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“Mike, stop.”
Mike hesitates a moment, turning to look at Will. “Is it your leg? Come on, it shouldn’t be much farther now. Nancy and Hop should be around here somewhere, and—”
“No, Mike,” Will insists. “Just…let’s stop for a minute, please, okay?”
Something in Will’s eyes gives Mike pause, a panicked desperation. Mike bites his lip, glancing around to be sure there aren’t any demogorgons waiting to pounce, then nods reluctantly.
He’s never been able to refuse Will anything, anyway.
He guides Will over to rest against a fallen tree trunk, propping him up to lean against the bark and leaning over him to examine Will’s calf. He peels up the bottom of his pant leg to reveal the gash, dark and ugly against his pale skin. Will winces.
“I don’t think I have any first aid equipment,” Mike says, reaching for his backpack, “but maybe I can use my jacket as a bandage, or—” His words are abruptly cut off when Will grabs his wrist, forcing Mike to meet his eyes. Still dark and intense. Afraid. Sad.
“My leg is fine,” Will says softly. “I mean, it hurts. But it’s fine, that’s not why we needed to stop.”
“What’s wrong? Is it Vecna? Do you have a feeling?” Mike asks.
“It’s Vecna,” Will confirms. “He’s winning, Mike. I can feel it.”
Mike shakes his head. “No, Eleven—”
“Can’t beat him,” Will interjects. “She can’t. You know it, too. We’re losing, Mike. I think—”
“We just need to get to Hop and Nance,” Mike cuts him off. A dark feeling churns in his gut, something about that sad look in Will’s eyes. “They’ll have a plan. We can regroup, it’ll be fine.”
“There’s no time,” Will says. He takes a shaky breath. “It’s over, Mike. This is the worst case scenario.”
“No,” Mike insists, shaking his head vehemently. “There’s always a chance.”
“Not this time,” Will says, without any bite. His voice is low, gentle, like he’s trying to calm Mike.
(In a strategy meeting almost three hours ago—god, had it only been three hours?—Will had cautiously, quietly, voiced the thought that all of them around the table had had but kept silent, too afraid to speak it into reality. The group had burst into immediate uproar, Mike and Joyce shouting the loudest. Mike remembers screaming at Hopper and Nancy and Steve, anyone who for even a moment could consider that possibility as a viable option. He’d had to leave the room to calm down, taking short, shallow breaths in the WSQK stairwell. Eventually, they had all decided to ignore the idea and moved on to a different strategy, but the thought lingered in the backs of everyone’s heads, an unspoken worst case scenario, a last resort that Mike silently vowed it would never, ever come to.)
But now they’re here, with another plan gone terribly wrong. Mike tries not to think about everything that has happened (Murray, downed by military gunfire. Steve, ripped to shreds protecting Jonathan and Nancy. Lucas’s arm torn off by a pack of demodogs.) They’re all separated, all fighting for their lives, and Mike has no idea if the rest of his friends are still fighting, or hiding, or dead.
What he can tell, though, is that things are getting worse. He and Will are still in Hawkins, but it’s now nearly indistinguishable from the Upside Down, with the cold and the spores and the flashes of red light across the sky, seeping from the gates in the ground that continue to widen. Vecna is trying to turn the world inside out, and he is succeeding.
Will’s eyes are fixated on Mike’s. “You know that I’m right,” he says softly, so gently that Mike wants to scream, to sob, to shake him by his shoulders. “We have to. You have to.”
With a trembling hand, Will reaches over to Mike’s backpack and pulls out a knife. One of Hopper’s, long, serrated. Mike feels like throwing up just looking at it.
“No, Will!” he says, too loudly. “You can’t just give up—”
“I’m not giving up, Mike,” Will interrupts. “I’m not—I’m not suicidal. I’m not trying to be a fucking martyr. Believe me, I wish there was some other way, okay? But you know that this is it. This is our last chance, before Vecna wins. What do you think happens then? We’ll all die, Mike. You. Me. El. The party. Your parents. Nancy. Holly. And that’s if he stops at Hawkins. Who’s to say he doesn’t take out the whole world while he’s at it?”
He sounded so sure, so resigned. As he studies Will’s face, Mike thinks that he’d never been more suited to the title of Will the Wise. He is confident, fearless, willing to do anything to save his friends.
Mike, however, doesn’t feel particularly brave.
“We don’t even know if it’ll work,” he tries.
“I know it will. I can feel it. Besides, it’s not like we have a lot to lose.”
Will, impossibly, smiles at him. He draws the knife up to align with his chest, right over his beating heart, then reaches for Mike’s hand, wrapping it around the handle. Their fingers intertwine.
“I can’t do this,” Mike stammers. “Will—”
“Yes, you can, Mike,” Will says, reassuring. “You would do anything for me. I need you to do this for me.”
Mike feels a tear run down his cheek and realizes he’s crying. He probably has been for a while. Will is crying, too, but his eyes never leave Mike’s face. Before he can think about it, Mike reaches forward to cup the side of Will’s face with his free hand. He wipes away a tear with his thumb, tracing gently across Will’s cheek, and Will leans in to the touch.
“I’m glad it’s you,” Will says, so softly it’s nearly a whisper. “Sorry, that’s probably a fucked-up thing to say, but…I wouldn’t want it to be anyone else.”
Mike’s eyes trail over Will’s face. His soft hazel eyes, his gentle smile, the tiny mole above his lip. He’s covered in blood and grime. He has never looked more beautiful.
Mike looks at him and sees a lonely five-year-old on the swingset. He sees a kid in his basement dressed as a wizard; a body pulled from the water; a boy in the backseat of a van, opening his heart under a smokescreen; a sorcerer shattering the bones of the monster that reached for Mike. Will the Wise. Mike’s best friend.
“I love you,” Will says, voice soft but certain.
Mike kisses him.
He barely realizes what he’s doing until Will is kissing him back, pressing their lips together, desperate, needing. Mike’s hand is still on Will’s face; he draws him even closer. It’s messy, both their mouths wet with tears, but it’s everything. It’s Will; it’s his best friend; it’s twelve years of knowing each other like the back of their hands.
Will’s fingers tighten where they’re wrapped around Mike’s on the handle of the blade. Mike kisses him harder, deeper, screwing his eyes tightly shut. I love you, Mike thinks, desperately, hoping Will understands, knowing he must know. I love you. I love you.
He would do anything for Will.
Mike runs the knife straight into Will's heart.
(Elsewhere, the monster that was once Henry Creel falls. An army of demogorgons howl in agony and scatter, fleeing through torn gates that close behind them. Vines holding children to pillars slip loose, and they fall free to the ground. In a makeshift cot, Max Mayfield opens her eyes.
Later, they will find Mike sobbing, cradling Will Byers’s lifeless body in his arms. This time, it is not full of stuffing. They will have to drag him away, kicking and screaming, begging. He will cry out, over and over again. I love you. I love you. I love you.)