stands by that, that he didn't do anything wrong by sticking to his guns on that fact.
It's not his fault that one of the military vans happened to be driving by at the worst possible moment. It's also not his fact that the bush he'd tried to dive behind had been right above a gate. And, Jesus—they really were popping up left and right these days, to the degree that nobody in the motley crew of remaining Hawkins residents even paused to react to a new gate before nailing some boards over it.
Anyways. Cosmic grudge, definitely, because that gate had closed soon after. Which was, frankly, ridiculous! The whole thing about Hawkins these days is that the Upside Down is swallowing it up, spreading rot and vines from the portal to hell, or whatever. Gates weren't meant to close, didn't that defeat the whole point of turning Hawkins into the Upside Down, or whatever Vecna's unclear plan was?
As Mike walks, he has to keep his eyes glued to the ground in front of him, hopping over vines like some fucked-up game of hopscotch. The fact that hopscotch is the first comparison coming to mind really proves that he's spending too much time with Holly these days. Not that there are many other people to hang out with. Nobody's been spending much time on fun and games.
At least there seem to be less vines the further he walks. From what Steve and Nancy and whoever else had said, he'd thought they were far more plentiful. Obviously, he's not complaining, because clumsiness and not looking where's he's going is what got him into this situation. Less chance of stepping on the hivemind thing, less chance he dies an untimely death.
Given the cosmic grudge and everything else, Mike's pretty sure he's going to die young anyways, but hopefully it won't be alone in the Upside Down tripping over himself like an idiot. He's kinda hoping for a little more heroic, blaze-of-glory type thing. Where his friends all gather up years from now and toast to his bravery, instead of occasionally mentioning how sad and tragic it all was. He doesn't want to be another Will.
Will. Everything comes down to Will in the end, doesn't it. The Upside Down, El, his entire teenagehood, all spiralling from that one night. It was a seven. The demogorgon, it got me. Mike swallowed thickly, toxic air sour at the back of his throat. He stops moving. The sound of his footsteps don't.
Demogorgon, shoots through his brain like a jolt of electricity, and then, run. He takes off at a dead sprint, gasping in the sour and musty fog, spore-particle-things sticking at the back of his throat, he's nearly choking on them. Feet almost slipping on the slimy rotten ground, arms swinging at his sides and all he can think is no, no nononono I don't want to die, not yet, please, and then, is this what it was like for Will?
He's running, running, running, and then the ground disappears from beneath his feet. He sucks in a horrified breath—barely has time to cry out before he's landing on sludge and sticks with a sickening crack.
White-hot pain flares, spreading over him, through him like cold fire, shooting from his ankle and up, up, up and Jesus Christ. He looks down and thinks that he might throw up right there, because—because that's not what it was supposed to look like, and because it hurt. It hurt so badly he can hardly think straight, so sharp and all consuming he can't breathe.
The cold wet slime of the Upside Down ground soaks into his jeans, slides against his hands as he tries to push himself into a seated position and then gives up, slumping backwards. His head spins with pain and disorientation, gasping in quick sharp breaths. Even the movement of his chest jostles his leg enough that a million needles thread beneath his skin, twist through his veins.
"Help," he chokes out, hardly more than a wet breath. Tears in his throat, sliding down his face, hot against his freezing damp skin. Each inhale is heavy and sickening, offering no help in calming or focus as the spores threaten to make him gag.
"Help, please," he calls again, because—because what else can he do? What else can he do, alone and injured and stranded and yes, making noise is stupid, he knows, making noise is a death wish but. How could he survive this anyways? What chance does he have?
He's going to die here cold and alone and a whole dimension from home. He's going to die just like his best friend did, those too-long years ago. What kind of sick irony is that? Cosmic grudge. He couldn't save Will. He failed Will. And now he, too, was going to die just the same. Alone and scared and still too young.
Mike turns his eyes upward to the bluegrey of the sky. Like mold. He looks up and thinks—his sisters, El, the Party who can't bear to lose another member even though they'd never been the same after 1983. About Vecna, and what they'd started, and. It can't end like this. He can't end like this.
He digs his fingers into the cold slick earth. Grits his teeth, inhales, and shoves himself upright in one sharp movement. The pain spikes, briefly, not that it had ever really gone away, and the horrible squeezing in his stomach threatens to spill whatever it is he's eaten in the last 24 hours.
His eyes stay stubbornly directed anywhere but his sickeningly angled ankle. Okay. Okay, okay, he can handle this, right? He's good at planning, thinking his way out of things, he had to do it all the time back when he was still DM and the Party did anything but what they were supposed to. Describe the environment, any useful tools, NPCs. Think of it like a game, he tells himself.
The pit is less of a pit than he'd first assumed. Even sitting here, if he reaches up an arm he's pretty sure his fingers would be visible from the ground. The sides are sloped, too. If it weren't for his fucking broken bone, he's sure he could claw his way out without too much difficulty.
Halfheartedly, he looks around the hole. It's surprisingly not pitch black in the Upside Down, but it's still dark, especially if you're in a hole in the ground. Mike wishes he had a Bag of Holding right about now. Jesus, why are you thinking about Dungeons and Dragons? He shakes his head, trying to force himself into thinking normally about all this. Squints at the miscellaneous broken sticks and rotten leaves and—
What? He blinks a few times because that's definitely the type of thing he'd see if he was hallucinating, but they're still there. What… the fuck?
Because that's, what, four or five pots and pans, strung together on what looks like thin, slimy rope. (Everything is slimy down here. It's impossible not to notice.) Somewhere between bewildered and excited, Mike goes to scoot closer—shit, ow, ow ow ow! His hands fly towards his chest, tangling in his shirt as if that's going to do anything about the pain. Okay. He steels himself for the pain, then uses his good leg to help him scoot towards the assorted cookware.
Heart pounding, he runs his fingers over the knotted twine, the cold slick metal. Looks next to it, at the sticks he'd snapped through in his fall, some of them still woven together in a loose sort of basket. This… this isn't just a cosmic grudge. He hadn't just suffered some unfortunate luck and fallen into a ditch. This is a trap. And so the question is—who could have set it? Who was here long enough to bother, long enough to even dig a hole like this? Who gathered the pots and pans for what Mike could only assume is some sort of rudimentary alarm?
Is this trap for demogorgons? Or is this trap for people? He's not sure which one makes more sense. Neither make sense, actually.
"Holy shit," he mumbles to himself, turning a frying pan over in his lap. A pot lid clangs against it—he jumps, hurries to muffle the noise. For a long second, he stays frozen there, ready for a demogorgon to descend and rip out all his organs. Nothing. Mike exhales, slumps slightly in relief.
"You're not Henry," says a soft, hoarse voice and what the fuck! Mike jolts so hard that his ankle jars against the ground, and the pain knocks all the breath out of his chest, sending him doubled over clutching the frying pan as he lets out a high, gasping sound of pain. His eyes shoot around frantically, before landing on the figure visible against the greyish sky. The figure who—is pointing a gun at him, holy shit.
"No! No, nono, I'm—I'm Mike!" He babbles frantically, dropping the pot that he'd been clutching to his chest in order to raise both hands in surrender. "Mike, Mike, not Henry, I'm Mike!" He's said his name too many times but there's nothing else he can think to say, heart jackrabbiting in his chest, he needs to—to run away, to fight, but all he has is fucking cookware and a broken ankle at the bottom of a pit.
The figure is very, very still. Mike wonders, briefly, if he is hallucinating. He wonders again, as the person slides gracefully down the muddy slope and crouches down next to him. Should he… say hi? Hit them with a pan? He settles for 'stare stupidly,' and then regrets it when a hand brushes against his ankle and he jerks his head back, biting his tongue until he tastes blood.
"Um," he says as the person who he really, really hopes isn't Vecna or an illusion or whatever else presses cold fingers into his cheeks, turning his head slightly this way and that. What the fuck, he thinks in a somewhat hysterical manner, doesn't say it because the shotgun is still far, far too close and also because he is so incredibly confused right now.
And then.
"Mike?" Soft, almost childlike if not for the pitch. And familiar. Burningly familiar, and Mike feels his heart pound fasterfasterfaster—
He's paralysed in place as the person reaches to their own face, pulling down the hood and scarf in one fluid movement and. And.
That's Will.
That's Will. Those hazel eyes, the mole beneath his nose, choppy brown hair still. That's Will but it can't be Will because Will is dead, Will disappeared four years ago and they found his body and he's dead. He's dead, but—right there in front of him is a boy wearing his face. His face but taller, older, thin and dirty, paler than even Mike. He looks like a zombie. He looks dead. He looks like Will, right in front of him, and Mike's not doing anything. Why can't he move?
He cracks his lips open and all the moisture in his mouth has been drained away. "Will?" He manages in a disbelieving whisper. It's him and his best friend and nothing else in the world exists for a long, dragging second. Emotions flicker over the strange-familiar face, awe and shock and fear and everything else all at once.
Then—"We have to go." Will's on his feet, now, and Will's hands on Mike's wrist pulling him upwards before he has a chance to say wait, what? He can't say it now, because weight on his ankle and everything is bright white for a second, the worst it's ever been. He chokes, hunched over himself gagging on pain, ankle burning a million fires against the terrible damp cold.
All he can feel and see and hear is pain and fire and his own heartbeat so fast he's surprised it hasn't just given out yet. There are high thin whines escaping between his clenched teeth as his ankle is jostled and moved, as his body is puppeted around until finally, mercifully, the movement stops. Mike is wobbling on one leg, tears sliding down his face, one arm over Will's shoulder as an arm tightly supports his torso.
Will says something that he can't hear over the rush of blood in his ears. He feels it, though, when Will takes a step, dragging him along for the ride. Fuck fuck fuck fuck, he inwardly chants, teeth grit so hard they're probably going to become a fine powder. Each hop-step jostles his ankle again, but he keeps moving because Will keeps moving and he can't lose his best friend again. At some point the stream of swearing has become Will, Will, Will like a mantra, like the thing that's keeping him going.
"Come on," Will says to himself, hauling Mike's deadweight along over his scrawny and surprisingly strong frame. His breath is short and wheezing, and Mike finds himself wondering—how toxic are these spores filling the air like slow-drifting snow? What has four years of exposure done to Will? What… what has the Upside Down done to Will?
There's a roar. There's a roar that he's heard before and Mike's heart stops for a second, his hopping-steps stall—then Will is dragging him along even faster, in these skittish-fast rabbit strides, and Mike's practically dragging on the ground beside him, arm locked around Will's shoulders tighter than he's ever held anything before. Not good enough. Not good enough, because as the demogorgon tears after them Mike's bad leg is no longer held carefully aloft in the chaos of it all. His foot catches a root.
Something inside grinds sickeningly and and and—forget everything he's ever said, ever thought, he's gagging bile over himself and his arms can't hold him up and he can't even scream. He can't even scream as the flower-shaped maw draws closer and at this point would he even notice more pain? Will, he thinks desperately about the boy he'd lost and just got back only to die anyways, and it's—How's that for cosmic grudge? He maybe hears or maybe imagines or maybe none of this was ever real in the first place and—
There, cheek against the cold wet slime of Upside Down soil, eyes streaming tears and arm feebly outstretched, clawed into the earth as pain rolls over him again and again and again—there's Will. And he's like a thousand sunsets and campfires and flashlights under blankets, and his arms are thrust out, and his hair is half terrible bangs and half choppy bob and Mike can't stop looking at it. Will looks like the Will he's always been, and a Will he's never seen, and the Will Mike's dreamed about a thousand times.
It's the longest moment he's ever lived. And then it's over.
The demogorgon has disappeared in a shower of ash. Will's hands fall back to his sides.
"Mike?" He asks, hurrying over, dropping to his knees, blood dripping from his nose like El, like magic. Like a cleric. "Mike, are you okay?"
Mike, in any other situation would not be okay. The pain is sucking his ankle into a black hole of pure energy density. But he can't help from grinning, light pouring back into his heart like it never left in the first place.
"Will," he says, "Will," and his arms come up to hug him tight and breathe in his smell of cold rot. He doesn't care about the smell or the slime or his ankle or the fact that they're in an evil death dimension. How could he?
How could he care about a cosmic grudge, when his best friend is alive?