Chapter Text
Will woke up with a throbbing headache.
It was one that shook his whole body; the room was spinning, the lights were blinding, his limbs felt detached from his body, and everything hurt. Worst of all, everything just felt… off. Like he was missing something.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
He tried to recall what happened before he woke up, but his mind was drawing a blank. Instead, he shifted gears to focus on what he did know. He knew that his fingers were currently twisted up in the cotton bedsheets beneath him, he knew his foot was pressed up against the wall at an awkward angle that didn’t hurt but definitely would make him sore later on, he knew there was a consistent thrum of a fan somewhere in the room, and he knew that a ray of sunlight managed to cut its way in from the window and strike him directly across his face-- or more specifically, his poor, poor eyes.
He also knew that something was missing.
Something important.
It felt as if someone came into his room when he wasn’t looking and took something, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. It felt like something was moved two inches to the left. It felt wrong.
Will wasn’t sure what that meant, and upon opening his eyes, the thought slipped away like sand through his fingers. It probably wasn’t as big of a deal as he thought it might have been, if he couldn’t keep a hold of the feeling, not really.
It wasn’t important enough to remember, after all.
Will groaned and repositioned his arm to cover his eyes, letting himself doze back off to sleep… before jolting up in the bed. The bed, because this wasn’t his bed-- this wasn’t even his room.
“Wha…” he mumbled to himself, his mouth dry from disuse. His face felt vaguely sticky from dried tears; did he cry before going to sleep the night before? He didn’t understand.
This wasn’t his room.
This wasn’t his room.
Will had absolutely no idea what was going on.
Shaking off the last vestige of sleep-- something told him it was a nightmare, but he didn’t remember anything from whatever he dreamt, nothing at all, so it must not have been that bad-- he slunk off the bed and padded out of the room, into yet another unfamiliar place. It was clearly a hallway, but he didn’t know whose house it was.
He felt as though he should’ve been more worried than he actually was. For some inexplicable reason, he felt… safe. Like he was home, for the first time in a long while.
Without realizing it, his feet had whisked him over into the bathroom-- he didn’t even realize it had happened, nor did he realize he instinctively knew where the bathroom was in the first place.
“Will!”
The boy in question whipped his head around towards the voice, and his entire body relaxed when he recognized the face of his older brother, Jonathan. He didn’t even realize how tense he was before that moment, but then again, it seemed like he wasn’t noticing a lot of things that morning.
“Oh, hey Jon…”
His older brother gave him a small smile. “Oh, did you just wake up?”
He nodded. “Mmhm. Just gonna use the bathroom.”
“Ah, well hurry up and get dressed, we’re late for the party.”
“Party?”
“Well, yeah. Afterparty, more like it. It’s a long time coming and all… we’re just glad its finally over.”
Will didn’t know what was over. He didn’t know what the afterparty would even be for.
“Yeah,” he heard himself say, his voice flat. “Yeah, I’m glad it’s over too.”
Jonathan shot him a funny look, but let it go. He gave Will a pat on the shoulder as he turned to go back downstairs. “Take your time getting ready, Will, but we’re leaving in ten.”
“Minutes, hours, or seconds?”
“It’ll be seconds if you keep that up!”
Will laughed and shut the bathroom door.
.--.
Will couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
It was nagging him all day, the strange feeling lingering at the back of his neck, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He didn’t want to worry anyone, though, so he didn’t say anything. It probably wasn’t that big of a deal, really.
Really.
Okay, so maybe he was lying to himself, but still. He had other things on his mind. Like that fact that he still wasn’t sure what this afterparty thing was for. Or why it was at Steve Harington’s house, for that matter. Like yeah, okay, Steve was friends with Jonathan and basically a brother to Dustin or whatever, but considering that Will still didn’t know what the party was for, he thought that it was pretty weird.
Besides, he thought Steve’s parents up and left Hawkins altogether two years ago, after that freak earthquake that hit the town and split it in half (or was it quarters? Will couldn’t remember). He couldn’t remember if the Harringtons ever came back, but apparently not.
Okay, so maybe not that weird after all.
Hawkins really was more of a ghost town than anything else nowadays; almost in a literal sense, considering all the accidents and deaths over the past five years. Will can’t recall why they were all still here, considering everyone else wised up and left this godforsaken town years ago, (he vaguely remembered something about a quarantine. Maybe that’s what the party is for? He still doesn’t know), but here he was, still here.
Still here and still not knowing what was going on.
Will resigned himself to being confused. It bothered him, just a little bit, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. There was something he was missing, something big, but he just couldn’t figure out what it was.
It was probably not that big of a deal.
… Right?
.-
“Will!” A girl called out, bright red hair coming into view. She gave him a grin and swung her arm around his shoulders, her other hand holding firmly onto her cane. “Glad to see you’re not late, unlike some people.”
Max. Will’s brain told him, like puzzle pieces falling into place. Oh right, it was one of his best friends, one of the members of the party. The Zoomer. Will loved spending time with her, and was happy to see her up and on her feet again. After waking up from her coma just the year before, she needed a wheelchair and was nearly fully blind; now, she could walk around with a cane on her own, her vision was slightly restored (but never the same as it was. Not like before the year-long coma), and she only had mild joint pain.
All in all, she was doing better. All they really could do is try and be a little better than the day before, right?
Will couldn’t help but feel like he was missing something from the past year. He moved away but yet he didn’t, he stayed in Hawkins but didn’t see anyone for months, didn’t see his mom or his sister or even Max, missed a majority of her recovery and, and--
Lucas laughed as he walked up to them, a fond smile on his face as he stared at Max. “Hey, it’s not even his fault this time! Nancy took him to get the extra food, remember?”
Max rolled her eyes. “Yeah yeah, so he’s actually doing something that excuses his tardiness, sure. But I’m still finding a way to blame this on him, ‘cause Wheeler is always late.”
Lucas merely shook his head at that, chuckling under his breath. “I’m just saying that he has an actual excuse for once. Crazy, I know.”
Max laughed and lightly whacked Lucas with her cane. “Very crazy.”
If we’re both going crazy, then we’ll go crazy together.
Will blinked that thought away. He wondered where he heard that phrase before, briefly, but chalked it up to it being something from a book he read recently.
It probably wasn’t that important.
Dustin practically skipped over to their little huddle, only taking enough caution to not drop the pudding cup in hand. “Will!” he called out, a blinding smile on his face. “Hey!”
Will couldn’t stop the smile forming on his face. “Dustin, hey.”
“I’m so glad you’re here-- could you help settle an argument for me--”
Max and Lucas groaned in unison.
“Dustin shut up--”
Lucas nodded his head. “Yeah dude, we don’t care about whatever you and Steve are arguing about now--”
“That’s just because you’re wrong!”
“I’m not wrong! I’m sorry I agreed with Steve this one time--”
“Oh, you never agree with me despite the fact that I’m right--!”
“No, you aren’t!”
Max sighed, her shoulders slumping down in disappointment. “Boys,” she tsked out, nudging her elbow into Will. “Idiots. The both of them,” she said, sharing a small smile with Will.
“Hey!” the two idiots in question protested at once, which only made Max and Will burst out into laughter.
This was nice, being with the party. Now they were only missing El. El, who was chatting outside with their parents and Jonathan, probably.
It felt like he got the math wrong on that one.
Huh.
“Okay, okay, but I really do want Will’s opinion on this--”
Max groaned. “Seriously?”
“Yes!” Dustin protested. “This is super important!”
“Okay, I really doubt that,” Max snarked back. She was funny, like that, and witty and so similar to--
“Soooo,” Lucas cut off whatever argument that Max and Dustin might have delved into. He waggled his eyebrows at Will, turning the conversation to have the other two party members looking at him. “How was it snuggling up next to loverboy last night?”
What?
“What?” He echoed the thought out loud.
“Oh, you know,” Lucas continued, his voice going into a sing-song tone. “I mean, you’re even wearing his clothes~”
Will looked down at himself-- he was wearing a dark blue, cable-knit sweater and a pair of black jeans, as well as a dark green hoodie-jacket that felt so familiar. He felt a little bad about borrowing something from the closet in the room that he woke up in, and he hoped whoever it belonged to didn’t mind, but he was not going outside wearing pajamas-- pajamas that he pretty sure didn’t even belong to him anyways.
“Oh,” he said, softly. “I didn’t have anything else to wear.”
Max grinned slyly at him. “So let me guess, Mike oh so helpfully offered you some of his clothes?”
Mike? Who--
Lucas made obnoxious kissy noises. “Oh Will! Please, take these clothes from me, they would look better on you anyways!” he said, mockingly, his voice pitched up on a clear imitation of whoever this ‘Mike’ was. He faked a swoon, falling backward into Dustin’s arms-- Dustin, who barely managed to catch the other boy.
“Lucas!” he screeched, his arms wrapping around the other’s middle, frantically trying to pull him to his feet. “Goddamnit Lucas, I’m going to drop you--!”
The two continued to bicker as Will tuned them out, his mind still racing over that one name.
Mike.
… Mike.
No matter how many times Will repeated that name, over and over like a mantra, only one thing came to mind. A question.
Who was that?
.-..
The conversation had continued around him, drifting off as the party moved outside-- none of them seemed to notice the haze Will got himself in, but he preferred it that way. He didn’t know how to explain what was happening to him, not really. He just felt like… like he was missing something. Like everyone knew something he didn’t.
It knocked him off center-- like he was supposed to be delicately balanced on a tightrope, but instead, he was barely hanging on at all.
He wasn’t a very good acrobat, in his imagined scenario.
“Will!” a new voice called out, causing Will to shake himself out of his stupor. He blinked a few times, slightly disoriented as he whipped his head around to stare at--
Well.
It was a boy. A boy whose entire face lit up at the sight of him. A boy who seemed to take up the whole room. A boy who Will was alone with, in the kitchen of a house that wasn’t his, while everyone else seemed to be outside.
Huh.
The boy grinned at him-- it was wide, lopsided, and seemed to somehow perfectly emphasize his bright eyes, which were practically sparkling with joy and happiness. Will wanted to draw him. He wanted to capture this moment in time and frame it. He wanted to take this image of this boy and his eyes and the curl of his lips and curve of his cheek and fold it up carefully, storing it right next to his heart.
He just didn’t know why.
The boy gave Will a small wave and laughed; he laughed like his voice was composed of harps and lyres and he was the musician. He looked at Will like he was the best thing he had ever seen.
And Will--
Will had no idea who this guy was.
“Will!” The boy repeated again, running over to him with the weirdest gait that Will had ever laid eyes on. It was kind of endearing. Cute, even.
“Will--” he said, once again, now standing in front of him with the happiest look that ever existed. “Um, hi.”
“Hi…?” Will replied, unable to hide the awkwardness he felt consumed by.
“Hey!” The stranger said, giggling like a schoolgirl in front of their crush. “It’s good to see you. I mean we saw each other last night and--- well,” his cheeks flushed a dark red, “I mean I didn’t get to talk to you this morning so I just…” he waved his hands around awkwardly. “I-- good morning,” he finished, his voice softening.
Will felt his heart pick up the pace, his cheeks heating up, his fingers itching to reach out and--
“Will?”
“Huh?” Will responded, vaguely out of it.
“Are you okay?” He said, his face falling and concern flooding every crevice of his being.
Will hated that he put that there.
“Yeah,” he replied, his voice low. “I’m okay,” he said. He didn’t know if that was true.
“Oh, okay good,” the boy said, his shoulders sinking down in relief. Will's tensed up further. “I was worried.”
Will chuckled lightly, barely audible at all. “I could tell.”
He quirked up an eyebrow, a teasing look in his eyes. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Will echoed, the corners of his lips involuntarily curling upwards. “You were obvious.”
“Is that so?” he asked with a short laugh. “Well, I guess that’s just cause you can read me so well.”
Will paused at that, his entire body stopping like a car hitting the brakes. He stumbled, barely catching himself on the countertop beside him.
“Hey-- are you alright?”
“I-I’m fine.”
The boy pursed his lips. “If you’re sure…” he trailed off. He clearly didn’t believe Will, but he seemed willing to let it slide. For now, at least. “We should probably rejoin the party,” he said, shifting gears. He gestured to the people out by the pool with his thumb as he pivoted on his heels to leave.
“Wait--” Will reached out, quickly grasping onto the boy’s wrist, his fingers curling around the slightly concerningly thin appendage. “I-- wait.”
“Will?”
“Yeah, I um, I--” he shut his eyes tightly, nerves overtaking him. He was consumed by guilt, having a conversation with a beautiful boy that clearly knew him, but Will didn’t-- Will couldn’t-- reciprocate.
“Will?” the stranger said again, his voice soft, his free hand coming up to gently push a strand of hair away from Will’s eyes, tucking it behind his ear; the gesture was so tender and soft and undeniably sweet that Will nearly cried. The other hand twisted around to intertwine their fingers together, the boy’s thumb rubbing circles into the back of his hands in a soothing manner. “What’s wrong?”
“I--”
Will gulped. He hesitated. He stared into the depths of the stranger’s eyes, recognizing the world within them, but nothing else. He didn’t know. He didn’t remember.
“Will--”
He cut him off, interrupting the repetition of his name. He needed to ask. He had to, because he couldn’t continue lying, because he didn’t want to continue lying, not when it would only hurt them both in the long run, the more he put it off. Will’s hands felt sweaty, his nerves felt alight, and his eyes stung with unshed tears.
Will ripped off the bandaid.
“Who are you?”
And with that, the expression on the beautiful boy-- whose hands oh so gently touched him and cradled him and soothed him-- dropped. Like an anchor straight down into the bed of the sea-- or more accurately-- like the china plates only taken out during a party when guests are over shattering across the tiled floor.
Will felt his heart going down along with it.
.-
“You really don’t remember Mike?” Nancy asked, clearly confused, and frustrated, and a little angry. Whether at Will or something else, he didn’t know.
Will shook his head.
He suppressed a flinch at the heartbroken expression etched onto Mike’s face.
After he bit the bullet and asked the boy who he was-- which was some guy named Mike, by the way, presumably the same one the rest of the Party was referring to earlier-- the other boy had raced out of the house to scream for help, yelling for Nancy for some reason.
Nancy pursed her lips, continuing to pace back and forth across the length of the living room as she had been doing for the past 15 minutes.
“Nance, at this rate you’re going to wear down a hole in the floor.”
The girl whipped around to glare at Steve, who raised his hands in a ‘don’t shoot me’ gesture. “That’s what you’re concerned about right now? Will lost his memories!”
That’s what you’re concerned about right now?
It’s not my main concern, it’s just a sub-concern.
Steve grimaced, but said nothing. Nancy huffed and continued her pacing.
Well… what does Will remember? Everyone else, apparently.
Will tried to ignore the hurt expression on Mike’s face.
“This doesn’t make any sense!” Dustin argued, groaning as he tossed his head back. “He remembers all of us but not Mike?”
Lucas sighed. “I don’t know, man. Maybe he forgot something else, too.”
“Like what? The only one he doesn’t seem to recognize is Mike,” Max pointed out.
El turned to him. “How bad is your memory?” she asked. “What do you remember from yesterday?”
Will shrugged. “I-I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s… hazy. I just remember waking up this morning in a room I didn’t recognize, in a house I didn’t know, either.”
El pursed her lips together, thinking.
“So does events with Mike in them disappear from your memory entirely, or do you still remember whatever happened, just with some, like, blindspot of where Mike was?” Dustin questioned after a moment, seeing as El didn’t continue her own line of thought.
Will shrugged again. “No idea. I’m not sure how I would even be able to tell the difference.”
“Oh. Fair point.”
“So maybe we should ask him questions on what he remembers about specific events Mike has been around for,” Lucas offered.
“Well that shouldn’t be too hard,” Max said. “I mean it’s Mike and Will. They’re always together.”
Mike blushed. “That’s not true!” he argued.
You’re running our party!
That’s not true--
Mike waved his hands around. “The past few years--”
“Okay, that doesn’t count,” Max cut him off.
He ignored her. “And before that, he moved to Lenora--”
“I moved there too,” El said, taking her turn to interrupt him.
Mike ignored that too, continuing his spiel. “And I know that the whole party hung out together, like, the entire summer--”
“Well, not while I was at summer camp,” Dustin inputted.
“And El wasn’t allowed outside much back then, either,” Max continued.
“And during that time, we mostly paired off with me and Max and then you and Will, so the point still stands even then,” Lucas finished off, a smug smile on his face.
“Plus, you and Will would still be together during your ‘Party Outings’,” Steve said casually, using his hands to create the air quotes around it.
Everyone turned to stare at him.
He floundered. “What?” He asked defensively, crossing his arms over his chest. “I can pay attention.”
Nancy sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose with her fingers.
“Well, Steve isn’t wrong,” Robin pointed out. “And I gotta be honest, before the Byers moved, I’ve never seen Will or Mike without each other,” she said with a shrug. “And when Will wasn’t, well you know, down there,” she mumbled the last part, gesturing her thumb down towards the ground, “the same thing could be said for after they moved back, too. Those two were never apart.”
If it was possible, Mike flushed an even darker shade of red.
“Well, the Byers did stay with us after the ‘earthquake’,” Nancy said, continuing her pacing back and forth. She even did the same air quotes gesture that Steve had made, though Will wasn’t sure why she did that when there really was an earthquake. “Them and Argyle-- and there wasn’t really a chance to not be around each other, so that doesn’t really count.”
“Yeah!” Mike said, his face still painted a pretty shade of red. “And then Will got, well, he went--” he made a series of complicated gestures before he just settled on a sigh. “You know. And then we didn’t even know if he was alive for a year--”
Hopper cut him off, standing up as Mike did. “Alright, it’s time you calm down.”
“No! How can you tell me to be calm when-- when he doesn’t even know me!”
“Kid--” Hopper attempted to interrupt him again, but Mike kept on going. “Kid!”
Will could barely hear their shouting, much less when Jonathan and their mom got involved. Soon enough, everyone was standing up and talking over one another, and Will could barely take it. He couldn’t.
So he left.
-..
“Will.”
The boy in question didn’t bother to look up as the sliding door slid open and shut, instead choosing to continue the stare-off between him and the crack in the cement flooring beneath him.
“Will,” his sister said once more, her steps light against the porch as she moved over to sit down beside him.
“Hey El,” he finally responded, his voice hardly above a whisper.
She hummed under her breath. “It was too loud in there, yes?”
He nodded.
“It was for me too. I did not want to keep hearing them argue,” she said, nudging her shoulder into his. “You know, sometimes you used to take me to a quieter spot when things got too much at school. Back in Lenora.” She paused. “Do you remember that?”
Will hesitated, thinking back on that. Lenora… that was nearly, what? Two years ago? Two and a half? It felt like a lifetime ago, and yet… he remembered his time there so much more clearly than whatever happened between living in California to now.
He nodded. “Yeah,” he finally said, after a moment. “I remember that.”
She grinned. “Good.”
Will chuckled. “I remember… a lot of Lenora, actually. It wasn’t perfect, but I think I liked it.”
“It was good for you,” El agreed, nodding her head again. “I know you hated how I was treated, but besides that, I think you were… happier, there.”
He hummed. “But you weren’t.”
She shrugged. “I was happier with Max and the rest of the party here, yes. But Lenora was nice. With you and Jonathan and Joyce. School… wasn’t. And it wasn’t what I imagined and wished it was, but the other parts were good.”
Will didn’t say anything, so El kept talking.
“We were halfway happy, I think. A… compromise. It didn’t have the party, but it also was far away from the lab. From the Upside Down. It was safer for the both of us-- well, until the disastrous spring break,” she said in a joking tone, but Will didn’t register it. He was too busy getting caught up on something she said. Something he didn’t quite understand.
“The Upside Down?” he wondered out loud. “What… what is that?”
El froze, turning to stare at him.
“El?”
“Oh,” she muttered, blinking at him in surprise. “I don’t think that’s a good sign.”
..
“He doesn’t remember the Upside Down?” Joyce breathed out, her question nearly inaudible.
El shook her head. “No,” she said, patting Will’s knee lightly. “I don’t think so.”
Their mom sunk down onto the couch across from them, leaning into the hand on her shoulder-- the one Hopper used to steady her. “Oh, baby--”
“I don’t know why everyone is looking at me like that,” Will mumbled. “Is this upside place something I should know?”
“The Upside Down,” Dustin corrected absentmindedly.
“Sure, that,” Will said with a shrug. “What is it?”
“Another dimension.”
Will blinked up at Nancy. “Huh?”
The older girl started up her pacing again, wracking her brain to try and figure out the enigma that was Will Byers. He squirmed in his seat at the thought.
“It’s another dimension,” she repeated, which didn’t really explain anything. “You disappeared into it a few years ago-- back in 1983.”
“Actually, you were taken,” Robin corrected, blurting it out. When everyone turned to stare at her, she shrunk in on herself and looked very similar to a deer in headlights. “We, uh, found out recently that Vecna wanted you--”
Max scoffed. “And yet your twelve-year-old self still outsmarted the psycho--”
Lucas piped up. “And so he took you after our DnD game--”
“Well actually, it was after you beat me in a race home--” Dustin butted in.
“Which was still after the DnD game!”
“Yeah, but he wasn’t taken from Mike’s house, it was later--”
Max groaned. “That’s not important--!”
“We’re establishing the facts, Max!” Dustin responded. “Which is important--” Erica jabbed her elbow into Dustin’s gut. “Ow!”
“Shut up, loser--”
“What the fuck was that for--?”
“Hey, hey!” Steve interrupted, clapping his hands together in front of them. “Kids! Shut the fuck up! And watch your language, Henderson--”
Dustin threw his hands up. “You literally just said fuck too--”
Hopper and Jonathan groaned into their hands, an action that was eerily similar to each other in a strange-yet-funny sort of way.
El sighed, leaning her head onto Will’s shoulder. He giggled at that. He still didn’t really understand what was going on, but he was just glad he had his sister next to him, at the very least.
“Alright, enough,” Hopper attempted, only to get ignored. “I said--”
“We heard you the first time, Chief,” Max replied in a bored tone, rolling her eyes. “But no one’s going to listen to you.”
Hopper groaned.
The arguing continued for another full minute, which only served to increase his headache. It also, as it turned out, served to bring his mom to her breaking point as she stood up and took charge of the room.
“Kids!” she reprimanded. She hardly even yelled, too, only raising her voice enough to be heard over the cacophony. “Stop. Fighting.”
“But--”
“No buts, Dustin,” she interrupted. “We are all civilized adults-- erm, well adults and near-adults-- who can have a nice and calm conversation here, okay?” she said, placatingly. “We all want to know what happened to Will, so please stop with the yelling.”
“Yes ma’am,” the rest of the party all said in unison, (minus Will and El, plus Steve and Robin, as well as a dash of Argyle's “Sure thing, Mrs. B!” in the background).
Mike shuffled his feet on the ground, kicking up loose dirt caught in the soles of his shoes and spreading it across the previously clean carpet. Will would’ve winced at that, if not caught up in the fact that he realized Mike hadn’t said anything since before Will had left the room. Well, said nothing until now, that is, when he acknowledged Will’s mom in her chastizing. He wasn’t even part of the chaos, and yet…
They made eye contact, accidentally. Will didn’t mean to catch his gaze, but once he did, he felt frozen. Evidently, so did Mike, who looked like he was caught doing something he shouldn’t.
An awkward beat passed.
Mike looked away first.
Hopper rubbed his chin. “So Will doesn’t remember the Upside Down or Wheeler, we know that. But that could also mean he’s forgetting something-- or someone-- else. We’re still flying blind, and we’re doing ourselves no favors by yelling and stressing everybody out, okay?”
Nancy pursed her lips. “But why? Why take those memories? Why specifically Mike?”
Will didn’t know. He was pretty sure he made that obvious already, and yet everyone still turned to look at him like he had any answers. He still didn’t know, thank you very much. He didn’t know how to answer why he would forget those specific details if he couldn’t even recall what those details meant.
Speaking of.
“I still don’t know what the up-something-whats-its even is.”
Dustin groaned. “It’s an alternate dimension! We told you--”
“Yeah, but that answers literally nothing,” he replied, rolling his eyes as he threw up his hands.
Jonathan chuckled, but tried to hide it behind his hand. A few other people laughed as well, but Will couldn’t pinpoint which-- though, for some reason, he could’ve sworn Mike was one of them.
Nancy sighed. “Sorry. We got derailed.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
A few people shot him looks of surprise, but he ignored them.
Will sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. “Can someone, literally anyone at this point, just tell me the short version of what I’m missing?” he asked, nearly pleading. He was at his breaking point, apparently, judging by how even he could hear the annoyance seep into his voice. “I’m just sitting here in the dark right now, and it’s honestly really fucking annoying.”
He recognized the fact that several people were gaping at him. He’s honestly not really sure why.
“It started on November 6th, 1983. The day you vanished.”
Will turned to who spoke, his eyes widening at the serious expression on Mike’s face.
“You and Lucas and Dustin were all at my house playing DnD the whole day beforehand,” Mike elaborated, “and you rolled to fight the Demogorgon.”
The rest of the room fell silent.
Mike’s gaze focused on Will, his entire body language shifting towards him, and it was like they were the only two people in the room. His voice was steady but grave, a deep sense of dread settling over Will like a dense fog. It was stunning. It terrified him.
He couldn’t look away.
“It was a seven.”
Will’s breath catches.
“The Demogorgon, it got you.”
-.