Chapter Text
There’s a jagged black scar across the front door of the Wheeler’s house.
Mike, Will, Jonathan and Nancy pause on the front step, staring at it.
“That’s where Eleven went through, after Holly” Nancy says softly, like she’s re-living the moment. It’s the first time any of them have been back here since the attack on their parents, since Holly’s kidnapping.
It’s almost too surreal to think only two days have passed.
Mike reaches out, rubbing a finger on the black line – its slightly raised against the bright white of the wood, but solid. The gate is closed now. This stain is all that remains, a reminder of how fragile their reality really is. How easily Vecna can take and take and take from them, until nothing is left. His brow furrows.
Mike breaks the police tape and opens the door. The four of them enter the quiet house, shoes squishing into the soft carpet. Nancy glances toward the kitchen briefly, then bolts upstairs to her room. Jonathan gives Mike and Will a look and follows her up.
Leaving them alone.
Mike takes a few steps towards the kitchen as Will watches him, cautiously. Ever since he…said what he said, he’s felt the uncertainty bubbling back up inside him. He thought that saying it out loud, reducing it to “just a crush” would help, would snuff out the heat of how he really feels. He thought by saying it, he could make it real. But its somehow worse than ever before. Coming so close to revealing his secrets and then holding back has had the opposite effect – they feel harder to hide now.
He told one secret, but there are more.
He watches Mike take it in. The deep brown stain of dried blood smeared on the floor, the jagged sparkle of broken glass on the linoleum.
The warm overhead light is catching in Mike’s dark curls and Will reminds himself that he shouldn’t be admiring how beautiful he looks, he should be focused on how Mike is feeling right now. His Mom, Dad, Holly. He can’t imagine how Mike is coping with so much loss all at once. He hasn’t even cried. Mike the Brave.
He can only see the back of Mike’s head, can’t see his face or read his expression, but he can feel the tension in Mike’s body. He’s standing there, looking at the aftermath, holding himself rigid, like he’s holding something in. Mike has always been good at this. Compartmentalizing.
He turns and Will catches a fleeting, rare shine in Mike’s eyes.
“I’m gonna… take a shower,” Mike says, flatly. And he pushes up the stairs leaving Will alone in the entrance.
With a clear view of the kitchen, he sees the damage. The violence. It tears at him. He flashes back to what it felt like, what it feels like to be inside a demo. The cold instinctive drive of an animal mind, hunting because Vecna told it to. Thank God he didn’t have to witness this attack firsthand. To be the one hurting the Wheelers.
He backs away and heads to the basement, his “room” in the Wheeler’s house. He feels strangely lost, out of place here in the normalcy of Mike’s basement after everything that’s happened.
He can’t quite wrap his head around how much has changed so fast.
He’s got powers. He’s killed. He’s faced Vecna, alone. And yet…he’s somehow more afraid than ever. Afraid of what’s coming. He put on a brave face at the Squawk. He wants to be ready, to help fight. But the doubt is creeping back in slowly, like the Mind Flayer once did.
It was weird having everyone there, people he barely knows, even Murray of all people, but since no one had any idea what he was going to tell them, they took “everyone” literally and filled the room before he could protest.
It went… better than he expected? His brother, his mom, the boys, Eleven, Robin. Even Max. They all understood, hugged him.
But Mike. He joined in the group hug but Will felt the hesitation. He felt it. There was a change, however subtle, in how Mike looked at him, touched him. And that change opened up a gap in his armour, a place for the doubts, for Vecna to crawl back in.
Will looks around the room, walks to the corner where photos and D&D maps are tacked to a board on the wall, beside their binders. A photo of him and Mike, when they were younger, before the Upside Down, before the Mind Flayer, before… Eleven. The years feel like they’ve flown by.
How did we get here so fast?
Will focuses on a photo of him and Mike in their D&D character costumes. Will is in his “Will the Wise” purple and Mike is wearing a cardboard breastplate. The Paladin. The Heart. Mike the Brave. Will wishes he could have been braver.
He just…couldn’t say it in front of everyone. He couldn’t take Mike rejecting him on top of it all, so he chickened out. Held back. Said the other thing. Diminished it. And somehow made it feel like even bigger of a secret.
He knows what Vecna does with secrets.
He heads to the small bathroom here in the basement. Turns the water on and strips off his dirty clothes. There’s no shower down here but he can at least wipe the grime from his skin. He looks in the mirror – startled by his own reflection. He feels like he’s aged a year in just the past few days. There are bags under his eyes, with small, popped blood vessels around them, probably from when he infiltrated Vecna’s mi- No. Don’t think about that.
Vecna’s mind is a place of shadows. He sees the world through a lens of pain and torment. Will shudders remembering what it’s like to be inside a mind like that.
He swallows, remembering the vines wrapping around him, immobilizing him.
Even though the vines weren’t real, he can almost see the bruises on his neck. He wipes his neck with the warm washcloth and it’s just dirt, a trick of the light.
He splashes water on his face, through his hair, the water trickling down his forehead and cheeks. The water pressure changes suddenly and he realizes Mike must be having his shower upstairs.
Will closes his eyes and runs his hands under the tap for a moment, imagining he’s in the shower with – No. That’s stupid. It can never happen. That was the point of today’s confession. To let it go. To move forward.
He turns the tap off, slamming it a little too hard with his palm. And its suddenly as if he’s back there, standing in front of the sink at home, when he first coughed up a piece of the Upside Down. When the nightmare followed him home.
He’s going back in there tomorrow, for the first time since he was taken.
He jerks back and retreats from the bathroom quickly, finding clean clothes and making up his mattress on the floor. That’s the whole reason they’re here, to get a good night’s sleep. After all, they’re going to save the world tomorrow.
Or they might all die.
His stomach growls and he realizes he has no idea when he last ate. It’s too early to go to bed yet anyways.
He creeps back up the stairs, finds a broom and starts sweeping up the glass in the kitchen, making a safe path. Being useful.
“You don’t have to do that Will,” says Jonathan, gently, from the hall. Will looks up and Jonathan has changed clothes too, though there’s still a bit of gunk in his hair. He takes the broom from Will and finishes sweeping.
“I’m really proud of you-” “Thanks for being-“ They both blurt simultaneously, then laugh.
Jonathan, eldest, continues, “Y’now, I had kinda figured it out, but I know it means something to say it out loud yourself. And.. I’m just so proud of you.”
“Thanks,” Will blushes a bit, but he can tell the pride in Jonathan’s voice is genuine.
The best big brother anyone could ask for.
“Do you feel better?” Jonathan asks.
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.” Will admits, but there’s a hesitation. Jonathan picks up on it.
“I’m sorry it was so…there were so many people there. If I’d known what you were gonna tell us, I would’ve said someth-“
“It’s not your fault Jonathan. It’s fine. It happened the way it was supposed to happen, I guess.”
Will gets a far-off look in his eyes, like he’s re-living it, replaying what he said. Jonathan grips his shoulder, bringing him back to the present.
“Hey, if there’s anything else. It’s just us now and you know I’m here for you.”
“I know. I think I-” Will starts.
Somehow, even with the invitation to share more, Will can’t quite bring himself to open up. This is Jonathan and Will knows he wouldn’t judge him but saying it out loud still feels too scary.
Will’s eyes flick to the fridge, just for a split second, landing on a photo of the Mike tacked up there.
Jonathan doesn’t even need to turn his head. He knows. Will sees it in his eyes.
“It’ll be ok Will. Let’s just get through the end of the world first, ok?” Jonathan reassures him.
Will relaxes. He didn’t even say it out loud, but he feels better. Seen.
Nancy suddenly rounds the corner holding a cleaning bottle and a sponge. With the glass out of the way, in characteristic Nancy fashion, she focuses on the problem at hand. She attacks the bloodstain on the floor, trying to wipe the violence away, even if the memory still haunts them.
Jonathan finishes scooping up the glass and it becomes clear Nancy is crying softly as she scrubs the linoleum. Jonathan approaches her, takes the sponge from her hand and finishes it for her. She calms a little.
Will feels terrible. Awkward. He doesn’t want to intrude but feels like he should apologize. He flashes again to the memory of what it’s like being the demo.
“I-I’m so sorry Nancy,” he says weakly.
“Will no. You warned us. I might not have gotten here in time if it wasn’t for you. You can’t blame yourself,” Nancy gets up from the floor and hugs him. Will realizes it’s the first time he and Nancy have ever hugged but it feels nice, gentle, like what it might be like to have an older sister.
With the blood and glass gone, the kitchen almost feels normal again.
Jonathan opens the fridge and pulls out some leftovers. They spread them across the kitchen island and eat the food cold, in a contemplative silence.
Nancy and Jonathan look exhausted and Will realizes he has no idea what happened to them in the Upside Down. He sees them share a look, and suddenly feels like an intruder. He mumbles a hasty excuse and heads back to the basement.
A moment later, Mike enters the kitchen holding a navy blue pillow in his arms, looking a little lost. He notices the food on the counter, the clean floor.
“Will swept up the glass,” Nancy explains.
Mike’s lips press together in a line and he swallows.
“Can I have some?” He gestures to the food and Nancy passes him a container with some leftover roast beef in it.
“I’m going to shower next, try to get some of this gunk out of my hair,” Nancy announces, and she heads upstairs again, pressing a hand to Jonathan’s shoulder on her way out.
Jonathan smiles watching her go and he and Mike are left standing on opposite ends of the kitchen, awkwardly. Jonathan breaks the silence first.
“Your room looks like it was hit by a tornado,” he says.
An understatement.
“Yeah. I don’t think I can sleep in there. I was gonna take the Lay-Z-Boy.”
“Why don’t you take the couch downstairs?”
Mike grins a little, “So you and Nance can have some privacy?”
Jonathan smiles. “No, Nancy and I broke up.”
Mike almost spits out his mouthful of food, “What! When?”
“In the Upside Down.”
Mike sputters.
“It’s ok – we had a good talk, about all the things we’ve been keeping from each other. Almost dying makes it a lot easier to tell the truth, y’now?”
He and Mike make eye contact and Jonathan cuts right to it, “Have you talked to him yet?”
Mike swallows. Fidgets with his pillow.
Jonathan crosses the kitchen, puts a gentle hand on Mike’s shoulder.
“I think he’d appreciate it after.. today. Especially from his best friend. Especially before whatever happens tomorrow.”
Jonathan gives Mike a kind smile and a pat on the back before he leaves. Mike can hear the creak of leather as he sits in the Lay-Z-Boy and flips up the footrest, leaving him with the basement as his only option.
He sighs, packs the food back in the fridge, grabs his pillow and walks toward the basement door.
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Will should sleep but he can’t relax. He’s sitting on the couch, staring at the wall, trying to sort his feelings out. They haven’t talked since the Squawk. Should he – go up to Mike’s room and ask to talk to him? It feels far too bold. Mike is probably already asleep anyways.
Or you’re afraid he doesn’t want to talk to you.
He’s fighting it, trying not to remember what Vecna showed him. But the harder he tries not to think about it, the more the thoughts invade his mind. He shivers, suddenly cold, and remembers that music helps keep Vecna away if you focus on it.
He stands, walks to a cassette player and pops in the first cassette he finds. It’s one of Will’s mix tapes – he used to bring them here all the time, to try and get Mike into the music he liked. A Bowie song starts to play, softly, and Will sits back on the couch, bouncing his knee, restless.
I’m afraid to go to sleep. That’s what’s lurking under the restlessness.
Now that he knows Vecna can use him while he’s sleeping, to build, to grow his plans, Will doesn’t want to give him that weapon.
He calms a little now that he’s figured it out, what’s been bothering him. He likes feeling defiant against Vecna – like he can actually do something. Even if it’s just…not sleeping.
There’s a sudden CREAK on the stairs and Will looks up to see Mike standing there. He’s clutching a pillow to his chest, and his curls are still wet from the shower. He’s wearing sweatpants and a rumpled T-shirt and Will’s heart jumps against his chest. He’s never looked more beautiful.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey”
“Uh, Jonathan said I could come sleep down here, if that’s ok with you?” He sounds unsure, withdrawn.
“You don’t want to sleep in your room?” Will asks, instantly regretting it. Of course he wants Mike to sleep here. Why even suggest an alternative?
“Uh, my room is kinda… destroyed. It looks like the demo crashed right through my wall, blew my whole closet apart. And there’s…blood on the carpet. It’s a mess up there.”
He sounds a bit shaken, like the violence being in his bedroom is more violating than the fact of his parent’s injuries. It’s unusual for Mike to be so fazed, but Will knows what that feels like, to feel like your own home isn’t safe anymore.
“Of course. I’m sorry Mike that sounds awful.”
Silence stretches between them as neither knows quite what to say.
“You might have to fight Jonathan for the couch,” Will jokes, keeping things light.
“I think – I think he and Nancy are gonna spend the night, y’now, together. Last night and all.” Mike lies, though Will doesn’t know that.
Will swallows. Of course. Kinda obvious now that Mike said it. And I get to spend my last night with Mike. His heart beats a little faster.
“Right. Duh. Lovebirds. End of the world.”
Mike looks like he’s about to say something else, then changes his mind.
“Good song,” he says, pointing to the cassette player still humming softly in the background.
“Yeah? I wasn’t sure if you liked anything on this tape,” Will says.
“I love it. You have good taste in music. Really good.”
I love it. Will flushes a little, but it’s dim enough that Mike seems not to notice.
The song ends and another starts playing, It’s “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure.
Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick
They stand there awkwardly and Will suddenly realizes Mike is still gripping his pillow, waiting for him to move.
“Oh, sorry. All yours,” he says as he moves off the couch, making space for Mike to make his bed.
Without a word, Mike tosses his pillow down, grabs a folded blanket and spreads it across the couch. Will sits on his mattress and watches. He can still see the tension in Mike’s body, the way he’s holding himself together so tightly, like if he lets go, even for a second, he’ll break down completely.
I promise that I'll run away with you
He swallows. This song is so intimate with just Mike and the pregnant silence in the room. He suddenly wants to turn it off.
“You wanna get some sleep? Should I turn it off?” Will moves to the cassette player before Mike can answer the question.
Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you? That I'm in love with-
Will presses STOP on the player, cutting it off mid-lyric. His heart is pounding. Why did he have to get up right at that line in the song. It feels like a confession. That I’m in love with you rings in his ears like a bell.
He sits back down. The light is still on, a lamp beside Mike, and Will isn’t brave enough to get closer to him to turn it off.
Mike is looking at the floor, like all of a sudden he can’t make eye contact with Will.
Will swallows a lump in his throat. This is what he was most afraid of. Mike’s reaction. He shouldn’t have said anything about a crush. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything at all. They’re about to go into their biggest fight yet and… he feels like he’s already lost his best friend. He starts to worry this is exactly what Vecna wanted. To weaken him, them, before battle.
That thought emboldens him just a little and he asks the question he’s been afraid to ask before he can second-guess himself again.
“Are we…ok? “Will asks.
Mike looks up from the floor, sees Will looking at him.
“Of course. Of course. We’re cool.” Mike says quickly. He looks away, breaking Will’s gaze.
Stupid. I should have just left it alone.
“You’re right. Big day tomorrow. We should probably get some sleep. Ok if I turn this off?”
And he flicks off the light before Will can answer, the same as Will did with the music.
It’s the abruptness of it. The way Mike shut it down before they could even start. Will’s stomach drops and he mutters, “Goodnight Mike.”
A moment later, in the darkness, he hears a quiet, “Goodnight Will.”
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Will is back in the Upside Down – he’s running between the dead gray trees, dodging twisting black vines, coughing and choking on the spores in the air, searching frantically for Mike.
“Miiike! Mike where are you?”
He panics when he sees a shape on the ground ahead of him. The shape is familiar. He runs up to find Mike laying on the ground. Cold. His eyes are open, blank, just like that body in Stand By Me. An ugly red slash across his chest that is alarmingly dark and wet.
Will drops to his knees, hard, tries to shake Mike out of it, shake him awake. He has to be just sleeping, just last night they were sleeping in the basement… he can’t lose him today. Not like this. Not right after…
Will lets out a gulping, guttural sob as he holds Mike’s body.
“Mike no, Mike no. Mike please,” he chokes out between sobs.
“Will! Will, can you hear me?”
Its Mike’s voice. But when Will looks down he’s still looking at a corpse. Where is the sound coming from?
“Will, wake up. Come on!”
Will suddenly opens his eyes, screaming. He finds himself in the familiar basement and Mike is sitting next to him on the floor, hands on Will’s shoulders.
“Will! Are you ok? Did Vecna try to take you again? I’m here, ok?” Mike is talking too fast and Will, still foggy from sleep, can’t quite put the pieces together yet, what’s real and what’s not. It felt so real.
“Mike? Mike, are you ok? You’re not dead?” Will says frantically as he sits up, tears streaming down his face.
Mike’s eyes widen with shock and understanding as he grabs Will, wrapping his arms around him in a tight hug.
“I’m not dead Will, I’m right here, ok? I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
Will realizes he had a nightmare, that he woke up screaming Mike’s name and that Mike is here, safe, alive.
He grips Mike back and they hold each other tightly as Will slowly calms down, the tears drying on his cheeks as he gets his breathing under control. Will loses himself in the sensation of a hug with no awkward feelings attached to it.
And as soon as he’s thought it, he stiffens, just a little. And Mike pulls back.
“What happened? You were shouting my name and I…”
“It had to be him. Trying to weaken me. It’s...what he showed me before,” Will admits.
“He showed you…me? Dead?” Mike asks.
He took you away, forever.
Will covers his face and nods as Mike sits back and takes this in.
He touches Will’s bare arm and it’s like a jolt of electricity.
“God, you’re freezing,” Mike says.
He likes it cold.
Will shivers with fear, tears brimming in his eyes again. Panic rising in his chest.
“Don’t let him take me again, please Mike. Don’t let him,” Will whispers through chattering teeth, “Please don’t let him take me Mike,” Will keeps repeating like a mantra.
Mike puts his arms around Will again, this time to grab Will’s blanket and wrap it around him. He rubs Will’s arms through the blanket, trying to warm him up.
“I’ve got you Will. Let’s just get you warm, ok?” Mike soothes. He watches Will with so much concern in his face. All the awkwardness from earlier gone. Will remembers the last time Mike was like this. When the Mind Flayer was creeping in. He stayed right by Will’s bed the whole night.
The tears spill over Will’s cheeks and he crashes into Mike again, gripping him tightly as he keeps repeating, “Please don’t let him take me again Mike, please Mike.”
Mike holds him tightly, the rock that Will needs as he slowly calms. He’s still shivering, even under the blanket and Mike’s added body heat.
As the tears dry on his cheeks, Mike pulls away, slowly, determination on his face.
“I won’t let him. I won’t. Ok? I think we should get under the blanket, like when someone has hypothermia? You need body heat to get warm, Will,” Mike explains. And Will can’t help the twisting, guilty feeling in his chest, how badly he wants to be close to Mike, but not for superficial, practical reasons like preventing hypothermia.
“Ok,” Will submits quietly.
They lay down together on Will’s tiny mattress and Mike pulls the blanket over them both, careful to tuck it around Will’s back.
He starts to pull Will’s shirt up and Will jumps.
“What are you doing?”
“Skin-to-skin contact is the most efficient way to warm you up Will,” Mike states, matter-of-fact.
God he’s so oblivious it pains Will.
Will allows him to pull the shirt up, exposing his back and stomach, but he doesn’t let Mike remove it altogether. He needs some small barrier to remain between them or he’ll go crazy.
We’ll go crazy together.
Mike then lifts his own shirt up and presses close to Will, wrapping him in his arms so their chests are pressed together.
“The core is the most important,” Mike states. It’s like he’s reading from a damn textbook and Will suddenly resents how easy it is for Mike to do this, to touch him without it meaning anything.
No secret crush weighing down every word, every action.
Will is still shivering and he starts to focus on the warmth radiating from Mike. His body is like a furnace – he has no idea what it’s like to run so hot. And it feels… incredible.
His resentment melts away and he’s suddenly grateful that Mike feels so comfortable like this, holding him close. Mike’s lack of baggage starts to relax Will. He lets go of the tension he’s holding, that’s keeping him trembling and finally relaxes into Mike’s arms.
He’s my best friend. I’m lucky to have a friend like Mike. This is… enough. Will tries to focus on these thoughts.
The shivering slows and he starts to be able to breathe normally.
“It’s ok Will, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
It’s something he’s said more times than Will can count in the years of their friendship and it always makes Will feel so safe. Mike the Brave. Mike the Protector. Will hates being babied by the others, but he secretly loves it when its Mike protecting him. Mike has always gotten a pass.
He wants to tell him that, tell him something about how much he means to Will, but he can’t find the words because the ones he really wishes he could say are too big in his throat. I love you Mike.
It’s impossible. He knows it. So he settles for this. Closeness with a lie buried inside it.
He’s afraid of what will happen if Vecna latches on to this lie.
“You were really brave today Will,” Mike suddenly whispers in the darkness.
His mouth is so close to Will’s ear he almost imagines he heard it. But Mike continues.
“It must have been so… scary. To admit that in front of everyone.”
Will can’t believe Mike is actually addressing it, finally, while their bodies are pressed so close, skin touching skin. He realizes he’s holding his breath and lets it out. He doesn’t know how to respond.
“Will the Brave.”
Will shudders hearing Mike say it that way. He’s grateful Mike doesn’t realize it’s not the cold that’s making him shiver, and instead he pulls Will closer, to share his body heat.
“Anyway, I just.. wanted to tell you that I’m really… happy for you,” Mike whispers again.
They both stay silent after that, slowly warming up, holding each other tightly, the night before what might be the end of the world and… it’s enough for Will.
“Thanks Mike,” Will whispers back.
He finally relaxes into Mike’s arms and drifts back into sleep.