Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Station Wagon
“DRIVE!”
The scream rips from Mike’s throat and the car jerks forward, sending them all careening to the right as Nancy whips the car around and hits the edge of the blacktop that leads them out of the woods and onto the main highway.
The screeches of the toothy beast still ring in all of their ears and the decaying stench of it lingers on the back of their tongues, reminding them just how close they brushed with death.
They zoom down the highway, everyone breathing hard and taking a collective moment to gather themselves and process what they’ve just witnessed before they could even begin to think about their next course of action. The main priority, at the moment, is putting as much distance between themselves and that thing as possible.
And then Lucas mutters “I think I’m gonna be sick.” And the collective moment is broken.
Nancy swears loudly.
“We got everyone, right? Everyone got in the car?” She anxiously adjusts the rear view mirror to search the back rows, taking a mental roll call while glancing back at the road every few moments.
Jonathan turns around in his seat, eyes locking with his younger brother’s to see if he’s alright. Will is white as a sheet and his eyes were huge, but he acknowledges the unspoken question with a worried gulp.
Max has her head in one hand, only able to blink rapidly at the floor as she tries to come to terms with the otherworldly things she’d seen just moments ago. She could still feel the breeze against her cheek as the razor-sharp tentacle zipped past her, just inches from her face.
Lucas sits next to her, but his back is turned to them all. He stares out into the inky blackness of the forest as it speeds past behind them, eyes roving for a familiar shape. But it isn’t following them. Not yet. El had dealt it some major damage. But they’d seen it turn to literal mush and ooze down a sewage drain. The damage is only temporary and he knows it will be back on their trail the moment it re-forms.
Mike can feel the horror of everything that just happened too fast right at the edges of his consciousness, begging him to shut down and curl into a ball. To scream or cry or just crawl into a fetal position, silent and numb. But he pushes all of that down, shoves it into a box to deal with later, because right now El needs him. El, who has yet to open her eyes since they got into the car.
She’s conscious, but clearly in horrible pain. If her agonized scream when he ripped that thing off her leg wasn’t proof enough of that, her body language now certainly is. Back rigid against the seat, eyes scrunched up and teeth clenched like she’s trying her hardest not to scream again. A sheen of sweat covers her sheet-white face, as if the effort of just sitting there and existing is a physical strain. And maybe it is, who knows? All he knows is, he needs to hear her voice.
“El.”
He puts his hands on her shoulders.
“El, are you ok?”
She’s clearly not ok, but he just needs to hear an answer, any answer in her soft voice to wipe away the last memories of her ragged screaming.
There’s no reaction to his words, and his hands go up to her cheeks, gently pulling her to face him and jeez her skin is freezing.
“El, can you hear me?”
Again, she doesn’t open her eyes or answer, but the car hits a pothole and she moans pitifully and slides down in her seat, her head hitting the back support behind her. Her hands are white knuckling the bench, and all of those things together are a pretty clear indicator of how not ok she is. It sends his pulse skyrocketing and his mouth instantly dries out.
He’s moments from panicking when he notices that Max, who is sitting in front of them, has turned around. She looks concerned, but it’s mostly masked by determination.
“Mike, check her leg.” She orders, authority in her voice. “Is it still bleeding?”
It takes him a few moments to process what she said, but then he’s ducking down fumbling around near El’s calves, happy for a directive. But with the headlights and a few scant street lamps as a light source in the pitch-black woods, it’s useless trying to see anything in detail.
“I can’t - it’s too - I can’t see anythi -!”
His words cut off as his hand lands in a pool of sticky wetness - a sizable amount - that has soaked into the carpet. After everything that’s happened tonight he reacts on instinct, pulling his hand away and sitting up quickly. It takes him a second to process that his fingertips are stained with blood. The realization that this is El’s blood and there’s enough of it that it has soaked through her sock, shoe and gone all the way down into the carpet, mixed with the very strong smell of iron, makes his stomach turn over and he quickly has to swallow. His eyes flick up to meet Max’s who seems to have been following his exact train of thought. Her eyes flash with real worry, and for a moment he sees the genuine depth of concern Max has for his girlfriend. And it makes some of the not-so-secret resentment he’s been harboring towards her melt away around the edges. They have something very important in common, he realizes, and that makes it possible to be rivals, but never enemies.
Max whips around in her seat to face the front.
“HEY! We need to get El to a hospital!” She barks out. “She’s bleeding out back here, she needs stitches!”
But Nancy just shakes her head.
“We can’t do that.”
“It wasn’t a question.” Max practically growls. “Did you see that thing? It was nasty, her leg’s probably infected! Do you want her to lose a leg?? Because she will if she doesn’t get medical attention and fast.”
Max’s words send everyone glancing at each other in worry.
But Nancy holds firm, shaking her head again. Her steely gaze meets Max’s in the rear view. Matched, blue-eyed intensity.
“No, did you see that thing? Because I did. Twice. I’ve seen it turn to mush, slide under a door, and then reassemble back into a monster. It won’t be down for long. It tracked El to the cabin and we don’t know if it’s still tracking her. We are not leading that thing to a hospital full of sick, helpless people. You see what I’m saying?”
Max’s mouth snaps closed in a moment of rare speechlessness for her. Because Nancy is right and they all know it. But Max is also right, and Nancy knows that too.
“Look.” She says, biting her lip. “I think - I think I know where we can go. Bradley’s has a first aid aisle. It’s not as good as the hospital, but it’s close and it’s something. We’ll make due.”
“The grocery store?” Lucas asks, eyebrows furrowed. “But it’s closed right now.”
Everyone in the car glares at him, Max with an exasperated are-you-serious huff, before Lucas finally, sheepishly says. “Ohhh.”
“It’s not ideal. But it’s the best option we have right now.” Nancy murmurs, her jaw set.
Max nods slowly. She’s not happy, obviously, and if it was anyone else she likely would have mouthed off a bit more. But she’s gained a sort of rare respect for Nancy over the course of the last day and a half that they’ve been stuck together.
So she let’s it go and turns her attention back to El, whose breathing has become worryingly shallow.
Mike doesn’t understand. Sure, El has a gnarly looking gash in her leg, and yes, she’s losing blood, and yes, she was almost ripped in half in a game of mortal tug-of-war between them and an inter-dimensional guts monster. But despite it all, they’d gotten her back in one piece, and she’s not gushing blood, even if there’s too much for comfort. But El looks awful, and it’s freaking him out. So he looks to Max because somehow she seems to have answers.
“What’s wrong with her?” He asks, and he doesn’t even care how his voice shakes in front of her.
Max’s mouth twists. Instead of answering she leans forward and grips El by the shoulders, just as he did a few moments ago.
“El? Can you hear me?”
Max’s voice drops all pretense of harshness as she addresses her friend. She’s left with a gentle, almost motherly tone that Mike has never heard come out of her mouth before. It makes her almost unrecognizable in that moment. But he gets it. El has that effect on people. She could bring out the good in anyone she met, no matter how deeply buried. If it existed at all, she could find the light and draw it out. And he loved her for it.
He swallowed harshly, and his throat felt like sandpaper.
But the red head’s attempts to beckon El out of her pain addled delirium go unanswered. Max chews her lower lip and her hand moves from El’s shoulder to her sweaty forehead. She frowns.
“She’s going into shock, that’s what’s wrong.”
Mike feels the prickles of panic run up and down his spine again.
“How do we - w-what should we do?” He stammers, hands hovering uselessly around El’s body. He vaguely recognizes the term Max just coined, but he never cared to pay attention to the very small amount of first aid knowledge he’d been exposed to in his life. Until now, when it was way too late. Of course.
“We have to keep her warm. She’s freezing.”
He looks around the general area, searching for a jacket, a blanket, anything that can help. But it’s been a disgustingly hot, humid day that has evolved into a tepidly warm, muggy night and no one has worn any more layers than absolutely necessary for modesty’s sake.
He’s about to resort to removing the shirt from his own back, when his attention is cut short by Max climbing over the seat and squishing herself in the small space between El and the car door.
“Scootch, Wheeler.”
“What are you doing?” He asks, dumbly.
Max wedges her hand behind El’s back until it pops out on his side. Her other hand comes around to join it around El’s waist. She pulls the rest of her body as close as possible to El’s. Mike feels like he should understand what’s going on, but his brain is all over the place so he just stares in confusion.
“Come on, dingus.” She glares at him, having absolutely no time for stupid questions. “Let’s get her warm!”
“Oh. Y-yeah.”
He mimics her actions, navigating around Max’s limbs and wrapping his arms around El tightly so that she is now sandwiched between them. And yeesh, she really is cold.
They sit there for a few minutes just hugging El in silence, willing their body heat into her. It’s long enough for Mike’s brain to slow down for the first time since getting into the car. But it’s not a good thing, it turns out, as everything begins to catch up to him. All the thoughts that he tried to compartmentalize so he could focus on helping El are rushing back in full force to bludgeon him in the back of the head.
Because this is exactly the thing he feared most. El in danger again, El having to protect them all again, El hurt again, and him, completely useless to help her. Again. He almost lost her tonight, and now she’s in pain and he didn’t even know how to help her now, Max had to spoon feed him instructions, and the thing was still after her and now she was hurt and how in the world was he supposed to protect her when it inevitably found them again and, he had no doubt, things were only going to get worse from here on out and he was so weak, and stupid and useless, and —
A choked whimper escapes from his lips before he can clamp down on it. Max, lost in thought, immediately snaps her attention to him, which is exactly what he didn’t want. He already felt weak enough as it was without Max seeing how pathetic he really is.
But she doesn’t say anything at that moment and he sniffs, turning his head away to wipe the stupid tears that have escaped on his sleeve.
“Hey.”
Max’s voice comes out low and a little awkward. She clears her throat.
“...Mike. I’m — I’m uh. I’m sorry.”
She stumbles her way through the sentence like someone who has never apologized for anything in her life. Knowing her, it’s a real possibility.
When she starts again, her tone is much softer than it usually is when directed at him. She’s making an effort.
“I was wrong about you. And I’m sorry. I assumed you were just trying to control El, but I was wrong.”
He opens his mouth but she cuts him off, her voice regaining some of her usual harshness.
“Don’t get me wrong, you’re still a total jerk, you’re needy as hell, you lied to her face and it wasn’t even a good lie. El deserves way better. But you clearly really care about her and don’t want her to get hurt. I was projecting and I’m just...Sorry.”
She turns away, her face reddening in the dim light.
“I don’t have the best role models, ok?”
She mutters, clearly embarrassed.
Even though her tone has him on the defensive, as per usual, he realizes that she’s sharing things that are clearly hard for her to admit. She’s made herself vulnerable in her own way in this moment and he wants to respect that.
“I get it, Max. And you’re not the only one, you know? My parents barely speak to each other. If there’s anyone I don’t want to ever turn out like, it’s them.”
“And I’m sorry too. I was selfish about El and it wasn’t cool. But it’s cool that you guys became friends...she - she needs that.”
Max scoffs. “She’s not a charity case.”
He reddens, angry. “I know. That’s obviously not what I’m saying. I just - I was worried. That if she went out and saw what else is out there she wouldn’t...need me anymore.”
He scoffs.
“And it’s not until right now saying it out loud that I realize how messed up that is.”
“Pretty much.”
“But when she was with you, she was really happy. I’ve never seen her that happy. Like, different happy than when she’s with me. And that’s what I want for her, more than anything. Even if she outgrows me.”
“No need to get all melodramatic, Wheeler. That’s never gonna happen. She’s like, obsessed with you. Like seriously, Romeo and Juliet levels of nasty pining. I don’t think you have to worry.”
Mike smiles softly. His eyes travel up to El’s face, her eyes still closed. She’s not passed out but she’s clearly checked out. He tucks a piece of sweaty hair behind her ear.
“I care about her more than anything in this world.”
Max’s eyes have softened again.
“You know, it makes sense now.”
“What?”
“Why you were such a douchebag jerk-wad when we first met.”
“If anything happens to her again, I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it.”
“I get it, Mike. I love her too, you know.”
She laughs lightly but there’s no humor in it.
“I don’t know how she did it, actually.” She shakes her head. Her forehead is resting against El’s sweaty cheek. “We’ve only been friends for two days and already she’s —.”
Max shakes her head in disbelief.
“She’s the closest friend I’ve ever had.”
Mike half smiles.
“Yeah. El does that.”
“She’s amazing.”
“She’s the bravest person I’ve ever met.”
They go quiet for a moment.
“We’re not gonna leave her side. Yeah?”
They lock eyes, and an unspoken pact passes between them. Max’s words aren’t a promise that everything will be ok. How could it be? They don’t know anything. It’s not even a promise that El will be ok. But it’s a joint goal for them both to latch onto in a moment of awful uncertainty. They’re on the same team now, a team with only one goal: stay by El’s side. Don’t let her go through this alone. Protect her to the best of their abilities.
This was their personal mission, and Mike couldn’t have thought up a better person to partner up with. Because despite their constant bickering and bull-headedess, they had always wanted the same thing: what was best for El.
Max has opened her palm towards him. Extending an offer of kinship. Mike doesn’t hesitate to meet her hand with his. A firm clasp of mutual agreement across El’s collarbone.
And in a few minutes, when El’s bleary eyes finally opened, they’re both there heaving sighs of relief. Together.
Things aren’t 100%. She still doesn’t speak, but being able to make eye contact with her and see her nod in response to their questions is a vast improvement, and gives them the boost they need to believe that things could maybe get better from here.
It wouldn’t.
But despite the hell that awaited them in the coming hours, they would hold to their treaty.
They had a lot more in common than they ever could have realized: their stubbornness, their pride, their absolute conviction when they thought something was wrong or right, their control issues, their tempers, their tendency to lash out, to speak before they thought. The common traits that so often set them at odds would now be everything that would unite them unshakably.
Because the only thing they had in common that mattered was tucked safely between them.