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The wind howled outside the cracked windows of Hopper’s cabin, scraping branches clawing at the walls like they wanted in. Smoke drifted from the fireplace, but the warmth barely touched the cold settling into their bones. The air smelled like damp earth, blood, and rot. A Demogorgon had been spotted not far from here two days ago. No one said it out loud, but they all knew—it would come back. They always came back.
Inside, it was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that clung to the ribs.
Will stared at the scattered scraps of old board games and broken dice on the wooden table between them. Mike sat hunched in a corner of the couch, eyes flicking toward the boarded-up windows. Lucas and Dustin argued over something half-heartedly about ammo. Max was lying on the floor, legs up the armrest, chewing her gum like it was the only thing keeping her sane.
They were alive, yes. But none of them felt like them anymore. It had been 27 hours since Holly Wheeler was last seen, and Will watched as that feeling ate Mike from the inside.
"It's gonna be okay, Mike. El and Hopper are going to find her."
Will cleared his throat softly. No one looked up. He tried again, louder this time. “We should do something. As a group, I mean. Like… I dunno, hang out? Or—just something. Like the old days.”
That got them. Lucas blinked. Max glanced over. Even Mike’s gaze flicked toward him, slow and unreadable.
Dustin, bless his heart, smiled faintly. “You wanna play D&D?”
Will hesitated. “Doesn’t have to be D&D. I just thought… it’s been a while since we did anything together. As the Party.”
The word hung in the air like smoke. The Party. It meant something, once.
Max sat up slowly, her gum forgotten. “You didn’t tell him?”
Mike stiffened.
Lucas frowned. “Wait—are you serious? Mike, you didn’t tell him?”
Will blinked, confusion tightening in his chest. “Tell me what?”
The silence now was sharp. Mike looked away, his shoulders taut.
Dustin rubbed the back of his neck. “We, uh… we joined another Party called Hellfire. After you—after you left Hawkins. We kinda… got recruited.”
Hellfire?
The name punched through “Oh.”
That was all he said.
Not why didn’t you tell me?
Not how could you?
Not even when?
Will didn’t let his smile falter. He didn’t cry or break or slam the table like his chest wasn’t splintering right then and there, a slow, silent fracture down the center of his ribs. He just leaned back slightly, nodding like the news made perfect sense. Like it didn’t sting. Like it didn’t mean the world had moved on without him.
Again.
It was fine, he was used to this, atleast he had to be by now. It should have gotten drilled into his head that no, no one fucking cares about him. A summer of getting ignored, a year in California without a call or letter for months should have been enough for him to understand that.
So he smiled, melancholy and empty.
---
The rain was soft at first. Barely more than mist weaving through the trees outside Hopper’s cabin, brushing against the wooden windows like a secret. Will sat on the edge of the couch, the same one they’d all piled onto in better days, before the party stopped being his.
The quiet had teeth tonight.
His fingers hovered over the cracked spine of his old D&D binder—empty now. He’d given the minis to Erica, the dice to Dustin, the campaign notes to Lucas. What was the point? The party didn’t even exist anymore. Not his party.
He wasn’t even mad. Just… hollow.
They’d joined Hellfire.
Without telling him.
And it wasn’t just that they’d moved on. It was that they hadn’t even looked back. Mike hadn't said a word. Not even after Will had tried so many times—“We could play this weekend. I even wrote a new one-shot.”
Ignored.
Forgotten.
He sat on the floor now, knees pulled up to his chest, staring at the pocketknife he'd forgotten was still in the drawer of Hopper’s old desk. A gift from a survival training run. Meant to protect. Sharp, clean, too easy.
He traced the blade over his wrist, against the blue and green peaking out under pale skin.
His breath hitched.
He didn’t mean to go deep.
Just enough.
The blood started slow, blooming over pale skin like a flower unfolding in time lapse. His head felt lighter. Chest looser. And for a second, it was quiet. Like radio static.
His head tipped against the wall, tears streaming down his cheeks. Not from the pain but the loneliness he felt in his heart from years. Everything was quiet until he heard faint tapping on the wall behind him.
The wall didn’t creak or splinter—it exploded.
Shards of rotted wood and mud-caked insulation tore through the cabin like shrapnel. Will barely had time to throw himself backward, dragging his bleeding arm against the floor as a shape forced its way through the wreckage.
Eight feet tall. Hunched and twitching. Flesh pulled taut over bone like it had been flayed and reassembled. The demogorgon snarled as it stepped into the room, its head peeling open like a diseased flower, rows of teeth glistening, sniffing the air.
Sniffing him.
The scent of blood.
Will’s blood.
His stomach twisted. He couldn’t even scream.
The thing lunged.
He scrambled back, vision blurring, the floor tilting beneath him. Rain slammed into the open wall, wind screaming in through the trees. The demogorgon tore through the sofa like paper, claws slashing where his face had just been.
He didn’t run.
He should’ve. Every instinct screamed at him to move, to hide, to fight. But all Will could do was sit there—blood dripping steadily from the razor-thin slice across his arm, pooling beside him on the rotted wood of Hopper’s cabin floor.
He stared at it. Red. Bright. Vivid against the grey outside. The storm raged louder now, slamming against the windows in wind-snarled fury. He could barely feel the sting anymore. Just… emptiness. Heaviness. Silence inside his head.
It had been stupid. He didn’t even want to die, not really. He just wanted it to stop. The loneliness. The ache. The way everyone moved on like he hadn’t been begging—quietly, constantly—for someone to remember him.
The demogorgon stepped into the cabin, dragging filth and decay with it. Taller than the doorway it shattered. Bones cracking with every jerking motion. Its petaled head unfurled with a slick, wet snap, and it inhaled. That terrible wheezing, rattling noise that meant it had scented blood.
His blood.
And Will just sat there.
Frozen. Resigned. Too tired to be afraid.
It stalked toward him, slowly, cautiously—as if it didn’t understand why the prey wasn’t running. It let out a low growl and lunged.
Will didn’t move.
He let it.
The claws hit his chest hard—enough to throw him back against the wall. Air knocked out of him. The pain was real now, electric. He gasped—but not out of terror. Just instinct. The thing screeched, pinning him with its arm, talons slicing into his ribs.
His heart pounded. Every part of him screamed run, fight, live. But his heart didn’t listen.
It reared back, ready to strike.
BANG!
The gunshot shattered the air like thunder.
"Go to hell, you son of bitch!" A familiar voice cursing pierced through the air.
The demogorgon screamed, shrieked, a horrible, high-pitched screech as the bullet slammed into its shoulder. It staggered. Will slumped forward, gasping, blood blooming across his shirt.
Another shot. Bang.
And then someone was dragging him back, hands under his arms, cursing—
“Jesus Christ, Will, what the fuck—”
Mike Wheeler.
His voice was cracking, frantic. Another gunshot rang out, and the demogorgon reeled, wounded but not dead. Mike cursed under his breath, pulling Will toward the door.
“Come on—get up—Will, please—”
Will couldn’t. He tried. His legs folded. Everything was wet and red and spinning.
Mike fired again, fingers frantically slamming against the trigger. The thing snarled. Then, like a beast out for revenge—it charged.
Mike didn’t think, just grabbed Will's wrist, tugging him upright, throwing his arm over his own shoulder and kicked the door open, to run.
Half-dragging, half-carrying Will, Mike threw open the door and staggered out into the storm with him. They tore through the trees, rain blinding, thunder roaring overhead. The creature’s roars echoed behind them.
CRASH.
Lightning split the sky, white fire lancing across the trees, turning them into towering skeletons. Rain hammered the forest in sheets. The air was thick, electric, heavy with rot and death.
Will could barely see.
Mike’s arm was tight around his ribs, dragging him through mud and leaves and bramble, his breath ragged, slipping into panic with every stumbling step.
The demogorgon wasn’t alone.
Its pets had come.
Black shapes slithered out of the trees—flesh-winged, red-eyed, teeth bared. Bats. Shadowy, flapping, vicious.
Another one dove. Mike yanked Will down just in time, and the thing screeched overhead, claws slashing through empty air. Will gasped, adrenaline surging, skin cold from blood and stormwater.
Mike fired, a bat dropped from the sky, twitching in the dirt. Another came. Then another.
“Shit—shit, shit—”
A wing clipped Mike’s face.
He spun—gun out—but it was too fast. One of the bats sank its teeth into his shoulder.
Mike screamed.
The gun went off, exploding into the trees. Will scrambled to help—slipping, half-drenched in blood and rain—before slapping the bat off of Mike’s back with shaking hands.
It hissed, spiraled away, wings beating like drums in the storm.
Mike staggered, clutching his shoulder. Blood bloomed beneath his fingers. Will caught him—barely.
“You’re bleeding,” Will said, voice cracking.
“No shit,” Mike breathed, white-faced, eyes glassy with pain. “So are you.” His hand found Will's cheek as he wiped a small drip of blood from the cut on Will's cheekbone.
A branch cracked, a screech echoed. They both startled, grabbing eachothers hand on instinct. The demogorgon snarled, its grotesque head blooming like a macabre twisted version of a flower bloom.
They ran.
Together this time, stumbling through tree roots and fallen branches, crashing through the underbrush. Mike hissed with every step, the bite slowing him down, his steps staggering.
Will held onto Mike's hand, their fingers laced together so tight, their knuckles ached.
A branch scraped across his cheek. His vision blurred. The migraine was coming, deep and pulsing behind his eyes, warping the trees, curling the edges of reality into something dark and impossible. The Mind Flayer was close. Watching. Crawling through the static in his skull.
But he couldn’t stop.
Couldn’t die.
Not now.
Rising from the mist and storm like some cursed sanctuary:
The church.
Dilapidated. Crumbling. Towering like a corpse of faith.
Mike didn’t hesitate.
He kicked the half-rotted door open with a boom, grabbed Will’s hand, and hauled him inside.
The bats screeched just behind them, razor wings slamming into the wooden frame as Mike threw the doors shut and locked them with a rusted iron bolt that groaned under the force.
Silence.
Except for the rain.
Except for Mike’s breathing—short and shallow—and Will’s heart, hammering like it wanted out of his chest.
The pews loomed. The stained glass was shattered. The altar was empty. And above them, the crucifix hung crooked, one arm cracked clean off.
Mike turned to Will, soaked in blood and water, bite wound leaking down his shirt. He looked at him, terrified.
“What the fuck just happened.”
Will sighed.
He was hunched against the wall, breathing like he couldn’t get enough air, water dripping from his hair, shirt clinging to his chest. Mike was kneeling in front of him, his flashlight flickering low on the floor, painting their faces in flashes of white-blue.
“Let me see,” Mike said hoarsely.
Will blinked. “What?”
“Your wrist.”
“I’m—fine,” Will lied, hiding his arm behind his back like a child caught with candy. “It’s just a scratch.”
“Bullshit.” Mike’s voice cracked, something sharp slicing through the panic. “Will, you’re bleeding like crazy, just show me—”
“No, it’s not—” Will tried to pull back, but Mike already had his arm.
And he saw it.
The ragged cut.
Long. Deep. Too clean to be the demogorgon’s claws.
Mike stared at it for a second too long.
His jaw twitched.
Then—quietly—“That wasn’t from the thing. Was it.”
Will’s lips parted, words clawing up the back of his throat, dying in the silence.
He couldn’t look at him.
“It was an accident,” Will said finally, voice barely audible. “I—I fell, I had a knife for protection and I—I panicked.”
Mike said nothing.
He didn’t let go.
Will shifted, pulling his wrist back. “I said I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” Mike snapped, but softer this time. Not angry. Not yet. Just, confused. Cracking. “Jesus, Will, if I hadn’t shown up—”
“I didn’t know it would attract them!” Will said, suddenly too loud, too brittle. “I wasn’t trying to—I didn’t mean—” He stopped. His voice broke. “I’m sorry."
Silence again.
Rain pounded the roof like war drums. Something creaked overhead.
Will?" Mike grabbed at his shoulder, his eyes flicking to the bleeding cut on Will's wrist.
“Okay. Okay okay. I—uh—don’t have, like, a first aid kit, but I’ve got… this.”
He grabbed the hem of his shirt, muttered, “Sorry, I actually liked this one,” and tore the sleeve clean off with his teeth and some aggressive flailing.
Will blinked. “That was your nerdy dinosaur shirt.”
“I know,” Mike said mournfully, “we’re both grieving right now.”
He knelt down in front of Will, wincing at his own leg wound, and started wrapping the makeshift bandage around Will’s wrist with alarming gentleness for someone who regularly fought interdimensional creatures with baseball bats and sarcasm.
“This is probably gonna suck,” he said, then paused. “You okay?”
Will gave him a look. “We just ran from a demogorgon, I’m bleeding out in a church, and my head feels like Vecna’s DJing in my brain. But yeah. Totally fine.”
Mike grinned—because that’s what they did.
They joked until the monsters went away.
But then.
As he tied the knot tight, his fingers stilled.
Will wasn’t looking at him. He was staring at the altar, his eyes glassy, like the stained-glass saints were about to start judging them.
Mike looked up—and froze.
Will’s face was scratched, dirt-smudged, tired. But his lips were parted slightly, breath shallow. So close. Too close.
Mike’s eyes flicked to his parted lips. God, Will has to be the only person to look ethereal after being chased down the murky woods by demogorgon. His eyes were that shade of golden with distinct rays of blue, lighter more yellowish gold and green, shining under the moonlight peering through the blue and yellow stained glass windows.
Will's skin was pale, paler than usual compared to his tan, sun-kissed skin littered with exactly twenty three freckles splattered across his face alongside the dark brown moles he had under his jaw and on the side of his mouth.
Why did Mike know that? Because he's liked Will for an embarrassingly long time, probably before he even understood what love meant in the context of dedication and romance. But it was an abomination, all of whatever was going on in his head was all an abomination, at least that's what he was told his entire life.
His eyes flicked back to Will's lips, and he remembered how much he missed Will's smile, that stupidly attractive lopsided grin. But more than that he misses Will's full smile, the one left after he laughed until his breath ran out. It's been ages since he saw or heard that. But then Mike realised, his eyes were still on Will's lips.
He looked away like he’d touched a stove.
Will blinked at him. “You okay?”
"Y-Yeah," Mike said awkwardly, eyes flicking back to Will's lips like his gaze was magnetized, and then to the altar a few feet away. It felt condemning, having the Lord's gaze on him while he had blasphemic thoughts in his head. They weren’t impure, they were devoting, like how love was supposed to be. Yet this love, was a sin.
"You sure?"
“Yeah,” Mike said, too fast, suddenly very invested in tightening the knot on Will’s arm like it was going to win him a Boy Scout badge. “Fine. Totally fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Mike exhaled hard and sat back on his heels, pressing the heel of his palm to his own bite wound. “Fuck. Okay. We’re—we’re gonna figure this out, alright? We need to call someone. Lucas. Dustin.”
Will nodded faintly, guilt painted across his face like shadow.
Mike reached into his soaked backpack and pulled out the walkie. Static greeted him. He turned the dial. “Come on… come on…”
He pressed the button. “Lucas? Dustin? Can anyone hear me?”
“Mike?” Dustin’s voice, crackling and far-off. “Holy shit, are you okay?”
“We’re alive,” Mike said, eyes still on Will. “We’re in the old church near East Creek. There’s a demogorgon. At least one. We were attacked.”
“Are you kidding me right now?!”
“Not even a little bit,” Mike said grimly. “Will’s hurt. I’m—kinda hurt. We need backup. Or a plan. Something.”
“Stay put,” Lucas cut in. “We’re coming.”
“Don’t rush. It’s bad out here. Real bad. Bring weapons. Tell Max, tell everybody. This thing’s loose.”
He clicked the walkie off and let his hand fall.
Then he looked at Will again, eyes tender and soft with concern, need and something else he didn’t dare even think.
"I can't believe Holls is out there while this–this thing is loose." Mike's voice faltered. "I'm s-sorry, Mike." Will hesitatantly placed a hand over Mike's shoulder, grip shaking like it was something wrong and forbidden. Mike gave him a pitiful half smile and placed a hand over Will's, "It's not your fault, Will."
The walkie talkie began buffering. "Shit–uh wait here, I'll try to get a signal." Mike said, standing up, grabbing the walkie talkie and the gun and trying to catch a signal by leaving through the church's back entrance, leaving Will all alone with his damning thoughts
Somewhere above the altar, cracked and crumbling, Will saw it.
The grandfather clock.
In the wall.
But not really.
Like it was layered between dimensions, half-buried in reality, its pendulum swinging through the ruined bricks like a heartbeat made of time. Vines crawling at the edges.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
But the pressure builds.
Like storm clouds behind his eyes, crashing louder with every breath. The pain rips through his skull like searing hot iron along with the burning ache of having your head slammed against a wall over and over until it finally snapped.
His head snaps forward, hand flying up to cradle the side of his head, a hoarse sound tearing out of his throat.
Will hunches over, breathing sharp. His pulse slams in his ears. Lights, colors, something wrong curls at the corners of his vision like ink in water.
He can barely see. The pain is volcanic now, erupting through his skull, bleeding behind his eyes. His fingers dig into his hair like he can pull it out, pull the pain out, pull the rot out, pull Vecna out.
And then, like a cold claw across his spine, he hears it.
The ticking.
He flinches.
No.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The church was cold even though it shouldn’t have been. The air hung heavy, too still. Stained glass fractured the gray light into pale red and blue bruises along the wooden pews. Will sat hunched beneath the altar’s shadow, arms curled around his knees like he could fold himself smaller, vanish into the gaps between stone and silence.
Mike had left five minutes ago. Maybe ten. Maybe twenty. Will couldn’t remember. Time had started to slip — like it had when he was little, when the dark world crawled in behind his eyes and didn’t let go.
Demogorgons roamed outside. He could hear them — wet snarls, claws against concrete, that sick slap of something not quite alive. Mike had said he’d be back. Said he’d try the walkie outside, that maybe Dustin would pick up, maybe Hopper, maybe anyone.
But Will couldn’t stop shaking. Not from the cold. Not from fear, either. It was something deeper — a rusted metal in his lungs, a quiet ringing in his ears, like a scream held back for too long.
He pressed his fingers to his temples. His skull throbbed.
“It should’ve been me.”
The words left before he could stop them. A whisper, meant for no one. The thought crept into his head like slow poison, that maybe, just maybe if he had died in that damned world, the gates would have been shut and everyone could live their fucking lives in peace.
He remembered Holly's laughter from two days ago. The way she ran up to him with a drawing — the two of them as superheroes. She had given him a painting and called him Brave Boy. Not Zombie boy. Not the boy who came back from the dead. Not the boy who lived.
Brave.
God, what a lie.
A dry sob caught in his throat. He bit it back, because crying wouldn’t help and screaming wouldn’t change a thing. Mike wasn't here to pull him back this time. No one was. Just the shadows stretching long, and the echo of his own breath hitching.
That hum.
Low. Familiar. Like static just before a storm.
Vecna didn’t need to speak aloud anymore. Not to him. Not since the shadows etched themselves into the nerves on the back of his head.
“You remember what it felt like. Don’t you, Will? You were mine once. You still are. You’ve just forgotten the sound of my voice.”
Will squeezed his eyes shut. No. No. No.
But images crawled in anyway — Joyce screaming his name, Jonathan cradling his unconscious body, the Upside Down blooming open like a rotted wound.
He tasted metal. He tasted fear.
“You want her back. I see it. The ache. The guilt. The need.”
Something cracked. Maybe it was the altar behind him. Maybe it was his chest.
"You took her?!" Will raised his voice to the darkness as he stood up, despite the growing ache in his head and the ringing in his ears. "She belongs here." Vecna's voice boomed, not echoing off walls but the crevices of Will's mind.
"NO! No–no, no–" Will could not stand the thought of another child go through what he did.
Holly. Holly was just eight. Soft-voiced and flower-bright, the kind of kid who believed in stars and bedtime stories. And now Vecna had her.
And Will knew — he knew what came next. The running, the blood, that dark dark place. The way your mind twisted until you didn’t know which memories were real and which ones he had poisoned. He didn’t want another kid to go through what he did. Nobody deserved that except him
He looked up. "Please." His voice broke, "S-She's just a child."
"Oh, but William. A final sacrifice must be made."
Will's breath hitched, a thought gnawed at his head. “If I offer myself instead,” he whispered, voice barely audible. “If I take her place… will you let her go?”
A pause. A long, deliberate silence.
“Willing sacrifice. So poetic.”
“Don't taunt me.”
His hands trembled.
“She’s innocent. She’s… she’s a child.”
“And so were you.”
"Shut up!" Will stood up, walking towards the altar where he could practically feel Vecna's presence under his skin.
He blinked, and the world tilted. For a moment, he swore the walls were bleeding. The crucifix overhead flickered like it couldn’t decide whether to watch or turn away.
Will swallowed hard. He couldn’t cry now. He couldn’t even breathe.
Mike didn’t love him. Not really. Not the way he wanted.
This was the only thing he could give. The only thing he could control.
His voice broke as he said it. “Take me instead.”
And behind his eyes, the world began to split open again.
The clock. His breath catches. The walls seem to ripple. The pain tore through his senses as Will slumps forward again, clutching his temples.
He almost loses balance as he grabs at one of the pews. "Will, I finally got some fucking signal, Dustin and Lucas are on their way here–" Mike said as he entered the church with the walkie talkie in his hands, rambling with a stupid smile like he always did.
But all Will could hear was the ringing in his ears. Mike's smile dropped as he saw Will standing there, weak and dazed, gripping at one of the pews. His face pale, eyes bloodshot, breath uneven and short like air was scarce. "Hey, you okay?" Mike asked. Will didn’t respond.
“Will?”
His eyes fluttered. His breath came fast and shallow. A sharp pang of pain exploded through the nerves on the back of his head feeling like they were on fire, his blood feeling too hot.
SNAP!
The veins on the back of his head slashed through, almost like they exploded, blood tainting the back of his neck. His breath came to a halt as Will drops to the floor. "
WILL!" Mike screamed. He lowered him to the floor, cradling his head, trying to shake him awake. Will was out cold, lashes dark against too-pale skin, his hand still faintly twitching like he was reaching for something in a dream.
Mike pressed a hand to his chest. Still breathing. Barely. His hand was against the back of his bleeding head and neck, almost like the shadows that haunted him there snapped open all at once.
Blood coated his palm, already darkening at the edges. It was seeping fast, matting Will’s curls, soaking the collar of his shirt and starting to stain the stone floor beneath them.
“No no no no no—Will—”
Mike dropped to his knees, trying to hold him steady, trying to press his hand over the wound like he’d seen Hopper do once on patrol—except this wasn’t a gunshot. This was inside him. Something had ruptured.
He could see it—just barely. A jagged split just below the base of Will’s skull, something that hadn’t been there before, like—
Like something burst its way out.
Mike’s voice broke.
“HELP! SOMEBODY HELP—!”
But the church was empty. Just echoes and holy silence and the weight of Will’s body in his arms, growing heavier by the second.
All of a sudden Will's eyes snapped open, his entire body twitching. The first thing Mike noticed was Will's eyes, the golden hazel hues replaced with a sickeningly pale blue that matched the whites of his eyes. Terror washed over Mike as he realised what was happening.
---
"Will!" His eyes flutter open but there's no Mike, just that twisted nightmare of the actual world. The Upside Down.
He should’ve felt fear. Or fury.
But all he felt was cold.
“Holly?” he called out, voice too small for the vast emptiness around him. His breath misted white. The silence pressed against him like a hand around his throat.
Nothing.
He started walking, boots crunching over dead leaves and vines that pulsed just beneath the surface like veins. Static buzzed faintly in the air, like something was watching. He didn’t look up.
“Holly?!”
A whimper.
Will turned his head so fast his neck cracked.
There—tucked beneath a half-collapsed jungle gym, face pale, eyes wide. Holly.
He ran. “It’s okay, I’m here, I’m gonna get you out, I promise—”
She reached for him.
Their hands almost touched.
And then a vine snapped from the ground like a whip and wrapped itself tight around his ankle, yanking him backwards so hard he hit the ground. The breath flew out of him.
“No—NO!” he screamed, claws of panic tearing into his chest as he dug his nails into the mud. “LET HER GO!”
Another vine. Then another. One around his wrist. One around his throat.
He saw Holly’s mouth open, heard her scream, but her voice was drowned in the hum of Vecna’s mind pressing in—louder, louder, closer.
The world blurred.
Will was dragged back into the dark, spine arching, vines twisting like they were part of him.
And just before the black took him, he heard it.
“I’m not finished with you yet, Will Byers.”
His voice cracked when he felt a vines tighten around his bodt. He shrieked when it dragged across his skin, pain ricocheting through his body.
They slither up the walls like snakes made of rot, then lurch toward Will with a sound like screaming wood and one of them wraps around Will’s throat and yanks.
Will crashes backward, spine hitting the stone with a crack. He doesn’t even flinch. The vines curl tighter, around his legs, wrists, torso, neck, lifting him up, like a grotesque crucifixion.
His heels dangle. His arms are spread. His head lolls back.
And his eyes open
Black.
Everywhere.
The upside-down version of the church. Cold. Moldy. Vines pulsing like veins. The red lightning flaring outside like war drums.
Will stands, shivering, alone.
Then the voice comes.
“I've been waiting for you, William.”
Vecna steps from the shadows, tall and terrible and patient like death. His hand twitches once, and the vines tighten around Will’s throat. "It's time." His voice booms.
Tears stream down Will's cheeks yet his face is mostly apathetic.
"Do it."
The moment the two words left Will's mouth, the vines came to a halt. Vecna tilts his head. “I offered you meaning. Once. You refused.”
Will’s lip trembles. His fists clench. “I just wanted my friends back.”
“You wanted to be seen.” Vecna smiles. “They never saw you. Not as I did.”
Will sways on his feet. The vines in the real world tighten until blood runs down his neck. "J-Just make it quick, I-I don't want to hurt the people I love."
Vecna steps closer. “Let me show you how they loved you.”
And everything collapses. Will's body is thrown against a mound of slick vines, the snake-like beings coiling around his wrists, his neck, his ankles, his torso and tightening around them. Vecna sat on the vines, coiling and connecting to his own like second-skin.
He dragged a claw across Will's forehead, pushing a stray strand of hair while the boy whimpered and sobbed in fear. "This world, it's not for a fag like you, William. The world you cling to like an anchor, it hates you."
"I know." Will sobbed.
"And I'm going to show you, just how unwanted you are."
The nerves on Will's neck and on the back of his head twitched as he felt a dark shadowy presence boom in the sky above them. The Mind Flayer.
The vines tightened their hold, suddenly Will heard his father's voice. "FUCKING FAGGOT!" He growl and the imagery through his senses as he felt glass pierce through his body.
His father had a habit of breaking beer bottles against walls, one time Will took its place. He remembered the feeling of cheap beer glass cutting through the skin of his arm. It hurt like hell for days, but now.
Now, it hurt even more. Because it wasn’t just his arm, he could feel it everywhere. It was like sleeping on a bed of knives while getting stabbed over and over until the skin grew numb. Will tried to scream, but a vines coiled around the sides of his jaw, holding him down as the pain curled through his body.
Vecna continued gently touching Will's face as he writhed in pain, body arching off as he tried to scream, shout, cry, but it was all useless. The pain didn’t stop, continued piercing over and over, there was no blood, just the sensation of his skin ripping.
The pain subsided but never stopped, or maybe Will just grew numb to it. Then he heard thudding, over and over until he saw the demogorgon. Not just any demogorgon, he remembered this one, the one that attacked him that fateful night of 1983.
"Go on," Vecna gestured, the vines loosened around his torso as the demogorgon caged him, its petals of teeth unraveling as it bit down onto Will's chest. A blood curdling scream ripped through Will as the demogorgon began feeding on him, he tried to kick or atleast move away but the vines were too tight.
Blood bloomed across his skin, a large wound over his chest and torso, scratch marks along his arms slashed deep as they dripped slowly. Vecna snapped the demogorgon away, watching as it disintegrated into ash. Will was still panting, blood oozing from his body as he lay there limp. "W-Why are you doing this?" Will asked, voice breaking from pain. He was bleeding profusely, enough to pass out or die but he just didn’t, Vecna was tethering him alive, concious, to feel every ounce of pain.
"Because, dear, William, you're the only thing standing between my world engulfing your own world. I've been trying to get a hold of your soul for years, yet somehow you've always been stronger. Yet the moment your time arrives you surrender like it's nothing, pathetic. I am going to make you feel more pain than your mind can fathom before I take your soul."
"You're going to pay, William."
---
Will’s eyes are open. But they don’t see him. Just that distant glassy nothing, like he’s staring through Mike. Past him. His once golden eyes now a pale white.
“Will!”
He pulls him into his arms without thinking, cradling him against his chest like it’ll fix something, anything. His heart is pounding so hard it hurts—too fast, too loud—and his hands are shaking, and he doesn’t even know where to hold, what to do.
Will’s breathing is short and sharp now, like he’s fighting something inside his own skin. His body jerks once, violently, then goes terrifyingly limp.
“No, no, no—shit—Will, come on!”
Mike buries his face into Will’s shoulder, feels the sweat dampening the collar of his shirt. His voice is raw now. Broken open.
“Please,” he whispers, because that’s all he has left. “Just come back.”
Then the doors slam open.
Rain. Footsteps.
Max is the first blur he sees. She’s soaked, eyes blown wide with alarm, baseball bat still clutched in her hand.
Lucas behind her. Dustin skids in last, slipping slightly on the stone.
They see Will and freeze.
"HOLY SHIT—” Dustin starts.
Mike can’t even look at them. He’s on the floor, holding Will like something precious and shattered. His eyes are bloodshot, tear tracks down his cheeks. His mouth opens but no words come out. His hands are bloody.
Max drops the bat.
“Get the Walkman,” she says, voice sharp and urgent. “It’s Vecna. He’s got him.”
Lucas’s eyes flick to her, terrified. “Wait—but we don't—”
“Music pulls people out,” Max says, already tearing through her bag. “We need his favorite song.”
Mike snaps back to life, like the sentence hits him across the face.
He lifts his head slowly.
“…‘Should I Stay or Should I Go.’”
His voice is barely there. A whisper in the storm. It was the song him and Will played during their playdates to drown out the sound of his parents fighting.
Dustin fumbled for the Walkman, Lucas snapped the tape inside. Everyone was rushing, panicking. But to Mike, the world felt like it had been slowed down. Will was still in his hands, pale eyes lifeless as he twitched and spasmed in Mike's hold. Mike ran his fingers through the back of Will's hair before pressing the Walkman into his ears and switching it on, praying that Will would come out of it alive.
Max’s hands tighten around the handle of the flashlight. Her mouth is dry. There’s music blasting in Will’s ears—loud enough that they can all hear the tinny chorus—but he’s not moving.
Not twitching. Not flinching. Not even a flicker in his face.
And that’s when it hits her.
“…he’s not running.”
Mike blinks. “What?”
Max takes a step forward. “He’s not running. Inside. He’s not fighting it. I can feel it. I know it. When Vecna had me, I—there was this moment. Everything was red and dark and awful, but the music, it opened a door. A way out. You just had to take it. You had to want to come back.”
Her voice is shaking now.
“But he’s not. He’s not coming back.”
Mike’s blood runs cold.
“No, no, no—he’s just—he’s hurt—he’s confused—”
Max cuts him off. “He’s choosing this.”
That hits him like a slap.
The air leaves his lungs.
“No.” His voice is hollow. “No, he wouldn’t—he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t just—”
But he stops. Because something in the back of his brain starts putting it all together. The way Will had been quiet earlier. The weird finality in his voice. The way he’d looked at Mike when he thought no one was watching—like he already knew something he wasn’t saying.
Will’s hand twitches in the dirt.
But it’s not fighting. It’s not reaching for anything.
It’s letting go.
Mike staggers. His hold dropping.
“No. No, he wouldn’t leave me. He wouldn’t just-”
Dustin is frantically turning up the volume. Lucas has tears in his eyes, whispering Will’s name again and again, like it’ll bring him back. But Mike—
Mike is frozen.
His grip drops on Will, fingers tangling in his curls.
“Will,” he whispers, voice breaking. “Please. You don’t have to do this. Please don't do this, I–I can't live without you. I-I don't want to live without you."
No response.
Just the soft hum of music. The stillness of someone slowly fading.
Mike presses his forehead to Will’s.
“I love you, Will."
Silence.
Will doesn’t move.
---
Will hurts.
He can’t scream anymore. His throat’s gone raw from it. His wrists are purple from trying to break the vines holding him up. Every nerve in his body feels like it’s been set on fire and then buried under ice. His head pounds. The back of his skull is a warzone, shattered, bleeding, buzzing with static.
He thinks he might be dying.
Then he hears her.
A sob, high-pitched. Childlike. Familiar.
He cracks open one bloodshot eye and turns his head, sluggishly, just in time to see Vecna dragging Holly Wheeler by the arm.
Her shoes are gone. Her face is scratched. She’s crying his name.
“WILL!”
“No,” Will croaks, choking on it. “No, no—leave her alone—”
Vecna’s smile stretches like torn leather.
“I thought you’d want to see her.”
He throws her down like she’s weightless. She lands hard, sobbing, crawling toward Will.
He thrashes against the vines. “Get away from her! Please—!”
“You offered me your life,” Vecna hums. “I accepted. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have fun in the meantime.”
And then—music.
Somewhere far off. But it hits like a memory. A pulse in the air. A thread of gold in the black rot.
Darling you've got to let me know
The whisper of a smile graces Will's face as he recalls the song, realising it was mostly definitely Mike that chose it. "Idiot." A portal rips open through the fabric of darkness and Will's face drops as he sees it.
Mike is sobbing, tears streaming down his cheeks as he cursed and cried, holding Will's body in his arms. Dustin's rubbing his palm and Lucas is trying to hold his hand but Mike won't let go of him, holding him close enough for their souls to touch like that would stop Will from drifting away.
Will stares up at him from the other side—half-dead, pinned in Vecna’s lair, his blood soaking into the rotting ground.
“Please,” Mike is begging. “Don’t leave me, Will, don’t you dare—”
Max’s voice, faint in the background: “He’s not fighting it. He’s not running.”
And then Mike’s head falls forward, trembling, and he sobs, not caring who’s watching.
“I love you, Will."
Will’s breath catches.
The light reaches out for him. The music warps the air.
“Come back to me,” Mike whispers. “Please.”
Will’s eyes sting worse than any wound. His heart cracks straight down the center.
He finally heard it.
What he’s dreamed of hearing his entire goddamn life.
And it’s too late.
Because right next to him, Holly is crying. A little girl. Terrified. Alone. Just like he was.
"Will, please come back, you can fight this, I know it. I–I can't survive a world without you in it, life–it isn't worth anything if it's not with you. I'd die over and over if it meant spending a second longer with you. I'm begging you, Will, please, don't leave me."
Will sniffled, tears running down his face. "I love you too, Mike. I'm sorry you couldn’t hear it back." He whispered into the light. Will raised his head with the last of his strength before speaking.
“Run, Holly.”
---
"Will?!" Mike tries shaking him up when all of a sudden everything goes still. Joyce and Hopper burst in, dropping to the floor as Joyce staggers at the sight of her possessed son bleeding into Mike's hands.
He collapses over Will’s chest, arms locked around him like chains. His fingers dig into Will’s back so hard they’ll bruise. He’s not letting go. Will gasps, a sharp inhale of air as his entire body spasms before...quiet.
His entire body goes limp and weightless, falling lifeless against Mike's hold. "No–no, no, no! Will! Wake up!" Will's eyes roll back until only the whites of his eyes are visible.
But Mike’s not moving. He’s cradling Will like a lifeline. Like if he loosens his grip, even slightly, Will’s soul will slip through the cracks of this nightmare world.
His body goes stiff, Mike tries shaking him up again, grabbing him, holding him tighter but then his eyes widen with terror. Dark crimson begins to well in Will's eyes.
Blood bloomed across his skin, dripping down his cheeks in scarlet tears of macabre and malevolence. Mike's breath hitched as he gasped in shock, he pulled Will up, hand cradling the back of his head as he pulled the lifeless boy to his chest, blood tainting his shirt but he didn’t care.
“No,” Mike chokes. “No, no, no—Will—Will—”
His lips are at Will’s ear now. Shaking. Bleeding. Barely breathing. “You’re the best thing I ever found in this cursed town.”
His voice is shredded. Broken open.
“The only good thing in this fucked up world. I never deserved you.”
Tears flood down his face. He pulls him closer, forehead to forehead, sobbing now. Whispering over and over, “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
Will’s breath rattled in his chest, every inhale a battle. His eyes fluttered, unfocused, but he clung to the sound of Mike’s voice like it was the last tether keeping him here. Slowly, painfully, he turned his head enough to look at him. For a moment, the chaos blurred away—the fire, the screaming, the world falling apart. There was only Mike.
Will’s body convulses once, then goes still. Red veins spiderweb across his sclera. His lips move. "Mike." It's barely a whisper of a word but it almost rips Mike's heart strings in two.
Will’s eyes slipped shut, his body going slack in Mike’s arms, the breath leaving him in one last fragile sigh. Peace wafted through his face as his eyes fluttered shut, like he was drifting into sleep one last time. He seemed tranquil, it wasn't a surprise, death to him would have just been release from all the horrors and pain he's went through.
Mike broke. His scream tore itself out of his chest, raw and guttural, a sound too ugly to be human. He shook Will, held him tighter, sobbed into his shoulder like if he screamed loud enough, the words would drag him back. “No, no, no—wake up!"
His whole world had collapsed into the limp weight in his arms. Will’s head lolled against his shoulder, his skin gone cold far too fast.
“No,” Mike choked, rocking him, clutching him like a child clings to a broken toy. “He’s still here, he’s—he’s still breathing, he has to be—” His tears smeared into Will’s hair as he shook him, desperate to feel anything but stillness. “Come on, Will, don’t you dare do this to me. Wake up. Please, please, wake up!”
The others shouted in the background, but their voices were muffled noise. Joyce sobbed. Lucas cursed under his breath. But Mike didn’t hear them. There was only Will. Only the silence where his heartbeat should be.
But all that was left was the lifeless body of the boy he loved and blood on his hands along with the aching burning realization that Will, his Will, was gone.
Mike liked to think that it wasn't true, that it was just as real as finding that decoy of Will's body in the lake, the night of 1983. That Will was still there somewhere, that he wasn't just a cold dead thing lying in Mike's arms.
That he would wake up tomorrow and Will would tease him for how ridiculous he looked ugly crying like that, call him an idiot and shove him in the shoulder. That this wasn't the end, just a bad dream he had to snap out of and find Will outside of it.
---
Will blinks.
He wakes up in the dark.
The kind of dark that moves when you breathe. That hums like something alive, just behind the veil.
He’s on his knees, back arched, lungs burning.
The last thing he remembers is Holly—her tiny hand gripping his, the music playing, the light opening like a mouth in the sky. He shoved her toward it.
He chose to stay.
He let go.
So why is he still here?
He's supposed to be dead.
Will screams as black vines erupt from the ground, curling around his wrists and throat. His feet dangle as they drag him upward. The Mind Flayer’s tendrils slither across his face like ice.
They don't just want his pain.
They want everything.
His memories.
His hope.
His last fragments of light.
And it’s working.
He sees his house burning.
He sees the shed where he first hid.
He sees Mike.
Mike holding him. Mike sobbing. Mike whispering—
"You’re the best thing I ever found in this cursed town. The only good thing in this fucked up world."
Will cries harder.
“STOP—STOP IT—" he begs.
Vecna smiles, grotesque snakes of muscles twisting into a sadistic grin. “Why would I stop when you’re finally starting to break?”
There’s a coldness that bleeds through Will’s bones.
Not the cold of snow or wind or even fear—it’s deeper, sharper, older. It crawls beneath his skin like rot, makes his chest cave in like something inside him is giving up, one piece at a time.
He’s suspended mid-air, wrists yanked above his head by ropes of vein-like vine, his feet barely brushing the oozing floor of the Upside Down.
He can feel them both.
Vecna—the parasite, a predator who speaks like cracked mirrors and thinks like burning teeth—and the Mind Flayer, vast and ancient, a presence that hums like the back of his skull is about to burst open.
Will doesn't know how long he’s been here. Minutes? Hours? Years? Time doesn’t tick in the Upside Down. It watches.
“You always belonged to me,” Vecna whispers, his voice right behind Will’s ear, even though his form is still yards away. “Even when you left. Especially when you left.”
The Mind Flayer doesn’t speak with words. It presses. The Mind Flayer twists it all.
Suddenly, Mike’s voice hates him. Suddenly, Joyce blames him. Jonathan abandons him. El dies trying to save him.
Will cries out, choked and panicked, eyes wide, body shaking. “STOP—PLEASE—"
Vecna leans in front of him now. One clawed finger raises Will’s chin.
“You’re breaking,” he says, almost tenderly. “We’ve waited a long time for this. A vessel forged in pain. Do you feel it?”
Will doesn’t answer.
His teeth are clenched so tight they might shatter. His nose is bleeding. There’s something dripping from his ears.
But the worst part isn’t the pain.
It’s that some part of him is starting to believe it.
That maybe they’re right.
That maybe this is all he’s good for.
A sob claws its way up his throat.
But he pushes it down, just like he always did.
---
Mike is gone.
He’s still there, physically—on the floor, curled over Will’s body, arms tight enough to crush lungs, blood smeared on his shirt, Will’s blood, soaking into his hands, into his chest, into his mouth because he won’t stop whispering—
“I'm sorry, Will.”
No gasping breath. No twitching fingers. Just… the slow leak of blood from his eyelids and the back of his head.
And the way Mike screamed when his eyes started bleeding—
He hasn’t stopped since.
Then the door slams open.
Nancy stumbles in. Her face is streaked with ash and dust and tears, and in her arms was Holly, crying and sobbing.
"Holly?!" Mike called out, his hands still over Will's body. "I found her floating in the woods, Vecna got her but then–s-she just snapped back–" Nancy stuttered as she tried to explain the terror she saw.
Mike froze up, his body tensing up as his eyes flicked back to Will's hollow, limp body and soulless still pale eyes, the blood dried over his pale skin.
Mike goes still. Like a thread just snapped loose in his chest. He looks at Will. Pale. Still. Broken. Then at Holly. Alive.
He pieces it together before anyone else does. Will took her place.
“No,” he says, voice cracking. “No. No, no, no, no—”
“He knew,” Mike whispers. “He knew she was taken. That’s why— That’s why he let go—he sacrificed h-himself—”
His voice breaks. A sound comes out of him that shouldn’t exist in someone so young. He presses his forehead to Will’s, eyes wide and wet and wrecked.
“You absolute idiot,” he chokes. “You absolute fucking idiot!" He screamed and sobbed into Will's chest, hand fisting his shirt like it was anchoring him sane.
No one touches them.
Because Mike is holding Will so tightly that it’s like he’s refusing to let the Upside Down take him back. Even as Will’s fingers curl, even as his body hovers for a second like Vecna’s curse wants to pull him, Mike won’t let go.
---
It’s cold.
Colder than the last time.
Will’s skin is blistering from the frost that isn’t frost. It’s inside him—clawing under his ribs, leaking into his blood, blooming across his lungs like black mold.
He knows this cold.
The Mind Flayer.
It slithers behind Vecna like a crowned beast, silent, immense. It doesn't speak, but its presence devours. And Will can feel it—can feel them both—circling around him like wolves around something half-dead.
Vecna steps forward.
“You always were his favorite,” he says, voice like gravel and rot. "P-Please st-stop." Will begged, the shadows creeped through every inch of his body until it didn’t feel like his anymore. It wouldn’t stop. No matter how much he screamed. No matter how much he begged.
“No,” Vecna murmurs, tilting his head. “But you are afraid of what I’ll do to her if you fail to die properly.”
He raises his hand.
Will doesn’t scream as the nerves under his skin ignite. Not again. He refuses.
His legs give out.
And that’s when he feels it.
A pull.
No.
A tether.
Not like a vine, not like the way the Mind Flayer once crawled inside him. This is different. This is warm. This is light. This is— Mike.
Will’s eyes snap open.
He's still in the Upside Down. Still bleeding. Still breaking.
But something is clinging to him. Through the muck and the static and the shadows trying to rip him in two, there’s this golden thread stitched straight into his soul and dragging him up.
Dragging him home.
Mike’s voice is echoing faintly. Muffled. But there.
“I love you—I love you, Will, please, please come back to me—”
Will shakes his head, lips trembling.
“No,” he whispers. “No. Don’t do this.”
The light only burns brighter. The tether tightens.
And Will screams, not from the pain Vecna’s inflicting, but from this—this soul-deep agony of hope when he was ready to die.
“Let me go!” he yells into the void. “You fucking idiot, Micheal, let me GO!”
Vecna watches, eyes narrowing. The Mind Flayer’s tendrils twitch.
And Will screams, not from the pain Vecna’s inflicting, but from this—this soul-deep agony of hope when he was ready to die.
Will sobs, because he knows he’s losing.
Because Mike loves him too much to let go.
And because that means Holly might not make it out next time.
“Why can’t you ever let me save you for once?” Will whispers, tears streaming as Vecna closes in for the kill.
But the light floods in. The gates were getting sealed, the fabric being forced back together, ripping Will away.
The gate is closing. El is forcing it shut.
Will is ripped back into his body like a soul forced back into a coffin.
--
Mike is numb.
The kind of numb that sinks deeper than skin, deeper than grief. He’s shaking, arms locked around Will’s body like he can anchor him down with sheer will alone. The others are yelling, but it’s all muffled—just white noise crashing against the screaming in his head.
Will’s chest isn’t moving.
The blood is drying. His face is too pale.
And Mike... he’s still whispering the same thing, over and over, like maybe if he says it enough, the universe will finally give in.
Will's pulse had long dropped, his heartbeat dead since a while. But Mike still held his cold hand in his, lacing their fingers tight.
“Come back. Come back. Come back to me, please—”
Then—
The twitch.
Will’s fingers twitched around Mike's palm, gently jerking like he was still in a dream. Mike’s breath halts. “I—I think—” he chokes out. “He moved—HE MOVED!”
Hopper immediately moved closer and pressed his thumb firm against Will's wrist, a faint pulsing throbbing. "H-He's alive!"
Hopper is suddenly there, knees slamming into the dirt, hands pressing down hard on Will’s chest.
“One, two, three—BREATHE, dammit, Will—breathe.”
Mike is frozen in place, wide-eyed, face drenched, when Hopper turns sharply toward him. "I'm gonna need you to breathe into his mouth, y'know what mouth to mouth is right?"
"Y-Yeah" Mike panics. “I—No, I—I don’t—shouldn’t you—”
“We don’t have time for your gay crisis, shut up and do it!” Max snaps from somewhere behind him, voice cracked and feral.
Mike doesn’t think after that, he grabs Will by the chin, lips parted, head tilted as he presses their lips together and breathes a hard gasp into his mouth.
Everything was a blur as Mike tried breathing air back into Will's lungs over and over.
Will's eyes snapped open with a gasp, the first thing he registered being Mike, more specifically Mike's lips against his as tears ran down his cheeks, breathing into his mouth.
He jolted up, Mike pulled apart immediately like it burnt. Will coughed, wheezing and choking as he regulated his breathing. Mike's fingers found the back of his head, using some fabric he ripped off his shirt to soak up the blood.
"Hey, take it easy," Mike said, his voice soft and calm like a comforting warmth as he lowered Will back onto the ground so he wouldn’t strain his neck. "Call 911!" Hopper yelled out.
"Hey–hey, sweetie look at me, you're okay," Joyce held his face his her hands, wiping some of the blood on his cheeks away. Will's eyes squinted shut as Mike pressed the cloth into his skin to help with the bleeding.
Mike pressed their foreheads together, hand in Will's hair as he smiled through tears. "You scared the life out of me, Byers." He let out a half chuckle half sob. "Don't ever fucking do that, ever." Mike said, holding the cloth against the back of his neck. Will was silent through it all, his neck still hurting from the pain.
"I love you, Mike."
"I love you too, Will."
Mike pressed a kiss into his hair. Holly walked up to the pair, kneeling down next to Will. "Thank you for saving me, Will." Holly said through tears. "It's alright, Holly, you're safe now–" Will attempted to sit up, almost stumbling over before Mike held him. "Stay down, I'm not letting you get hurt."
"Not again. Never again. Not until my soul leaves my body."
Mike leaned over Will and pressed their lips together in a kiss as the walls began to crumble. Demogorgons chittered, vines creeped through the windows but for now, this was all that mattered. The two of them, finally together, finally one as the world began to fall.