Dear Family

Chapter 2: So close yet so far

"Lucas! Lucas wait!" Will calls out, jogging up to Lucas who begins walking faster and faster.

"Will I don't want to talk right now!" Lucas says irritably.

Will finally catches up to him, going to stand in front of him to stop him. "And that's okay, just let me walk with you."

"You don't understand Will!" Lucas states.

"How you feel? Yeah maybe I don't, but I can relate."

Lucas scoffs. "How can you relate?"

"Because you lost something that is so close to you Lucas! Someone! So close, but at the end it is so far, too far! You are not able to reach out and grab it. It is out of your grasp." Will says the last part more quietly now, more subtle but Lucas still hears it. "Look I understand if you don't want to talk I get it, but...it will make you feel better. But we can just walk in silence if you want."

Lucas just looks at Will, because that is exactly how he feels. Even though Max is right there in the hospital bed she is really not, she really isn't there. That thought alone pains Lucas, like millions of pings tearing through his heart. Lucas nods, beginning to walk slowly down the sidewalk. Will walks along with him, looking down while they both get consumed in their own thoughts.

"How did you know?" Lucas questions after some time.

"What?" Will asks.

"How it feels like, how did you know?"

"Oh uhh..." Will tries, swallowing the lump that grows in his throat. "...it was just...my mom...when I was in the upside down." Will lies. "It was one time where I actually saw her, but she was on the other side. I could see her, but I couldn't touch her, hug her. I was on one side and she was on the other."

Lucas nods. "I'm sorry you had to go through that man."

Will shrugs his shoulders. "I'm still alive. You guys saved me, that was you guys."

Lucas gives Will a small smile while still walking, going back to look ahead of him. Lucas stops when he realizes Will isn't waking with him, he turns around to see Will looking down at the ground with a concentrated face, more like he just saw a ghost.

"Will?" Lucas questions, making his way closer to Will.

"I'm still alive." Will says more to himself, looking up at Lucas. "Why am I still alive?"

"What?"

"When Barb got taken into the upside down she was killed, but I wasn't." Will states.

"Yeah but you hid, you were always good at hiding." Lucas says, trying to figure out what Will is trying to say.

"That still doesn't make any sense. If Vecna wanted me dead I would have been dead the minute I got taken."

Lucas eyebrows lift. "So you think he wanted you alive?"

"I don't know, but why would he let me escape? When the Mind Flayer came, why not just kill me? Rather than possessing me, leaving apart of himself inside of me."

Lucas eyes kind of widen, because despite how much Lucas wants to brush it off, it is true. Everything is a hive mind inside of the upside down, if Vecna wanted Will dead he would have been dead.

"I can always feel when he is present." Will starts.

"Maybe that is how we can stop him." Lucas finishes.

Both of them share a look, because finally after almost a year of thinking and they finally have something.

~