Archive of Our Own ^beta

Nightmares are nothing new to Mike.

Between the inter-dimensional monsters kidnapping his best friend at age twelve, the government conspiracies and coverups, and the literal, actual apocalypse looming ever-closer over them, yeah, Mike can’t exactly say he’s shocked he’s waking up every night, cold sweat soaking through his cotton pyjama shirt, trying to keep his breathing quiet enough not to disturb Will, asleep on the floor beside him.

The first few times it happens, shortly after their return from their impromptu cross-country road trip, Mike can brush it off as just that – simple nightmares, flashes of memories, hazy enough to fade from his mind within moments of waking.

The bad ones, the really bad ones, don’t start until weeks later – vivid recreations of Hawkins Lab, of the middle school, monsters screeching no matter which way he turns, the heavy scent of blood and rot burning in his nose. Those are the ones that keep him wide-eyed and trembling for hours after the fact, that push him to creep silently over Will’s sleeping form to sit at the kitchen counter until the early hours of the morning.

Maybe, he finds himself hoping, they’ll fade away as everyone settles into their new normal, as they gradually grow numb to the weight of impending doom.

Yeah. Right.

Rather than fruitlessly hope that he’ll get to sleep soundly any time soon, Mike opts to find things to quietly occupy himself – no sense in risking waking Will up just so he can sit downstairs and stare absently at the cupboards for hours on end. He mostly takes to writing, scribbling out hazy ideas and snippets for campaigns in his beat up notebook. Sometimes he even manages to calm himself down enough to fall back asleep. He tends to be awake again within the hour, but it’s still better than nothing.

Things get infinitely worse when he becomes aware within his dreams – he thinks he’s heard Dustin call it lucid dreaming before, maybe. He’s not exactly sure how it’s supposed to work, he just knows that one minute, his head is on the pillow, and the next he’s somewhere completely different. He floats for a moment, confused, before the realization hits – Oh, this isn’t real.

The dream is weird, even considering the whole lucid dream thing. Normally, Mike is himself in his own dreams, cutting between baby-faced twelve-year-old Mike, sprinting through sterile white halls as the sounds of demonic screeching echo all around, and lanky, awkward, 15-year-old Mike, blood under his nails and ash on his tongue as he watches El struggle under his hands in a makeshift sensory deprivation tank.

This is, decidedly, not that.

He doesn’t have a body, or any senses at all besides sight and hearing. He just is, which is disorienting and awful in an uncomfortable, unfamiliar way. He’s in the trailer park, or at least, he can see the trailer park. There’s a dull blue-grey hue to everything, and vines crawl across every surface within eyesight.

The Upside-Down.

Mike would shudder, if he had a body.

He quickly finds that, although he can’t move, exactly, his vision isn’t limited by where he is. He stays, unmoving, in the middle of the clearing, but he watches as Nancy, Steve, Robin, Dustin, and Eddie drop through the pulsing, fleshy gate, the soft orange glow of the Rightside-Up illuminating them in sharp contrast.

Mike watches as they split up. Watches as Dustin and Eddie set up a sound system, board up the windows and doors, and as they wait with bated breath. When Eddie finally pulls his guitar up, braced and determined and so fucking cool, Mike listens eagerly.

The concert is, undeniably, the most badass thing Mike has ever seen in his life. Eddie shreds Metallica against the stormy grey-blue-red of the Upside-Down, and Mike is a little grateful that he doesn’t have a body, because he’s almost certain his cheeks would be embarrassingly red.

Look, okay, Mike isn’t an idiot. He’s aware that there’s something ... different about him, that there’s a certain reason he can’t bring himself to even write those three words to his girlfriend, can’t even say them to placate her. He’s also aware that, while it probably started with Will, possibly before they were even in middle school, Eddie being so damn exuberant and wild, so much of an unapologetic freak, definitely didn’t help Mike’s situation. Like, at all.

Eddie, having finished his otherworldly solo, dives into the trailer with Dustin. Mike can hear both of their excited, adrenaline-fuelled shrieks. A knot makes itself known in his stomach as the dream doesn’t end. Mike knows what comes next, and god, he just wants to have a good dream, for once. Let it end here, please.

It doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t, because why would Mike Wheeler ever be so lucky? No, he gets to watch as the man he idolizes and cares for so deeply slashes through the makeshift rope ladder and charges back into the swarm of monstrous bats, determined grit plastered across his face like war paint.

Mike gets a full, close-up view as the bats strangle and bite and tear into Eddie, blood spurting from the fresh wounds. Mike can’t scream, can’t cry out or even try to comfort Eddie, too trapped in his formless dream-state to do anything but watch in sickened horror.

The bats all screech and fall abruptly to the ground, too little too late. Mike watches on as Dustin stumbles over to Eddie, tears pouring down his face.

“Eddie!” Dustin wails, falling to his knees at Eddie’s side. “Eddie, oh god.”

Dustin cradles Eddie, the pained screeches of demobats clashing horribly with his strangled breaths.

“Oh god, Eddie,” Dustin repeats.

“Bad, huh?” Eddie chokes out, blood bubbling up through his gritted teeth.

“No,” lies Dustin, “No no no no no, you’re gonna be fine, we just gotta get you to a hospital, okay?”

It’s desperation and denial, in its purest and most bitter form. Mike, even through his own devastation, feels like an intruder, watching Dustin fall apart so completely.

Eddie can see the truth, too, which just makes it worse. His weak agreement as Dustin tries to help him up is placating. Mike knows, watching Eddie from this outside, all-seeing perspective, that he has no expectation of making it out of this hellhole.

“Gimme a second,” Eddie finally sputters out, the pain too much to bear, “I just need a second, okay?”

Dustin falls silent, clutching Eddie with a white-knuckled grip. Mike doesn’t think Eddie can feel it, at this point.

Eddie grins up at Dustin, blood staining his chin. “I didn’t run away this time, right?” It’s an odd thing for him to say, something that feels like it has meaning, except Mike doesn’t know the meaning. If this were real, Mike would assume it was an inside joke. One, he thinks, just a touch too bitter, that he’s not party to.

“No,” Dustin shakes his head. “No no no no, you didn’t run.” He sniffles, cutting himself off.

“You’re gonna have to look after those little sheep for me, okay?” Eddie says, and god. God, Mike knows he’s a terrible person – he’s always known that – but there’s something so ugly about the burning jealousy he feels in this moment, over the dream-words of a dying man to one of Mike’s best friends. That they’re not for Mike. That Eddie was closer, after the horrible week before the end of the world, to Dustin than he was to Mike.

Mike sickens himself.

“No, you’re gonna do that yourself!” Dustin cries, arms trembling around Eddie’s dying body.

“Nah, man,” Eddie says, as gentle as he can manage through the pain and blood loss. “Say ‘I’m gonna look after them.’ Say it.”

“I’m g-,” Dustin’s voice breaks. “I’m gonna look after them.”

“Good,” Eddie wheezes out a little laugh. “’Cause I’m actually gonna graduate.”

“I think it’s my year, Henderson. I think it’s finally my year,” Eddie chokes out, eyes gleaming in the dim light of the Upside-Down.

“I love you, man,” Eddie says, soft and kind in a way he rarely let himself be around others, and Mike hurts. He rages and grieves and wails from his silent imprisonment as Dustin clings to Eddie.

“I love you too,” he says, barely intelligible through his tears.

Dustin holds Eddie as he chokes out his last breaths, calls out to him even as his eyes dull, glassy and sightless. Dustin sobs and screams into Eddie’s too-still chest, the sound cutting right through Mike until-

Mike wakes with a strangled scream, flailing against the comforter tangled around his legs. He flinches away from the hand that grazes his knee, heart pounding an unsteady beat in his chest.

“Mike, hey, hey, it’s okay, it was just a bad dream,” Will says, still muzzy with sleep, but worry clear in his hazel eyes.

Of course it’s Will, Mike thinks, helplessly fond and horrifyingly, overwhelmingly guilty.

Will would probably hold him, if Mike asked him to. Would probably comb his fingers through Mike’s hair, whispering sweet nothings until Mike’s breathing slowed, until his heart stopped slamming against his ribcage like a wild animal.

Mike might be sick.

Instead of sinking into Will’s comfort, into his friend’s – best friend, nothing more, never anything more – embrace, Mike quickly removes himself from the blankets coiled around his legs, stumbles out of bed, and rushes to the bathroom he and Nancy share.

The door shuts quietly behind him, and Mike squeezes his eyes shut against the darkness of the small room. His breathing is a hair too fast, and his limbs tremble violently. His hands feel numb. Deep breaths, Wheeler, he chides himself. Calm the hell down.

He forces himself to slow the shaky, panicked gasps, just breathing in the darkness. Right. Okay. Now that he’s not in fight-or-flight mode, he feels like an absolute asshole. He ran from Will, forcibly shutting him out despite the fact that it was him that woke Will up in the first place. He needs to apologize, definitely. Preferably tonight, assuming Will hasn’t already dismissed him and gone back to sleep.

Alright. Mike scrubs a hand down his face, grimacing at the tacky, semi-dried tear trails down his cheeks. Step one, rinse his face so he doesn’t look like quite so much of a mess. Mike flicks on the light, muscle memory guiding him through the pitch black, and turns back to the sink-

Eddie. Eddie’s in the mirror.

Mike flinches hard, hard enough that he slams into the wall behind him, pain sparking in his elbow. An embarrassing squeak claws its way out of his throat, but Mike can’t bring himself to pay attention to anything except the long, dark curls in the mirror, the ratty band t-shirt, the-

Oh. It’s him. That’s ... his reflection. Not Eddie’s.

Mike stares down at the faded black shirt, the red and blue of the AC/DC logo standing out in the dim lighting, even with the print worn from years of use. Right. The shirt had been a castoff of Eddie’s, something he hadn’t minded handing off to Mike during Hellfire’s mini-painting night. Mike forgot that he’d shoved it into his pyjama drawer.

It still, faintly, smells like Eddie’s cologne.

Mike’s breaths come too quick, too frantic, as he digs through the drawers. He’s not thinking clearly, he knows, but god, all he can see in his reflection is Eddie, Eddie’s clothes, Eddie’s hair, and it makes bile burn in the back of his throat.

His hands wrap around an old pair of scissors. Without a second of hesitation, Mike holds them up and starts cutting.

By the time his heart stops pounding out a frantic drumbeat against his ribs, Mike’s hair looks ... pretty awful. It’s lopsided, shorter on the right, and one particularly stubborn curl brushes against his eyebrow in a way that kind of makes Mike want to scream, but-

He looks like himself. Not a cheap copy of Eddie, just- Mike. He lets his eyes slip closed, a shaky sigh of relief scraping past his lips.

The bathroom door opens.

He startles, the scissors clattering loudly against the laminate countertop. His mom stares at him, confusion and concern clear on her face.

She doesn’t ask, although he can tell she wants to. Instead she just tsks, scooping the scissors up and directing Mike to the lip of the bathtub.

“Let’s get this fixed up, sweetie,” she says, voice low and soothing.

When all is said and done, Mike collapses, exhausted, back in bed, hair significantly shorter than it had been.

By the time he wakes up, it’s closer to midday than morning. The sleeping bag beside his bed is, notably, empty. Mike feels guilt bubble up once more – he’d meant to talk to Will last night, to apologize for disturbing his rest, but he’d been so drained by his breakdown, he’d been out the second his head hit the pillow.

Mike pushes himself up, vowing to find Will first thing after getting ready for the day.

It turns out, Mike finds after making his way downstairs, that Will isn’t even in the house anymore, having already gone to the school to help with the makeshift crisis centre. Mike’s mother tries to not-so-subtly imply that Mike should take a day to rest, after the previous night. He fights the urge to roll his eyes at that; if he stayed home every time he had a bad dream, he’d never leave the house.

Mike bikes to the school; even if he doesn’t get the chance to talk to Will, volunteering settles the nervous energy buzzing under his skin. He runs into Dustin at the volunteer sign-in desk, who does a double take upon seeing him.

“Dude,” Dustin says, “your hair.”

Mike, abruptly, feels very self-conscious. “What, does it- look bad?”

“Wh- no, but Mike, you’ve been growing your hair out forever! Why did you cut it?” Dustin all but marches into Mike’s personal space, fingers reaching out to fuss with his freshly-cut hair.

It’s the closest Dustin has come to him since they got back from California. The closest he’s come since Eddie-

“It’s just hair, Dustin,” Mike says, maybe a touch too sharp. Dustin frowns at his tone, pulling back, just slightly.

“You good, man? You seem,” Dustin hedges, “off.”

Mike sighs, shifting further away from Dustin, resolutely not remembering Dustin’s cries from his dreams, the way Eddie’s blood had soaked into his shirt. “It’s nothing. Long night.”

The volunteers direct Mike and, by proxy, Dustin, who’s apparently decided to stay fixed to Mike’s side for the day, over to the donations table. Mike says nothing as he folds shirts, sweaters, and blankets, ignoring Dustin as he pointedly brushes shoulders with Mike every so often.

It’s frustrating – beyond frustrating, actually, to the point where it’s almost hurtful. The longer they go on, the more Mike can feel resentment building up within him like a blocked dam. Dustin’s barely looked at him in the weeks they’ve been back, and now that Mike’s hair is suddenly shorter, his clothes more normal, Dustin’s back to being friendly and touchy?

It hurts. It hurts a lot.

Mike knows, he knows Dustin doesn’t mean anything by it, likely isn’t even aware that he’s doing it, but Mike’s dream has left him feeling raw, an exposed nerve, too tender to touch.

Somehow, it gets worse when Steve and Robin show up, coming to check on them before heading out. Steve, almost unthinkingly, ruffles Mike’s hair, tossing him an easy grin and a casual keep it up, kid. Robin sends him a wide smile, rambling excitedly about something or other Mike can’t be bothered to keep up with. She talks, and Steve talks, and Dustin slots between the two of them like a missing puzzle piece, and they all talk to Mike, except-

Except none of them gave him more than a tight-lipped smile before today. It grates on him, the abrupt change, mostly because he hadn’t noticed their silence until today, until they decided he was someone worth talking to again.

Mike slips out the back door when Steve and Dustin start bickering, distracted enough not to notice his exit. He bikes home alone, his skin itching with a burning, biting kind of anger, the kind that works his mouth before his brain can catch up. Better for him to leave now, get his thoughts in order and his heartbeat under control, before he says something he’ll regret later.

It’s already mostly dark out, courtesy of the permanent storm clouds that have taken up residence in the Hawkins sky, so Mike opts to sneak up the stairs and feign sleep, rather than have to talk to anyone. His mother knocks, some hours later, gently calling him down for dinner. He keeps his eyes shut, his breathing steady; he’s experienced in the art of pretending to sleep, of delaying meals and conversations and anything else that’s too hard, too much. Like usual, his mother sighs and leaves him to rest.

Mike lets himself float in the hazy in-between of awake and asleep, pushing the rest of the world aside, just for one evening. It’s only later, much later, when his door creaks open and the rustle of a sleeping bag disrupts the silence, that Mike remembers his original mission for the day – apologize to Will. Guilt creeps up his throat, hot and sour like bile, as he drifts to sleep.

It’s fitting, then, that his nightmares that night all centre around Will himself.

Mike opens his eyes, finding himself not disembodied like the previous night, but instead too tall and far, far too fast. He runs, a bone-deep hunger roaring through his body, pushing him to run, run, run, follow the prey, follow-

Red and yellow vest. Light jeans. Damp brown hair, almost black in the darkness.

Will. Little Will Byers, twelve years old and out of his mind with terror. Tears stream down his face, his breathing ragged from crying and running simultaneously.

It’s worse than his last dream. It’s so, so much worse, because being locked out of the scene, helpless and useless, was awful and sickening, but being an active participant, against his will? It makes nausea swirl in his gut, so forceful that Mike is shocked that that, alone, doesn’t rouse him from this nightmare.

Eventually, after hours of vicious, desperate pursuit, little Will evades Mike trapped in the skin of a demogorgon. Mike stalks through the woods, unhappy trills and chirps bubbling out of his throat. He gives up on Will, eventually, instead hissing decisively, and lumbering away through the woods. With a lazy slash of his extruded claws, an open wound of a gate splits across the trunk of a nearby tree. The typical red-orange glow is notably absent; instead, the fissure resembles a wet, festering gash in the bark.

It’s still light out, when Mike emerges from the gate. Mike watches, unable to look away and forced to participate, as he stumbles upon two middle-aged men, hunters by the look of their layered clothing and rifles. They scream and shoot at him, to no effect, and the nausea makes an abrupt reappearance as he tears them to bloody, pulpy chunks.

It smells so good, and Mike is so hungry.

He wakes up retching, the slick taste of iron coating the back of his tongue. Mike doesn’t shoot upright, doesn’t let himself cry out, if only because he’s certain that opening his mouth will cause him to actually vomit. His hand clamps down over his mouth, jaw aching from how tight his teeth clench together.

Not real, not real, not real, he chants to himself. He makes the mistake of squeezing his eyes shut just long enough for a flash of gore and viscera to bloom behind his eyes. This time, he flings himself upright, eyes wide in the clouded moonlight. His hand stays over his mouth into the early hours of the dawn, until he can reasonably pry himself out of bed without drawing too much attention to himself.

He doesn’t apologize to Will that day, either. The apology stays near the forefront of his mind, always plaguing his thoughts, but never deigning to grace the air between them. It’s fitting, then, that for the next week, in a twisted form of poetic justice, Mike dreams of Will.

Sometimes he dreams in that disconnected not-body, sometimes as a monster, chasing and hunting and hungering after Will. Sometimes, he even dreams as Will, terror pounding through every vein in his body as he runs and hides and survives.

He dreams of little Will Byers, haunted by the distorted echoes of his mother, crying through frustrated tears that I'm right here mom, I'm right here, please! He dreams of Will, slightly older, clad in a white patterned hospital gown, copper on his tongue and eyes not his own. He dreams of climbing trees, jumping, narrowly evading the razor-sharp claws of a demogorgon, and he dreams of heat, so much heat it burns his skin and boils his blood, digging into his side with all the wrath of the sun.

He wakes up barely managing to stifle his screams, choking on his own tears. It's nothing short of a miracle that he doesn't wake Will with his strangled cries. Every time he startles awake, he's both thankful and resentful that Will doesn't stir, isn't there to place a warm hand on his knee, to soothe his racing heart – thankful because Will needs his rest, and Mike isn't worth losing sleep over, and Mike sincerely doubts he'd be able to stop himself from burying his face against Will's chest, from counting each of his heartbeats.

Resentful because – well.

Just because.

The last of the Will-nightmares is the worst by far, maybe the worst nightmare he's had, period. He's in that dream-state, no eyes to close against the horrible visions, no hands to clasp over nonexistent ears and block out the horrible sounds of the Upside-Down.

Mike watches from every angle as Will quietly begs Eleven – and he knows it's Eleven, even if he can't see her, because he remembers being on the other side of this moment – to hurry, to come find him. Mike watches in perfect clarity as a demogorgon tears apart Castle Byers in one devastating blow – how familiar, Mike thinks with a twist in his gut – dragging Will across the wet earth as he sobs. Mike watches, utterly helpless, as Will is dragged, too exhausted to even fight back, all the way through the woods, across the downtown, and dropped carelessly at the steps of the library.

Vines shift and squirm underneath Will's trembling form, wrapping tightly around his limbs as they drag him inside. Mike can't cry out or help him, can only watch as Will twitches weakly. He can't even flinch back from Will's short-lived shriek of terror, cut off harshly by a vine jamming itself down Will's throat. He thrashes, gagging and sobbing around the intrusion, before sagging into the vines twisted around his small body. Tears stream down his cheeks, drip off his chin, and Mike wishes he could do something, anything to take away Will's suffering, dream or otherwise.

Mike watches, and watches, and watches as Will fades, his eyes slipping shut, his gaunt face almost translucent and waxy in its pallor. Mike watches as Joyce and Hopper stumble into the library, as Joyce screams out for her son. Watches as they pull Will free.

He watches, in complete agony, as Will's little chest stays utterly, horribly still. He watches watches watches as Will doesn't breathe, as Joyce weeps over her son, cradling his head with trembling hands, as Hopper slams his fist against Will, again, and again, begging him with a breaking voice to come on, breathe, kid!

Mike wakes up abruptly, a high, keening noise tearing itself from his throat. It's only as his tongue brushes the backs of his teeth that he realizes he's saying actual words.

Not words. A name.

Will.

And Will is there, hazel eyes wide and worried, hands warm where they press against Mike's arms.

"-m here, I'm right here, Mike, just breathe, it was just a dream, Mike," Will says, his low voice a soothing rumble in the darkness of Mike's room.

Mike has been quietly keeping himself at arm's length from Will for a while now, scared to reach too far, to chase Will away for good. He stifles his screams at night because he knows that Will is kind and empathetic and just so, so good; he knows Will would stay up to ease his fears without a second thought. Mike forces the distance, because if he doesn't, he will drain every drop of affection Will has for him, and he will keep clawing for more like the greedy parasite he is.

Mike, however, is not the strong, brave paladin he pretends to be. He's no guardian, no protector despite what he wishes he could be. And here, in the dark and quiet of too-early morning, with the phantom images of Will, suffering and struggling and dying burned into his eyelids, everything else crumbles away. Mike all but flings himself at Will, burying his face in Will's chest as he sobs. His fingers tangle in the hoodie Will stole and has taken to wearing like a second skin, gripping tightly enough that the fabric creaks against his palms.

Will startles, stiff against Mike for a beat, before wrapping his arms around Mike's shoulders, thumb stroking against his spine. He talks, soft in the silence, letting Mike cling to him as he trembles, letting Mike press his ear against his chest, listening for the steady ba-bum ba-bum of Will's heartbeat.

Mike, somehow, manages to fall back asleep, cradled in Will’s arms, the soothing rhythm of his heartbeat thumping against his ear. By the time he wakes, sunlight peaks through the curtains, and Will is noticeably absent from the room.

They don’t talk about it. Mike can’t bring himself to catch Will’s gaze during the rare meal they share at the house, can barely bring himself to even speak around the apology that knots itself firmly within Mike’s throat.

Will doesn’t stir, after that night, when Mike has nightmares. It’s probably for the best, Mike finds himself thinking as he blinks back tears, pawing angrily for his battered notebook more and more often.

They slip into a routine – all of them, not just Mike and Will. Nancy’s taken to driving him to the volunteer centre, where Dustin will hover around, occasionally enlisting Robin or Steve or, oddly enough, Vickie, a random volunteer Mike had seen once or twice around the school, to talk to him. Mike slips out just before the end of his shift, walking home alone, where he’ll either head up to bed early or, depending on how stubborn Holly’s feeling on any given day, get dragged off to her room to help her with her D&D character’s backstory.

The nightmares don’t stop, flipping through all of the worst moments of Mike’s life, exaggerated and highlighted by whichever form he’s thrust into for the night. His exhaustion builds through each night, until everything comes to a head, almost two weeks after the night Will comforted him and promptly decided to pretend he didn’t exist.

When Mike opens his eyes this time, he's shocked to find he actually has eyes to open. A glance downward show the familiar cotton pyjama pants and ratty t-shirt he'd fallen asleep in, his sock-clad feet quickly soaking in the moisture from the ground he stands on.

He's not awake, or at least, he's pretty sure he's not – it's bright here, clear sunlight stretching over every headstone and tree in sight. Unless he's developed a sleepwalking issue overnight, and magically manifested the ability to stay asleep for more than a handful of hours at a time, Mike is fairly confident that he's dreaming.

A flash of red hair brushes past his periphery.

His neck turns so fast he'd worry about whiplash, if this weren't definitely, one-hundred-percent a dream.

"Max?" He breathes, stumbling after her. She doesn’t acknowledge him, which, to be fair, is very in-character for her. She sits gingerly at a grave, the familiar engraving of WILLIAM HARGROVE harsh and obvious in the midday-sun.

Mike reaches out, placing a hand on her shoulder, half-expecting his hand to phase through like a ghost. It doesn’t, but Max doesn’t move or react to his touch either. He sighs, resigning himself to another night of dream-logic bullshit, and sits by her side.

Max is quiet as she carefully unfolds the note in her hands. She stares down at the words on the page, and then up at the granite slab in front of her, wary and guarded, like Billy will pull himself out of the grave just to torment her again.

“Dear Billy,” she begins.

“-ever since you’ve left-”

“-the worst part is-”

“-I play that moment back-”

“-and everything would be right again-”

“-like a real brother and sister-”

“-but that’s not what happened-”

“-a part of me died that day too-”

“-but I had to tell you-”

“-I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry-”

“-love, your shitty little sister. Max.”

Mike feels like an intruder. Watching Max cry – watching Max cry for her asshole stepbrother, no less – feels like an invasion of privacy, even as Mike reminds himself it’s not real, that he’s dreaming. He watches – no, he dreams, because this is just a dream – as Max folds her letter, tucking it back into the envelope, letting her tears dry on her face.

He misses her. More than he’d ever admit, really. They hadn’t – they hadn’t been close, or anything, because Mike is an asshole and a terrible person, and by the time he’d realized that Max would actually be a really cool friend to have, the option was taken from him, because why would she keep trying when Mike bit her head off at every turn?

But sometimes, after she’d pushed Lucas and Dustin and the older teens away, she’d hover around him for just a second too long, would sit by him in math class, would walk with him through the halls after school. Sometimes Mike would think that maybe, they’re something like friends, just a different kind of friend. The kind that thrive in silence, in quiet displays of support and solidarity.

The sky darkens, a chill cutting through the warm, sunny afternoon.

“Max,” a voice, distorted and echoing, rings through the darkened cemetery. Mike’s blood runs cold, because that voice – that voice-

“Max,” it calls out again as Max stumbles to her feet, breath coming quick and uneven. “I’ve been waiting to hear those words, Max.”

Mike grabs Max’s shoulder, knowing it won’t do any good but needing to try anyway. “Max, don’t listen to it, he’s not real.”

Max swallows, the sound choked.

“Waiting so very long,” Billy says, emerging from the black fog like an unholy wraith, blood and ink-dark liquid spilling from his mouth, staining his undershirt. “But it wasn’t the full truth, was it, Max?”

She’s frozen stiff, half-sobbing already, as Billy brings a bloodied hand up to wipe a tear from her cheek, a gentleness Mike didn’t believe Billy capable of masking every too-slow movement.

“Leave her alone,” Mike tries, pushing hard on Billy’s chest. All he gets is a crimson-soaked hand for his trouble. “Get away from her!” His other hand never leaves Max’s shoulder. If there were enough space, he’d wedge himself between them, would take Billy’s glassy stare in Max’s stead without a second thought.

“You know, I think there’s a part of you, buried somewhere deep, that wanted me to die that day,” Billy says, voice pointed and sharp in all the wrong places. “That was maybe, even, relieved. Happy.” Billy’s face twists, like he’s fighting back tears.

“Fuck off-!” Mike snaps, because of all the stupid shit to get at Max for – of course she’d wished for the man who’d abused her to die. Mike had wished for that, he knows Lucas and Dustin had, too, and he has no doubt that El would’ve snapped Billy’s spine in two without so much as a sleepless night if she knew just how scared Max had been, those first few months in Hawkins.

“Billy, no, that’s not true,” Max protests weakly.

“That’s why you stood there, isn’t it, Max?” Billy says, lip twitching upwards. “It’s okay, you can admit it now.”

“Max,” Mike says uselessly. He keeps his hand on her shoulder, following her pace for pace as she steps unsteadily back. “Max, please, you have to listen to me, he’s just trying to freak you out-”

“No more lies, or hiding-,”

“Billy, that’s not true, I swear-,”

“-that is why-,”

“-I swear-,”

“-you feel such guilt-,”

“-no-,”

“-why you hide from your friends-”

“-no-,”

“-why you hide from the world-,”

“-no-!”

“-why, late at night, you have sometimes wished to follow me, follow me into death,” Billy ploughs over Max’s stuttered protests. “That is why I’m here. To end your suffering, once and for all.”

Mike knows, in that instant, that it’s true, at least for this version of Max – the minute twitch of her expression, the horrified look in her eyes, it all screams of someone who’s had their deepest secrets, their darkest fears, messily spilled out onto the grass for all to see. Mike knows, and Mike’s stomach twists violently at the thought. You too? He wonders dismally.

Max falls hard, taking Mike, hand still clenched in her sky-blue sweater, down with her. Tears pour down her face, her breath uneven gasps as she looks back up. Her eyes widen, and she struggles to push herself up. Mike follows her gaze, and-

It’s a man, he thinks, but it sure doesn’t look like one, not anymore. Fleshy, wet vines tangle across every part of his body, one hand mutated into a monstrous claw-like appendage. The only human that remains is in his eyes, a vivid shade of blue, so piercing that it makes Mike flinch.

“It is time, Max,” the monster – Vecna, it must be – rumbles, vines shifting and sliding along his neck. “Time for you to join me.”

“Max, run!” Mike shouts, hand falling away from her shoulder as he scrambles upright, mere seconds behind her.

She does. She runs, and runs, hair falling from her neat ponytail in wisps, tears still leaking from her eyes. She runs, and she screams out for help, until the dark and fog gives way to angry red clouds, until soft grass and cold headstones turn to pools of blood and fleshy black spires. Mike hovers close to her, like a shadow. He hopes this dream-Max can feel his presence, somehow, for all the good it seems to do.

“What are you doing in here, Max?” Venca says, voice resonating through the storm, worming through every crevice and muddied pile of debris. Max flinches at the sound, flinches away from the ruptured pockets of spider eggs that spill out across the ground – which, gross, Mike has to say – spinning wildly, until-

They both spot it at the same time. A girl, pinned to one of the pillars, joints twisted all the wrong ways, eyes replaced with empty sockets, vines coiled around and through her.

Max jerks away from it, brushing against Mike’s shoulder. Mike can’t tear his gaze away from her, from the girl on the pillar – Chrissy Cunningham, if the once-white-and-green jacket is any indication – transfixed and horrified by her disfigured corpse. Max bumps his shoulder again, pressing against his side. She whimpers, and when Mike follows her gaze, he finds another mutilated corpse, barely distinguishable as the boy his sister ran the school newspaper with, Fred-something.

Shit. Holy shit.

“How do you like them, Max?” Venca asks, lumbering out from the shadows. “Would you like to join them?”

Max turns to run, but with a twitch of his hand, Venca sends her sprawling, vines snaring her ankle.

“Max-!” Mike shouts, running to grab her, to help her-

He stops. Or, rather, he’s stopped. There’s a tight pressure around his throat, pinning him in place, stifling his breathing. He can’t even bring his arms up to scrabble against the air; his arms won’t move, won’t listen to him. He’s forced to watch, unable to even cry out, as Max screams, nails dragging against the wet ground. She hits the pillar hard, vines forcing both her arms back painfully, one sliding around her throat and squeezing.

Mike can’t look away as she struggles, as Vecna steps slowly towards her, possessing all the grace of a hunting predator. He can’t look away as music starts playing, as daylight gleams just outside of his field of view.

Venca tosses a cursory glance to the source of light and music, before tilting his head back to Max. “They can’t help you, Max.”

Then, Venca tilts his head again, blue eyes flicking over to Mike. “There’s a reason you hide from them.”

The grip around Mike tightens, cutting off his air altogether. Max retches, the vine coiling tighter around her throat.

“You belong here, with me,” Venca says, and Mike gets the distinct impression that he’s referring to both of them, somehow.

Max, always braver than he is, spits out, “You’re not- really here.”

“Oh, but I am, Max,” he says, gaze flicking once again to Mike. “I am.”

Mike’s vision blurs as Vecna extends his giant claw-hand, hovering it just over Max’s face. He can’t breathe – am I going to die here? Are we going to die here?

It’s such an odd thought. He’s dreaming, isn’t he? And yet, he still wonders if Will would be the one to discover his body, suffocated in his own dreams, or if he’d just slip out of the room, not giving Mike a second glance, like usual.

Spots dot his vision as Max breaks free, running right past him. Wait, please, don’t leave me here, don’t leave me alone, the delirious, oxygen-starved part of his brain wails.

“Of course she left you, Mike,” Vecna says, low and terrifying as he turns his sole attention on Mike for the first time. “You belong here.”

The man-turned-monster slowly moves towards Mike, and he can’t do anything beyond trying not to pass out. Warmth spills down his cheeks, and a sharp claw grazes him, delicate and gentle as it swipes the tear away. Venca hooks Mike’s chin, tugging his face close, too close, until his wet, rasping breath whistles in Mike’s ear.

“It was always meant to be you,” Venca says, hardly a whisper.

Mike falls, red giving way to shadowy darkness under his feet. He hits the ground hard, but he can breathe again, coughing and gasping through his bruising throat. His ears ring, and his vision is still swimming, but he can feel dusty woodgrain under his fingertips. His head pounds in sync with his heartbeat.

“-I lay in bed at night,” Max, that’s Max’s voice, but how is she here? Hadn’t she run, left him behind in the red, stormy abyss? “I pray that something will happen to me.”

Mike stumbles to his feet, eyes adjusting to the single electric lamp that bathes the room in blue light. Max is there, sitting cross-legged in front of the lamp, Lucas standing off to the side, an ever-vigilant guardian.

“That something terrible will happen to me,” Max says, words stilted. “So that’s why I’m here. Because- I just want you to take me away.” Her voice is choked again, and god, Mike is so, so sick of watching his friends suffer, helpless to ease their pain.

“And I want you-,” she pauses, like she can’t quite force the words out, “-to make me disappear.”

Mike can’t even speak to her anymore, throat too swollen from the strangulation to do anything but crack and hurt. Not that she could hear him in the first place.

“Is that all true?” Lucas asks, in a tone Mike has never heard from him before. “You wanted Billy to die?” His voice is hushed, horrified.

“Why are you talking?” Max asks, brow furrowing. Mike watches the wall try to slam back in place, watches as she tries to brush past her own words.

Lucas turns, the motion too fluid and unnatural. “You ever have thoughts like that about me?” It’s cruel – it’s a cruel, awful thing for him to ask. Mike steps closer to Max, hovering just behind her, as she pushes herself to her feet.

“No- Lucas, never,” she insists, like that’s even a question warranting an actual answer.

“Normal people don’t fantasize about killing other people, Max,” Lucas says, quick and cold and flat in a way that is so un-Lucas that it makes something click in Mike’s brain. “You realize that, right?”

That’s not Lucas, he tries to say the words, for all the good it would do. His throat spasms, voice cutting off into a harsh cough.

“Lucas, please,” Max’s voice breaks. Mike doesn’t bother trying to talk again – she can’t hear him anyway, and none of this is even real.

“I thought you were getting better,” Lucas – Vecna, rather, pretending to be Lucas – says, stepping towards Max, “but you’re not, are you? You’re sick!”

“Lucas, you don’t mean that,” there’s hurt in her voice, hurt Mike knows Lucas would rather die than put there. Come on, Max, figure it out, Mike begs silently, gaze flicking between the two of them.

“Maybe it’s good he takes you,” Mike can see the moment Vecna stops pretending. The way Lucas angles his body, the bizarre, breathy tone in his voice, his eyes unblinking like he’s forgotten how, they feel less human the longer Vecna speaks through Lucas’ voice. “Maybe it’s for the best. In fact, I’m glad it’s going to be you.”

“You will be the chosen one,” Vecna whispers, voice distorting. “The fourth, the final sacrifice. It’s going to be you that breaks the world.”

“Max,” Mike whispers as she stumbles back, brushing his shoulder.

“Max, where are you going? Don’t be scared,” Vecna coos, still wearing Lucas’ face, voices twisting together like nails on a chalkboard.

“Stay away from me,” Max says, brave and strong as ever despite the tears in her eyes.

“Max, I thought you said you were ready! Ready to disappear!” It’s mocking, the way he says it, so distraught in Lucas’ voice.

“I said, stay away!” Max yells, swinging a pot into Vecna’s head and sprinting away down the stairs.

Mike's vision catches, sending him sprawling as he tries to follow her. The world seems to fragment, cutting between Max, running around the Creel house, and Max, eyes rolled into the back of her head, Lucas hovering nearby, looking sick with worry.

Mike watches as she wills herself away from the loud, wet footsteps of Vecna, away from Billy’s howls of rage, away from the decrepit shadows of the Creel house. She brings herself, and Mike, by proxy, to the Snow Ball, empty and quiet as it may be.

He also watches as Jason, eyes red-rimmed and crazed, creeps up the stairs. He watches the ensuing fight for the gun, the way Jason stumbles and shatters the walkman, the way Jason lunges for Lucas.

He watches, paralyzed, as Vecna finds Max, as he pins her to the wall, talon hovering over her face, poised to strike. Images of his friends flash through his mind – Eddie, Dustin, Nancy, Robin, Steve, Lucas, all fighting and struggling and dying – and he can’t do anything but watch.

El stops him from killing Max, arriving in the nick of time as she is wont do. For a moment, hope swells in Mike’s chest – El is strong, and smart, and incredible, and she’d ended up winning this fight, hadn’t she?

No, the answer comes mere seconds later. El is sent flying back, knocked out just long enough for Vecna to drag both her and Max into the broken hellscape that is his mind. They’re both pinned up against the fractured remains of the house, both completely helpless to stop as Vecna sneers at El, and digs his talons into Max’s face.

Mike watches as Max’s body floats, blue light reflecting on her glazed-over eyes. His ears ring as Lucas screams for her, as El sobs, as his own voice echoes throughout the mindscape, spitting out desperate lies in a pitiful attempt to help.

Max’s body breaks, her bones snapping and twisting like a mangled doll. Bloody tears trail from her eyes, stark against her pale face.

Abruptly, Mike’s vision clears, consolidating into one scene as Max plunges to the ground. Lucas holds her, sobbing as his hand flits between her shoulder and her blood-marred face.

“Max, I’m here,” he says, trying to catch her eye. Mike pushes himself up, drags himself on shaking limbs over to his best friends.

“Max,” Mike whispers, despite the stabbing pain in his throat, “oh god, Max.”

“I-I can’t feel or s-s,” she gasps out, “see anything.”

“I know, I know, it’s okay,” Lucas soothes. Mike’s vision blurs with tears, throat constricting too much to offer any comforting words to the girl who can’t even hear him. Instead, he lets his hand settle in her hair, thumb stroking her forehead, like his mom used to do for him as a kid.

We’re still kids, he remembers dismally. We’re kids, and she’s dying in front of me.

“We’re gonna get you some help, okay? Just- just hold on,” Lucas pleads, desperate and so afraid.

“Lucas, I’m scared, I’m so scared,” Max says, voice weak and shaking. “I’m so scared.”

“Max, you’re okay,” Mike wheezes out, heedless of the pain in his throat. “Max, you’re so, so brave, you’re gonna be okay.”

“I know, I know, I know,” Lucas soothes her as best he can through his own tears.

“I don’t want to die, I’m not ready!” Max says, and Mike can’t stop the choked whine that breaks free from his throat.

“Max, please,” he begs, coughing and choking around his own tears. “Max, please.”

“You’re not gonna die, please, just hang on-!” Lucas pleads.

“I don’t wanna go, I’m not ready, I don’t wa-!” Her voice breaks as her breath catches, shallow and thin.

“You’re not gonna die, just hang on!” Lucas lies, and Mike hates that he’s lying, that he recognizes the way his voice pitches upwards when he lies. Mike wishes he didn’t know anything about Lucas, in that moment, if only so he could pretend that Max would be fine.

Lucas keeps talking, keeps babbling out meaningless reassurances, while Mike watches the life fade from Max’s eyes. Her breathing, choked and desperate, hitches once, twice, and then-

Stops.

Mike can’t stop the sob from spilling out as Lucas screams. He bends down, pressing his head against Max’s.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” Mike sputters as her blood smears against his cheek. “Oh god, Max.”

“It was never meant to be her, Michael,” the distorted voice hisses, loud enough that Mike flinches, whirling around to find the source.

“Where are you, you piece of shit!” He snaps. “You son-of-a-bitch coward! Come out here and face me!”

“If you insist,” Vecna rumbles, and then, Max disintegrates, taking the attic and Lucas right along with her. Mike stumbles to his feet, spinning wildly as his eyes adjust to the inky black void yawning in front of him.

“Max? Lucas?” Mike calls out, voice hoarse and cracking. “Where-?”

His throat seizes again, the familiar ache of a phantom grip tightening around him. His body hovers, socks dragging against the wet floor. Mike can’t flinch away from Vecna as he appears in his peripheral vision, frozen stiff.

It’s worse this time, with nothing else except Vecna and the void around them to take in. There’s a wet sheen over the blackened, withered vines that creep around his neck and torso. Mike can see gaps in his body, the dark tint of charred skin lining the edges of his wounds.

“Do you like it?” Vecna asks mockingly. “This was courtesy of Nancy.” He taps a clawed hand against a particularly gruesome hole in his left shoulder. “I cannot wait to repay the favour tenfold.”

“Go to hell,” Mike hisses through clenched teeth. “You fucking earned that and more, after Max, you bastard. We’re gonna kill you.”

“Ah, Maxine,” he laughs, the sound just as warped as the rest of him. “An unexpected end, to be certain.”

“After all, Mike,” Vecna leans in, almost nose-to-nose with Mike. “The fourth was never meant to be her.”

He reaches up, talon grazing Mike’s cheek, still damp with tears. Mike can’t look away from Vecna’s eyes, ice-blue and cloudy and too human for the mangled mess of vines that make up his body.

“It was always meant,” Henry whispers, “to be you.” His talons plunge downwards, digging into Mike’s face, and everything burns with the pressure, tightening around him, digging into his very bones-

Mike wakes up heaving. Again.

This time, he doesn’t wait, locked in place as his heart pounds under his skin – he can taste bile in the back of his throat, vision swimming as he flings himself out of bed and sprints for the bathroom. He doesn’t bother with the light, just slams down hard in front of the toilet.

He throws up, the image of Max, all twisted and bloody and broken forever burned into his retinas. He vomits, loud and ugly, tears streaming down his face all the while.

Eventually, the spasms stop long enough for Mike to get a halfway decent breath in. He forces himself to breathe properly, if only because he’ll definitely puke again if he starts hyperventilating now.

Jesus. His eyes slip shut, a steadily growing ache pounding through his head. Max’s body flickers through his mind once again, then the mutated, gory mess that was Venca. What a dream.

He remembers, eyes squeezed shut against the swell of nausea and vertigo that claws through him, being not-quite-thirteen, and listening eagerly to Mr. Clarke explain the science behind dreams.

“Dreams,” he’d said, “are often seen as these sacred experiences, something that has to have a deeper meaning. We have centuries of examples of dream interpretation, the art of examining commonalities between different dreams to find a single interpretation.”

“The thing is,” he’d continued, “dreams are just your brain’s way of processing and regurgitating information; a fruit-salad of information, so-to-speak. Sure, it can mean something, but it’s more likely to be a random grab-bag of facts and feelings that you’ve come across in life.”

A fruit-salad of information. Here, in the dark bathroom at a little past three in the morning, Mike breathes carefully, and tries to dissect where the supposed ingredients of his fucked-up dream salad actually came from.

It was never meant to be her. It was always meant to be you.

Mike swallows down a wave of nausea, the image of Max’s mangled body flashing behind his eyes. Right. Okay.

He’s always been a touch … egocentric, is maybe the right word? In November of 1983, guilt had fucking haunted him, crowing that you should have asked him to stay, should have walked him home, how dare you call yourself his friend you ruined his life-

It’s not logical. It’s never been, not when he hated himself for not saving Will from the Mindflayer, not when he berated himself for not saving Billy and sparing Max the heartache that pushed her away from them, not when he blamed himself for Bob and Hopper and the Byers’ move away from Hawkins. So … so this is just like that, right? Mike’s twisted, fucked-up brain finding a new way to make the story all about him, to rob the attention away from Will and Max and El, the people who’ve actually suffered and who actually need to be held and cared for and reassured.

His nose is running. At least, he hopes it is – the alternative is that some of the vomit spewed out of his nose and trickled down his face instead, which is just – so gross.

The lights flick on, and Mike clamps his eyes shut a split-second too late. His head pounds angrily, and he can’t quite stop the muffled whine that wrenches itself from his throat.

“Mike?” And that’s Will, voice so soft and gentle, always more than what Mike deserves. Despite the headache that’s rapidly progressing into a migraine, Mike peels his eyes open to look at his best friend.

Will looks … odd. His eyes are wide, the pretty green-brown gleaming in the shitty light of the bathroom. His lips – which Mike should maybe not be looking at quite so closely – are parted. His hands tremble where they’re held against his stomach. He crouches beside Mike, on the cold tiled floor at an ungodly hour of the morning, and just looks at Mike.

Will is afraid.

Afraid of … Mike?

Mike doesn’t get the chance to slot the jumbled pieces together in his too-tired brain before Will raises one hand, slow and shaking, to brush against the underside of Mike’s nose. If Mike were thinking clearly, he’d pull away – I’ll just get you dirty, Will.

Will’s hand is cool against the feverish skin of his cheek. Mike holds perfectly still, breath halting altogether as Will brushes the pad of his thumb under his nose, and then pulls back. Mike’s eyes follow his best friend’s fingers.

They’re stained red.

Mike doesn’t understand, until-

Until he does.

It was always meant to be you. Always-

Always-

It was never-

Fuck.

Mike pitches back over the toilet, vomiting once more.

Will cries out behind him, and Mike distantly feels a hand against his back, gently tracing patterns down his spine, but Mike can’t focus on him, can’t focus on the sudden cacophony of sound as the other residents of the house all come to see the source of the chaos, because-

Nightmares, headaches, nosebleeds. The big three signs that someone is being possessed by Vecna-One-Henry.

Which means-

Which means it’s all true. Which means that it should be Mike, would be Mike if not for circumstance and sheer dumb luck, laid up in a hospital bed, quiet and cold and unmoving.

Oh god.

Mike throws up again, tears spilling from his eyes.

He should have died. He should have been the fourth victim, not Max.

“Mike, shh, you need to breathe, c’mon,” Will’s voice coaxes Mike back to the present.

“Will? What’s going on?” And that’s Nancy’s voice, coming from the hall, too loud in the small bathroom. “Is that blood?”

Mike gags, bile spilling from his lips. He can’t stop, can’t get the chant of your fault your fault it was always meant to be you out of his head. He can’t breathe. The room spins around him. He just wants everything to stop. His head dips down, almost pressing against the toilet seat.

A cold hand gently cradles his forehead, stopping him from falling any further.

“Hey,” Will scolds gently, “that’s gross. C’mon, let’s get you somewhere that’s not a cramped bathroom, okay? You gonna be sick again?”

Tears spill from Mike’s eyes as he shrugs half-heartedly. Will is so gentle, so kind, and it’s so much more than Mike deserves.

It takes the combined effort of Will and Nancy to get him down the stairs, his legs trembling too much to hold up his own weight. They lower him onto the living room couch, and Mike stares hard at the ugly grey-patterned fabric, not yet willing to look either of them in the eye. Will, at least, has the forethought to grab the tiny trashcan from the bathroom, placing it just beside Mike’s ankle, before settling by his side. Nancy, predictably, sits on the coffee table directly across from Mike, trying to catch his eye.

“Mike,” Nancy starts, just sharp enough to belie the undercurrent of worry in her voice. “You had a nosebleed?”

Mike nods.

“And headaches?”

Nods again.

“Nightmares?” Nancy’s voice dips into something younger, something fearful. Mike bites his lip, the sting grounding him as he nods a third time.

“Shit,” Will whispers.

“Shit,” Nancy echoes. “Mike, did he show you anything? Visions or- or plans?”

It was always meant to be you.

Mike gags, hunching over the trashcan. Barely anything comes up, but Mike still heaves, clutching the little trashcan like a lifeline. Will’s hand, warm against the cold sweat soaking through his shirt, rubs a soothing hand down Mike’s spine. “Nancy, maybe this isn’t the best time-?”

“Mike, whatever he showed you, it’s okay. You can tell me, I promise,” Nancy insists. “We need to know-”

“Nancy, we don’t need to know right this second-!”

“The sooner we know what Vecna’s planning, the better-,”

“Jesus, look at him, Nance-,”

“I know, but if he just-!”

“You’re making it worse-!”

All your fault.

Mike sobs once before clamping a hand over his mouth, stifling the noise. Nancy and Will fall silent around him.

“Please,” Mike croaks out, “please don’t make me say it.”

He must look pathetic, with blood and puke staining his shirt and tears streaming down his face, but he can’t help it. He’s so tired, and everything is so much, and he kind of just wants to curl up in a ball and cease to exist for a while.

“Alright,” Nancy says after a while, soft and worried, “alright, we’ll talk about this in the morning, then. For now, you need music. What’s your favourite song?”

And that’s a much more reasonable reaction than Mike was expecting from his notoriously persistent older sister; he must look truly pitiful. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he opens his mouth and-

Promptly clamps it shut. He’ll know, the sinister little voice in his head hisses, he’ll figure out how wrong you are, how you think of him, he’ll know what you are.

“Mike,” Nancy says, a note of warning in her voice. “I’ll let the nightmares go for tonight, but you need the music. Non-negotiable.”

Mike swallows once, twice. Pointedly doesn’t let his gaze waver from the trash bin in front of him. “Smalltown Boy. Bronski Beat.” He says. “First tape in the top drawer.”

Will is gone before he can even finish the stilted phrase, leaving Mike to tremble at the sudden absence of warmth. See? Now he knows, he knows what you are, he hates you- Mike squeezes his eyes shut, the tears slipping out anyway.

He can feel Nancy watching him, his skin prickling with the intensity. He’d tell her to fuck off, if he had the energy, but as it is, he stays perfectly still and does his best to pretend that he doesn’t exist. Silence hangs heavy over them in the early morning.

“Here,” Will says, suddenly beside the couch again, and Mike jumps.

“You- I thought you went upstairs-?” Mike asks.

Will stares at him for a moment. “I did.” He gestures with one hand, holding out-

Oh. Mike swallows. There’s a cassette player in Will’s outstretched hand, Mike’s tape undoubtedly already loaded and ready to go. Mike stares at Will, unable to make himself take the walkman.

“Oh for-!” Nancy snatches the walkman from Will’s hand, jamming the headphones over Mike’s ears none-too-gently. Gentle synth hums through the headphones, muffling Nancy’s grumbled curses. “There. Now sleep.” She orders.

For the first time, Mike lifts his gaze up to meet Nancy’s eyes. She doesn’t look disgusted or angry, just worried. He looks at Will, finding much the same – no discomfort or revulsion, only concern.

They don’t know, the thought hits him all at once. They don’t know the song. They don’t know about me.

It’s a bitter relief; he can ignore the looming disaster, the inevitable fallout, for a bit longer, put off the truth for another day. He slumps sideways into the arm of the couch, curling up as tight as he can.

“Sleeping here?” Will asks softly, almost inaudible through the breathy words of Bronski Beat.

“Mm. You can take my bed,” Mike hums, eyes slipping shut. Will laughs beside him, the sound strained and sarcastic.

“Nice try, dumbass. You’re not getting rid of me now,” says Will, the couch shifting under his weight beside Mike.

Mike hums again. “G’night.”

“Good morning, more like,” Will corrects him.

There’s a moment of quiet, the only sound Mike’s music, grainy through the cheap headphones over his ears. A warm hand brushes his hair away from his forehead, carefully detangling the messy curls. As he falls asleep, there’s a soft pressure against his brow, followed by muffled footsteps.

Mike wakes the next day, tangled up with Will on the too-small couch. His back aches where he’d slumped over the arm of the couch, and his legs bend awkwardly around Will, one ankle numb where it’s pinned underneath the small of Will’s back.

Run away, turn away, run away, turn away, run away sings in his ears, the familiar chorus rousing him fully. Mike’s brow furrows – had he fallen asleep with his walkman? How was the song even still playing, in that case? The synth dies out, and the walkman makes a soft click, indicating the end of the tape.

Before Mike can so much as move, Will shifts where he’s sleeping, leg twitching where it’s sprawled across Mike’s hips – and holy shit holy shit, be normal, don’t be weird about it. Will flails a hand out, fumbling around until he latches onto Mike’s walkman, and without even opening his eyes, he hits the rewind button, holding it down while Mike watches in slack-jawed befuddlement.

“Will?” Mike whispers as the synth starts up once more.

“Hmm,” Will mumbles, still half-asleep. “Shuddup. ‘S early.”

“Okay,” Mike says softly, helplessly fond. “Get some sleep. I got it from here.” He shifts his weight, trying to extricate himself from the knot of limbs that he and Will have merged into overnight without disrupting Will any more than necessary.

Will makes an unhappy noise, shifting to pin Mike more firmly in place. “No. Sleep. ‘S too early.”

Mike’s ears burn red, his cheeks surely not far behind. The warmth of Will pressed against him, sleepy and grumpy and adorable, sets Mike’s poor heart thumping against his ribs. He’s tempted, so, so tempted, to settle back down, to take what he can while it’s still his to take-

And therein lies the problem. Will isn’t his, not like that, at least. If he knew, the loud, ugly part of himself hisses, if he knew how you thought of him, he’d never want to be close to you again.

Mike pulls himself away from Will, slipping off the side of the couch. He can hear Will startle awake properly, can feel his gaze on Mike’s turned back. Mike pretends not to notice as he climbs the stairs.

It’s only as he closes the door to the bathroom behind him that he remembers. The dream, Vecna, Max. He grips the sink, the only thing keeping him upright, and wills the nausea away.

He can’t stop seeing it; the talons plunging into Max’s face, her limbs twisting with a wet crunch, Lucas’ screams mingling with his own echoing, hollow words of encouragement. God. God, that was all real, wasn’t it? And the Eddie dream, too, it must have been. Will.

His breaths come a touch too quick and uneven, but he’s not quite choking on air yet, so he quickly splashes some water on his face. Calm down, calm down, he urges himself. Can’t do anything about it now.

Everything is hazy with that half-panicked-half-numb film as he methodically washes his face, brushes his teeth, changes his clothes. His breaths don’t even out until he sneaks out the window, snagging his bike from the front lawn, and bikes away. His legs pump, and his lungs ache, but he feels like he can breathe for the first time in almost five years.

He doesn’t realize where he’s headed until he pulls to a stop just outside of the hospital. He tosses the bike aside carelessly, his hands suddenly trembling.

He know the way, by now, to Max’s room well enough to find it without bothering the receptionist. It takes little time for him to navigate the sterile grey halls; he’s hardly blinked before he’s standing in front of the door.

What are you doing here, Wheeler? He wonders idly. Maybe he’s hoping to confess what he saw? Maybe venting to someone who can’t hear him would be cathartic, would help him with the knot that’s been stuck in his throat for over twelve hours at this point. Except Lucas is definitely there too, and while Mike hasn’t seen much of him lately, Lucas has very much been pushing the whole sharing-is-caring motto in regards to feelings, with a vested interest in Mike, specifically.

“You and Max are so similar, it almost scares me,” he’d admitted once, in the oppressive silence of the hospital room. “You keep everything so close. You know you can talk to us, right?”

Mike had waved him off, but it hadn’t stopped the semi-regular prodding, or the concerned looks Lucas tossed his way every time he thought Mike wasn’t looking.

Without any further fanfare, Mike twists the handle, pushing the door open. Lucas, as expected, is perched by Max’s bedside as always, a book spread open across his lap. At the intrusion, Lucas looks up, eyes widening upon seeing Mike.

“Mike,” Lucas says, surprised. “I wasn’t expecting anyone else today.”

Mike winces. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt. I just...” He trails off. What is he doing here? He hasn’t managed to answer that himself yet.

Lucas shakes his head, gesturing to the chair beside him. “Not interrupting. We just finished up the chapter, anyways.” Sure enough, there’s a bookmark slotted into the well-worn copy of Prince Caspian, right around the midway point.

Mike sits, staring just past where Max’s head lay. He can’t bring himself to look at her – he’s terrified of the wet snap-crack of her bones, still ringing in his ears, clear as church bells.

“You okay?” Lucas asks, gently bumping shoulders with Mike.

“Yeah, just- bad dream,” Mike says. And then, before he can stop himself, “about her. You know.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I get it,” Lucas says, voice straining to stay steady.

It’s silent for a moment, the only noise the steady beeping of Max’s heart monitor.

“I’ve been having them all the time lately,” Mike blurts out.

He can feel when Lucas’ gaze swivels onto him. “Is that why Dustin and Will have been so worried about you?”

“I dunno,” Mike says. “They shouldn’t be.” I’m not worth it.

“You’re our friend, Mike. We’re gonna worry,” Lucas says. Mike can practically see the furrow in his brow.

“I dreamed about when it happened. In the Creel house,” Mike can’t seem to stop himself from talking. “I just- watched it all happen. Couldn’t do anything. I think-”

“Mike-,”

“I think I made it worse, actually,” Mike admits. “I always make things worse. Doesn’t matter what I do.”

“Woah, Mike, where’s this coming from?” Lucas asks sharply, his hand settling heavy on Mike’s shoulder.

“Been having headaches, too,” Mike says, heedless of Lucas’ tightening grip on his shoulder. “Had a nosebleed last night.”

“Shit. Mike, shit,” Lucas whispers, horrified. “You need- shit, you need a tape, music-”

Mike is, apparently, not finished yet. “He said it wasn’t supposed to be her, Lucas.”

Silence. Lucas’ hand slips from his shoulder.

“If I’d been here – if I’d-,” his voice cracks, “then she’d be fine. She’d be-”

“Stop,” Lucas says abruptly. “Mike, just- stop.”

Mike doesn’t let himself flinch away from Lucas’ tone, from the grief and sharp undercurrent of anger. Good. Mike breaks everything he touches, anyway – maybe if he does it like this, on purpose and spiteful, it’ll hurt them less when he inevitably gets himself killed. Maybe this way, he won’t take them down with him.

The silence is suffocating. Mike still can’t look at Max, pale and scarred and far too still.

“You should go home,” Lucas says softly.

Mike does.

He loses time between one blink and the next.

Blink. He walks down the hall, away from Lucas, from Max.

Blink. The wind is so cold – he must’ve forgotten to grab a jacket before he left.

Blink. He’s in front of his house, staring at the front door. His hands are freezing. How long has he been out here?

Blink. He’s in the bathroom. Dots of blood splatter against the white porcelain sink. Someone’s knocking at the door.

Blink. Did he forget his bike at the hospital, he wonders idly, staring at his bedroom ceiling. Music plays faintly from the headphones that dig awkwardly into his neck.

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

There’s ink on his hands. He doesn’t remember where it came from.

Blink.

The shadows on the walls twist and contort. A grandfather clock chimes in his ears. That means something, doesn’t it?

Blink.

-never cried to them, just to your soul-

Blink.

There’s cereal in front of him, or maybe it’s oatmeal? He can’t tell. It tastes like ash in his mouth.

Blink.

Is the sun rising or setting? He doesn’t know. He can’t tell.

Blink.

More ink on his hands. It’s blue, he thinks. The pen is in his hands, and it’s light blue, with white writing that he can’t read. The ink looks black on his hands, on the page, on his desk.

Blink.

Someone calls his name. He doesn’t know who. He thinks that might be bad.

Blink.

Another chime. More ink. Was he writing something?

Blink.

-wind and the rain on a sad and lonely face-

Blink.

Golden blonde hair, soft under his fingertips. There’s a colourful hair tie around his wrist.

Blink.

Iron on the back of his tongue. Red dotted across his palms.

Blink.

He wakes up.

It’s the first time in … a while that he remembers doing so. He doesn’t remember what he dreamt of. There are tears in his eyes, icy sweat sticking his hair to his forehead. He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember.

He stumbles out of bed, almost stepping on a sleeping Will. Oh, right. The Byers family is here, in the same house as he is. How long have they been here again? He manoeuvres around Will, trying his best not to kick him, even though the room sways around him.

Where is he going? Is he going somewhere? He doesn’t remember leaving his room.

He’s outside Nancy’s room. He doesn’t know how long he’s been standing here. The balls of his feet ache. He pushes the door open.

He feels thirteen again, waking up from nightmares about dogs growling and brown eyes, screaming best friends and blood smeared on tiled floors. He remembers sneaking into Nancy’s room, shaking from something besides the midwinter chill, crawling under the sheets.

Nancy isn’t in her bed. She’s not in her room at all.

Oh, right. The Byers family is here, in the same house as he is. Of course Nancy isn’t here – she’s downstairs with her boyfriend.

Blink.

The door closes behind him. He doesn’t remember entering Nancy’s room. He stares at her bed. Maybe it’ll help, to sleep somewhere else for once.

Where is Nancy, again?

Blink.

The carpet isn’t soft. It scratches his bare ankles where they cross in front of him.

He’s tired. Why isn’t he in bed? Where is Nancy?

He’s so tired.

Blink.

There’s an empty shoebox on the ground in front of him. He doesn’t know how it got there. He doesn’t know how he got here.

Where is he?

Blink.

A gentle creak splits the silence. He doesn’t look up.

He’s so tired. He’s so tired.

“Mike?” Nancy says too softly, like she’s speaking to a spooked animal. She doesn’t enter the room.

He should say something.

“Mike,” Nancy says again. There’s a tremor in her voice.

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t think he remembers how.

“Mike, sweetheart,” Nancy says, suddenly crouched in front of him. Sweetheart?

Her hands brush his. A weight is lifted. He should, maybe, feel better. He doesn’t. He feels empty, untethered.

There’s warmth surrounding him. He still feels so cold. Has it always been so cold?

Nancy’s pyjamas are soft against his palms, against his cheek where her shoulder digs in. There’s glinting metal on the carpet in front of him.

She’s shaking.

“Are you cold?” He thinks he asks. The words sound strange, unfamiliar on his own tongue.

Blink.

He’s lying down. His head is tucked into the junction of someone’s – Nancy’s, maybe – neck and shoulder.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Nancy, it’s definitely Nancy, asks softly. Sweetheart?

Nothing, he means to say. Everything, he means to say. “I’m tired, Nance.”

She shudders against him. “Then j-just sleep, okay? You can sleep here as long as you need, just don’t-don’t-“

Blink.

-cry, boy, cry, boy, cry-

Blink.

Veneer peels away under his fingertips.

“Hey,” gentle, everyone is so gentle, so kind with him, it makes him want to bury his nails into his own eyes, “stop that. You deface my workplace, it comes outta my paycheque, got it?”

He looks up for the first time.

The man wears a dark blue vest. His hair looks dumb.

“Who- where am I?” he asks. Dumb Hair’s tentative smile falls.

“Mike-,”

Blink.

-the one that they'd talk about around town-

Blink.

“-ething’s wrong here, it’s not normal for him to be like this!” His sister’s voice cuts through the haze, hissed and frantic.

“I know, but we just- we’ve kinda got bigger picture things to worry about, y’know?” Another woman’s voice says. He doesn’t recognize her. “We’re keeping an eye on him, yeah? He’ll be okay, Nance.”

Nance ... is that his sister’s name?

He doesn’t remember.

Blink.

-love that you need will never be-

Blink.

It’s cold. He’s staring out, up at the slate-grey sky.

“-ust talk about this, okay, Mike? We can figure this out, I promise,” someone says behind him. He doesn’t recognize the voice. He turns, stumbling slightly.

The man – Jonathan, the name comes unbidden to him – twitches, hands reaching out like they want to grab him, pull him down, down, down. Jonathan’s not looking at his eyes, gaze firmly locked across the gravel path, on his feet.

When Jonathan finally pries his eyes away from the ground, nothing makes sense.

“Why do you look so scared?” he asks.

Jonathan’s breath catches. “Mike,” he says softly, like he’s talking to- somebody, but who? Why can’t he remember the name? “Why don’t you come here, yeah?”

Jonathan steps toward him once, twice, before he catches up, stumbling back once, twice.

Jonathan freezes, hardly even breathing. “Mike.”

He doesn’t understand. “You hate me.” He says. He doesn’t understand.

Jonathan flinches back like he’s been struck. “I don’t. I never – I don’t, Mike, please.”

He doesn’t understand what Jonathan wants.

He takes another step back.

His foot meets empty air. What?

He’s falling, falling, falling, and when did they get to the Quarry?

There’s a hand buried in the front of his shirt, yanking hard.

It’s Jonathan.

He doesn’t understand.

Blink.

He’s tucked against someone’s chest, fingers digging iron bruises into his shoulder blades.

“Shit,” the person – Jonathan? - hisses. “Shit, shit, shit.”

He turns his face away from where it’s tucked against Jonathan’s chest. The Quarry? How did we get here, is what he means to say.

“Where am I,” he murmurs. “Jonathan?”

“Yeah, it’s me kiddo,” Jonathan’s voice sounds off – hoarse and trembling. Maybe he’s sick.

“I don’t understand,” he says. “I don’t- remember.”

Jonathan shudders. “That’s okay, kiddo. We’re gonna get you home, figure out how to get you fixed up.”

“I’m tired,” he says, voice verging on a whine.

“That’s okay,” Jonathan reassures him. “Hey, do you remember, when you and Will were, like, seven, and you were playing out in the woods behind the house? And you – you tried to climb a tree, but you fell, and you twisted your ankle, and I had to carry you all the way out to the main road so your mom could come pick you up?”

Yes, I do, he wants to say. I miss you, I miss my big brother, he wants to say.

“No,” he whispers, head falling against Jonathan’s chest.

Jonathan’s breath hitches. “That’s okay. You’re okay. It’s- it’s gonna be just like that, okay? I’ll bring you home. I’ll always bring you home, I promise.”

His eyes slide shut. “Okay.” He says, barely above a breath.

Blink.

He wakes up.

It’s the first time he remembers doing so. He doesn’t remember what he did before. He doesn’t remember much of anything.

His eyes open.

There’s a girl staring down at him. Her dark brown eyes are sad.

He, inexplicably, feels a surge of guilt.

He closes his eyes.

Blink.

“-such bullshit, like I can’t even ask questions like this, you just – ugh! It’s shit! This is shit!”

He notices the boy’s hair first – it’s long and curly, and it frames his face well.

“I know you,” he says, maybe. He doesn’t remember. Has he ever spoken before? It doesn’t seem likely.

Curly Haired Boy stills beside him. He doesn’t remember where they are. He thinks that might be a bad thing.

“Yeah man,” Curly Haired Boy says, voice choked. “It’s Dustin. We-we’re friends.”

“Friends?” He asks.

“Best friends,” Dustin corrects.

He likes Dustin’s voice.

Blink.

A hand cards through his hair, gently snagging the knots and working through them. He feels the hum of a deep voice, buzzing against his back.

“What is real? Asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn't how you are made, said the Skin Horse. It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real.” The voice pauses, as does the hand carding through his hair.

"Does it hurt? Asked the Rabbit,” the voice wavers. "Sometimes, said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. When you are real you don't-” the voice falters.

The hand carefully removes itself from his head. He hears a steadying breath.

“When you are real,” the voice says, just on the edge of steady, “you don’t mind being hurt.”

He opens his eyes.

“Hey there,” the voice murmurs. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”

He looks back, twisting his head to face the voice.

Hazel eyes, flecked with gold and green, stare back at him.

His heart jumps in his chest.

He remembers. For the first time in ... a long, long time, he remembers.

“Will?” He whispers.

Will’s eyes widen.

Blink.

-run away, turn away, run away-

Blink.

There’s a child in his lap.

He’s sitting on the floor, back pressed against a scratchy grey couch. Cartoons play on the screen in front of him.

The child doesn’t seem to care much about the flashing colours and loud noises, instead stubbornly scribbling something on a sheet of white paper.

He peeks over her head.

Scrawled in bright blue letters are the words “GET WELL SOON MIKEY!!!” as well as an accompanying doodle of a girl with pigtails and a tall boy with curly black hair.

Blink.

It’s warm. There’s a thick blanket draped over his shoulders.

He’s still so cold.

Blink.

He doesn’t understand.

Blink.

He doesn’t remember.

Blink.

Paper under his fingertips.

Blink.

A hand clutching his.

Blink.

“-mon, Mike, just talk to me, please-!”

Blink.

Who is he?

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

Red, everywhere. The sky is clouded over with crimson, bolts of jagged lightning tearing through the air, loud and bright and too much. The ground is damp beneath his feet, too-dark and too-warm as it soaks into his socks.

“Michael Wheeler,” a voice rasps, echoing around him. There are chimes ringing in his ears. “Your time has come.”

He doesn’t understand.

Michael? Is that him?

He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand.

His heart beats an unsteady rhythm against his chest; it screams afraid afraid afraid through his core like a death knell.

He runs. He doesn’t know where he runs to, or what he’s running from, but his heart pounds and his blood rushes, and he runs. He stumbles over roots and thick black vines that writhe and squirm under his socked feet, clumsily dodging as they attempt to coil around his bare ankles.

He knows, as instinctive as breathing, that he will die if the vines manage to catch him. He does not remember why, exactly, this is so terrifying, but he doesn’t need to remember in order to stay alive, so he doesn’t waste time trying to figure it out.

His foot catches on something sharp and solid – a fragmented stone or a crumbled wall, he can’t tell – and then he’s falling, falling, falling-

He lands on plain white tiles, breath forced out of his lungs at the sudden stop. He aches. He’s so tired. He pushes himself to his feet anyway.

The hallway is long, endless as far as he can tell, dotted with solid grey doors he knows are locked. Corpses are strewn about like tacky Halloween decor. Red splotches and smears ornament the plain walls.

He stumbles forward, hand pressed against the wall for stability.

A low rumble echoes around him, shaking the walls with their force. His stomach drops, breath catching in his lungs, afraid afraid afraid-

He runs, hand falling away from the wall. He narrowly avoids kicking the limp bodies lining the hall, too focused on the chant of run run survive in his bones.

The rumbling gets louder, louder, so loud he wants to curl into a ball, press his hands over his ears. He can’t. He just keeps running. Hot tears cut paths down his cheeks, blurring his vision.

Run. Survive.

He does.

The hallway comes to an abrupt end; a grey door, tall and imposing, looms in front of him, left slightly ajar. The rumbling crescendos behind him, hot breath grazing the backs of his knees, and he dives for the door without another moment of hesitation. The door slams behind him, and he’s left in a sterile room, filled with wires and machinery.

There’s a bed, and strapped in the bed is a boy with soft, brown hair and dark, hateful eyes.

“Let me go! Let me go!” The boy screams, somehow worse than the terrifying growls from the hall.

Black veins crawl up the boy’s neck, overtaking his face. The boy’s screams distort, unnatural and inhuman.

“Your fault! This is your fault! You did this!” The boy shrieks, thrashing on the bed like a caged, wounded animal.

He curls against the wall with a desperate cry, hands pressed against his ears. He just wants this to stop. He’s so tired and so, so afraid, and everything is just so much.

“Please,” he sobs over the cacophonous screeches and snarls. “Please.” He doesn’t remember what he’s begging for.

You leave in the morning with everything you own in a little black case-

Music cuts through the noise. He gasps out a relieved breath, pulling himself upright once more.

The music emits from a new door, wooden and painted white instead of harsh grey metal. He lunges for it, shoving the door outwards.

He almost trips, foot skittering against sharp gravel. It’s only his white-knuckle grip on the door handle that keeps him upright.

Alone on a platform, the wind and the rain on a sad and lonely face-

“They can’t help you, Michael,” a voice whispers, guttural and piercing and inescapable.

Michael? Is that him?

He runs, gravel slicing his soles, run survive run a thrumming mantra pounding against his skull. The music, hadn’t it been this way? Where did it go?

The ground crumbles ahead of him, and he draws up short at the edge of a cliff.

“Why do you struggle?” The voice asks, louder now, almost curious. “You have nothing left to fight for; all you know is fear and suffering. I will bring your pain to an end, Michael.”

He – Michael, is that his name? – squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t want that, he doesn’t, he doesn’t, but his limbs ache and his head throbs, and he’s so so tired.

A cool, damp hand grasps his shoulder, and he flails against it, stumbling right off the edge of the cliff. He doesn’t have the breath to scream, can only watch helplessly as the cliff face passes him by.

He lands in a pool of sticky, heavy red liquid, deep enough that his elbows remain submerged even as he pushes himself up. He’s soaked to the bone, dyed an ugly shade of crimson that turns his stomach.

Mother will never understand why you had to leave-

“Why are you here, Michael?” The voice demands, and he – Michael, that’s his name, isn’t it? – whimpers, scrabbling for purchase at the fleshy earth around the pit he sits in. He has to run, has to get away, has to find it-

Find what? He can’t remember.

He claws his way out of the crater, standing as best as he can on unstable legs. He doesn’t make it a step before slick, rubbery vines snake around his ankles.

He yelps as he’s pulled roughly across the ground, the skin of his palms stinging as he tries, desperately, to stop himself.

The structure he hits is too organic to be called a boulder, but too warped and angular to be called a tree. More vines unfurl around him to tangle around his limbs, to circle his torso and pin him in place. It’s only once he’s thoroughly restrained, unable to so much as squirm, that he sees it.

A monster steps forward, towards him. The monster is an unholy amalgamation of rotted muscle and corrupted sinew, but its eyes are frighteningly human. Its dead gaze fixes on him, freezing him to the core.

Thrashing against his binds does nothing except further exhaust him, but he tries anyway. Fresh tears pour down his face; he doesn’t want to see this, see his death, imminent and unwavering as it approaches. It stops, a mere hair’s breadth away from him, the scent of decay pungent in the air. He wants to shut his eyes, to pretend it isn’t right there, a mutated shadow looming over him, but he’s utterly paralyzed, eyes stuck wide open in terror.

The monster with too-human eyes reaches its massive, clawed hand out to catch his tears.

“There is no need to cry, Michael,” it says. “Your suffering is at an end.”

The clawed hand lifts slowly, slowly, until it hovers over his face, flexing almost lazily. He wheezes at the pressure that seems to strangle every part of him, the pounding ache that burrows into every fibre of his being. He can’t even scream, his lungs unable to expand against the all-consuming agony.

He’s going to die. He’s going to die.

Claws graze his forehead, his cheeks, the sting barely registering through the haze of pain that envelops him.

He can’t remember why he’s so afraid, but he is.

The pressure vanishes as suddenly as it had appeared, and he’s breathless from the abrupt, full-body release. If the vines weren’t holding him up, he’s certain he’d be a puddle of too-long and too-bruised limbs instead of a person.

There’s a girl in front of him. He can’t see her face, only the slim outline of her shoulders, the tuft of hair pulled back into a tiny ponytail. Her arms are outstretched, solid and confident.

He doesn’t need to see her face to feel the rage emitting from her in waves, blistering and protective. For him?

“You,” she says, sharp and venomous, “will not take him from us.”

The monster stands, drawing up to its full height. “Oh, little Eleven,” it says, “I already have.”

The girl – Eleven? – makes a wordless, furious noise, before she lunges for the monster.

He still can’t move, his limbs too sore to fight against the vines that keep him in place. He’s helpless to do anything except watch the battle unfold, stuck to the structure like a pinned butterfly.

“Mike!” A new voice calls, and he turns his head as much as he’s able.

The boy has tousled brown hair and gentle hazel eyes. He sprints over, focused solely on – Mike? Was that his name, now?

“I know you,” he murmurs, something warm bubbling up in his chest. “I know you.”

The gentle-eyed boy smiles, a tired, sad thing, reaching up to cradle his cheek. He – Mike, Mike, he’s Mike – leans into the warmth, heat stinging the backs of his eyes.

“Let’s get you out of here,” the gentle-eyed boy says, prying the vines loose.

He – Mike – crumples easily into the gentle-eyed boy’s shoulder.

“I’m tired,” he says plaintively. A hand comes up to tangle itself in his hair.

“I know,” the gentle-eyed boy says, all sympathy and worry. “Just a bit further, okay?”

Things get hazy, after that. He knows they stumble, together, towards the tear in the sky that faintly hums with a familiar melody. He knows that, one moment his feet are planted on the ground, and the next he’s plummeting down, down, down, and it’s so warm, and he’s so tired-

***

When Mike wakes up, it’s to a splitting headache and a sterile white ceiling.

Hospital? The hell did Mike do to land himself here?

“Mike? Baby, are you waking up?”

Mike turns his head – which, wow, that should really not be that difficult, ow – to see his mother, sitting at his bedside.

She looks ... rough. She has no makeup on, and it’s possibly the first time Mike has seen her in public without it. Her eyes are red-rimmed, like she’s been crying.

“Mom? What’s wrong, why are you crying? Is Nancy okay?” He blurts out. “Is Holly?”

His mom laughs, a watery, sad sound. “My sweet boy, always thinking of everyone else first.” Her hand finds his cheek, a thumb stroking his forehead tenderly. It’s warm.

Tears burn behind his eyes, unbidden. “Mom? What ... what happened?” He asks, feeling very young and very, very small.

“You’re in the hospital, baby. Your arm is broken, do you remember?” She says softly, brushing away the tears that spill down his cheeks.

“I- no? Should I?” Mike asks, noticing the cast and sling keeping his arm still for the first time. He tries to push himself up so he can sit properly, instead of lying down, but his non-broken arm trembles violently at the weight.

“Easy, Mike,” his mother scolds gently. “Here, let me.” She places a hand against his back, pulling him up, while she rearranges the pillows behind him. The bed shifts, pressing against his back.

“How’s that?” She asks. Her hand is on his shoulder, like she can’t bear to lose the point of contact.

It’s so warm. Tears burn behind his eyes.

Mike makes a frustrated noise, dragging his clumsy, trembling hand up to wipe the tears away. “Sorry, it’s better. I don’t know why I’m crying so much. I’m fine.”

His mom doesn’t look convinced, but she drops the matter anyway.

“You’ve got some people who are very eager to see you, baby,” she says softly. “Do you feel up for it?”

That stands out to him as odd – he’s got a broken arm, not cancer, or something. Why wouldn’t he? “Yeah?”

She smiles, rubbing his shoulder once, twice, before standing and leaving the room.

Literal seconds after she leaves, he hears the tap-tap-tap of shoes on tile. The door bursts open, slamming into the wall with a dull thud.

Nancy, hair frizzy and eyes wild, immediately locks onto him.

“Jesus, Nance,” he says, thoroughly off-kilter, “what did that door do to you-?”

His sentence is cut off as Nancy practically tackles him, arms squeezing so tight around his midsection he’s a bit worried about his ribs. Slowly, he brings his good arm around her in an, admittedly, rather weak hug.

Nancy trembles against him. Her breath hitches. There’s a damp patch steadily growing on the shoulder of his hospital gown.

She’s crying.

“Hey, Nance, it’s okay, we’re okay,” he says, panicked. He shoots a look up to Robin, who hovers by the door, hoping for support or maybe an explanation.

Robin is staring at him oddly – like he’s a miracle, something precious to behold.

“Nance, what’s wrong?” He asks, a bit desperate. Nancy just tightens her hold, tiny, choked sobs muffled by his shoulder.

“We’ve got about thirty seconds before a flood of unruly highschoolers trample down this door, so just, y’know,” Robin says softly. “Let her have this.”

Mike is taken aback, and still really fucking confused, but he nods, tracing shaky circles into Nancy’s back.

True to Robin’s word, not a full minute passes before the clatter of footsteps pound down the hall. Dustin, Will, and El tumble into the room, windswept and wide-eyed. Robin strategically takes a step back, softly calling Nancy away from him. Nancy slides off the bed, red-eyed and teary, but stays pressed against his bed, like she’s afraid he’ll disappear if she strays too far.

“Mike?” Dustin asks, cautious, arm braced against Will and El almost protectively. All three of them stare at him with apprehension, and Mike hates it a little bit.

“Dustin?” He mimics the tone, because what else is he meant to do? He doesn’t know why they’re so tense, so freaked out at the sight of him, so he doesn’t know what to say to make them calm down.

He apparently chooses correctly, because he’s suddenly surrounded by friends, all piled onto his shitty hospital bed. Will tucks himself under Mike’s good arm, face buried in Mike’s chest as he sniffles wetly. El plasters herself on his other side, legs hanging off the bed, pressing her forehead into his chin. Dustin sprawls over all three of them, hunched awkwardly over Mike’s torso, arms cinched tight around Will and El.

They’re all crying.

Mike is completely confused, and absolutely freaked out. “What happened?” He asks, alarmed.

Nancy reaches through the pile of sobbing teenagers, brushing a shaking hand through his hair. “You scared us, Mike.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Mike says dryly, gesturing as much as he’s able to his crying friends. “What did I do? All I have is a broken arm! Why are you all acting like I died?”

It’s the wrong thing to say; he knows it the second the words leave his mouth.

It’s like all the air is sucked out of the room in one sentence. He can physically feel the way everyone tenses around him, pressing closer like he’ll vanish if they don’t hold him.

“Mike,” Nancy says gently, “what’s the last thing you remember?”

The question makes him frown, because, honestly, he’s not quite sure.

“I was having ... nightmares? I had a bad one, I think, and then-,” his voice breaks off abruptly.

His hand, the one curled around Will, trails up, hovering over his upper lip.

Nightmares. Headaches. Nosebleeds.

His gaze flicks down to his broken arm.

“Oh,” he says softly. “I- he got me?”

Will’s arms tighten around Mike’s waist – don’t be weird, don’t react – as Mike lets his hand fall back down, hovering around Will’s shoulder indecisively.

“Yeah,” Nancy says, voice low. “Yeah, he did. It was- bad. Really bad.” Her thumb brushes just above his eyebrow.

Mike’s voice fails him. What can he even say to that, to finding out he almost died in one of the most horrific, traumatic ways possible? That his friends had to watch, have to keep that image for the rest of their lives, while he-

“I don’t remember.” He mumbles. It’s disconcerting, that he can’t remember anything beyond that last nightmare and the nosebleed.

Everyone stiffens. Will’s fingers dig into his side, almost bruising in their intensity. Nancy looks at him, panic barely concealed in her hiked shoulders.

“Mike,” El starts, voice trembling.

The door swings open, cutting her off. Lucas strides in, pushing a wheelchair, and-

“Max?” Mike yelps, jerking upwards slightly, heedless of the arms that push him back against the mattress. “What the fuck, when did you wake up?”

Max, in all of her brazen glory, delightedly cackles, chucking a sad-looking stuffed bear at his head. “Before you, bitch! That makes me better than you!”

The bear misses him, bouncing off Will’s back. Mike watches it fall, brow furrowing “Not when it comes to aim, apparently.”

“I’m blind, dickhead. What’s your excuse?” She fires back. Mike startles at that, looking up to notice her too-light eyes for the first time.

Holy shit, talk about foot-in-mouth. There’s an apology on the tip of his tongue, awkward and fumbling, but-

But Max is grinning, wide and wild, more genuine than he’s seen from her since the start of high school.

“Yeah? ‘Least I’ve still got my eyes, loser – who’s better than who, again?” he can’t quite get through the whole sentence before various hands jab at his sides, gently swat his head. The outraged voices that all erupt in Max’s defence can’t quite cover the sound of her delighted laughter. A familiar stuffed bear smacks him in the side of the head, courtesy of El, based on the blood staining her upper lip.

“Lucas, get me up there,” Max demands, pointing a finger slightly to the left of Mike’s head. Lucas huffs out a laugh, shaking his head.

He hasn’t looked Mike in the eyes, yet, but Mike imagines he’s probably still shaken from, presumably, reliving Max’s near-death, not to mention focusing on her recovery. They’ve got time, now; Mike doesn’t mind waiting.

“There’s a few people in the way, Max,” he says, scooping her up under the arms and setting her by Mike’s knee, where she flops over, stretched across his lower legs. El shifts, pulling away from Mike’s jaw in favour of tossing her legs over Max’s. Without warning, Lucas clambers onto the bed as well, carefully settling around Dustin and Will, Max’s head resting on his thigh.

Tears burn behind Mike’s eyes. “What is wrong with all of you,” he asks, voice incriminatingly warbly. Scattered laughs break up the silence of the room.

“Shush,” El says, pressing a hand over his mouth. “Everything is okay now. Rest.”

“Okay,” Mike whispers, muffled against her palm. He does, oddly enough, feel pretty exhausted, despite being awake for not even twenty minutes. He lets his eyes slip shut, the warmth of his friends lulling him to sleep.

He wakes with a start, some hours later, heart pounding in his chest. Nightmare, but thankfully a normal one – already fading from his mind as his heart rate settles. Outside the window, the sky is dark, the stars glimmering weakly.

The stars. The stars that haven’t been visible since the earth split open, spilling toxic spores and storm clouds into the sky. Mike jerks upright. Am I still dreaming?

“Mike?” Will asks, and oh, that’s why Mike feels so warm. Will is still tucked against his side, even after everyone else left, hair mussed and eyes bleary from sleep. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Mike says, aiming for neutral and not quite hitting the mark. He clears his throat. “Yeah. Just, uh, when did...?” He gestures towards the window as best as he can with his cast arm.

“Oh. Oh! Yeah, it was- yeah. The Upside-Down is gone. For good, this time,” Will says, propping himself up on one hand.

“Shit,” Mike murmurs. “How long was I out for?” It’s an attempt at a joke, but it doesn’t land well; Will turns his face sharply away from Mike, breath hitching. Shit.

“Will, hey, what’s wrong?” Mike asks softly, too soft, too obvious, but that doesn’t matter, not while Will is clearly upset in front of him.

“A week,” Will says, barely above a breath. “That’s- you were out for a week.”

Oh. “Oh.” Christ, no wonder everyone’s been so skittish around him. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”

Will lets out a strangled laugh, on the verge of hysterical. “Of fucking course you would apologize for falling into a coma. Idiot.”

Mike tries not to flinch back at the sharp words and sharper tone Will uses, but he can’t deny that it stings. Something else is happening here. Will doesn’t get like this, sharp and caustic in the face of emotion; that’s firmly in Mike’s territory, as much as he loathes himself for it sometimes.

Mike painstakingly rearranges himself so he faces Will head-on. “Will,” he coaxes, “what’s wrong?” Why are you so upset? How do I fix it?

Will crumbles.

He curls up, pushing as far away from Mike as he can without falling off the bed. A high-pitched, choked whine tears free from his throat, barely muffled by his hands which press firmly over his face. His whole body trembles violently against the sudden onslaught, almost convulsing at the intensity, and there’s a not-so-pleasant memory-

“Will,” Mike says uselessly, his hand caught in midair between them – would contact help or make it worse? Mike settles for a light touch against Will’s bicep, strong enough to be felt, but easy enough to shrug off. “Will, talk to me.”

“It’s my fault,” Will sobs. “It’s all my fault- and you’ve lost so much time, just because I couldn’t- I couldn’t stop-!”

“That’s not true,” Mike says, and even without remembering the events that lead to his coma, he knows that, without a doubt. Still, Will shakes his head frantically.

“It is! He only went after you because of me! Because he knew it would break me if you-,” Will’s voice cracks. He curls impossibly tighter into himself.

Mike’s hand is curled around one of Will’s wrists before he can think better of it. “Will, I’m right here, I’m okay.”

“It would be better if you’d never met me,” Will whispers, ignorant to the way Mike’s heart shatters in his chest. “If I’d just- stayed gone, the first time.”

“Will Byers,” Mike snaps. Faintly, through his own shaking hands and pounding heartbeat, Mike hears a bit of his mother in his own voice. “There is nothing in this world that would make me more miserable than living in a world without you. You don’t understand how much I-” love you, he just stops himself from saying. “You have no idea what you mean to me.”

Will doesn’t say anything else. Gently, Mike tugs his hands away from where they hide his face. Will’s eyes still don’t meet Mike’s.

“Will, I need you to hear me when I say this,” Mike says. “There is nothing I could do, nothing that you, or Vecna, or Hawkins Lab, or anyone on this planet could put me through that wouldn’t be worth being your best friend. I’d face the Upside-Down a million times over for you. I’d die for you.”

“I know that!” Will snaps right back, snatching Mike’s hand where it rests on his wrist. He clutches Mike’s hand like it’s his only tether to the world, like he’ll fall apart without it. His nails bite into Mike’s palm, and Mike has never cared about anything less in his life. “You’d die for all of us! You’d die for anything! Your life doesn’t mean shit to you-!”

“I live for you,” Mike doesn’t mean to say it; it just tumbles out, loud and all-too-telling. Will falls silent. The heart monitor beeps softly in the background, a touch too quick to be natural.

Wordlessly, Will twines his fingers between Mike’s. “Your life doesn’t mean shit to you,” he repeats, “but it means ... everything to me. That’s why you’re here.”

“I thought I was here because a genocidal tentacle mutant decided to kill me,” Mike says, willing his voice to be light and even. “I don’t see how that’s your fault.”

“Mike,” Will says, lips twitching. “Be serious.”

“Will,” Mike retorts, grin stretching across his face. “I am. Vecna is – was a massive dick. It doesn’t matter what he did or said, none of it was on you, okay?”

“Yeah,” Will says, unconvinced.

“Are you gonna make me say it again? I’ll stay up all night telling you if I have to. It wasn’t your fault,” Mike insists, absently stroking Will’s hand with his thumb.

“You absolutely will not, you haven’t slept properly for about seven months; you need to sleep,” Will scolds, withdrawing his hand from Mike’s. Mike tries not to mourn the loss. “Actually, you should be sleeping right now. Lay back down.”

“I haven’t slept properly since I was twelve, let’s be honest,” Mike rolls his eyes, but obediently lays back down.

“Let me rephrase: you haven’t had more than two consecutive hours of sleep in over seven months. Go to sleep,” Will orders, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

Mike’s hand moves before he can think to stop it, grasping at Will’s sleeve. Will tenses, staring down at Mike’s hand like it’ll grow teeth and bite him.

“Stay?” Mike asks, a little more desperate and pathetic than he’d meant it to be.

Will softens, slipping back into the bed. “Yeah, of course. Just figured you’d want your own bed for the night.”

“Please, I’ve had my own bed for at least a week. I can share,” at Will’s skeptical look, “I can share some things. Sometimes.”

“Right,”

“Being awfully mean to the guy who was in a coma until today,”

“Mike,”

“Right, sleeping now. G’night,”

“Goodnight, Mike,” Will says. Then, almost under his breath, “I’m glad you’re still here.”

Mike doesn’t know what to say to that. “Yeah. Me too.” It doesn’t quite feel like a lie.

The next time Mike wakes, it’s to a tiny, pointy elbow jabbing into his ribs.

“Holly, careful! You’ll wake him up!” Nancy’s voice hisses beside him.

“Too late,” Mike groans. “Jesus, why are your little elbows so sharp?”

“Like you can talk,” Holly, his sweet, darling little sister, sniffs. “You look like a skeleton. A lame one.”

“So glad I woke up to this. Really. I feel so loved,” he rolls his eyes as Holly snuggles into his side. “Where’s Will?”

Nancy snorts, like he’s said something funny. “Figures. He went home – he’s been here for like, three straight weeks. That boy desperately needed a shower and actual food.”

She’s trying for levity, he knows, but his brain stalls for a moment because- because she said-

“Mike? Talk to me, what’s wrong?” Nancy asks, immediately on alert, but Mike can’t hear her, can’t hear the sound of her mashing the call button, because-

A week, you were out for a week-

-you lost so much time-

-haven’t slept properly in seven months-

-been here for three straight weeks-

“Nancy,” Mike chokes out, reaching his good hand towards her. She snags his hand from where it trembles midair, her knuckles white under the strain. “Nancy, what day is it?”

Nancy hesitates. “Mike-”

“What day?” He pleads, voice cracking. Nancy exhales, shaky and exhausted, as she turns away from him.

“November twenty-ninth,” she says softly.

Mike can’t breathe. “Oh my god.”

“Mike, it’s okay, you’re okay,” she tries, but-

“Nancy, I remember the start of May. I’m missing half a year of my life, that’s not okay!” Mike doesn’t shout the words – he can’t quite get enough air in his lungs to produce more than a desperate wheeze.

“It’s not,” Nancy admits, “but you’re here. You’re alive, Mike. You’re still you. That’s ... that’s more than we had last week.”

Mike doesn’t know what to say to that. Luckily, a nurse walks in at that exact moment, eyebrows furrowed as she marches right up to the foot of Mike’s bed.

“What’s going on in here? Everything okay?” She asks, flipping through his chart.

“Yeah, all good. Mike just ... had a bit of a shock, is all,” Nancy jumps to say, like Mike isn’t still obviously hyperventilating beside her. “Deep breaths, just take it easy.” She grabs his hand, rubbing circles into the curve of his thumb.

“Normally, I’d recommend a sedative if he can’t calm down,” the nurse says, almost to herself, “but his chart-”

“No!” Mike flinches, having momentarily forgotten about his youngest sister, still plastered to his side. “No, you can’t put him back to sleep!”

“Holly,” Nancy warns, “you need to calm down, or they’ll kick us out.”

“No!” Holly shrieks, burying her face into Mike’s side. “No no no no!” He can feel her tears, soaking through the thin cotton of his hospital gown. He’s never seen her like this, so distraught and desperate – it’s a miserable thing to see in his baby sister.

Time to calm down, Mike decides, curling his good arm around Holly.

“Holly,” he manages through choppy breaths, “let’s- let’s just breathe together, okay? Just take a breath.”

It’s hard for him to force the words out, but it works well enough to distract Holly. Mike tries to slow his breathing, to let his sister follow his example, but he ends up following her lead more than anything. His hospital gown sticks to his ribs, where she’d pressed up against him and cried her little heart out, and it makes his skin crawl a little bit. Not that he’s planning to do anything about it, not with Holly still clinging to him with a stubborn, terrified grip and a nurse watching them with disapproving eyes.

“There we go,” Mike says, once they’ve both calmed down somewhat. His heart still pounds in his chest, just a hair too quick to be relaxed, but he can talk again, and Holly isn’t crying anymore, at least. “Just like that, yeah?”

“May I borrow you for a moment, Miss Wheeler?” The nurse asks, gaze flicking between Mike and his heart monitor. Nancy’s lips purse unhappily, but she stands and steps out of the room anyway.

“’m sorry, Mikey,” Holly mumbles as Nancy shuts the door. “You were asleep so long last time. I missed you.”

Mike’s heart breaks for her. God, Holly isn’t even-

Actually, she would be nine now, wouldn’t she?

“Aw, Hols,” he says, cutting that train of thought off with a decisive head shake. “It’s alright. Must’ve been scary, huh?”

Holly nods. “Mom says you were really sick. That you’ve been sick since the earthquake. You wouldn’t read to me or draw with me, and you didn’t eat any cake at my birthday party, and it sucked-!”

“Hey, hey,” Mike interrupts her spiral. “Hols, you gotta breathe, okay? I’m sorry I scared you, but I’m okay, now.”

Holly shifts to look up at him, incredulous, then pointedly stares at his broken arm.

“Fine, I will be okay,” Mike rolls his eyes. “I don’t remember you being this snarky, you brat.”

“Your memory is shit,” she sniffs, abrupt and surprising enough that Mike snorts out a laugh.

“You watch your mouth, you little shit,” Mike reaches up, ruffling her hair.

“Mike, do not swear around our nine-year-old sister, please?” Nancy sighs as the door opens again. “Honest to god, between Lucas and Dustin, and now you and Max, we’re going to have a tiny sailor running around.”

“Mom’s gonna love it,” Mike shares a conspiring grin with Holly.

“Mom’s already threatened to ban all of your friends from the house at least twice,” Nancy says flatly.

“Speaking of mom,” Mike says, “where is she? Did she just drop you guys off?”

Nancy shakes her head. “Not exactly. She’s talking to your doctor about your treatment plan going forward.”

“Treatment plan?” For a broken arm? “That seems ... excessive.”

“Well, you’re going to need minor physical therapy for your arm once it heals, but the doctor’s main concern is with your sleep schedule,” Nancy explains, not quite looking him in the eyes. “And I’m sure your memory issues will come up too once the nurse gets ahold of him.”

“My sleep schedule,” Mike echoes. “That’s the second time today someone’s mentioned my sleeping habits.”

Nancy still won’t look at him, just hums in the affirmative. Mike narrows his eyes at her.

Something’s up, here, Mike realizes.

“Nance-,” Mike tries.

“Sorry to interrupt,” the door to his room swings open, revealing a man in a white coat and glasses, closely followed by his mom. “Mr. Wheeler! So good to see you awake!”

“Uh, just Mike is fine,” Mike says. “And good to be awake?”

The man chortles like Mike’s said something clever. Inexplicably, Mike is reminded of Dr. Owens.

“Good, good, that’s good. Maybe your sisters can go grab you some grub from the cafeteria, huh? Give us three,” he gestures between himself, Mike, and Mike’s mom, “the chance to talk about you. How’s that sound?”

Bad, Mike wants to say. Holly’s grip tightens around him. “Yeah, that’s- fine. They can’t stay?”

“Just for a few minutes, Mike,” his mom says, smile brittle. “C’mon, Holly, why don’t you and Nancy go pick something for lunch, hm?”

Reluctantly, Holly releases Mike, shooting a dark glare at the doctor. Nancy winds an arm around her, leading her out the door.

Mike ... mostly pays attention to what the doctor has to say. He catches the basics – muscle weakness, induced coma, blah blah blah, physical therapy – but he’s gonna get the same spiel from his mom about a million times over, he knows, so he doesn’t bother trying to memorize much.

“Everyone’s been worried about my sleep,” Mike cuts in when the doctor finishes talking about ligament damage or whatever the hell he was going on about. And it’s maybe a slight exaggeration – the only ones to really mention it were Will and Nancy – but that’s enough for Mike to be curious at the very least.

“Michael,” his mom scolds.

“No, no, it’s quite alright. I was just getting there, actually! Yes, your sleep schedule has suffered quite the hit in the past few months, hasn’t it?” The doctor laughs, false and grating in Mike’s ears.

“I wouldn’t know,” Mike says dryly. “My memory’s been a bit spotty.”

“Yes, that’s to be expected, I suppose,” the doctor agrees.

He describes the missing gap in Mike’s memory, the gradual build of sleep deprivation, confusion, listlessness, paranoia. Logically, Mike knows it was probably connected to Vecna’s curse, if not outright caused by it. But still, he’s curious as to what the doctor – this regular, unaware doctor – thinks is wrong with him.

Sporadic Fatal Insomnia. That’s what they’d come up with, apparently, which is a threatening name for a disease, to say the least.

“Not to point out the obvious,” Mike says, “but shouldn’t a disease with ‘Fatal’ in the name have, like-?”

“Killed you?” The doctor asks. Mike feels a twinge of guilt when his mom sniffles wetly. “Well, typically, yes. We’re still monitoring you to make sure there’s no relapses or new symptoms developing. Assuming everything stays clear, we can assume that what we have on our hands is a simple case of a misdiagnosis.”

“So you have no idea what the hell happened,” Mike surmises. “Awesome.”

“Michael, please,” his mother scolds, horrified.

“We are still missing pieces of the puzzle,” the doctor corrects him. “But at the moment, it looks like the issue seems to have resolved itself.”

Resolved itself – so his symptoms probably stopped when Vecna died. Thanks, El. He’ll have to get her a gift basket, or something.

“How long do I have to stay in the hospital?” Mike asks. “I mean, since I’m fine, now.”

“Michael,” his mom hisses. “You are not fine, you’ve been sick for more than half a year!”

Ah. So she doesn’t know about ... everything, then. Well, that’s inconvenient.

“We’ll be keeping you for another week, at least,” the doctor says, “just to make sure you’re really on the mend. Then, assuming all goes well, we’ll get you set up with regular check-ins – we’ll get a few sessions with a physical therapist once your arm is doing better, and then with a sleep specialist every few weeks.”

Great. Just great. Regular sessions with a person expecting him to drop dead from a disease he doesn’t even have. Maybe Owens can pulls some strings to get him out of that.

“Chin up, champ,” the doctor says, “the hard part is over.”

The hard part is absolutely not over, Mike finds himself discovering as the week inches forward.

Max gets discharged a few days after Mike wakes up for the first time, which is great for her and, in theory, everyone else, except she’s an actual menace about it. He can only take so many jabs about still being bed-bound before he ends up chucking a pillow at a blind girl and getting yelled at for it. That’s not even touching on the whole everyone-treating-him-like-glass thing; honestly, it’s like they expect him to crumble to dust the second he’s not being watched. It was almost sweet for the first day or so, having people around at all times, but it gets tiring very quickly. If one more person asks him if he needs help sitting up, or god forbid, getting to the bathroom, he might revive Vecna himself just to get them and their worried, too-gentle fussing away from him.

All of it is made worse by the fact that Will is avoiding him. Will miraculously manages to get the Mike-Watching shift where Mike isn’t actually awake, every single night. And Mike can’t even stay awake to catch him, because if he does, it’s just going to get everyone all freaked out, and make his stay in the hospital longer, and Mike will actually hurt someone if he has to be in this goddamned room for even a second longer than he has to be.

So he’s a bit grumpy. Sue him.

Max and El are good company, at least, even if Max cackles when El unceremoniously dumps his ass in the middle of a card game. Mike doesn’t find himself minding all too much; he likes being El’s friend, even when she definitely helps Max cheat at cards.

Lucas avoids him too, somewhat, although he still visits Mike. And he, at least, outright admits it, rather than just hiding behind Mike’s medically-enforced sleep schedule. He promises to talk to Mike, properly, once he’s discharged, which is more than Mike has gotten from Will.

Nancy and Holly and his mom are with him daily, and while Mike does love his family, he a little bit wants to strangle them sometimes. His dad never makes an appearance which is more than fine with Mike.

His strangest visitor is, by far, Vickie, Robin’s “friend” who ducks in once or twice on her breaks from volunteering. She’s nice enough, Mike supposes, and a nice break from the monotony, even if it’s almost painful to watch her and Robin flirt with each other. Once Mike gets over his shock (and sheer giddiness, because there’s someone else like him, and maybe he’s not as much of a freak as he’d thought-) of seeing them, together, like, romantically, Steve and Mike share more than a few commiserating looks over the two.

And then, the day is here – Mike wakes up feeling fine, and he can’t stop the grin from stretching across his face. The doctor had been clear – if he stuck to his sleep plan, and took it easy, and continued his steady recovery, he’d be discharged today.

“Stop smiling like that, you look creepy,” Holly says from her chair.

“If I ever have to look at a hospital room after today, it better be because I’m on my deathbed,” Mike declares, shoving himself upright.

“Not funny, you almost died like two weeks ago,” Nancy says sharply. “And watch your arm, Mike, it’s already been broken about three times.”

“Nancy, please, get me out of here,” Mike ignores her. “Wait, why three times?”

“It didn’t heal right, so they had to break it again,” Holly says. “And then you had a fit, and you broke it fully again.”

“A fit? What fit?” Mike frowns. “Like a seizure?”

“Not really. Neither of us actually saw what happened – you’ll have to ask Will or El about it,” Nancy says.

“Y’know, I’d love to,” Mike mutters under his breath.

“He won’t avoid you forever, Mike,” Nancy promises. “Now, how about I go check on those discharge papers?”

“Please,” Mike isn’t too proud to beg, as long as he just gets out of this god forsaken room.

It still takes a while for Mike to get properly discharged – he needs to talk to the doctor, and do one last check-up, and then his mom needs to sign the paperwork, and they still need to make appointments to get his cast off and discuss his physical therapy. Still, by noon, he’s being wheeled out the door – yes, wheeled, because he has to be carted out in a wheelchair, despite his vehement protests – and driven home.

Nancy fusses over him when he absolutely refuses to wait for her help to get out of the damn car. He really tries not to be too snarky about it, because she’s just worried, but that doesn’t stop him from letting a few sharp comments slip. He's not a baby, and he's not made of glass, and he tells her as much.

His room is remarkably unchanged from the last time he remembers it, besides the distinct lack of bedding on his floor. He tries not to let the ache in his chest show on his face, if only because he doesn’t want to stress Nancy out any more than she already is.

He’s been home for approximately fifteen minutes when Lucas knocks on his bedroom door.

“Hey man,” Mike offers, scooching back on his bed. “Wanna sit?”

“Sure. It’s good to see you out of the hospital, man,” Lucas says, perching at the furthest end of the bed. He’s, very pointedly, not looking in Mike’s direction. Mike fights the urge to roll his eyes.

“So,” Mike draws the word out. “I believe you promised me a talk some time last week?”

Lucas sighs, nodding his head. “Yeah. Yeah, I just- yeah.”

Mike doesn’t push him to start; he knows Lucas too well to do that. No sense in pissing him off when he’s already so worked up.

“I’m sorry,” Lucas says, turning towards Mike but still not meeting his eyes. “I’m not sure if you remember ... that day, in the hospital.”

“Which one?” Mike says dryly, prompting a weak chuckle from Lucas.

“Yeah, that’s fair,” he shakes his head. “But no, I meant before ... all this.” He gestures vaguely towards Mike’s arm, the broken one.

Ah. Mike sifts through his memories as best as he can – in the past week, he’s found that trying too hard to remember the past six months tends to give him nasty migraines, which freaks out the people around him. It’s better for everyone if he just ... doesn’t do that.

Mike knows he went to the hospital to visit Max plenty, but he gets the feeling he’d remember the specific day Lucas is referring to, that it would stand out. “Sorry, I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Lucas sighs, leaning his elbows against his knees. “It was the morning after you and Nancy and Will realized you were cursed. You came to see Max, and you were talking about your dreams, and what Vecna was saying to you-” His voice breaks.

With a shaky breath, he straightens up, looking Mike in the eyes. “You said that it was meant to be you, not Max, who was the fourth sacrifice. That you should’ve been the one to die.”

“Oh,” Mike says softly. The words sound familiar, aching like an old scar where they buzz in his mind. “I don’t know why you’re apologizing for that.”

“Because I- because, for a second, I wanted-,” Lucas chokes, burying his face in his hands. “For a second, I wished it had been.”

“Lucas,” Mike murmurs, but Lucas doesn’t stop.

“I just, with Max, I wanted her to be okay, and awake again, and happy and healthy, and then you walked in, and you said that, and it was like, I just got so angry, you know?” Lucas rambles.

“Hey, man, take a breath. I’m not, like, mad,” Mike reaches out, patting Lucas’ shoulder. “Of course you wanted Max to be okay. I’m not gonna hold that against you, dude.”

“But I-!”

“It doesn’t make you a bad friend, to want your girlfriend to be safe and happy, dude,” Mike rolls his eyes. “I wish I had been here. I would’ve done anything to-”

“I don’t wish that it had been you, Mike,” Lucas says, a bit too loud and flat. At some point between one heartbeat and the next, Lucas is facing Mike head-on, knees just barely brushing Mike’s. “I don’t wish it had been anyone. I don’t-don’t wish you’d taken her place, or anything. You get that, right?”

He looks borderline panicked when he asks it, hands twitching like they want to grab onto Mike.

“Yeah, no, totally, man,” Mike lies through his teeth. “I just, you know. If you did, I’d get it.”

“Well I don’t,” Lucas says, “I swear I don’t, okay?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Mike says easily. “Is that really why you’ve been avoiding me?”

Lucas stares at him for another moment. “I mean, I felt awful. It was just a second, but then I told you to go home, and then ...”

“And then I got magic dementia,” Mike finishes with a grin.

“Dude,” Lucas says. “Too soon.”

“Right, sorry,” Mike can’t stop himself from laughing regardless, and Lucas huffs out a disbelieving scoff.

At the very least, he’s not sporting that haunted, guilty look anymore. Small victories.

Lucas spends the night, their first one-on-one sleepover since they were little kids, as far as Mike remembers. They commandeer the living room, the basement still very much occupied by certain parties who are still very much avoiding Mike. Mike pushes the thought from his mind, focusing on whatever goofy movie Lucas had scrounged up.

It’s a nice night – Mike likes spending time with Lucas. Regret for how their freshman year played out still sits heavy in his gut, sometimes, but the sleepover feels like the start to patching up the cracks that had formed in their friendship.

When Lucas slips out the next morning, off to spend the day with Max, no doubt, Mike feels lighter than he has in a while. Mike sees his best friend off, a tin of pancakes pilfered from his mom’s extravagant celebratory breakfast spread tucked under Lucas’ arm.

Mike gets about two hours to himself – and by himself, he means himself, and Holly, and Nancy, and his mom, and whoever else in this madhouse feels the incessant need to hover around and check on him constantly – before Dustin barges through the door.

“You and Lucas and Will had a sleepover,” he points his finger accusingly, jabbing Mike in the chest, “and you didn’t invite me, you assholes!”

“Well for starters,” Mike pushes Dustin’s hand away. “It was just me and Lucas. I haven’t seen Will in, like, a week. And it wasn’t planned! Lucas wanted to talk, and ended up sleeping over-”

“A-buh-buh! Sleepover! Without me! Assholes!” Dustin flails his arm, a backpack swinging around and nearly clipping Mike’s broken arm.

“Watch where you swing that thing, Jesus,” Mike huffs. “Dustin, my dearest, bestest friend, would you do me the honour of having a sleepover with me?” Mike asks, with as much sarcasm as he can possibly fit in the sentence.

“I thought you would never ask, my good friend Michael!” Dustin then brushes past him, making himself completely at home, as usual, plopping his bag down beside Mike’s bed.

“My dad’s gonna get pissy about losing the TV two nights in a row, just so you know,” Mike says.

“Nah, your dad loves me,” Dustin says with a grin.

“Yeah, sure, Dustin,” Mike rolls his eyes.

For the second night in a row, Mike gets sole claim to the living room, much to his father’s grumbled displeasure. Apparently, spending a few weeks in the hospital gives him special treatment, at least for a few days.

For the second night in a row, the door to the basement stays firmly shut. Mike finds his eyes drifting to check every few seconds, until Dustin complains about him “missing all the good parts” of whatever movie he’d managed to dig up.

They spend most of the night like that, curled up on the couch together, trying to pretend that everything’s normal. Like Mike hasn’t spent the past six months fighting off a curse from an evil wizard from another dimension. The illusion is dispelled when Mike’s mother hovers around, right around Mike’s newly-implemented bedtime. She’d let him get away with staying up late the previous night with Lucas, but it seems two nights in a row isn’t in the cards for Mike. With Dustin on the floor beside his bed, taking Will’s previous spot, Mike falls asleep easily.

Only to wake abruptly, a few hours before dawn, to the sound of choked breathing.

“Dustin?” Mike mumbles, half-awake.

“Shit,” Dustin sniffles. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“’S fine. What’s up?” Mike shifts to look at Dustin, although he’s not quite visible in the darkness.

“Nothing. It’s stupid. Just- go back to sleep,” Dustin says, voice wavering the way it always does when Dustin lies.

Mike sighs. Bracing himself for the cold, he slips out from under the blankets, settling down beside Dustin’s hunched-over, shadowy figure.

“You need to sleep, Mike,” Dustin protests weakly.

“It’s not like I actually had that stupid disease,” Mike says. “I think I’ll be fine if I miss one night. What’s wrong?”

Dustin hesitates, face still hidden from Mike. “Nightmare.” He says after a moment.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Mike asks.

“Not really,” Dustin chokes out a watery laugh. “Just- do you mind staying? Here?”

And really, Mike wouldn’t mind, except- “There’s an empty bed right there, Dustin. C’mon.”

So he and Dustin fall asleep tucked under the covers of Mike’s bed, the tangle of pillows and blankets forgotten on the floor. Mike pretends, for Dustin’s sake, that he can’t feel him watching his every breath, tracking every heartbeat as he falls into a hazy sleep.

Dustin is back to normal by the next morning, cheerfully pissing off Mike’s father at the dining room table, before heading back to his mother’s house. Nobody else appears to demand one-on-one time with Mike after that, so he spends the day in his room, door cracked open so his sisters and mother can poke their heads in without being too disruptive.

The next few days pass in much the same fashion. Now that Mike is out of the hospital and immediate danger, everyone gives him space to recover without watching eyes and bated breath, which he mostly appreciates. It’s hard not to be irritated by the closed basement door, though; he doesn’t even see Will at meal times anymore. Supposedly, the Byers family is splitting their time between the Wheeler house and Hopper’s cabin, finishing the last few repairs that were pushed to the side in favour of the whole apocalypse thing.

Which is fine. It is! Mike totally isn’t upset, or anything. Will’s just been avoiding him, since that first night in the hospital, when Mike was too clingy and obvious, by coincidence. The two events are unrelated. Probably.

So Mike spends the days totally-not-sulking in his room, flipping morosely through his binder of Will’s drawings and mourning the loss of the best friendship he’s ever had. He would write to distract himself, except his notebook seems to have vanished from its spot on his desk, and Nancy gets weird and shifty-eyed when he asks about it.

The sixth day after Mike gets out of the hospital, he’s left alone for the first time in as long as he can remember. His dad is officially back to work, and his mom takes Holly out for the day. Nancy is initially hesitant to leave, but she’d made plans with Robin to volunteer at the hospital, so Mike all but shoves her out the door.

It’s weird, to be alone in the house for once. He wanders around aimlessly for a bit, poking his head into his family’s bedrooms and pacing the halls. He makes himself a mug of hot cocoa, pilfers some snacks from the cabinet, and generally just exists outside of his bedroom in a way he hasn’t bothered to since getting out of the hospital.

Eventually, he winds up in front of the basement door. And really, he shouldn’t go in – the basement is designated as Jonathan’s, and more recently, Will’s space, both of whom are deeply private individuals. They wouldn’t like Mike sniffing around in their stuff, particularly not while they’re not there to tell him to fuck off. Normally, Mike would acknowledge these points, and leave the basement be, find some other way to occupy himself.

Except.

He’s still sort of pissed off at Will for avoiding him. And while invading his privacy isn’t really the best way to deal with that, the alternative is locking himself in his own room and crying about it, which is stupid and dramatic and embarrassing.

So snooping it is. He sneaks down the stairs, careful not to let them creak under his weight, which is really stupid because no one’s even home to catch him, but makes him feel better regardless.

There’s nothing really of interest – the couch is piled with rumpled blankets and pillows, the air mattress unmade and half-deflated. No big signs or notes that read I’m avoiding my best friend of ten years because, much to Mike’s disappointment.

The sound of a door opening echoes through the quiet house. Mike bites back a curse – it’s not technically incriminating for him to be down here, but it is a little weird. Maybe he can sneak out the back before anyone notices.

“Mike?” The call is distant, muffled by the walls separating them, but Mike recognizes Jonathan’s voice from almost ten years of knowing him. Mike sighs; there’s no point in trying to sneak by if Jonathan’s looking for him, specifically.

As he’s building the courage to climb the stairs and sheepishly meet Jonathan in the kitchen, Mike hears the rapid thudding of footsteps through the house. “Mike! Mike, are you here?” And Jonathan sounds worried, frantic, even.

“Down here,” Mike calls. Embarrassment be damned, if Jonathan is looking for him, is calling for him in that tone, Mike is going to let him know where he is.

The footsteps pound through the house, and then Jonathan swings the basement door open. His entire body, wired with tension, seems to slump when he sees Mike.

“Jesus, Mike,” Jonathan breathes out. “Why didn’t you answer?”

“I didn’t hear, sorry. Are you,” Mike hedges, “okay?” He really doesn’t look it, a faint tremble in his hands and sweat beading along his brow.

“Yeah, fine, just-,” Jonathan sighs, dragging a hand through his shaggy hair. “You weren’t in your room.”

“Yeah, I was just wandering,” Mike steps back to let Jonathan pass him. “Sorry.” He says again.

“It’s fine,” Jonathan says, although his eyes are still locked on Mike, like he can’t trust Mike not to vanish if he loses sight of him. Even as he slips by Mike, plopping onto the couch, he tracks Mike’s position in his periphery.

Mike doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t move to leave. As much as he wants to escape this suffocating, awkward silence, he stays put.

“You know I don’t hate you, right?” When Jonathan finally speaks, it’s just as confusing as the rest of the interaction has been.

“I- yeah, of course. I don’t-,” Mike shifts, “-hate you, either.”

“I’m serious, Mike. You’ve been in our lives for ten years; you’re basically like a second brother to me. You get that, right?” Jonathan asks, unusually intense.

“Oh,” Mike says, a knot abruptly tightening in his throat. “I- yeah. You- you too.”

Jonathan softens. “Okay, good.”

“Good,” Mike echoes. “I’m gonna-” he gestures towards the stairs.

“Yeah, get out of my room, you little shit,” Jonathan, grinning, grants him the escape, and Mike takes the chance to scamper up the stairs. He’s not naive enough to hope that Jonathan didn’t see the tears building in his eyes.

That night, after his father returns from work and his mom and Holly are back from their day trip and Nancy is back from the hospital, they all sit down for dinner together, Jonathan squeezed between Nancy and Mike’s chairs.

It’s only after Mike has excused himself from the table and made his way up to his room that he hears the front door open. Will’s quiet voice floats up through the halls, words inaudible, and Mike so desperately wants-

Wants-

Mike curls up on the bed, and wills himself to sleep, even as his heart breaks in his chest.

Mike doesn’t leave his room the next morning. A simple “I’m tired” has his mother fussing, bringing breakfast and fruit slices up to him like he’s a sick child instead of a moping teenager. She checks his temperature twice, and he has to talk her down from calling the hospital no less than three times, before she gets the hint that he’d like to be left alone. He spends the day lazing about, alternating between copying notes into his new journal - courtesy of Nancy; she felt bad, he supposes, about the vanishing of his last one. At least she’d managed to salvage a few pages - and staring at the ceiling, Bronski Beat humming through his headphones.

It’s a little before dinner, when there’s a hesitant knock on the door. The person on the other side waits for him to answer, before it creaks open.

“Hey,” Will says softly. He hovers awkwardly in the doorway, like he hasn’t had blanket permission to barge in since they were both five years old.

“Hey yourself,” Mike says, trying as best as he can for nonchalant. “There a reason you’ve been avoiding me?”

Will’s face spasms – a minor twitch to the outside observer, barely noticeable by someone who wasn’t well-versed in decades of Will-isms and subtle facial expressions. Namely, someone who wasn’t Mike. It’s there and gone before Mike can begin to decipher the meaning.

“Can I-?” Will gestures to Mike’s desk chair.

“Always,” Mike cuts him off. “Seriously, you’re freaking me out. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah! Yeah, everything’s- fine,” Will stumbles a bit on his words as he sits. It takes everything in Mike not to call him on it. “I just, y’know. Wanted to talk to you.”

“Funny way of showing it,” Mike says under his breath. It’s petty of him, sure, but Mike was stuck in the hospital for a whole week without seeing Will once, and it’s been another since his discharge.

“Deserved that,” Will sighs, “what I meant was, I wanted to talk to you alone. Without doctors or nurses or nosy siblings poking in.” His voice pitches up, just slightly, and there’s a hissed curse from behind Mike’s closed door, followed shortly by the muffled clamour of footsteps. “Your sisters are busybodies, just so you know. And I thought El was bad.”

“Try living with them,” Mike snorts.

“I have,” Will reminds him, grinning.

The reminder of Mike’s missing time kills any levity between them. Neither of them say anything, for a long moment.

“Did I ... do something? To make you uncomfortable?” Mike asks quietly. “Because I’m sorry, if I did. I never meant to- to push you away, or make you hide from me.”

To be honest, Mike hasn’t been able to put the thought out of his mind – that, during his curse-induced haze, he’d done something, something incriminating, something that gave Will all the clues he needed to put the big, messy puzzle together that Mike has been trying to keep hidden for half of his life. Something that made Will feel like keeping him at arm’s length was necessary, but guilty enough to stay nearby.

Mike would rather he just rip the bandaid off. None of this tiptoeing, letting-him-down-gentle bullshit – he just wants to know if he ruined the best thing he’s ever had, all because of some stupid feelings he never picked in the first place.

“No! Mike, no, never, that’s not-,” Will sighs again. “It’s just- hard. To talk about. I don’t really know where to start, honestly.”

The knot in Mike’s chest loosens, just a bit. “Maybe start at the beginning?” It’s both teasing and not. “You can tell me anything. I’ll listen.”

Will nods once, eyes drifting away from Mike, like he’s trying to find the words. He leans over, his mouth – stop staring at his lips, Jesus Christ – pressing into his fists.

“You tried to kill yourself,” Will says eventually, and it’s not even a little bit what Mike expected. His ears ring in the quiet of his room.

Shit. He hadn’t thought Dustin would bring it up, after all this time, especially not to Will. Has he really been avoiding me all this time because of that? Mike wonders distantly.

“It wasn’t- it wasn’t like that,” Mike says haltingly, and it’s only partially a lie. “Dustin was being threatened. He shouldn’t’ve told you-”

“Okay,” Will says easily, straightening to look Mike in the eye. There’s something steely in his eyes, something determined. “What about stealing your mom’s pills in eighth grade? Going back to the quarry with a letter in your back pocket in freshman year?”

Abruptly, Mike realizes that Will was very strategic when picking where to sit. There’s no way for Mike to get up, to sprint out the door without Will blocking his path. Even if there were, Mike doesn’t know that he could convince his body to move.

“How-,” he whispers, “how do you know about those? I never- told anyone-”

“When we killed Vecna, it didn’t fix you,” Will says, wringing his hands together, but still pinning Mike with that intense, unreadable gaze. “The damage to your mind, it was ... severe. El tried to fix it, but your mind just- flinched away from her. It kept getting worse and worse, and you were dying, so-”

“Will-,” Mike says softly, off-kilter from the abrupt topic change.

“-so I went into your mind,” Will ploughs right over Mike’s protests. “I followed your memories, and I put them back together, and you showed me. You showed me everything.”

Oh.

Shit. Now would be a great time for that escape route he’d been looking for. “I can explain.” The words tumble out before he can think to stop them, because really, he can’t. Not in a way that means he gets to keep his best friend.

“Mike,” Will tries to stop him, but Mike can’t, he can’t lose Will, not after everything. Not after just getting him back.

“I swear, I never meant to, I didn’t, fuck-,” Mike stutters, trying to find the right words to magically fix everything.

“Mike, just calm-!”

“-I swear, I was never going to say a word, I can’t, I never, Will, I promise-,” his thoughts fragment, frantic and cluttered just like always. Not for the first time, he wishes his thoughts would just fall into place like they’re supposed to-

“Mike!” And Will is there, crouched beside Mike’s bed, his hands wrapped around Mike’s. “Take a breath, okay? I’m not mad, I promise.”

And that ... doesn’t make sense. “...you’re not?” Mike asks, voice small.

Will laughs, one hand slipping up to cradle Mike’s jaw. “Not about that, Mike.” His eyes cut away momentarily, before finding Mike’s again.

“It would be pretty hypocritical of me to be mad about- that,” Will says, so soft and gentle, and his eyes gleam golden-green in the sunlight, and what?

Mike opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “Huh?” Comes the wonderfully eloquent response.

Will laughs, because of course he does. His hand is warm against Mike’s cheek. “Never thought I’d see the day Mike Wheeler is rendered speechless. Am I really that handsome?” It’s teasing, flirtatious, and Mike’s head hasn’t stopped spinning yet, but-

“You’re beautiful,” Mike breathes the words out. He can’t bring himself to be embarrassed, not when Will’s cheeks flush a pretty red.

“Oh,” Will says, “I’m going to kiss you now.”

Mike doesn’t register the words before Will leans in, pressing their lips together in a gentle, shaky kiss. Mike freezes, stiff and unresponsive until Will starts to pull away, at which point he surges forward, hand flying up to find purchase on Will’s shoulders, on his neck, in his hair. He’s never been so aware of his cast, and he finds the coherence in his thoughts long enough to curse the damn thing.

Will lets out an appreciative hum against Mike’s mouth, rising from his crouch to encroach in on Mike’s space, their noses bumping as they move against each other. They break just long enough for Will to push Mike back, until he’s laying flat on the bed, before crawling on top of him, kissing him again, and again, and again.

Mike catches Will’s bottom lip between his teeth, revelling in the hitched sound that winds free from Will’s throat. Will’s hands find their way down, slipping under his shirt and trailing across his torso, feather-light touches that drive Mike absolutely insane. Mike grins into Will’s mouth, giddy and light in a way he hasn’t felt since he was twelve years old.

He’s kissing Will Byers. Will Byers is kissing him, enthusiastically and emphatically, and if this is a dream, Mike hopes he never wakes up.

“Jesus Christ,” a new voice says, and Will springs back with a panicked squawk, tumbling right off the bed. “I guess you two made up, then.” Nancy says from the doorway, grinning like the goddamn cat that caught the canary.

“Oh my god,” Will says, muffled where his face is buried in his hands. “Oh my god.”

Mike doesn’t even have words, too overwhelmed to formulate a single coherent sentence. He fumbles for a pillow, flinging it towards Nancy with as much strength as he can muster. “Out.”

Nancy's gaze follows the pillow, watching flatly as it hits the door, missing her by a good margin. Then, she looks back to Mike and Will. “Pretty sure this,” she points between the both of them, “doesn’t count as light exercise.”

“Do you people never knock,” Will complains, words still muffled by his own hands.

“Out,” Mike hisses, holding up another pillow threateningly.

“Fine,” Nancy rolls her eyes. “I’m leaving this open.” Then, just to be an asshole, she swats the light switch, turning out the light.

“You’re the worst!” Mike calls as she leaves. She doesn’t look back, just tosses him the middle finger over her head.

It’s silent for a moment. Mike sits on the bed, staring at the space where Nancy stood, where she, in not so many words, accepted him for what he is, for who he is, no caveats or stipulations. His whole body feels warm, jittery, like he’s downed a mug of coffee fresh out of the machine.

Will is still curled up beside his bed, face buried in his hands. The tips of his ears are red. Mike can’t bring himself to bite back the smile that twitches across his face.

He slips off the bed, careful of his cast, crawling awkwardly around Will to lay across from him. His cheek presses into the carpet, scratchy and unpleasant, but he pays it no mind, instead reaching over to tug Will’s hands away from his face.

He’s breathtaking as always – warm hazel eyes stare back at Mike, tan skin dusted with red across his cheeks, soft lips that Mike doesn’t have to stop himself from staring at anymore.

“Hi,” Mike whispers.

Will giggles, and Mike could get addicted to that sound. To knowing that he was the one who caused that.

“Hi,” Will echoes.

“I love you,” Mike says.

A wicked grin twists across Will’s face. “I know.” He says, like an asshole.

“You-!” Mike shoves Will’s shoulder, sending him sprawling on his back as he laughs. “You’re a menace, Will Byers.”

“Oh, please, like you wouldn’t have taken the opportunity,” Will turns his head to look at Mike again, and Mike tries not to melt at the sight of him.

“Yeah, probably,” and honestly, it’s a coin toss – Mike is, through-and-through, a nerd; movie references are practically hard-wired into his brain. On the other hand, he muses as he takes in the sight of Will, practically glowing in the early evening light, he doesn’t know if he’d have the strength to stop himself from saying those words, not if Will said them to him first.

“Hey, Mike?” Will says, hardly more than a breath. Mike’s heart stutters under his skin.

“Yeah?” Mike manages to say.

“I-,”

“Boys! Dinner!” The shout comes sudden and loud, startling them both enough to make them jump.

“In a minute, Mom!” Mike yells.

Goddammit. She couldn’t’ve waited two more seconds? Mike sighs, pushing himself up.

“Need a hand?” He asks, already reaching to help Will up. “You are staying for dinner, right? Your mom isn’t taking you and Jonathan to go see Hopper, or something?”

“No, no, I’m staying. Not sure about my mom or Jonathan, though,” Will says as he rises from the floor. Mike moves to let go, to step back and follow Will out of the room, only for Will’s hand to tighten around his.

“Mike,” Will says, leaning in. “I love you, too.” And then he kisses Mike, quick and sweet, before slipping out the door.

Oh. Mike can’t stop his cheeks from turning red, nor can he stifle the dumb smile on his face. He never thought he would get to have this – this easy, comfortable love that Will gives and takes so freely. It’s been less than twenty minutes, and Mike already wonders how he survived beforehand.

Love, for Mike, has always been about sacrifice. Jump off the cliff to save your friend. Kiss the girl who dies a superhero. Keep any ugly feelings locked away to make everyone else happy. Don’t tell anyone else you’re drowning, even when your vision blurs and your lungs stop working. That was love; a stale, picturesque marriage, and an arm’s length distance between old friends.

Loving Will is, in contrast, a release, a breath of clean air, a warm fire in the bitter winter cold. It’s that moment of oh, it’s you and do you wanna be friends? tangled up into something new and beautiful and familiar. Nothing has ever felt so natural, so sweet, to Mike before.

There are still things to discuss, he knows – Will apparently has powers now, for one thing, which is most certainly a development lost to his seven-month memory gap. Will knows about him, now, too – about all of him, not just the polished, presentable parts he shows the rest of the world. He has no doubt Will wants to talk about those parts too, in depth, which Mike somewhat dreads, but accepts anyway.

Unbidden, he’s reminded of his mom, something she said when he was still in the hospital, struggling through his recovery – these things take time; you just have to let the good find you where it can.

“You coming, Paladin?” Will pokes his head back in the door. “I think Holly might steal your spot, if you don’t hurry.”

“Oh, like hell!” Mike squawks, sprinting past Will and down the stairs. “Holly! Get out of my spot!”

“I wanna sit next to Will! He’s nicer than you are!”

“Holly, don’t be a pest! Let your brother sit next to his friend!”

Let the good find him. Yeah, Mike thinks, bumping his ankle against Will’s under the table. He can do that.