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Everything moved faster than Mike could process. One minute, he was standing by Will’s bedside, finding comfort in hearing him breathe easily and slowly in his sleep; the next, he was rushing out of Hawkin’s lab, Will draped over the Chief’s shoulder; finally he found himself sitting in the backseat of a car– maybe it was Jonathan’s? All Mike could really understand was that Jonathan was the one driving it. Nancy was sitting in the passenger seat, stoic and silent, with a plug-in heater sitting on her lap. Will and his mom were in the back beside Mike. Will was wrapped tightly, nearly bound, in the quilt that typically laid uselessly over the end of Will’s bed. Now it was trying to protect him from the cold and the monster that thrived on it. Mrs. Byers was gripping Will to her body, rocking him back and forth and trying to coax him back to her. For her sake, Mike kept hoping every time they hit a hard bump Will would gasp awake.
He didn’t wake up. Well, at least not that way.
Mike followed everyone out of the car and into the cabin. It was buried in the deep shadows and foliage of the woods behind seemingly every neighborhood in Hawkins. Windows were boarded up and shattered glass covered the porch as they entered slowly. They scanned the house with interest and caution while Jonathan carried Will to the couch.
“We’ll do it here.” Mrs. Byers said, crouching by an unlit fireplace.
Suddenly, everyone began moving around the house. Jonathan moved a bed from another room and Nancy framed it with heaters and a well stacked fireplace. Mike stood by the door, still unsure of how his night had escalated to such surreality. Nancy and Jonathan moved with such swiftness and fury, and Mike clung to the wall, afraid to step in their way.
Mike was the one responsible for the radio. He could see it sitting on a table; an old police radio with receiver resting on top of it. Mike shuffled towards it, his actions going unnoticed by the three other people in the room. Technically four, but Mike tried not to consider the body being moved on the bed as Will. Not at that moment. It would go back to being Will, but first they had to sweat the monster out of him. The details of which were horrifically foggy to Mike.
“What are you doing?” It was the first time Mike made his presence known, stepping forward but a hand resting on the radio. Jonathan had rope in his hand and was beginning to bind Will’s feet and arms to the bed posts. “What are you doing to him?”
“Mike, we have to do this. We have to tie him down so he doesn’t hurt anyone.” Jonathan tried to explain it to Mike, but his tone suggested he was wasting time speaking to him.
“You’re going to hurt him!” Mike cried.
“It’s not Will.” Nancy said. Mike didn’t like the way it sounded coming from her. It might not have been Will’s actions and behavior, but Will was still in there somewhere. He was the one they were trying to save.
Mike lowered his eyes, looking down at the radio and the Morse code chart hanging above it. The heaters buzzed and hissed and the fireplace crackled, but no one spoke. Other than Mike, no one was consulting each other. No one wanted to voice their uncertainty. Mike couldn’t help but feel like maybe they didn’t have any.
Mike looked at Will and could barely keep a shudder from running through him; they were standing over Will’s bound body like he was peacefully dreaming. Nancy and Jonathan seemed able to ignore the vein surfacing on his face, like he was already dead and slowly bloating. They pretended not to see the way his arms already showed signs of bruising from when he fought against them in the Byers’ garage. They were acting like everything was fine.
Mike sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, and pretended too. Pretended he wasn’t watching his best friend burn to his possible death. Mike sat with his quivering lip hidden behind his hands and waited. His bated breath twisted to sniffles and he fought every unfamiliar instinct he had to cry.
Time seemed to pass slower the hotter the room got. With the four heaters and fireplace going, every breath was timed and only seemed to stretch the moment out further. Will had been still since they had been in the house, and his first twitch was like an electroshock throughout the house. He surged upwards, his back bowing and arms straining against the rope. Mike pressed his back against the wall, hoping he’d fall through it.
“What’s happening?” Will breathed, his eyes opening and arms tugging against the ropes repeatedly. His head twisted and he stared at the ropes, his eyes widening but not afraid. “It hurts.” Will repeated himself, growing agitated the more his brother and mother stood beside the bed, staring at him. Will’s voice cracked as he screamed at the ceiling. “Let me go! Let me go!”
Will’s neck snapped back and he convulsed against the bed. Mike closed his eyes, pressing the heels of his palms against them. He hoped the white dots would disorient him, give him something else to worry about as he heard his best friend screeching in pain across the room.
“You’re hurting him!” Mike screamed, Will’s pleas unable to be blocked out by his closed eyes. “Stop it! Stop it!”
“It’s doing its job.” Joyce said firmly, staring back at the monster showing himself in her son’s frightened face. “He’s had Will long enough.” She turned a knob of a heater higher.
“No stop!” Mike cried. He jumped to his feet but was held back by Nancy before he got two steps in. “You’re hurting Will! It’s Will!”
“It’s not him, Mike.” Jonathan said. He was reminding himself too.
“He feels it! He definitely feels it!” Mike screamed, watching Will’s neck nearly break. Will’s mouth was open but the sound was in no way created by his own vocal chords; it was creeping up from some voided part of him, swelling and seeping with darkness. “You have to stop!”
“No. Not yet!” Joyce snapped, watching Will convulse. It couldn’t have been easy for her, but showing any doubt would have been worse.
“Please! Oh my god, Will! Please, if you can hear me… just hold on!” Mike wasn’t sure what begging would do. His cries would have to go through the Mind Flayer first; Will would probably never hear it. “Will, please!”
In a sudden burst, everything in the cabin seemed to go silent– a blanket of white noise suffocating them all from the rest of the world. The lights began to flicker and Mike had the sinking feeling it wasn’t anything trying to communicate to them; it was purely a threat.
“His neck! Jonathan, his neck!” Nancy released Mike and pointed at Will’s throat, still straining as he screamed.
“I can’t watch.” Mike turned away as his stomach began churning. He thought he was going to throw up while at the same time start hysterically sobbing. He was on the edge of something short of a break down. “Please, Will, please. Please please please.” He was muttering nonsense, but it was the only prayer he had left. That was his best friend. His best friend. His Will.
It had already reached Hell-like temperatures, but only then did it feel like Mike was burning. Like the flames were surrounding not only Will but the entire room. Mike felt itchy, like he was drying up to stone. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even think. He couldn’t only hear Will screaming.
Mike thought he was going to start screaming back. It was on the tip of his tongue, a bubble of frustration forming under his ribs, a final demand to leave his best friend alone. Leave him alive. Just as he opened his mouth and turned around, Will did too. Except his scream wasn’t much of a sound. It was a coiling, fleeting string of smoke.
Mike wasn’t sure if it even was smoke. It felt human. The room felt like it was thrumming with static, frozen in time, before the thing darted toward the door. It sped past Mike and busted the front door open. Nancy ran after it, amazement following the black smoke and leaving the cabin empty and shaken. Mike turned around to see Will weakly blinking at his mother, who was now kneeling over him.
Mike fumbled for the radio, his hands barely pressing the button before shouting into it. There was a crackled answer, one Mike didn’t care to listen to, as he dropped the receiver and rushed to his friend.
“Oh my god, Will! Will, are you okay?” It was the stupidest question, Mike knew it, but he was hoping it’d be a yes. Hell, he’d take a no. He just wanted to hear Will answer.
“M-Mom?” Will whispered, still resurfacing. He turned his head. “Mike?”
“Yeah, baby, it’s us.” Mrs. Byers sighed, moving to sit beside him. “We’re here. We’re here, baby.”
“Is it over?” Will was begging. Mike couldn’t imagine how much he’d been doing that inside his own body. What didn’t they hear?
“It’s over, honey. Come here!” Mrs. Byers grabbed Will and pulled him tightly to her chest. Will’s hands squeezed her shoulders, his knuckles turning white. He was alive. He had some fight left too.
“I heard you.” Will said quietly, his head resting on his mother’s shoulder. He was looking at Mike. “I heard you talking. I thought it was a trick.”
“No, I was here! I’m here.” Mike nodded, kneeling by his bedside.
“Yeah, thank god.” Will laughed, but it was absolutely hollow. He was exhausted, tears forming in his eyes out of a strange combination of relief and utter fear. Mike reached out, against all instincts, and wiped one away.
“I’m here.” Mike repeated. “You’re here.”
Will was back. He was alive… and he was smiling. It could have been at anyone– his mother, Jonathan, even Nancy who was beginning to turn the heaters down– but Mike had a strange twisting feeling in his chest that it was for him. Will must’ve really heard him from where he was being held hostage in the back of his mind. He probably heard Mike pleading for him to live, to be okay, to make it back to them.
Mike wondered if Will had heard him back in the shed too. He’d meant every word he said: best thing he ever did. Mike hoped Will had heard him. He didn’t want his true feelings to be wasted on something trying to eat his friend alive– his confusing feelings were already doing that to Mike. That’s not what crushes were supposed to feel like… At least it wasn’t how Nancy had described them.
So maybe Will heard him. Maybe he didn’t. At least Mike still had someone alive to smile back to. There wasn’t much else he could ask for.