Chapter Text
Will lives in a facsimile. He knows that word because Stacey Albright’s dad had one of those ‘Word of the Day’ calendars on his desk, one of the many things Will took when he swept the rich kid neighborhood, years ago.
Facsimile: an exact copy. A reproduction. He almost laughed when he saw it on the page, felt like his vision was blurring with coincidence, because he was living inside that word. Wherever he’s found himself, it’s a facsimile.
What’s not a facsimile is the sad excuse for Will’s life, the substitutes and recreations he’s built to get by. Those are cheap knock-offs, stupid little rituals that keep him alive and break his heart and are too complicated for any of the words in Mr Albright’s stupid calendar.
Will makes grocery lists, runs his daily errands, has family dinners, observes every holiday. Maybe Henry’s right. Maybe he’s going crazy.
His “family dinners” are spent haunting random dining rooms, flickering the lights in an endless loop of morse code, just in case: IM STILL HERE. Sometimes he’ll throw in a few swears, some bitches, some motherfuckers, and he’ll think of Dustin, and then he’ll start crying.
He thought the crying would end at some point, that he’d become some hardened grizzled survivor like the guys in the movies that Lucas liked to watch. But it’s been five years, and it all still hurts.
The good days are the days he cries, because those are the days he can relax. The bad days are the days spent hiding, spent running, spent cowering in fear or fighting his way out. He can’t afford to cry on the bad days.
He’s learned over five, long years, that evading monsters, including the biggest monster of all, requires intense organization and planning, and a healthy dose of spontaneity. Sometimes it reminds him of DMing a D&D game, a thing he never did in the real world. That was Mike’s job.
Will rubs his eyes, then tells himself to stop rubbing his eyes. It’s a bad habit, like he can rub the sticky, ugly world out of his vision, but doing it too much hurts, and he can’t afford another eye infection. Everything in the world is poisonous, the vines, the slime, even the air.
It would take weeks to make him properly sick, longer to kill him. Plenty of time to get to the hospital and stock up on the inhalers that keep the infection at bay. If he’s gone too long between visits he’ll do a steroid shot to open his lungs, cough up a bunch of slime and take a cocktail of anti-bacterial pills for a few days. Henry laughed at him for it once. You won’t need all that once you join me, once you let me in and let go of your humanity.
He should have done this days ago, but the beasts had been patrolling the hospital grounds. Henry knows he comes here, but he has too many other things for the beasts to accomplish to let them stake-out the hospital at all times. Will ducks inside through the door he’d broken long ago, and heads to his usual supply closet in the E.R. He takes three cartages and doesn’t let himself count how many are left. When they’re gone, he’ll have to start going through people’s medicine cabinets, the glove boxes of cars, school desks. When those scavenged inhalers are gone, well. Then Will’s gone too.
He goes up to the roof, just to look out over not-Hawkins, the red lightning in the distance, the particles in the air, the miles of vines and goo. He feels unreal, feels like a memory, feels like a ghost. He looks down at his hands, makes sure he’s still solid.
Will’s not a ghost, but he is a haunting.
~~~~~
What Will knows—these are the things he’s obsessively chronicled in the thick lined notebooks that travel everywhere with him:
1. He can contact the real world if he really tries. Lights and radio waves work best. The contact is extremely basic, morse code unless he really lets himself start to lose his mind like in those early days, screaming Mom as he huddled in the downstairs cabinet. But screaming and losing his mind are the quickest ways to invite Henry back in.
2. The pocket world froze on the day he was taken. Henry never explained why and Will never asked. Before he’d managed to get away, all Henry’s answers had become some version of “you’re so special William, you’re the key to everything,” and Will couldn’t hear another second of it.
3. Henry isn’t strong enough to hunt down Will himself, he’s not even strong enough to keep the beasts on task long enough to send them to do it. If they find Will it’s because he made a mistake. Henry seems to store up his strength, using it in those moments when he bursts back into Will’s head.
4. There’s no way out of here. He’s not even sure how he got here in the first place. One moment he was in the real world, shooting at the beast from the tool shed, the next he was surrounded by vines and gloom, running through pure panic, the beast on his heels. If there’s a way out of here, he hasn’t found it.
5. His control of the beasts isn’t as simple as his telekinesis. It’s only possible when they’re in the real world, and never when he’s sleeping. If he really concentrates he can see through their eyes when awake, even control them at times.
6. The beasts are drawn to spilled blood, and seem to be able to differentiate between Will’s blood and others’. There have been others. He’ll never forget finding the remains of Nancy’s friend, the girl whose name he can’t even remember.
7. The beasts won’t hurt him. Or at least, they won’t hurt him enough to kill him. That’s not why they hunt him. No, if the beasts catch Will they’ll take him to Henry.
What Will wishes he could forget—these are the things he’ll never write down, the things he dreams about and dwells on in his darkest moments:
1. Contacting the real world only makes things harder. For him, for Joyce, for... anyone else that might be listening.
2. The pocket world froze but the real world hasn’t. He knows because he can hear it, somewhere out there. He hears voices change, hears technology change, hears people move on.
3. Henry doesn’t talk to Will these days unless he wants to torment him, or he needs Will’s help. Sometimes, Will gives it to him.
4. Even if he could find a way out, he’s not sure he’d survive the real world. Maybe he belongs here now.
5. Sometimes he’ll spend hours as a demon-bat just to see the moon, see animals, see living humans.
6. Even though there’s no spilled blood at home, or in Castle Byers, or at the Wheelers, the beasts circle them almost constantly. It’s like they can smell the heart-blood that Will has left there.
7. The beasts won’t kill him, but sometimes he wishes they would.
~~~~~
He was only in Henry’s world once, right at the beginning.
Eventually, the beast had caught up with him, dragged him screaming up to a thatch of vines and let one crawl down his throat. To keep him safe, Henry said later, until he could come and bring him home. Henry’s world was bright and beautiful and perfect, and Will knew it was fake. He knew Henry was too good, too nice, too beautiful to be real. But he’d been so scared for so long, he couldn’t help but relax, couldn’t help but let some part of Henry in.
Do you recognize me? Henry had said, sitting on the edge of the couch beside Will that first day.
No, Will lied.
Henry smiled, seeing right through him. I visited you in your dreams, sometimes, William. I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.
He set a heavy hand on Will’s shoulder.
The days in Henry’s house grew long, Will reading every book, listening to every old record, watching the unreal birds fly around outside. The days were for Will, and he cherished them, because the nights were for Henry. That’s when they’d sit at the massive dining table and Henry would tell him things. That he was special, that he could move things with his mind, that Henry had saved him from an uncaring world, that he would never have to grow up in this house. Sometimes Henry flexed his hand when he said that, the weird scar in his palm stretching. You can live in the safety of youth forever.
But Will had never felt safe in youth. There was something about him that sparked a meanness in others, a drive to push, to belittle, to hate. Even his dad, since before he could remember, had hated him.
Jonathan would never hate him, but he had said things in the past, given little warnings about those who might. It was after a man had been staring at Will at the pool, staring so openly that Will felt like shrinking until Jonathan noticed and whisked him away. It happened sometimes, boys and men giving him strange looks, either like he was a gross bug, or other, hungry looks he hadn’t known how to interpret.
“If a guy is ever looking at you the way Mr. Doyle was just looking at you, you leave and come find me,” Jonathan had said on the drive home. He looked upset.
“But why—?”
“Doesn’t matter why,” Jonathan said, fidgeting with the steering wheel. “A guy looking at you for too long means he wants to hurt you.”
It hadn’t been too long before the beast arrived that he’d started to work out what it all meant, what exactly was wrong with him.
They’d been watching Star Wars in the Wheeler’s basement, because school had started and they already needed a break. They’d seen Star Wars a million times, but this time Dustin and Lucas wouldn’t stop giggling. Mike kept snapping at them to shut up, but every time Princess Leia appeared, they’d giggle again, like they had some inside joke with the TV. When Leia jumped down off a ledge, Mike finally said a quiet oh. It took Will longer—it wasn’t until the movie was over and they bemoaned the fact that Return of the Jedi wouldn’t be out on VHS for another six months, that George Lucas was keeping Princess Leia’s glorious bikini from them, that Will realized. They liked her. They’d giggled every time her gauzy outfit had moved in a revealing way.
And Will hadn’t thought about her that way. What did it mean that he hadn’t thought about her that way? Part of him felt like it was stupid and Dustin and Lucas were stupid for giggling so much over it. Another part of him felt like it was the most important test in the world and he’d just failed.
He couldn’t sleep that night, going over and over the movies in his head. Lonnie had taken him and Jonathan to see Jedi at the movie theater downtown in May. Lonnie had made a coughing noise when Leia and her bikini had appeared on screen, and Will remembered thinking wow, she’s pretty. That meant he liked her, right? She was pretty and he liked her. It didn’t mean anything that Han Solo hadn’t left his thoughts since he saw Star Wars as a kid. It didn’t mean anything that a beautiful blonde man in glasses sometimes appeared in his dreams—
That’s why you’re here, William, Henry said. The world outside will never understand you, will hate you for those feelings.
Will stared at the perfect wood floor, hands clenched on his knees. Henry’s hand was still on his shoulder. He felt like shrinking again.
But, but Mom—
No mother wants a son who can’t love the way he’s supposed to. If you’d have stayed, she’d have left you, relied on Jonathan to be her real family, to give her grandchildren and the life she wants. She’d leave you, they both would. Your dad already left you, after all.
He thought this over, felt it sinking into his roots like poison.
My friends, he said. Mike.
Henry smiled sadly, folded his hands on the table. I know it’s hard, William, but those boys aren’t your friends anymore. They know what you are, they can tell. Especially Michael. He knows that you think about him, that you want to hold his hand, and he doesn’t like it, it makes his skin crawl.
Will’s face burned. His throat burned. Every memory burned with shame.
But it’s going to be okay, Henry said, with that brilliant smile. You’re here now. I’m going to keep you safe.
It took a long time, too long, to get out. At first he’d pushed boundaries, tried to argue with Henry about stupid little things. Then he’d gone for longer and longer walks alone in the woods around Henry’s house until Henry told him to stop. He’s started looking for ways out. He’d started trying to wake himself up. Nothing worked.
You keep telling me I have special powers, Will said one night. What does that mean? He’d never really believed him.
Henry looked at him for a long time, blue eyes never blinking. You’ve been here for a long time, William, he said, finally. Are you ready for the truth?
Will nodded.
Henry took a moment to gather his thoughts.
My father fought in the second world war, he said, his eyes far away. Will tried not to fidget, tried not to let Henry knows how much he was craving answers. Why Will? Why was he really here? The Germans were testing a new kind of chemical warfare, one that made their enemies sick in a new way, sick deep inside. It didn’t work in the way they planned, so they abandoned it. But it was too late, my father, and his whole company were infected. Then, later, when they came home and passed their genes on to their children, some of those children developed…abilities. Most were barely aware of their strengths, but others. He smiled, and a chill went down Will’s spine. Under the right amount of pressure, others thrived.
And…and me? Will said.
Henry smiled wider, shifted his chair closer. Will suppressed the urge to lean away from him. Whatever he once had liked about Henry had long faded. Maybe because Will had seen his true form, but there was something inhuman about him even in this perfect blonde vessel. He was like a spider wearing a man’s face. The Americans seized everything they could after we won the war, including all of Germany’s research and weapons. They found the chemical and they tinkered with it until they liked the result. Then they sent it over to Vietnam.
Agent Orange? They’d talked about it in school.
Henry nodded. Breathe in too much and it’ll kill, but just a small dose, at the right time? Well, all those soldiers came home, and just like my father, they started having kids.
My dad.
Yes, Leonard Byers came home not knowing what the chemical in his blood would do to his offspring. It doesn’t happen to everyone, the conditions have to be perfect. You’re so, so special, William.
Henry was looming over him. Will tried not to shrink away, even when Henry’s hand came down to cover his on the table.
So, so what do I do with it? Will said, not looking at him. He wanted to run, and wondered if Henry could feel it. How do I even know if I have it?
You have it, I’m sure of it, Henry said. He didn’t stop smiling. He didn’t move his hand.
But how do I know for sure?
The problem is we’re in a safe place right now. This isn’t a physical place, so neither of us can use physical powers, only mental ones.
So, can we go somewhere else?
Henry stilled, the hand on Will’s going rigid. You want to leave.
No, no I don’t want to leave, not really, Will said quickly. He thought for a moment, tried to draw on everything he knew about Henry, all the things that Henry liked about Will. He looked up at him, made his eyes go big and innocent. You’re saying that I’m special. I’ve never been special before. No one has ever thought that about me. I just…I want to know how special. I want to feel it.
Henry smiled, eyes going soft. He reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind Will’s ear. He tried not to shudder, tried not to look away in discomfort.
Of course, Henry said.
Will had hoped that Henry would take him back to the real world, that he could run and find a grown-up to get him to safety, but when he woke up, he was in the pocket world. Henry, back to being horrible and naked and evil looking, tugged the vine out of Will’s throat and he spent a minute coughing on the floor.
Follow me, Henry said, when he could breathe again.
Will followed him to a junkyard, staring around at the pocket world he’d nearly forgotten. When he’d been here last he’d been in the woods, lost and barely recognizing anything around him. Now they were on a street he knew, near the abandoned camper van he explored with his friends last summer.
Henry hovered creepily near the woods, like he couldn’t bring himself to be near the almost-daylight. First thing you must remember, he said. He spoke differently out here, like he was in pain. Is that the heavier an object is, the harder it will be to move. Anything you can pick up with your hand, you can pick up with your mind. Try.
Will looked at a tin can on the ground, stared at it, thought about Luke using the Force. As expected, nothing happened. Maybe Henry was just crazy, and there was nothing special about Will at all. He wasn’t sure what Henry would do to him if that was the case. Or maybe he wasn’t concentrating hard enough. But it was hard, because he was half thinking about how slowly Henry moved out here. And how there were no beasts around.
Imagine you’re picking it up with your hand.
If he ran, those things would just chase him like last time. But he was stronger than last time. The vine down his throat was gross but it had kept him alive, fed, strong. He was a little taller than he used to be. However much time had passed, he’d grown a bit. And now, he knew where he was.
Try again.
Will tried again. He stretched out his hand, trying to concentrate. Maybe if he actually could use these magical powers that he barely believed existed, he could use them to fight off Henry. He tuned Henry’s voice out and played Yoda’s dialogue from Empire Strikes Back.
They’d watched it in the theater when it came out, and Will had cried when Han Solo was put in the carbonite, was still crying a little bit when they left, and trying not to let anyone see. But Mike had seen. Mike always saw. He nudged Will’s shoulder as they walked behind Mrs. Wheeler.
“They’ll get him out,” he said, smiling. “Just wait. It’ll be an awesome rescue mission in the next one and he’ll be fine.”
Will just sniffed, feeling embarrassed. He tried to secretly wipe a tear but Mike saw. Mike nudged him again and attempted a Yoda impression. “Do or do not, there is no cry.” And Will laughed.
“That doesn’t even make sense.” Suddenly he was smiling so wide his face hurt.
“Does the Force make sense? No, it’s magic, Will, it’s like D&D. It doesn’t matter if it’s real. What’s the harm in believing in it?” He poked Will’s tearstained cheek and Will pushed him.
“So what, you’re going to run away and join the Jedi Order?”
Mike mimed unsheathing a lightsaber, making the JJJJjjjjshh sound over and over as he started an imaginary fight. Will laughed and joined in.
That’s whose voice he heard in the junkyard. Not Yoda, but Mike’s dumb impression of Yoda. Do or do not, there is no cry. What’s the harm in believing in it?
The can twitched and Will nearly jumped out of his skin. Henry stopped monologuing.
Yes, he said. He sounded like Darth Vader. Again. Concentrate.
Will concentrated, playing that memory in his head again and again. The can twitched again, then lifted an inch. Another inch. Then it shot into the air and he let go, startled. It crashed to the ground.
Second thing, Henry said. Sometimes you lose control. Now. Again.
It was dark by the time Henry ordered Will to follow him, and they returned to the house. Will had made an agreement with himself. He’d ask to keep coming out here, ask to keep practicing. He’d convince Henry that Will was his, was loyal in every way, and then, when he was strong enough, when he could use this strange power better, he’d run.
But he stopped dead in the doorway. Henry was going to order him back onto that vine writhing wall, was going to shove that tube back down his throat. Henry was going to keep talking to him every evening in the dining room, keep touching his hands and his hair, keep looking at him in the way that Jonathan had warned him about. It would be stupid to run now, when he wasn’t prepared. But he couldn’t go back. He couldn’t make himself. And if Henry had to drag him back screaming, he’d never trust him again, would never let him back out.
Henry moved slowly into the room, eyes on the wall. Will stayed in the doorway. One of the windows was broken, glass shards everywhere. One was big, edge like the point of a spear. He tried to breathe slowly as fear engulfed him. He heard Mike’s voice, pictured Mike’s face, tried to remember the specific smell of the blankets in Mike’s basement. He didn’t let himself think about why. Henry was talking again but Will didn’t listen. The glass slid lifted silently into the air, hovered as he held out his hand.
We will do amazing things together, William, Henry said, and Will didn’t think. The glass was controlled by his fear more than his mind. It shot through the air and into Henry’s back. Will barely saw the impact, barely heard the wrenched scream, because the was out the door and running.
~~~~~
When Mr. Albright’s calendar ran out, Will found others. There was a three year planner in Principal Rodriguez’s office, even through the summers. After that ran out, he found calendar pocketbooks, the kind older ladies carried in their purses, with addresses and phone numbers in the front, and meticulously changed the dates. He has to. Sometimes he feels like knowing how much time had passed is his only connection to the outside world.
When he left Henry’s, he’d been totally lost, adrift in the pocket world, until the first time Henry spoke in his head.
Happy birthday, William.
Will was staying in one of the stores downtown, not the grocery store, he worried that would be too obvious to Henry, but the Radio Shack, trying to figure out how to contact the real world. He nearly dropped the radio he was tinkering with. Birthday. If Henry was right, Will was 13 today. He’d been trapped here almost 6 months.
“How—?” he spoke aloud, but Henry heard him inside his head.
How am I speaking to you?
Will didn’t answer, terror slicing through him. He set the radio down slowly.
I could show you how to repair that, you know, Henry said.
You know where I am?
In a manner of speaking.
Will strained his ears for the sounds of the beasts. If he moved now, Henry would stay with him, would know where he was going. He kept his eyes on the radio.
You ran.
However badly he’d hurt Henry, it had worked, had been enough of a distraction that he’d been too slow in calling the beasts. By the time they were hunting for him, Will was watching them thunder by from a basement window. He’d been hiding ever since.
I had to. Will wouldn’t apologize. I couldn’t let that thing back down my throat, I couldn’t make myself.
Would you rather I made you?
Will actually gave it a moment of thought. Life was hard. Was getting harder. He was coughing nearly constantly, breathing in the white dust that was everywhere. Maybe returning to Henry’s world made more sense. If he couldn’t make it back to the real world, why not live in the easier one? But that meant being with Henry at all times. That meant the constant knowledge that there was a vine down his throat and Henry’s eyes on him.
No, he said, at last.
The air will kill you, Henry said. Eventually.
Will just breathed it in. Maybe that was actually the best course of action.
There is medicine that will help. Corticosteroids. Antibiotics.
Corticosteroid. That was in Dustin’s inhaler, it said so on the side.
Why are you telling me this?
The vines would save you, but you refuse. I can’t let you die.
Why?
I told you, William, you’re very special.
And with a moment like a river rushing away from him, Henry was gone.
And Will knew the date.
~~~~~
It was near the anniversary of his disappearance that he leveled up those oh so special powers. That was all he could think of to call it, leveling up like a D&D character. It started in his dreams. He’d started seeing through the beasts eyes.
They still chased him sometimes, still tried to grab him and drag him back to Henry, but the attempts were fewer, less organized. Sometimes he was able to throw glass at them like he had Henry, once had managed to bring down a street light on top of one. Mostly he’d just learned to avoid the places they lurked.
The first dream was about Dustin. Will was small, running through the school hallways, then Dustin appeared. They kept happening after that, Will getting bigger and faster until every dream was spent racing through tunnels and chasing people like a slavering dog. Once he hid around a corner, waiting to strike as his friends screamed at each other—no, his friends screamed at Mike. There were others there, a red-haired girl, a serious girl with dark eyes, and Steve Harrington, for some reason. Through other eyes he saw his brother and Mike’s sister. Saw his mom screaming. Saw so many bodies.
It started happening in the daytime. He stayed in the same place for way too long because it seemed at any moment it would strike again, pain and terror shooting through him and images bursting into his head. A tall cop. A soldier. The dark-eyed girl. Someone was shooting a gun in Will’s direction. Someone was swiping at him with a baseball bat.
Then—everything was dark. They were terrified. Dustin, Lucas, and the red-head were in a tunnel with Steve Harrington. Will was going to eat them. His body was powerful, fast, his claws sharp. Other beasts were around but Will would be first. One by one, the others fell or were scared away, but Will leapt, latched onto the tallest, and didn’t let go. His jaws cracked bone, claws sank into flesh. Screams.
Will had always liked Steve Harrington. He didn’t care if he was popular, or that Mike hated him or that Dustin called him a douchebag. He talked to him once at the Wheelers, when Steve was waiting in the foyer to see Nancy, and Will was sneaking from the bathroom to the kitchen trying to avoid Mr. Wheeler.
“What’s up, little man? Nice flannel,” Steve said, all smiles, holding flowers for Nance. Will went hot all over.
“Um.”
“You’re in Mike’s class, right? God I hated middle school. Mr. Gibson still there? Still a monster?”
“Um.”
“You’ll get through it, buddy, high school’s so much better.”
Nancy appeared and Steve ruffled Will’s hair and Will went back to the kitchen in a daze to listen to Mike bitch about that stupid basketball douchebag messing around with his stupid sister and how he was just going to hurt her stupid feelings.
And now that basketball douchebag is splintering between his jaws and Will is in the pocket world, face on the laminate floor of someone’s kitchen, screaming in horror. He throws out a hand like he can actually do something, like he’s not just forced to bear witness and—
The beast falters. Its jaws unclench like a dog dropping a toy. There are more screams and then fire, everywhere, Lucas’s face behind a blowtorch and then Will is gone. He’s sucked into a dark void. More running, more screeching, a mad dash somewhere, a climb, a girl, then nothing.
When he comes to, he’s not on the kitchen floor anymore, which means at some point when he’d been out of his mind, he’d dragged himself from the kitchen into a dark bedroom, and hid under the bed. He lays on the carpet and tried to think about what it all means.
He catches glimpses through their non-eyes when they’re in the pocket world, but he can only control them when they’re in the real world. He was screaming so loud, and thrashing hard enough to bleed on the kitchen floor, and nothing came to drag him away. They’d all be occupied elsewhere. Even Henry.
That was how he saw his friends grow up, in a tableau of horror. A couple times a year he’d see Lucas’s new hairstyle, would see the varieties of Dustin's hat collection, would see how tall Mike had grown. They were always running, always fighting. Sometimes, in the middle of fighting monsters, they were fighting each other.
~~~~~
Will’s cleaning a gun.
Henry knows about some of his stashes, has sent the beasts to destroy them before, but Will just keeps making more. Guns aren’t the best way to kill the beasts, don’t do much unless he gets a shotgun blast right in the mouth of the big ones, and he’s not a good enough shot to take down the bats, but they’re useful in keeping them at bay. The best way is fire. The town is full of cars, which are full of gas for him to siphon. His friends in the real world somehow have a flame thrower—he knows how effective it is, he’s felt it melt his flesh. Sometimes he’s jealous of their tools, which makes him feel off-kilter, close to insanity. He’s jealous that people who don’t know him anymore, who he only knows now because he spies on them through monsters, own a flame thrower which they use to kill those monsters.
He imagines being one of the beasts, taking a shot gun blast right to the face, point-blank range, slipping back to the black void. He’s hurt and died so many times as one of them he’s not sure he’d be able to separate it anymore from his real human death. He swallows and looks at the gun. It’s not loaded.
Joyce had taught him how to use one, when he could barely hold it up. They lived out in the woods, and there were large animals around. Now he knows that the gun was for protection from more than wild animals, that she’d been scared of Lonnie. Some part of him wonders if she’d been scared for Will, too. If she saw those looks from men that Jonathan had warned him about, and instead of telling him to run to her about it, she’d given him a gun.
“Never, ever, look down the barrel,” she’d said. “No matter what. Even if the gun is unloaded, even if the safety is on, even when you’re cleaning it.”
Will blinks at it. He looks down the barrel, remembering all the times one has been pointed at him just like this. Sometimes the cop is on the other side, sometimes Nancy Wheeler, one time his brother. Maybe this is his future, endlessly staring down the barrel of a shotgun, killing and dying and killing until he’s not sure where he ends and they begin, until he can’t be sure that he’s not somehow powering this whole nightmare. Maybe he’s a battery, maybe that’s why Henry wants him.
He shuts his eyes. Sometimes he wishes so badly someone was with him, anyone. A pet, a friend, his worst enemy, it wouldn’t even matter. Other times he’s glad he’s alone, thankful no one has to witness these moments. He sets down the gun, turns to the day ahead.
Today’s grocery list is: inhalers—check, shot gun shells, gasoline, unbroken bottles, duct tape, shoe laces, food, something new to read. He’d flown through the Agatha Christie books he’d found in a big blue house in town, and he’s itching for more.
He should probably find another magazine too. In a fit of self-hatred he’d burned the copy of “Lumberjack” he’d found under a mattress, and now he feels like he’s going insane. He wonders what it would be like in the real world, if he’d feel worse about himself in that way, if it was even possible to feel worse. He wonders if Henry’s wrong, if things have changed, or maybe were never as bad as he thought they were. Maybe in a different life he’s had his first kiss, even if it was in secret. Maybe in a different life he has someone to hold hands with, to kiss, to love, not just his own hand and his guilty thoughts of Han Solo.
He puts it out of his mind. No magazines—not today.
Sometimes he’ll put other things on his list, kind things like chocolate, a stuffed toy, something pretty, but not today. His head is soft with memories today, and he can’t let himself slip.
Happy birthday, William.
Henry’s intrusions into his mind have stopped scaring him. He knows now what it feels like when Henry arrives, the odd feeling at the back of his mind, like his sinuses are full, like there’s a white-noise buzz he can’t turn off. He knows now how much energy these visits cost Henry. He’s not strong enough to keep up a conversation and see through Will’s eyes and send a beast after him and protect himself from Will fighting back.
Aww, you remembered, Will says, making sure his thoughts are dripping in sarcasm. He closes his eyes, just in case Henry’s decided to expend the energy to spy.
How could I forget? It’s one of the many things we share. Will shudders with revulsion, as he always does when Henry points out their similarities. Do you remember the year your family forgot?
They didn’t forget, Will says immediately. He shouldn’t engage, but he can’t help himself. Dad had just left. Things were chaos. They remembered that night, anyway. It was fine. Why are you even here? Just want to make my birthday extra special?
This is a special birthday, William. You’re legally an adult. Will shudders again. You know what that means, right? If you ever left, you wouldn’t be a poor lost child, back from the dead. You’d be a man. A vagabond. A threat. Did you know that’s what some said happened to you? You went off with a man, a predator. Now you’ve come full circle. You’ve become the monster that stole little William Byers.
Shut up.
Sometimes Henry does this. He checks in just to make sure Will still hates himself. Hates Henry. Hates everything. He’s not sure what the purpose was. To keep him here? Done, he’s already trapped. To get him to come crawling back to Henry? Seems like a bizarre strategy. To drive him to suicide? He can’t see what Henry would gain from that, he’s said so many times that he wants him alive. So it’s just torment for the sake of torment. Taking everything he’s ever heard about people like him and turning it back on him.
The disease is only getting worse. Thousands have died. You’re lucky I brought you in here. If you’d stayed out there, you might be dead too.
I am dead. Will doesn’t meant to think it, but Henry hears it. He laughs.
Do you want to hear about them?
Will sighs, keeping his eyes shut tight. About the dead?
No. About your friends.
Sometimes he does this, too. Offers to give Will glimpses into the life he’s lost. But it always hurts, and there’s always a catch.
Go away, Henry.
You see glimpses of them in your dreams, through my servants eyes. Aren’t you tired of seeing them in terror?
Lucas has a girlfriend. That’s what he’d learned last time he’d given in. Lucas is going out with the red-haired girl Will sometimes sees screaming and running from him. Dustin is going out with a girl very far away, and they talk late at night on his radio. Will knows Henry had dropped in that detail in the hopes that Will would head to Dustin’s to hear his voice on the radio waves. He stayed away from Dustin’s neighborhood for an entire year.
It’s about Michael Wheeler.
Will’s so surprised he opens his eyes. It hardly matters—he’s in a nondescript laundry room of a townie neighborhood house, hands on a shot gun. He blinks at the wall. Henry’s never mentioned Mike, not once, and Will refuses to ask.
Nausea rolls over him with how much he wants to know, how much he wants to see Mike’s face again. He’s seen only glimpses of it through the beasts’ eyes. In the dreams he has no control of them, so it’s him attacking his friends, it’s his claws raking over skin. He knows Mike’s hair was short and then long and then short again. He knows there was a moment when all Mike’s features were suddenly too big for his face. He knows that the last two times he’s seen him, Mike has been alone.
He lets out a shaky sigh. He knows he’ll regret this.
What do you want in return?
He tries to think quickly about what he’s willing to give. He’s helped Henry before. When he’s particularly weak (from doing what, exactly, Will doesn’t want to know), he starts to lose control of the beasts when they’re in the real world. After Will had torn apart Steve Harrington, Henry agreed to stop hunting him for the whole winter if Will would track down each lost monster and give Henry their coordinates. He never let Will see how he brought them back to the pocket world, but still. Will had been happy to help with that one, keeping them away from his friends and other innocents in the real world. But there were less honorable times as well. What would he be willing to do this time?
Since he arrived, Henry has wanted all of him, to possess him fully. Even when he was in Henry’s world, Will never truly let him in.
He can hear a smile in Henry's voice. Nothing at all, William. Consider it a birthday gift.
He doesn’t believe him for a second, but he can’t help himself. Tell me.
Michael is alone, Henry says, and Will knows immediately he’s going to draw this out. His friends abandoned him after he betrayed them. His family can’t stand him. He’s isolated in every way. He has no plans for his future, and never has. For two years now he’s been hurting himself, carving razor lines into his skin. For six months now he’s been using drugs.
He pauses to let Will absorb the cruelty of these words. Will stares at the floor, trying to reconcile the little boy imitating Yoda with these images. He takes a few deep breaths, feels even more nauseous.
Is that all?
No, that’s not all. I’m setting the scene, Henry says lightly. You have to understand what his life is like right now, so you’ll believe me when I say that today, Michael plans to die.