Chapter Text
Will was biking home after the campaign had been cut short by Mrs. Wheeler shooing them out of the basement after find that they had been there for nearly eight hours. Mike had protested, yelling as his mom told the boys to, kindly, go home. It wasn’t a school night, Mike yelled, but of course Mrs. Wheeler shut him down quickly. It just so happened that their campaign was cut short when the die went missing, and Will had rolled a mysterious number that the four scrounged the floor for. Will found it, and found the determined number to Lucas, who swore, and told Will to hide it from Mike so he could roll again the next time they played.
“It was a seven.” Will said as he hopped onto his bike, Lucas already on his way home as he noticed the time, and Dustin pushing his bike from where he had left it outside, further down the porch than the others.
“What?” Mike asked, glancing back at Dustin as he came closer.
“I rolled a seven. We found the die.” Will grinned slightly. “Lucas said to keep it secret.”
“Of course he did.” Mike rolled his eyes, although he was smiling too. “I won’t tell him I know. You can re-roll tomorrow, when he finish the campaign.”
“Yeah.” Will nodded definitely. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He smiled, and high-fived Mike before Dustin was calling his name, and the two were peddling away.
They rung their bells, waving Mike away as they sped off down the dark road. It was late enough that neither had to worry about any cars. He thought back to his mom hitting Steve with the car, and snorted.
“What’s so funny?” Dustin asked, as he rode beside Will’s right. His turn was coming up, and soon the two would split and see each other tomorrow, like every other weekend since they were six.
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “I was just thinking about the lost die. We were looking for it so frantically.”
“Well, duh!” Dustin laughed. “God, it was getting so good. Don’t tell him, but Mike might be a genius with campaigning.”
“I’ll hold you to that!” Will snorted again. He dodged some rubble on the road, coming closer to Dustin and nudging the other gently as he pulled away. Dustin rung his bell. “But he is good!”
“Please, don’t tell him I said that.” Dustin groaned. He rung his bell again. “You’re going to tell him, aren’t you?”
“What’s in it for me?” Will asked with a small smirk, and Dustin balked.
“Fine.” He groaned. “You can choose one. One! Of my comics.” Dustin bribed, and Will’s face lit up.
“To keep?”
“To lend!” Dustin repeated, his jaw hitting the floor at the very /idea/ of giving his comics away so freely.
“Make it a keep, and I won’t tell. Not even in twenty years.” Will slowed down so he could put his hand out for Dustin to shake. He slowed too, and stared at the offending hand for a moment. It got closer to his turn off.
“Fine!” He groaned, slapping his sweaty palm in Will’s smaller one. “You choose.” Dustin started to turn off, and Will sped away down his road home with a triumphant grin on his lips.
“I’ll take your x-men 1-3-4!” Will laughed as he went away, listening to Dustin’s distant yelling. He turned around to see the boy flipping him off over his shoulder, disappearing down the rest of the path as Will kept control of his bike handles in front. When he turned around, his smile shot off his face.
A big, burley figure looked before him, and Will screamed shortly as he fumbled his pedals. He felt his balance fail, throwing himself and the bike down onto the gravel road. His short legs got caught under the bike, the pedals digging into his side as he groaned. He felt the right side of his cheek scratch, and he got winded for a moment as he glanced back towards the road.
There, long fingers reached for him, reaching for his skull. Will was too breathless to scream, instead little whimpers falling past his lips as he struggled to get his legs underneath himself.
He pushed the bike away, getting it off of his body so he could stand, and run.
He ran through the woods as fast as he could, his little chest pumping as blood rushed through his ears. He sprinted as fast as he could, tripping on branches as he went.
He reached the house, and slammed into the door, making it ricochet against the wall. Will skidded as he turned, slamming the door closed behind himself and stepping far away from it.
He rushed to the phone first, finding it smashed by Hopper’s hand the other day. He stepped away from the phone, searching the house for sign of anyone being home.
“Mom?” He called in panic, chest still heaving as tears flooded his vision. He wiped them away with the back of his sleeves, rushing down the corridor and into his mom’s bedroom. The bed was empty. “Mom?!” He called again, rushing to the sheets to pull them back, incase he wasn’t seeing her straight. The bed was empty.
He turned on his heel, gripping himself as he barged into Jonathan’s room, where Steve’s make-shift bed still lay on the floor. Nobody was in either bed.
“Jonathan!” Will yelled, a scrape of something metal against the door had Will gasping, leaving Jonathan’s room and standing in the kitchen, watching as the front door started to rattle.
Will screamed, his chest pounding again as his mind told him to Run! Get away! Get away from that thing!
He backed away, into the dining table, making the ashtray wobble and fall onto the floor with a crash. The rattle of the door stilled, and Will was reminded of the gun in the shed outside.
He licked his dry lips as he panted, walking quietly as he could as he jogged towards the shed. He closed the door quietly behind himself, and his own panting filled his ears as he reached into the hidden cupboard for the gun.
He loaded it with shaking hands. As he put the last bullet in, a cold wrath flew over him, and the door started to rattle as the whole shed shook by an evil force outside. Will gasped for breath as he held the gun awkwardly between his skinny arms.
The gun felt bigger than he was, and he pointed it to the rattling door with his finger on the trigger, reading to brace his legs lest he go tumbling backwards. Ready to shoot. Like his dad had taught him and Jonathan, years ago.
The rattling stopped, and Will felt a warmth coat his skin. The room appeared to become brighter, and Will glanced up at the lightbulb ahead. It dangled from the centre of the sheds roof, glowing brighter, and brighter. Until it started to hurt Will’s eyes, and he glanced away for just a second, and his fingers went slack on the gun in his hands.
And suddenly, long wet arms were wrapped around him, and Will’s scream was muffled by a taloned hand covering his entire skull.
And suddenly, he dropped the gun, and he was gone.
<~>
Steven shot awake, a sharp intake of breath being drawn in by his desperate lungs. Two surrounding people started calling for him, calling his name, asking if he was okay.
“Will.” Steven choked out, coughing dry blood onto his lap. A rough hand stroked across his pat, thumping him gently.
“It’s Will.” Steve choked around his words, glancing up at Hopper with wide eyes and a dripping nose.
Hopper stared, before shooting up to the door, grabbing his coat, and leaving the cabin.
“Steve?” Jane called him, wiping a soft tissue under his nose, across his top lip. Steve was too tired to flinch away. “Is Will okay? What happened?”
“He’s…” Steve shook his head, grasping for breath, for words to explain.
A deep pull inside his chest, nagging his mind that something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
Steven shook his head, lost for words. “Will, he’s hurt.”
“Hurt?” Jane insisted, glancing up at the door and back to Steve. “What do you mean hurt, how do you know?”
“Bad man.” Steve whispered, wiping at his nose absently as he shook his head stiffly. “A bad man.”
Jane stared with wide eyes.
<~>
At a more appropriate hour, Joyce sat in Hopper’s precinct office fretting her fingers between her teeth.
“And you last saw him this morning?” Hopper asked as he wrote Joyce’s statement in scratching letters, on a notepad he had barely used. The last statement he took was for Benny, when he found teenagers taking rats out of his trash and stomping on them repeatedly. That was five years ago, and before the disappearance of Will, that was the most intense case Hopper had dealt with in Hawkins.
Now, kids were appearing out of nowhere, talking about bad places and bad men hurting them, and kids were also disappearing.
“Yes!” Joyce yelled, standing and looking over Hopper were he sat at his desk. “Before school. He ate his breakfast, and I told Jonathan to be home for his brother, but he wasn’t because he took on another shift-“ Joyce broke down, pulling her hands up to her face and sobbing into them. “I told him to be there!”
“Okay. Okay, Joyce just.. sit down.” He spoke quietly, standing and guiding her to sit across from him, he sat back down this time leaning over the desk and holding her smaller hand in his. She sniffled, tears still streaming. “We’ll find him. Okay? I’ll ask the kids and their parents, and we’ll get down to the bottom of this, and we’ll find him.”
Joyce nodded, wiping at her soaked face with her free hand. “We’ll find him.”
Hopper smiled gently. In the back of his mind, he thought back to the two suited men who had asked after a missing child. He hoped Will hadn’t got caught in their cold, unfeeling hands.
Hopper would call and ask Steve to elaborate on what he knew later. He refrained from telling Joyce that Steve had sensed something wrong with Will before anyone could realise he was missing.
He would call them on his lunch break.
<~>
“Seven, hold my hand please.”
Seven took Papa’s hand, peering up at the white haired man. White walls, wall halls, white hair. Seven blinked at the bright light surrounding.
“I want to introduce you to some friends of mine.”
“Friends?” Seven’s tiny voice asked timidly. He gripped Papa’s hand tighter as they passed the room he was not allowed to enter. Seven had a distant memory of games, and bright colours painting the walls in straight lines. He didn’t remember the reason he wasn’t allowed inside.
“Some people I know, who I want you to meet.” They turned the corner, down the next white hallway.
“Okay.” Seven whispered.
They walked into another bright room, where two men in black suits sat behind a grey metal table. Their wrists were cuffed tight enough to dig into their skin, leaving red bruises around tan skin. The cuffs were tied to the bar built into the table, and Seven noticed their split lips and puffed cheeks. Like they had been hit, repeatedly.
Seven tried to shuffle back, but large hands gripping his slender shoulders.
“Seven.” Papa spoke sternly, pushing him forwards and making Seven step closer. He glanced between the two battered men fleetingly, his chests rising and falling at the sight. Their bruised, black eyes begged Seven for mercy.
“I don’t want you to hurt them, Seven.” Papa’s prior on his shoulders tightened, and the little boy winced as Papa’s nails dug into his skin.
“I would like you to-“
“You’re a monster!”
Seven gasped, a quick intake of breath as he looked to the man sat on his left. He was shuffling closer in his chair, his face swollen and dripping blood onto the table. Seven gulped as the man yelled, at Papa.
“Making a kid do this! Be apart of this!” The man hissed, his swollen lips making him lisp. He was no less intimidating.
Papa didn’t reply, and Seven was entranced by the man before him, yelling and defying so easily to Papa. Seven had never dreamed of it, afraid of punishment. Of the dark room at the end of the hall, left to cry and kick and scream.
“Kid, son.” The man tried getting closer, but the door opened behind Seven. Footsteps came closer, and as the guards went to reach him, he spoke quickly. “Remember this name. Owens. He’ll get you out, and the other kids. He won’t leave you in here, soon you’ll be safe from that sicko! I promise you. You’re going to be saved-“
A baton to the mouth shut the man up, knocking him out as the guard kept hitting him over and over.
Seven glanced quickly to the other man cuffed, and he had his body downcast in defeat, wincing at each hit.
Seven looked back to the limp body still being whacked, and started flinching at each wet hit of the baton against the defiant man’s skin.
Papa’s hand lifted off his shoulder gently, the other still gripping him tight. The guard glanced up, before putting his baton away and uncuffing the man with ease. Papa’s hand rested back onto Seven’s shoulder, and the little boy watched the blood trail away as the body was dragged.
His wide eyes startled to Papa, who spoke quietly into his ear where he knelt by his side.
“Seven, I would like you to see into that man’s mind.” Seven snapped his head to Papa, leaning away to look across the man’s serious face. Papa nodded, and gripped his shoulder again.
Seven had never done that, at least not in person. He was good at spying, through phone calls and radios, and repeating the words through speakers. But never minds, never in person…
“Concentrate.” Papa nodded towards the man, who was breathing heavily, wheezing past bruised swollen lips. Blood dripping down the side, one eye puffed with bruised and turning a purple-mixed-black around the edges.
“You said…” Seven whispered, and Papa snapped his head back to the little boy. “Don’t hurt friends.” He repeated the words, and Papa glanced back to the man.
“He has been bad. Naughty.” Papa shook his head. “He must be punished.”
“Dark room?” Seven whispered in horror, eyes blowing wide. Papa nodded, and Seven looked to the man cuffed to the table.
He looked pathetic.
Papa stood to his full height, stepping away to watch as Seven lifted his palm, concentrating deeply.
The man started to shake his head, leaning forwards and mouthing silent words. Seven ignored his bruised lips, focusing on the dark.
The deep feeling of surrounding darkness, the fear of the unknown gaining in on him. The lock of the door, the slam of deafening silence. The inability to prove himself good enough. The anger to being put away, shut out from his routine.
The man started to choke, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as his spine straightened out, pulling against the cuffs.
Seven’s fingers strained around the force he clenched around the man’s brain, catching sight of the man’s still moving lips, mouthing once word repeatedly.
Owens. Owens.
Seven felt his skin itch, blood trickling down his lips and pooling at his chin. His ears started to ring, his eyes started to strain. The grip became too much, and he let go with a deep gasp filling his lungs.
Seven’s legs fell out from under him. He would have dropped to his skinny knees, bruising them like the man’s battered face, if Papa’s hands hadn’t grabbed him by the underarms, standing him up again with a lift.
He caught his breath for a moment, looking down to his shaking hands as he levelled his breathing. He wiped at his face, smearing the fresh red blood across the side of his face, and looked up to watch the guard enter again, and whack the man across the side of his head. His chest stopped moving, and Seven knew he was dead.
The name rang his mind.
Owens…
“Seven.” His name was sneered, and Seven didn’t turn to Papa. He watched the dead body, waiting for the chest to rise, for a breath to sound past the red swollen lips.
The hands under his arms flew to his shoulders, gripping tightly. Seven felt sick, bile rising up his throat. He gagged at the dribbling blood down the side of the man’s temple.
Papa’s grip on his shoulders lessened, and reached down to grab his hand. “That will be all.” And Seven was herded out of the room with the dead man before he could throw up.
<~>
Hopper sighed, letting the three boys go back home under their parents escorting. He rubbed over his face, groaning into his palm. How their parents kept up with those annoying brats, Hopper would never know. And how Jane didn’t get annoyed by them every single day, he didn’t understand either.
As Dustin and Lucas left, bickering about ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘Mirkwood’, Mike stopped at the doorway. He turned slowly.
“Mr. Hopper?” He spoke quietly, glancing back to his friends walking off without them. He stepped closer, coming back into the room. Callahan was escorting the two little shits down the hallway, back to their parents in the waiting room. It was just him and Mike inside the office, now.
“Yeah, kid?” He grumbled, thinking through his next moves. He had yet to call Steve and Jane back home, who had opted to not go into questioning today, to help Steven, who seemed startled and less talkative than ever. Which, was saying something.
“Have you asked Steve about Will? Maybe he might know something.” Mike said quietly, and Hopper snapped his head up to the skinny boy.
“How’d you know that?”
Mike shuffled, fretting with his hands for a moment. “Will told me, on Friday.”
“Before he went missing?” Hopper’s mind ran to those people in suits, asking after a missing boy. Could they have found a replacement, having given up on finding Steve?
Mike nodded, and Hopper kissed his teeth. “Come back in here, kid.”
Mike sat back down, and went through everything he knew about the mysterious teen who showed up without a trace of existing before.
“Do you think they took Will?” Mike finished quietly, his face pale and looking more afraid than before. “The ‘bad men’ Steve said were after him?”
“I sure as hell hope not, kid.” Hopper grumbled, and called fuck it to the wind, as he reached for his walkie.
<~>
Two. One. Three.
A pattern of buzzes came from the walkie across the room.
Jane turned from Steve’s stilled form to look towards the walkie.
“It’s Hop.” She smiled gratefully, sitting up and padding towards the talkie on the nightstand by her bedroom door. Before she could reach it, it lifted off of the table and into her arms forcefully, sending her back a few stops as she stared at the object in shock.
When she turned back around to Steve, to ask if he had caught sight of the object moving in mid air, she watched him wipe away a trail of blood trickling down his top lip, a dried blood pool already coating the side of his sleeve.
“Did you…” She spoke breathlessly, unable to finish her words. To say what she saw.
He had moved the walkie talkie with his mind.
Steve nodded, and looked down to his lap, downcast and afraid. It seemed to be his default feeling.
“That’s so cool.” Jane grinned, and Steve snapped his head up to watch her come sit excitedly beside him.
“Cool?” He whispered fearfully, and Jane watched as his tapped his fingers together in pattern to self-soothe. She reached for his hand, and held it tightly.
“So cool.” She nodded definitely, and saw a smile perk across Steve’s lips. “How’d you do it? Did you learn it? Are you like a mutant?” She knew of the x-men from Dustin and Will, who ranted a lot about their silly nerd comics.
Steve shook his head, reaching for the walkie. Jane let him take it, and watched how Steve handled it with care.
“Taught.” He spoke roughly, his mouth forming the words but his sentences not sounding correct on his tongue. Jane wasn’t the best at English class either, so she couldn’t pick fun. “The lab.”
“The lab?” She felt her brow furrow. “The plower plant? Outside town?” She theorised, and Steve shrugged. “You’re from that lab?” To that, he nodded.
Jane looked away, picturing hospital beds and sharp needles stick through large syringes. She shivered.
“Is that the bad place?”
Steve nodded, looking off to the wall, seeing something that wasn’t quite there.
He nodded again. “Bad man. The bad place.”
“Shit.” She cursed, and at that moment the walkie started to crackle.
“This is Chief, do you read me home-base. Over.” Hopper’s voice crackled through static, and Jane reached for the talkie from between Steve’s gentle hands. He handed it towards her, and she took it with a grateful smile.
She stood as she spoke, trying not to pace.
“I read you, Chief. There has been an update to… the ward. Over.” Jane summarised as best she could, aware from both Will, and Steve, that someone could be listening. Even through the walkies, let alone the broken telephones.
“Roger that. Update me later. Over.” Hopper spoke quickly, like something had just come up and he needed to shut up quickly. Jane turned the walkie off, hearing nothing but static for a while.
She turned back to Steve and let out a breath. “We’ll tell Hopper when he gets home. Or, if he tries calling again.”
Steve looked distant, as if he was concentrating on an idea forming in his head. He looked like he wasn’t quite listening to Jane’s words, too interesting in his thoughts.
“Are you alright?” She asked gently, and Steve looked up to her.
“I can look for Will.” Steve nodded, defiantly. Jane blinked, her mouth forming an ‘o’ in shock.
“How? You can’t leave, not with them looking for you.”
Instead of explaining, Steve stood and stepped closer, gently slipping the walkie from between Jane’s hands and fiddling with the sides. Nothing seemed to work, and he thrust it back towards her.
“Noise.” He shook the thing, and Jane quirked her eyebrow in confusion. Did he want her to call Hopper back? “The ‘shhh’ noise.” Steve tried explaining, and Jane could see he was getting upset with his own lack of vocabulary. Maybe he could sit in on her homework, learn a little more before whilst he was here.
“The static?” she questioned, and Steve nodded excitedly, ecstatic to be understood. “Right.” She turned the dial all the way left, making the static louder as she went. When it reached the end of the turning point, Jane winced at the ear-grating noise. “Is that okay?”
Steve nodded, taking the talkie gently from her and placing it on her coffee table. He sat before it, and Jane came closer, sitting by his side and watching intently.
Seven sat with his legs crossed, and covered his eyes with each palm and levelled his breathing. Jane watched with wide eyes, taking in the sight of Steve’s levelled breathing and his clear concentration.
After a moment too long of heavy breathing and too-loud static, Steve sighed and pulled his hands away from his face. His nose didn’t bleed, and Jane knew the attempt of… whatever it was Steve hoped for, hadn’t worked.
He turned to her, his eyes blinking and adjusting to the cabins light after being closed for so long. “Uh… picture?” He tried, miming a square with his fingers. “Of Will. And… eye cover?” Steve stumbled, but Jane understood well enough.
She nodded, standing up. “Got it.” She went into her room, finding the framed picture of the five of them winning their science fair last year. Five smiling faces, framed on her bedside beside her lamp. She went into her vanity’s cupboard, finding an old bandana she used for a Halloween costume years ago. She came rushing back to Steven, dropping to her knees beside him, and presenting him with the goods.
He smiled, and took them gently.
“Do you need help tying it?” Jane offered, and as Steve fixed the picture on the coffee table, he nodded. Once he was ready, Jane sat on the couch behind him and tied the bandana gently. “Is that good? Or too tight?” She fumbled with the front, making sure it was dark enough. Seen as his hands weren’t dark enough before.
Steven nodded, and Jand fixed herself beside him again, where she sat previous.
She watched Steve take deep breaths through his nose, his hands resting on each opposite side to the frame standing before him on the coffee table. She watched with bated breath, as Steve’s mouth opened gently.
“Will?” He spoke hesitantly, quietly. As if he was careful not to wake him. Jane jumped up, sitting on her knees as she shuffled closer, trying to hear Will through Steve’s body.
“Is that Will? Do you see him?” Jane spoke quickly, her breath turning heavy and quick.
Steve nodded.
“Will, it’s me…” The static of the walkie started to crackle, catching Jane’s attention. She turned away from Steve for a moment, and reached for the walkie. “No.” Steve’s hand gripped her wrist, gently but firm enough to stop her in her tracks.
She pulled away, gulping down the lump in her throat, and Steve’s hand let go as she did.
“Will, we are looking for you.” His sentences sounded more concise as he comforted Will, supposedly through his mind.
“Stay safe.” Steve whispered, and the crackle of the static got stronger, distorting the concise sound with jitters and small screeches. She went to reach for it again, but composed herself. “Run, Will.” Jane snapped her head to Steve, where his nose started to bleed from both nostrils, and his skin started to become pale. “Will, run away. Quick. And hide.” He instructed, although Jane watched his chest start to heave, his body unable to keep up with his hyperventilating.
“Run!” Steve yelled, bulbs flashing across the house for a moment. Jane watched them quickly, as a screeching filled the cabin. It came from the walkie talkie.
“Run!” Steve screamed again, before pulling the bandana off of his head and glancing around desperately.
“I’m here!” Jane pulled herself forwards shuffling closer on her knees to wrap her arms around Steve’s shaking body. “Steve, you found him! Thank you! Are you okay? How did you do that?”
Steve didn’t answer, his shaking breath catching up to itself as he was held tightly in Jane’s arms. The girl leaned away, wiping at blood from his nose with her thumbs. “Thank you, Steve!” She called, in near tears herself.
Steve nodded, and his hand gripped the side of Jane’s arm. He didn’t have to reply verbally, she understood clear as day what he meant.
You’re welcome.