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When Holly was a baby, she had the bad habit of trying to stick her chubby fists directly into Mike’s eyes.
Mike only remembers it so well because the pain of it was unlike anything else. If she caught him with his eyes open, just the impact of her fingers against his eyeball was enough for him to burst into tears, embarrassingly enough. If his eyes were closed, then he’d have enough time to shove her fat baby arms away, but that didn’t stop the pain that would blossom in his eyelid at the force of her movement. The way his eye would feel tender, almost bruised, for the remainder of the day. Sometimes, his eyelids would actually bruise, and he’d have to live through the embarrassment of watching them fade yellow. Holly had broken her bad habit by the time she was a toddler, so Mike hasn’t thought of her shoving her baby fists into his eyes in years. He thinks of that pain now, in the ruined courtyard of the MAC-Z.
The pain of her actions, which had been enough to evoke tears years ago, now seems trivial, almost pleasant, compared to the way his nerves are set on fire as the Demogorgon's jagged claw rips through his right eye. His arm hangs uselessly to his side, pushed down by the force of the Demogorgon's thick, muscled limbs, and he doesn’t know what sound he’s making, or if he’s making a sound at all, because the roar of the many explosions and grenade blasts still ring in his ears.
The feeling of the rip through his face is sickening.
Later, when Mike has to trace the scar, he’ll see that the claw entered just above his eyebrow, forcing its way through flesh and whatever an eyeball is made of, and exited, widening the groove in his face as it went, to the corner of his mouth. Right now, though, he’s scared, and he may or may not be screaming, and he’s really thinking, at that moment, that his head must be getting ripped apart like an extra in a horror movie. He has the entirely plausible thought that his brain has been sliced in half too. It feels like all the systems of his body are screaming at him, and just as violently as the claw enters his body, it exits.
Mike stumbles backwards, away from the Demogorgon, though it’s probably futile. He’s drifting in and out of consciousness, feeling utterly light with pain and his impending death, and he claps his hand over his ruined eye, which he realizes, with a start, makes no difference to his world. It’s like someone has suddenly drawn a curtain over the right side of his vision - there is simply nothing there anymore. It hurts so badly that Mike wishes the Demogorgon would hurry up and finish him off.
He can hardly feel his body, except for his eye, which he feels far too much of. It takes him a moment to realize that his hand, clapped over where the claw entered his face, is dripping wet. When he withdraws it, he watches the blood covered limb fall to his lap. He hardly feels like he can control any part of his body. Somehow, in his stumbling, he’s landed on the ground. There are thick chunks of something resting against his ruined cheekbone. Almost unconsciously, he prods at that area - and it’s a mistake, because the pain runs like lava through his face, so he drops his hand again.
It has been a few moments too long, and Mike realizes, with a start, that he should be dead. The Demogorgon had drawn first blood - and it makes no sense that he is not currently another corpse on the ground, ripped to shreds by unnaturally sharp talons. When he forces his head up, staring away from his lap, he can see the Demogorgon, hovering in mid-air, arm still downturned from its clawing of his eye, frozen as if by magic.
He feels mesmerized. For a moment, Mike thinks that this is just a dying hallucination, something his mind is using to help him get through the pain of having all of his organs ripped out. Then, he looks past the Demogorgon, to Will, and he knows this is reality.
Will stands amidst the bloody scene of the MAC-Z, and he looks powerful. It should be impossible to be so powerful in a situation like this, but Will has been known to do the impossible, Mike thinks. Mike’s remaining eye hurts as he strains to look at Will across the courtyard, but he keeps straining, because he needs to see. And he does see: Will’s purposefully twitching body, the power that courses through every limb as he draws his arms to his chest, the Demogorgon's limbs snapping, and finally, the monster, dropped unceremoniously to the ground, discarded like a piece of trash. Will falls to his knees. Mike thinks that magic must ripple outwards from Will as the other boy touches the ground - a chill floats up his spine, not from pain at all.
The strain of his smile aggravates the pain in his eye. Mike can’t find the strength to get up from the cement, as much as he tries to make his stupid limbs run to Will, but he can’t take his remaining eye from Will’s form. He wants to go to him as fast as he can, but despite his best efforts, the most he can achieve is a stumbling crawl, where the blood from his eye drips into his mouth, alongside liquids that he hopes are blood, and he can only keep that pace for a few seconds before he sprawls on the concrete, staring at Will as the other boy wipes his nose of blood. Some of it drips to the cement below. Mike can’t decide what to watch - the rise and fall of Will’s chest, or the blood that stains on his wrist, or even the few droplets that smear the cement below.
It takes all the energy Mike has in his body to keep his head up, and it is worth it to see Will’s eyes reappear, burning hazel into their previous blankness. Those eyes - Mike feels like the breath has been punched out of him - Will’s eyes are looking at him. In that moment, the pain vanishes. If his stupid limbs cooperated, Mike could get up and jump from cloud to cloud, he could run a marathon, and he could shout about his not-really newfound realization regarding his feelings to the world. If Will kept looking at him forever, Mike thinks that he could do anything.
Will’s eyebrows scrunch. Mike follows the motion of the other boy’s body down to the last millisecond - and that’s why he’s not surprised when Will rips himself up from the concrete, and runs to him.
At the moment that Will touches him, frantically rolling him so he’s belly-up, Mike remembers that his face is probably pretty ugly right now. He makes an effort to cover his ruined eye with his hand, which is stopped by Will before he can even touch the skin of his face.
“Mike, oh my god,” Will says, and even though he’s slurring his words, his hand in Mike’s has a hold as strong as steel. They’re holding hands. Mike’s smile widens, and he tries to squeeze back, though he’s not sure if that’s successful. Liquid drips down onto his face, and he realizes, alarmed, that Will is crying. That doesn’t seem right. “Oh my god, oh my god, what the fuck -”
“Will, don’t be sad,” he insists, bringing their joined hands to touch Will’s face, “You’re magic. You’re a sorcerer,” and then, because Will is still looking at him, and the other boy’s eyes are unfairly pretty when they’re wet, “My sorcerer,” he says, smiling harder. Will just seems more upset by that, and if Mike weren’t still experiencing the worst everything-ache of all time, he’d probably be flustered by how close Will’s chest is to his own. The other boy is basically boxing him in, his arms blocking Mike’s view of the deserted battlefield around them. Not that Mike’s view is intact right now.
Will rears his head back, and screams, “Mom, oh my god, Mom, we need to - Mom, help!” He wails. Ms. Byers may or may not be approaching them - honestly, Vecna could make a re-appearance, and at this moment, Mike doesn’t think he’d notice. His eye is focused on Will, and really, that’s a good place to rest it. He brings their joined hands to his own chest, regretfully noting that some of his blood is smeared across Will’s fingers, and tries to make his point before the spots engulfing his remaining vision take him completely. Will’s tears splashing on his face feel like being washed clean by a hard rain. The other boy’s face is pointed right at him, leaned close. Like Mike is the most important thing in the world. Mike’s chest feels warm.
“It’s yours,” he tries to articulate, keeping the other boy’s hand crossed with his, resting just over his heart. “Will, it’s yours,” he stresses, but blood from his eye keeps dripping into his mouth from its ripped corner, which in itself makes enunciating hard. He hopes Will gets the point. Will is looking at him again, worried, confused, and Mike takes a different approach, needing to get his message across, even as his ears register the frantic footsteps of Ms. Byers.
His back protests, and his whole body screams as he raises himself up on his elbows, but he manages to press his lips to Will’s. He hopes his lips aren’t grody from blood, or, more charitably, that Will doesn’t mind the blood. Or the awkward way that Mike’s mouth can’t close all the way, on the account of the right side of it being ripped to hell. He breaks away when his elbows collapse under him, and stares up at Will, feeling his cheeks flush as the other boy stares back at him, still crying, but with a faint pink blush across his face. Will’s free hand had come to cradle the side of Mike’s face during their short kiss, and he can’t help but lean into it, allowing his head to rest against the other boy’s fingers. Those same fingers move a piece of hair from his sweaty face.
Mike opens his mouth to say something, anything more - and the spots in his vision, tired of being held at bay, take him completely. The last thing he knows, before unconsciousness takes him completely, is the weight of Will’s loving eyes focused entirely on him.