Chapter Text
Mike woke to the grating ring of his alarm clock. He whined, twisting in his tangled sheets. The thin fabric had a way of winding around his legs despite his efforts to cover himself in as many layers as possible. The chill of November made itself all too familiar within the walls of his home. He blindly smacked a hand in the vague direction of his nightstand, hearing his chapstick and glasses, which he loathed to use unless he was reading in the privacy of his room, fall with a dull thud against the carpeted floor. With little grace, Mike finally located the source of the deafening sound and shut it off.
He sat up with a groan, looking to the floor as if on instinct. Will’s mattress from the previous winter remained a fixed point in his bedroom, despite the lack of pillows and blankets. While Mike was adamant in his protests that he shouldn’t have to remain in the basement, Will argued Mike’s alleged need for space. I don’t want to take over your room, he had said, as if it would matter. It was Mike’s idea that the Byers stay with them in the first place.
With the precision of a newborn foal, Mike stepped around the mattress, with a near-miss trip as his foot caught on its corner. Below his feet, he could hear the clatter of dishes. Holly was setting the table, then. He dragged himself to his closet, hastily throwing on the first sweater and pair of jeans he could find. Lately, he went without the energy to truly piece an outfit together. Not that he ever cared about what looked ‘right,’ but he had a distinct lack of consciousness when it came to clothing that coincided with the time of year. His mind was elsewhere. Nights were restless more often than not.
The anniversary was nearing. He tried to delude himself into forgetting, into the belief that maybe Nancy and the others’ plan had actually worked. That would mean Vecna was dead and he could move on, with only the nightmares suffered by his friends and himself as a grim reminder of it all. Except, that wasn’t the case, not when Will still felt something after their return from Lenora.
Mike pulled his door open, tugging his sweater away from himself until it settled with the obscurity of his shape underneath. He trudged his way to the bathroom. The knob was jammed. No, not jammed, locked. He knocked on the door impatiently and was met with no response. He pounded harder.
“Nancy, come on,” he said, voice somewhere between a whine and a shout. “Hurry up, I need to piss.”
The door swung open and he was met with the face of–
“Jonathan? What the fuck are you do–?”
“Breakfast!” Holly shouted from the staircase.
“Coming!” He answered, irritation laced into his voice like an incurable venom.
Jonathan shouldered himself out of Mike’s way, sheepish, like he had been caught. “All yours,” he said.
Below, after he had his much-needed piss, Mike was greeted with the sight of his family and the Byers working around one another. Mrs. Byers–Joyce, his mind corrects, brought the coffee pot to the table with a plate of bacon balanced in her other hand. She shot a shy smile Mike’s way, like she was apologizing for intruding despite her obvious help.
“Good morning, Sweetie,” his mom said from her spot at the stove. “Sit. Will should be up any second.”
He nodded, like Will’s soon-to-be presence was his permission to fall into place. It was, in a way. If Will missed breakfast, or was late for any reason, Mike was the one to call for him from the top of the basement stairs. Distantly, he wondered if El–Jane, his mind, once again, insisted–was awake. She didn’t have to suffer through school, through the early mornings spent in Mr. Belcher’s history lesson. Jane had her own tribulations, though: dawns spent with Hopper, drinking electrolytes and planning their day of training.
Mike sat down in his seat, the same seat he chose when he was only seven years old. His father was already sitting at the head of the table, eyeing last week’s newspaper. The Hawkins Post was dying, evident in the biweekly updates as opposed to the daily deliveries they were used to. Most of the town’s inhabitants left with the opening with the cracks in the ground exposing the tender, sinuous underbelly of the Upside Down and, with it, went half of the frontline workers. He rolled his eyes.
Holly plopped into her own chair across from him, already opening a book. He would never say it, but he’s sure his mother had told her a thousand times by now that Holly was just like her siblings. There was a time when Nancy couldn’t tear her nose out of her notes, and when Mike couldn’t stop scribbling down ideas about a campaign. The Wheelers, always more interested in the page than what was right in front of them.
Nancy waltzed into the room, sitting down next to Holly with ease as Jonathan followed in after her like a shadow. Her cheeks were flushed and Mike tried not to notice.
“Good morning,” said a disembodied voice from behind him, soft and polite.
Mike twisted his head to look at Will. Like Mike, he was already dressed for school. He was wearing a blue crewneck Mike lent him when he was cold back during their first winter of living under the same roof. The latter pulled at his chair and sat down next to Mike. Will didn’t look at him, instead eyeing the spread before him with the same wonder he had even when they were both kids and Will had stayed the night for the first time–like it was his first time seeing Karen Wheeler’s cooking.
Joyce immediately found her spot beside him and, finally, Mike’s own mother joined them with the final flourish of a plate of pancakes. His senses were engulfed by clinking dishes, hyper chatter between Will and his family, and the salty-sweet flavor of syrup on eggs.
He reached over Will for the coffee pot and he moved back from Mike’s forearm, shifting away from the table despite his heated discussion with Jonathan about his driving lessons.
Mike already learned to drive, thanks to Nancy, but still opted to bike to school with the excuse of wanting to save his parents the trip to the elementary school. While his father could barely remember the age of his own children, his mom insisted that it was still too soon to drive Holly anywhere that wasn’t on their street. Not that he was complaining, it meant he could ride next to Will and talk.
They didn’t get much time alone anymore, less time than they used to on play dates, and Mike’s guilt for it followed him from Indiana to California and back. Despite his reputation for disrupting the peace, Mike didn’t like his friends being upset with him. He still didn’t understand the moodiness Will had on their roadtrip half way across the country, but he hated the way Will’s eyes penetrated right through him at the dinner table, how they grew weary in the van, how they went void, helpless, as soon as they crossed the border into Hawkins.
“Oh God,” Will said, shoving his chair back. His hands hovered. “Mike, we’re going to be late.”
He snapped out of his thoughts, not paying attention to his half-eaten, half-toyed plate. Mike was on his feet in a moment, following Will to the front door as they slung their backpacks over their shoulders. He wished he could stick the entire coffee pot in it, the weariness of sleep still sticking to his consciousness like tacky glue.
Mike was the one to pull the door open. They mounted their bikes. The WSQK, and the sound of Robin Buckley’s crackling voice, was on in minutes, with Holly’s insistence.
—
At this point, Dustin was used to the stares. The Hellfire logo stood proud on his chest, like an omen. Hawkins never quite recovered from the image, seeing cracked bones, disjointed jaws, and milky eyes in its wake. He knew better, he knew Eddie. That was enough.
The Party didn’t understand. At least, not the original Party. Dustin didn’t open up for several months after… that night. It was too hard. He refused to think on it further than necessary, now. Jane and Max helped. They both lost someone important to them, despite the odd circumstances, they understood. Max lost Billy, who was an indirect cause of Vecna’s quadrant of gates thanks to her guilt and the grief that followed her. She still wasn’t cleared to come to school. Max woke from her coma weeks after Mike, Jane, Hopper, and the rest of the Byers returned home–alongside a guy with hair longer than Max’s had ever been. Argyle reeked of weed, but soon cleared out of Hawkins during the quarantine sweep. According to Will, he still called. To think the quartet of Will, Mike, Jonathan, and Argyle saw Suzie mere months before their impending breakup made his stomach coil uncomfortably.
It was his fault. He was swallowed by the all-consuming black hole of survivor’s guilt, that’s what Steve called it–the very thing Nancy experienced when her friend Barb went missing. Back then, Nancy was hellbent on having dinner with the Hollands regularly before they skipped town. Dustin didn’t share stories about Eddie over oak tables or microwaved dinners, there wasn’t any point in it.
Really, of everyone, Dustin talked to Jane. She knew loss intimately. Though her verbiage wasn’t eloquent, she laid things plainly enough for him to confront it head-on. She described losing Papa, Dr. Brenner, a man who introduced torture as well as comfort into her life. It was different than losing Hopper because he turned up on the other side of the world in snow-laden Russia. The loss for that year, though, was real and he knew that as well as Jane did. Dustin struggled to compare to that, thinking his grief was deserved but not nearly as complex. That was around the time Jane steered him toward Hopper, toward Sara.
It wasn’t the same. How could it be? Sara was Hopper’s daughter, a girl who died out of her own control. Eddie died almost willingly. Hopper, in a rare moment of vulnerability, told Dustin that he, too, felt cursed–like the good in his life was drained out of him the second he misstepped. Dustin understood that, at least. Hopper went on to say that, sometimes, the world grants you a second chance, and that his was Jane. Dustin prayed, despite his agnostic beliefs, that maybe he’d have the opportunity to save his second chance, too.
Dustin’s reality of critical bystanders was shattered as soon as he opened his locker. The dark-haired one was the person to slam it shut, Chance or something, but Andy was always the instigator of these interactions.
“I thought we told you not to wear that shirt around here, freak,” Andy said.
Freak. The party had that word thrown at them more times than they could count. Eddie, though, was The Freak. It stung more than ever and, yet, something powerful thrummed through him.
“Oh yeah? Well, you also told me to stop screwing your mother and that didn’t stop me, did it?” He spat.
He was gripped by his collar, his back colliding with the lockers that rattled behind him. “Something funny Henderson?”
Dustin didn’t even have it in him to be afraid. He wasn’t the twelve year old kid with a knife poised at his baby teeth; he hadn’t been for a long time. “Let go.”
“Hellfire is over, you hear me?”
“Let go,” Dustin said, louder.
The hands on the front of his shirt began to pull in opposite directions. Panic seized him so violently, one would think Andy hands were tearing through his flesh rather than fabric.
“Andy– Andy stop. Stop! Get off of me!” Dustin pushed at his hands, trying to wrench the shirt from Andy’s grip. He braced himself for a fight. Fist raised. Eyes wide. Pulse rabbiting.
“Hey!”
Dustin’s attention was stolen. He faltered at the sight of Lucas, who was walking calmly toward them. Lucas had an air of pride to him since last year. It didn’t spark envy in him, but it certainly made Dustin feel like a petulant child, always on the verge of a tantrum.
With one last shove that knocked the wind halfway from his lungs, Andy let go of him. “Well, well. If it isn’t the traitor.”
Lucas stopped in front of him, posture broad and unwavering. “Remember the time my sister kicked your balls so hard you limped for a week.” Dustin tried not to smile. “Touch Dustin again, and I’ll kick them so hard they pop like water balloons.”
The threat didn’t have time to settle.
“I say kick away,” Mike appeared, flanking Lucas with Will glued to his side, “stop this meathead from reproducing and further infecting the world with his unique brand of idiocy.”
Lucas side-eyed him and Will looked like he wanted to bolt. Dustin wasn’t in a position to feel second-hand embarrassment, but it persisted, and Mike’s words were enough to furrow Andy’s brow in confusion. Andy shook his head.
“Wear that shit again, you’re a dead man, Henderson.” Shooting one last glaring look at Lucas, Andy and his pack of teammates retreated down the hall and Dustin bid them farewell with his middle finger.
The three remaining squared Dustin with matching less-than-amused expressions. Dustin, frankly, didn’t give a shit. He shouldered his backpack so it sat right on his shoulder. He was the one to break their stand-off, starting his way to the history class they shared for first period. Since the evacuation of nearly half the town, classroom numbers dwindled and the party shared more classes than they had since middle school.
“You’ve got to stop provoking them, man,” Lucas said.
“Provoking them? I’m not doing anything.” He scoffed. It was a lie and all of them knew it, but they didn’t call him out on it.
“Lucas is right, Dustin,” Will said. “What if you get hurt?” The question made room for a small seed of fondness. Will was always like that, looking out for their well-being.
Mike sighed behind him, his long legs allowing him to catch up to fall in step with Dustin. “We’re supposed to be laying low, not drawing attention to ourselves.”
Any warmth held for his friends vanished, squashed by animosity rearing its ugly head once again. Lay low? Dustin bit his tongue. Laying low was synonymous with laying down and taking it, not fighting back.
“I just think you’re fighting two battles when we should only be fighting one,” Mike said. “Focus on killing Vecna–”
“Are you seriously implying I don’t care about that right now?” He turned on them, Lucas almost tripping over himself as he came to a stop. Will winced.
Out of all of them, Dustin was a top contender for wanting that bastard dead. He was hungry, feeding on the possibility of revenge. It was a molten, burning feeling inside of him that spread through his entire being. Grief and rage leaked from every pore. The others felt it.
“That’s not what he meant,” Will said, placating.
“No, I think it is.” Dustin fixed his eyes on Mike, the itch to take his anger out flaring again. Violence through words would work just as well as action. “You want me to just stand by and take it? What happened to standing up for ourselves? To embrace being a part of the freak show?”
Mike’s eyes grew dark, mouth set in a frown. “I’m not saying that.”
Dustin let out an exasperated breath. “It’s exactly what you’re saying. You’ve been a bystander before, and you’ve seen how that works out.”
A memory flashed in his mind, not his own, but a retelling of one. Will sat on the couch, Dustin on the floor. He had said Jane wasn’t starting school with them. It wasn’t safe yet, not with all of the missing person posters plastering her face on every telephone pole and in every shop window. Will mentioned that she was glad not to go back to a routine of desks and homework.
She liked the learning part. She’s eerily good at math, you know? But she wasn’t… she didn’t have that many friends. Hawkins wouldn’t treat her any better than Lenora, Will said. He replayed Will’s account of the day Mike landed in California.
“What?” Mike challenged, taking the bait. He always had the shortest fuse.
“Rink-O-Mania,” he said, like that was enough explanation. “You just stood there.”
Despite not having been there, Will painted a good enough picture to play the scene for him in his mind. Dozens of girls skating in a blur of technicolor and sun-bleached hair, surrounding Jane on all sides while she searched through teary eyes for an escape. Powerless, without defense, without Will or Mike coming to her aid, and a thick wave of chocolate milkshake staining her clothes and sticking to her hair.
A moment of silence stretched between them.
Will looked away, eyes downcast. Dustin would apologize for letting it slip later, breaking his promise not to bring it up to both Jane and Mike. Lucas looked between them, confused. Mike's eyes were piercing, bitterness and regret sharp in his gaze. Dustin, leveled him with equal amounts of disdain. How this was the same Mike who shoved Troy to the gymnasium floor, he didn’t understand. Perhaps he was in there, somewhere, but the version of Mike in front of him was detached and he had been for a long time. It wasn’t that he hated Mike for not standing up for Jane, he wasn’t even upset about what he said regarding Andy, not really. He was angry that he was right, that he was doing what they were told—because when had they ever done what they were told?
The bell rang, and Dustin was the one to walk away.
—
Will told them it was just a dizzy spell. He shrugged off Mike’s hand on his shoulder, despite wanting it to stay for just a second longer. They had no time for Will’s selfishness. It seemed, over the last two years, he was constantly stealing more than he should. Concerned glances, reassuring hands, words of comfort, and precious time that he did nothing to deserve being spared. He hadn’t felt Vecna or the Mind Flayer at all since the early days after he returned from California. His mom, Jonathan, Jane, and even Hopper took every shiver as a sign that a fight could be right around the corner.
That was when Jane picked up training. She was stronger now, more so than she had been before. Ever since he was introduced to her, after his possession and another one of her world-saving acts, he hadn’t seen power quite like what she displayed in the summer of ‘85. Then, they were family, and she was… just Jane. California proved to be a challenge for her. As much as Will was adamant about separating her from her abilities, he couldn’t help but think that she wasn’t herself without them.
When they found her in the desert, surrounded by carnage and debris, he felt relieved.
For one, she was finally safe. Their search for her felt like an eternity, a stretch of time kept in the capsule of a van that smelled like sweat, weed, blood, and pepperoni. Seeing her for the first time with a shaved head felt surreal. Jane confessed under the cloak of night that she hated it, having her hair gone, and he did his best to comfort her, telling her that he was happy to have her back, hair or no hair.
For two, he was finally safe. He never said it outright, but Will felt protected in her presence. She was one of the people to save his life time after time. As helpless as he is, Jane makes up for his lack thereof by being double his bravery and resilience. She was a force.
It was what made living with Mike so hard, too. He wasn’t privy to what happened between them in the weeks that followed spring break. Everyone was preoccupied with the cracks in the earth, trying their best to tune out the noise of military trucks and locals claiming a portal to hell opened in Midwest America. The Byers family, like an omen, were a signal to the residents of Hawkins that death would follow them. It was why they still hadn’t managed to move out of the Wheeler’s home. As soon as his mom would inquire about a job application, she was instantaneously turned down. Markets and gas stations alike would claim they couldn’t afford to take on any new hires, a blatant lie considering the workforce was sliced in half thanks to the quarantine. Will knew the truth, that he and his family were physical manifestations of bad fortune. They were cursed.
So, his time living under Mike’s roof was stretched far beyond overstaying their welcome. It meant he noticed the distinct lack of his sister’s presence. She never came over. Granted, it wasn’t safe for her to go many places beyond the cabin, but she could’ve snuck in through the basement. Karen rarely came down, opting to call out for The Party from the top of the stairs, and Ted barely registered when Will was in the room. He doubted Jane would be noticed at all. Still, she never came and Mike really only saw her if there was a crawl or when they went as a pair to watch her train.
Tonight was one of those nights. Will stood outside of the Squawk, Lucas and Mike waiting with him. Their bikes were left to lean against the side of the building. Lucas stared up at the radio tower, blinking every few seconds as the setting sun shone just too bright in his eyes. Mike looked down at his watch.
“Where the hell is he?” He looked at Will, as if he would have an answer as to what was taking Dustin so long to show up.
Will shrugged. He thought that they had let go of the spat they had in the hallway. Well, maybe they hadn’t let it go, but he assumed they had shelved the argument in lew of the Crawl. They had to have clear heads to communicate, especially when the two of them had such crucial parts to play. Mike would be on the radio, counting down the seconds for Hopper to sneak his way onto a truck in time for the burn. Dustin would be in the van, alongside Steve, tracking the former Chief’s movement in the Upside Down.
Dustin wouldn’t miss this, not if he had a choice in the matter. That was the thought that made fear settle on him like a second skin. There was no universe in which Dustin would miss out on a plan he helped devise.
The present trio hadn’t discussed what transpired in the hallway. Will could tell Lucas wanted to ask about it. He didn’t know anything about Rink-O-Mania, or how Jane fared in California. Will tried to be transparent in his own letters, but he didn’t speak too much on his sister’s experience because he figured she was writing Max and Mike enough for word to travel. Apparently, that wasn’t the case. Either she had been lying to everyone in her letters, including Max, or she was honest in her letters to the other girl and Max was a good enough friend to keep it under wraps. He would need to ask later, that was a question for another day.
His train of thought was interrupted by the sound of Hopper’s truck pulling in from the dirt path through the woods. At the bottom of the hill, Jane hopped out from the back and offered up a hand to Max, who still needed some help with mobility.
The doctors who looked after her in the hospital explained that her limbs should make a near-full recovery, but that she wouldn’t be able to be as active as she once was. Max was resentful about the whole thing, so he knew not to bring it up to her. Her vision, on the other hand, was a shaky thing. Her eyes weren’t milky, not the way Lucas once described with soft, mournful tones. She struggled with sight the way one might have if their eyes aged sixty years while the rest of their body remained frozen in time. Floaters in her vision, sensitivity to light, words blurring together on a page, far horizons turned muddy.
Lucas ran to greet them, all but throwing himself at Max as he engulfed her in a hug. It was bewildering, to say the least. Max shoved him off of her, feigning annoyance. Will wasn’t used to them being so affectionate with each other, but near death experiences often lead one to throw caution to the wind.
Mike met Jane halfway, her arms fitting neatly over his shoulders. It’s been longer for them than it has for Lucas and Max, but their embrace was much shorter. She broke away from him, one hand kept on the back of his head like she was taking a moment to savor looking at him. A spark of jealousy burned low, ember-like and fleeting. Jane had her arms around Will next. She was warm, smelling like the woods and that pear-scented shampoo his mom picked out for her. She was dressed like she came straight from training, which was likely the case. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail that allowed strands of grown-out bangs to fall around her face.
Jane smiled at him. Will was tempted to ask her if she was joining Hopper in the Upside Down, but he already knew the answer. Jane was insistent that she was more than capable of being a helping hand in finding Vecna, but Hopper was stubborn. If she couldn’t find him while in the tub, she wouldn’t be of any use on a crawl. Will thought the whole thing was stupid.
Jane looked around them, smile falling away to concern. “Where’s Dustin?”
Mike shook his head. He made no move to answer.
“He’s not here yet. He hasn’t been answering his radio, either,” Will said.
“But he’ll be here?” She asked.
“He better be.” Mike huffed.
After greeting his mom with a hug, Max with a smile, and an awkward nod from Hopper, the group headed inside to where his brother and the rest of them were waiting in the basement.
They covered the plan three times by nightfall. Hopper would be waiting at the Mac-Z, Lucas and Mike would be monitoring from their post, and, as soon as the military burned a hole through the gate, Hopper would jump into the back of a truck. He was going to jump out somewhere along the route, supposedly going to investigate a part of town that Jane muttered wasn’t going to amount to anything. She eventually asked Mike to accompany her on the roof, a rare moment of privacy for them before he’d have to head out on his bike with Lucas. There was still no sign of Dustin.
“If that kid doesn’t get here soon, we’ll need someone to take his place in the van. I can’t go in there without a tracker,” Hopper said.
Will perked up. “I can do it,” he said, eager.
“No,” his mom said, “not happening.”
“Mom, I helped Dustin set up the antenna. I’m the only one who knows how it works.”
“Out of the question, it’s too dangerous,” she turned to Robin. “What about you? You’re kind of tech-y, right? Can you do it?”
Jonathan and Will locked eyes across the room. An understanding passed between them.
Robin tried to explain that she doesn’t understand Dustin, she usually just smiles and nods along to his ideas even if they don’t make very much sense.
“What if I went with him?” Jonathan asked. Silence fell on the room. It was rare for Jonathan to willingly advocate for Will being in the line of danger. “He could sit in the back and mess with the tracker. I can ride up front with Steve.”
Will smiled, grateful. It was one thing for Jonathan to stand up for him, it was another for him to suggest spending time with Steve. Will was never included in the planning, though, and this could be his one shot to prove he can be useful. His presence was handled like something fragile, easily broken. There was a time when Mike and Lucas tried to convince his mom to let him accompany them to the Mac-Z, but they stopped trying somewhere between the tenth and twentieth crawl. It wouldn’t matter, anyway, Will’s mom kept him as far away from anything having to do with the Upside Down as possible. Which was a fruitless effort, he felt as if the place was still embedded in him, too intertwined to tweeze a part.
His mom frowned, shaking her head. Hopper put a hand on her shoulder.
“I need someone monitoring down there. He’s our best bet,” he said, though he didn’t sound pleased with the idea either.
“Fine,” she said, “but if anything happens–”
“I’ll have the radio,” Jonathan said.
His mom nodded, grim. “Okay,” she said, “okay.”
Will didn’t let it show, but he was ecstatic. Finally, he could be a part of one of the plans he’s only ever heard of. His chest felt too tight to contain the feeling inside of him, adrenaline coursing through his veins.
Mike and Jane returned. The former must have put on his jacket when they first went outside.
“Dustin?” Jane asked.
“Still missing. I’m going to do the tracking,” Will said, trying to lace as much reassurance as he could into his voice. Jane hated being stuck at the Squawk just as much as he did. Always kept separate from the danger.
“Wait, what?” Mike shifted on his feet, arms crossed over his chest.
“Since Henderson decided to play hooky, Will’s going to be his stand-in for the night,” Steve said.
Will didn’t miss the look that passed over Mike’s face. As he got older, he got better at schooling his expressions, but the imperceptible changes were never lost on Will. He was too well attuned to everything Mike thought. He wasn’t happy about Will being in the van, either.
Lucas laid a hand on Mike’s shoulder. “We should head out.”
Gaze still set on Will, Mike said, “Yeah. Okay.”
Movement fluttered throughout the room like a domino effect. Nancy and Robin busied themselves with rolling up maps, his mom talked in hushed voices with Hopper, Steve and Jonathan had already disappeared upstairs to set up in the van. Will idled next to Jane, who was sat on top of the table next to the radio they kept at the Squawk to stay in touch with everyone beyond its walls.
“You’re going to be okay here?” He asked.
“Mom’s here,” she said.
“I know, but I feel bad leaving you alone.”
Jane shrugged. “I won’t be. Maybe Dustin will come.”
Will hummed in response.
“Mike said he has been acting different. Moody. I didn’t think it was still that bad.”
Will didn’t know if Mike bothered to mention the fight in the hallway, and he didn’t want to bring up the details if he hadn’t. It was just a bad day, a bad time of year. Dr. Owens mentioned the anniversary effect a handful of times when they had their sessions. Even though Eddie died in the spring, all of the stuff with the Upside Down tended to come into hyperfocus in the fall. Like clockwork, everyone became more irritable as sleepless nights and unwanted memories became their version of normal.
He wanted to ask her what she and Mike talked about on the roof, but kept his mouth shut. It wasn’t his business. If she expressed any doubt about their plans, she could keep it between them. Mike was good at inspiring optimism. If anyone could convince her that everything was going to be okay, it was Mike.
Max came to sit next to them, slotting in next to Jane so that their knees brushed. She bumped their shoulders together.
“I can hang out here. Joyce said she’d get me home after.”
Jane shot her a grateful smile and nodded. Not for the first time, Will thanked the universe for Max.
Once Will climbed into the back of the van, his hands were flying around to slide the headphones over his ears. The headphones, at least, drowned out the sound of Jonathan and Steve bickering in the front. He technically didn’t even have to prepare until they were sure Hopper was heading into the Upside Down, but he needed something to do with his hands. He twisted the dial on the monitor and reached above his head to turn the wheel. It wasn’t a subtle contraption. The reader was more obvious than the Surfer Boy Pizza logo on the side of Argyle’s van. It was like a flashing neon sign that said: ‘Suspicious Civilian Activity Happening Here!’
Steve laughed when he said it out loud, which he counted as a win. They parked half a block down from where they were meant to start following Hopper en-route.
The radio crackled to life when Jonathan pulled the antenna out.
“Four trucks, outer-east gate on main.” Mike's voice was warbled and grainy. They were just within range to keep a signal.
A brief couple of minutes passed where no one spoke. Will had one of the headphones slid to the side so he could listen in.
“Burn commencing in five, four, three, two, and boom.” The words sent a chill down Will’s spine and he habitually reached a hand up to the nape of his neck.
“Trucks moving in.”
Will’s heart pounded.
More minutes passed in which Mike gave Hopper the all-clear. As soon as the trucks were on the move, Will slid the headphones back on all of the way.
“How are we looking back there?” Steve asked.
“Nothing yet,” Will said quietly, “don’t move.”
He twisted the wheel above his head. The numbers began to tick upwards, “I’ve got him.”
“Should I–?”
“No.” Jonathan cut him off.
“I asked your mini-me.” Steve put a hand on the wheel.
The numbers climbed, faster, closer, then— “Drive. Drive, Steve!” He called from the back.
They took off, tires screeching, Will’s body swaying with the movement of the car. They kept a steady signal. The military was moving a little faster than their usual pace, according to his mom, but Steve was making ample time.
Will was doing just fine, really, until the signal weakened, the numbers lowering themselves in short bursts.
“Stop! Stop the car!”
Steve hit the brakes, hard.
“What? What’s happening?” Jonathan twisted around to look at him.
“We’re losing him, I don’t know, it’s like he stopped moving.”
His mom’s panicked voice on the radio was clipped, fragmented. Hopper–a crash.
That was when he felt it. The goosebumps rose on the back of his neck, his breath caught. No, no, no, no, no. A blinding panic stabbed through him and he looked up at Jonathan.
His brother’s concerned gaze was the last thing he saw before his vision blurred and was reassigned to foreign eyes.
—
Everything was going perfectly, until it wasn’t. Lucas had a bad feeling as soon as Will said he’d cover for Dustin in the van. It was after Mike gave Hopper the go-ahead, after he hopped into the back of one of those massive military trucks, after he made it a couple miles through the Upside Down, that the others lost track of him. Over the radio, it was pure chaos. Voices were cutting in and out, crackling, screaming. One second, Will was heard narrating his turn of the wheel—saying something about losing the signal. The next, he heard Jonathan shouting and an abrupt, deafening silence.
Mike went pale, eyes locking with Lucas’s own. A drenching, cold fear washed over him.
His legs burned. He was pedaling too fast for his muscles to keep up. Mike was to his left, panting hard with sweat shining on his forehead as they passed under street lights. In a panicked, rushed explanation, Jonathan told them to meet Nancy at the Wheeler’s house.
His mind kept snagging on what Jonathan said. Will had another episode. They lost Hopper. A demogorgon was heading toward Maple. Will saw through it.
Lucas didn’t know what to make of that. The implication of it is almost like what happened in ‘84, when the Mind Flayer was using Will to spy on them. Except, the roles were reversed this time around. Will was spying back, unwillingly, sure, but he saw through the eyes of the demogorgon long enough to know where it was heading.
Lucas heard the sirens before he could see the lights flashing.
“Oh God,” he said.
Nancy was there, talking to the police with shaking hands.
A few cops shouted at them, telling them they couldn’t be there, but Mike shut them down.
“That’s my house!” He dropped his bike in the grass and bolted toward Nancy. Lucas followed as if on autopilot.
There was so much blood, soaking her clothes from her collar to her knee. He could smell it on her and it made nausea bubble in his stomach. Lucas forced back a gag, there was no way he was going to puke.
The drive to the hospital was quiet at first. One of the policemen offered them a ride, but Nancy was quick to decline. Her hands gripped the steering wheel so hard her knuckles were white.
“So, what, Holly is just in the Upside Down now?” Mike asked, voice irate and urgent.
“By the time we got there, the gate was closed. Jane couldn’t– We weren’t fast enough. She took off into the woods. She’s waiting for Jonathan to pick her up there before they head back to the Squawk.”
“You just left her there?” Mike all but shouted.
“It’s not like I had a choice! I called 911. The place was going to be swarmed with cops and she wasn’t going to wait around for them to recognize her. She’s going to be fine. She’s smart.”
Mike looked like he was about to argue, but Lucas beat him to it, leaning forward from the back seat. “She’s right, man. Maybe when she gets to Will they can figure out where the demogorgon took Holly. They have a sixth sense for that stuff.”
Lucas wasn’t eager to be back inside the hospital, but he couldn’t back out now. Nancy and Mike were on their feet and running. Their shoes smacked against the linoleum floors. A nurse's hands caught their arms before they could even make it through the doors to the surgical unit. They weren’t allowed in, of course they weren’t, their parents were in surgery and they were guided to the waiting room. Mike sat with his hands folded, elbows on the arm rests, his eyes blank and expression wiped clean. He had a cup of coffee on the table next to him, resting on top of a stack of old newspapers and magazines.
Lucas’s leg bounced as he watched Nancy pace in front of them.
“Doesn’t Robin know someone who works here? Maybe she could—”
“It wouldn’t matter. Vickie wouldn’t have any more access than we would. I just wish they’d say something,” she said. “I knew we should have told them. I knew this was going to happen. Vecna showed me and I could have gotten them out of Hawkins if I told them the truth. I should have planned for this. After everything that happened last year, I don’t know why I assumed Vecna wouldn’t act on his promise. Mike, are you even listening?”
Mike shuddered, his eyes flitting between Lucas and Nancy like he had been shaken awake. “What?”
She rolled her eyes. “God, this is so– This is our fault. Don’t you get that? If we had told them–”
“Told them what? It wouldn’t have made a difference. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would the demogorgon go after Holly?” He looked up at Nancy with a helplessness Lucas saw in his own reflection back when Max was still in her coma.
“It’s Vecna messing with us, with me. He showed me this before. Mom, dad, Holly, you, dead. He’s targeting us again, only this time he doesn’t have a purpose. He’s torturing us.”
“I don’t think it’s for no reason,” Lucas said, voice hoarse from lack of use.
Nancy turned to him.
“Do you know what day it is? November sixth is only a couple of days away. The same night—”
“Will went missing,” Mike said. He was peering down at his shoes, eyes reverting back to the thousand-mile stare for a moment before he lifted his head again.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t believe in coincidences, not anymore.”
“But what would that mean? What would he need Holly for?” Nancy asked.
“I don’t know. Why did he need Will the first time around? We assumed that it was random, but what if it wasn’t?” Lucas sat up straighter. “When your friend, Barb, was dragged down there, I think that was just her being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe it was still too early, Vecna might not have had total control and all of his power concentrated on bringing Will down there alive. He survived for a week down there. You and Steve and the others barely lasted an hour.”
Nancy opened and closed her mouth. “Then, that would mean he intentionally kept Will alive.”
“Will barely remembers what happened down there. When Mrs. Byers and Hopper found him, he wasn’t even conscious. He should have died down there.” Lucas looked to Mike, who was zoned out again, lost in thought. “He survived. I think he was always meant to.”
“Miss Wheeler?” A nurse stood in the door frame, a clipboard tucked in the crook of her elbow.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
Lucas felt his heart drop through the floor.
—
Jane sat with her head on Will’s shoulder. He was pulling his sleeves so that they covered the heel of his palm. She put a hand over his to get him to stop fidgeting. Their mom was still trying to get the radio to work, talking into it as if she could draw Hop’s voice out of it. She blinked away the mist in her eyes at the thought of him. Lost. Not gone, but somewhere they can’t reach.
Jonathan left to call the hospital, to see if he could get a hold of Nancy. Steve must have been halfway to Max’s trailer, offering to take her home with Robin in tow. She shut her eyes and opened them just as fast. The sight of Karen, throat slashed and chest torn open, blood pooling around her and sticking to Jane’s shoes, was a haunting memory that was filed in among all of the other carnage in her head.
She wondered if Karen would make it to the hospital. Jane didn’t stick around to see the ambulance arrive at the house. Nancy yelled at her to run for the woods, she waited for Jonathan there with a radio in hand. When she climbed in the back, Will was already sitting up against the side with red-rimmed eyes.
He was terrified, exhausted. Jane explained how the gate closed too fast. By the time she got there, it was nothing more than a glowing seam in the wall. She could’ve tried tearing it open, but the gates worked differently now. They appear and disappear at random, with only the tears in the ground being a permanent window into the Upside Down.
“You said you saw through its eyes,” she said, quiet. It wasn’t a question. Will wouldn’t make something like that up, and it wasn’t like before when the Mind Flayer took over his body. He was still Will.
She didn’t need to look up. He nodded. “It was like… like I could feel what it was feeling, too. I felt angry.”
Jane sat up at that. “Not like the now-memories?” That’s what he called them.
“Yes and no,” he said. “I felt the Mind Flayer in the now-memories and, when the demo dogs were building the tunnels, I could kind of see where they were going. I didn’t have control then, like I was in the backseat of the hive mind. This time, it was like I was the one going after Mike’s family.”
She pressed her lips together. It was all too confusing. She didn’t understand how his head could be in two places at once, like his brain was split in two and one half was in the van while the other was… in the demogorgon?
Jonathan appeared on the stairs then, face drained of color. “Nancy she– Mike and Lucas are there with her. She said her dad didn’t make it.”
Their mom put a hand to her mouth, putting a pause on trying to reach Hop. Will’s chest stalled and Jane put a hand on his arm. Jonathan stood very still.
“Are the kids okay? We should– I could pick them up? They shouldn’t have to stay the night at the hospital.”
“Their house is destroyed,” Jane said. “The upstairs and the kitchen.”
Will released a shaky breath.
“Nancy’s staying at the hospital until she gets word about their mom. I don’t know if Mike is staying with Lucas, but I think he’ll either end up staying there or going home with him. They said we can meet up here in the morning.”
Jane nodded. That still left them in the dark. She hated when everyone was spread out where she couldn’t see them. It reminded her of California. Being a part left too many of them vulnerable. She thought about Hop, how he was somewhere that was still foreign to all of them. Despite all of their previously successful crawls, their knowledge of the Upside Down was limited.
They discovered they could breathe the air down there. It wasn’t toxic like they originally thought, but it wasn’t easy on the lungs. There was no water down there, but the world was slick with what Jane likened once to spit—which Mike told her was gross. Now, with Will being able to see through the hive mind again, she wondered if it was changing.
Nancy said it was frozen in time, stuck on the night she escaped the lab and Will was taken. She never said it out loud before, but she wondered if she had something to do with its creation. The idea sounded crazy, even to her, even with all of the impossible things they’ve lived through, but if she were to say it, that would make it real. Jane didn’t want to be responsible for it.
It was already her fault that he was taken in the first place.
She didn’t let herself think about it further.
“Home?” She asked.
“You want to go to the cabin?” Her mom asked.
Jane nodded. “I could try to find Hop in the tub.”
Her mom was already shaking her head. “No, not tonight. It’s too dangerous.” She stood from her chair and crossed the room to her. “We’ll try tomorrow, after we’ve come up with a plan.”
Jane let herself be pulled into an embrace. It was something she was still getting used to, being Joyce’s daughter. Sometimes, she felt like an alien in her own skin, like she was living someone else’s life. The feeling reminded her of shopping with Max that summer before everything turned bad. She was trying on clothes, names, and lives trying to find the right one that fit. She was tired of squeezing into places other people chose for her.
She wanted, so badly, to find what was right. When she lost her powers and was just Jane, she didn’t have Mike or Hopper to turn to right away. They left for Lenora and suddenly she was thrust into life as a Byers and even that didn’t feel right. She finally had a proper family, but, without Hop and her friends, it wasn’t complete. Making friends at school was so much harder than she thought. Life without powers was unbearable. She started spinning the lies when it became too real, when the bullying and the grief were too much.
Jane still didn’t understand Dungeons and Dragons, despite the rest of her friends constantly trying to get her into it, but she saw why Mike used it a lot when talking about the real world. It made living easier, to pretend. She hadn’t indulged in make-believe since California. It was why, when the dust settled and she was back in Hawkins, she hadn’t bothered to fix things with Mike. Where they stood with each other was still unclear and, after talking to Max, she agreed that they were broken up unofficially. They hadn’t kissed, Jane didn’t want to, and she spent more time with her family and Max and even Dustin than she did with him now.
Part of her liked it that way, keeping Mike at arm’s length. It was easier to talk to him and tell him the truth when she thought of him as a friend rather than a boyfriend. He seemed to like her more as a friend, too.
She climbed stairs next to Will, whose feet were dragging. “Since Mike’s house is gone, you can sleep in my room,” she said.
“Mike’s house isn’t gone, it's just…” He smiled at her. “Thanks,” he said.
Jane thought it would be like a sleepover, and she wondered if Will would read comics to her like Max did if she asked.
—
Max didn’t dream that often anymore. It probably had something to do with the coma. She blamed most minor inconveniences on everything that happened with Vecna. Since that spring break, she has been handled with children’s gloves. Lucas looks at her like something precious that can be taken away at any moment. Out of everyone, oddly enough, the only person who didn’t treat her differently was Mike.
He still antagonized her, and was even more annoying if that was possible, but he also didn’t tiptoe around her. When she heard on the radio that the demogorgon was headed toward the Wheeler’s, she watched helplessly as Nancy and Jane took off. She wanted this to be over, more than anything. She had a stupid hope that, after she woke up, maybe Vecna was actually dead and that’s why her consciousness decided to slip back into her body. Max should’ve known better. There must be a reason she was allowed to wake up and, that thought, was probably what inspired her dream.
It wasn’t a dream as much as it was a vision happening in sleep, which, yeah, okay, was the exact definition of a dream. She was in the woods, walking toward something–someone? It was unclear, but her feet were fast under her. What started as a brisk walk became a full-blown sprint in a matter of seconds. Leaves crunched under her feet. She wanted to look back, but something in her told her not to. Keep going, don’t turn around, don’t stop.
Her legs were burning and the air was becoming harder to breathe. Small, white flakes like snow were coming down around her. She looked up to the sky, the white sun was slowly being overtaken by a thick black cloud. Her foot snagged on something, a rock or a root, and as she fell forward she saw a flash of the quarry like she was falling off its edge. A scream was trapped in her chest, she braced for impact, but was met with a blanket on the forest floor. She scrambled to sit up, heaving. Fear gripped her as she assessed her surroundings: sticks, four walls, a blanket for a door. The space was barely big enough to fit her.
It was dark, so much darker than it was seconds ago, like it was nighttime. She wanted to peek outside, but she got the feeling she wouldn’t like what she found. Instead, she took a closer look at what ornamented the fort’s walls. A picture, she tore it from the tack that kept it posted to one of the branches, she recognized the faces staring back at her instantly. Lucas’s eyes, Dustin’s toothless grin, Mike’s hands next to Will’s as they cradled a trophy between them.
Max was overwhelmed by an urge to cry.
A sharp, metallic screech sounded somewhere off in the distance. She clamped her hands over her ears, dropping the photo in her lap. Go away, go away, go away.
“Mike! Mom! Mom, where are you?” A voice called out.
Will, Max thought instinctually.
She almost lost her footing with how fast she tore the blanket from the fort’s entrance. Except, when she looked out, she wasn’t in the woods anymore. The church, she recognized. She hadn’t been there since Billy died. Max stood up and turned around, the fort was gone. It was as if she teleported, but dreams didn’t care about continuity.
Tentative, she walked toward the altar. The pews, floor, and walls were covered in vines and the same spore-snowflakes hovered in the air. She was in the Upside Down. Whatever she thought it would look like, this was leagues scarier. The wood under her feet creaked.
The candlesticks still stood proud on either side of the altar. She hated churches, but she especially hated them in subterranean dimensions where light was already scarce.
Max stopped about six feet from the altar. The vines that covered it pulsed, like they were alive. As tempted as she was to reach out and touch, they would wake up the hive mind and she had no interest in summoning a dozen demodogs her way. Almost like a switch, she felt a thrum of energy surge around her. Her ears rang, her chest vibrated with a buzzing hum of power.
Light poured in, blinding, from the windows so that the room was awash in color from the stained glass. For a brief moment, it looked beautiful. Then it became impossibly brighter and the piercing, shrill screeches of the Upside Down surrounded her.