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The station clock read 3:45 AM, its ticking the only sound in the room.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Like Vecna's clock.
Vecna's clock that had haunted them for so long.
Was what Max had heard before Vecna took her and left her in a hospital bed, half dead.
It was his fault and he knew that.
It was his fault his sister got dragged into the hellhole that was the Upside Down, his fault that his mom and dad almost died, his fault him and El had broken up, his fault Will got taken in the first place, his fault, his fault, his fault, his fault, his fault.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
He is suffocating.
His shoulder throbbed like a second heartbeat, sharp enough that he couldn't lean back against the stiff vinyl couch without biting his tongue.
Lucas was sprawled across the floor, bandages peeking out from under his shirt where Vecna's pet had snagged him in a shallow scratch, before Will had killed it.
Will had powers.
His Will had powers.
That itself would take Mike and age to wrap his mind around.
He wasn't sure he'd ever get over his awe for Will in that moment, where he'd looked so beautiful and powerful all at once.
Robin snored softly from the corner, her forehead bruised from when she'd slammed into the the truck's edge during the scramble to get the kids to safety.
The kids.
Vecna had the kids.
Vecna had all the kids he needed, all his 'vessels', everything he needed for whatever reason, and he was to blame.
If, only if, he had not made that stupid plan to extract the kids, then they might still be safe.
Might still be alive.
No.
They're alive.
They have to be.
Or Mike will never be able to live with himself.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
He can't breathe.
Mike flexed his fingers experimentally, wincing as the motion tugged at the swollen mess of his shoulder. The painkillers they'd scrounged from the station's first aid kit were wearing off, leaving his thoughts jagged at the edges.
Across the room, Will's sketchbook lay abandoned on the floor, pages splayed open to reveal half-finished drawings of skateboard ramps and sun-bleached parking lots.
Mundane things that belonged to a world that didn't exist anymore, not really.
He felt sick. He loved Will's drawings, loved the way he sketched every line so deliberately, so carefully, so lovingly.
To the world?
Will Byers created art.
To him?
Will Byers is the art.
He had a binder full of them.
He wanted to kick it shut.
Instead, he pressed his forehead against his knees and inhaled the stale scent of blood and sweat clinging to his clothes.
The lights buzzed overhead, flickering like a dying pulse, casting shadows that slithered across the walls whenever Mike blinked too slowly.
He kept expecting a gate to open and vines to explode any moment, but it didn't happen.
He kept expecting the pain in his shoulder to dull into something manageable, but it gnawed deeper with each breath, a live wire of agony that connected directly to the hollow pit in his chest.
He failed again tonight.
He failed Holly, he failed Will, he failed the kids, he failed everyone who had been foolish enough to think that Mike Wheeler could do anything that wouldn't end in disaster.
Why did they have to deal with this?
They were just kids.
They are just kids.
Andy never had to fight monsters. James never had to fear for his family's life. Troy never had to worry he may be killed by a petal shaped monster.
Troy.
The name brings back so many memories.
Sometimes he missed the quarry.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
The air has teeth.
He remembered the quarry all too well.
The sharp, jagged, three hundred foot drop to the sparkling water that held his nightmares.
All his nightmares of the night Will's fake body was pulled out of it's depths.
Sometimes, he missed the quarry.
Sometimes, he remembered the feeling of falling.
Sometimes, he wished El hadn't saved him.
Sometimes, he missed the comfort of knowing that it was all going to be over.
Sometimes, he still went to the quarry, not to jump, though he came close several times.
He dimly registered Will coming back into the room with soft footfalls, two cups of coffee on his hands, heading towards the couch to sit beside him.
He never did tell anyone about the quarry.
Only Dustin and El knew, and he made Dustin swear he wouldn't tell.
El didn't understand at the time, and there was no need to alarm her now.
He wondered what they would think if they knew he wanted to die.
That he wanted to be in Bob's place.
On Billy's.
In Barb's.
Nancy would freak out.
El wouldn't understand — because why would someone give up the life they live so easily?
Dustin would try to figure it out like a science experiment.
Lucas would be angry, not at him, but at someone — someone who made his best friend feel like he was worthless and it would make it all worse.
Will would be concerned, and would start hovering.
Max would probably understand, Mike knew that, but she was dealing with too much of her own shit to bother about him.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
His chest feels heavy.
He missed Max.
Max should've been here, should've been the one rolling her eyes at Lucas's dramatic groaning or stealing Lucas's half-empty Coke can to throw at someone's head.
Instead, she was a ghost in a hospital bed, her absence louder than the static humming from the abandoned radios.
And he knew it was supposed to be him.
He'd had the nosebleeds, the nightmares, everything. Had he not gone to California, it would have been him in that bed.
If he could, he would swap their places in an instant.
He hadn't told anyone yet.
Why should he, really?
Just because he had come close to being a victim, doesn't mean he deserved any of the concern or care they had for him.
Will shifted beside him, his knee brushing Mike's, deliberate and quiet, shooting him a concerned look.
He didn't say anything—didn't need to.
The weight of his presence was enough to make Mike's throat tighten, the spot where their knees connected sending heat skittering up his spine.
Will's hands were graphite-stained and trembling slightly, fingers twitching like he wanted to reach out but wasn't sure where to put them.
Mike exhaled sharply through his nose, and Will's fingers finally settled on the edge of the couch, close enough that Mike could count the smudges of charcoal embedded in his cuticles.
"I need air," Mike muttered, pushing up too fast, his shoulder screaming in protest as he staggered toward the door, leaving a startled Will behind him.
The hallway outside was dimly lit, the flickering fluorescents turning the peeling wallpaper into a grotesque imitation of Vecna's vines.
His breath hitched, the air suddenly too thick, like it was full of smoke, pressing against his ribs like a vise.
He slumped against the wall, fingers scrabbling at the hem of his sweater, nails catching on the uneven texture.
The panic rose in hot, suffocating waves—Will's pulse fluttering under his fingertips as he siezed, Dustin's voice crackling through static as he desperately tried to tell Mike there were Russians, Russians who were opening gates, El's scream cutting off mid-cry as she vanished with the demogorgon—
His knees buckled.
The floor rushed up to meet him, cold linoleum biting into his palms. The clock's ticking warped into a distorted heartbeat, each second stretching into an eternity.
Eighteen months, eighteen months, eighteen months—
Max's face flashed behind his eyelids, pale and still beneath hospital fluorescents, and then it was Nancy's voice in his head, ragged from screaming, begging him to run, Mike, run, theres a demo in the house, run, there's a demo in the house—
His lungs burned. He couldn't tell if the wetness on his face was sweat or tears.
Somewhere far away, hands gripped his shoulders—too tight, too tight—and Mike flinched violently, his back colliding with the wall.
The pressure didn't let up.
Will's face swam into focus inches from his own, his lips moving but no sound reaching Mike's ears over the white-noise roar of his own pulse.
He tried to push him away, fingers scrabbling weakly at Will's wrists, but Will just pressed closer, his knee digging into Mike's thigh, anchoring him to the present.
The scent of Will's shampoo, honey and almond, stolen from Joyce, and the faint tang of graphite cut through the fog clouding his mind, real and solid and there.
Will's mouth formed words Mike couldn't hear, so he focused on the way his lips shaped each syllable instead.
"Breathe."
A command, not a plea.
Will's hand found his and he forced Mike's palm to flatten against his chest, right over Will's heart, and suddenly Mike could feel the rhythm of Will's own breathing, slow, deliberate, an achor in the chaos of his mind.
He matched it instinctively, his lungs shuddering as he dragged in air that tasted like dust and stale coffee.
The fluorescent light above them flickered again, casting Will's face in jagged shadows, but his eyes stayed steady, dark and endless as the Upside Down's sky.
The panic crested like a wave, threatening to drag Mike under once more. His fingers spasmed against Will's wrist, nails leaving crescent moons in the soft skin there.
He wanted to say something—I'm sorry, I'm fine, stop looking at me like that—but his tongue felt leaden, his throat scorched raw.
Will didn't flinch at the bite of Mike's grip. Instead, he leaned forward until their foreheads touched, his breath warm against Mike's lips.
"You're here," Will murmured, voice cracking.
"We're both here. You're safe."
The words dripped into Mike's ears like honey, thick and slow, drowning out the phantom screams still echoing in his skull.
Mike's vision tunneled, the hallway walls morphing into the pulsing flesh of the Upside Down, the flickering lightbulb above twisting into Vecna's spiraling vines.
His fingers spasmed against Will's wrist, knuckles white with the effort of not clawing at his own skin to escape the memories pressing in, Nancy's blood-streaked face shouting, begging for their mom to 'stay here with me please stay," El's choked sob as the the Upside Down swallowed her whole with the demogorgon, Max's limp body draped in Lucas's arms like a ragdoll.
His lungs refused to expand.
Holly.
The memory hit Mike like a meat hook to the ribs—Holly's tiny hands pressed against the living room window, her breath fogging the glass as she watched the storm swallow Hawkins whole.
She'd been drawing frogs in her notebook just a week ago.
Then Vecna's pet smashed through the walls.
Ten years old.
Ten.
The scent of her strawberry shampoo lingered in the wreckage even as the ceiling caved in, even as their father's scream was cut short by something wet and tearing.
Mike hadn't even heard her cry out.
He hadn't even been home.
So obsessed was he with finding Vecna, with ending this nightmare, that he'd left his baby sister vulnerable.
One second she was there, the next—gone.
Ripped through the membrane between worlds like tissue paper.
Mike's fingers dug into his thighs, blunt nails biting through denim as the image seared itself behind his eyelids—Holly's sneaker dangling from where it had come off when the demo dragged her through the gate, the laces still tied in the double knots he'd taught her last summer.
The memory twisted deeper, her crayon drawings of rainbows taped to the fridge, now buried under debris; the way she'd clutched his sleeve when thunder rattled the house, during a horrible Upside Down strom whispering "Mikey, will the monsters get us?" with wide, trusting eyes.
He'd promised.
He'd lied.
Will exhaled sharply through his nose—a deliberate, audible breath—and pressed his forehead harder against Mike's, their foreheads touching where skin met skin.
His fingers slid down to intertwine with Mike's, prying them loose from their death-grip on fabric.
"Look at me," Will murmured, thumb tracing the ridge of Mike's knuckles.
Gentle.
"Not there. Here." His other hand grabbed Mike's chin, forcing their eyes to lock.
Will's grip tightened, fingers pressing into the hollows of Mike's palm, enough to hurt, but also enough to ground him in the sting of friction, the heat of skin.
"Breathe," he ordered again, voice low and frayed at the edges.
His breath smelled like the stale vending machine gum he'd been chewing for hours, artificial watermelon cutting through the copper taste of panic in Mike's mouth.
The pressure of his touch mapped the ridges of Mike's knuckles like a topographer charting fault lines, unyielding.
His grip became a tether, soft, but not always gentle, and there.
Unshakable as the weight of a grave marker. Mike's breathing halted, then stuttered into something slower, matching the rhythm of Will's exhales, the way their foreheads stayed pressed together like an anchor against the tide.
The scent of graphite and shampoo cut through the phantom rot of the Upside Down, sharp enough to make him blink, hard.
Will's thumb traced the pulse point in his wrist—alive, alive, alive—a silent counter to the clock's distorted ticking.
Mike's breath shuddered out as Will's forehead pressed harder against his, the pressure grounding him like a stake driven into quicksand.
He focused on the texture of Will's fingers—calloused from sketching, warm against his clammy skin—as they methodically traced circles over his knuckles, mapping each ridge and scar.
The motion was calming, pulling Mike back from the brink one rotation at a time.
Behind his eyelids, the pulsing red of Vecna's vines dissolved into the ordinary darkness of the Squawk's station hallway, the phantom screams fading beneath the sound of Will's measured breathing.
The world sharpened inch by inch, the peeling wallpaper resolving into faded yellow stripes instead of writhing vines, the hum of the station's generator replacing the Upside Down's wet, clicking echoes.
Mike's breath stuttered once more, then evened out, matching the slow rose and fall of Will's chest.
His shoulder still burned, but the pain anchored him now, a jagged reminder that he was here, alive, and not lost in the red-stained nightmares of the past eighteen months.
Will's thumb pressed harder against his pulse point, as if counting each beat to ensure Mike didn't slip away again.
"Come on," Will said, the words warm against Mike's cheek.
He hesitated for a heartbeat, just long enough for Mike to register the tension in his jaw, the way his fingers flexed like he was debating something, then slid an arm under Mike's knees and another behind his shoulders, lifting him effortlessly.
Mike's breath caught again, his injured shoulder protesting the movement with a fresh spike of pain, but the shock of being carried outweighed it.
Will's grip was firm, his body radiating heat where it pressed against Mike's side.
The hallway tilted dizzyingly as Will turned, Mike's head lolling against his collarbone. He smelled like shampoo and pencil lead and something faintly metallic—blood, maybe, from where Vecna's masscare had injured him.
Mike wanted to protest, to say he could walk, but his voice was still shredded from screaming, and the exhaustion from the day was catching up to him, and he kinda, sorta, might even like it.
Not that he would ever admit it to anyone but himself.
Will didn't speak, just adjusted his grip slightly, fingers pressing into the hollow of Mike's knee.
His footsteps were silent on the linoleum, the only sound between them Mike's uneven breathing and the distant hum of the station's generator.
The lights flickered again, throwing Will's shadow against the wall, distorted, elongated, almost monstrous, but he blinked and it was gone.
His jaw set in a way that brooked no argument. Mike shut his eyes. He could feel the tremor in Will's arms, the faint strain of muscles pushed past their limit, but his hold never wavered.
Will lowered him onto the couch with a careful precision that made Mike's ribs ache from the way Will's fingers lingered just a second too long at the nape of his neck, hesitant and purposeful all at once.
The vinyl groaned under Mike's weight, still warm from where he had been sat earlier.
Then Will's hand was in his hair, blunt nails scraping gently against his scalp, and Mike couldn't stop the shudder that wracked his body, his face pressing into the curve of Will's shoulder like a drowning man gasping for air.
The scent of Will's skin, graphite and cheap detergent and something inexplicably him—filled Mike's nostrils, drowning out the phantom stench of the Upside Down.
Will's fingers never stopped moving, carding through Mike's tangled hair with a rhythmic certainty, his blunt nails dragging just hard enough to send sparks down Mike's spine.
The pain in his shoulder dulled to a distant throb, eclipsed by the warmth of Will's thigh pressed against his side, the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath Mike's forehead.
Mike exhaled, his breath hot against Will's collarbone, and felt the answering shudder run through him.
The vinyl beneath them smelled faintly of antiseptic and old sweat, but Mike barely registered it, his face buried in the hollow of Will's shoulder where his pulse thudded steady and alive.
His limbs felt leaden, his injured shoulder a dull, throbbing afterthought compared to the warmth of Will's thigh pressed flushed again his side, sending awareness shooting into his brain.
Will shifted slightly, adjusting his grip to cradle Mike's head more securely against his chest.
His fingers never stilled—each stroke through Mike's hair a silent reassurance, a tactile reminder that they'd survived another night. Mike could feel the rapid flutter of Will's heart beneath his cheek, belying his steady hands.
"Stay." Mike whispered, afraid that Will was going to get up any moment now, afraid that Will was finally going to be sick of him.
"I'm not going anywhere," Will murmured, lips brushing the crown of Mike's head.
The words curled into the hollow spaces between Mike's ribs like smoke, filling the cracks Vecna's nightmares had left behind.
Mike tilted his head up, blinking against the harsh fluorescents, and Will's face was suddenly too close—close enough that he could see the flecks of green in his hazel eyes, the split in his lower lip from where he'd bitten it raw earlier.
His heart stuttered in Mike's chest, his pulse hammering against his ribs, and then Will was leaning in, his fingers tightening in Mike's hair, holding him there, suspended between one heartbeat and the next.
Mike's heard Will inhale sharply as he guided Mike down onto the couch, his movements slow and deliberate, like handling something fragile—which, right now, was what Mike was.
Their lips brushed, tentative at first, a question whispered against skin, and Mike's stomach lurched like he'd missed a step in the dark.
The second kiss wasn't gentle. Will's mouth crashed into his with a desperation that stole the air from Mike's lungs, his teeth catching on Mike's lower lip hard enough to sting. Mike gasped into it, his hands scrabbling at Will's shirt, dragging him closer until their chests pressed together, the heat between them searing through the layers of fabric.
Will tasted like watermelon gum and blood and something achingly familiar, a flavor Mike had known since childhood but could never put a name to it.
The pain in his shoulder flared white-hot as he twisted to get closer, but he didn't care, couldn't care—not when Will's tongue traced the seam of his lips like he was mapping uncharted territory.
"Lucas groaned, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his palm as the metallic *clang* of Robin's discarded flashlight rolled across the floor—knocked over by Mike's knee when Will had dragged him closer.
His bandages peeked out from under his shirt as he propped himself up on one elbow, blinking at them like a disoriented cat.
"Dude," he slurred, voice thick with sleep and leftover painkillers, "are you two finally making out, or do I need to throw my shoe at you?"
His words dripped with the casual exhaustion of someone who'd seen too much shit to be surprised by anything anymore.
Will and Mike froze for a heartbeat, then simultaneously flipped him off without breaking apart, their middle fingers rising in perfect unison. Lucas barked out a hoarse laugh before flopping back onto the floor, muttering something about "gross" and "finally" into his makeshift pillow.
"Jesus," Lucas yawned again, voice thick with sleep and whatever sketchy painkillers Dustin had swiped from the hospital last week.
"Took you long enough." He squinted at their tangled limbs, Mike's fingers still fisted in Will's shirt, Will's palm splayed possessively over Mike's ribs. "Should I, like... applaud? Slow clap?"
Will pulled back just enough to glare at Lucas over Mike's shoulder, his fingers still tangled possessively in Mike's hair. "Go back to sleep, Lucas." he muttered, voice rough with something that wasn't irritation.
Lucas grinned dopily, his eyelid twitching from the painkillers, and made a show of rolling onto his stomach with an exaggerated sigh.
"Fine, fine," he drawled, muffled by the arm he'd thrown over his face. "But if you start moaning, I am throwing shoes."
Will flipped him off again, this time with both hands, his middle fingers jabbing the air like daggers.
Mike mirrored him instinctively, his own gesture weakened by exhaustion but no less vehement.
Lucas snorted, flopping back onto the floor with a pained grunt, his arm slung over his eyes. "Cool, cool," he muttered, the corner of his mouth twitching. "Just don't start humping on communal property. That couch's seen enough trauma."
His free hand groped blindly for the nearest object, a half-empty Coke can—and lobbed it weakly in their direction. It arced pitifully before clattering to the floor three feet short.
Lucas's arm slid off his face with a soft smack against the floor, his breathing already evening out into the shallow, uneven rhythm of someone slipping back into sleep mid-insult.
The empty Coke can rolled away, its hollow clatter muffled by the distant hum of the generator, leaving only the soft sound of Will exhaling through his nose, his fingers still curled tight in Mike's hair.
Mike watched Lucas's chest rise and fall, the bandages shifting slightly with each breath, and felt something jagged in his own ribs smooth over. Even half-conscious and drugged to the gills, Lucas had still managed to be Lucas, obnoxious, unshakable, there.
And then the adrenaline drained from Mike's body like a plug had been pulled, one second he was clinging to Will's shirt like a lifeline, the next his arms turned to wet sand, his face slumping into Will's collarbone.
His vision blurred at the edges, the world tilting sideways as exhaustion slammed into him with the force of a freight train.
The last forty-eight hours, the massacre, the blood on Lucas's bandages, the static-filled pleas from his walkie, crashed over him all at once, dragging him under.
Will's hands scrambled to catch him, one palm cradling the back of Mike's head, the other digging into his hip to keep him from sliding off the couch entirely.
His eyelids fluttered shut, heavy as lead weights, and for a delirious second he was back in the Upside Down, back in his nightmares, Vecna's vines wrapping around his ankles, dragging him under.
But Will's fingers were tight in his hair, blunt nails scraping his scalp in rough, rhythmic strokes, anchoring him to the here and now where the vinyl couch smelled like antiseptic and the generator hummed like a lullaby.
Will held his breath, counting the seconds between Mike's exhales—one, two, three—until the rhythm steadied.
His fingers still trembled where they carded through Mike's hair, the adrenaline from dragging him back from the edge still thrumming under his skin like live wires.
The weight of Mike against his chest was familiar in a way that twisted something deep in Will's gut; they'd shared sleeping bags after nightmares as kids, but this,Mike's nose pressed into the hollow of his throat, his breath hot and uneven, was something else entirely.
Something stolen between battles, fragile as the graphite smudges Will left on everything he touched.
He'd spent too long running from shadows; now he let them crawl over his skin untouched, his focus narrowed to the way Mike's eyelashes fluttered against his collarbone, the hitch in his breath when Will's thumb brushed the shell of his ear.
Stupid, reckless Mike, who'd charged headfirst into danger and the Upside Down for him again and again before he'd even hit sixteen. Who'd kissed him like it was the last thing he'd ever do and then collapsed against him like a marionette with its strings cut.
Will counted the freckles dusting Mike's nose— thirty six, like always.
The weight of him was solid and warm against Will's side, his slack fingers still tangled in Will's shirt like he was afraid he'd vanish if he let go.
The thought sent a sharp ache through Will's ribs. He knew that fear intimately, the way it coiled in your gut when you woke tangled in vines that weren't there, when the air smelled like decay for three seconds too long.
Will traced the ridge of Mike's eyebrow with his thumb—careful, so careful—as if the fragile skin might bruise under even this featherlight touch.
The station's lights painted Mike's face in fractured gold and shadow, catching on the dried blood at his hairline where Vecna's grip had thrown him against the flooring of the MAC-Z.
Something hot and feral coiled in Will's chest at the sight, his fingers twitching with the urge to dig into the Upside Down's rotting flesh and tear until it screamed like Mike had screamed.
Oh god—he'd kissed Mike.
He'd actually kissed Mike.
The realization hit Will and bowled bom over, his pulse roaring in his ears loud enough to drown out the generator's hum.
All those years of stolen glances, of day dreaming foe the boy who was now his, of graphite-smudged daydreams scribbled in margins—none of it compared to the way Mike's mouth had felt against his, hot and desperate and real.
Mike hadn't shoved him away. Hadn't called him a freak. Had instead clutched at Will's shirt like it was the only thing tethering him to earth, like he'd been waiting just as long.
This beautiful boy was his—Mike Wheeler with his sharp elbows and sharper tongue, who'd fought monsters with a candlestick and a flashlight before he'd even hit puberty.
Who'd comforted Holly about monsters under the bed while Vecna's shadow stretched across Hawkins, who'd bled for Will more times than either of them could count.
The realization curled hot and insistent in Will's chest, settling behind his ribs like a second heartbeat. Mike stirred against him, his eyelashes fluttering against Will's throat, and Will tightened his grip instinctively, his fingers pressing into the knobs of Mike's spine like he could fuse them together.
Will remembered the way Mike's eyes lit up when he crafted D&D campaigns—how they'd flicker with manic energy as he scribbled notes in margins, ink smudging his fingers, tongue caught between his teeth. The way he'd gesture wildly while explaining some convoluted lore, knocking over soda cans and sending dice skittering across the basement floor without noticing.
How his nose would scrunch when Dustin called his plot twists predictable, the indignant puff of his cheeks as he'd snap, "It's called dramatic irony, you philistine"—his voice cracking mid-rant in that way it still did when he got too excited.
Mike at fourteen, flour dusting his beautifully high cheekbones like war paint as he'd attempted pancakes for the Party's sleepover, somehow managing to set a spatula on fire while Lucas shrieked and Dustin filmed the disaster with Jonathan's camcorder.
The way his nose had scrunched in concentration, his tongue poking out between his teeth just slightly, utterly oblivious to the smoke alarm wailing overhead.
Will had watched him then with the same helpless fascination he had now, the slope of Mike's face lit gold by the station's flickering fluorescents, his eyelashes casting shadows sharp enough to cut.
Will exhaled through his nose, slow and measured, his arms tightening around Mike's shuddering form.
The Upside Down was bleeding into Hawkins faster now—tendrils of rot creeping through the cracks in the pavement, the air thick with spores that glowed like dying embers. The world might be ending, but Mike's weight against him was solid, real, his breath puffing hot against Will's collarbone in uneven bursts.
Lucas stirred again with a wet sniff, rolling onto his side to squint at them through sleep-glued lashes.
"You know," he slurred, voice thick with exhaustion and leftover painkillers, "Dustin owes me forty bucks. And Robin and Steve owe me twenty."
He blinked blearily at them, his bandaged chest rising with a shallow breath, before his eyelids fluttered shut again. His head lolled back against the floor with a soft thud, mouth falling open as he slipped back into unconsciousness mid-sentence, leaving Will to process the implications of that statement through the fog of his own exhaustion.
Will stared at Lucas's slack face, the words processing in slow, disbelieving increments.
"You were betting on us?" he said to absolutely no one.
He would kill Lucas's obnoxious ass.
The concept was so ludicrous he almost laughed, except his throat had gone tight, his fingers twitching against Mike's ribs where they'd been tracing absent circles.
The others had known.
Had watched them orbit each other for years with the detached amusement of spectators at a tennis match, placing bets like they were some predictable rom-com plotline instead of a choked-up tangle of half-confessions and panic attacks.
Mike snuggled further into his side and gave a soft, happy sigh.
Maybe murdering Lucas could wait.