Chapter Text
After the disaster that was the Winter's Ball, everyone goes to the Byers house. Will's a little annoyed that everyone stopped having fun because of him, but honestly? He's a little scared himself.
At least Mike holds his hand the whole way.
Dustin and Lucas are talking nonstop about how they have one more mage in their Party, El is still staring intently at him, like he's a puzzle she can't solve, and the adults, Jonathan, Nancy and Steve are in the kitchen, talking in low hushed whispers.
But Mike is still holding his hand, and Will's feels like everything will be alright.
<¥>
In the end, there's nothing much they can do. Will's got powers now, probably similar to Eleven, but he's got zero control over them. She offers to teach him, and he's immensely grateful for it.
Little by little, everyone leaves. Steve takes Dustin, Lucas and Nancy home, and after another hug and promise to teach him, El leaves with Max and Hopper, leaving Will, Jonathan, Mike and Joyce in the house.
(Mike had already decided he was going to stay the night, and nobody had the heart to decline him)
Joyce, who was told by Jonathan about their kiss at the school, thought about keeping the boys in separate rooms, but gave up before voicing it. They have been through enough, one night couldn't hurt.
In the dark of his bedroom, Will is happy, nervous and anxious. But Mike is there, as always, holding him and making him feel safe.
That's enough.
<¥>
The months pass and Will and Eleven explore his powers with vigour.
Turns out, he doesn't have Eleven Telekinesis but Electrokineses, which allows him to manipulate electricity. Lucas and Mike think that this is very straightforward and simple, but Dustin almost hits them with his science book because they are being idiots.
“Stop being idiots, for fuck's sake!” he yells, throwing his hands in the air. “Don't you guys see it? There's electricity everywhere, not only in electronics like our supercoms. Our own fucking bodies are made of energy, protons and electrons, both of which are a form of energy and, therefore, electricity!”
With that, everyone wants for Will to test his new found powers. Of course, he still has almost no control, but he practices every Monday and Wednesday after school with El, and almost every night at home with those Christmas lights his mom brought two years ago when he went missing in the Upside Down. He feels a little guilty about it, since his mom and Jonathan always tense when those lights flicker, but he has to practice, especially since that time when he shocked Mike accidentally.
He practices every moment he can, and soon, he got almost perfect control.
<¥>
Turns out that even if their powers are different, since there's electricity in basically everything, Will can lift and move objects as easily as El. The first time it happens he stared dumbfounded at the book El dropped it and he caught in the heat of the moment. He fears that El might be jealous, for whatever reason that his mind creates, and decides to come clean and talk to her.
It didn't matter in the end, because El is okay with it and even admits that she likes it better this way. “It makes me feel better that there's someone who's a little like me,” she confesses, smiling softly.
And deep inside, Will's happy too that he isn't alone at this.
<¥>
Summer comes and Dustin leaves for a summer camp. It's sad because he's leaving, even if it's for three weeks, but there's something else that everyone feels. All that happened weights heavily on everyone's mind, and having someone of the Party leave for so long, it hurts and worries them.
Will thinks Dustin absence hurts Steve the most. From what he understands, they bonded deeply while searching for the Hive Mind and when Billy showed up. Surprisingly, it's Jonathan who tries to distract him by spending time with him.
Will has an idea where this is going, but he's going to keep his mouth shut for the time being.
<¥>
Will test his powers with El constantly, not only because she is the expert but also because he feels safer with her, in case anything goes wrong. But the tingling in his neck doesn't warm up the same way all those months ago when he attacked those bullies in the parking lot of the school, and somehow, he knows that, whatever that is, is subdued.
“Maybe it's restless,” El suggests one day. She, Will and Mike are in her bedroom in Hop's cabin for Will's training. “My powers, I was born with them, but it appears that you developed them after the Upside Down, so maybe it has a mind of its own?”
Will has a little panic attack at that. He definitely doesn't want another being inside him, not after the Mind Flayer, but then his neck warms up considerably, like it knows he's distressed, and he calms down at this, because the Mind Flayer hated heat, so this shows Will's that whatever is inside him, it's not like the monster who possessed him.
And honestly, that's their best theory about how he came to have powers. Mike suggests that Will was born with it, same as El, but she shakes her head, a sad, almost like grief, look in her face.
“Trust me, if you were born with it, you wouldn't have grow up with your family.”
They both agree and leave it at that.
<¥>
Dustin's due to arrive in two days, and Will feels restless, and the only explanation possible is the thing inside him that's restless, not him.
He thinks back about what El told him, and tries to find a solution. Feeling restless is not necessarily bad, but it bothers him a lot, so he want it gone.
“Maybe it's the control?” Mike tries. They're lying in the couch in Mike's basement, after a fun session of DnD with Lucas, Max, Nancy, Jonathan and Steve.
(Turns out, all of them already accepted that, wether they like it or not, their lives will never go back to normal, and that they will have to look over their shoulders constantly. So, to spare surprises and headaches, everyone decided to join the Party officially. Mike and Nancy created already three different campaigns more realistic, to simulate real life and prepare them for the inevitable.)
“Think about it,” he sits up, and Will goes with him. “Your training with El focuses a lot in control, how to keep it and how much power you let loose it, but what if it wants to loose control?”
“First of all, I would like if we stop referring it as an It, it brings back bad memories,” he rubs his hands on his shorts. “Second, wouldn't that be like, dangerous? I can control electricity Mike, it's something that can cause a lot of damage.”
“Fine, how about we call it Horcrux?”
Will makes a face. “We are not calling whatever it is inside me a Horcrux, it's just as bad as the Mind Flayer.”
Mike laughs, putting his arm over his shoulder, “Fine, not Horcrux then, we'll think of something.” He looks at Will's eyes then, humour forgotten, “What about the Quarry? After your fake body turned up there, it's always empty, you could let loose a little there.”
Mike shivers, and Will doesn't blame him. When he told Will about the fake dead body that simply appeared in the lake (because the fucking government couldn't own up to their own mistakes) Will immediately hugged him, repeating over and over that he was not dead, that he was there and he wouldn't leave.
Mike cried a lot that night.
“Okay, I think we can try.” he agrees, shaking his head out of those horrible memories. “But I would like that El went with us, especially to keep you safe.”
Mike tries to deny the protection, but Will's having none of it. He would never forgive himself if he hurt Mike in anyway, intentional or not.
<¥>
El agrees easily, but Hopper insists on coming together for backup if necessary. Will is almost sure he told his mom and she asked him to keep an eye on them, but Will doesn't care too much. His uneasy is growing with each day, and he prays that Mike's plan works.
They are in the Quarry now, below the cliff. Mike, El and Hopper are a good distance away from him, since he insisted, and Will's close to the lake not facing them.
He thinks about El's lessons, about keeping a tight rein in the power that he feels under his skin, tensing his muscles until he almost got cramps in his arms and legs. He breathes in deeply, closing his eyes, feeling all the tension concentrate in his chest and slowly he lets go.
Of his breath.
Of the tension.
Of his power.
The change is immediate. He can feel and hear little cracks of electricity around him, in his hands, his arms, his legs, his whole body. He opens his eyes and see little flashes of blue around him, almost like those amazing electric globes Mr. Clarke once showed them. He wants to touch the flashes, but he's afraid to move.
“Will,” that's Mike, he wants to turn around but he doesn't dare, so he just replies a ‘yes?’.
“You're still holding back. Let go, let everything go,” he instructs, but can Will do it? What if he ends up hurting them in the process?
“You won't hurt us Will, you can let it go,” that's El. But are they sure? He doesn't think that even El would be fast enough to stop anything that may fly towards them.
“They're right kid, we'll be fine, let it go,” and that's Hopper. Well, if all of them are sure, he'll let it go. But he'll still keep and eye on things.
Will breathes in and out again, letting more and more of his power out. The grass around him starts to smoke, the little lightning's around him become more visible and his neck feels pleasently warm, like it's finally able to breath after years.
All in all, the exercise is a success.
<¥>
The prank at Dustin's house goes well, despite everything. Sure, Lucas eyes are still sore and those unshed tears were not gonna leave anytime soon, but they all catch up happily.
Dustin telling them about his girlfriend is a surprise, one that Will can see that none of them believe, but they all agree to go set up his super antenna at the top of the hill.
Suzie, Dustin's mysterious girlfriend, doesn't answer him when they finally finished setting up the antenna, and even if the others just see this as proof that she doesn't exist, Will forces them to wait just a little more, because he can see clearly that this means a lot to Dustin.
While they wait, Will, El and Mike tell Dustin more about Will's training with his new powers, and obviously, he finds everything fascinating.
The Russian message that they received by accident is not fascinating, at least according to Will. The others get excited about a new mystery and they plan to go to the new mall, Starcourt, to get Steve on the case.
As soon as they started the trek down the hill, Will feels his neck go cold, extremely so, and it's such a familiar feeling that he stops dead in his tracks, making the other bump into him.
“Will?” someone asks, but he can't identify who, because his neck is cold and hurting, just like with the—
“Will?” Mike's in his face now, he can see him, but he can't hear him, it's like he's underwater, out of focus.
Suddenly, the feeling stops and he snaps back into reality, facing the concerned faces of his friends.
“I felt something, something bad.”
But that's it, it's just a terrible feeling and he doesn't know anything else.
It still puts everyone on edge.
<¥>
Steve's coworker, Robin, is very funny and seeing her bicker with Steve is comedy gold.
Will likes her immediately. And by the looks of El and Max, so do they.
They show Steve, and by extension Robin, since she's there and just as curious as the Party, the Russian message and they all decide to try to decoded it.
Will's bad feeling doesn't fade that night.
<¥>
In the morning, Max and El are almost shouting in the radios, talking about something about Billy, Max's older step brother.
When they reunite at Will's house (it really is their headquarters for supernatural shit, isn't it?) the girls tell them that yesterday night, Max convinced El to spy on Billy.
She saw him getting on a car accident that nobody knew about. She saw him attacking another girl named Heather.
The bad feeling in Will grows.
<¥>
They decided to separate, even if Will is completely against the idea. Dustin and Lucas will go back to the mall to decode the message with Steve and Robin, while Mike, El, Max and Will go after Billy to see exactly what's wrong.
Will should've trusted his instincts more.
<¥>
As soon as Will sees him, he knows.
His neck goes cold as if someone dumped ice on it, and his head starts to hurt like there was a hammer hitting it.
“It's him. It's the Mind Flayer,” he tells them.
<¥>
They don't want to believe. Fuck, Will doesn't want to believe it, but he knows what he felt, he remembers feeling the exact same when that monster was inside him, almost a year ago.
“Even if you closed the Gate, it could be that the part that was in me stayed on this side,” he cuts their bickering on how it's impossible to be the Mind Flayer again. “Between mom getting that thing out of me and you closing the Gate, it was a pretty short time, it probably couldn't go back and it's been here since then.”
They know it's the only explanation, and they hated it.
Mike especially stays beside him all the time to comfort him.
Will knows what's he's doing, and he's grateful for it. He kisses Mike to show him he's okay.
<¥>
Mike relays their findings to Lucas and Dustin, the latter who curses loudly and for a while, before they decide on a new plan. They will continue with the message, Robin is almost done, while the girls plus Mike and Will, try to burn the Mind Flayer from Billy the same way Joyce did last year with Will.
It's a solid plan, locking him inside the sauna, and there's nothing that could go wrong with it.
Will curses himself for jinxing it.
<¥>
Staring at Billy, who pleads at Max to let him out is heartbreaking. He can see tears gathering at the girl's eyes, but he stops her from getting closer, because Will knows how the Mind Flayer works, knows that it will use every weakness you have against you to destroy you.
And when Billy breaks the sauna's window, with black veins showing in his skin, Will curses their luck.
El tries to stop him, but he looks stronger than before, and that's a terrifying thing. Billy grabs El by the neck, cutting her oxygen, and Will can't stand still anymore.
“Hey asshole!” he screams.
Billy turns slowly, while still holding El, but he at least loosened his grip on her neck.
“Remember me? I'm the one you failed to take over last year,” he spread his arms, trying to keep his attention solely on himself.
His eyes don't light up in recognition, but his free hand closes in a fist.
“Will Byers,” he speaks in a growl tone, and Will closes his hands to make them stop shaking.
“You escaped us once, you will not escape it again,” it's a promise, Will can feel it, but he's tired of being afraid.
He narrow his eyes, letting his power out a little, his neck warms up, happy to be let out, and he promises right back.
“Not this time.”
He pushes his arm forward, shooting a small beam of electricity at Billy, hitting him square in the chest and making him drop El. The smell of burnt flesh clouds the room and he's getting up again.
Will rushes at El, together with Max and Mike, and he faces Billy again, who's up and staring at him in confusion.
“I'm not afraid of you anymore,” Will covers his friends with his arm, protecting them.
“No,” he speaks slowly, the growl leaving his voice. He looks at him, then at El and back at him again. “I don't think so.”
Then he's running away, through a fucking wall, leaving a massive hole behind him.
Will collapses in the ground in shock.
<¥>
They can't get in touch with Dustin and Lucas, and that's fucking terrifying.
Will's mom and Hopper are missing as well, and panic surges in his chest.
But he can't breakdown, not now. Not when they have proof that the Mind Flayer is back, not when the last message they received from Dustin was that they cracked the code and were preparing to infiltrate the secret room. Not when Max is still distressed over Billy being possessed.
Will can see El and Mike pushing through their own panic.
The breakdown can come later, they have work to do.
<¥>
When Nancy and Jonathan find them, asking about the rats that are eating fertilizers, they tell them everything that they know.
They are pissed for being out of the loop.
“We are a Party, remember? We fight together, we die together!” Nancy yells.
“We stay together,” Jonathan says softly, “We will take care of this, together.”
Will and Mike never felt more proud of their family.
<¥>
Using El to try and locate Billy backfires spectacularly, since it's him who finds them in Hop's cabin.
They barely have time to prepare for the attack when a giant monster made of flesh and meat descends upon them. El is still a little shaken from being trapped in the In-Between so Will ends up doing most of the job, not that he minds. Jonathan grabs a nearby axe, Nancy her gun and Mike and Max use whatever is closest to them and they fight the monster.
When they have a little room to breath they run. Everyone climbs in Jonathan's car quickly and they speed up away. In the distance, they can see the Mind Flayer, fifty feet of flesh, staring at them as they run.
“Fucking hell,” Nancy mutters, and they all agree.
<¥>
They stop for a while in a nearby convenience store since all of them were a little hurt from the ordeal. Mike has a few cuts here and there, but Will as two medium gashes on his arm and a big one on his back.
“Let's clean this up,” he says, already taking Will away from the group.
They sit on the floor of the frozen section and Mike helps him take of his shirt. The fabric scraps his back and Will hisses in pain.
“Sorry,” Mike apologises quickly.
“Not your fault,” he mutters back.
Mike cleans up the wounds, which leads to Will cursing from the way it stings, and his boyfriend chuckles.
“Why are you laughing?”
“It's just, it's rare for you to curse. I think today is the most you've ever cursed,” he says with eyes shining in amusement.
Will rolled his eyes. “Wanna see you having your wounds cleaned then, it hurts like a bitch.”
Mike cackles at that, throwing his head back, and Will turns a little, smiling softly. Soon, Mike stops laughing, and he finishes cleaning up and bandaging him.
“There, all set. Is it hurting too much?”
Will gets up and moved his arms a little, but they're only stinging a little. “It's fine, thanks.”
He's about to walk away, but Mike grabs his wrist and clutches him to his chest. Mike's hold is tight, not too tight, but the kind of tight that is desperate, so Will hugs him back in the same amount.
“We'll be fine,” Mike says, and it looks like he's trying more to convince himself.
“Yeah, we will,” he agrees.
Will pulls away and kisses him deep, trying to convey that yes, they will survive this.
They separate after a while, Mike's grinning from ear to ear.
“We'll survive this.”
<¥>
Max idea to use fireworks is brilliant.
Dustin distressed call not so much.
It appears that Dustin's group have been stuck underground ever since their last message, infiltrating a secret russian base, Steve and Robin got caught, tortured (“It doesn't matter how you put it Harrington, you were tortured!”) and now they've finally escaped for good.
Ah yes, and it's the Russians who reopened the Gate.
Will wants to punch some Russians. Preferably in the fucking throat. He can see that El wants the same, if he's reading her glare right.
<¥>
They met at Starcourt, saving Dustin and the others from some Russians who were still chasing them.
Robin, who just now knows the overview of everything that happened and it's still drugged from her time being tortured, is in complete awe of Will and El's powers and Mike and Max ability to use whatever in their vicinity as a weapon.
“Dingus, your kids are fucking badasses,” she comments absently.
Steve cackles at that, “Don't I fucking know it!”
<¥>
Joyce, Hopper and some guy called Murray appear out of nowhere, knowing all about the Russians, the Gate and how to close it.
Honestly, at this point, Will's not gonna even question anymore.
They all made a hasty plan that could backfire in their faces spectacularly, but it's the best they have. They separate again (Will's sick of this, everything always go wrong when they don't stick together), Joyce, Hopper and Murray will storm the Russian base; Dustin, Steve, Robin and Erica (and when the fuck did Erica showed up? Seriously, this was getting ridiculous) were going to the super antenna that Dustin would use to contact his girlfriend to direct the adults into the base; while the rest were gonna go to Murray's home which they say it's safe.
They all made a hasty goodbye as well, each one with their own mission.
Will is only praying that everything goes smoothly this time.
<¥>
Will fucking hates their luck.
Just as his group were about to leave, Billy showed up and damaged their car, so they were forced to retreat to the mall again.
The problem? The Mind Flayer showed up as well.
Fucking great.
Max and El are keeping Billy busy, while Will, Mike, Lucas Nancy and Jonathan are throwing fireworks at the giant monster to keep him at bay. Well, in Will's case, he's throwing lightning.
Unfortunately, Billy manages to knock Max away and he grabs El again, pulling her toward the Mind Flayer like some kind of sacrifice, and Will can't let her die.
He grabs Mike's hands, pushing him down and staring into his eyes.
“I love you,” he says, quickly kissing Mike before he can say anything else.
Then he's running down, where El and Billy are. He can hear Mike screaming his name behind him, but he can't stop. Those months learning under El's guidance have strengthened their friendship, he considers her his little sister.
He would die before letting anything happen to her.
He's barely there, but he doesn't have a clean shot at Billy, he'll end up hurting El, so he turns to the Mind Flayer.
“Hey!” he screams, trying to gain it's attention.
Fortunately, it seems to work. The Mind Flayer turns at him, looking in his direction.
“You wanna kill her, you'll have to go through me.”
It screeches at him, his big tentacles advancing rapidly at him. He dodges to the side, barely missing his head, and he starts to run, the Mind Flayer still trying to catch him.
Thank god Max's smart. She used his distraction to grab El and go somewhere safe, but it's still not over. They don't know when the adults will manage to close the Gate, and their fireworks are ending.
He must've distracted himself, because Billy is in front of him and grabbing his throat and lifting him up in the air.
It feels like a déjà vu in all honestly. He can hear his friends screaming his name, but time seems to stop once again. Billy is crushing his throat, but Will feels no pain, and feels detached from the world again.
He knows what he can do. He can attack Billy, but that would probably kill him, and he can't kill Max's brother. So he looks behind Billy, at the Mind Flayer, and has an idea.
Those days where he would let his power loose were good, for him and for whatever is with him, but he never let everything loose, because he was certain that he would not be able to control it.
But now, Mike and Lucas are on the second floor, Nancy and Jonathan on the other side, and Max and El are hidden, possibly inside one the stores, so there's no one close who would get hurt, besides Billy, but Will has to try, otherwise he and the others will die.
So he closes his eyes and breathes in, as much as he can, and out, letting absolutely everything out.
It's instantaneous.
Billy let's a shout of pain and lets him go, but Will is floating above the ground, electricity dancing in waves around him. He can feel his eyes go warm, and Mike would tell him later they were glowing white, and he feels everything.
This power is so much more. It's not only electricity, but life, energy, it's everywhere.
He focuses on the Mind Flayer again, who's screeching at him, and Will lets all his power go at him.
The world turns blinding white, and darkness claims Will's vision.
<¥>
Will wakes up in the hospital three days later. There's only him and Mike in the room, and he almost sigh in exasperation, because the chances that Mike left his side to go home and rest are minimal.
(If their roles were reversed, he would do the same)
And when Mike sees him awake he hugs him tighter than ever.
“You're here; you're alive,” he repeats, over and over with tears in his eyes.
And that's fair, so Will hugs him back.
“I'm here,” he whispers.
<¥>
The fallout is a mess.
Will basically fried the Mind Flayer seconds before his mom managed to close the Gate, and the mall ended up in flames. At least Billy survived it.
Confused as fuck, he waited until everyone explained everything to him then he turned around and said ‘Fuck no, I'm outa here’.
Nobody blamed him for turning away.
Dr. Owens, one of the man who knew about everything, tried to convince El, and by extension the Byers family (that now included Hopper, which Will isn't the least bit surprised) to move to another town, but all of them out their foots down about it.
“This is our home,” Joyce said, ice in her voice, “We're not gonna run away from it.”
So they stayed.
Amidst all the chaos, El and Max finally got together (the boys were kinda afraid of it, because Max was a force to be reckoned with, and El was following in her footsteps), and Jonathan and Steve also got their shit together (Will was very smug to say that he saw that coming, specially since both teenagers blushed and sputtered when they come out).
The Party officially met Suzie through the radio and she was a giant nerd like Dustin and everyone approved.
All in all, everything went well.
<¥>
A week before their sophomore year, everyone is at the Byers house, enjoying the last week of vacation and healing their shared trauma.
Or trying to, but nobody cares at this point.
Max and El have retreated to the latters room, Jonathan and Steve were out to pick up pizzas for everyone and Joyce and Hopper are talking softly over a glass of wine. Dustin and Lucas are playing Atari and screaming with each other, as usual, while Nancy and Robin are gossiping about... something that Will doesn't want to know.
Will and Mike are in the front porch, enjoying the last days of heat. Will's seated in the ground, Mike behind him, holding him in his arms.
“Hey.”
Will turns at him, seeing Mike smiling at him, and his stomach flutters.
“Yeah?” he asks s little breathless.
Mike's smile widens, and he kisses him, full of love and passion. Will lets himself get lost in the kiss, they didn't had much time for each other since they begin dating. Between school, keeping themselves a secret from Mike's family, and the Mind Flayer, this seems like the first time they can fully enjoy each other.
“I love you,” he says as they separate.
And Will can only smile back.
“I love you too.”