Chapter Text
Mike traces the seam between tiles with the toe of his Converse, his eyes trained on the dreary grey and beige spots of the hospital’s linoleum floor. The waiting room is quiet except for the occasional ring of the reception desk’s phone and the periodic bubble from the fountain as some poor next-of-kin fills a paper cone with water. Lucas and Eleven had left Mike there to take their fifteen-minute visitation in Max’s room, where she lay as unmoving as she had for the past six months. Two at a time, the short, plump lady at reception ordered. There have apparently been “incidents.”
Mike chuckles to himself, recalling the last time he’d visited the hospital, when Ms. Driscoll was bedridden and fertilizer-filled. At least this time, the time passing was just boring, instead of increasingly perilous. He’d had enough of peril lately.
A sharp squeak breaks Mike’s space-cadet-helmet, and his head jerks up just in time to spot Will stumbling over his shoe in front of him, regaining balance in a few hesitant yet redeeming steps. Will's lips press into an awkward, self-deprecating smile, which turns into something more like to a tense line when he makes eye contact with Mike.
“Sorry, I’m late, I grabbed some coffee from the cafeteria.” Will glances around at nothing. When he looks back, he offers Mike a brown disposable cup. It's lukewarm.
“Ah, thank… you.” Mike accepts the cup graciously, glancing at the floor as if he might find it a new color this time. “They’ll probably be out soon, if you want to visit Max.”
-
Mike and Max hadn’t ever been all that close, he grumbles to himself as he rolls out of bed in the morning. Mike is expected to visit her weekly, and today, as the September air leaks into his room and chills him, Mike's not feeling too keen on it. Max once had a habit of trying to get his girlfriend to dump him. It was stupid and immature--
Mike's internal conversation halts fast, and mortification burns his cheeks. He's standing here, conscious, in his room, holding this stupid grudge against his friend who's been in a coma for months? His skin prickles in shame, and he pulls on a tee from the mess under his nightstand before the September chill can turn the prickle into goosebumps.
Mike knows without a doubt how shitty it is for him to have held something so juvenile against Max, for having been an ignorant ass to his friends when he missed El last year. But what could he do about it? He could be the first visitor to the hospital and apologize himself, even if she couldn't hear. With his mind made up, Mike leaves the house in a rush, biking down to the hospital just fast enough that the breeze chills him to goosebumps anyway, and his first efforts of the day are futile.
-
“I’ll go in, yeah,” Will agrees finally, brushing his palm against the belt loop on the side of his jeans. He watches the swing of his own hand down, against his pocket, and then back up, as though he were looking for car keys or something. But he doesn't have car keys, and Mike thinks it looks less like Will is looking at something in particular, and more like he's looking away from Mike.
Every look Will made now was one away from Mike.
So Mike sips his coffee and stays quiet as he shifts his interest to the pasty beige walls. There is no pattern to track in those, though, and to notice them suddenly feels awfully claustrophobic. Feeling trapped is the last thing Mike needs right now, in this silent moment with Will, so he stands up. Not much time has passed – only a few seconds – for Will still stands nearby, mingling over the short table strewn with magazines, watching the swinging doors which lead from the waiting area to patient rooms.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Mike announces in a sudden and awkwardly loud breath. He's about to correct his volume, but Will speaks before he can.
“Are you visiting Max?” Will asks.
The two boys snap their eyes to one another, and Mike can't find it in himself to answer that question. It felt invasive, somehow, though Will couldn't have known Mike had been here so much earlier than him.
Will does not reply to Mike either, and instead turns back toward the green swinging doors, which promptly open and pour out Lucas, on heavy footsteps, and Eleven. Her eyes seem focused on Lucas' face for a long moment, and Mike can see why. It's stuck in a sullen frown.
The pair approaches and falls into a loose circle with the boys in the waiting area. Mike takes the distracting instant to shift onto his left foot so his whole body faces Lucas and Eleven. Suddenly, his breathing feels slightly easier than this hospital usually allows.
“Ready to go?” Lucas scans the three friends surrounding him. “I wouldn’t mind getting out of here.”
But he doesn't wait for any answer, his gaze falling to Mike’s torso. “Aren’t you cold with no jacket?”
The right side of Lucas' mouth quirks up as he mouths out the text on the clothes Mike is wearing. “Hellfire club. Jeez, I haven’t even seen my shirt since… April, maybe. Still wearing it?”
Mike grins, tilting his head back in mock exasperation. “My mom took my laundry and didn’t tell me! I came here early this morning.”
He notices someone’s head turn towards him in his peripheral view. It's Will. And of course, he quickly looks away once more.
“What is.. Hell Fire?” Eleven asks Lucas, confusion writ into her brows as she scrutinizes the shirt, from the demon horns to the black baseball sleeves.
A thin memory breaks into Mike’s head just as Lucas turns to El. It's the day the Byers left for Lenora with Eleven. The day they packed up the entire house, throwing out less important childhood memories and packing up more essential ones, as “Never Ending Story” rang in the air. It had been a bitter sound, for everyone thought the story would end when the Byers left. In this memory, the song comes to a close just as Will holds up a binder and a wide, flat box.
“Keep?” He'd asked Mike, who had to search deep for a reply.
“Nah, I can use yours when I come home,” Will answered the question himself, motioning to turn away.
Mike eyed the set with concern before fixing his eyes on Will. “What if you want to join another party?”
Will’s face relaxed, settling on a soft smile.
“Not possible.”
A thick and black feeling sinks somewhere around Mike’s liver, and he rejoins the dull scene in Hawkins Medical.
“It’s the DnD club Mike joined last fall. The one Dustin and Erica told you about joining?”
Guilt. That's the feeling. Mike clears his throat, fighting the urge to look at Will's face now. He is embarrassed. To be caught in the shirt, to have shown up early, and not to be able to look at Will. But apparently avoidance is the wrong choice to make, for the whole circle suddenly falls into silence, and nobody knows quite where to look besides Mike. Will sighs, a tired exhale that Mike recognizes. However, the exact emotion behind this one is unclear, and Mike won't turn his head to make it out.
“I’m gonna go see Max. You guys can go. My mom’s on her way over anyway, to get Jane and me.”
With a nod, Lucas knocks a fist against Will’s shoulder and collects his coat from beside Mike’s seat. Mike takes the queue to follow him out of the glass doors, welcoming the deep breaths he can take of the Midwest autumn air. It felt so stuffy in there, so liminal with the walls that are indiscernible from floors and the air full of sadness or sickness or guilt. The bike ride home is not too cold, like it had been this morning. Instead, Mike feels the noontime sun lying down to rest upon the black cotton over his shoulders, and imagines the rays are the sun's eyes, looking down at him and watching.
He has been imaginative ever since he was a kid, but this image in his mind feels like a necessary lie. He finds, as he drops his bike in the front grass and slips into the cool, artificial light of his house, that he hasn't felt looked at in a long time.