Chapter Text
Mike thinks that this might be what Hell was.
Fire, bullets flying, children screaming as chaos reigned around them. The night was being lit up by gouts of flame coming from flamethrowers that some of the soldiers were recklessly wielding, the bright bursts of orange and white making spots dance behind his eyes as he tried to lead the kids behind him towards the Radio Shack.
They would be safer there, able to duck down into the tunnels to hide from the blood thirsty monsters that were looking to tear them limb from limb.
They were cornered before he could get them across the road, a Demogorgon leaping in front of him and Mike threw out his arms in a futile attempt to protect the kids behind him, to protect Will who was practically being dragged forward by his mother.
He tried to backtrack, tried to usher the kids in another direction but when he turned around there was another Demogorgon waiting for them. Claws flexing and petaled face rippling with what looked like anticipation.
Mike swore that the screech it let out sounded like a laugh.
But suddenly, the one in front of them was being met with a giant plume of fire from one of the hazmat suited soldiers, flailing and screeching against the sudden pain as the rest of them did the same. Even when there were no visible burn wounds, Mike could see that the fire was affecting them just the same.
Which meant that it was doing the same thing to Will.
The other boy was on the concrete, screaming and thrashing against the pain that was being fed to him through the hivemind and Mike just wanted everything to stop. He couldn't deal with this anymore, he wanted to go home, he wanted his mom.
But he couldn't have any of those things, not when they were still surrounded by danger on every side. There were kids there that he had to look out for, he couldn't let them be taken, he just couldn't.
Any thoughts or ideas he might have had about getting them all out of there safely were flushed from his head when his eyes snagged on the monstrous figure that was tearing his way through the gaping portal that led to the Upside down.
Vecna was hideous, vines crawling over his body and spikes protruding from his shoulders. Mike watched in a stunned sort of horror as the monster ripped through half a dozen soldiers in a blink of an eye with what looked like no effort. He gagged on bile when he watched Vecna spear his spiked hand clean through a man's head, the squelching sound when he pulled in loose seeming to echo across the tarmac even with the chaos surrounding him.
The man with the flamethrower was advancing, spouting out a thick gout of flame at Vecna in the hopes that it would be the thing to take him down. It didn't work, all Vecna had to do was raise a hand and the flame was being thrown back towards the flamethrower wielding man.
Mike knew what was going to happen before it happened, he knew when he saw the fire glint off of the canister of accelerant that was attached to the flamethrower. When fire met something flammable that was condensed in the way this one was, there was only one outcome.
He didn't even have time to warn anyone about what was going to happen before fire was flaring towards them in a tidal wave, carrying a shock wave of force that sent him flying through the air.
He landed hard, head slamming against the concrete and everything went black.
He didn't know how long it had been before he was blinking his eyes open again, head ears ringing as he took in the blurry sight of the kids he had been trying so hard to protect, being dragged away by Demogorgon’s. He tried to make a noise, maybe something to distract the monsters so that he could somehow manage to make a plan on how to get them back, but his tongue felt swollen in his mouth and the only sound he managed to make was more like a whine than anything coherent.
He blinked again, vision black around the edges and suddenly, they were gone, dragged down into a slowly closing portal. He tried to sit himself up, only succeeding in hoisting himself up to rest on his hands. Everything was moving, the floor, the sky, the Demogorgon that was prowling closer and closer as the seconds passed.
He wanted to run, he wanted to scream, he wanted to lay down until the ringing in his ears stopped and he could think without feeling like his skull was being split open.
He didn't get to do any of that. When he tried to scramble to his feet, all he did was slam himself clumsily against the half-exploded vehicle behind him, sliding down onto his ass because his knees were too weak to keep him upright.
He was going to die here, wasn't he? The Demogorgon was crawling closer, claws scraping against the concrete and drool dripping from its snarling maw, staining the concrete wherever it landed.
His heart was beating in his chest so hard that he was surprised that it wasn't falling out of his chest to fall onto the floor in front of him. The monster screeched, extending a clawed hand and all Mike could do was cower away, raising his arms in another futile attempt to protect something.
His arm was knocked away with bruising force, hit away so hard that his arm was unwillingly thrown to the side, the back of his hand slamming against the tank behind him that he swore he felt something pop. That didn't matter for very long, not when a much worse pain was quick to steal away his attention and the air in his lungs.
Mike wasn't sure what the worst pain that he had ever felt in his life was. He didn't get hurt very often, scraped knees and bruised foreheads from tumbles and falls. Maybe it had been the few times that he had been shoved around by bullies at school, like the time Troy had shoved him and made him slam his chin into a rock, but other than that, Mike had no idea what the worst pain he had ever been in was.
Well, he did now. Knew it in the way blood felt into his lap with a wet splattering sound as it streamed down his face. He screamed, or at least he thought that he screamed, he couldn't really tell.
He had watched as the Demogorgon’s claw had arc’d towards his face, unable to pull his blown pupils away from the horrible scene unfolding in front of him. He hadn't seen the exact moment that the claw had made contact, but he had felt it.
Oh God, he had felt it. The way that it had dragged against his skin, splitting it under harsh pressure. It burned like nothing had ever burned before, the air stinging against the wound, the duality between the cold air and hot blood making his head spin.
He kicked his legs out uselessly, pressing himself closer to the thing behind him as if it would be able to shield him.
His hands were cupping his face, the pressure of his fingers against the wound making him scream again. He couldn't see, his eyes blurred with tears and pain in a way that made everything fuzzy,
No… wait… only one of his eyes was bouncing around wildly, eyeing the snarling Demogorgon that was sniffing at the fresh splatter of blood on its claw. He was watching it, a keen rising in his chest when he realized that it was only out of one eye.
It was- It must've been the blood that was making it hard to see, the blood was gluing his eye shut, that was why he couldn't see.
He cried out when the Demogorgon turned back towards him, flinching away when it roared in his face, tensing like it was about to lunge.
But it never did.
Mike watched in a haze as it froze in place, a pained warble leaving its throat in one continuous sound as it was lifted from the ground, limbs twitching against a hold that Mike couldn't see.
His eyes darted around wildly, looking for some explanation for what was happening. He almost gasped aloud when he finally found it.
Thirty feet away, a little blurry around the edges, Will was standing, back straight, arm outstretched and eyes whited out. Mike could see the way that he was shaking, the way that his other arm snapped out for seemingly no reason at all, his head flying backwards just a moment later.
It was like time froze, the very air going still as the Demogorgon hanging in the air in front of him broke. Grey limbs snapped with a crack, a tortured shriek rising in the thing's throat before its neck was twisted violently and it fell to the floor with a wet thud.
Mike stared, both his hands cradling the blood covered side of his face, so that he could pretend in his shock that it was his hands that were making it dark and not something worse. He dragged his eyes upwards from where they were staring at the dead Demogorgon, head feeling like it was filled with rocks as he searched once again for where Will was standing.
He didn't feel like he was really there anymore as he watched Will wipe away a streak of blood that was dripping from his nose, eyes rolling back from white to the warm brown that they had always been.
Mike was pretty sure that he was gaping, mouth hanging open as he stared at Will, the pain taking a backseat for the sheer, unadulterated awe that Mike was feeling. Will was standing tall, power seeming to pour off of him even as his legs shook.
He was beautiful, backlit by fire and framed by the burning carcasses of thrown trucks.
The awe didn't last long though. He shifted his hand against his face and had to grit his teeth to keep himself from shouting out in pain. Something squished under his fingers, and he found himself leaning forward over his knees and retching.
Nothing came up, but when he opened the bleary eye that he hadn't even realized he had closed, blood was dripping through his fingers and splattering on the already blood stained ground. There was a lot of blood, more than he was sure was a healthy amount to lose as quickly as he was using it.
He had to know.
His fingers were tentative as he pulled them away from his face, the amount of blood pouring down increasing. They were even more tentative when he prodded gently at what he thought was the edge of the claw mark.
White spots flared behind his eyes, a sob catching in his throat at the pain that rocketed through his face. It felt like his brain was on fire, ears still ringing and everything aching in a horrible way. He felt like he was dying.
There was pain where his eyebrow was, pain torn into the very corner of his lips, pain where his left eye should have been…
He gagged at the feeling of torn flesh under his fingers, warm and wet in the most disgusting way, like ground beef had been slapped onto his face and left there to rot. His eye was gone, just like that, he knew it was. There was no way that it was still there when he was in as much pain as he was.
He cupped his face again, with just one hand this time, his palm filling with blood.
There was a hysterical sound coming from somewhere, high pitched and terrified. Someone was scared, or maybe they were hurt! Mike didn't know, he had to help them, he had to!
He tried to haul himself up with the hand that wasn't clinging to his face, but all he managed to do was lurch upwards the smallest but before crashing back down to his knees. The sound was louder now, frenzied sobs rending the air.
Something was wrong was the only thing that he could think, curling blood covered fingertips into the concrete below. Gitty pieces of gravel dug into them, but Mike couldn't find it in himself to give a fuck.
He had to help whoever was crying, was it one of the kids? He needed to help them, to get them away from all the dead bodies and the ruined monsters, he had to…
There were hands on his shoulders, fingers clenching into the fabric of his ruined sweater. And Mike flinched away, the hysterical noises breaking into something wounded as he tried to curl away from the touch.
“Mike, oh my God, Mike are you okay, where are you bleeding?” Someone was asking him something, their voice buried under the ringing in his ears and the hysterical sobs that sounded close enough that he could reach out and touch whoever was making them.
He couldn't breathe, his mouth was moving without making any words, chest heaving as he tried to suck in any air and he belatedly realized that he was the one making the high-pitched sobbing sounds. It sounded like a dog that was whining after being kicked, not like something a teenage boy could make, not like something he could make, but the sound was coming out of him anyways.
“W-Will, my, uh, my eye, Will, my eye.” He managed to stutter out pathetically between sobs, blood in his mouth, leaking in from the corner where he was pretty sure the Demogorgon’s claw had sliced through it.
“Let me see it, Mike!” Will demanded, voice frantic and exhausted.
Mike made another attempt at lifting his head, succeeding this time, his head rolling on his neck, hand still covering what was left of his mangled eye. His working eye didn't want to cooperate, drifting back and forth in lazy circles as Mike tried to get it to focus.
“Will, I uh, someone’s crying,” His chest hitched painfully, feeling dreadfully cold all of a sudden, his whole body feeling like it was undergoing its own personal earthquake with the way that he was shaking.
“You’re crying, Mike, nobody else is here.” There was a smaller hand cradling the back of his head now, Mike had to turn more than normal to see who it was, head dipping back and forth as he tried to keep it up.
Mrs. Byers was there now; blood streaked on her face and a distraught expression underneath the splatters of red.
“No, ‘m not cryin.” He hiccupped, head dipping backwards, and he felt like the only thing that was keeping him from toppling backwards onto his back was the steady hand at the back of his head.
“Will, go find something for the bleeding, anything, I don’t care, take it off of someone if you have to.” Mrs. Byers was saying, her voice demanding attention in a way that Mike rarely heard from her.
He hiccupped again when he felt Will’s warm hands leave his rapidly cooling body, a shudder wracking his already trembling frame.
His legs were going numb where they were folded halfway underneath him, both of his feet off to one side. He could feel his toes going cold even when they were inside of his shoes. He was getting really cold.
Will was gone and Mike had no idea where he was, he swore that he had been there just a second ago, his sorcerer. Mike had fucking called it, Will was a sorcerer, and he had just saved Mike’s ass from becoming Demogorgon chow. Or had he? Everything was fuzzy. All he knew was that Will was supposed to be there.
“Will, where’s-” He forced out, voice hoarse and whiny in a way that he didn't recognize.
“Will’s fine, he’s right over there, I can still see him from here.” Mrs. Byers was saying, a hand moving to his shoulder.
Suddenly, he was being tugged backwards off of his knees and onto his ass, being tilted until he was leaned up against something warm, legs splayed out in front of him. He shuddered at the warmth, squirming as the new position forced blood to rush back into his legs, pins and needles erupting fast enough that it made him whimper with lips that were tacky with blood.
“Mrs. Byers, was’ happenin’? I don’t know was’ happenin’.” He smacked his lips together, letting himself slump back onto the boy supporting him, head lolling back onto a thin shoulder.
The sky was really pretty right now, there were blurry stars speckling the deep blue that made up the night sky. There was smoke curling around the edges of his view, but he could ignore it for the stars. They were really pretty.
“Just some bumps and bruises, sweetheart, we’ll have you fixed up in no time.” There was a hitch in her voice, something terrified and unsure shining through but Mike didn't have the brain capacity to pay attention to it.
“It ‘urts really bad.” He warbled, chest hitching with a breath that shuddered violently when he breathed it out.
“I know, just take some deep breaths for me, we’re going to get you through this.” She was saying, but Mike lost her voice when his attention dragged to where Will was stumbling back towards them, a torn shirt clenched in his hands.
“I couldn't find anything else but I found a knife too, so that means we can make strips and wrap it at least.” Will said, dropping to his knees near Mike’s left side.
“That’s fine, we just need to stop the bleeding until we can get him to the hospital.”
“We can't go to the hospital, mom, the military knows what we look like now, they’ll come for him if we leave him there.”
“... there are still leftover sedatives at the Radio Station, we can get there, give them to him and fix him up. I know Murray practically stocked that place like a damn hospital, it’ll have to be good enough.” There was something steely in Mrs. Byers voice now.
“Okay, okay.” A pause, “Mom, what do I do?”
There was a plea in Will’s tone that had Mike’s attention straying towards the other boy without his input, head rolling on the shoulder that he was resting on. Will was kneeling beside him, and he looked exhausted from what Mike could tell with his one good eye. Blood under his nose, clothes torn and a sag to his shoulders, but he looked alert, eyes wide and scared,
“Cut off a square and fold it a few times but make sure that it’s still big enough to cover everything. We can put that over it and then use the rest to tie it down and make sure it doesn't move.” The body under him said to Will, before Mike felt the attention shift towards him, “You have to move your hand, Mike, we need to see what’s wrong.”
Mike knew what was wrong, his eye was gone, slashed to pieces under the claws of an interdimensional monster.
He let his hand drop limply to the floor, his fingers having stuck to his face a bit where the blood was starting to dry around the edges, the blood that had been cupped in it streaking down his face in a terrifying stream of red.
He didn't react to the audible gasps that he got from both of the Byers that were with him, his body having seemingly gone numb as the minutes passed. He blinked sluggishly, the muscles where his left eye used to be twitching as they tried to copy the movement. It felt like he blinked without an eye there to actually do it.
“Fuck, mom, his eye, fuck, his eye.”
It was telling that Mrs. Byers didn't try and tell him off for swearing.
“‘S it gone?” He couldn't help himself from asking, voice ragged.
He was pretty sure that he already knew the answer, but he wanted to make sure before he jumped to any conclusions.
Neither of them answered him, but that was enough of one to answer his question.
He should have probably been freaking out more, but his mind had decided to settle on something frighteningly blank. The pain was there, screaming at him in the background but it was manageable if he didn't move or think about it.
Which was hard to do when Will was pressing something against it with a muttered apology.
He cried out, trying to turn his face away from the rough fabric that was causing him so much pain. But there were hands holding his head in place and he felt too weak to buck against the arm that was suddenly wrapped around his ribs.
“Hurts, hurts, Will, it ‘urts!” He mumbled brokenly, voice rising in pitch as the pressure increased.
“I know, I am so sorry, Mike, it’ll be over soon and then we’ll get you on the good drugs. The ones that Robin stole will knock you out hard enough that you won’t feel a thing.” Will soothed frantically.
Mike had to use all his strength to lift his aching arm and wrap a blood-soaked hand loosely around one of Will’s wrists where they were resting near his face. He didn't try to tug Will’s hand away from where he was pressing something to the ruined half of his face, he didn't think that he had the strength to do that no matter how much he wanted to do it. He just held on, tears dripping out of the eye that was still there, pupil blown and an emptiness behind it.
He just wanted to be able to feel Will, to be able to draw some comfort from the toned warmth of his skin.
He wanted to pass out more and more the longer that the fabric was pressed against his face, but for some reason his body would let him, even when tight strips of fabric were tied around his face to keep it in place and he was hauled to his feet between Mrs. Byers and Will. He doesn't think he actually took a single step, Will practically dragging him until he was pulled into the back seat of a truck that he had never seen before in his life.
Will got in first, and Mrs. Byers handed him off to her son to tug up onto the seat so that he was practically sitting in Will’s lap between his spread legs as the two of them sprawled sideways on top of all three of the seats. The mostly unbloodied part of his face was resting on Will’s chest, eyes fluttering as he drifted to the sound of Will saying quiet nothings into his ears, the other boy’s chin pressed firmly into the blood-soaked curls on his head.
Mike didn't know what he was saying, could decipher it through the dull roar that was filling his ears, but he knew they were probably nice. Will always seemed to have nice things to say.
He wished he could pass out, but something kept him awake. Maybe it was the way that Will prodded at him any time his eyes shut for more than a few seconds, a worried pitch in his voice. Or maybe it was the way that the truck would rattle as Mrs. Byers took the turns faster than she should have.
He didn't know.
He just wanted to pass out.