Chapter Text
It’s like a punch to the gut, even when no one’s laid a hand on him.
Will doesn’t remember Mike. That simple fact kept him awake all night, looping and replaying over, and over, and over again. It’s still doing so - the repetition hasn’t stopped, and doesn’t seem like it will any time soon.
That look in his eye, the one when he really noticed Lucas and Dustin, it’s the same one he used when he saw Mike. This time he was vaguely aware of what was going on, so the interaction went without a scream, but the undeniable horror was still there. The look that said who are you?
Mike can’t do anything to help, and that’s the real kicker - he’s basically useless. Not only does Will see him as a stranger, but he’s got none of the answers. They have no plan.
“Nancy!” He calls, brushing past Will, leaving him like he always does. “Nancy!” Louder this time, Mike shouts into the room of bodies like he does at home, all of them rustling between sheets and blankets.
She rolls over, curls a mess, and guards her vision from the windows. “…what, Mike?” Her voice is a grumble, one that doesn’t realize how dire the situation is.
“Fuck, Nancy, Will-,” she sits up then, Jonathan perking up along with her. How does he tell them? Say that his best friend not only doesn’t remember him, but the party either? Who’s to say he remembers any of them? “He doesn’t remember- not me, not Lucas, not Dustin.” His breath hitches, like the panic is settling. Mike runs a hand through his bangs.
For a second, no one speaks.
“Where-,” Joyce scrambles to her feet, tripping over her legs as she nears. “Where is he? Will! Will!” She’s blinking away sleep with an expression sketched with terror. All he does is follow her into the kitchen.
And there he is, slumped to the wall as Dustin and Lucas interrogate him.
“C’mon, man, you just gotta think.” Lucas runs a hand over his hair nervously, and he’s practically pleading with Will to remember him, expression etched with clawing terror. “You’ve gotta remember us.”
Dustin cups his hands over his mouth, thinking, before he starts, “Hey, Will,” and Will looks, expression without a single bit of recollection, “what about DnD? You remember that, right?”
“D-,” brows furrowing, they get their reply before so much as a word leaves his lips, “DnD? I- I don’t know what that is.” His arms hug his knees to his chest, and he looks like he’s on the verge of tears.
Now that hurts. No more sleepovers, no more bike rides, no more dungeons and dragons. Hell, no more fighting the end of the world side by side. It’s all gone, and that statement just might be the bleakest of all.
Joyce rushes over, shoving in between the two boys, and Mike is forced to stand back and watch, Nancy’s hand finding its place on his shoulder. “Will, baby, do you know me? Mom?” She’s frantic, terrified of her own son not knowing who she is. Some part - a terrible one - of Mike hates to be that exception, hopes Will cannot recall any of them, wishes to not be so alone in this feeling.
Will nods, panicked, lunging into her arms. “Yeah, yeah, mom, I remember.” He mumbles into her shirt, and she lifts him away, leaving the remnants of the party to wallow.
Crouching to where they sit on the tile, neither boy gives Mike a glance.
“I mean-,” Lucas’ words crack like he’s going to break any second, “fuck, man. Fuck.”
That perfectly describes the situation.
Dustin just stares at the floor, reaching for any possible answers, ones that they don’t have. “It has to be Vecna. It has to be.”
“He’s dead, El said he was.” Even saying so, Mike knows he’s lying to himself and the others. “I trust her.” Even after their breakup a few months back, him and El still have a strange sort of connection, and Mike knows well that friends don’t lie.
Holding his head in his hands, Lucas hitches a breath. “Who else could do this? Who, Mike? Enlighten me.”
He doesn’t have a reply.
Mike should be crying himself, or saying something, giving some sort of hope like he always seems to. His best friend is losing his mind, and all he can do is keep quiet. It’s pathetic, and everyone knows it.
Will sobs, just a room away, and they all hear it, no matter how quiet he tries to make himself, the sound tightening a wind in Mike’s stomach. Each of them helps the other to their feet, because Will needs them, and so they’ll be there, no matter if they’re strangers or not. The impending doom can’t keep them far.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me-,” he cries, Jonathan rubbing at his shoulder blade, “I don’t know what’s going on, shit, I don’t know what to do.”
“We’ll figure something out.” Mike blurts, always with the promises he can’t keep. “If Vecna’s doing this, then we’ll just kill him, and- and for good this time.”
The air is tense and muddy, and no matter the nods that he gets, he can sense their doubt. He can sense his own. It’s always been there, save for the last months where they actually thought everything was over, that they could actually get on with their lives.
“I do not feel him.” El insists, and Mike hates the way Will looks to her with understanding. A look that says he knows her, and shares a past with her. The look he now refuses to give Mike, the one that’s anything beyond surface level politeness. “Nothing.”
“It has to be him.” Sitting on the couch, Dustin’s leg bounces like it’s going to blow a hole through the floorboards. “Guys, who else could do this? Really?”
There's a mutual look between all of them. They have to accept something none of them want to, something none of them thought would ever be possible again, but proves to be true.
“I just- I thought we killed that damn thing. Joyce cut his fucking head off.” Steve is cross legged on the floor beside Robin, head turned up to the ceiling. “We were so sure.”
El doesn’t seem to agree. “I am still sure.” When everyone looks at her in questioning, anger taints her words as she throws up her hands. “I am!”
Quick to calm her temper, Hopper is right by her side. “Hey, kid, I believe you. Maybe he is dead, you can’t feel his presence or something, but then who’s doing this?”
“I mean, El, we want to believe you,” Robin soothes, “but this is, like, the only lead we have. If we have none, then there’s nothing we can do to help Byers over there.”
Mike can’t tear his gaze from Will, who seems to be somewhere else in his head, deep in thought or lack thereof. He craves to take Jonathan’s place, the spot he would usually have to himself, comforting Will like no one else could. Before he can say something, even little, Dustin cuts in.
“What if,” his hands are up, bracing everyone for what he’s about to say, “what if you’re both right?”
Steve huffs. “And how would that work? We’re talking alive or dead here.”
“Yes, Steve, if you would listen I could explain.” He rolls his eyes, getting to his feet as if he’s about to make a big breakthrough. Maybe he is, and Mike is ready to find out. “What if Vecna’s both?”
“Both?” Lucas sits beside Max, who sits on the floor, still swimming in a blanket.
“Alive and dead. Because we killed him.” He talks with his hands, such a familiar gesture to Mike that his belly sours at the thought of Will having no connection to it. “Maybe, and this is just an idea, but it’s possible that we did kill him, at least physically.”
“So then where would he be? If his body’s dead, how would he still be somehow alive? Sort of?” Joyce hugs on Will like they’re attached at the hip. Mike remembers them as kids - something Will can’t seem to do - how they were always like that, never without the other. Sometimes they’re still like that, no matter how awkward other moments can be. They’ll always be Mike and Will, at least he thought so. Now that doesn’t seem possible.
“El doesn’t feel him anymore, and she’s probably right. Like his presence is gone.” Pacing, Dustin’s steps create a circle around the carpet. “If his physical body is dead, which I assume it is, maybe he’s somewhere else. Like that mind space El goes to to find people. He could be recharging in there like he did up above inside the mind flayer.”
“Do you think-,” Max looks through him with her clouded eyes, “that he’s recharging to, like, build a new body? To come back alive or something? Can he even do that?”
“I don’t know. But I think it’s plausible.”
Jonathan gnaws at his lip. “What does that have to do with Will? Why- why him, though? Why take his memories? It doesn’t make sense.”
Dustin taps his foot methodically, like the ticking of a clock. “I’m not sure about that one yet.”
“All we know for sure is that Will was inside of his mind during the fight. That has to be part of it, right?” Mike asks, fingers brushing through his bangs, questioning more to a higher power than anyone in the room.
“Maybe he’s still in there.” Lucas rubs a hand over his neck, “Like, maybe he’s stuck in Will’s mind-,”
Max’s face is wide. “Just how I was stuck in his.”
Will looks horrified, because no matter how close they could be to cracking Vecna’s whereabouts, he could just be lingering in Will’s head. Just the simple terror on his face reminds Mike of thirteen year old Will being alone in the upside down, that thing possessing his body. Mike would tear him out then and there if he was capable, but he’s too damn helpless to be any good. “E- El,” he’s begging, “Can you get in my head? Just- just get him out?”
She kneels below him, taking his hand like Mike should be. “I will try.”
—---
“Do you need a snack?” Joyce hovers El, spouting question to question. “Or water? Anything?”
El ties on the black cloth over her eyes, pulling it tight. “Quiet.” Is all she says.
The group circles her as she sits criss crossed beside the television, all watching and waiting. Will is mere inches away, sat on the couch next to Jonathan. Silence falls over the room, as anxious as they all are, because this is a lead, and they have to run with it. So they are quiet.
Mike can’t keep his eyes off Will, no matter how hard he tries to ignore the invisible pull to his best friend's face. He’s hugging himself with his arms, lips zipped into a tight frown. He allows his eyes to flutter closed, which settles a slight relief in Mike’s bones, telling him it’s working.
El makes an irritated grunting sound, blood pooling above her lip. All eyes are on her, plastered to her face, as she slips a groan.
Hopper steps from his spot rested against the door frame, rushing over. “Jane?”
“Stop.” Her grip tightens over her knees, and her fingers are quivering. “Stop.”
Ignoring her warning, Hopper insists, “Jane, what’s happening?”
She heaves a shaky, small breath. “Nothing.”
That’s definitely not a good sign, because something is always happening, even when they aren’t prepared for it. “What do you mean, nothing?” Mike presses, hands rubbing together with nerves. His gaze flicks to Will, whose foot bumps to the floor, eyes still shut, but face relaxed.
She groans again, short and pained, before tearing off the blindfold angrily. Wiping the dribble of red from her lip, she is met with more than a few pairs of eyes stuck on her and her scowl. “I cannot get in.”
While the rest are shocked, Joyce searches for a clear answer, hand on El’s shoulder. “What do you mean?”
El bites at her lip, lost in her own mind rather than Will’s, and a bead of sweat falls from her forehead. “I could not enter. It hurt to try, and it was not that he did not want me there.” Allowing her head to fall against the TV, she swallows desperately. “There was a pressure when I tried. One in my own head, that made it hurt. A block.”
Their one lead, snapped in one try. “Try again.” If they don’t put in their all, then what happens to Will?
Hopper snaps a glare at Mike. “No. Do you see how much that took out of her? She’s not doing that again, I’ll tell you that.”
“So what? We leave Will to get captured by Vecna or something?!” Jumping to his feet, Mike takes a glance at Will out of the corner of his eye, who is wiping sleep from his eyes like he just took a heavy nap. “We just- we just leave him there, in Will’s head? Yeah, I don’t think so!”
Lucas tugs at his pant leg. “C’mon, Mike, he said no-,”
Fuck this. Yeah, he doesn’t want El to be in pain, he never would, but she can recharge and try again. What if this is their only chance at cracking this code to save Will? There’s too many questions left unanswered, and El is the only one who can give a reply.
“El!” They meet, and she looks like she just got hit by a semi truck. Just before sticking it to that stupid cop, he stops, because she’s never been this affected before. “El?”
“I cannot, Mike. It hurts.” She breathes out her words, and he’s slapped across the face with guilt. He’s using her, and he’s so goddamn eager about it.
Will grumbles, head flopping onto Jonathan’s shoulder, and his words are slow and slurred. “Can I- I wanna sleep.” He says, mumbling into his brother’s shirt.
“Of course, baby.” Joyce cuts between her children, brushing a strand of hair out of El’s face. “You too, honey.”
Mike is still pissed - he doesn’t think there will ever be a time when he isn’t. Maybe when he’s with Will, but that’s not an option. He’s angry with Hopper, with himself, with Vecna, with the entire fucking world. So, again, he storms off.
“God, Mike!” Nancy is always the one to follow him, but he promptly ignores her.
His feet thump to the rug, and he slams the bathroom door behind him, just like he would at home, as if he was just in another argument with his dad. This isn’t that - this was much, much worse.
He curls in on himself, knees to his chest, wedged between the cabinets and the tub. All he wants to do is stew in his fury, but Nancy is always intent on keeping that from happening. “Mike. I’m opening the door.”
Closing the door behind her, she still slumps against it as much as Mike avoids her gaze. Tears prick behind his eyes, ones he wipes away urgently, ones that are angry, sad, and terrified. Nancy just stares with that concerned look. The one they should all be giving Will, because this is about him, not Mike. Will is in need of all the comfort, not stupid fucking Mike who can’t get his act together.
“What do we do?” He chokes out, head stuffed between his legs. She can’t answer, because she has no idea, and he knows that.
Jaw working, she holds out a hand for him to take. “We be there for him. We keep trying.” Which is the most generic and answerless thing she could have said.
“That doesn’t fix anything!” His fingers dig into his eyes, rubbing over his eyelids in circles to shove back the emotions.
Nancy lets her hand fall to the tile. “Well, Mike, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what to do either, but I’m still going to try.” She has that look, the one when she’s so determined she’ll do anything to get what she wants.
“I am trying.” His words waver more than he wants them to, slipping from his mouth weakly.
He’s trying so hard not to lose his shit. He could’ve lost it when Will first didn’t recognize him, when Will insisted he’d never heard of Nancy having a little brother, or when he’d seen the rest of the party with no recognition. Mike could’ve lost it, because his best friend is falling apart in the span of a night and there’s nothing he can do about it. Being there for him is absolute bullshit when the monster they’d fought so hard to kill is hiding out inside of his best friend’s mind, doing everything he can to keep them at bay for whatever plan he’s made.
“C’mere.” Nancy allows him to scoot over, and fall into her grasp.
And Mike does lose it, overcome with the weight of the world - his world - under attack yet again.