BASKET CASE | mike wheeler

xvii. undone

THE EXORCISM OF WILL BYERS AND SIMILAR BIZARRE OCCURRANCES

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in which it seems as though nothing could get worse, and then everything does

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undone | the mind flayer

〖 watch me as i unravel, i'll soon be naked - lyin' on the floor, lyin' on the floor, i've come undone 〗

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tw : ignorant homophobia, mentions of emotional abuse, genuine psychopathic murderous urges

extremely long chapter

-caleb has some pretty dark murderous thoughts in this chapter, and not in his usual playful way-

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NOTHING.

Caleb felt nothing as he was dragged outside of the building, he felt nothing as those blackhole eyes stared at his appearance in horror, he felt nothing as he was forced into the back of a familiar Chevvy truck and he felt nothing when he was ambushed into a hug he couldn't return - because he felt nothing.

There was a whining in his ears, like feedback from a speaker, and he thought he was crying but he couldn't be sure. Someone was, there was this deep sad feeling trying to break through the bubble of nothing surrounding him, and there was someone close to him - too close - and they were talking and he couldn't hear because he felt nothing and he heard nothing and he saw nothing.

It was a long time before the fog finally lifted enough for him to see the head of red hair lying on his shoulder, and he did his best to acknowledge his friend in some way but the world was still blurry and he fell into a troubled state of unrest for the duration of the journey, occasionally jolting awake with soft cries of Bob's name as if he were re-living the moment it all went wrong over and over again.

Snippets of conversations registered in his mind every once in a while, but he chose to block them out after he overheard a man talking about how they had gotten Bob out, but it had been too late.

The truck came to a screeching halt and he groaned, wincing as the whining in his ears seemed to increase when the door he had been leaned against was pulled open to reveal a wide-eyed Steve Harrington.

"Jesus Christ, kid." He breathed, reaching over to undo the seatbelt Dustin had pulled over him clumsily. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Jane." Caleb huffed as he was pulled into the teenager's arms, falling limp against his chest. "Want Jane."

"Dunno who that is, buddy." Steve murmured, stepping back to allow the rest of the kids to pile out of Hopper's truck before setting off for the compact house in front of them.

"Bob." Caleb whimpered, curling into himself as they waited for a trembling Joyce to open the front door. "Couldn't save Bob."

"You tried, kid. You tried."

Another fog settled over his mind before he could reply and he was set down on a couch across from the one Will had been laid on, where he fell into another disturbed sleep until he was woken by the sound of yelling.

"We can't just sit here while those things are loose!"

"We stay here, and we wait for help."

Caleb grunted, pulling himself up on his elbows and glancing around blearily. "Jane?"

"Caleb!" Max cried, kneeling down next to the couch she had been sat on while Hopper made his phone call, clutching the boy's hand tightly. "Thank fuck, I thought you were dying or something, you kept passing out!"

"Alright, give him a bit of room, red." Steve stood from the other end of the couch, breaking his eyes away from where Nancy was comforting Jonathan and smiling down at the boy softly. "Feeling any better?"

Caleb shook his head, grimacing at the smell of blood and sitting himself upright, shedding the navy duvet that had been placed on top of him. "Head hurts. Ears stopped ringing, though."

"Good, that's good." Steve nodded, scuffing at the floor with the toe of his sneaker and clearing his throat, a troubled expression on his face. "Look, uh... I know this isn't really the best time, but... well, I just wanted to say sorry, for yelling at you the other morning. You were right, it wasn't my place. And uh, well, I know you told me you got in a fight, but Hargrove said something to me in the changing rooms yesterday. Said something about your dad-"

"Not my dad." Caleb snapped, resting his head back down on the arm of the couch, giving Max's hand a firm squeeze to try and gain some sense of actual being. It felt like he was drifting away from himself, from everything. "More important things to deal with now. Where's Joyce?"

"In her room." Max informed him, staring at his hands which had become tainted with the blood he had tried to wipe from his face during the car ride, mumbling something about not letting the doctor see. "Hasn't left it since we got here."

"Shit." Caleb muttered under his breath, closing his eyes for a moment. "Shit. This is gonna break her. It's gonna fucking break her."

"There was nothing you could do, Caleb." Steve patted his shoulder, but his attempts were futile and the boy simply turned away from him and grew very quiet. "I'm gonna see what those little shits are whining about, alright?"

Neither of them replied as he slinked off to the kitchen, and Max kept staring at his scarlet hands, face creased in thought. "Lucas told me," she finally said, "about everything."

"Shit." Caleb sighed, pulling his hand away and sitting up again with a small grimace. "Little bastard got to it before I could. How much of 'everything' did he tell you, exactly?"

"All of it? About last year, about the monster, about... uh, your sister."

"And me?"

"You?"

"Did he tell you about me? About what I can do?"

"What you can do?"

"Yeah, didn't think so." He mumbled, trying aimlessly to wipe some off the dried blood on his hands in his sweater. "I mean, I think Mike filled him in while we were in that meeting, but even then Mike and I only know so much - suppose Lucas didn't have a lot to tell you, probably forgot about it already."

"Forgot about what?"

"I'm like J - El. Like El. Powers and stuff - we're twins, so they should probably be the same but I think they're different - Mike says they are, anyway. I feel things, ya know? Can make people do shit with my mind, apparently - even read a thought or two. Jan - El is m - was more about controlling things, breaking things - it was all a lot more physical. I've only been able to do shit like that when I was really pissed off, or like severely traumatised-"

"YOU HAVE POWE-"

"Can you shut the fuck up?" Caleb hissed, clamping a hand over her mouth and tilting his head towards the two teenagers across from them hunkered down where Will lay on the couch. "Not a lot of people know, Max. It's part of the whole being in hiding so that I don't get re-kidnapped by the government that's been monitoring me for eleven months thing. And try be a little sensitive, a few people in this house just lost someone."

Max nodded guiltily and he removed his hand, she went quiet for a while and then, "Did you know him? The guy that died?"

"Bob." Caleb corrected, tone firm, then pondered for a moment and shook his head, "No, i didn't, not really. I should've. He was a good guy and I - I couldn't - we were so close, and I couldn't-"

Max grew wide-eyed as the boy's breathing began to quicken and tried her best to soothe but him he pushed her hands away and struggled to stand from the couch, "Caleb..."

"Uh, I need - I'm gonna go to the bathroom, clean this shit off my face."

"Okay. Okay, but I'm here if you wanna talk, or whatever."

Caleb didn't reply, stumbling through the doorway and grimacing at the ache in his legs from being unused for so long, stretching them out as he walked and feeling his heart clench as someone mentioned not letting Bob die in vain. He quickened the pace, dodging Steve just as the teenager reached out to him and crossing into the hall, locking himself in the bathroom and leaning against the door with his eyes closed and nausea turning his stomach into a whirlpool.

He staggered over to the sink, glancing up at his reflection and trying his best not to throw up at the sight of himself.

Dried blood caked the space above his top lip and streaked down his chin, his cheeks equally stained by his own blood and it seemed that even his ears had been bleeding at one point, leaving no inch of his face unscathed - even his mouth, which seemed to have been infiltrated by the thick substance that had poured from his nostrils. He turned the tap on, scalding hot to the point where his skin itched as he shoved his hands into the basin and scrubbed harshly, following suit with his face using a fresh bar of soap from the mirror cabinet.

He grimaced in disgust at the iron taste in his mouth and spat out a mouthful of crimson saliva before reaching into the mirror cabinet again to retrieve a spare toothbrush, brushing his tongue and the top of his gums until his mouth felt numb.

Avoiding looking at his stoic-eyed reflection any more than he had to, he perched himself on the edge of the bathtub, clenching his eyes shut and attempting to clear his head.

Caleb stretched out his mind, trying to latch on to that feeling of connection to his sister, and swore low when he felt nothing more than a slight tug before that connection was withdrawn, and he was left with an ache of regret in his chest.

He figured she was still angry with him and he deflated, feeling tears in his eyes, and he stared up at the ceiling and prayed that they wouldn't fall.

They did, and he stayed in there for a long time until the swelling in his eyes went down and his chest stopped heaving.

↬

When he finally emerged from the bathroom, wiping at his eyes a final time, he was met with a crowded kitchen packed with tension and booming voices until he stood in the doorway and everyone glanced up at him, as if rocked by his presence,

"Uh... did I miss something?"

Everyone shared a cautious glance, and Dustin grimaced, waving him over to the living room, "I'll fill you in - but you're not gonna like it."

The others continued to discuss whatever it was they had been yelling about before he entered, and he didn't like it - not one bit - and would never have agreed to anything if it weren't for Dustin's pleading explanations and the firm reminder that it was their only choice.

"No - no, it's too dangerous."

"It's the best option."

"We can't trust him - not when that thing has his head all warped."

"That's why we're gonna make sure he doesn't find out where he is."

"But if he does-"

"He won't."

"You can't make that promise."

"I'm not promising anything - I'm just telling you what you want to hear so you agree to everything I'm saying."

"... If something happened to any of you, I don't-"

"Nothing bad's gonna happen." Dustin soothed, glancing towards the kitchen uneasily as Hopper seemed to finally concede to their plan and began to appoint everyone different tasks. "It'll be fine - we just have to fight one last monster, Cay. Then it's over, it's over for good."

"Is that a promise or are you just telling me what I want to hear again?"

".... No comment."

Caleb sighed, looking to the group in the kitchen and surveying each of his friends. He noticed that Jordan still hadn't returned but decided that the boy really wasn't his problem and he barely knew him anyway, so he pushed that thought to the back of his mind.

Max was looking at the thick book Caleb recognised as a D&D manual that had been set on the dining table, reading over something with a furrow in her brow as if trying to understand it as the older people bustled about the house gathering blankets and bedsheets while Steve rooted through the kitchen drawers for something, Mike and Lucas standing off to the side in what looked like a very heated telling-off from the Wheeler boy.

He glanced up to roll his eyes in annoyance and met Caleb's eye instead, offering a wary smile before looking back down at Lucas, who was gesturing his hands wildly as he attempted to justify whatever actions had caused Mike's sudden anger.

"Okay." He gradually turned his head back to Dustin, nodding in determination. "Okay, I'll do it."

Dustin grinned and flung an arm around his shoulder, sidling up to a very stressed out Hopper and demanding a job, frowning when he was thrown on garbage looting duty with Lucas while Caleb was tasked with helping Max tape up two dining chairs so that Will couldn't recognise the upholstery.

Caleb was still on edge about the entire situation, and still reluctant to even agree to the plans that had been made - but if there was any way of his friends getting out of this alive, he would have to do whatever was needed to ensure their safety.

He wasn't losing anyone else to the monsters that had been set free by Hawkins Lab - never again.

And, fucking hell, if he had to tear this 'Mind Flayer' to shreds himself, he would.

Never again, he promised as he moved into the kitchen to find Max, both pulling out a chair each from under the table, never again.

↬

The next thirty minutes of his life were spent watching face after face move in and out of the back door in the kitchen as he knelt on the tile floor, tackling a losing battle with a roll of duct tape that seemed in favour of sticking to everything but the fucking dining chair.

Max snickered at him, leaving him to suffer while she worked on her own chair effortlessly, and he reached out to kick her every time but withdrew when he received a swift smack to the ankle, grumbling to himself.

It was another few minutes of irritated mumbling and clumsy taping before they were met with their first disturbance when Mike ducked into the kitchen, narrowly avoiding being hit by the stack of old newspapers Jonathan was carrying out to the shed.

He nodded to Caleb in acknowledgement, pointedly ignoring Max, and Caleb rolled his eyes at this but decided not to start a quarrel - it would be futile anyway, Mike had made his feelings about Max very clear.

Caleb groaned as the tape stuck to the back of his hand once again, shaking his hand out and grunting in frustration when it refused to remove itself from his skin, which was already tender due to how many time he had freed the roll of tape from his hand.

"Alright, alright, come 'ere." Max sighed, finally taking pity on him and batting his hand away as he proceeded to peel at the tape aimlessly, wincing every time he felt the slightest tug on his skin. She took the roll of tape and peeled it from his hand easily, tearing a section of it off without a problem and placing it over the leg of her own chair, giggling at his dismayed expression.

"How come it never sticks to you like that?!"

Max just shook her head, giving him back his roll of tape and proceeding with her own chair.

Mike knelt down behind them in front of the cupboard beneath the sink, pulling it open and beginning to rifle through it quietly.

"What you lookin' for, Mikey?" Caleb frowned, tearing at a piece of tape with his teeth as he had seen Max do earlier on and gagging when it got stuck to his tongue. "'or 'uck's 'ake."

"Bleach, to wake Will up." Mile mumbled pulling out a bottle of laundry detergent and sighing before throwing it back in, getting frustrated with himself now. "Clingfilm, cloth - anything else we can use..."

Caleb nodded, tugging the tape out of his mouth with a sharp cry of pain and slapping his hand to his face, running for the sink and just barely pulling his leg back before his knee connected with the back of Mike's head.

He put the tap on the highest pressure setting it could go and stuck his tongue under it pathetically, mumbling over the torrent of water in his mouth, "'an you 'et me the 'issors?"

Mike rolled his eyes at him and reaching around the back of his legs to retrieve a pair of scissors from the drawer, placing them down next to the chair Caleb had been working on with an amused shake of his head.

"Thank you, darlin'." Caleb grinned as he pulled away from the sink and turned it off, his tongue still tingling slightly, mopping at the pool of water that had drenched his collar with his sleeve and grimacing at the blood that stained his clothes. "I swear to God, if I lose one more sweater I'm gonna kill-"

"Don't finish that." Mike warned him, glancing up just as Caleb peered down at him and arching a challenging brow when the boy rolled his eyes.

"Yes, mother, whatever you say, mother." Caleb mumbled under his breath, throwing himself down next to the chair and picking up the scissors, hacking away at the roll of tape aggressively. "Yeah, not so tough now, you little bastard."

Max felt her eyes widen as Mike laughed - the moody, never-smiling asshole actually had the ability to laugh - at his friend's stupidity, and tried to keep the smirk from her face when she saw the red creeping up Caleb's neck at the sound.

Now would probably be the best time to make amends, she thought to herself as she took a deep breath, wary of mentioning the subject in front of Caleb as she was still unsure of where he stood with it. He had grown quiet when Mike slipped up in the gym, but he had seemed uncomfortable more than anything.

"I get why El was your mage now." She forced out, hoping she sounded more relaxed than she felt.

Caleb stiffened, continuing on with his taping as he awaited Mike's reaction. Every time he tried to tell him, something got in the way - but judging by the sharp glare Mike sent the girl's way, he wasn't in favour of discussing anything got to do with the matter. He'd just have to wait until they were alone, and the boy wasn't in one of his moods.

El had told him not to, but it was just plain cruel leaving Mike to suffer when he was the only one who had never truly given up on her - and besides, she must not be very concerned about 'staying safe' anymore if she was running off to Chicago and accompanying their estranged fellow test subject on a vengeful killing spree.

"What?"

"Lucas," Max went on, not deterred by his irritated scowl, "he told me all about her."

Right, Caleb thought, that's why Mike was so pissed at him earlier.

"Yeah, well, he shouldn't have," Mike retorted, turning to give her a rather spiteful look, "And just because you know the truth, it doesn't mean you're in our Party. You do know that, right?"

Caleb sighed, taping the last piece of scrap paper to the leg of the rickety dining chair, "Oh, c'mon, Mike - I told you I was gonna tell her everything anyway-"

"Yeah, but you were going to consult the rest of the Party first!"

Caleb grew quiet at that - because of course he had been planning to confer with his friends before telling Max anything, it wasn't just his story to tell, and it had been one of the reasons he actually wanted to accompany Mike to Will's house in the first place.

But he didn't have it in him to be angry with Lucas - the boy was clearly smitten with her, and Caleb knew more than anyone how foolish that feeling could make you, the stupid fucking things it made you do. Nonetheless, he did feel a bit on edge that Lucas had blabbed about everything without making sure it was okay with them first.

Still, he argued with himself, they were kids - they were permitted a few mistakes every now and then.

Right?

"Look, I'm just saying," Max went on, trying to diffuse the tension, "El? She sounds like she was really awesome."

"Yeah, she was." Mike said evenly, closing the cupboard and holding the bottle of bleach in his hands a little tighter, gathering the rest of his items. "Before that thing took her. Just like it took Bob."

Caleb winced and looked away, hurrying into the other room so he wouldn't have to face that particular conversation just yet. He knew he had to tell his friends about his sister eventually - and if not all of his friends, then at least Mike - but he didn't want them to be angry.

He hated it when they were angry, it made his stomach clench and his throat contract and he always got this terrible feeling like when he was alone in a crowd, or an empty space.

Caleb regretted his actions when he realised that he had stumbled into the living room and now stood facing a sleeping Will, still laid on the couch with a duvet tucked under either side of him.

He hesitated for a moment before sitting down next to the boy's legs, staring down at his hands which were still painted a faint red despite how harshly he had scrubbed them in the bathroom, it made him fearful that it would never really wash off.

"You weren't - I didn't want you to go bad too." Caleb spoke, not knowing what had brought on the sudden compulsion to talk to his friend again. If they had to risk all of this danger, if they had to risk themselves to get him back - he was starting to think it would be worth the sacrifice. "Not you, Will."

He reached out to grasp the boy's hand and dropped it with a shaky breath when his fingertips went numb with the cold and he felt that darkness edging towards him again, pulling away and dropping his head into his tainted hands instead.

It was all too much, in that moment - the fight with El, losing Will, not being able to save Bob, hearing Joyce's grief, the betrayal from Hopper - fucking hell, the betrayal from Owens. Everything was falling out of place, and he couldn't do anything to keep it all together.

He couldn't do anything - his powers had proven useless, he felt as though the fight with El had been all his fault even though there was a voice in his mind telling him that it was just the self-deprecation talking, it had been almost three hours since the last time he took his meds and the thought of missing his dosage, of that routine being disturbed, made him queasy and his head was so fucking loud and he couldn't protect them, he couldn't protect them, he couldn't-

"Hey, kid." Steve strolled into the room, leaning against the door frame of the living room with two heavy porcelain lamps slung over his shoulder and that concerned, protective sort of look on his face that never failed to irk the boy. It seemed that Steve had made a habit out of interrupting his mental breakdowns after the night he found him in the Lab. "We're setting up the shed now, you coming?"

"Yeah." Caleb wiped at his eyes hurriedly, standing to his feet with a firm nod, "Yeah, I'm coming."

Steve smiled as the boy made his way over to him and patted his shoulder, steering him into the kitchen where he could see the others piling out of the back door with various items tucked under their arms or being dragged behind them.

They had barely made it off the porch steps before Steve branched out to help Joyce lug a rusted ladder across the lawn, leaving Caleb to keep his eye open for any assistance he could provide himself.

He noticed Nancy struggling with a stack of cardboard boxes that had been flattened down, one or two pieces continuously slipping and dropping to the floor much to her frustration, and he jogged over to her side and took a few of them off her hands, receiving a tired smile in response.

"Thanks, Caleb."

"No problem." He waved her off, fitting the small pile under his arm and adjusting with it for a moment before falling into step beside her. He noticed her glancing down very quickly and he flashed her a boyish grin when he saw that she had been staring at the boy walking in front of them. "So, you and Jonathan, huh?"

Nancy felt her jaw drop, colour rushing to her cheeks as she failed to word a proper response for a moment before letting out sigh of resignation and shaking her head at him, "Keep your nose out, Moore."

Caleb laughed, in a noticeably lighter mood now that he had something to distract his mind with, shifting the cardboard in his arms when it began to slip.

"Caleb?" Nancy started, gnawing anxiously at the inside of her lip and receiving an absent hum in response. "I know you don't like talking about it but - well, you know the Lab? Of course you know the Lab, I don't - look, I know that the 'bad guys' left or whatever but I feel like we never really got any justice, for... for Barb and Will, and everyone else that got taken last year. And - well, me and Jonathan wanted to do something about it, so... we kind of - look, it's a long story but if it all goes to plan you'll never have to step foot in that place again. Ever again."

"Wait," Caleb halted, almost dropping the entire stack of cardboard to the ground, panic clawing at his throat, "fucking hell, Nance, don't tell me you went after the Lab."

"Well... I mean, not exactly, we just-"

"Are you insane?!" He hissed, stepping closer to her as the others shuffled past them to enter the shed, dropping the heavier materials in a pile outside the door before bustling inside, apparently unaware of the rapidly growing tension between the two, "Nancy, these aren't 'bad guys', they're military-grade government agents with a fucking pay roll that got forced into lab coats. This is - it's a network, a twisted network of really dark shit that wouldn't find in a sci-fi horror film. I don't know what you think you know, but I know that it's wrong - this isn't a bunch of minimum wage doctors who just so happen to experiment on children every now and then, Nancy. You don't know what you're dealing with - neither does Jonathan!"

"No, no, we do - listen, I know what you're saying but we planned it all out and-"

"Planned it out? Planned it ou - Nancy, they planned out every move of the board leading up to my sister and I's birth." He said darkly, the pile of cardboard long forgotten now as he glowered at her. "These people are fucking insane - I've seen the files, there's evidence that Martin Brenner orchestrated everything from my father getting thrown out of school, to getting drafted, to being killed in 'Nam before my mom could even tell him that she was pregnant - just to recruit her to their sick fucking program! And it started out with Brenner back in the 60s, but it's bigger than that now - it was bigger than that by the time I got thrown into that place, for fuck's sake! This isn't the kind of shit that you can just bring to court - just ask Terry fucking Ives!"

"I'm not stupid, I know how serious it is - that's why we were careful! And we're not bringing anyone to court, we sent a story to the papers to-"

"YOU FUCKING WHAT?!"

"-to get the media riled up! As far as anyone else is concerned, it was just a - a spill from the Lab and the Upside Down and demogorgons and Mind Flamers don't even exist! Neither do kids that can do shit with their minds, Murray said that would probably be a bit too much for people too-"

"Who? Nancy, did you tell someone about my sister?" Caleb demanded, eerily calm, feeling his fists clench at his sides and trying his best to unfurl them when the girl grew just a little frightened at whatever dark expression had taken over his face. "Answer the question, Nancy - did you tell a fucking stranger about my sister?"

"N - not... it didn't go in the story, none of that stuff did-"

"Nancy!"

"A - a little, maybe! I don't know, she was kind of a big part of everything that happened, so... I mean, yeah, a bit-"

"You had no right." He stepped away from her, practically forcing the rage to contain itself as his jaw ached with how hard he had clenched it. "You had no fucking right - do you have any idea how stupid you've been?! You just put your entire fucking family in danger, as well as everyone in this fucking house right now! There are still kids out there hiding from these people and you and your boyfriend are blabbing about their fucking existence to - what, some fucking journalist, an exposé writer?! What the fuck were you thinking?!"

"I was thinking about Barb! Those men never faced any punishments for what happened or - or even had the decency to tell her family that she was dead! I couldn't just let them get away with everything that they did!"

"Look... I understand wanting justice for Barbara and I definitely fucking want to watch that place go down with all those government bastards in it - but what you did put both, if not all, of our families at risk and you shouldn't have shared the truth with someone none of us even know." Caleb sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair and tugging at his curls in frustration. "It was stupid and risky and if you can't admit that, you're just being foolish."

"I know it was risky." Nancy huffed, not enjoying being spoken to like she was a child by a boy almost four years younger than her, "But it was a risk that I had to take - they can't just get away with it, Caleb."

"I'm not saying that they should get away with it, I'm saying that you should have been more fucking careful because you ended up putting the wrong people's lives on the line-"

"Uh, is everything alright?" Jonathan stepped out of the shed, reaching down to retrieve a ground sheet to hang on the wall and faltering when he saw the expressions on both of their faces, rocking back on his heels awkwardly and sparing Nancy a confused glance.

"Of course - yeah, we're good." Nancy forced a smile, giving the boy a little sly glance to urge him to agree only to be met with an eye roll and a shake of the head.

"You're both fucking idiots." Caleb grumbled, shouldering past Jonathan with a minimum amount of force but still enough to get his point across as he ducked into the shed, looking around for the nearest thing he could punch.

Hopper was the first person his eyes landed on, and by God was the urge to strangle him with a crowbar a strong one.

He decided to busy himself with something productive instead to avoid a lecture on his temper from Steve, and practically forced a plain bedsheet from Mike's hands to help him tack it to the wall using a spatula and a handful of thumbtacks in place of the stapler that was being used by Joyce on the other end of the room.

"Uh, you okay, Caleb?" Mike looked at him warily, reaching up to hold a corner of the fabric in place.

"Peachy." Caleb grunted, whacking the thumbtack into the wooden plank behind the sheet with such force that the entire beam shuddered in protest.

They worked in silence after that, and Caleb found that aggressively tacking bedsheets and planks of cardboard to the walls was a decent enough way of channelling his anger, especially when Nancy and Jonathan finally re-entered and he accidentally caused the head of the spatula to bend backwards. It was a better alternative than smashing Jonathan's head in with it, though.

He just didn't understand how they could be so foolish - of course he knew how it felt to want justice, and he more than anyone wanted to bring the Lab down. But they were messing around with people that they knew were dangerous, tampering with schemes that's secrecy would have been made a top priority by the government.

They would end up just another teen runaway like Barb or a body in the quarry if whatever plan Nancy seemed to have so much bloody faith in fell through and no harm came to anyone but themselves and their families, nevermind the Lab - every last of them, just another tied up loose end.

And not only that, but they had apparently unearthed another one of the government's secrets to a fucking stranger, and put El and Kali and anyone else who had ever been nothing more than a number once at risk.

He supposed that involved him, too, but it wasn't really a key factor.

Caleb knew one thing, anyhow - no matter how it panned out, no matter what happened, if Nancy and Jonathan's actions brought harm to any of the other subjects or God forbid brought harm to his sister-

It wasn't going to end well for either of them, let's leave it at that.

He realised how stupid that must have sounded - a thirteen year old boy threatening to do unspeakable things to two of his best friends' older siblings for potentially bringing harm to a group of people he had only met on a handful of occasions, acting as though he was a cold-hearted assassin who was moved to murder all too easily.

But he thought for a moment that it was much more than a juvenile threat, and he would genuinely harm them if prompted, regardless of the consequences.

It wasn't a thought he liked to have and he had been warned several times by fidgety psychiatrists and hospital counsellors to ignore urges like that, the ones that slipped out from the back of his mind when his paranoia was at an all time high or when he was off his meds for a few hours too long - and he knew why they were so adamant, why they all jumped on the chance to advise him against entertaining 'violent thoughts' and looked at him like he was a loaded gun.

He knew the rage he had felt when he learned that Jim Hopper had kept his sister from him, and let her suffer in that cabin for almost an entire year - and he knew that he had very heavily considered killing the man since.

Not a petulant kind of 'I wish death upon you' but the genuine urge to string the man up and watch the light leave his eyes. Just to alleviate any pain that had been caused to his sister, and in the process one of his closest friends - it was a need, a genuine need to rectify harm that had been done to people close to him, it always had been, but it was when he had thoughts like these that it crossed the line from 'protective' to 'psychopathic'.

It's the schizophrenia, one of his old doctors had told him when he expressed some juvenile rage at a bully in the playground, quick to nip it in the bud before they had to deal with something they didn't want to, the illness tricks the mind, puts thoughts in your head that shouldn't be there - and they shouldn't, Caleb. They shouldn't be there - so you have to try your best not to notice them, alright? Just ignore them until they go away, there's a good boy.

Owens said different, that his disorders made him possessive and his thoughts just tended to take a dark turn every now and then out of compassion - but it had been one of those situations where Owens trying to make him feel like a normal human meant that he was giving false medical opinions, and Caleb knew that he had to dismiss it as invalid.

It was wrong - he knew these thoughts were wrong and they were sick and vile and no thirteen year old boy should have genuine fucking murder on their mind and he knew it was horrifying that they were there at all and it terrified him.

Those thoughts fucking terrified him.

So he stopped hammering away at the wall and forced his anger to cease and tried to regain control of his mind - put it back on track - then shoved every last one of those skin-crawling urges and gore-ridden images to the furthest corner of his brain imaginable and tried his very best not to cry.

"It wasn't your fault."

Caleb almost dropped the spatula from shock, jolting to face Mike with a small frown. "What?"

"It wasn't your fault," Mike repeated, setting the last thumbtack into the corner of the cardboard they were tacking up and refusing to look him in the eye.

He realised that the boy must have forsaken Caleb's sudden dip in mood for guilt and self-hatred about what had happened to Bob, rather than guilt and self-hatred about the thoughts plaguing his distressed brain - and he hated himself a little more and wished and wished that Mike was right and he wasn't so selfish all the time.

After all, he was the one who had caused the man's death - if he didn't have the decency to spend every remaining second of his life hating himself for it, he must not have any decency at all.

But it was known that he was a bad person, and decency had never really been Caleb's forté.

He faltered for a moment, then shook his head and gave the thumbtack one final bang of the spatula, "Yeah, it was."

Caleb stepped down from the crate he had been using as a stepping stool to reach the far corners - Karen persistently informed him that he grew taller everytime she saw him, but he was beginning to think it was a gratuitous lie - and headed outside to grab another piece of material before Mike could argue.

His thoughts still boiled and bubbled and it took everything in him to fight them off as he kicked the diminishing pile of supplies about for a useable piece of cardboard or a bedsheet or something, finding himself rather impatient to get the whole thing over with before he lost his mind again.

Wouldn't be much use to all the people he had to protect if he went off the rails again, would he?

"Hey, Schiz."

Caleb raised his head to watch as Max lugged one of the dining chairs they had covered up down the porch steps and dragged it towards him, flashing one of her dazzling smiles that would be endearing if they didn't look so false.

"Hey." He replied, just a failed attempt away from giving up when he spotted another ground sheet that had been thrown to the side, big enough to cover up the last of the shed wall once they ran out of cardboard.

"You alright?" She looked at him critically, coming to a stop beside him. "You look like shit."

"Feel like it." Caleb chuckled under his breath, pulling the ground sheet off the damp grass and beginning to roll it up. "Sorry Mike was being such a dick earlier. I talked to him, you know. Says he can't change how he feels, but I told him to ease up on you a bit. Prick obviously didn't listen."

"Its okay," Max shrugged as they began walking towards the shed together, "I guess this is all bringing up some pretty shit memories."

Caleb nodded in response and lowered his eyes a bit, "Making a lot of shit new ones, too."

"It'll be okay, though - you guys have done all this stuff before." Max beamed, a little forced, grunting when the leg of the chair got snagged in a small pothole and tugging on it to set it free. "Just another crazy adventure to tell the grandkids, I guess."

"No way am I having kids - have you already forgotten about the whole queer thing, Mayfield?"

"It was an expression, dumbass." Max rolled her eyes, finally pulling the chair free and turning to him with a feigned pout. "And here I was thinking you'd change your homo ways for me - am I not good enough for you, Schiz?"

"Oh, all that and more, darling." He grinned, a weight being lifted from his chest that made it easier to breathe without feeling guilty for it as he held the door open for her with his shoulder. "But way too far out of my league - would only hurt to hope, my love."

"Hm, I guess I am pretty god-like."

"If gingers weren't the literal spawn of satan, I'd be inclined to agree with you."

"Okay, what is with you and the ginger-shaming?!"

"I like making you angry - I have a thing for feisty girls."

"You mean you have a thing for grouchy little dark-haired assholes. 'Oh my God, Max, his eyes are so fucking beautiful it makes me want to puke-"

"O-kay, approaching other people - now would be a good time to shut your mouth."

"Never thought I'd hear those words from you."

"Mayfield, you sly dog."

"Only for you, Schiz."

↬

It took another ten minutes or so of preparing until the shed was furnished to their needs, and they all waited in tense silence as Jonathan went to retrieve Will, in which case Caleb found himself stood between two of his closest friends with nothing to say for what was unfortunately not the first time, and most likely not the last either.

Dustin made no attempt at conversation, nor did Lucas - and Caleb entertained himself by trying to convince his own mind that nobody was saying anything, and everyone was on edge and a conversation would be inappropriate in that moment, but his mind was adamant in the belief that he was breathing too loud and it annoyed them.

He almost laughed for some reason, perhaps it was the insanity, and it thankfully died in his throat when Jonathan entered with an unconscious Will in his arms, placing him in the chair opposite the one that now sat under two heavy lamp lights that made Caleb's eyes sting and reminded him far too much of the fluorescent lights of a mental institution.

Nostalgia was an asshole to him most of the time, and now was no exception, it seemed.

A memory of Karen insisting on dimming the lights in the dining room whenever he returned home teased the edges of his conscience - his eyes stung a lot more after that.

It was strange that he had to look away while they were tying Will up with the clothesline, because even after everything that had happened and what his friend had become, he still had to dig his fingernails into his thighs to stop himself from pulling Joyce and Hopper away from him.

Everyone began to clear out after a few moments once it was done, and Mike called out to his friends in confusion as they followed Nancy and Steve outside, "Where are you guys going? He needs us too!"

"C'mon, man," Lucas shrugged him off, giving him one of those looks that meant he was being stupid again, "you know we don't have as much of a chance at getting through to him as you do."

"That - that's not true-"

"It's okay, Mike." Dustin smiled, as genuine as he could, "It's not bad, you guys are just... closer. Known each other longer."

Mike sighed, wanting to argue for the equality of the entire Party's friendship but letting them go with a very reluctant frown.

"Oh, Caleb, honey - don't you think you should stay too?" Joyce called out as they boy turned to leave, which should have been insulting to Lucas and Dustin but they were looking at him in confusion too.

"Yeah, the fuck are you doin', man?"

"Nah, I'll just piss him off." Caleb shook his head, ignoring Lucas' comment and looking to Mike, grasping his hand for just a second, "Just - get him back, alright?"

"We will." Jonathan promised, knowing well that he was the last person who should be replying.

Caleb flicked his gaze over to him and narrowed his eyes for a moment before giving a single nod, to let him know that they were civil again, before releasing his friend's hand and slinging an arm over Max's shoulder to lead her back to the house.

His companion was robbed from him by Lucas soon after, who insisted that he had something important to tell her - a detail from the story he had left out, apparently - and Dustin was having an existential crisis in the kitchen and didn't even reply when Caleb attempted to strike up a conversation, so he had found himself stuck in the living room watching Steve swing his nailed bat for an entire five minutes.

It was getting repetitive, and not the kind that soothed him - his already miniscule will to live was dwindling.

Caleb had taken to sitting on the couch with his head in his hands, leg jolting beneath him, and trying to resist ducking into the kitchen to let some of his apprehension out on Nancy, figuring that another quick screaming match would calm his nerves.

He lifted his head up, breathing a heavy sigh through his nostrils, "Alright, what's up with you? Is it about Nancy? Because you've been aiming your bat at Jonathan's middle school graduation picture this entire time."

"No, I-" Steve lowered the bat and pursed his lips when he saw the photo on the ancient wood cabinet he had been inches away from smashing into a million pieces, "-oh."

"I'm just saying, you seemed pretty down on Halloween night, and she's hanging around with Jonathan now and... doesn't take a genius to figure it out, Steve." He shrugged, before nodding towards the collar of the boy's shirt and raising a smug brow. "I'm guessing Gray cheered you up pretty well, though?"

Steve flushed, tugging at his jacket to hide the hickey that had been partially visible beneath his dark t-shirt and zipping it up frantically, dropping his bat in a rush to hide any evidence of the events that had taken place at his house a few nights beforehand, "Th - that's not from - we were just wasted and - and-"

"Relax, Steve - hardly gonna judge, am I?" Caleb scoffed, leaning his head back on the couch and closing his eyes for a moment, taking a few deep breaths. If he forced himself to pretend to be calm, then he had to become calm eventually.

"We, uh, didn't really get a chance to talk about that, what you told me." Steve slowly retrieved his bat, still not quite looking the boy in the eye. "You doing alright?"

"Yeah." He said after a moment, then watched the teenager form the words 'and now the truth' as he had a million times before throughout that year and continuing on, "In that department, anyway. Accepted it, now. I told Max, she was alright with it. And Wheeler knows, but I think he gets a bit weird when I bring it up. It wasn't really the whole being it part that had me all worked up, I just didn't like my - my routine getting messed with all of a sudden. Like, there's things I'm used to and they're good, but anything new always kind of makes me anxious. Max, she was a good new - but the whole gay thing just completely threw me off, even though it really shouldn't have because my God it was so obvious."

"I get you - probably your OCD." Steve began swinging again, aiming away from the display of photographs this time, "I was reading up on all those diagnoses your therapist gave you, I'm pretty sure it said something about not liking having your patterns messed up."

"You've been reading up on my mental illnesses?" Caleb arched a brow, raising his head from the couch with an incredulous frown.

"Well, yeah," Steve faltered a bit, the bat lowering once again, "just - wanted to make sure I knew all the necessary shit, stopping panic attacks and how to know when you're not comfortable and all that. Like, this one website said something about fear of crowds or going out in public alone being tied to schizophrenia - it's why I always take you grocery shopping."

"Oh."

It got quiet after that, until Steve got that weird look on his face that meant Caleb wasn't going to like what he said next and he knew it, but before he could even open his mouth the lights in the house began to flicker violently and they both tensed.

Steve saw it in both of their reactions, that shared experience, and he reached out for the boy as Caleb made a run for the kitchen in a need to comfort him. It plagued him too, the memories of the monster, everytime his car alarm went off or the electricity went a bit faulty at his house he retrieved his bat from the trunk and refused to put it back until he stopped shaking.

"Let me go, Steve! It's gonna take them, I have to-"

Steve pulled him close and rested his chin on the trembling boy's shoulder, swaying him gently, "Shh, listen - you hear them yelling out like a bunch of idiots? They're fine, Caleb, it's okay. It can't get us here, it doesn't know."

"It took her, Steve. The bastard took her, it took her away." Caleb relented, falling into the young man's chest and just letting himself be held. "It made Will sick in the head, Steve. I have to help him - something's wrong out there, I have to go."

"I know, kid, I know. It's alright-"

"Something's wrong!" He broke away, making a run for the kitchen and crying out when he felt someone grab the crook of his elbow sharply, turning to wrench his arm away. "Let me go, Steve!"

Sprinting through the kitchen past a distressed Dustin and practically throwing himself down the steps of the back porch, Caleb ran until he reached the shed, lifting the ground sheet that had been stapled on top of the door and pulling it back down quickly so Will wouldn't see outside before turning to watch in disbelief as the boy's wails rang through the shed.

"LET ME GO! LET ME GO-"

Hopper fought to restrain him as Will kicked and flailed, struggling to free his tied feet and jerking his head away whenever his mother tried to speak to him.

"LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!"

It was too familiar - too like the night before, and those screams-

Caleb whimpered, fighting against the intense urge to curl up in a ball and launching himself at the dining chair instead, holding Will's head in his hands from behind and trembling with the force of the endless, harrowing, evil that shot through him the second he touched the boy. "W - Will, shh." He hissed through gritted teeth, focusing on the menacing feeling emanating from the boy's core rather than his own terror, allowing the black nothing to invade his entire body and numb his own senses instead of Will's. "Shh. Stop it, stop, it's okay. Calm down. You're okay."

Will's head fell limp, ragged breaths falling from his lips as his chin met his chest. "Let... let me go."

"Shh..." Caleb soothed him shakily, watching the evil flood the veins inside of his wrists and twist around his arteries until his entire arms were tainted an ill-looking shade of black. He just kept holding onto Will, resting his chin on the boy's head as hot tears streamed down his face at an alarming speed. "You're o - okay now."

"Caleb, what are you..." Mike faltered when Caleb grunted in pain, clenching his eyes shut and straining against his own agony so he could put a stop to his friend's, blood spurting from both of his nostrils. "Caleb?"

Caleb gasped, his knees giving out as the blackness in his veins slowly receded, swimming back down the veins in Will's neck as he backed away from the chair quickly, clutching his head in pain and weeping pathetically, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I tried. I tried to keep it in me instead, but I couldn't hold on anymore."

He had looked away too soon to realise that the veins in Will's neck had not turned to a rich onyx the same his had, but a considerably light shade of grey that resolved to fight the darkness inside the boy.

Joyce surged forward, worry furrowing her brow as she clutched the boy to her chest tightly. "Sweetheart... you could have really hurt yourself."

"That's okay." Caleb mumbled, hiding his face in her shoulder, unknowingly staining her shirt a dark red. "Will's more important. I just wanted him to be okay again, just for a little while."

"You're so brave, sweetie." Joyce frowned, pulling away to press a kiss to his hair. "So brave."

There was a yell from behind them and Joyce held her hand to her mouth as her son began to convulse in the chair once again, this time with his head tilted back and his entire body quivering as he gurgled and retched, a horrid sight that resembled a scene from the paranormal horrors Jonathan watched with them on Halloween before last - this was the part where the demonic spirit was being exorcised, if Will's seizure-like state was anything to go by.

Hopper reached out for him just as Will collapsed again, panting quietly and murmuring something under his breath, eyes fluttering. "What? What are you saying, kid?"

Joyce was clutching Caleb's shoulder just a little too tight, hand still pressed to her mouth and shaking all over, but he had nothing to say against it - he was shaking himself.

Hopper leaned closer to listen, then sat back with wide eyes, staring at Joyce in disbelief, "He said 'Mom'."

"What?" Joyce whispered, rushing over quickly and lifting her son's head, forcing him to open his drooping eyes. "Will? Will, are you in there?"

Silence.

"M - om. Mom..."

Joyce sobbed, collapsing into the chair across from him and crying in relief, looking up towards the sky for a moment and mouthing something none of them could hear before adjusting her head to stare at Caleb, a sudden realisation hitting her, "Thank you."

"I - I don't think I fixed him, Ms. Byers, he still feels-"

"No, but you did something." She said, resolute, pursed lips trembling as she laid one of her hands on her son's knee, Jonathan holding her shoulder from behind her, "You did something, Caleb."

Before Caleb could reply, not that he would have anything decent to say in his dumbstruck state, he was being dragged out of the shed by his sleeve and thrown into the nearest tree.

"Ow! Mike, what the fuck?!"

"What the hell were you thinking?" Mike hissed, fists clenching at his sides. "Are you fucking crazy? You could have - you..."

"Well, I thought we had already established this but yeah, I'm a little fucking deranged." Caleb chuckled, holding the back of his head where he had collided with the tree bark. "And now I have a bump on my head the size of Texas, thanks for that."

"This isn't the time for your stupid jokes, Caleb." Mike shoved his chest and the boy was pressed against the tree once again. "You could have hurt yourself. Badly. What were you thinking?!"

"I was thinking that Will was in a lot of pain and I could make it stop." Caleb narrowed his own eyes now, pulling his hand away from his head and shoving his friend back a few steps. "Why are you getting so worked up about this, I finally used whatever the hell this power thing is for something useful."

"Because you could have died! You - you could have-"

"But I didn't." Caleb chuckled warily, brow furrowing now. "Calm down, Mike, I'm fine."

"No. No, I won't calm down - you could have seriously hurt yourself, asshole!" Mike retorted, shoving him once again and taking a step back, shaking his head to himself. "Don't... don't ever do anything like that again."

"Mike-"

"Promise, promise you won't do it again. It's dangerous, Caleb, you don't know you're limits and I'm not losing you just because you think you can handle more than you actually can." Mike sighed, looking very tired and dreadfully similar to how he looked after another failed attempt at reaching El all of a sudden - like he had lost her all over again. "Please, just promise you won't do it again."

"I... I can't, Mike. If Will needs my help again, I have to do something about it - I can't just let him suffer," Caleb reasoned, frowning when Mike shook his head slowly, eyes brimming with tears. They had been building since Will went havoc in the shed, and they looked just about ready to fall. "Mike?"

"You... you can't just... fucking hell, Caleb."

"What? What's wrong?"

"You, you're wrong. You're so wrong." Mike muttered, throwing a hand through his hair and rubbing at his face tiredly. "You - you can't just, just make me feel shit that I don't wanna feel, Caleb."

"What? What did I do?" Caleb pleaded, taking a step closer and immediately stepping away again when Mike glared at him. Oh God, Mike hated him. Caleb didn't know what he could have done wrong, but he supposed it was only a matter of time before they all abandoned him anyway.

Maybe Mike was just getting the ball rolling.

"You - you fucking... shut up." Mike shook his head angrily and tried to stalk off but halted when Caleb placed his hand in the crook of his elbow, pulling him back only for Mike to force his arm away, his eyes widened in panic.

"Mike, please. Please, tell me what I did, I - I'll fix it! I'll fix it, I promise. Please, just - just don't leave. Don't leave, please," Caleb begged him frantically, voice wavering with emotion. It was one of his biggest fears - being abandoned and left all alone because of how messed up he was - and he absolutely hated, detested, being faced with the possibility of it coming true. "Please don't leave, Mike."

It took him a second to register what was happening when he felt his back suddenly meet the bark of the tree again, but once he did, his brain turned to nothing and he felt his knees buckle as he curled his hands in Mike's collar and pulled him closer, kissing him back tenderly.

Mike's hands trembled as they clutched onto Caleb's sweater, his entire body shaking because this was wrong wrong wrong and what the hell am I doing? and wrong-

Caleb raised his hand to cradle Mike's face, brushing his thumb over his cheek to try and calm the quivering boy down, tracing the edge of his cheekbone. His friend relaxed slightly and loosened his hold on his sweater, resting his hands on his shoulders instead as Caleb tilted his head and hesitantly began to move his lips against him.

Mike felt all the breath leave his body when the boy pulled him even closer until their chests were flush against each other and he could feel his own heart thumping against Caleb's chest uncontrollably as he threaded his fingers in the boy's hair, losing himself in the taste of plastic-coated medication and metallic crimson that was tainting his lips like sickly honey, his chest tingling all over like there was something trapped in there trying to get out and holy fucking shit, this is nothing like the kiss in the cafeteria-

Caleb pulled his hands away from Mike's face when the prolonged contact got too much for him and held onto the collar of his hoodie again instead, feeling Mike's hammering pulse under his hands and praying for his own lungs to hold out for just a few more moments so he could engrave the memory of it in his mind.

Wrong wrong wrong-

Caleb faltered, pulling away with a small frown, his head tingling with the faint remnants of static, "Uh..."

Mike stumbled back, cheeks flushed and breathing unsteady as he backed away, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. "Shit. What - what the fuck are we doing?"

"Oh, nothing, I suppose," Caleb smiled bitterly, pushing away from the tree and starting towards the Byers' house, lips still warm with the feeling that had encompassed him only a moment ago before the hurt set in, "You know, 'cause it's so wrong."

"What are you talking about? Wait - did you read my mind?!" Mike scoffed, hurrying after him angrily.

Caleb spun around to face him as they stood outside the back porch, throwing his hands up at his sides in exasperation, "It's not like I can help it! Whatever, it doesn't matter anyways. You know, if I'm so fucking wrong, maybe you shouldn't be talking to me."

"Wha - no, I didn't mean that you're wrong, I mean... what we were doing was. I don't even know what that was, okay? I was just really worried about you and - and it just got out of hand. Caleb, I'm not... like you. You know?" Mike said uneasily, wiping all evidence of their kiss - of their mistake, of their unforgiveable sin - from his lips with the back of his sleeve.

It was only then that he realised his mistake.

Caleb gawked at him in disbelief, a bitter laugh falling from his lips, "You - you said that you were okay with it, with me. With me being... you said you were okay with it."

"I am! Caleb, I so am - but I'm not like you."

"Yet somehow I'm like, a whole other person now. What - you're not like me? What the fuck does that mean - like, I'm different now? You look at me different because of this stupid, meaningless thing I told you?"

"It's not like it isn't a big deal, Caleb - it's... yeah, it's different." Mike struggled, deciding that going with the logical side of his brain that wasn't screaming 'kiss him again, kiss him again' and choosing to just tell whatever false truth he could scrounge up instead, "It just takes some getting used to, being friends with..."

Possibly having feelings for, his mind corrected him, you don't know how you feel anymore and it's driving you insane, tell him the real truth, you ass.

Mike pushed the thought away, but refused to finish his sentence.

"With a queer? Okay, you know what, good talk, Mike. Fuck you and fuck whatever bullshit you've got going on there - God, you're seriously twisted, you know that?" Caleb scoffed, taking the first step up the porch hut turning back to speak his mind whenever the opportunity to sprout another passive aggressive remark presented itself. "If you don't feel that way about someone, don't fuck with their feelings by kissing them. You can't just use the way people feel about you to fuck with their heads!"

"What... what do you mean? What do you mean 'the way people feel', are you... do you-"

"What? Do I have feelings for you? Kinda have for an entire year now, but thanks for noticing." Caleb drawled, even though he had only really noticed his feeling less than a few days beforehand - it wasn't about facts or details, though, it was about winning the argument and making Mike realise what a dick he was. "Sorry if that weirds you out, by the way, I mean I know the whole me being gay thing is hard enough for you to accept - God forbid I try to give you my fucking disease."

"Wha - Caleb, c'mon, of course I accept you! It's just... weird, okay?" Mike could feel himself digging his own grave even deeper each time he opened his mouth, but his father's words and the words of so many others wouldn't leave his mind and he had to act on them, it was all he knew. "I mean, you grow up with everyone telling you that this one thing is so wrong and then your best friend turns out to be it and it's - it's just confusing. Okay? It's hard to - to-"

"Accept it." Caleb finished, showing that Mike had done nothing but prove his point. Hard to accept me.

"I - okay, yeah." Mike sighed, knowing that somehow it had been the exact opposite of what he had meant to say - his head was a mess, he didn't even know which voice in his head to listen to. "Yeah, it's hard to accept. But it's not like I hate you or something - you're like, one of the most important people in my life! I don't wanna lose you, please just... give me time, okay? To - to accept it."

Caleb shook his head slowly, wrenching open the back door with less force than he wanted to, he felt like pulling it off and throwing it at the boy's head in that moment, "Whatever, Mike."

He heard a short yell of frustration and something thumping against the plank of wood acting as a support beam for the porch steps as he stood in the kitchen, staring very hard at the floor to stop himself from exploding.

"What the hell happened, Cay?" Dustin fretted, setting down the coloured pencil he was just about to add to the Jenga tower he and Steve were building on the kitchen table and standing to his feet, "Was that you yelling outside? What happened with Will, why are you covered in-"

"Will's fine." Caleb replied, wiping at his nose with his sleeve in a feeble attempt to rid his face of the blood and trudging towards the living room, not giving his friend or the worried teenager beside him so much as another look.

He laid himself down on the couch, a few of the sketched map drawings shuffling beneath him as his thoughts spun out of control, spilling out of his head and onto the carpet until they filled the whole room and suddenly he was drowning in them and fucking hell he was so tired-

"Hey, dumbass." Max Mayfield, red hair shining like a beacon in the fucking darkness and crooked smirk set on her face, sat down beside him and placed a hand in his hair, "You scared the shit out of us, running out there like some crazy person - no offence. Feeling okay?"

"I'm fine." Caleb mumbled, lifting his head to place it in her lap, allowing her to pull at his tangled strands and twist the curls into even more intricate patterns than they were already in - his curls were a lot less tame than his sister's, it was a weird thought to have at a time like that but it still brought a smile to his face. "Just need to rest for a bit, I used a lot of energy trying to get that thing out of Will and now my head's like, splitting itself in half. Is there any Tylenol?"

"I think we could find some, but I'm not sure supernatural migraines are on the list of uses." Max joked with a struggling smile, not liking the sight of her new friend in so much pain.

Caleb chuckled, throwing an arm over his eyes to shield them from the harsh light of the room, which was barely bright enough to reach the dark corners but irritated him nonetheless. "I think I need something stronger anyway. Any elephant tranquilizers around?"

"Yeah, think I've got one or two in my backpack." She said sarcastically, prodding at his cheek with a small grimace, "Hey, you've got blood all over your face."

"Oh, yeah, it's my new look. My old lipstick wasn't working for me anymore, I'm going for something more natural. What do you think?" He beamed sardonically, showcasing his bloody smile.

"Oh, yeah, definitely suits you more than your last look." Max grimaced, lifting his head off her lap and standing to her feet with her hand outstretched in offering, "C'mon, let's get you cleaned up."

Caleb groaned, letting her drag him from the couch and having to lean against her as she pulled him towards the bathroom and sat him on the edge of the bathtub, instructing him to tilt his head upwards as she grabbed a fraying hand cloth and ran it under the tap before beginning to wipe the blood from above his mouth and from the side of his head where blood had apparently, to his horror, been trickling from his ears again.

It took a while for her to work up the courage, but once she began to clean the blood from his chin she finally asked in a very quiet voice, easy not to set him off, "Is it Mike?"

Caleb let out a deep breath, letting his head fall forwards onto her stomach and groaning with every morsel of irritance in his body, "I hate feelings. They're fucking bullshit."

Max sighed, running her hand through hid hair once again as he wound his arms the back of her legs, burying his face in her red hoodie. "Don't let him get to you, alright? If he's being a dick again, don't give him the satisfaction of seeing you so messed up over him. It's probably what he wants."

"Hm."

It took everything in him to stop thinking of when Mike had held him like this only hours ago, and he hated that he felt just a tad less comfortable having his body so close to the redhead who was currently tugging at a knot in his hair. He wished she was a boy, it would be so easy to fall in love with her if she was.

"Alright, chin up, I think some came out of your eyes too, you freakin' weirdo."

Caleb laughed at that, and spent the next few minutes thanking his lucky stars for Max Mayfield.

↬

The both of them strolled out of the bathroom, snickering to themselves as Caleb droned on and on about how unfortunate it was that his friend had 'not been gifted with a penis at the dawn of your birth, oh, woe is me', one of his arms flung over her shoulder to stop him from collapsing and the other raising a damp cloth to his nose which had yet to stop bleeding for some reason.

He stopped, causing Max to stall in place aswell, as he watched Jonathan hurry out the back door with his cassette tape repair kit in hand, and was just about to joke about not being invited to the cookout he must be throwing in the back yard when he noticed Hopper hunched over a piece of paper on the kitchen table, surrounded by his friends and looking as though he was being told something by them.

Nancy and Steve were in a very heated debate about something on the other side of the room, but he did not want to get involved in that and turned back to the people herded around the table instead.

"Caleb!" Lucas exclaimed, waving the two of them over and doing his best to not let jealousy overtake him at the position his friend's hand was in as he nodded towards the paper. "Will is communicating!"

"What?" Caleb gaped, untangling himself from the redhead and stumbling over to the table, vision still a bit unstable. "You got through to him?!"

"He's speaking in morse code." Dustin piped up, thrusting a finger towards the words on the paper that read 'HERE', and then to the hardwood page of the sketchbook beside it that read 'C L O S E G A T' in purple crayon.

"Mor - like when Mr. Clarke taught us at that stupid summer school programme you made me do?"

"Joyce sent me to get you." Hopper grabbed him by the neck of his sweater and dragged him to the back door, much to the boy's chagrin as he wrenched away and slapped at the man's hand.

"Don't fucking touch me."

"Well, move, then-"

"Look, I'm not gonna be of any use to you - I don't know if I can get it out of him again, it took a lot out of me the last time and I'm still like, recharging and-"

"No, no - not that. As if we'd let you do that again." Hopper scoffed, ushering him through the back door and shutting it behind them with a kick, "You gotta talk to him."

"Talk?"

"Yup." Offering no further answers, Hopper set off for the shed, not quite checking to see if the boy followed but slowing his pace for him. "What you did in there, and back at the Lab - you're like E - uh, that kid from last year, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, she's my sister, you know this." Caleb sniffed, throwing the stained cloth to the side carelessly, catching his mistake and swallowing harshly as he staggered along, his limbs aching and his ribs screaming in discomfort, "Was. Was my sister."

"Right. You just... none of them mentioned that you had powers."

"None of them knew." Caleb replied, a bit too snappy. He didn't want to talk to him. "It's not like it's a big deal, I can't even control them and they're not valuable in any way at all, not to us."

"Maybe not so invaluable, though - at least not to them." He said thickly, obviously meaning the Lab. Caleb really didn't want to talk to him now. "We'll probably have to hide you from them or something, you know that, right?"

"Hide." Caleb repeated, a bitter smile on his face. Is that what you were doing? Hiding her? From the bad men? You don't think I can protect my own sister, you ignorant dickhead? "Yeah, that's a no from me. I'm not a fucking idiot, I'm not gonna go around shooting fireballs out of my ass or something. And it's not like its a very visual power, I just feel things. And sometimes I make stuff break, but I can't even do that on command. I'm actually pretty useless, to be honest."

"You're not useless, you helped Will in there." Hopper informed him, stopping just outside the shed door. "Joyce is right, you did something - he called her mom a few times again while she was talking to him and he even recognised Mike, I think. Stopped talking after a while, but Joyce says you brought a little piece of him back."

"Yeah, and if I try to do it again, my brain will fucking explode."

"You say a lot of strong words for such a wimpy kid."

"I punch a lot of people for a wimpy kid too, keep talking and you'll be on that list."

"Real threatening." Hopper rolled his eyes, "Really, I'm shaking right now."

"... There's actually one other power that I have, it's called laser eyes. Don't know if you've heard of it, but it basically means that I could like, totally turn your brain to mush if I wanted to. Like, right now."

"That so?"

"Yes so." Caleb shot back, a bit too confident in such an idiotic and childish response. "You know why I hate you so much, Chief?"

"I don't think we really have time to get into that." Hopper replied sarcastically, as if he knew just how deep Caleb's hatred ran.

But he didn't, he had no idea how much the boy fucking loathed him. He would have respected the man a long time ago - but that was before he took her.

Caleb had always been protective of those he cared for, this was well known. But he would probably set the world on fire if anything happened to his sister - to his Jane, to his other half.

And right now, the sight of Jim Hopper's face made him want to burn something.

"Because you're a liar. And a selfish prick. You took something very important from me, Jim." Caleb spat, taking a firm step forward as he fought to keep those urges, those dark, sickening little urges away. "And I don't care if I have to put your head on a fucking spike to get it back."

"Now hold on - what are we talking about here?"

"You'll know." I'll find her. I'll come for her, and you won't be able to stop me when I come to take her home. "But you're right, we probably don't have time to get into all that right now."

Caleb stepped through the ground sheet covering the entrance, leaving the man standing there with a deep frown on his face, and watched as Mike stood from the dining chair across from where Will was sat, wiping at his cheeks discreetly as the booming stereo in the corner fell quiet for a moment before the familiar tune of Should I Stay or Should I Go filled the room once again, the tape repair kit still open beside it.

He ignored the boy pointedly, turning his head the second Mike opened his mouth to attempt conversation, and locked eyes with Joyce in a silent question, growing more unsure of himself when he she gestured to the dining chair.

Caleb took the seat with a sharp intake of breath and completely blanched once he was sat face to face with the boy, "I - I don't know what to say."

"Just say the first thing that comes to your mind, sweetie." Joyce placed a hand on his shoulder, tightening for a moment before stepping back again. "A memory, or something special. Something that Will would remember."

He rattled his brain for anything that would stick out to both of them - one of their hang outs in Castle Byers, or perhaps the memory of the day he had attained the scar on his left shoulder during he and Lucas' attempt to retrieve the 'No Trespassing' sign as a last-second birthday gift for the boy - as he stared into those eyes, those eyes that weren't Will's.

It wasn't Will sitting in front of him, it was a paper copy, a bland shell filled with swirling black smoke and malicious intent, the boy with the flowers in his head long gone. But he was in there somewhere.

He had to coax him out, had to get his friend back.

Which meant that he had to choose the only memory that really mattered, didn't it? The one that really showed who Will was, who he was to Caleb, who they had always been to each other. He hoped Mike was listening close enough to hear the truth, he hoped the boy knew that he hadn't been his first - that he had done for Will what Mike had done for him that night in the basement long before Caleb even came to his little realisation on Halloween.

"Do you remember... it was a week after Jonathan's sixteenth, a month before I left for... uh, for Bravenpoint. L - Lonnie came over with a card and some money. He was drunk, your mom told him to leave and he got angry. He started throwing things and he called you names, and he - he tried to..." Caleb gulped at the memory of Will's frightened eyes when Lonnie had lunged for him, his fist reared back and an enraged scowl on his face, "well, you know. Jonathan didn't let him, obviously. He hit him, knocked him on his ass and threw him out and told him to never come back and you cried. You cried a lot. We spent the rest of the day in Castle Byers and I tried to cheer you up, tried to show you that new comic I brought over - I even spoiled the ending, trying to make you mad just so you wouldn't be sad anymore. And then I asked why you wouldn't stop crying and you-"

He stopped himself. This was the part where it got too personal, where he had to watch what he said because of the curious eyes burning a hole in his head that he had almost forgotten about.

"You just looked at me and you said-" you said you were crying because the words Lonnie had spat at you so viciously could be true, and then you broke down crying all over again, "-you said it was because he got the birth date wrong - that he didn't care about either of you, he never had, and it made you feel like an idiot." He looked into his eyes when he spoke, and that static feeling filled his head, and he knew that Will knew what he was really saying, and I asked you what you meant and you started calling yourself names, calling yourself things that you shouldn't have, things that made me sad because you looked so angry at yourself and I couldn't help you.

"And I told you that he wasn't worth it, that it was gonna be okay and that you shouldn't cry over someone who couldn't even be bothered to remember his own son's birthday." I told you that it was okay, that you weren't sick like you thought you were and you shook your head and cried and cried and then Chester-

"And then Chester came running in, like he knew you were sad, like he knew you were hurt and he started licking your face and jumping on you and you laughed and-" then you looked at me, so scared, so frightened of yourself, and we were so close and the rain was so loud and then you were moving and I didn't know what you were doing until we were even closer, too close, and it only lasted for a second before you jumped away like I had burned you, so scared, so scared- "-and I told you again, I told you it was gonna be okay and that he couldn't hurt you anymore because he couldn't find us out there, out there in the woods in your safe place-" and you started crying again and you kept apologising, like you had hurt me someway, and you wouldn't stop apologising until I took your hands away from your face and told you that you weren't sick and you weren't wrong and then it was my turn to get too close but you knew, you knew I was just being a friend and I was helping you and when I moved away again you hesitated, and then you wiped your tears away with a small laugh and you smiled, you finally smiled, and the rain wasn't so loud anymore- "and you were okay again. And you smiled, and I promised you that he was never going to hurt you again and that everything was going to be alright and that time, you believed me. And we both promised - I promised that it was going to be okay and you promised that you wouldn't cry anymore."

I promised not to tell, and you promised not to hate yourself.

"But I never promised that. And I cried, Will. I'm not going to pretend that I didn't, because I cried like a fucking toddler everynight that you were gone - when Mike thought I was asleep and when Jane stopped stirring because I was having a nightmare before and I always woke her up, even though she pretended that I hadn't. And I never went back to sleep after those nightmares because I was up all night waiting for you to come home so I could make you promise something else instead - promise to never leave again because it hurt so much when you weren't there and I'd prefer to see you cry than not see you at all. Hell, I was up all night sobbing like a little bitch because you weren't there to make me okay again. We always make each other okay, Will. That's the deal - that's why we're best friends, why you're the only one in the Party I told about that foster home and why I'm the only one you told ab - w - why I'm the only one you cried to." He caught himself, and was faintly aware that he was babbling on and on now and it was getting a lot more personal than he was comfortable with the other's hearing.

"And I didn't tell you other things, I didn't tell you about the powers at first and I didn't tell you about... about a lot of stuff. But I told you how I felt when I lost Jane, and I called you on the comm every night for four months after she was gone and you listened to me talk about the same shit over and over again until the sun came up and you never even said anything, you just listened. The point is, I tell you about the stuff that matters, about what goes on in my head and how I feel and why I'm so scared of being left alone. And you tell me about the important stuff too. Because we're two sensitive little pricks and we refuse to admit it but we always end up crying and making each other okay again anyway. I need you to do that one more time, Will. I need you to make me okay again because I don't know what the fuck is happening to me and my head's never felt this dangerous before and I need you to play your shitty classic rock mixtapes and worry about me - even if you worry too much - just so I know that somebody still gives a shit whether I live or die and I need you to tell me I'm an uneducated burden on society because I've never listened to a Talking Heads track in my life." He choked on a struggling laugh, a faint chuckle from behind him that sounded too much like Jonathan to be anyone else reminding him of the point to his seemingly endless rambling. "I need you home, Will. Here, with your mom and Jonathan and Jordan and me and the Party and-" and Jane. "Damn it, Will, if I have to drag that thing out of you with my bare fucking hands, I will. Just come home."

It was silent after that, even with the music blaring from the stereo, and he was pretty sure Joyce was crying again.

Will didn't say anything, of course he didn't, but his eyes had grown wide and there was a faint sheen of tears there, glimmering in the light of the lamp overhead - and his friend knew that he had heard every word that was put into his head.

"I didn't cry at your funeral, you know." Caleb reached out to wipe away the blood that was trickling from the boy's nostril, a grimace of apology on his face, then used his sleeve to wipe the blood from his own and slumped in the chair, a heavy sigh falling past his lips. "Always felt like an ass for that, even if everyone was telling me you were alive. Should've cried, should have grieved you then so I knew what to expect when I lost you a second time - then again, don't think anything could have really prepared me for this. I need you home, Will, our prick friends are gonna drive me insane without you here."

There was a smile, he swore there was a smile, the faintest curve of Will's mouth - and then his expression fell flat, and he began to tap on the side of the chair.

A heavy albeit silent breath of relief seemed to fall from each of the room's occupants as Hopper began to dial in the last letter through the Supercomm in his hand - it better have been Mike's, Caleb refused to have anything of his own ever touched by the man.

"Do you think that's the whole message or-"

Their relief shattered in a matter of seconds as the shrill sound of the phone from the house ringing brought all of them to a stand still, frozen kind of fear, refusing to move even once the phone had stopped and immediately tensing when the sound rang through the shed once again.

Caleb caught on quicker than the others, it would seem, and turned back to Will just as the boy fluttered his eyes closed and began to breathe heavily.

He panicked - it was a slip of the hand, and he genuinely didn't mean to do it.

But the next thing he knew he was swinging an elbow and Will's head was falling to the side, his entire body straining against the wires tied around him as he went limp.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry, I panicked-"

Joyce pushed past him and grabbed for the sedative, jamming the syringe into the vial and extracting the clear fluid before moving towards her son's arm.

Caleb had always flinched around needles when he wasn't the one utilising them, and he barely had time to look away as she stabbed the needle into his friend's upper arm.

"It knows." Hopper finally said, his slow-paced neanderthalic brain lagging behind as always, and ran out of the shed with Jonathan and Mike hot on his tail without another word.

Caleb stayed, working with Joyce to untie Will and growing rather impatient with the sailor's knot the pig-brained chief had knotted into the cable, taking a pair of pliers from the crate Nancy had been standing on while they set up and tearing the cords down the middle with the teeth of the metal tool, swearing when they caught on the last one and giving it a final harsh tug just as the other returned.

"They're coming!" Jonathan announced, falling down to his mother's side to help her pull the severed cable from the dining chair and lugging his brother's unconscious body over his shoulder.

Mike, placing whatever grudge that was between them on hold out of panic or fear or some other distressed emotion, grabbed his hand and refused to let go until they were safe on the porch steps, at which point he thrust the door open and urged everyone to go inside.

He found himself waiting until Mike himself was in the house before closing the door shut and shoving the Wheeler boy towards the living room by the collar, "Tell the others that He knows!"

Hopper stormed through the back door as Caleb rifled through the drawers for anything that could be utilised as a weapon, grunting something to him that the boy waved off with a roll of his eyes before going off to find the other PKM he had stashed somewhere in the house, the other hanging from his shoulder.

It didn't take long for the others to get the memo and his friends passed through the kitchen a few times in search of weaponry - Dustin and Max split a broken broom between them, which she had been hesitant to take and made a snide remark about him hating her now only to receive a roll of the eyes in reply, Lucas came in to grab his marble bags that had been equipped with lethal pebbles to arm his trusty wrist-rocket with in case of emergency, and he was pretty sure he saw Mike grab a candlestick holder?

But Caleb was in no mood for anyone's shit, and took the largest butcher knife he could find from the rack on the countertop in the kitchen before returning to the living room as his friends were berated by the chief for looking out the windows.

The large group all formed a mishapen sort of attack circle as a low, painfully familiar growling sound surrounded the family home, and he stood himself between Steve and Dustin, flexing his fingers around the firm black handle, his jaw clenching.

Steve glanced down, gave him a disapproving look to conceal the small smirk of amusement on his face, then reached out the hand that wasn't holding his bat in a silent offering.

He took it, trying to ward off the childlike fear blossoming in his chest. This isn't the time to scream and cry, he told himself, get a hold of yourself and grow up.

Progress, progress, Brenner's voice in his head again, the world runs on progress.

Trembling like a little kid scared of the monster under his bed wasn't going to get him anywhere.

He gripped the knife tighter.

"Where are they?" Max asked, the slightest quiver in her voice, and he glanced over his shoulder to share a short, meaningful look with her before turning around again, even more determined when he saw the terror she was trying her best not to show.

There was a sudden loud crash outside, followed by a guttural howl of pain, and they all turned to face the far window where the noise had come from.

"What are they doing?" Nancy demanded, holding the other PKM in her hands and twisting around to face the front door when the side of the house rattled, a faint thud and a distorted yell tearing through the silence of the room.

"It sounds.... hurt-"

A limp demo-dog corpse crashed through the window of the living room and went skidding across Joyce's floor, coating the drawings on the ground in its monochrome slime and taking a dining chair with it when it finally stopped moving, several screams of surprise filling the room - including a particularly high-pitched one from Steve that made Caleb lack a bit of faith in him as the teenager tightened his hand.

"Holy shit..."

"Yeah," Caleb nodded as they watched the chief slowly edge towards the creature, face paling, "imagine one running towards you at full speed - oh wait, I don't have to."

"Is it dead?" Max scowled in disgust, peering closer at the thing and holding back a mouthful of bile - too many fucking teeth.

Hopper didn't reply, instead nudging the creature with the toe of his boot hesitantly, it's head lolling to the side with a faint squelch in reply.

A rustling at the front door caused them all to quickly form their line of defence once again, weapons raised as the lock on the door flicked to the side sharply, followed by the barrel bolt that had been installed on the door after Lonnie left. The door creaked open and Caleb stood, heart pounding in his chest and grasping onto Steve's hand tight,

and dropped the blade in his hand as his sister stepped through the front door.

↬

a/n :

so, the weather?

*me not updating for a another 2 weeks just to make you all suffer*

kiddinggg, i'll try have the next one out asap but like i said the rest of this act is gonna be packed and i'm back in school now so no promises

16,000 + words, my brain hurts😭

that's all for now, darlings x

- georgia