Dark Dives
"Where's Lonnie?" Jonathan asked Mike as he looked aat an unconscious Will in the hospital bed. Eric walked past him, sat next to Will and took his hand.
"I don't know, he ran off after Vec-" Mike stopped and glanced at Eric who looked back at him and shrugged his shoulders..
"After Vecna/Henry/001 what?" asked Eric.
"Wait, you know about him?" asked Mike incredulously. "How? Why?"
"Well, my Uncle got assigned here. Will and I also talk about things. I know about the messed up shit this Vecna asshole's done to him and he knows... well he knows why I'd rather live with my uncle even though he's on a very dangerous assignment then be stuck with my asshole parents. So you can talk freely in front of me."
Robin fidgeted nervously and shared a look with Steve.
"Vecna offered to kill Lonnie for Will, but then Will did something... I don't know, psychic and Vecna fled. I have no idea what happened, but Will clearly did some dammage and he just passed out."
"Vecna was trying to get Will to work with him," said Nancy. "This has to be connected to the Upside Down being a copy of Hawkins from the night Will went missing."
"He must have pushed himself too far tonight," said El. "I was in a coma for a week after I sent 001 to the Upside Down."
"Henry was in a coma for a week after he killed his mother and sister," said Nancy. "They were his first human kills."
"We don't have a week," said Mike. Who knows what Vecna could try while Will's out."
"I'll try to look into Will's mind," said El. She walked over to the oppsite side of Will's bed that Eric sat. It was a long shot as El hadn't been able to locate Will with her mind since they'd returned to Hawkins from California. She only recently realized it was because Will had been blocking Vecna's ability to look into his mind, and unintentionally El's as well. She took her brother's hand and closed her eyes.
El saw Will laying unconscious, just as he was in the physical world, but he was surrounded to dozens of people. There was a lot of light shining in the room. El recognized her siblings from the lab- siblings she'd last seen broken and twisted on the floor. They were whole again. El saw a mother and daughter she recognized from pictures in the paper about the Creel murders. Virginia and Alice Creel. The people who had been flayed in the summer of 1985 were there, but no longer appeared to be flayed. She saw Chrissy, Fred, and Patrick... and the person she'd most langed to talk to for the past couple years- Max.
"El?" said Max.
"Max!" El rushed to her friend- the first person in her life who truly encouraged her to be herself- and embraced her. Somehow, she knew that Max was real... everyone there was real. "I'm sorry I didn't stop him. I-I let him get into my head. He was lying to me, so many people had been lying to me."
"That wasn't your fault, El. He got in all our heads."
"I-I looked into your mind and couldn't find you," said El tearfully.
"I was stuck in Vecna's mind along with everyone else," said Max. El remembered 001 telling her that her siblings weren't gone, they were in his mind. He had multilated them, though. He's multilated everyone El saw- except for Will...and he hadn't finished mutilating Max. Her body had been healing...
"Will got us out, he freed us," Max continued.
"How?" asked El.
"I don't know exactly. He was in Vecna's mind. Vecna was trying to get Will to work with him. He tried to get Will to kill his own asshole father and offered to do it for him. But Will refused and he sort of projected this massive light that freed us and we escaped on this... I don't know, rainbow ship and here we are. I think that Will somehow shattered the hive mind and all the Upside Down creatures aren't under his control anymore."
"How do you know that? asked El.
"I just do," said Max. El remembered just knowing things about the Upside Down after she opened the gate for the first time. "Listen, El, you have to play some music around Will constantly however long he's in this coma. Vecna's powers might be reduced now that the hive mind is broken, but he's probably pretty pissed off about that."
"Maybe, I can beat him now. He doesn't have the hive mind anymore."
"Kick his ass, El...Make him suffer," said Max. "He took all our lives." she indicated the others.
"Max, you're not dead," said El..
"My body's comepletely broken," said Max. "I don't even know how to gey back to it. At least Will's mind isn't some dark, decaying void like Vecna's."
"Your body has healed a lot in the last couple years, " said El.
"It has?" asked Max.
"Yes," said El. "We can ask Will to help you get back when he wakes up. We can ask Dustin too. He's really smart."
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Mike kept glancing at Eric as El was in Will's mind. Perhaps he was glaring. Once or twice Eric looked in Mike's direction and uickly looked away as he shifted uncomfortably.
It wasn't right or fair. Mike had known Will first. Mike recalled his rather tense fight with Will shortly before the confrontation with Vecna. Will had clearly been angry and sad.
"Don't do this to yourself, Mike. Don't play what if. You'll only make yourself miserable."
Perhaps, he didn't have to play what if. Perhaps Mike could call Eric's parents and tell them where he was. Despite Will's refusal to say whether or not he'd want to be with Mike if Eric wasn't in the picture,; Mike was sure Will would say yes.
"Did it matter that you were hurting me, Mike? Did you think I was just going to magically read your mind and realize you were secretly in love with me and just wait around for you to fiure it out? Is that what you hoped I'd do?"
Mike shook himself out of his stupor. What was he thinking? Where had those notions come from? Vecna was targeting him.
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A/N This fic is a reaction to some Byler theories. Mainly that Mike was a jerk to Max in season 2 because he thought Will might like her and he was jealous and that he was somewhat cold to WIll at the airport in season 4 because he thought that Will liked a girl as El's letter stated and he was jealous. Again, it's a reaction to theories, not how I think things will actually play out.