Chapter Text
Will… knew it would come to this. Sort of innately? The dread, a bottomless thing in the pit of his stomach, had only become stronger since he’d been brought back from the Upside Down. But especially now, as it had only been a matter of time before Vecna was fully healed, and before he came for Hawkins once and for all. And he knew that he was the one weak link in the Party that they needed to cut loose.
He’d felt it. That flash of electric fear raising the goosebumps along the nape of his neck, and that fissure in his head that grew bigger, and bled brighter, as time rolled on.
And, once again, he knew it was going to lead to what Will feared the most: getting the people he loved killed.
It was almost inescapable now. That he couldn’t continue running from the truth anymore. No matter the disappointment, the dismissal, the unbridled confusion, the agony prominent on his family’s and friends' faces when he… hinted toward it. He knew he had to face this alone, too, when everyone else couldn’t seem to bear the grim reality of it. He had to face it head on, and he needed to do something. Become useful for once, rather than being the cause for everyone’s problems. Rather than being the spy, the weapon of Vecna’s choosing.
And maybe, just maybe… what Bob had said all that time ago, facing his fear… All along, perhaps it was facing the fact that his death would be the sacrifice needed to save everyone.
“Will,” Mike started anxiously, arm wrapped around his waist as he half-carried him into the church, “Will, please, come on.”
Will felt like his head was made of bricks, like he was wading through thick molasses trying to process Mike’s words. He felt something treading through the recesses of his brain, stampeding over memories of the past year.
Of Mike… confessing his love to El, doing everything he could to bring his sister back, of Will being the one to push it… and breaking his own heart in the process. Because what did Mike mean, his life started that day he found her in the woods, while Will was missing, suffocating in the pore-infused air of the Upside Down, growing colder and weaker day by gruelling, terrifying day? Having to get the strength up to run and hide, and cower in his only safe place that he destroyed a year later?
“It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!” Will flinched in Mike’s grip, as he was pushed gently to a seat on a pew, head lolling against his chest, hearing only the distant panicked noise of Mike… barricading the door? Will groaned and grabbed his head, pain blinding him, and saw—
That musty couch in the cabin, confirming to Mike what they desperately hoped wasn’t true: that Vecna was still alive; hurting, sure, but that they’d failed after all, none of their efforts had been enough in the end, and with time, Vecna would only prove to grow stronger, and more connected to Will than ever before.
When he saw the monster gnashing its teeth at Mike’s mom, Holly… as they screamed in fright and his nose trailed after them, their scent weaving into another room… When Will had jolted out of bed, shaking his mom and Hopper out of fitful sleep.
“They’re in trouble, please, we’ve got to—”
But it was a trap that led Vecna straight to them. Karen was dead because of him. And Holly was gone. Mike’s sister, taken, just like Will was. But Holly was resourceful, right? She was Holly the Heroic. She had to make it out.
But it had been a week. And time was stretching dangerously thin.
Nancy’s premonition was almost two-thirds complete. And Will wouldn’t let Vecna succeed enough that Mike’s life was forfeit, too.
So, Will knew exactly what the next step was.
He finally found the strength to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “M-Mike.”
A gasp ringing in the silence. “Will!”
Will blearily opened his eyes to Mike’s face increments from his own, tense with worry, a hand to his shoulder so tight that it soothed the cracks splitting his head into memory-shaped pieces. “It’s too late,” he muttered lowly, throat swallowing on a dry, nervous click, but Will was… resolute in his decision. “We know how to get Holly back, Vecna made it clear, right? And I—we can’t wait any longer.”
Mike shook his head, stubbornly firm. “We’re going to get her back, Will. With her friends on board, now, it’s only a matter of time.”
“Except we’ve all been searching for days!” Will exclaimed, eyes bright with conviction. “It’s been a week since she was taken.” And he hadn’t forgotten that it was all his fault. If he’d waited before sending them into that obvious trap, Karen might still be here… Holly might have still been here. “I have to do something—I can feel him. You don’t understand… Everything feels like it’s falling into place for him. We’re too late.” He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling tears leaking at the corners of his eyes.
“What’s that supposed to mean, Will? What are you trying to tell me?” Mike whispered, voice stretched thin and agonised. “You’re just giving up on… on making it out? You want to sacrifice yourself?” Mike scoffed, his eyes wide like Will could still be reasoned with. “We’re a Party, Will, and that means no one gets left behind.”
“The Party hasn’t existed for a long time,” Will breathed, finally, truth laid bare between them. “Not since I moved to California, not since we all… grew up. And we drifted apart.”
“How can you say that?” Mike leaned backward, eyebrows drawn together and mouth straightening into a thin line. “How can you say we’re not a Party anymore? We… we promised we’d be a team again. We all swore on getting through this together.”
“I—” Will’s expression shuttered into something distant, eyes glazing over. “Yeah. Maybe you guys still are that Party. Just not with me in it, okay? It’s time to accept that maybe… I’m just a loose thread, you know? Something we need to pull to put more important things into perspective? Like, here you are, watching over me because… because Vecna still has his claws in me… when right now we should be searching for Holly. Face it, I just put everyone in danger—”
Will… something purred in the back of his mind. Are you ready to give in?
Yes, he thought, breathing sharply in as the realisation hits. Yes, I’m ready.
“—can’t possibly believe all that, Will! We all need you, I need you! I need you to stay with me, okay? I can’t—I’ve lost my Mom, I could… lose my little sister—I can’t lose you too, please, just—”
But behind Mike, Vecna peeled away from the pulsing wall, thick with vines and oozing red, like a beating heart. And Vecna curled his claw, until Will rose, and his feet skidded the floor as Mike latched onto his arm, and pulled desperately to no avail; fraught with stress, with a crazed panic that only fed Vecna’s barely-contained glee.
And then Vecna pulled a feebly struggling, ponytailed girl free, the vines curling away from where they’d bound her feet together.
“Holly,” Mike breathed faintly, his eyes flitting between Will’s resigned face and Holly’s tear-streaked one.
“The exchange we agreed upon.” Vecna’s mouth quirked into a smirk, eyes trained upon where Will hovered an inch from the ground, and Will laughed brokenly.
Mike didn’t let go of his arm. He couldn’t. He was frozen.
“Mike,” Holly whispered, her lips pale-blue. Her eyes shot to Will’s anxiously. “W-what exchange?”
“Please, let go,” Will said almost comfortingly, his eyes—though blood-shot and dark with lingering possession—were soft, and so understanding that his heart physically lurched in his chest.
Mike cried like he hasn’t since his mom had cuddled him close to her chest, at the news of Will’s death, so long ago. “I-I can’t, Will, I—”
And he was going to say it, he swore he was, even with his sister watching, her gaze widening with horror as her mind reluctantly admitted the transaction being made—
I love you. I love you. I love you.
Mike’s mouth opened—and Vecna’s rageful eyes settled on him, and he dropped Will at once, and instead hurled Mike up high in the air. Mike’s gaze flung from a stained-glass window depicting the Virgin Mary and she was looking away, down, almost in sorrow at—
At Will, staring up at him, like his worst fear had come to life, blinking away at the rush of tears—
“Maybe you were right, after all, Will,” Vecna started, his voice a low rumble, “All those things you told yourself in the dark. That you weren’t deserving of love, that they were better off without you, that Mike, here”—Vecna curled his claw, and Mike suddenly found that the air had been cut off from him, that something was clamping down on his throat, hard, and he scrambled for his neck, though nothing was there—“that Mike had been right all along, that it was his fault that you didn’t like girls. Isn’t that right?” Vecna grinned vindictively.
And then he yowled, high and angry, and Mike fell to a heap on the ground, as Holly had stuck something deep in the back of Vecna’s thigh, a shard of glass, and he turned his attention to her.
“You’re wrong!” Holly screamed, also, “I love Will, a lot of people do, because Will is good! And you’re a liar!”
“Is that so,” Vecna drawled, and seemed deeply uninterested as he flicked a clawed hand to drag her close, reaching for her thin wrists as her voice turned to a wobble in her throat, and her eyes rounded with terror.
“NO!” Will yelled, and the atmosphere around them suddenly thrummed with live energy, a static electricity unfurling and making Mike’s hair stand up even where he’d crumpled, and was raising a hand to the back of his head, and as his fingers came away streaked with blood.
Then, fire burst on the edges of his vision, as the candles shone beside the church’s altar, and the flames grew rapidly. “You leave them alone!” Will’s body dragged itself up, and his eyes were—it was like they were licking with that same fire just beyond, anger so bright that Mike’s breath caught in his chest. “This wasn’t the deal!”
“Will!” Mike yelled, hand plastering itself to his skull even as his vision wavered. “Can’t you see! There is no deal! What do you think he’s going to do when he—when he’s finished with you? You just saw it with your own eyes! He won’t let us live!”
And Will shook his head, and in processing Mike’s words… the fire surged and roared and spat, the electricity sparkled like the fairies in children’s stories gently buzzing in the air, and the energy in the church snapped.
Mike felt his head cave in two under the pressure, and everything abruptly went… black.