Chapter Text
“So,” Mike says.
His eyebrows are furrowed in a way that reminds Will of when they were kids - Mike standing in front of the party, elevated on a rock, whisper-yelling so here’s the plan guys, you gotta listen to me. He’s always been good at being the center of attention, and Will’s always been good at watching him, pulled in by the invisible gravitational field that surrounds him. Will had realized, months ago, that none of them really were kids anymore, but thinking about it now, it still stings, really. The furrow between Mike’s brows remains the same, yet everything else is different.
The rest of the group watch Mike as he talks. He gestures with his hands a lot when he’s passionate about something. And Mike is rarely as passionate as he is when he knows he has a crowd eating out of his palm, enraptured.
They have no plan for the end of the world. Logically, they’re all doomed; each and every one of them. But Mike sure is shit is nothing but not stubborn, and once he sets his mind on saving the world, he is good at convincing others they have a chance of saving it, too.
“El said once about a sister,” Mike continues, gesturing at El who stands near him with her arms crossed and face set, “If there’s more people out there like her, surely she can reach them, and we can convince them to help us.”
Dustin says, “Help us how? Henry’s already won. He’s getting stronger by the minute, and we’re just waiting around like sitting ducks.” He looks to Lucas for support, but Lucas is staring at the floor, lost in thought. He looks sadder than Will has ever seen him.
Mike stares at Dustin, incredulous. If he’s honest, Will is a little surprised at Dustin's reaction, too - Dustin’s usually the one most cheerful, most determined, but Eddie’s death seems to have knocked all of that out of him in one fell swoop. Mike is affected at the loss of Eddie too, even though he tries to hide it from everyone - Will had only noticed because he knows Mike like he knows the signs of a panic attack, a possession, a breakdown.
“What, so you just want to give up?” Mike almost-yells.
Dustin almost-yells back, “No. I’m just saying. There’s too many flaws in your plan, Sherlock. We don’t know-”
‘We can’t afford to be picky right now! Even though-”
“Yes we sure as shit can! If-”
“-There’s flaws it’s-”
“-It fails, then-”
Lucas’ voice cuts through their bickering, something dark and resolute, “Shut up. Both of you.”
Miraculously, they both shut up. Two pairs of heads, Dustin, Mike, Will, El, all turn to look at Lucas, like marionettes pulled by an invisible string. Lucas doesn’t look at any of them, doesn’t even lift his stare up from the ground, “Until we come up with something better, something to save Max-” (Will doesn’t miss the subtle flinch from El when Lucas says Max’s name. Mike does. This annoys him, briefly.) “-This meeting is adjourned.”.
Mike and Dustin speak up at once, like Will knew they would, but Lucas cuts them off with an unwavering and unfamiliar, “Meeting. Adjourned.”. Lucas looks at El, once, and something passes between them, something indecipherable, and Will has to look away quickly.
No one bothers arguing any further. They all walk back to the cabin in silence.
.::.
The party has the same meeting, every Friday at 19 hundred hours, to discuss regular teenage shit, like homework, extra-curriculars, and how to save the world. They used to invite Nancy and Robin and the others, but Nancy had looked around at the older kids as if to say ‘get a load of this’ the first time they had raised an idea for a plan, as if they were all still some stupid kids trying to pester and bully her into dressing up as an Elf for their campaign. Will used to crave being treated like a regular kid, at one point, used to hunger for it like a man half-starved. Now it just makes him tired and sad. He hasn’t been a kid for a long, long time.
He had known that he wasn’t a regular kid ever since he had realized he was different , but that had been so easy to forget when he was with the party. When he had their unwavering support, their fierce loyalty. He still has it, now, he knows they would do anything for him, and him for them in return, but they’ve all been changed by this, by everything - and now all of them can feel it.
But, Will knows better than anyone that there are worse things to be perceived as than a stupid kid. Ever since he had gathered everyone and reluctantly opened up and told them all about the nightmares, the visions, the fucking noises and voices , he hasn’t been able to ignore their new reluctance, new hesitance around him. Recently, the meetings have become more vague, with everyone darting glances at Will as if he is someone to be skeptical of. They don’t tell him as much as they used to, Will has noticed. They’d never take the initiative of actually uninviting him from the meetings, which Will appreciates, at least, but he’s not sure if they’re having extra secret meetings without him or not. It’s a 50/50. He’d accepted it from Nancy, and Steve, maybe even Dustin and Lucas, maybe even thought he’d deserved it, but recognising the hesitance in the eyes of Jonathan and Mike and El had hurt like nothing else.
He thinks about it now, while walking to the rendezvous spot– and it feels like pressing on a fresh bruise. He thinks about it anyway. Will has always been able to suffer longer than anyone else.
Robin waves at him, almost manically, from about a quarter mile away, and Will walks up to meet her, avoiding eye contact. He had only ever been in this close proximity to her in a group of other people, and he feels nervous about how this parole will go when it’s just the two of them.
Robin sticks out her hand to Will in one sharp movement, smiling with all her teeth, and Will takes it hesitantly. He takes in the teenage scruffiness of her; her scuffed, graffitied shoes, the threadbare bracelets adorning her wrists, her hair haphazardly scrunched and placed on the top of her head. She’s wearing as many colors as he is, maybe even more, and he feels a strange sort of solidarity with this girl before him in that moment, like they have something inexplicable that ties them together. She must feel it too, because she grins even wider. Will hadn’t thought that possible.
And as it turns out, Will doesn’t have to be nervous - Robin talks enough for the both of them.
“So, little Byers,” She starts, “We haven’t actually had a chance to properly meet yet have we? Well we do now! It’s just you and me today, thank God, because Steve has been pissing me off soooo badly with all his moping and pining after-'', suddenly she pauses and looks at Will like a deer in the headlights, as if Will doesn’t know about Steve being in love with Nancy - as if it isn’t obvious.
Will smiles in what he hopes is a comforting way, says, “Yeah, it’s pretty annoying,” and hopes that that will be the end of it, that Robin wont try and apologize for bringing up the strange creature that is Nancy-Jonathan-Steve, because Will doesn’t know the first thing about trying to tackle that conversation. Robin, thankfully, doesn’t say anything, and they start walking.
He actually finds himself starting to like Robin, the more they talk, and it’s unusual for Will to warm up to someone so quickly, but Robin is kind in an eccentric way, and she talks without thinking in a way that isn’t cruel - and Will starts to think that maybe there is something between them, some sort of unspoken understanding.
They find tins of canned peaches in an old abandoned camping gear store, of all places, and eat them cross-legged on the front desk with their fingers, juice dripping down their chins, sticky, and Robin pretends to christen him with some of it like its Ash Wednesday at Church, says you’re one of us now, and they both laugh until their ribs hurt.
It’s the most fun Will can remember having in a long time.
.::.
The voice says, but you aren’t happy, are you? I can–
.::.
Will is lying on the lumpy pull-out bed in the basement, and he’s thinking about Mike Wheeler. Thinking about Mike Wheeler is something that Will is so used to that it’s become a habit, a tic, like when El clenches and unclenches her fist, or when Dustin runs a tongue over his teeth. He thinks, a little ludicrously, that if he stops thinking about Mike, he might start showing withdrawal symptoms, might start sweating and itching like an addict that's gone too long without their fix. He’s so far gone he might as well bury himself now. (He’s honestly, privately , a little happy to even be able to think about Mike tonight - most nights it's impossible for him to sleep because of all the noises in his head, and when he does manage to, he almost always wakes up screaming.)
The thing is, Will used to be able to deal with all of Mike’s … Mikeness when it was just them two together, or when he was at a socially acceptable age for boys to hold hands with other boys. When it was just them, he could happily feed into his fantasies and delude himself into thinking that maybe Mike wanted him as much as Will wanted Mike. And Will knows he’s an awful person for thinking this, that if Will hadn’t met Lucas and Mike hadn’t met Dustin there would be no party, and if they never met El, she would still be stuck in that lab, and if they never met Max….. well. Will prefers not to think about that one.
But when other people started becoming involved with them– it became apparent that Will could not deal with all of his feelings about Mike. He hadn’t learnt how to compartmentalize yet. All of the love, the hate, the want , all of it couldn’t all fit inside his tiny 9 year old body, and when Will tried to separate the feelings from each other, from himself , he felt sliced down the middle as if he had lost a piece of himself; not just Mike. So instead, when Will would feel overpowered by these feelings, he would think of all the things he would never tell Mike, and he would say them very quietly.
And when Mike started dating El, Will was so monstrously, so savagely, so obstreperously fucking jealous. It felt good, to latch onto that anger, but it wasn’t even directed towards anyone, and had nowhere to go. He was aware of how he felt about Mike, was aware that he wanted Mike to look at him the way Mike looked at El, that made him angry, and it was simple– Easy to understand. Which was something that Will had never encountered with Mike before.
El was a complete electric shock to Will. She hit him like a heart attack. He hated her, she fascinated him to no end, he wanted to be her, he wanted her gone , he was so glad she was here, that she was safe , he wished Mike had never found her, that he had seen her and then left her alone in the woods. Will felt the invisible wire holding him and El suspended in parallel like mirrors, felt their lives intertwining like old weathered yarn. And he knew she could feel it too. Her moving in with them was the easiest decision Will ever had to partake in making.
Of course, when Will realized that El was a million times better than he ever could be, he stopped being angry-jealous. Instead he felt desperately sad, like a puppy left outside in the cold. Instead of thinking, I’m right here, why doesn’t Mike pick me instead of her , he thinks, of course he would pick her, he knows I’ve been here the whole time and he’s never looked twice. Of course. This is how it happens. This is right.
The ugly, ugly truth is, Mike could do anything he wanted to Will, and Will would let him. He’d let him hurt him in any way imaginable, let him open his jaw and sink his canine teeth into his supple flesh for consumption. He’s only ever of use to Mike when he's his punching bag, his stepping stone. He would wait for him like a kicked dog sat with the crushed, ugly corpse of a bird in its mangled jaws.
But what gets him is that– doesn’t that mean something? That Will would let Mike hold his soft skull in his palms and squeeze until his brains melted out of his eyes if he wanted to? That he would be glad to be his sacrificial lamb, his immolation, his offering? Doesn’t that mean something, in all of this? Can it really mean nothing?
.::.
The voice says, it means nothing, you mean nothing–
.::.
When Will looks at the notice board in the cabin and finds his name next to Robins for patrol, he smiles. Mike catches him at it, shoulder checks him, then says, “What are you smiling about?" Will loves him so much he could burst with it.
He doesn’t know how to explain why he’s smiling in a way that sounds platonic. Because it is platonic. But, Mike, as much as Will knows, has never really managed to escape the headspace that when girls and boys were friends, there had to be something simmering underneath the surface. Definitely Dustin's influence. That science summer camp did a number on him.
Whatever. “I’m just happy to be doing my patrol with Robin, that’s all.”
A strange expression dances over Mike’s face, so fleeting Will could have imagined it. “Yeah, she’s cool,” he says, but the words sound stunted. Weird. Things have been weird between him and Mike, ever since half-hearted love confessions in the back of pizza-vans, Will stupidly using El as a coverup, crying El needs you Mike- but this is something else.
Will eyes him, “Yeah, she is.”
The weirdness still hasn’t seemed to leave Mike, and he seems confused, staring into space, and because Will is pathetic and awful he says, “I can try and see if I can get something for you while I’m out, if you want?”
“Like what?” Attention is put on him again, and Will feels it like a kick to the stomach.
He hadn’t thought it through this far. “Well, what do you want?”
Mike looks at him like this is an incredibly difficult decision, as if Will meant something else by that question, something deeper, and not just if he wants some canned peaches from an old camping store or something. He looks as if he has just been faced with a life-or-death situation, and has T minus 5 seconds to come up with something. A lifetime ago, Will would’ve known exactly what that expression meant, and why it was clouding his face. He has no idea, now.
Will says, “I’ll think of something,” and leaves him to his thoughts.
.::.
School is still happening, for some reason, right in the shot-gun-center of the apocalypse.
Granted, apocalypse is a word that doesn’t truly fit. The military, dubbed the Useless Mouthbreathers by the party, have done a decent job of patching things up, all things considered. There’s a couple buildings and structures that weren’t able to be fixed, like Old man Bill’s fishing shop, or the playground near the old houses – but, Hawkins, if you didn’t know it that well, could maybe pass for normal, save for the military. Even though the party (separated into groups with other people in the know) still do apocalyptic patrols every night to see if there's any sign of 001/Henry/Vecna, which is pretty easy considering half of the town is empty, and even though the population of Hawkins is half-starved as most of the stores are destroyed or abandoned, and the High School needs military security and a food bank, and half of the place is crawling with demodogs that the military is trying to keep hidden from the religious-maniac parents and easily-terrified students, Will still wouldn't consider it an apocalypse. Reasoning: There's no zombies.
The collective psyche of Hawkins has been shattered beyond repair. Especially for the paranoid wine-moms and the indignant, religious middle-class. Dustin and Will had overheard a conversation between Mr Clarke and the headteacher a couple weeks ago - they’re thinking about replacing science classes bi-weekly with mandatory excursions to church. The parents are unwavering and certain that the only way to cleanse the town of Hawkins is through repenting– praying till everyone's knees are bloody and their voices spent. Dustin had been furious, clad in a torn Hellfire shirt despite the bullying and dirty looks, and had already been fabricating a plan to save all science classes - saying they're eminent for plans regarding saving-the-world and such. Will had put on a show of disgruntled exterior for Dustin, voicing his passionate agreement, but deep down had been unable to feel anything toward it, toward anything .
Privately, and half-ashamed, Will wonders whether repenting does anything - not really for the half-formed idea of a God, and a merit system of sins, but for the repentant themselves. A release, maybe? Or the knowledge that they will be punished, and then be glad for it afterwards. A weight off the shoulders. He understands the appeal of religion, and maybe wishes that he was naive enough, or rather, faithful enough to believe it fully. Most of his faith was beaten out of him long ago.
The impending doom of prom on the horizon is enough for Will to start praying to God himself, anyway. Prom has its claws dug deep into Hawkins High- It’s impossible to escape any semblance of it no matter where you go. Though Will doesn’t speak his distaste for prom outloud, Lucas does, and for that he’s incredibly grateful, although he feels sick about it when he remembers that Lucas is upset because the person he of course wants to go with is in a coma , and Will is only upset because the person he wants to go with has no fucking interest in him whatsoever –
The entire party, save Max, and El, as religion had been a goal of education for her set in a future date that was interrupted by the fucking apocalypse, all think the whole satanic panic situation is a load of total bullshit. Will mainly hates it because everytime he hears the word sodomy uttered in the hallways he flushes red-hot, a pleasant sort of sickness rotting deep behind his ribs. Dustin rolls his eyes whenever they pass anything on the walls even remotely to do with it.
Somehow, instead of using the money on repairs, Hawkins had managed to scrounge up a budget for pricey new candles for the churches, hired a brand-new qualified, official priest (not like old Melvin Sturges who everyone knew lied about his qualifications and got drunk every weekend), and covered the town in catholic posters and billboards. There’s even one stuck to Max’s trailer that reads REPENT FOR YOUR SINS.
There’s a new and shiny billboard near the main part of town- white background, a large crucifix, a man starved, plastered with the blood-red words; Who else has died for you? Will walks past it everyday on the way to school. Too many people, he thinks. Way too fucking many.
.::.
The voice says And how many more will, eventually? Come–
.::.
At the end of the world, Will Byers decides to go and visit his old childhood home.
It was easy to pick the lock on the backdoor of the house. The previous ‘owners’ had backed out of the purchase at the last minute, probably after they saw the news about Hawkins. The Byers family had still got the money for selling, but even if they hadn’t, the loss of money wouldn’t have really been a big deal for once. They were living pretty comfortably. Government hush-money is no joke.
Nobody else had tried to purchase the Byers household since. The running theory throughout Hawkins, Mike had told Will, was that it was cursed - and any family or couple or person to move in was doomed to be lost forever, and never found. It was also, as the general opinion of the public concluded, a shithole.
Will privately disagrees. Sure, the door hinges were a little rusty, and the electricity was fucked, and half the time the hot water doesn’t work - but it was home . Or, it used to be. Now, trailing his fingers along the battered walls of his childhood home, Will’s not so sure. He’s not sure of the last time he felt safe here. He’s not sure of the last time he felt safe anywhere.
It all feels so small and insignificant now. This house used to be larger than life to Will when he was younger - he used to run from one side of the house to the next, over and over, and be so out of breath he’d collapse next to Chester on the couch. Sometimes he recalls memories of him and El and Jonathan in this house all together, lukewarm and happy-ish, like they were in Lenora, although he knows they can’t have been real memories. He wishes, not for the first time in his life, that things could have been different - that El could’ve moved in with them earlier, and her and Will could’ve shared a room, pretended to totally not be listening to Madonna together, and maybe been happier, for a time. But then Will thinks about how El and Mike would’ve been making out in his room, and then he isn’t so sure again. Anyway.
Looking at the phantom memory of toys, of books and drawings adorning his walls, (The toy robot Dustin gave to him when he lost a bet, Lucas’ rubix cube that he borrowed when he told him he could definitely solve it and then forgot to ever give it back, until they moved out years later. The drawings he’d pretended not to do solely for Mike, purely to see his smile when he showed them to him, the crinkle by his eyes–) a sort of anxious desperation overtakes him, as if he’s lost something, but can’t remember what.
He’s going to die soon – the thought washing over him like warm, holy water. They still don’t have a plan, El has been trying to find Max every single day and found nothing, they’re all exhausted from lack of sleep, and every time he looks at any of them, he has a horrible feeling that it might be the last time.
Standing in his childhood bedroom, Will realizes, suddenly, irrevocably, terribly, that his 12 year old self will be dying with him. It would be silly to mourn for himself, so he doesn’t, but he can’t stop the grief spreading through him like a wildfire.
His childhood bedroom has become his mausoleum; the closest thing he will ever get to a final resting place. This, he thinks manically, staring at his old desk, now empty, is where Will Byers would do his homework, clean up drawings he did of bearded wizards firing green cabbage-like fireballs, and listen to music from a mixtape made by his brother Jonathan.
This, he thinks, looking at his shelves, is where Will once kept his nerdy comic books stolen from his friends, his pathetic diaries that he would never call diaries but journals , his stuffed animals that he could never bring himself to get rid of, no matter how old he grew.
And this, Will thinks sitting on his bed, is where Will Byers would sleep, – when he still had a consciousness to shut off, that is – where Will would cuddle said stuffed animals as mentioned before, and where he would sit with his best friend Mike Wheeler, and stare at his hands, and realize for the first time that he wants those hands all over him; wants to feel the heat of them everywhere. This is where he would figure out that that isn’t a normal thing for him to realize so casually, if at all.
This is where he would grapple with forces larger than himself, try to keep hold of himself and his autonomy with everything his little 12 year old body and mind had to offer - but unfortunately for Will, this would all turn out to be fruitless, in the end. He beats the forces, sure, for a while, but then they come back to get him; like he always sensed they would - to drag him back into the dirt. Ashes to ashes.
Will toys with an old yoyo he keeps in his jacket pocket, and places it on the smooth surface of his wooden desk. Thinks; Something to remember me by.
.::.
The voice says, remember who? Remember who? Rememb–-
.::.
El and Jonathan both do the same thing when they walk. They both bend one of their arms at the elbow and hold their forearms out slightly in front of them, and press it into whoever is walking beside them, leaning into it as if fighting for balance. Will is walking in the middle of them, meaning he is being squashed like the filling of a sandwich. He doesn’t mind. The touch grounds him.
None of them are talking to each other. Will finds he doesn’t really want to talk to them, despite their proximity. He knows they know that he knows they don’t trust them, and it’s awkward and it’s heartbreaking. Will quite literally has nobody to talk to about the things that actually matter. And more than that, he misses them so fucking badly, even though they’re right next to him and squishing into his sides like a pair of penguins in the cold.
Will realizes too late that this is an ambush, an amateur intervention. When El had appeared in front of him and asked if he wanted to go for a walk with her and Jonathan, Will had been so fiercely happy that he’d accepted without hesitation. Stupid.
He rolls his eyes when they meet a clearing with some large rocks, (presumably for sitting, like this is some fucking AA meeting his dad would pretend to attend) and turns to leave and start walking in the same direction they came from. El and Jonathan are blocking his path before he can blink.
“Fuck you both,” Will sighs. He doesn’t bother pushing them out of his way. Who cares, anymore.
“We love you,” Jonathan says, guilty.
El doesn’t say anything, which isn’t unusual for her. Will still wishes she would.
What Will wants to say is, yeah, I’ve really been feeling the love lately, but he’s always hated conflict, so he says nothing. He walks over to one of the rocks, sighing again for good measure, and sits down. The rough surface hurts a little, but he doesn’t move. Jonathan and El do - they walk over to the other rocks opposite to Will, and sit on the biggest one together, their shoulders and thighs touching. An electric surge of sickening jealousy courses through Will as if he had just touched a plug with his hands wet. Seems that even though their trust in Will has grown thin, their trust in each other has grown stronger than ever.
El is poised for a fight, as if she hasn’t yet realized that Will is too tired to fight anymore.
Jonathan speaks up again, “We’ve just– we’ve noticed lately that you’ve been more…” He trails off, looking to El for help on finishing his sentence, but she’s too busy looking at Will. More what?
“More… sad.” He finishes lamely.
Will looks at him, then looks at El. “The world is ending.”
“See! That !” Jonathan leaps up and points at him, as though he had just caught Will with his hand in the cookie jar. It’s the most animated Will has seen Jonathan in a year. “ That’s what I’m talking about. You’re just… You used to be so…”
“Do you plan on finishing any of those sentences?”
Jonathan glares at him, but it lacks any heat, comes across more frustratingly worried than anything. “It’s like you’ve given up before we’ve even started, Will.”
And well. Will… thinks that's a little unfair. For him, all of this started years ago. He’s been fighting a losing battle since he was 12 years old. And sure, he isn’t as determined, or as optimistic as he used to be , but really, who can blame him? Every single thing in his life he has witnessed as a third party - his childhood, his own body, his first love. He just wants to have control over something, even if that means hurting himself in the process. He wants so many things at once he can’t possibly concentrate on just a single one. He wants all of this to be over. He wants to feel awake when his eyes are open. He wants to be someone worth saving.
“You can’t give up,” El says, finally. She’s looking at him in a way that frightens him a bit, “None of us can give up. We have to stay strong. Stay a… team.”
She had obviously learnt that word from Mike, and Will feels a familiar but unwelcome pang of jealousy. He had thought, ridiculously, that by team, Mike had meant just the two of them, like how it used to be. Obviously, he was wrong. Unwelcome anger greets him like an old friend.
“Team. Right. Because that’s actually exactly what you guys have been treating me like recently - a teammate ,” Will says, gesturing at them madly. He has never been able to control his emotions as well as he wants to. “I mean, for weeks all of you, every single one of you have been acting like I’m some sort of fucking spy again, like I’m just going to run off and tell all of the private information to my best friend Henry.”
Jonathan and El both look guilty, as though they are about to cut in. Will doesn’t stop. Can’t, really.
“I mean, God, do you even know what that’s like? ” Mortifingly, he feels his eyes well up in tears, and pathetic sobs begin to wrack up from his chest, through his body. He sees El and Jonathan both take a step towards him as if on autopilot, and instinctively, Will steps back. “I mean- I am completely, completely alone, I have no one to talk to about anything, and you all have each other. It sucks . It really fucking sucks. And maybe I would’ve expected it from everyone else, but never from you two. Never.”
They’re both talking to him, Jonathan saying something like, “You know you can always talk to us-”, and El something like “We never meant to hurt you–” but Will is done listening.
He says one final thing before being unable to talk anymore, “If either of you care about me even a little bit, do not follow me.”
He walks into the woods. Neither of them try to stop him.
They don’t talk for two weeks.
.::.
The voice says, they were glad to get rid of you, and you know it too, come–
.::.
Will wakes up screaming.
He was always better at quieting himself, before. He never liked worrying people, definitely didn’t like it when they worried over him. But, the nightmares (they’re not nightmares, not exactly, but there is no better word to describe them. Now-memories don't fit, either) have become ten times as harrowing, ten times as vivid and a hundred times more disturbing than they used to be when he was 12.
They’re evacuating soon, all of them – moving to some sort of farm up North near Bloomington. It’s mandatory, but they had all tried to fight it, Lucas especially. He hadn’t wanted to leave Max, said he would chain himself to her hospital bed if they tried to force him. The government are letting them take her with them because of Lucas’ idiotic, beautiful, blind loyalty - obviously they had realized he wasn’t going to budge. Max’s mom hadn’t tried to fight much, she’s drunk most of the time than not, and said that she’ll be staying with her sister somewhere North East. They all knew she’d given up on Max ever waking up months ago. Will doesn’t blame her exactly, after everything that happened with Billy… It made logical sense. Hawkins had chewed up the Mayfield family and then spit them out. Anyone in their right mind would want to get the fuck out before it got them, too. She’d given Lucas the address to her new place when she was leaving, the rest of the group watching from a few yards away - all pretending they weren’t - and something in her face said that she knew Max would be safest wherever Lucas was. He would rather die than let anything else happen to her, and they all knew it. It was almost like she was giving her his blessing. But maybe she wasn’t. Will had always been a romantic.
Max had been in his nightmare, and this is where it gets disturbing, because while El and Lucas had described what happened to her in as much detail as they could muster up the strength to say, the image of it had never been particularly vivid. But in the nightmare, Will had seen it all in bright, vibrant colors - Max’s floating body, limbs twisting and snapping like twigs with a sickening crack, eyes sucked into the back of her skull. And the worst part, the part that Will had woken up screaming about, was that in the nightmare, God, it had been him doing it. He was Vecna, and Vecna was him. They had merged, and he couldn’t tell where Vecna ended and he began, couldn’t decipher whose feelings and thoughts were whose. But one of the emotions had stuck out above the rest– an undeniable satisfaction. He had killed Max. And he had liked it.
Will’s fingers come back wet when he presses them to his face. He hadn’t realized he was crying.
He’s halfway up the stairs in Mike’s basement before it registers that he’s moving– he's watching his body from the outside, he’s not real, he’s still dreaming, his hands don’t feel like his own, they’re birds about to take flight- and then the door is opening, light flooding into the room, and Mike is right there looking down at him. And Will could almost collapse from the relief of just seeing him, the face he had been looking at since he was five, the face Will had never noticed had been looking back at him until now.
There’s a look in Mike’s eyes that's familiar, but unintelligible. He says, softly, in a voice that Will used to imagine was reserved only for him, “Hey, sorry I just- I heard you screaming.”
Will’s face burns. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to–”
Mike cuts him off, “No, it’s okay, really. I wasn’t really sleeping anyway,” Will looks down at his hands as if they’re the most fascinating appendages on planet earth in preparation for the inevitable-
“Are you okay?” Right on cue, and then the automatic, “Yeah,” leaving his own mouth, and it’s not exactly a lie but it's not exactly the truth either, and Will used to find it a herculean task, - lying to Mike - but somewhere in the timeline of their friendship, somewhere indecipherable, it had become easier. He suddenly feels as if he had tried to drink a whole jug of boiling hot water. His chest is burning.
Unknowing to Will's internal conflict, Mike looks at him as if searching for the truth in his face, unwaveringly and unselfconsciously as he always is in things not El-related, and makes a half-aborted reach out towards him– as if to grab his hand. Will stares at him. Mike stares back.
It’s Mike, always the full-mouthed to Will’s tight-lipped, who breaks the silence, says, “Do you want a glass of water or something?”
Will is momentarily shocked at the lack of rapid-fire questions regarding what is his probably horrifying physical state-of-being, all borrowed and rumpled pajamas and pale skin. Jesus. He must look really fucked up if even Mike is afraid to push him too far. Mike is still looking at him as if he’s trying to peel back the layers of Will’s skin with his mind, something that would probably be terrifying if he wasn’t dressed in Batman pajamas.
He must've noticed Will looking, because Mike looks down at himself, and then makes to move up the stairs. “Shut the fuck up.” He says happily, gesturing for Will to follow him.
Will says, “I didn’t say anything,” and follows him up.
..
Standing around awkwardly has become somewhat of a skill to Will, and he practices this skill while he watches Mike root around his kitchen cupboards for some glasses. He looks at the kitchen island, and remembers how the party used to crowd around it, bony shoulders and bony elbows, making campaigns after campaigns. Remembers how huge the Wheeler’s kitchen had seemed compared to the Byers’ tiny rocky table they found on the side of the road, their splintering wood stools and century old stove. It’s one of the only things that Will had felt alienated him from the party - at least when they were younger and hadn’t discovered the world of girls yet - because while the rest of them rejected the idea of being rich, that’s exactly what they were. The Hendersons weren’t as wealthy as the Wheelers or the Sinclairs, with Dustin only having a single mother to support him, but Dustin never mentioned being worried about them not being able to make rent, or the electricity shutting off at night, or the water turning freezing cold halfway through a morning shower.
Will remembers the struggle of his childhood - the abuse and then the silence from his shitty father, the way he and Jonathan had sometimes had to steal in order to eat that day, (remembers feeling so nervous while doing it he felt like he would projectile vomit everywhere) remembers the kitchen table piled with tax papers, Jonathan having to get a job at 13, having to take the role of a parent so that Will would have someone to take care of him. The rest of the party didn’t have the constant burden of poverty weighing on their consciousness like Will did, and it's not as if they ever made fun of Will for being poor, but they would just never mention it at all . He used to love that the party didn’t care about their differences, and then, as he got older, grew to resent them for ignoring it - and now he just doesn’t care. It’s the end of the fucking world.
Plus, while being possessed by eldritch horror entities at the ripe age of 12 doesn’t have many perks, it does get you a fuck ton of hush money from the government.
Now equipped with two full glasses of water, Mike moves over to the stools by the kitchen island, and Will follows. He places the glasses down on the counter and sits, and before Will can do the same, Mike hooks his foot under the metal of Will’s stool and pulls it closer towards him. Caught up in the familiarity of the gesture, Will sits down on auto-pilot. It’s so sudden and so achingly familiar that Will for a second thinks he’s teleported back in time, but no, just another small, bizarre glimpse into the shattered looking glass of their childhood. Will looks at Mike to see if he’s affected as he is, or maybe even to say something to him - what, exactly he doesn’t know, maybe something like We don’t do that anymore, you made sure we don’t do anything like that anymore - but Mike looks as unaffected as ever, long fingers wrapped around his condensation-covered glass. He could count every freckle on Mike’s face they’re sitting that close.
Will takes a sip of his water, mentally tracks the ice-cold path of it from the top of his throat down to his stomach. Sees Mike do the same a few seconds later in his peripheral vision. It’s so quiet.
“Are you coming to see Max tomorrow with me and El?” Mike asks him.
The mention of Max makes him flinch unconsciously, only a little bit. Mike looks over at him immediately, a question in his eyes, but in pattern to his earlier behavior, doesn’t push. “Yeah,” Will says. He hasn’t spoken to El or Jonathan since their half-sorta-fight a couple weeks ago, but he does want to see Max, and the worst that can happen with him and El is a little bit of awkwardness or maybe a bit of blood and death and tears, but who cares. They’re all going to die anyway.
“Cool.”
“Cool.”
He takes another sip of water. Mike does the same. He can feel warmth emitting from Mike in their closeness. The silence isn’t awkward but it’s not comfortable, either. Has it always been like this? Or had he and Mike just lost whatever made them Will-and-Mike, and now they would always be desperately clinging to old memories and past-versions of themselves in order to go back to how it was? The thought has teeth, gnaws at him. He misses Mike even when he’s right next to him.
Mike clears his throat, then says, “The- earlier, me and my parents…. My parents and Holly aren’t coming with us to that farm in Bloomsbury,” he chuckles, darkly, and looks down at his lap, “they’re going the opposite direction actually. Somewhere East.”
Speechless, Will looks at him, studies the sharp curve of his nose, the dark fluttering of eyelashes across pale skin. Will has always been desperate to tell Mike how much he’s needed, how important he is; to try and make him feel better. It comes from a place of desperate and skewed guilt, probably - he’ll be able to never tell him the real depth of his feelings, so he needs to make it up to him somehow. He also, much simpler, just never wants Mike to be sad. But Will doesn’t really know what to say, this time. The scenario doesn’t really fit in his head, somehow. He can’t imagine Karen Wheeler placidly nodding along to whatever her husband says, packing up their life into neat little boxes and leaving half of her family in a danger zone. That doesn’t match up to the image of her that Will has had in his head for the past 10 years.
“Oh.” Will says eloquently.
“Yeah.”
“I’m so sorry, Mike. I don’t really know what to say…” He trails off into silence for a moment, then, “How are you feeling about… all of it?”
Mike looks at him steadily. Will feels his attention like an electric shock up his spine. “Well, I don’t know, really. I guess I’m glad that Holly’s not coming. I don’t want her wrapped up in all of this like we are.” He looks at Will the same way he did on the creaky stairs of the basement earlier - like trying to crack a case that has gone cold. “And how are.. How are you doing?”
It’s the first time Mike has shown he cares about what Will is feeling in the past year, yet all Will wants to do is lie to him. To tell him that everything is fine, that he isn’t having the most traumatic nightmares, isn’t sleeping for four hours a night on a good day, isn’t feeling like he’s losing his grip on reality, isn’t feeling like he's fighting a battle already lost; because if Will can convince Mike that all of this isn’t happening, maybe he can convince himself, too.
“I’m okay.”
He hears Mike scoff angrily. Looking at him, Mike looks genuinely pissed, pissed at Will, something that always feels like a stab to the chest no matter how many times Will has seen it in the years of their friendship, in fights underneath awnings, in roller-rinks. But there’s something else, something underneath the anger, that looks suspiciously like hurt, like a question - When did it get so easy for you to lie to me? And while seeing that question burns, makes Will hot with shame, maybe it can be good, too, maybe it shows that Will is relearning Mike, bit by bit. Maybe they’re relearning each other, piece by broken piece. (Something deep in Will rejects that idea, snarls at it like a cornered animal; I have never not known him, I knew him before I knew him, I knew him before I knew anything- )
Mike says, cooly, “No you’re not.”
“I am,” Will replies, desperately trying to control the situation. After not speaking to El and Jonathan for weeks, losing Mike too would kill him. “It’s-”
“Right, and that’s why you’re having nightmares,” Mike cuts in, sounding even angrier, “and waking up screaming, right? Because you’re okay? ”
“On like, a scale,” he replies, gesturing wildly, keenly feeling the exhaustion from sleep deprivation in his arms, “of Great to Dead, I’m almost a hundred percent sure I’m in the middle. Probably. Like, at five.”
Mike says, “You’re at eight at least,” and maybe it’s because it's that time of night where nothing really feels real and they’re untouchable, or maybe it's the sleep deprivation, or some other nonsensical, ridiculous reason, but they both burst into hysterical laughter; and they’re suddenly twelve years old again. They are the only two people left on earth. They are kings of the universe. Will has never loved anyone more in his entire, pathetic life.
Somehow, once they’ve stopped clutching their stomachs in laughter, stopped futility attempting shushing each other to avoid waking up the whole house, they end up on the cold tiled floors, backs touching the cabinets, legs pressed up against each other. The air is more somber now, more honest, as if the hysterical bout of laughter has purged them of any awkwardness. It must be well into the early hours of the morning. Will’s eyelids are drooping from exhaustion, and when he risks a glance over at Mike, he can see he’s not faring any better.
Will’s looking at Mike how he has looked at him for years. Mike’s looking at Will how he has looked at him for years. Will doesn't realize they both had been smiling until Mike’s face falls slightly.
He speaks without prompt, “You’ve been screaming in your sleep for a while now,” Mike looks down at his hands, twisting them together, “Would you ever have told me, about- about the nightmares?”
Would you have cared? Will banishes the thought from his head; pinches himself sharply on the back of his hand for the patheticness of it. The answer is a straightforward, plain no; Will wouldn’t have told Mike anything as he wouldn't want to risk becoming a more of a burden than he already is. He’s so tired of being dead-weight. But, he has a feeling Mike won’t like that answer, so he attempts to sugar-coat it.
“I mean, eventually, probably,” And then a thought hits him like a death-drop, stomach falling out from underneath him, “Why didn’t you come in before - if it’s been happening a while?” And he feels terrible right after he says it, wants to take the words right out of the air and shove them back down his throat, it’s not Mike’s responsibility to take care of him, Jesus Christ, but once he’s said them he can’t stop thinking them, either, can’t stop wondering how many times Mike has heard him scream and scream and done nothing .
Mike looks at him, eyes wide and panicked, “I did! I did,” he turns to face him, staring at Will in the face to really solidify it, “Every time, I came down straight away, it’s just, well, you’d never wake up, and, um,” he averts eye contact, and Will notices the tips of his ears becoming stained with red, then thinks, Oh God… What the fuck did I do?
“When I’d talk to you, at first it was to try and wake you up, I swear, but when it wouldn’t work, I would keep talking, and it was like the nightmare stopped, or something, and you’d calm down or,” He pauses. “I don’t know, it was… I don’t know. Sorry.”
The hands twisted together in Will’s lap are the most interesting thing he’s ever seen in his entire cognitive life. Really. He cannot look at Mike, and he can feel his stare like a match burning a hole clean through the side of his head. Will’s entire face is on fire. He might spontaneously combust. His feelings must be so unbelievably obvious to everyone, he might as well write IN LOVE WITH MIKE WHEELER on his forehead in permanent black ink. Somehow, his face burns even brighter when he thinks about how even Mike knows now, probably, and that must be the reason why he seemed so embarrassed when telling Will about it. Will is going to throw up from embarrassment, and then get his heart shattered when Mike inevitably rejects him for something Will never even had the courage to ask.
It’s a genuine triumph that his voice doesn’t shake too badly when he says, “I am. So sorry,” and he realizes that on top of this being the worst moment of his life, he had also assumed that Mike had left him alone when Will was screaming, and then he somehow, impossibly, feels even shittier. “For assuming that you didn’t check on me, and for… All of… that, too”
“No! No,” Mike says loudly, then grimaces and quiets down, probably remembering the time, “No, I mean, if anything, I’m sorry, like it’s weird that I just sat and talked to you when you were asleep, and for the other thing, it’s fair enough that you assumed that I wouldn’t when I’ve been a total asshole to you for the past year”
Oh. “You haven’t been an asshole.”
“I have.”
“No, you haven’t. And I appreciate you helping me, seriously. It’s not weird.”
“It’s a little weird.”
“Maybe. But thank you anyway”
Will looks at Mike, and Mike looks at Will, and they’re laughing again. There’s a sudden mental image of them at nine, at twelve, at fourteen, laughing in the exact way they are right now. It’s too vivid and too clean to be a real memory, but it must’ve happened at some point, so shouldn’t it count as one? All awkwardness dissipates, and everything steadies. Mike and Will are Mike and Will once more, or they’re close enough.
“Hey, listen,” Mike says, almost shyly. “Thanks, for helping me, too”
Will looks at him, puzzled. “When?”
“You know, in the van before,” Will's blood turns to ice, and he freezes in place. “I know El commissioned it, and everything, but the painting was really cool of you to do. And for everything you said. I needed that. So. Thank you”
He looks so sincere and happy. Will is the worst person alive. All of the heartache he felt then, feels now - the pain of knowing that the painting wouldn’t mean half as much to Mike if he knew all of it came from Will and his twisted, broken heart - is all warranted and entirely deserved. He doesn’t even feel guilty about lying in the moment, not really, he helped Mike instead of giving him more problems to deal with concerning Will’s own selfish feelings. The guilt stems from the concept, the betrayal of lying, then it is the actual lie itself. If it came down to it, he would do it again - because it was the best way to help in the moment.
The laughter had shaken off a layer of worthlessness from Will’s skin, earlier. He feels it shroud him again like a heavy and unwelcome cloak. “Yeah. No problem.”
Mike offers Will a hand up. Will takes it, mind all skin against skin, palm against palm, and then the absence of it when they let go, after a little too long to be deemed normal. They both know it’s not necessary, and yet Mike had offered, and Will had accepted.
.::.
The voice says, you are nothing, but you could be something, with me. Come–
.::.
“You need to make up with Jonathan.”
It’s the first thing Robin says to him when they meet up for their patrol. She’s wearing a light green bandana tied across her head to keep her hair back. Will, tying his shoelace, squints up at her. “Huh?”
She sighs dramatically, hands on hips, “That man is losing touch with reality.”
Though something deep in Will’s chest tugs at that, he says, “I’m sure he’s fine.”
Something in Will misses Jonathan like a severed limb, a language he’s forgotten how to speak. They’ve never not talked for this long before, not even that one time Jonathan stole Will’s puzzle and messed it up after Will had spent months trying to solve it. He misses El with a ferocity too, but while the absence of her stings, it’s easier to manage - he has existed without her before, but Jonathan is engrained in everything Will is, his whole life has happened with Jonathan being a part of it somehow. He feels unmoored without him, like a ship adrift at sea.
Will finishes tying his shoelace, stands up and looks at Robin face-to face, then starts walking. Robin rushes to catch up to him.
“He misses you.”
“Sure.”
“He does! Will, he looks terrible. And don’t even try to deny that it has something to do with you. I've seen how freakishly codependent you guys are.”
“He stopped smoking. Maybe he’s withdrawing.”
“He stopped weeks ago. And I’m pretty sure that’s not even how weed works.”
“What’s weed?” Will asks, just to be annoying.
It’s one of the nicest days in Hawkins they’ve had in a while, whatever nice can really be with apocalyptic vines growing over the trees and cracking open the roads. Will wishes they were talking about something else. It’s a Friday, so the party has their routined meeting later, but everyone is still being so fucking weird with him that Will thinks he’s probably going to skip, anyway. The twisting pain he feels when he thinks about them goes perfectly well with the other sharp objects lodged in his heart. He barely feels it. He hurts all the time, now.
Robin ignores him, “I don’t know what happened with you guys, and El, because none of you will tell me shit, so, fine, whatever, I just think we all need to be together for this, like, we don’t know what's gonna happen, so…” She trails off and looks at Will like she said something revolutionary, like it’s not the same recycled bullshit everyones been telling him recently, and Will really doesn’t want to get angry at her too but she’s making it pretty fucking difficult right about now.
“You’re right,” he snaps, “You don’t know what happened between us. So maybe you shouldn’t speak on things you don’t understand,” and tries to ignore the hurt look on her face immediately afterwards. It’s the snarkiest thing he’s ever said to her, and although Will is always so fucking perpetually tired and numb lately, there’s an onslaught of panic in his thoughts all saying, God, now she’s gonna hate me, the only person who truly gets it, and many variations of what the hell is wrong with me?
They walk in silence to the abandoned stores they haven’t checked out yet. It’s awkward.
Robin is quiet for a long time, and just when Will is about to break and apologize, she breaks the silence first. “You’re right. I don’t know what happened. I just don’t like seeing you guys upset,” She looks at Will appraisingly, then adds on, “You especially, honestly,” and he’s so struck dumb by that it must show on his face.
“Why me, especially?”
Sadly, she smiles at him. “You remind me a lot of myself.”
Will understands. You’re one of us now. They continue on. What else is there to do?
“I’m sorry for snapping earlier,” He says, when their shoes are crunching over broken glass inside an abandoned Kmart. “I just- I haven’t been, um,” That could get too personal, “Things have been weird, lately. Obviously.”
Robin parrots back, “Obviously,” but looks at him as if she knows he’s not telling her something. She looks away from him and it's a weight off of his shoulders. Wordlessly, Robin takes one side of the abandoned store, and Will takes the other. The shelves are pretty much empty, save for a few scattered useless beauty products and dusty baby clothes. Will is just pondering whether they could find a use for the baby clothes for something when there’s a crash outside, and his heart stops.
Everything happens very fast.
Ironically, this is the first time they haven’t bought weapons on a patrol - the group had gotten too comfortable. There hadn’t been any sightings or attacks for weeks, and they had all stupidly let their guard down, and forgone all weapons for the time being, hoping to save them for the real, big-fucking-deal fight with Vecna. Stupid, stupid stupid.
Will hears the demodog before he sees it.
He also hears Robins fruitless attempts at walking quietly from across the room, pointless because the amount of broken glass scattered along the floor makes it impossible to move silently, and Wills trying to get to her, and he’s thinking that this is the last time he’s going to see her, see anything, because they’re going to die in this fucking Kmart, and his chest is tightening, he can’t breathe, and then somehow Robin is next to him and clutching onto him tightly and then she’s dragging them both down into a basement and locking the door behind them. Will turns around just before the door closes, and see’s the jaws of the demodog wide open and gaping. Then, the sound of it hitting the metal of the door, and the lock clicking into place. He snaps out of it. They drag a large metal crate in front of the door, wincing at the horrible screeching sound it makes as it's pushed along the floor.
Will gives himself a brief moment to hate himself for freezing up and being useless again, as he always is. And then he turns to Robin to see if she’s okay.
She looks unharmed, but Will knows better than anyone that looks can be deceiving, so he whispers, “Are you alright?”
Pale, she nods.
“How much do you want to bet that there’s a whole hoard of them out there?”
“You are so weird.” Will replies. Well. Robin’s fine. He glances down the stairs of the unending basement they are now fucking stuck in. Pitch black. At least they had brought flashlights. And, hey, Maybe they can hit a demogorgon round the head with the blunt end of one to knock it unconscious if it comes down to it. Maybe if Robin irritates him enough he'll suggest the idea for her to try out. Or offer himself up.
The demodog isn’t even scratching at the door, just pacing up and down, up and down the outside perimeter, which is definitely significantly more creepy, but as of right now - significantly less harmful. Will and Robin look at eachother, then at the dark staircase with trepidation.
Robin says, “Ladies first,” and gestures downwards. Will rolls his eyes, and walks down.
..
They try to cope with being trapped in a basement while interdimensional monsters roam outside by;
(“But, if I was to get arrested, it’d definitely be for like, something cool. Like starting a bar fight.”
Robin’s back is on the floor, legs balanced upright on the wall. Will stops spinning in his cool spinny office chair that he had called dibs on and looks across the room at her, incredulous, “That's the coolest crime you can think of?”
“Well. I was going to say murder but then I realized we’re stuck in a creepy basement together and I don’t want you to get all paranoid and slice me up with that pizza cutter over there.”
He considers this. Fair enough. “Who would you murder, anyway?”
There’s a long pause. When Robin answers, her voice is full of forced-casualty and cheer, “My teacher in the fourth grade for giving me an F on my science project.”
Will clears his throat. “I’d probably go to jail for something so dull. Like driving too slow.”
Robin stops hitting the hard heels of her sneakers against the concrete wall, says, “You know, you think you’re a lot more un-interesting than you actually are.”
“What,” Will says, “you mean that everyone doesn't get possessed at twelve?” Receiving compliments is one of life’s greatest discomforts and there is quite literally nowhere to run from them here. The basement is bigger than Will thought it would be, metal shelves lining the damp walls, empty save for a few cans of food. There’s a small desk with a spinning chair that Will had spotted straight away, and he and Robin have been pacing up and down the small square feet available to them for what feels like months.
Robin ignores him, “I mean. You literally kind of died.”
“Well, it didn’t exactly stick.”
He wants nothing more in this moment than for this conversation to be over. Zombie boy, zombie boy, zombie boy. The boy who came back from the dead. That’s all he will ever be no matter what he does, no matter what else he survives, no matter what else he stands for. The room is small enough, and Robin must know Will enough by now to read his silences, as she stops talking and turns to look at him. Will doesn’t meet her gaze.
He disagrees with that, anyway. Experiences and the shit you go through in life don’t make you interesting by default, it’s the way you interpret those experiences and mould them to yourself that make you interesting, and so far Will hasn’t been able to learn any valuable life skills from all this supernatural trauma other than life fucking sucks sometimes. It sucks most of the time, for people like him.
There’s no need for Robin to apologize, so she doesn’t, but a while later something drops into Will's lap, and he sees that it’s a can of tinned peaches. )
And later;
(They’re sitting back to back on the cold concrete floor, bored out of their minds. The only thing Will can feel is the heat of Robin’s back, the texture of her hair against his and the slight noise it makes when one of them moves. The rest of him is numb. He would be so much more freaked out if Robin weren’t here to sporadically blow raspberries and ask him whether he thinks the moon is made out of cheese or not. They’ve played so many games of eye-spy Will could probably recount every single object in the room from memory. His flashlight is dead, Robins’ is on its way out, and the only source of light available in the room- a small, tiny barred window- has now been brought into uselessness by the black night. It’s so dark that nothing feels real, like he could say anything or do anything and it wouldn’t matter. It’s as dangerous as it is exhilarating.
Just to see if the feeling will stick, he breaks the silence. “You know what the real fucked up part of all this is?”
“That I’d make a much better boy and you’d make a much better girl?” Robin says.
“What? No.”
“Oh. The hoard of cockroaches in here?”
“The what?”
“Nothing. Nevermind.”
Will forgets what he was even going to say. The party’s meeting is at 7, Robin and Will left at 5, and they’ve definitely been gone for way longer than two hours. Will thinks about the party. Wonders if they realize he’s not there, if they even care. It’s probably better for them not to have to worry about the unwanted presence of him, even just for a half-day.
They’ve tried to reach the group, as they weren’t stupid enough to forgo their walkie-talkies, but there’s no signal, no matter how far up the stairs they go, or how high they climb the shelves. There’s a rule that they all have, Murray and Argyle and Hopper’s Russian friend included, that if a certain patrol goes missing, they try everything else available before splitting and setting out to find them. They’ve probably passed the satellite-level of trying to establish communication by now, and Will wonders how long they’ve been searching for them. Tortures himself by thinking that if Robin weren’t here with him, maybe they wouldn’t even be looking at all - instead viewing his disappearance as a potential threat neutralized.
Will shakes his head, and tunes back into Robin talking to her radio. She’s pretending to barter for a ransom by holding him hostage. You have 24 hours, motherfucker, and I have the Byers kid so don’t try anything funny! )
And even later ;
(Robin had gone through a stage of genuine panic, pacing around the small concrete space and struggling to breathe. Will had tried his best to help her, asking dumb questions and breathing with her, but he had skipped that panicked stage, somehow, as if all the fight had left him a long time ago. He almost can’t believe how little he feels about all of this. Almost.
But moments, hours, days later, Robin is hyper and sleep-drunk. Will can tell. She keeps on clicking her walkie on and off and it’s driving him a little insane. He thinks he preferred her when she was hyperventilating into a paper bag.
He’s about to accidentally kick her ankle when she says, irreversibly, “Have you ever been in love?
His stomach seizes up. She must really be delirious . Will dodges around the question - he’s never been a good liar, and he knows he definitely won’t be able to lie to Robin and have her actually believe him. He says, dryly, “How many of those canned peaches have you had?”
She chuckles dryly back.
There’s silence, and Will should've known better than to believe that Robin could ever let go of something quietly, but he still almost jumps when she offers, voice small, “I have.”
He doesn’t reply with words, but hums in encouragement for her to continue. He’s so curious, but terrified that she’ll ask for something in return. But Robin isn’t the type of person to keep score, or need something in exchange for something given willingly.
She sighs heavily, like a release, then says, “Fucking suuucked, seriously,”. Will snorts. “No, like honestly. It wasn’t– I mean sh- it wasn’t, um, requited– I guess.”
Story of Will’s life. He’s supposed to ask, did you ever get over it? but instead what slips out of his dumb, stupid mouth is, “Does it ever stop hurting?” which is the same thing, really. He snaps his jaw shut, hopes, stupidly, that Robin doesn’t notice the does instead of did, but she’s too nice to point it out even if she has. He dreads the answer as much as he does the lack of one.
There’s a pause. Then, so quiet Will almost misses it: “No. Not really.”)
.::.
The voice says, you hurt all the time. I can get rid of that pai–
.::.
Robin and Will leave out of their own volition, eventually. Robin, pissed that no-one was able to find them, makes a bitter joke about them winning the National Hawkins hide and seek tournament that neither of them pretend to laugh at. Will feels nothing. The demodogs are gone when they creep out, probably seeking food that they are able to actually catch and probably torture a little for fun first, who knows. He doesn’t know how long they were down in that basement for – Robin estimates around six hours, give or take. Enough for it to be completely dark outside, and enough for him and Robin to feel tired enough to collapse where they stand.
The walk back to the cabin is uneventful, despite them being so high alert they snap their necks any time they hear even a gust of wind.
The only person who's at the cabin when they arrive, panting and exhausted, is Argyle, funnily enough. He jumps up off the coach and squeezes them both hard enough to break their spines, tells them everyone has been worried sick, and they were all still out searching, 20 minutes away from calling whatever military or police they could contact, and shit, dude, he needs to call them and tell them–
Argyle smells like weed and old laundry detergent. Will barely knows him, Robin even less. He squeezes and holds them for too long to be fully comfortable. Will thinks it's the best hug he’s been given.
He gets them a blanket each and shoves them over to sit down on the coach, gesturing like a disgruntled mother hen. It's the most un-Argyle he has ever seemed, that is until he offers Will and Robin some purple palm tree delight to ease the nerves. Will declines, Robin looks as if she’s seriously considering it until Will whacks her on the knee with the edge of his blanket.
“Dudes, we’ve got a code green!” Argyle’s voice cheers from the kitchen, presumably into the walkie, “They’re back! They’re back!”
There’s no answer, and Will half-expects Mike or Dustin to say, all rolling-eyes, Dude you need to say over, but the other line stays quiet. He’s about to call out to Argyle in the kitchen after about five minutes of sitting in silence, exchanging glances with Robin, but then the door to the cabin bursts open, and Mike is there.
Will unconsciously stands up immediately, his body always, always in tune with Mike’s, no matter how hard he tries for it not to be. The room is frozen in time. Neither of them move. Mike’s looking at him from across the room, his eyes wide, something like amazement all over his face, and he’s looking at Will like he’s never seen him before, or like he’ll never see him again, eyes running all over his face and down his body and then back up to his face all over again like a cycle, and they’re both frozen but then somehow they’re not and they’re crashing into each other –
Mike is holding him the tightest he’s ever held him, face shoved into Will’s hair, and Will couldn’t move even if he wanted to -- which he really doesn’t want to – his face pressed into Mike’s neck, breathing him in. They’re moving somehow, and Will’s mind floats down into his body slightly only to realize that his feet are actually off the floor, and Mike is holding him so hard that he’s been lifted up– and he hadn’t realized how much he missed him until he’s being held by him again, holy shit– and Mike’s saying something like I thought I lost you into his neck, and Will couldn’t respond to that even if he tried. Being held by Mike in this very moment, like he’s something precious, like he’s something worth saving, is the happiest Will can remember feeling for a long time. It's the only thing that’s made him feel something in a long time.
He lied before, about that being the best hug he’s ever been given. This one definitely is.
Eventually, they must part and let go, but he doesn’t remember how, or why, or when. When Will’s brain starts functioning again, his first thought is to be embarrassed at the ferocity in which he had held Mike back, because Mike hadn’t even wanted to hug him at all all that time ago in the airport. But when he risks a glance up at Mike, he looks shy, cheeks rosy, but also so– so happy. And for the first time Will entertains the thought that maybe he made him feel that way.
While looking at Argyle is safe, as he looks as out of it as ever, risking a glance at Robin isn’t so liberating- she looks knowing and smug, leaning back on the couch with her arms crossed, and Will would normally roll his eyes at her, but he feels, fuck it, he feels happy in this moment, too, sue him.
The peace is only broken when the rest of the party and company flock into the crowded cabin, and they all hug him and Robin and check them over for bruises (well, his mom does), and ask for an explanation right now mister (his mom, again.)
El and Jonathan are last in the hug-line. They both look exhausted. Will guesses he doesn’t look much better, although he’s taken to avoiding mirrors lately, so who knows. They both approach him as if they’re trying to cage a feral animal. He rolls his eyes at them, not exactly unkindly, but not exactly kindly, either. They need to talk some stuff out. Will needs to talk to all of them, about all of the supernatural weird things he’s been going through, but also all the shit they’ve put him through, too. There’s a spark in his chest, so, so small he almost misses it, but doesn’t – it glows enough to light up some of the dark. Maybe we still have time.
.::.
The voice says, you will always be second best, Will, but you can change all of that if you–
Will Byers sits up sharply on the pull-out bed in Mike Wheeler's basement and says outloud, finally, irrevocably, fucking bravely, “Okay. What the fuck do you want?”
And the voice says, smile in its voice, Come to me.