Chapter Text
When Will first got taken he had went straight to Castle Byers cause even though it wasn't a very sturdy structure it had felt safe, he would give anything to go back and tell his younger self to find a better hiding spot.
When the flower creature had come and he shot it all he could think was his fathers voice in his head telling him how to shot a gun, even his father was better than this hell.
Running from the flower creature was terrifying more terrifying than anything else he had been through before but it wasn't as terrifying as when he gained consciousness for a second to see he was held against a wall by vines and walking towards him was a creature made of vines and the creature was talking to him.
It was hard to make out the words but he was saying something about them doing beautiful things together, Will didn't want to do whatever that meant he wanted to go home, at some point he called Will a builder which was weird cause Will had never built anything in his life.
He didn't get much time to think about it though not before a weird tentacle was being shoved down his throat and he lost consciousness again.
_____________________________________
Will faded in and out of consciousness for a while he didn't know how long until he heard footsteps and voices that sounded human came and he felt the tentacle pulled out his mouth and he lost consciousness again.
When he woke up again he was in a blindingly white room and for a second he thought he had been saved till he sat up and saw a strange man sitting in front of him.
The man introduced himself as 'papa' and said he would help Will, he didn't trust this 'papa'. The next things he noticed was that his head was shaved and there was wires on him, there was bags of blood on either side of him one looked like it was being taken out of him and the other looked like it was being pumped into him. But the worst thing he noticed was the calendar on the wall said August 20th 1984'.
It had been almost a year since he had been taken and no one had come for him, well other than 'papa'. That's when Will decided he was never being saved.
_____________________________________
Will spent the next year judging by the calendar at this lab where he found out the blood was being pumped into him was from the creature that put the tentacle in him and that his name was 'One'. The blood had given Will some sort of powers that 'papa' said he already had the start of cause of his connection with 'One', Will didn't want a connection with him.
They had also tattooed a number twenty on his wrist and only called him that which was annoying cause the drugs they were putting him on were making him forget everything from before being in the weird vine place so he had to start repeating 'Will Will Will Will' over and over in his head and under his breath so thag he remembered it cause he refused to only be names 'twenty'.
_____________________________________
By the time he escaped after spending a year there he didn't remember anything except his name. So with the only knowledge he had that he was not going back to that lab and he was also not going back to 'One' he started trying to survive in the weird vine place.
What he learned was:
1. The flower creatures were controlled by 'One'.
2. Will could feel the pain of the flower creatures.
3. Sometimes he could hear voices that were only faint whispers and even though he couldn't name who they belonged to they were strangely comforting.
It was all going fine, well as fine as it could go until Will made his first slip up.
Will had been walking looking for more cans of food and didn't notice the military people till he felt the tasers on him and collapsed. They took him back to lab and sedated him.
When he came too he was hooked up to multiple machines. He saw the calendar on the wall, he had only been free for three months and he was already back.
_____________________________________
He learned that now they were trying to defeat 'One' and apparently needed Will to do that so after another few months of training him they sent him back to 'One' as a spy.
'One' noticed the fact Will was a spy within a day and put the tentacle back in his throat making him unconscious. This time what he realised before going unconscious was that the tentacle was pumping something into him.
When he woke up he felt a searing pain in his left eye but decided he didn't have time to worry about that cause the military people or 'One' could come for him any minute now and he needed to get out of these vines before that.
So ignoring the pain all over his body and the feeling of sick in his throat he somehow managed to pull himself free and run back to his base which he had made in some basement.
_____________________________________
Will was in pain, like a lot of pain everywhere but the main place was his eye and when he finally managed to find a mirror he realised that his eye looked sort of infected by weird black blood that kind of looked like the stuff inside the vines.
Will had to pull the eye out. If it was some sort of infection like thing then if he didn't it would spread throughout his entire body and that would definitely kill him and he was not dying till 'One' and the lab people were dead and gone.
He put a cloth in his mouth to bite down on and positioned his hand in a claw like shape over his eye. This is it, this was going to hurt like hell.
The pain Will felt as he dug into his eye was awful like burning and pulling and stinging at the same time, Will realized he was probably screaming the cloth in his mouth was long discarded on the ground.
When he finally had the eye almost out he needed to cut the final connection so pulling a knife out his pocket he cut in and the blood started flowing. Will did manage to wrap the wound in the cloth before he passed out.
_____________________________________
When Will woke up he puked and it was a weird mix of blood, actual sick and slugs which must have been what the tentacle put in him. He stood on them all apart from one which he wanted to keep to see what the slugs were.
Then he made some rules for himself:
1. Only sleep for four hours at a time.
2. Only shoot the gun in absolutely necessary otherwise someone could hear.
3. Only eat one small meal a day or food will run out to quickly.
4. NEVER GET CAUGHT AGAIN!!
After that things actually worked for him. It turned out the slugs had been flower dog, which were a different type of flower creature, babies and the one he had kept liked him. It was nice having company for once and he decided he would do anything to protect him.
Will had decided to name the flower dog Chester, he wasn't sure why but it felt like the kind of name he would call a dog.
_____________________________________
The day had started as a normal day for him until he heard footsteps near the outside of the base.
'Fuck fuck fuck he was getting caught again' he cursed himself. Carefully he looked out the window aiming his gun just in case he needed to shoot.
It was only one person a man with a longish beard, an outfit that didn't look very military and a gun.
Then the man noticed him. "um…hi I'm…uh…not going to hurt you" the man said putting his hands up.
"who are you?" Will asked still pointing the gun "are you with the military?"
"I'm Jim Hopper and no I'm not with the military who are you?"
Will narrowed his eye he wasn't sure he could trust this man bit for some reason, maybe a silent voice of hope in the back of his head' he said "I'm Will" it was a mear whisper but the man heard cause his face when from shock to determination. "I'm going to help you Will".