Chapter Text
January 10, 2015
Will wakes up before the alarm like he always does.
There’s a particular tightness in his chest that tells him it’s time; a quiet, familiar weight that settles in before his brain fully catches up. He lies there for a moment anyway, staring at the ceiling, cataloging the day by how the air feels when he pulls it in, slow and careful.
Not bad, he decides. Not great, either. But workable.
The vest is draped over the chair at the foot of his bed, yellow and blue panels folded in on themselves like it’s trying to be polite. It looks harmless like that. It always does.
He sits up fully, swinging his legs over the edge of the mattress, then reaches for it without much hesitation. The fabric is cool against his palms. Plastic tubing trails behind it, already connected to the machine on his nightstand, waiting.
“This is happening whether you like it or not,” he grumbles to the machine, because that’s just how mornings work.
He shrugs it on, adjusts the straps with practiced hands, making sure it sits right against his ribs. Too tight is miserable, but too loose is pointless. There’s a narrow sweet spot, and he finds it by muscle memory alone.
The button clicks. The machine hums to life.
Now the day can start.
Well, almost.
The vibration starts low, a gentle pulse that rolls through his chest in steady waves. The vest tightens and loosens, tightens and loosens, the machine doing what it’s built to do without asking how he feels about it. He thinks that’s pretty rude.
Even so, Will exhales slowly and just lets it happen.
He counts his breaths until they start feeling less like a chore and more like something he’s allowed to do again.
In.
Out.
Don’t rush it, rushing just makes everything worse.
The sound fills the room almost immediately— soft at first, then louder, a mechanical thrum that rattles the glass of water on his nightstand and makes the posters on the wall shiver just slightly. It’s not unpleasant. Not anymore. It’s just… there. Normal. Like breathing. Like background noise. Like the shape of his mornings.
People love to say listen to your body, which is very funny considering his body has been screaming profanities at him for years and has yet to offer a single useful suggestion. No solutions, no shortcuts, just complaints.
He keeps time in his head. Not by minutes—those feel too heavy—but by sensation.
The pressure cracking across his ribs.
The way the vibration crawls up into his collarbones and makes itself home.
The faint tickle at the back of his throat that means it’s working.
Good. That’s what it’s supposed to do.
He reaches for the nebulizer cup without looking, pops the cap off of his bottle of saline and pours it, then screws the cup shut. Muscle memory. Routine. Evidence of a life that’s learned how to fold itself around machines. The mouthpiece tastes like metal and salt when he brings it to his lips. He takes a slow breath in. Holds it. Lets it burn just a little.
Pain is information. Lucky for him, he’s very good with information.
He’s learned the hard way not to rush this part. Rushing just turns into coughing, and coughing turns into everyone staring, and everyone staring turning into that look—the one people get when they start doing math in their heads. Will hates when people stare at him.
The machine pauses automatically after a few minutes. Silence rushes in too fast, like the room’s forgotten how to exist without some sort of background noise.
Will leans forward, elbows braced on his knees.
“Okay, huff,” he mutters to himself, because sometimes you have to say it out loud. Like an instruction manual etched directly into his lungs.
He takes a deep breath in through his nose and pushes the air out hard, controlled, from deep in his chest. Once. Twice.
The third time turns into a cough that bends him forward despite himself.
It’s ugly. Loud. Wet.
He waits it out, eyes prickling with tears, one hand fisted into the fabric of his pajama pants. His chest aches—not sharply, just enough to remind him who’s boss. When it passes, he spits into the tissue he already had ready and folds it closed without taking so much as a peek at it.
Preparedness is a form of dignity, and Will would like to keep some of his intact.
“Charming,” he says to the empty room, because if his lungs get to be dramatic, he should be allowed to be petty about it.
The machine starts up again. The rhythm returns.
This is the part people don’t seem to understand— the waiting. The way his life is measured in long pauses and resumes, in systems that stop just long enough for him to clear something and then demand he keep going. No finish line in sight. Just maintenance.
He leans back against the headboard, tilting his head back slightly. The vibration rattles his teeth. He closes his eyes and thinks about nothing in particular, because thinking about something just makes the time drag on, and thinking about everything just makes things worse.
There’s movement somewhere in the house. Soft. Indistinct. The creak of a floorboard. A cabinet opening, then closing again. The low hum of something electrical turning on.
Will doesn’t look. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because he doesn’t need to.
Some things are constants. Some things are just…there. Like the machines, like the noise, like the quiet kind of staying that doesn’t ask to be acknowledged.
The machine pauses again. He coughs, clearing what he can, and starts over.
Outside, morning light slips through the blinds in pale stripes, catching on the yellow-blue panels of the vest, making them glow faintly like something much warmer than they are. He watches the light speckles of dust drift through it and thinks, distantly, that it’s almost pretty.
Which somehow feels unfair.
By the time the session ends, his chest feels looser and heavier at the same time. Like he’s made room for air but paid for it in exhaustion. Despite dealing with this for years, he still isn’t fully used to the specific kind of exhaustion his treatments lay upon him.
He leans over and switches the machine off. He sits there for a moment longer than necessary, breathing through his mouth, waiting for the faint dizziness to fade as quickly as it snuck up on him. Waiting to feel like himself again— or at least the version of himself that feels slightly normal.
“Okay,” he mumbles. “That’s enough heroics for one morning.”
He unclips the vest and drapes it back over the chair. It collapses in on itself again, harmless-looking, like it hadn’t just spent half an hour rearranging his insides.
Still here, then.
He wipes his mouth, rinses the nebulizer cup, and lines everything back up the way it’s supposed to be. Routine restored. Evidence erased.
Only then does he stand.
The day stretches out in front of him, undefined. Manageable. For now.
He grabs his sweatshirt on the way out of the room, tugging it on as he goes, posture already straightening. Armor back in place. Already moving like someone who knows exactly where the coffee is.
— — —
Will makes it down the hall on autopilot, sweatshirt sleeves tugged over his hands like that counts as concealment. The house is warmer out here. Less sterile. It smells like coffee and dish soap and whatever his mom has decided is “healthy” this week. There’s a radio somewhere— playing low enough that it could be mistaken for the hum of the refrigerator if you weren’t listening.
The kitchen light is too bright, just like it always is.
Joyce is already there, moving with the kind of practiced urgency that looks frantic if you don’t know her but is actually just… how she loves. She’s at the counter with a mug in one hand, stirring something with the other. Her hair is pulled back haphazardly, like she did it without even thinking. The table is set in a way that pretends this is a normal morning and not a carefully managed operation.
And on the edge of the counter, right by the fruit bowl, there’s a cluster of bottles and blister packs that absolutely ruins the illusion.
Will acknowledges them and keeps walking anyway.
“Morning,” Joyce says immediately, almost as if she’s been waiting for the sound of his footsteps. Her eyes go to his face— too quick to be casual, too familiar to be intrusive. Loving. “How’d it go?”
Will opens the cabinet and reaches for a glass like he hasn’t been asked a thing. “I lived.” He knows how that sounds. He just doesn’t care too much.
Joyce gives him the look. The kind that says I’m going to accept your sarcasm, but I don’t like it.
“Was it… okay?” she tries again, setting her mug down.
Will fills his glass at the sink. The water is cold enough to make his teeth ache. He likes it that way. It makes him feel awake, even if nothing else does. It reminds him he’s still here.
“It was fine,” he says. ‘Fine’ is the most useless word in the English language because it can mean so much or nothing at all. Then, because he isn’t completely evil, he adds, “It’s not— it’s not bad today.”
Joyce exhales like she’s been holding air captive in her lungs. She turns back to what she was doing, shoulders visibly loosening. “Okay. Good… Good.” She makes a small gesture to the stove. “Eggs are almost done.”
Will nods like he didn’t just hear the word eggs and immediately want to go back to his room. He crosses to the table and drops into a chair that’s been his chair for so long that it’s basically another version of him.
That’s when he notices Mike.
He’s already there, slouched in the chair across from Will like it’s his assigned seat. To be fair, it kind of is. One of his legs hooked around the chair leg, elbows on the table, shoulders rounded forward. There’s a small notebook open in front of him, but he isn’t writing— just tapping the pen against the paper in slow, distracted beats, like he’s keeping time with his thoughts.
Mike looks up when Will sits, the motion small but automatic. His gaze flicks over Will’s face in the same too-quick way Joyce just did, and Will can feel his skin tighten slightly, like his body can tell when it’s being evaluated. He hates it when people look at him like that. Makes him feel less human.
Then Mike’s expression does something both quiet and stupid: it softens. Not dramatically, but just enough that it lands in Will’s chest like a coin dropped into a piggy bank. He prefers this look over the first one.
“Hey,” Mike says.
Will stares at him for a second. “Hey,” he answers after a moment of thought. ‘Hey,’ Will decided, is a difficult statement to respond to. Not because he doesn’t like talking, but because sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to do.
Mike stops tapping his pen, pushing his notebook a little farther away from himself. “You— uh. You okay?”
Will raises his glass to his mouth and takes a sip. It buys him some time. The glass clinks softly against the wood when he sets it down. “Define ‘okay.’”
Mike’s mouth twitches. Not a smile, but the faint idea of one. Like he wants to laugh but doesn’t want it to be misinterpreted.
“Okay,” he says, playing along. “Define… ‘not okay.’”
Will shrugs his shoulders. “Hm… I would’ve collapsed in the hallway. For dramatic effect.”
“That’s terrifying.” Mike says flatly.
“I think it’d be kind of iconic. Like a movie.”
Mike huffs a laugh despite himself, and it sounds so normal it almost feels illegal to hear.
Joyce turns from the stove with a plate and sets it down in front of Will in the way you’d give a stray cat food, not wanting to startle him. Toast, eggs, something sliced and arranged neatly because if she can control the shape of breakfast, she can control the entire universe. She sets another plate down in front of Mike, then another empty one at the end of the table like she’s expecting someone else to appear on cue.
Will watches her hands move more than he watches her face. Joyce’s hands move like she’s always doing two things at once: feeding her family and holding them together.
“You didn’t have to come over so early,” Will says to Mike, because he needs something to say other than I noticed you were here before I left my room and my brain is freaking out about it.
Mike shrugs, eyes dropping to his plate. “I woke up.” Then, after a moment: “I couldn’t fall back to sleep.”
Will’s throat tightens around a laugh that doesn’t fully make its way out. “Sounds like a you problem.”
“It is a me problem,” Mike agrees, earnest in a way that would be annoying if it weren’t Mike. “I thought… I don’t know. I thought it might be easier if I was just here.”
Will’s fork pauses halfway to his mouth.
Mike doesn’t look up when he says it. He just stares at his plate. Like if he makes any sort of eye contact, Will might see the whole truth of it— how he thinks about Will even when he’s not there, how he does the math anyway, how he shows up because he doesn’t know what else he can do.
Will swallows, eyes flicking over Mike’s face.
“You’re acting like you live here,” Will says lightly, because he’ll ruin the morning if he says anything too real.
Mike finally looks up, eyes too awake for someone who supposedly didn’t sleep well. “Do you want me to leave?”
The question is simple, but the panic laced between the words is not.
Will stares at him, a beat too long. Then he scoffs like he’s offended by the idea. “No. Don’t be dramatic.”
“I’m not being dramatic,” Mike says immediately, which is exactly what a dramatic person would say.
Will shakes his head, focusing his eyes on his eggs because eggs can’t look at him like that. “You can stay. Just—” He gestures vaguely, fork in hand. “Please just stop acting like I’m gonna evaporate.”
Mike’s gaze stays on him, eyes boring holes into his soul. Quiet. Steady. “I’m not.”
Will gives him a look that says you’re full of shit, but Mike doesn’t flinch. If anything, his face softens in that incredibly stupid way again, like he’s already decided that he’d much rather be accused than be absent.
Joyce returns to the counter, pretending she isn’t listening while still absolutely listening. She busies herself with her empty coffee mug, sitting it in the sink. The kitchen hums with small noises: the refrigerator, the radio, the scrape of forks against plates. It’s a normal soundtrack, as long as you’re able to ignore the medication lineup sitting on the counter menacingly.
Will eats because his mom will watch him until he does. He hates that he knows it. He hates that it’s true even more. He takes a bite of toast and chews slowly, letting the warmth settle somewhere in his chest that isn’t his lungs.
Mike’s notebook sits abandoned, but the pen is still in his hand. He rolls it nervously between his fingers. Will tries not to watch that. Watching makes it mean something.
“So,” Will says because the silence had become deafening. “What are you doing?”
Mike blinks like he’d forgotten he existed. “What?”
“With the notebook,” Will clarifies, pointing his fork at it. “You writing a manifesto?”
Mike’s ears go pink. “No.”
“Sure,” Will says, setting his fork down in favor of his glass. “Because you seem like a manifesto guy.”
Mike scoffs, sitting the pen down. “I was just— I don’t know. Trying to…” His eyes briefly flick to Joyce, then back to Will, then back to the notebook in search of a savior. “Trying to write something.”
Will raises an eyebrow slightly. “Like… a letter?”
Mike stills. Joyce makes a noise from the counter that is very carefully neutral. Like she wants to be invisible but also wants to stand as a warning.
Mike clears his throat. “No. Not a letter.”
Will leans back slightly. “A song?”
Mike’s eyes widen a fraction. “No.”
The corners of Will’s mouth curve into an almost-smile. “That was a very fast no.”
Mike presses his lips together into a flat line. “It’s not for you.”
Will freezes. Not outwardly. Outwardly he keeps his face bored, but internally he flinches, a tiny recoil like he’s touched a hot iron.
“Oh,” Will says, flat and way too controlled to be casual. “Okay.”
Mike’s eyes flick up sharply. “No– I didn’t mean—”
Will waves a hand like he doesn’t care. Like he didn’t just feel that little sting tucked away behind his ribs. “It’s fine. I don’t want your secret song.”
“It’s not a secret song,” Mike insists, tone too defensive. Will looks at him. “Then what is it?”
Mike opens his mouth, then closes it again. He taps his finger against the table, a small, anxious beat. He looks like he wants to tell the truth but decided it’s not worth it.
Joyce saves him by sliding a small pile of pills toward Will like a waiter presenting a bill at a restaurant.
“After you finish,” she says softly, but the softness is non-negotiable. “Enzymes with breakfast, okay? And your vitamins. And–” Her eyes flick to him the same way they did earlier. “And you said you’d take the other one today, too.”
Will stares blankly at the pills. He hates them. Hates how such small things control his entire life. “Yeah,” he says, because refusing would turn this into a lecture, and he doesn’t have the energy for that this early in the morning.
He looks up and catches Mike watching, expression careful and blank like he’s trying not to react. Will appreciates that, he really does. In a bitter sort of way. Mike doesn’t make a face, he just watches. Doesn’t ask questions. He just watches like he’s memorizing the routine.
Will hates being memorized almost as much as he hates his pills.
Will also, unfortunately, likes it.
He swallows another bite, then reaches for the enzyme bottle his mom has already set near his plate. He takes the pills with water in a motion so practiced it’s become boring. That’s the point though. If it’s boring, it’s survivable.
Mike looks away after, trying to give Will privacy even though they’ve both already seen everything.
“Good,” Joyce says, a small smile tugging at her mouth. “Okay.”
Will wants to tell her that her relief doesn’t change anything. Or fix it. That it just means that today is manageable, not that his illness decided it’s tired of him and got up to leave. But he doesn’t because, despite popular opinion, he has a heart. He doesn’t want to hurt her.
There’s heavy footsteps in the hallway, followed by the unmistakable sound of someone pulling the cabinet door open too harshly.
Hopper appears in the doorway like a storm cloud in pajama pants. His hair is a mess, face tired in the way of a man pretending he’s not tired. He takes one look at the table; at the plates, the pills, the fact that Mike is here, and his eyes narrow like he’s trying to decide which part of this is going to tick him off first.
“Why is Wheeler in my kitchen,” Hopper says, voice suspicious and rough from sleep.
Mike sits up so fast it’s almost comedic. “Hi.”
Hopper stares at him like ‘hi’ is not a sufficient explanation for his existence.
Joyce doesn’t turn around, but speaks anyway. “Because he’s allowed to be, Jim.” Hopper makes a sound that is not an argument but also not fully in agreement.
Then Jane appears behind him, quiet as a shadow. She steps into the kitchen in an oversized sweatshirt that hangs off one shoulder and a pair of plaid pajama pants. Her hair is slightly damp, like she’d showered and only dried it halfway. She looks at Will first—always Will first—and her face shifts into something much softer.
“Hi,” she says warmly.
Will’s chest loosens a fraction. “Hey.”
Jane’s gaze makes its way over to Mike next. She pauses like she’s assessing him in a way only she can, then gives a small nod of approval. Mike looks like he doesn’t know if he should nod back or salute.
Hopper takes a mug from the counter and pours coffee with the aggression of a man who believes caffeine is a personality trait. Mornings are for coffee and contemplation, of course. He glances at the lineup of pill bottles and blister packets and then away again, jaw tightening like he’s angry at the universe for things he has no control over.
Will carefully watches all of them— his mom pretending she’s not hovering, Hopper pretending he’s not worried, Jane pretending she isn’t always listening, and Mike pretending that he isn’t terrified of doing the wrong thing.
And Will, as always, pretending he’s fine.
It almost works.
Almost.
— — —
It’s funny, in a bleak sort of way, how everyone in this house has developed their own method of managing fear.
Joyce manages fear by turning it into tasks. Plates. Pills. Schedules. If she can line things up neatly enough, maybe the day won’t fall apart.
Hopper manages fear by acting like it’s something he can intimidate. Like if he glares hard enough at the concept of illness, it’ll go away.
Jane manages fear by being still. Like if she stays quiet, she can hear the truth before it hits the floor. Will almost thinks that she can.
And Mike—
Mike manages fear by showing up.
Will hates how much that one works on him.
He hates that Mike is here in the first place, sitting at their dining table like a soft, stubborn fact. He hates that his chest did that stupid warm thing when Mike said it might be easier if I was just here. He hates that he wanted to believe him. He hates that he still does.
Because wanting is dangerous. Wanting makes you picture them staying. Makes you forget that bodies are not promises. Makes you forget that “manageable” is not the same as “safe.”
Will takes another sip of water, letting the cold shock his throat into behaving. He can feel the faint after-effects of the vest still—like his lungs have been rearranged and are now settling back into place. He’s used to it, mostly. The heaviness it leaves him with. The exhaustion that doesn’t feel like being tired so much as being spent. Like his body charged him interest for every breath he got to keep.
Today isn’t bad.
But “not bad” is situational.
Sometimes “not bad” is just the day before “worse.”
He can already hear his mothers voice in his head, future-tense and awfully careful: We can call the doctor. It could just be a little infection. They’ll want a culture. We’ll see what they say.
Will can already imagine Hopper’s jaw tightening, the way he’ll start acting like the hospital is committing treason just for existing.
And Mike—
Mike will do that thing where he tries to look calm and fails, because Mike wears emotion like it’s written in sharpie on his forehead.
Will stares at the bottles of pills again, lined up like tiny, boring threats.
This is what control looks like: swallowing things you don’t want to swallow. Smiling through the pain. Being “good.” Being “easy.”
He is very good at being easy.
Which is probably the cruelest joke of all.
He glances up without meaning to and catches Mike looking at him—not the pills, not his plate, but him. Like Mike's trying desperately to read the air around him, the same way Will read the air when he woke up. Like he’s searching for signs.
Will gives him a look that says don’t, sharp enough to cut. Mike looks away immediately, obedient in the most infuriating way.
Will exhales through his nose.
Good.
Control restored.
For now.
— — —
It starts wrong.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just… off.
Will is halfway through another bite of toast when Mike says something—nothing important, nothing even particularly funny—and Will breathes in to answer without thinking about it.
That’s the mistake.
The air goes in sharp and thin, like it’s slipping past something instead of filling it. There’s a faint crackling sensation low in his chest, subtle but unmistakable, like cellophane being slowly crumpled somewhere behind his ribs.
Will pauses.
Just for a moment.
He swallows the bite in his mouth and tries again, slower this time. The second breath makes it worse. The crackle spreads upward, branches out, and then—
The cough tears out of him.
Not the controlled kind. Not the neat, practiced ones he always does after he’s done using his vest. This one catches him mid-breath and folds him forward before he can brace for it, hand flying instinctively to the end of the table.
The sound is ugly.
Wet.
It echoes too loud in the kitchen.
Will keeps his head down and coughs again, harder this time, the vibration rattling through his chest like it’s knocking loose something that doesn’t want to move. The crackling turns sharper now, scraping, and his lungs burn in protest.
Okay, he thinks distantly. Okay. That's new.
Someone pushes their chair back.
Not Mike.
Not his mom.
Hopper.
The movement is abrupt—wood scraping against tile, too fast to be casual. Will doesn’t look up, but he sees it anyway in his peripheral vision: Hopper’s hand coming down hard on the back of the chair nearest Will, fingers splayed like he’s grounding himself instead of the furniture.
“Hey, kid,” Hopper says, not very loud but not gentle either. His voice has gone flat in that way that means he’s already running scenarios in the back of his mind. “Easy.”
Will coughs again, bending lower, one hand braced against his knee now. When he breathes in, his lungs crackle again, almost as if they’re filled with static instead of air.
Joyce is at his side almost immediately.
She doesn’t touch him—not yet—but she’s close enough that Will can feel the heat of her, and can hear the shift in her breathing. “Okay,” she says, calm but tight. “Okay. Just take your time, sweetheart.”
Her hand hovers, undecided, right between his shoulder blades.
Mike hasn’t moved.
That’s what Will notices next, even through the haze of it all.
Mike is still in his chair, but the stillness isn’t passive. It’s rigid—like he froze mid-motion and forgot how to unfreeze. His back is much straighter now, shoulders squared without him seeming to notice he’s done it. His hands are flat on the table, fingers spread just slightly, like he’s bracing against something invisible.
His face has gone completely blank. Not in the empty way, though. Focused.
His eyes don’t leave Will. Not for a second. They track every movement, every hitch in his breathing, like he’s counting without numbers. Like he’s trying to learn something very fast.
Will hates that look, it makes his skin feel too thin.
Will coughs again, harder this time, and something metallic flashes across his tongue. He freezes for half a second, panic flaring sharp and hot, then he spits quickly into his napkin without lifting his head.
He folds it in on itself immediately. He doesn’t look at its contents, nor does he let anyone else.
Jonathan appears in the doorway just then, drawn by the sound like a reflex. He stops short when he sees the scene—the way Hopper’s hand is still gripping the chair, the way Joyce hasn’t quite decided whether she’s allowed to touch, and the way Mike hasn’t blinked.
“Will?” Jonathan asks quietly.
“I’m—” Will tries, but it turns into another cough that shakes him harder than the others. His lungs crackle again when he breathes in, louder now, like dry leaves crunching underneath a shoe.
Hopper moves closer.
Not hovering. Not crowding. Just… there. His hand shifts from the chair to the table edge, close enough that Will could grab it if he needed to. Hopper doesn’t say anything, but his jaw is clenched tight, eyes sharp and assessing in a way Will recognises immediately.
That look says: I see it.
Joyce makes a decision.
Her hand presses gently but firmly between Will’s shoulder blades, grounding, familiar. “Okay. Breathe with me,” she says. “Slow. We’re not rushing.”
Will nods once, more reflex than agreement, and forces himself to breathe in through his nose. The air crackles again, but less violently this time. He coughs once more—controlled and deliberate—and then again, quieter.
The room stays still.
The radio clicks off somewhere behind them. Will doesn’t see who does it.
After a moment, the coughing eases. The crackling fades back into something duller, heavier. His chest aches in that deep, familiar way that means not gone, just waiting.
He straightens slowly, keeping his head down.
“I’m fine,” he says automatically, voice rough. He clears his throat. “Just— just went down wrong.”
Joyce doesn’t answer right away.
Hopper does.
“Mm,” he says, noncommittal. His hand tightens briefly on the table before he pulls it back, crossing his arms instead. “Didn’t sound like toast.”
Will finally looks up.
Hopper’s eyes meet his—not angry, not accusing. Just too knowing. Like he’s already filed this moment away for later, even if no one else names it.
Mike still hasn’t said anything.
His hands have curled into fists without him realizing it, knuckles pale against the wood. The fork he'd been holding earlier lies forgotten beside his plate, far enough away that it looks abandoned. His jaw is set far too tight, like he’s physically holding something back.
When WIll looks at him, Mike’s eyes flick over his face. They don’t linger anywhere specific, just checking. Checking again. Like if he looks long enough, the answer might surface on its own.
Will hates that look. Hates how exposed it makes him feel.
He forces a smirk that doesn’t quite land. “Relax,” he says lightly. “If I was actually dying, I’d make it way more dramatic than that.”
Mike flinches.
Just barely.
The reaction is small—almost imperceptible—but Will catches it anyway. A sharp inhale. A tightening around the eyes. Like the word hit something raw and unexpected.
Joyce inhales sharply. “Will.”
“What?” Will shrugs, leaning back in his chair like his lungs didn’t just betray him. “I’m fine.”
The word feels thinner this time.
No one argues.
That’s worse.
Jonathan steps closer, quiet and careful, and sets a fresh napkin down by Will’s plate without comment. Will’s stomach twists at the gesture.
Mike finally speaks.
“You don’t sound fine,” he says.
It’s not accusing. Not panicked.
Just honest.
As he says it, his voice comes out steadier than his body looks. His fists loosen slightly, fingers flexing like he’s resisting the urge to reach across the table. His eyes stay locked on Will’s unwavering, like he’s decided that this is the moment he won’t look away.
Will meets his eyes, something brittle and sharp rising in his chest. “You’re not a doctor.”
Mike swallows. “No,” he agrees. “I’m not.”
But he doesn’t look away when he says it. Doesn’t retreat. He stays right there, presence solid and immovable, like he’s daring the room to push him out.
The silence stretches again, but it’s different now. Tighter. Like something has shifted out of alignment.
Will looks away first.
Control restored, he tells himself.
Mostly.
But later, when this morning comes back to him in pieces, it won’t be the coughing he remembers.
It’ll be Hopper’s hand gripping the chair like he was bracing for impact.
And Mike. still sitting, still watching.
Like he already knew something Will wasn’t quite ready to name.
— — —
Some time passes, and they end up on the couch without either of them suggesting it.
One minute they’re still at the table; Joyce rinsing plates, Hopper pretending to read something on his phone, Jane perched half-on, half-off the counter like she’s listening to the walls breathe. The next, Will is sinking into the familiar dip of the couch cushions, sweatshirt bunched at his wrists, the fabric warm from the dryer and too soft to argue with.
Mike drops beside him like it’s muscle memory.
Because it is.
They’ve sat like this since they were kids—knees knocking together, shoulders pressed just close enough to count as company. It doesn’t feel like a decision so much as a return. The house exhales around them, settling into the version of itself that knows how to hold quiet.
Will leans back, eyes fixed somewhere above the TV. The ceiling fan is still. Dust hangs in the air, caught in the morning light like it’s undecided about where to land.
His lungs feel… fine.
Not good. Not bad.
Present.
Mike shifts, crossing one ankle over the other. His arm drapes along the back of the couch, close but not touching, the way he’s always done when he’s trying not to crowd Will but also not leave him alone. It’s a delicate balance. One they’ve been practicing for years.
“You’re staring,” Will says.
Mike blinks. “You are.”
Will snorts, lightly shaking his head. “I’m staring at nothing. That’s different.”
Mike considers this. “Fair.”
Silence stretches—comfortable at first. Then something else.
Will becomes aware of his breathing again. Not sharply. Just enough to notice the faint crackle beneath the inhale. It disappears when he breathes out.
He adjusts slightly, rolling his shoulders, trying to settle the feeling without drawing attention to it.
Mike notices anyway.
He always does.
He doesn’t say anything. He just shifts closer—so close their knees touch. His hand moves and settles on top of Will’s where it’s resting on the cushion between them.
Warm. Solid.
Familiar.
Will freezes—not because he doesn’t want it, but because his body reacts faster than his brain. His fingers curl instinctively, like they’ve been waiting for the weight. Like this is a thing that’s happened a hundred times before, just never with quite this much meaning pressed into it.
Mike doesn’t look at him.
That’s important.
He keeps his gaze forward, expression easy, like he hasn’t just done something devastatingly intimate. Like this is still the same Mike who used to grab Will’s hand under the table in elementary school when the lights went out during movies. Like it’s just habit. Comfort. Normal.
Will swallows.
“Your hands are cold,” Mike says quietly.
Will scoffs. “That’s rude.”
“I’m serious,” Mike replies, thumb brushing once—absent, thoughtless—over Will’s knuckles. “You’re always freezing.”
Will lets out a breath that almost counts as a laugh. “Maybe I’m secretly dead.”
Mike’s hand tightens—not enough to hurt. Just enough to register.
“Don’t,” he says. Not sharp. Just… real.
Will glances sideways at him. Mike’s jaw is set, eyes focused on nothing. The humor drains from Will’s chest, leaving something warmer and heavier behind.
“Okay,” Will says softly. “I’m sorry.”
They sit like that—hands stacked, shoulders close, breathing in the same pocket of space. Will can feel the warmth of Mike’s palm leeching into his skin, anchoring him in a way he doesn’t quite want to acknowledge.
The crackle returns when he inhales again.
Subtle. Persistent.
He breathes through it.
In.
Out.
The house shifts.
Hopper moves from the kitchen to the hallway, boots heavy against the floor. He slows when he passes the couch, eyes flicking down—first to Will’s face, then to his chest. Then to Mike’s hand.
Hopper doesn’t comment.
He pauses just long enough to register it all.
His voice is low. Careful. “You good, kid?”
Will nods, too quickly. “Yeah.”
Hopper studies him—really studies him. Not looking for drama. Looking for patterns. Changes. The kind of things you notice when you’ve already lost someone once. “Alright,” Hopper says finally. “Yell if you need anything.”
“I won’t,” Will replies automatically. Hopper’s mouth twitches like he knows that’s a lie. He doesn’t call it out. He just nods and moves on, the weight of his concern lingering like a handprint in the air.
Mike doesn’t move.
Doesn’t let go.
Will stares at the wall, chest rising and falling. He’s acutely aware of every breath now—not panicked, just… watched. By his body. By the room. By the future.
“Hey,” Mike murmurs, barely audible.
Will hums in response.
“You can text me later,” Mike says. “If you feel weird.”
The corners of Will’s mouth twitch slightly. “I always feel weird.”
Mike’s thumb brushes his knuckles again. “You know what I mean.”
Will does.
He nods once.
“Okay.”
The word settles between them, fragile and heavy.
They sit there longer than necessary. Long enough for the quiet to grow teeth. Long enough for Will to start imagining this moment as something he might miss someday—not because it’s extraordinary, but because it’s not.
Mike’s hand is warm.
Will’s lungs crackle faintly when he breathes in.
No one says anything about it.
The house holds them anyway.