Chapter Text
When the darkness and the shock of the lurch had cleared, Mike’s vision revealed that he was still in the Byers’ living room.
Well, yes, it was the Byers’ living room, but definitely not the same Byers’ living room that stood today. The place had completely different furniture, for one, and it was much less tidy. Joyce liked to keep her place a little more cohesive these days, but this living room, though lit with warm light to combat the rainy evening outside, looked dark. There were crumpled papers scattered in the corners, an ashtray sitting promptly on the coffee table, and a few abandoned beer bottles hidden here and there. The place also smelled much more prominently of smoke than it did in the present day.
Mike blinked as remembrance of this place struck him. This was the Byers’ house from when Will was much younger. Back when Joyce smoked regularly, and his dad was still around to leave bottles and papers where he pleased. They must’ve entered an early childhood memory.
As Mike blinked again, studying the room, his friends were revealed beside him, also looking around for signs of Vecna as they got used to their bearings. Most of them didn’t know this place like Mike did, but Jonathan took it in quickly, his posture straightening, and Lucas and Dustin seemed to recognize it too.
Max was smiling with a certain pride at her own plan. “It actually worked,” she said, in awe. “This is a memory, right?”
“And it’s definitely distorted,” Dustin added, taking his own look around. “I mean, am I crazy, or does this place feel big?”
Dustin was right. Starting to get used to the details of the room, Mike noticed a few things were off. The walls, for one, were taller than they ought to have been. The room was much bigger too, gaining about three feet of square footage on each side of the floor. Mike was unsure exactly why this size distortion seemed to be happening, but assumed it must be Vecna’s doing. He was here, somewhere. Lurking in the shadows, ready for a fight.
The most prominent feature of the room, though, was a large and blazing fireplace on the wall, making the space uncomfortably bright and unbearably hot, like they were all trapped in a furnace. Flames curled up around its edges, threatening to spill out. Surely, the effect of this fireplace was also exaggerated.
“Where is Vecna?” Lucas asked cautiously, reaching out and touching a nearby lamp to confirm its solidity. His fingers grazed its wobbling shade. “I mean, if we’re supposed to fight him, this doesn’t seem like a great battlefield.”
Jonathan spoke next, his voice laced with a growing worry. “Better question, where’s Will?”
At this comment, Mike looked to the group and realized that everyone was present except for the owner of this memory. Will had somehow slipped from the party, and he was nowhere to be seen now. “Will?” he called out into the spacious room, but only received an echo in return, bouncing off the towering walls. The heat of the fire seemed to grow even more.
Then, El pointed to a spot in front of her. “There,” she said. “That is him. Or… was him.”
Sure enough, when Mike looked to the spot, he saw that a young Will had revealed himself, and suddenly the giant room made sense. They were all seeing it from the perspective of this small boy, who must’ve been no more than seven years old. He was lying on the carpet in the middle of the room with a large box of crayons, drawing a cartoonish picture of a green dinosaur with a goofy smile etched across his face.
“Well, he looks like he’s doing just fine,” said Dustin, looking down at the content child. “Why the hell would Vecna be in this memory? Didn’t El say he held onto strong, bad ones?”
Then, a deep and booming voice filled the room as someone called from the kitchen, making Mike and his friends jump with surprise.“William! Where are you?”
The young Will also tensed at the sound, pausing his coloring with a white-knuckled grip on his crayon, and slowly turning his head toward the call.
Mike noticed Jonathan’s face turn into a scowl when he heard the voice, and had a feeling he knew why.
“It’s our dad,” Jonathan said aloud.
The heat of the fireplace seemed to become even more unbearable, making Mike feel a sticky sweat condense on his forehead. The room, despite its ginormous size, seemed to be closing in.
It only got worse as Lonnie Byers appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed, a near-empty bottle in one hand. He scowled down at his young son, watching him with a certain distaste that was far from any paternal emotion Mike would’ve expected of a father.
Mike hadn’t ever known Lonnie that well. When he still lived with Will, Will preferred to play games at Mike's house over his own when they hung out. Mike knew well enough that Lonnie hadn’t been a good father, that he loved to yell and push Joyce around when he drank too much, but to what extent this man had affected Will, Mike never had the courage to ask, and Will was certainly fine not bringing it up.
But now, seeing the hunched but towering man in the doorway, Mike felt frightened, and he found himself wanting to tell this guy to leave Will, the small and bubbly child he was, alone. A sickening feeling was growing in Mike’s gut as he realized he might be about to see what to exact extent Lonnie’s awful parenting went.
The young Will himself looked scared too, his eyes bigger now that he was in Lonnie’s line of sight, like a wild animal caught in the headlights of a car. He was far too young to know anything about alcohol, but his eyes glanced quickly at the bottle in his father’s hand, putting the dots together in his head. This certainly wasn’t the first time he’d seen such a sight.
Lonnie spoke again, quieter but still, somehow, just as booming. “Just got off the phone with someone from your school,” he said, words slurring. Then he pointed a lazy, accusatory finger, stepping closer. “You skipped a required assembly. Where the hell were you, huh?”
Somewhere out of this memory, Mike could just barely feel the real world, and Will was squeezing his hand even more tightly than before. This boy on the floor was definitely no shade of the past, but the real Will. He was experiencing whatever memory this was again, through his own, younger eyes.
The group continued watching like the scene was a film, exchanging nervous looks in the moments of unbearable quiet. Jonathan was seething somewhere to Mike’s left, his heavy breath apparent in the stagnant room.
“Get up, will you?” Lonnie said to his son, raising his voice. “I’m asking you a question. Where the hell were you today?”
Will stood quickly from the carpet at his father’s command, still holding his new drawing in his small hands. He spoke in a hushed tone. “There was a boy in my class, Patrick, who was supposed to be in the assembly,” he explained in a small voice. “But he was sad before, and he told me he was too nervous.” Hurrying through his words, the young boy stood very still. “I thought he needed a friend, so I sat with him.”
Lonnie raised his eyebrows. “You sat with this boy instead of going to your mandatory assembly?”
Will nodded, almost defiant. “He needed me.”
“Needed you,” Lonnie repeated. “Oh, yes. I’m sure.” He rolled his eyes then, walking closer and muttering to himself. “That’s ridiculous, Will.” Then his eyes lowered to Will’s hands. “What’ve you got?”
El stepped forward as Lonnie did, her eyes glaring. “Leave him alone,” she said in a threatening tone. Lonnie didn’t react, unaware of the memory invaders that watched him like hawks. Mike and the others could only be observers of this deteriorating scene.
Will looked down at his drawing and held it cautiously up, his little hands shaking. “I’m making Patrick a drawing,” he explained. “He told me he likes dinosaurs.”
Now Lonnie dragged a hand down his own face in mocking exhaustion. “Jesus Christ. I need to stop letting your spineless mother facilitate this.”
Will tilted his head. “Spineless?”
“It means she’s a fucking doormat, and now she’s making you act like a little girl.” Lonnie leaned down, but still towered over Will. “Look, next time they tell you have to do something, you do it, understand? I don’t care if little Patrick’s bleeding to death. You do what you’re told. Understand?”
Will blinked up at his father, confused by this reaction to his story.
“Understand?” Lonnie tried again, louder.
Will shook on his wobbly little legs, but looked his father in the eyes. “I thought I was being nice.”
That word set Lonnie off. He laughed loudly at the notion, but didn’t seem to find it very funny, stumbling on his feet, his beer sloshing in its bottle. “Look, kid. Nice isn’t gonna get you anywhere in this world. It’s about time you learned that.” With a swift motion, he plucked the drawing from Will’s hands, making the boy gasp. “And this,” he said, holding it up and out of Will’s reach. “This isn’t gonna do you anything. Why don’t you go do something of value for once?” Then, he took the drawing in both hands and ripped it cleanly in half, the dinosaur split down its middle.
Will yelped in disapproval, watching the pieces flutter to the ground. His eyes were starting to well up. “That was mean,” he said quietly.
The fireplace was even hotter now. Mike felt like he might melt in its glaring heat, but couldn’t take his eyes off of the scene playing out in front of him like he was watching a car crash.
Lonnie squinted down at his son. “Say that again?”
Now there were tears on Will’s round cheeks. “That was mean,” he said louder. “You’re mean!” In a small burst of frustration, he attempted to shove his father with his flimsy arms.
Lonnie was obviously unaffected by this action, but reacted quickly, hitting Will across the face so forcefully that it sent him to the ground.
The action made everyone around Mike gasp. Max backed away, El glared, and Lucas and Dustin exchanged a panicked glance. Jonathan could hardly stop himself from rushing forward, his fists in balls and his breathing still heavy. Mike had put a shocked hand to his mouth when he saw the awful sight, but he was frozen in place. He knew there was nothing he could do to change this, and it broke his heart.
Will hit the ground with a thud, bracing his fall with his small hands, and he wailed something incoherently at his father.
Lonnie shook his head, looking down at the boy. “You think that was mean?” He reached down, and Mike tensed, assuming he was about to strike again, but instead he picked up the large box of crayons. With a swift motion, he sent the box sailing into the fire.
Will turned on his side, watching in horror as the box went up in flames in the enormous fireplace. “No!” he screamed, crawling towards it. He put his hands out, as if he could salvage the crayons, but realized it was no use as his fingers approached the stinging blaze, and he recoiled, shaking.
“That was mean,” Lonnie finished. “Maybe it’ll teach you to stop misbehaving at school. See this? This is what comes of being nice.”
Will was fixated on the flames, large tears rolling down his face as he watched a dripping rainbow of wax start to bubble on the firewood.
Mike felt a sharp pain in his stomach as he watched the young boy. He hated seeing Will like this, especially such a young version of him. If the opportunity arose, he thought he might break a brick over Lonnie’s greying head.
Lonnie’s arms were crossed as he continued to watch his son. “Oh, stop crying,” he said shortly. “It’s just a box of crayons. And clean this up, will you? Stop acting like a little brat and clean up your mess.” With this, he turned around and walked casually out into the kitchen again, as if nothing had just happened. As if he hadn’t just created a memory for his son that so awful Vecna was using it as a root for his evil power.
Will just wept on the floor, his giant box of crayons disappearing before his eyes. He looked so unbelievably small beside the exaggerated fireplace. The whole thing looked like it could unhinge a jaw and swallow him whole. Then, Will shakily picked up a torn half of his drawing and threw it into the flames with a tiny scream of great frustration.
The flames rose higher, as if this piece of paper was all the fuel they needed to be let wild. Like a flowing liquid, fire started to seep from the hearth, eating away at the carpet it touched and creeping forward.
Mike took a step forward, despite the heat warning him to get back. “What do we do?” he said over the growing roar of the flame. He looked around, desperate for this whole thing to be over. He could feel Will’s fingers clasping tightly around his own in the real world. This needed to end now. “Where the hell are you, Vecna?” Mike screamed, turning slowly around the room. “Come out and get us! We know you’re here!” Nothing responded to Mike’s invitation, and he could only hear the fire and Will’s quiet cries. He couldn't stand this for much longer. It was torture enough to see Will like this; He couldn’t begin to imagine how Will felt reliving it in this corrupted, twisted way.
Max was also approaching the flowing fire, but she leaned down, gaze on Will. “Maybe we have to help him.”
Lucas joined her and waved a hand in front of the young boy. “Will!” he said. “Will, it’s us. Everything’s gonna be okay.”
Will didn’t seem to realize Lucas was there and continued to stare into the wall of fire before him. The flames continued to seep, now licking at the young boy’s knees, threatening to consume him.
“Jesus Christ, he’ll burn alive,” Max muttered, and she put her hands gently under Will’s arms, pulling him back from the blaze.
Will, although he still didn’t seem to recognize her presence, flailed his limbs at this sudden movement, screaming in protest as he tried to claw his way back towards his melting crayons.
Max kept her grip on him and motioned for Lucas to help her. The two knelt on the carpet and each grasped the screaming boy by an arm. The fire continued to move closer, but Will didn’t seem to care. He wanted to go back.
“Will,” Max tried, struggling to keep a hold of him. “Calm down, you’ll kill yourself if you go closer.” And still, the boy couldn’t hear her.
Dustin paced nervously as the fire grew ever closer. It must’ve been across a third of the room now. “This isn’t working,” he said, his voice cracking with panic. “We need to find Vecna and fight him.”
El closed her eyes, trying to sense the presence of Vecna’s evil. “I don’t think we need to fight,” she said after a moment. “Vecna is rooted in a strong memory in Will’s head. He’s feeding off of a strong feeling. We must combat that.”
Dustin stared at her. “Well, how the hell do we do that?”
Mike couldn't help but sympathize with Dustin’s confusion. He looked to the flame, creeping further and further as Lucas and Max pulled the flailing Will toward the opposite wall. They were running out of time. “This doesn’t look like a feeling,” he said shakily. “It looks like a death sentence.”
El squinted at him, her mouth flat. “I can see that, Mike.”
Amidst the panicked shouting of the others, Mike caught Jonathan moving from the corner of his eye. The older boy walked slowly towards his young brother, his face painted with a knowing look. He didn’t try to stop Will from screaming and crying, he simply sat down across from him, keeping the boy locked in his sight.
Finally, Will’s eyes looked up, and he saw his brother in front of him. His struggle lessened as he took in the older boy. Tears continued down his blotched face. “He is right,” he said with a sniffle. “I’m weak.”
The rest of the group had stopped their movements, staring silently as Jonathan connected with his brother, back to the wall of fire. He took Will’s trembling hand in both of his own and held it firmly. “Don’t you dare listen to him,” he said. It was stern, but not in the way Lonnie had been. Jonathan was stern because he cared. “Listen to me, your kindness does not make you weak.” The fire was practically brushing his back, but he made no action to move.
Will shook his head. “I am… I am spineless,” he said through tears.
“That’s wrong,” Jonathan said. “Your kindness is one of the best things about you, Will. It doesn’t make you spineless.”
Mike watched the fire, however slightly, recede, straying away from Jonathan’s back. Whatever Jonathan was doing, it was working. Mike walked over and sat down next to him, eyes on Will. The others followed until everyone sat in a circle around the young boy, just being with him, no words.
Will recognized (or at least saw) them all now, his head turning slowly around as he took in his growing group of supporters. Then he turned back to Jonathan. “Then what does it make me?” he asked.
Jonathan looked him firmly in the eyes. “It makes you strong,” he said. “Never let anyone tell you otherwise. You are strong exactly the way you are.” He shook his brother’s shoulder, finally letting a small smile grow on his face. “Say it, come on.”
Will used his short fingers to rub away a tear. “I am strong exactly how I am,” he said, and his big eyes welled again, but not with despair like before. With a newly found sob, the young boy jumped forward and embraced his big brother, burying his face in his shoulder and staying there.
Jonathan made no move to let him go and smiled as Will continued to embrace him.
Slowly, the fire receded further, and as Mike looked up, he noticed the walls start to shrink, returning the room to its normal size. No longer did he feel as if the place would collapse in on him and eat him alive. No longer did the burning heat make him sweat with fear.
El made a similar observation, reaching out and feeling the air tentatively, her fingers flowing slowly through the cooling space around her. “That’s it,” she said. “We did it.”
Lucas raised his eyebrows. “That was all? No fight with Vecna?”
El shrugged. “We sort of fought.”
“No, I think I get it,” said Max, and this, Mike supposed, made sense, considering she’d spent so much time in Vecna’s own mind. If anyone was going to recognize his plans, it would be her. “Vecna’s latching onto Will’s insecurities,” Max theorized. “I mean, Will feels like he’s weak. You could hear it when he was talking in the kitchen earlier. So, maybe Vecna’s coming into Will’s mind and amplifying these doubts to have more control over him, right?”
“And we have to prove him wrong,” Mike finished. This definitely wasn’t the type of fight he had expected, but he figured it was one he could handle. As Will’s best friend, this seemed like the perfect scenario for him to deal with.
Dustin nodded from across the circle, trying to take this in. “But, is this it? I mean, we proved him wrong. Does that mean Vecna’s gone?”
Suddenly, the young Will turned his head from Jonathan and spoke to the group in a voice much older than his own. “No,” he said.
With this, Mike was thrown back into the dark limbo in between memory and reality.
He opened his eyes and was, thankfully, back in the present-day Byers’ living room. There was no fire, no tall walls, and no lurking fathers.
Mike looked to his left, where El had crumpled over, exhausted by this extended use of power. Max was already at her side and ready to help, so Mike figured he’d leave them alone and turn his attention to other matters.
Will sat very still, his hand still connected to Mike’s. Slowly, his white eyes rolled back, and his pupils reappeared as he swayed in place, face going pale. A drop of blood fell slowly from his nose.
“Will?” Jonathan tried tentatively from across the circle.
Will nodded, trying to catch his breath. “I can still feel him,” he said. “This isn’t over yet.”
While some of the others had made sure El was comfortable, recharging, and in her bed, Jonathan checked on Will.
Not wanting to discuss anything that had just happened further at the moment, Will had hoped to sneak back to his room unnoticed.
Brothers always noticed.
Will’s memory of the revisited memory was hazy, but he knew well enough what his friends had all witnessed.
He had taken a seat at his desk, head in his hands as he tried to navigate the last few hours of his life. Will wasn't sure why, but he had his sketchbook open in front of him. He mindlessly took a pencil and started to sketch rough images of what he could remember, chaotic lines jutting out at the edges when he became too conflicted to figure out what exactly he pictured in their place. He drew the specter of an empty Mike from the night before. He drew this morning: alone, and then with faceless friends, and then surrounded by trees, looking for a scream. He drew memories of an apoplectic father, and a small boy cowering in his shadow. He drew a roaring fireplace and a circle of friends, joined at the hands. Memories, real or fake, he wasn’t sure, flowed from his mind and down through his hands and into his fingers, finally making their way unceremoniously onto the page as indescribable scribbles.
Jonathan was at his door a minute later, and sat down without a word on the foot of Will’s bed. He waited patiently for Will to turn around and acknowledge him.
Finally, Will turned, closing his book and shoving it away with the page only half-filled. “What?” he asked, though he could guess a million reasons why Jonathan was here.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it,” Jonathan said in a low voice. “I wouldn’t want to talk about it.”
Will nodded to his brother. Truly, whatever they’d witnessed in his memory was the last thing on earth that Will wanted to talk about right now. Maybe in an hour, maybe in a day, once it was no longer fresh. But now? He’d rather forget it, and he’d rather forget his friends had watched it all. He hated it when people had to pity him, and that’s all this was going to bring. Even Jonathan was pitying him now, Will could see it in his eyes. He looked at Will like he was some wounded animal, but that wasn’t what Will was. “I don’t,” he said finally.
“Fine,” said Jonathan, and he leaned forward. “I just want to know that you believe what you said.”
“What I said?”
“Yes.” Jonathan’s eyes bore into Will. “You’re not weak because of who you are.”
Will’s eyes slipped to the side as he thought back to this moment. Insecurities that Vecna was trying to cling to. That was personal. Will would rather they had to fight off anything but his insecurities, because if they had to fight his insecurities, then everyone would know them. Who knew what awful things were going to reveal themselves to his friends if this continued?
“Will, please talk to me,” said Jonathan– stern, but nothing like his father.
“You kicked Vecna from the memory,” Will said, eyes still lingering anywhere in the room but his brother. “Isn’t that proof enough?” He tried to hide the fact that tears were forming in his eyes. That would just prove a plethora of things further: He was having trouble believing anything right now, he was pitiful, and, quite possibly, he was extremely weak.
“I have no idea,” Jonathan was saying. “That’s why I’m asking you. I just want to know that you know you’re strong.”
Will stood suddenly from his chair, arms crossed and still staring at the ground. “Well, I don’t know, Jonathan,” he said shortly. He hated being short with his brother, but this whole thing was frustrating him. “This doesn’t look strong, does it? And that memory, did that seem very strong to you?”
Jonathan, surprisingly, nodded. “Yes,” he said, not taken aback by Will’s snappy attitude. “In that memory, I saw a young boy stand up for what he thought was right. I saw a young Will defying the norm because he knew someone needed his help.” Jonathan stood too, walking towards his younger brother. “So, then I’ll ask you the same question: Does that seem strong?”
And then, Will didn’t know what to say. He supposed he could see the truth in Jonathan’s claim, but something within him kept on telling him it was all bullshit. He knew something had clicked back in the memory. He remembered being small, and he remembered listening to his brother's words, repeating them back. He remembered crying relieved tears rather than guilty ones. He shouldn’t feel like he did right now. Jonathan had helped him. “Vecna’s trying to hold onto it,” Will said quietly. It was only a theory, but he knew it was true.
“Then you can’t let him,” Jonathan said, definite. He put his hands on Will’s arms and looked him in the eyes. “You think you’re stronger than him.”
Will nodded slowly. “I do,” he said, and though the doubts in his mind began to recede, he could still feel a lingering something, prying at the edges of his memory to get back in.
After having his talk with Jonathan, Will was informed that the group wanted to get together and talk about their plan going forward. It was still about ten minutes until everyone had agreed to meet in the living room (except El, who was fast asleep), but Will sat there early.
In his head, he played with the ideas of strength and weakness. What really counted as either?
Luckily, Will’s thoughts were cut short by a face he’d been hoping to see for a while now. Mike entered the room with a glass of water in hand, and his face lit up when he saw Will on the couch. All Will could remember was Mike holding his hand in the memory circle, comforting him from the real world, even inside the memory. He also remembered Mike’s astonished face meeting him as his vision had cleared and he reentered reality. Maybe Will was weak, but in that moment, Mike looked at him like he was the strongest person on earth. Will didn’t know how to feel about the idea of using Vecna’s abilities, but Mike certainly thought it was a miracle.
“Hey,” Mike said, taking Will out of his own thoughts. He made his way over and put the glass in Will’s hands. “Thought you might need something. I mean, this is a lot to handle, and you seemed kinda pale earlier.”
Will accepted the glass and motioned for Mike to sit down beside him, tilting his head like an invitation. He drank for a while, not realizing how dry his throat had become, before a cold possibility settled on him. The blank-faced Mike of last night flashed across his vision. “And you’re real?”
“Of course.”
Will did not give up his suspicion as Mike joined him on the couch. As far as he knew, Vecna hadn’t altered anything since that morning, which meant it was about time he made something happen. Will drummed his fingers nervously on his leg. “I guess that’s a stupid question to ask,” he said, realizing himself. “You could say yes in a fake memory too.”
“I could,” Mike admitted slowly, not sure how to combat this logic. “But I am real. Promise. I think therefore I am and all that.”
“Descartes.”
Mike grinned. “You’re such a nerd.”
“Says you.”
So they were back to this. Laughing and joking like the day before at Max’s place. Will supposed Vecna wouldn’t create something so untroubled. And plus, this Mike seemed authentic.
After a pause, Mike asked, “So, are you feeling pretty badass?”
Will retracted his head at the thought. “Why in the world would I feel badass right now?”
Mike shrugged. “I don’t know… maybe because you have powers?” He was obviously thrilled by the very concept of this, much more than Will would ever be.
Will rolled his eyes at the display. “I don’t have powers, we already established this. I’m just-”
“Chanelling Vecna’s abilities, yeah, yeah,” Mike said, goofy with pride for his friend. He shifted in his spot. “It still counts. I mean, you have the whole bloody nose thing and everything. You’re… you’re, like, practically Eleven now.”
Something about this statement made Will’s face collapse. He didn’t want to be El. If Mike was going to love him, he’d want it to be because he was Will. Not because he was another Eleven. “I’m not,” he managed to stutter.
Mike seemed confused by this reaction, his eyebrows raising. “Hey, El’s awesome. You don’t have to be insecure about-”
“Mike, I’m not. Don’t say that. Just don’t… don’t think of me like that.”
While the negative in this comparison was still lost on Mike, he decided to let it go, much to Will’s relief. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Yeah, you’re right. I mean, you’re totally different.” His gaze widened with a new wave of excitement as the image of something popped into his mind. “Your eyes. They rolled back and went totally white, like you were some… some deity or something.”
Will wasn’t amused by this either. Quite honestly, the idea of it made him sick to his stomach. He rocked back in his seat, hands fidgeting nervously. “I don’t like being capable of that,” he admitted.
“What?”
Will sighed, unable to keep this in. “I don’t want to be able to do what Vecna does. I mean, he’s… he’s evil. He killed so many people. He’s awful and he– Well, he ruined my life. I don’t want to be capable of something like that.” He tried not to let his eyes well up again. At this point, it was just plain mockery, but recalling his display of power had that effect. Channeling Vecna’s abilities, it just seemed so wrong.
Mike frowned at his friend’s confession. “Will,” he said.
“I feel disgusting.”
“You don’t have to.”
“But I do.” Will leaned back and collapsed into the cushions of the couch, shutting his eyes tightly. He didn’t expect Mike to understand what he was feeling.
Mike hesitantly put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Will watched his eyes shift as he tried to conjure up what to say next. “Look,” he finally got out. “If you look at it like that, yeah. I get it. It’s scary to think of yourself being capable of that.”
Will turned his head to look at his friend, but did not respond, silently waiting for further conviction.
“But the way I see it,” Mike continued. “Well, I think you’re making this whole thing your own, right? That’s the difference between you and Vecna. You both have the capability to… kill people and stuff, sure, but you, Will, you choose to use this for something else. I think that’s really powerful.”
Will frowned. “It’s powerful that I don’t kill people.”
“Yes,” said Mike quickly. Then he tilted his head. “Well, yes, but, no, that’s not what I meant. I guess I’m saying…” He reached down and took Will’s hands in his own. “I would’ve been dead by now if I were you.”
Will looked down at their hands, trying not to make too much of the gesture, and then back up with a raised eyebrow. “What?”
“I would have died,” Mike repeated. “I mean, you’ve been dealing with all of this awful, horrific Vecna crap since you were young, right? If it were me, I mean, I probably would’ve just… just given up by now.” And he looked Will in the eyes, his own were big and passionate with the truth of his words. Will could feel the truth of his words. “But you never gave in,” he said, quieter now. “You never gave in, and now you’re completely turning the entire narrative on that magical dickwad’s head.” He smiled, shaking Will’s hands. “I mean, that’s not disgusting. That’s the most badass thing I’ve ever heard of.”
Will, despite his dreary mood, couldn’t help but smile at Mike’s explanation of it all. He thought maybe his cheeks were going red too. “Why does everything make more sense when you say it?” He let words carelessly slip from his mouth, overwhelmed by Mike’s own.
Mike glanced down sheepishly and then back again. “You think so?”
The reality of what Will had said hit him and he ripped himself from this giddy moment, taking his hands away from Mike’s “I- no. That’s not… Well, yes, of course it made sense but that’s not- I don’t want you to-” He sighed, trying to collect himself. This was going swimmingly. “Thank you for saying that,” he decided on. “It meant a lot.”
Mike’s face, although it had become confused in Will’s attempt at a cover-up, shifted into a small smile. “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Yeah, of course.”
Luckily, before Will had to save himself further from this moment, others started trickling into the room. Lucas, Max, and Dustin, holding a bowl of chips, came in and sat, ready to talk action. Jonathan entered a few seconds later, leaning against the wall instead of taking a seat. Will was comforted by the number of people. He figured it was harder to create a fake memory with more people in it. He hoped this meant large groups were generally safe.
“Well?” Max asked. “What’s our next move?”
The group stared, Will noticed, mostly at him, a cautious energy in the air. No doubt they’d all had some conversation about the memory they witnessed while he was talking to Jonathan or Mike. Now, they treated him like he was fragile. If they really wanted him to believe he wasn’t weak, they’d stop treating him like some glass figure.
Dustin placed a chip in his mouth and sent a loud crunch around the room. “Well, we just keep going into memories, right?” he asked. “Just go in there, figure out whatever thing Vecna’s latching onto, and prove it wrong.”
Lucas’s eyes narrowed as he leaned forward in his seat, clasped hands resting on his legs. “Is it just me, or does that seem too easy?”
Mike nodded from beside Will. “It’s not just you,” he said. “I was thinking the same thing. I mean, not to say that what we had to do wasn’t a big deal…” His eyes trailed to Will, and then left just as quickly. “But in the grand scheme of things, would Vecna really let himself be defeated by us… talking it out?”
“Well, maybe whatever we have to do next will be harder,” Max suggested. “Vecna saw that we got through to Will in this first memory pretty easily, so he’s gonna make whatever’s next more difficult. Maybe it was just an error on his part.”
“Vecna doesn’t make errors,” Will said plainly, trying to conceptualize why Vecna had let his grasp on Will’s memory go so quickly.
“You said he did,” Jonathan argued. “Just this morning, you said he made fake memories that you could tell were fake. That’s an error. Let’s just hope this is too.”
A chill ran down Will’s spine as a dark thought formed in his head. It was like he could almost reach in and touch Vecna’s own thoughts. “It wasn’t an error,” he said. “The memories. He did that on purpose.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Mike tried to say to him, putting a supportive hand on his friend's shoulder. “Why would Vecna want you to know what was real and what was fake?”
“He doesn’t,” Will said, his mind racing. “I mean… he did. The first few times. He wanted to give me a false sense of authority. A feeling like I could tell reality from his creations, so he showed me intentionally messed-up memories. But now…” Will’s hands started to shake and he got up slowly from the couch. His words came out in a rattle. “Mike, we just talked, correct?”
“Yeah,” said Mike. “We talked about how badass you are.”
Will nodded. “Okay,” he said. Then his eyes met Jonathan’s. He was scared to even consider a possibility. “Jonathan, we talked,” he said.
Jonathan stood up straight from the wall. “Sort of,” he said. “I mean, I came into your room. I gave you a hug, but you said you needed to be alone. I wanted to respect that.”
“No,” said Will, stumbling a little where he stood. Surely his conversation with Jonathan had been real. Of anything today, that seemed the least likely to be fake. His brother had even tried to convince him not to give in to Vecna. How could something like that be fake?
“Will, what?” Max was saying. “What’s going on?”
“I have to… I have to check something.” Will ran quickly from the room without responding from the various cries of confusion from his friends. The world felt small as he ran down the hall and to his bedroom door. Surely what he thought was happening wasn’t the case.
Slowly, he approached his desk, where his sketch book still lay. In his memory, he’d stopped drawing when Jonathan came in and abandoned it to go out to the living room when he left. The page, in his mind, was half empty. Scattered sketches littered it, but blank, white space still lived.
Now, to Will’s horror, he took in a completely different page. It was as if Will had never really put down his pencil. The paper was full to the brim with scribbles and rough outlines of memories that pulled from his head. His hands shook as he continued to stare at his own art. He saw a sketch that resembled his conversation with his brother, a faceless figure reaching out to comfort Will in his doubts, but the fullness of this page made it apparent this memory had never happened.
And Will had no idea until now.
The boy dropped to his knees, still gripping the darkened page. He thought maybe he heard his friends rushing in behind him, asking him if he was okay, but he couldn’t tear himself from this horrific sight, and what it meant.
Whatever Vecna was doing, it was no mistake. This seemingly safe and comforting memory, now revealed to be nothing more than a mirage, was a message. Vecna was telling Will that he didn’t get to have any leverage when it came to these fake moments. This was Vecna’s game, and Will was playing by his rules.