Chapter Text
It’s a Friday night in November, and Will’s voice crackles over the voice chat, making the rest of the party groan.
“Again?!” Dustin lets out, audibly slamming his hand down on his desk while Lucas continues to make distressed noises. Mike rolls his eyes. “Will, buddy, I hate to insist but you really need to get better internet. By this point, I’ll pay for it myself, even if it means mowing the lawns of every resident in Hawkins and the next three towns over.”
“Don’t be an asshole!” Mike shakes his head, while more crackling comes from Will. Mike secretly agrees, to a point—it’s ludicrous that Will has to suffer like this, but he knows better than to give him shit about it, no matter how well-meaning. “Come on, it’s late anyways. We can just end it here and keep it going tomorrow.”
“Seriously, Mike?” Lucas protests, finally dignifying his communication with words. “Seriously? I bet we don’t even have an hour left of this campaign, come on—”
Mike glances at his open Google Docs file with the hundred-page long campaign outline, humming at how he only has ten remaining to go through. But the party doesn’t need to know that; he can always beat around the bush for an hour or two next time, to make it be worth their while.
“I mean, it’s the weekend. We can try again tomorrow when Will isn’t dying, with no loss,” Mike insists, wincing as Will’s icon finally disconnects from the Discord call. Out of habit, Mike goes to grab his phone, just as the screen lights up with a phone call from Will. “Hold on, guys—Will’s calling me.”
“Oh, god, what a surprise,” Dustin snorts, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Lucas, do you think Will even has our numbers saved?”
“Nope,” Lucas chimes in, exchanging snickers with Dustin as Mike rolls his eyes, muting his microphone. He just barely catches the rest of Lucas’ sentence. “At least we know he isn’t dead thanks to Mike’s Will Alarm.”
As Mike stands from his desk to create some privacy, even though it doesn’t really make a difference, he resists the urge to tell Lucas to shove his Hot Wheels collection up his ass and answers the call. “Will? You’re alright there?”
“My internet died again,” Will huffs, annoyance dripping from his tone. “But I guess you guys figured that out already. Sorry.”
“Hey, it’s fine!” Mike sits on the edge of his bed, sighing, and thinking again of the ten remaining pages of the campaign. “We got enough material to try again this weekend, okay? Don’t worry about it. You can come over to my house, maybe I can convince Dustin and Lucas to come over as well, and we can dust off the old board—”
“Mike,” Will breaks in, softly, so much so that he almost doesn’t catch it. Mike pauses. “I’m going over to… to my dad’s this weekend, remember? I’ll be back next Sunday.”
Oh. Shit. Without meaning to, Mike speaks out loud. “Fuck.”
Will laughs. “You forgot? It’s the whole reason we’re playing today.”
“Shit, you’re right—I’m so sorry, I don’t know how it slipped my mind,” Mike grimaces, as Will continues to laugh, and Mike can’t help that it rubs him off the wrong way. By this point in their friendship, Mike’s memorized every known cadence to Will’s voice, to his laugh. He couldn’t ignore anything off in it if he wanted to. “I—Will? Are you gonna be okay?”
“What? Yeah,” Will takes an audible breath, letting it out with a sigh. “It’s just the same old, you know? I’ll be fine. I’m always fine.”
Leg bouncing with anxiety, Mike remembers hidden bruises and cigarette burns and shaky hands, and wishes Will were physically present so he could shake some sense into him. “No, you always say you’re fine. That’s different. And Jonathan isn’t even coming with you this time.”
“It’s the last year I have to do this, and Jon has work. This internship is important,” Is all Will says, and not for the first time, Mike wishes he could just go with him. Or, even better, kidnap Will so he doesn’t have to go at all. It might be too little too late, but it’s something. “Mike, it’s okay, stop fussing. You’re behaving like my mom. I’m more worried about the campaign right now. I totally blew it.”
Mike’s being like Joyce Byers, yeah, who has a really fucking good reason to be concerned. But Mike doesn’t say that. “You did not blow it, dude, it’s just shitty internet because you live in the woods. If anything, Lucas and Dustin were being pushy—don’t tell them I said that!”
Will laughs again, and this time it feels real. Mike’s shoulders relax. “You don’t sound like an impartial DM saying that.”
“We’re playing again tomorrow, okay?” Mike abruptly changes the subject, not even trying to be subtle, but Will’s snickering tells him he’s going to be blackmailed about that comment. “It’s gonna be Saturday, and I don’t care that you have to get into a bus to the city early on Sunday—we’re doing it.”
“And if we don’t finish the campaign?” Will inquires, and Mike can picture his uncertain expression, his defeated shoulders, just from the hesitation in his tone. “Maybe we should just wait until I’m back next weekend. I’ve barely packed my bag, and I have to make sure I have everything ready tomorrow…”
“Come on, Will,” and here, Mike lets himself come off bratty and whiny, just like Lucas and Dustin. Nothing better than reckless teenage temptation to get Will a little more invested. “It’ll be fine. What’s the worst that can happen if we don’t finish tomorrow?”
“Dustin and Lucas are gonna flip,” Will starts, and Mike tries to interrupt only to get talked over. “You’re gonna run out of pages, so you’re going to make up stuff to distract us—don’t try to deny it, I know you! And your mom is not gonna be happy about us hogging the basement when she knows I have to catch a bus.”
Mike huffs. “So, bullshit.”
“Real concerns!” Will shoots back, then sighs. “Mike…”
“Will,” Mike stresses his name, trying to get his point across. Will lets out a long-suffering sigh. “We’ll be just fine. I can even steal Nancy’s car and drive you home tomorrow—”
“No, you’re a terrible driver. You’re never getting that license,” Will interrupts, and it sounds like he’s rolling his eyes. Mike can’t even be offended, because almost immediately after, Will clicks his tongue, and that’s how he knows he’s won. “Fine. Tomorrow. But I’m going home at nine at the latest, okay?”
Mike scrunches up his nose. “I don’t even know why you wanna be on time for that bus.”
“Because otherwise he’ll come pick me up,” Will sighs, and Mike’s upturned lips drop. “And, well, you remember how that went last time.”
He does. Two years ago, over spring break, Mike had slept over at the Byers', after a long, joyful gaming session, only to be awoken by the rising voices of Lonnie and Joyce, about three or four hours after the early bus for Indianapolis had already left. Mike and Will had accidentally slept in, Joyce had a late night shift, and Jonathan wasn’t home from college yet. Only Will knew Mike was in the house because the original plan Joyce was notified of wasn’t for Mike to sleepover.
It was a shock for his parents that usually responsible, sensible Will had missed his bus, which is probably why Joyce wasn't holding anything back in the first place, insults flying out freely towards her ex-husband at the denigrating comments he made about his youngest son, while Will froze up in bed, Mike watching him with wide eyes as the gravity of the situation sunk in.
Then Lonnie had opened the door to Will's room, taken in their sleepy faces, the fear already creeping into Will's expression, and Mike, up close and personal, saw him physically holding back from striking out with rage, fists tightly clenched. It confirmed every fear Mike has ever had about Will having to spend one week away with his dad.
“Be quick,” Lonnie had snapped, and then he sneered at Mike. “Thought I told you to stop hanging out with pussies, Will.”
Mike's protest was drowned out by Joyce's shrill response, forcing Lonnie back to the kitchen. Will was already changing into day clothes, rushing around his room. Mike helped where he could, handing him things he had forgotten to pack, making sure his bag was set, guilt settling in his bones because he knew he should’ve gone home, but he just didn’t want to leave Will all alone, knowing where he was headed the next day.
When they went out to the living room, Lonnie took a single look at Will, roughly grabbed him by the arm, and walked out without throwing a glance back at Mike and Joyce. Will didn't look back either, head held low. Mrs. Byers then took a deep breath and offered Mike breakfast, visibly trying not to cry.
It was an awkward meal, but Mike managed to make her feel a little better before he left. Will returned next weekend along with Jonathan and with a deep cut across his arm, and more bruises than Mike had seen since Lonnie first left Hawkins. It was held together by stitches. He claimed to have tripped and broken some glass, falling on it. Mike, Jonathan, and Joyce could all smell the bullshit, and Mike’s sure they only felt worse about it when Will got the stitch removed and he joked about only having a tiny, pale, barely unnoticeable scar for all that trouble.
Despite how long ago the incident was, Mike sometimes still bitterly, selfishly wishes that Joyce had had a better lawyer and gotten full custody of her kids. Jonathan hasn’t been obligated to go to his dad’s ever since he turned sixteen, but he always went with Will anyways, refusing to leave him alone even if it meant arriving at Indianapolis a few hours after Will had, or skipping a few classes. Until now, that is.
So, yeah, Mike can delay the campaign for Will. How could he not?
“We’ll be done by nine, then,” Mike promises, despite the still-childish part of him wanting to protest. Will mumbles a low thank you, bashful and guilty, and Mike’s resolve just heightens. “Hey, none of that, ‘kay? We’d be lost without Will the Wise anyways. There’s no way Lucas and Dustin could finish this without you.”
Will’s tone turns amused, yet indulgent in a way that makes Mike smile. “That almost sounds like you have a bias.”
“I’m just being fair, Will,” Mike rolls his eyes. “But don’t be late tomorrow!”
“Sure,” Mike can almost picture Will’s sheepish shrug. “I’m never late.”
They hang up after agreeing for Will to come over earlier than Lucas and Dustin, as per usual, mostly for pre-game prep, but also just because it’s the way it’s always been, the way it’ll probably continue for years and years as far as Mike’s concerned. They’ll watch movies they’ve already seen a thousand times already, drink too much soda, and place bets on what crazy ideas Dustin is gonna get in the middle of the campaign, as well as what Lucas’ reaction is gonna be to that.
If Will didn’t have to catch a bus, and if they were still little kids, Mike would’ve begged Will to sleepover as well. They don’t do it as often anymore, not since the summer after they turned thirteen, when Will stopped sharing so freely whatever it is that Lonnie talks to him about during their mandated time together, after Mike’s family members started getting annoying with questions about when he would get a girlfriend.
Mike’s had girlfriends, of course. Kind of. He’s kissed three different girls, at least, and it was fun, but also complicated, and it took away time from their D&D party and hanging out with Will. He’s just been… taking a break from love. Yeah. He’s happy for Dustin finding the love of his life in Suzie and for Lucas having regular attempts at dates, but Mike is fine like this. He’ll date when he wants to.
Whatever, not the point. They’re growing up, and the fact that they’re now only mostly playing D&D online is a direct result of that, as well as the dwindling sleepovers. But Mike doesn’t mind turning back the clock a little for Will. Seriously, what could go wrong?
Lucas and Dustin are messing up and being, as Mike put it, pushy, and Will is so torn but also practically vibrating with excitement.
He glances one last time at Mike as he throws the dice, nostalgia inflating his chess like a balloon because Roll20 is great, but it could never compare to playing with an actual board and figurines and getting to watch Dustin flip his chair while Lucas keeps screaming. If they all feel a little silly, being fifteen and this invested, then at least they’re doing it together, and Mike’s hungry eyes for the roll make any drop of embarrassment worth it.
The dice falls off the table just as Karen opens the basement door, calling out. “Last call, guys, it’s getting late!”
“Mom!” Mike calls back, his voice cracking on a whine. Lucas, Dustin and Will snicker as they look for the dice, because Mike’s voice hasn’t done that ever since he turned fourteen, and it earns them all dirty glares. “Close the door, come on! We’re almost done! Can’t we have some fucking privacy?!”
Karen comes down the stairs just as Will picks up his bag, knowing better than to actually try to argue. She meets Will’s eyes and smiles like she’s physically holding back from pinching his cheek as she used to when he was eleven. Will knows she’s only sparing him now because Mike whines about them not being kids anymore, but he doesn’t really mind.
“Michael, language, please,” Karen huffs, crossing her arms at her son. Mike’s started hovering over her by at least a foot—he has not stopped growing like a weed, and Will doesn’t see him stopping any time soon—but Karen sets her hands on her hips and shakes her head at him, turning Mike’s expression a mix of sour and sheepish. “You also promised to be done by nine, and it’s already nine-thirty!”
“Yeah, Michael,” Dustin starts, and Will elbows him, but it does nothing to stop him. In fact, Will gets an elbow back for his trouble, causing him to wince. Lucas comes up behind them and wraps his arms around their shoulders, settling in the middle and shooting Mike the most fake-innocent smile Will’s ever seen. He can’t help but giggle. “It’s bedtime! Don’t let us mess with your beauty sleep.”
Mike shoots Dustin a disgusted look. “You agreed to this.”
“But we know better than to argue with Mrs. Wheeler,” Lucas points out, clapping Will’s back before stepping away to also grab his bag. He shoots a wink at Karen, who rolls her eyes at the overindulgent flattery. “Don’t we, Dusty-bun?”
“Oh, screw you!” Dustin laughs, also grabbing his stuff. Mike blows them off as his mom heads upstairs with one last warning, following behind her to try to convince her to give them thirty more minutes and yelling at them to stay. Wordlessly, the three of them remaining look for the dice, and Dustin lets out a curse as he kneels behind the couch. “Aw, fuck, a seven? What happened to Will the Wise’s magic touch?!”
Will winces. “It doesn’t always work out, I guess.”
“Just don’t tell Mike,” he shoots Will a look, making him roll his eyes. Dustin points at Lucas. “We’re not telling Mike, right?”
“Dude, obviously. We’re screwed without Will,” Lucas pats his back, pulling Will towards the basement door so they can get going. Will decides to hum, unconvinced, already knowing he’s not giving them what they want—not because he wants to be mean, but rather because fair is fair, and the whole reason they even got to play today was that Mike insisted. Will owes him one. Lucas groans. “No, Will, come on, don’t do that thing where you and Mike band off against us—”
“We don’t do that,” Will snorts, only for Dustin to go bullshit! from behind them, catching up and giving Will another look. “We don’t. It’s not anyone’s fault we got bad luck today.”
“Except we didn’t get bad luck,” Dustin insists, winking at Will and getting on his bike just as Mike bursts outside, looking betrayed that they’re actually going. Lucas is already pedaling down the driveway, wishing Will good luck on his trip to the city. Dustin bikes down to the driveway, waiting for Will to wrap up his goodbyes as he high-fives Lucas.
“Man, I feel like I’m fucking eleven again. This is totally not fair,” Mike says, crossing his arms as he stands beside him. He glances down at Will, who’s humming in agreement, watching him play with his bike’s light. “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?”
“This late at night? No thanks, I don’t want to crash,” Will jokes, and almost falls off his bike as Mike gives him a friendly push. He laughs, and Mike grumbles under his breath like he’s actually mad. When Will manages to straighten up, he sighs. “It was a seven, by the way.”
Mike raises an eyebrow. “Huh?”
“The roll, it was a seven.” Will pouts his lips, just so, watching Mike glance down at them before throwing him a frown. “The Demogorgon, it got me.”
“Damn,” Mike lets out a sigh. “I was actually rooting for you.”
The garage lights above them blink, making them both glance up, and Will feels a shiver going down his spine, goosebumps on the back of his neck. The night is quite chilly, even though it’s barely November 6th, and he would be apprehensive about riding off into the darkness if it wasn’t for Dustin and the fact that whatever the night has to offer, it can’t be any worse than the week he’s about to have. Besides, he does love a little spook, and Halloween was barely a week ago, appropriately lingering like a ghost in the air before the Thanksgiving atmosphere hits.
“Welp, see you next week,” Will sighs, and Mike’s frown deepens. Will attempts a reassuring smile, but he thinks it falls a little flat. “Hey, I’ll be back before you know it.”
“I know,” Mike’s face twitches with that concerned expression that makes Will’s heart race a little, and he has to look away, towards Dustin waving his hand at him in a come on! gesture to get him to hurry. “I’d like it if you’d come back in one piece, as well, you know.”
Will stiffens, then forces himself to relax, ignoring the too-hot, too-quick, too-intense emotions that come every time Mike acknowledges the elephant in the room. The lights above them blink again, this time more rapidly, and Mike mumbles something about changing the bulbs.
Will tilts his head back up to meet his eyes. “That’d be nice.”
Mike opens his mouth to say something, but Dustin’s yelling interrupts. “Hey, lovebirds, are you done?! It’s only gonna get later, Will!”
“Go, don’t let me keep you,” Mike rolls his eyes at Dustin’s antics, and then softens his expression, offering him a small, private smile. “Take care, okay?”
“Always,” Will nods, and pedals away to meet Dustin. Will scrunches up his nose at him. “You’re growing up mean.”
“I’m growing up impatient,” Dustin corrects him, tearing a much-needed laugh out of Will. “You told Mike about the seven, didn’t you?”
“Yep!”
“Traitor!” Dustin shakes his head, but Will can see from his peripheral vision that he’s smiling wide. “You know, I missed actually using the board. Those dice rolls feel so nice and crispy.”
“I don’t know about crispy, but it was nice,” Will agrees, and Dustin mumbles something about Will not appreciating his humor. “We can do it again next week when I’m back. For old time’s sake, and all.”
“Absolutely, I don’t care it’s gonna be a Sunday, you’re gonna be stuck with us the second you get back to Hawkins until you do that thing you do, where you fall asleep halfway through our welcome back movie marathon—”
“Like that’s my fault, sure—”
“And Mike gets all don’t wake him or I’ll kill you, and we make fun of him for it, because how could you not appreciate my movie choices—”
“You need an ego check, I think—”
“Point is, we’re totally gonna miss you,” Dustin finishes, and Will swallows the sudden knot in his throat. Sometimes, it’s hard to process how much his friends care. “I know, I say this every month, we all do, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Take that with you to Indianapolis, okay?”
“I know. I will,” Will lets out, and even he has to admit his voice is dripping with fondness. He thinks again of Mike’s wish for him to come back in one piece, and his heart swells a little more, obscuring the fear in it. He clears his throat, not wanting to make tonight even sappier. Otherwise, he’s going to spend the whole week sobbing. “Wanna race down the hill?”
Dustin barely says yes when Will takes off, laughing at the insults that follow him. At the crossroads, more goodbyes and see you soon! are yelled, and then it’s just him taking the shortcut to his place through what they’ve long-ago dubbed Mirkwood.
The road is lonely and treacherous at night, but Will feels warm with his friends’ affections, and he’s never been as afraid of the dark as he probably should’ve been as a child. He knows this shortcut and the woods around his house by heart, and he has enough hunting and survival skills to be confident he could never get lost, even if most of them weren’t learned willingly, but rather out of necessity. His dad can be extreme when he gets in a mood.
But Will tries not to think about that. Instead, he does a mental check of the things he still has left to pack, goes through the things he’s sure he’s already packed, and what he could maybe, potentially need while he’s away. The Wi-Fi is better at Indianapolis, but last time he took his old, third-hand, beat-up laptop, his dad locked it away and threatened to make him smash it with the practice baseball bat in the backyard, so that’s a big no.
His phone is allowed, but he’ll probably have to hide his sketchbooks or grab a new one that doesn’t have any incriminating drawings of Tom Holland’s Spider-man. Any sort of paint would be too smelly, so that’s out of the picture, too…
Will’s bike light starts blinking and he frowns, because Jonathan replaced the flashlight last time he was home, barely last month. Will’s been outgrowing this bike for a couple of years, but it’s kinda ridiculous that it’s deciding to start to fall apart like this—
He glances up to a dark, hovering silhouette about to collide with him, and lets out a yelp as he jerks the handlebar and crashes over the side of the road, at the edge of the woods. A growling sound reaches his ears as he scrambles from underneath the bike, making him forget his attempt to check whether he actually almost ran over someone.
For a split second, he freezes, the same cold sensation he felt at Mike’s place taking over.
Then both logic and instinct take over and he runs.
The growling intensifies behind him in a way that makes Will feel like something is about to bite at his heels, so he doesn’t look back, doesn’t stop, takes all the shortcuts he knows all the way to his house and somehow manages not to fall all over himself from sheer fear. His lungs burn as his eyes fall on his home’s porch steps but he doesn’t let relief take over for a single second; Will barely registers getting inside and locking the front door behind him, pulling out his phone from his pocket and dialing the police.
There isn’t any signal, which shouldn’t matter—but dialing nine-one-one only gets him halfway through the starting line of what’s your emergency? Before it cuts off with static and his blood runs cold.
Fuck, he thinks, running over to the landline that never works and they never even use, but the second he presses the phone to his ear he knows the line is dead as well. The lights in the house start going haywire, blinking with a frequency he’s never seen before, almost as if to mock the way Will’s shaking.
The growling comes again and Will bolts out the backdoor, ignoring Chester’s barks, locks the shed door behind him, and goes for the gun that his dad abandoned long ago, loading it up with ammo. His hands don’t shake, his survival instinct keeps him grounded, eyes wide and terrified but ready, leaning on his knowledge of how to shoot a gun. It’s something he never wanted to learn, but he can’t help but be thankful, just this once, because it might save him from whatever wild animal is chasing him.
The light above him blinks and Will’s lips tremble, staring up at it for a single second before he snaps his eyes back to the door, breathing hard, knowing that his life depends on keeping his gaze on whatever terror is stalking him, pawing and rumbling right outside the door. Still, the light starts glowing brighter and brighter, making it impossible to ignore.
The noises cease. There’s a pause. Will dares think, throat bobbing, that the animal went away, ignoring the part of his mind that’s screaming that whatever this is, it’s most definitely not natural.
And then the lock starts sliding free on its own. Will’s eyes widen.
He should’ve let Mike drive him home.