Chapter Text
Homeroom is empty as they all file in: Mike taking a desk in the corner; Will, Dustin, and Lucas not far behind in grabbing the seats around him; Max dragging a chair so she can be close to Lucas; Robin and Steve clucking about something as they hang on the opposite side of the old classroom; Jonathan sparing a glance at Will before he guides Nancy to the front row; Mrs. Byers lingering in the doorway for a few beats; Sheriff Hopper and El the last to enter, passing her up. Mrs. Byers closes the door and stands there, glancing to check on Will. Hopper takes ownership of the teacher’s desk and El stands beside him in the front of the room.
Mike locks eyes with El for a brief second. Her wish for independence—i.e. the end of their relationship—echoes in his mind. El looks away, focusing on her adoptive father.
In the time elapsed to assemble, none of them said a word. They glance at each other uneasily, daring whoever would speak first.
“Okay,” a fidgety Robin says, hovering closer to the front of the room, “so I think we should start coming up with serious actions we can take t-to, y’know,” she grows nervous, “stop the dream-catching.”
Mike furrows his brows at the term. He wouldn’t necessarily call Vecna taking over people’s minds one-by-one and being unable to awaken them dream-catching, but, well…hm. Maybe dream-catching was close enough to describe what’s been happening.
“I know Vecna wants me,” Will says, “so he should have me.”
The words are a gunshot to Mike. A “no” rips out of him with such force that it ricochets across the walls. It’s so instinctual, so habitual that Mike doesn’t spare a second to the heads all turning to him, only on Will’s swiveling expression as he says another “no,” a resounding sonic boom.
Will studies him for a moment, unsurprised by the outburst. It’s like he expects it, and oh, that’s all wrong. All wrong.
Before Mike grows queasy at the ‘Will accepts his own death’ of it all, he fixates on Will’s muted reaction and says clearly, “I’m not letting you sacrifice yourself. No. Never.” Uneasiness coats his stomach, threatening to rise up his throat. He struggles to keep his tone level while maintaining his hard stare. “I never wanna hear that again. Okay?”
White noise fills Mike’s ears as the quiet stretches. Mike does not even blink. Will reads him like a comic book, exhaling, “fine. What do you suggest?”
Mike’s mind grinds to a halt. He wasn’t expecting this, that he’d have to come up with something better, an idea where no one in this room gets hurt.
Whirring, he thinks fast. “Vecna was a human being with weaknesses,” he says, “we just have to find what weakens him.”
A hum fills the atmosphere. Anything that gets them away from Will playing sacrificial lamb is good with Mike.
Will blinks down, breaking their gaze. The spell cast between them dissipates. Tension leaves Mike’s body. He leans back, realizing he’s been coiled up too far forward.
When the tunnel vision widens, Mike surveys the group wearing expressions of various emotions, all directed towards him. A heat creeps in on his neck, which he covers with a head duck and throat clear.
“Okay,” Hopper’s steady voice, a lower volume than usual, has their attention on the front of the room, “we can do something with that. El, anything you can remember about him as number one could be useful.”
El bobs her head. “I will try,” she echoes.
The meeting disperses, Steve saying something about getting back to work before anyone outside of their inner circle notices them gone. El is the first to exit, the others rising and filing out as well.
As Lucas guides Max away and Dustin trails along behind them, casting a curious glance on the way out, Mike notes he and Will remain seated at the desks, vertical to one another.
When they are alone, Will turns around in his chair. His expression is unusually drawn. “You really think El’s gonna remember anything we don’t already know?”
Emotions churning, Mike poses, “what’s the alternative? Watching you die?” He can’t help the choke of pain on that final word. “No.” He shakes his head. Swallowing a lump in his throat and blinking wetness from his eyelids, he mumbles, “it’s not up for discussion.”
The AC unit above them hums laboriously. Mike looks at the scratched wood of the desktop, reigning himself in as best as he can.
Will’s voice unravels, a rolling carpet, “I don’t see a way out of this where no one gets hurt, Mike.”
Mike knows that’s true. But he presses his lips together for a long second, then releases, “you’re not getting hurt again.”
Flashes of Mike’s life back when Will went missing fly by, all of them carrying a bone-deep sadness. Mike doesn’t want to go through that to a worse degree. Mike shifts his focus up to Will, his best friend’s expression conflicted. It means Will is listening, truly listening, and Mike yanks forward the truth shouting from the back of his mind to the forefront of his tongue.
“If Vecna wants to hurt someone,” Mike says, “he can have me.”
And he means it, means it with an earnestness that should shock him but doesn’t. Of course he would do anything to keep Will safe, even throw himself in front of a monster. It’s what best friends do.
Will’s brain short circuits; Mike can pinpoint the exact second it happens. Something inside Will cracks, weakens, because his breath hitches. “Oh,” his eyes fill up fast, too fast with water, “so that’s how it feels.”
A shard of glass pierces into Mike’s chest. Upsetting Will isn’t what he wants. As his mind whirs, trying to formulate platitudes, he comes up empty.
Will blinks and recovers, saying, “okay, fine, I won’t suggest it again. Can we do something else now?”
Mike wants time to unpack Will’s words, but since Will is already so distressed, he chooses the offered distraction. “Okay. How’s your latest campaign coming?”
Will’s face splits into a grin, pride shining in his eyes. “It’s ready. Wanna get the guys?”
Mike nods. Will leaps up from the desk, buzzing with excitement. Casting errant thoughts aside, Mike smiles at Will and follows him out of the room.
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Will sits in the school library by himself. Since not many people came in here, end of the world or no, he spends uninterrupted hours reading books and listening to music. His setup for the day included a library cart with a box of music tapes for his Walkman and several comic series in a stack on the table. He should have no problems zoning out and diving in.
But even though he wants nothing more than to read, his mind wanders to Mike. Ever since news went around about El breaking up with Mike, Will’s been watching Mike closely. Mike isn’t fazed by El’s decision, returning to hanging out with Will and the rest of the party as if nothing changed. While it’s great to have Mike back, Will can’t help but wonder what’s going on inside Mike’s head, especially when it comes to Will himself.
Will isn’t an idiot; he knew he might have to sacrifice himself if they had any chance at stopping Vecna. The only other two members of their party who have such a strong connection with the Upside Down are Max and El. Will would never ask that of the two of them after the tragedy both girls have been through. It’s up to Will to end this, because it began with him being taken.
He just…didn’t expect Mike to react so strongly against the logical conclusion. And sure, they’re best friends—most likely more than that, the back of his mind whispers like a traitor—but he didn’t predict Mike would be so uncompromisingly against the idea. It’s not what Will wants either, but the more time passes without an alternative, the more he realizes he’ll have to be the one to surrender to Vecna.
The double doors to the library fly open with a crack. Will jolts up in his seat, headphones moving down to his neck.
Rounding the shelves is Nancy. “Will!” She rushes to him, out of breath. “It’s Mike! We need his favorite song!”
It takes a second, too long of a second, for Will to process what Nancy said. It hits him like a slap across the face: Vecna has Mike.
And he jumps to his feet, shaking, while Nancy joins him at the box of tapes. Will struggles to think, a hot iron pressing on his skull, bones aflame as he leans over the box and searches, searches, searches for the song. His brain pushes forward the letters he’s looking for, the words of the title and the artist, and he finds the tape label in Mike’s handwriting. Breathing heavily, he paws at the tape and clutches it as if it’ll disappear.
“Come on,” Nancy’s voice pulls like a trigger, Will catching her frantic face before she’s preparing to run, “we’re at four minutes!”
The time has Will’s chest ripping forward with his feet. Walkman cord flying around his jeans and tape in one hand, he catches up with Nancy’s pace in seconds. Five minutes is what they had before any of Vecna’s victims went south fast. Every subsequent minute lessened the chances of a victim waking up and recovering.
Heart hammering, Will and Nancy make it outside the building and by the football field. Both keep up the breakneck speed. As they do, Mike’s words from a few days ago rattle around Will’s head: ’If Vecna wants to hurt someone, he can have me.’
Will’s lungs protest the longer he sprints with Nancy, but it’s all he can do to not freeze or cry. Oh, why’d Mike have to say that?
They catch sight of Mike on the grass, bodies surrounding him and in various states of fear. Will does not process them, focusing on Mike.
Nancy shouts as they approach. The bodies scatter, giving Will room. He glimpses Holly’s light-up sneakers on the ground before they are out of his vision.
Will takes in Mike, eyes rolled back and body twitching, and kneels down. Nerves and terror shadow Will’s back, curling around him in a tight shell, but he does not let it overtake him. Think, he needs to think.
Jerking his hands, Will untangles the headphones and removes the Walkman from his jeans. He drowns out the noise in his environment and sets the headphones around Mike’s head. Will’s fingers brush along the soft edges of Mike’s thick hair. Heart hammering in his Adam’s apple, Will moves his attention to the Walkman, yanking out the tape he was listening to and replacing it with the new one, Mike’s favorite song. Will deftly lines up the tape, secures it, and presses play on the top button.
A long second elapses before the tape begins spinning. Will exhales as a garbled version of the opening notes vibrates through the headphones around Mike’s face.
Mike has played this song so many times Will has the notes and lyrics memorized. The words give him a strange sense of comfort. He straightens his back and realizes with a start that his face was wet, a mixture of exertion and emotion. He does not wipe any of it away, the setting sun casting heat on his cheeks. Will breathes more steadily, though his heartbeat remains erratic.
He does not mean to look up, but he finds Nancy stepping into his vision. She kneels to his level, on the other side of Mike, glancing worriedly at Mike’s condition before murmuring to Will, “you made it in time.”
A floodgate of relief opens in Will’s chest. He fights the urge to collapse and sob on Mike’s stomach. Will chooses to let out a long breath instead, tacking on an “oh thank god” for good measure.
Reality weaves into him, though, as just because he made it to Mike in time doesn’t mean he won’t suffer under Vecna’s control.
A body kneeling beside Will on the grass, a familiar one, draws arms around him. Will tips into Jonathan’s embrace, head on his older brother’s chest. Neither speak, as they never need to. Will closes his eyes, inhales the weed scent on Jonathan’s clothes, and brings a hand up to swipe away tears.
When Will opens his eyes again, he is ready to bring Mike to the hospital.