Chapter Text
The first thing Mike noticed after everyone climbed from the Upside Down into the Abyss was the silence. It was dreadfully silent, the only noise native to this dimension being the dust skittering across the ground, blown by the wind.
Mike and Will were standing atop a small hill, overlooking the vast emptiness before them. The sky and ground were yellow, the dry landscape littered by vines and portals to the Upside Down.
Dustin was next to join the pair, landing next to Mike, squinting at the scene below. “Huh.”
“No demogorgons?” Lucas muttered as he joined the others, earning a pointed glare from Dustin.
“Don’t jinx it,” he hissed, sending an elbow Lucas’s way to accompany the harsh look.
“Wh–” the other gasped, swatting Dustin away. “I wasn’t!”
“Yes, you were!” Dustin shot back. “That’s how it works for us, man. You should know that by now.”
“Oh, please,” Lucas deadpanned. “Like me making an observation is what’s gonna alert Vecna that we’re here. What about Steve’s stupid armor making all that noise?”
“Hey!” Steve protested, coming up behind the four. “It’s not even that loud.”
“It’s pretty loud,” Lucas replied, scrunching his nose up slightly.
The older man rolled his eyes and sighed, shaking his head. “And to think I used to bus you guys around everywhere.”
Dustin tossed his arms out at Steve’s comment. The notion earned a placating half shrug from Steve, who rested his hands on his hips as he looked out over the Abyss.
“Huh,” he muttered. “So this is where Vecna’s from?”
“We assume,” Mike offered. “This is probably where El banished him when… y’know.”
Steve blinked at him, then shrugged, looked around, and shook his head. “No, I—I don’t know. What—?”
“I got it,” Dustin muttered, grabbing Steve’s arms and dragging him off to the side to fill him in.
Will watched for a moment, then turned to the remaining two boys with a confused grin. “He’s been with us for how long and he doesn’t know about Jane’s backstory?”
Lucas brought his shoulders up slightly. “That’s on Dustin. I guess he never gave Steve the full story.”
“Don’t they spend, like, forever together?” Mike inquired.
“Maybe it just never came up,” Will offered.
“Or Dustin thought it was El’s story to tell,” Lucas added, earning a thoughtful nod from Mike.
“That makes sense, I guess,” Mike agreed, squinting out at the Abyss.
Robin came up next to Will, nudging his shoulder with her arm. He smiled at her, then glanced at Mike, corners of his mouth turning back down slightly. Mike frowned.
“What are you guys just standing around for?” the girl asked, gesturing toward the Abyss with one hand. “We’ve got supervillain butt to kick.”
“That was lame,” Lucas replied flatly, raising an eyebrow at Robin.
She only shrugged and took a few steps backward. “Lamer than you three doing nothing for the past couple of minutes?”
“We weren’t doing nothing,” Will protested, scoffing lightly.
“Looked like it!” Robin shot back. She spun around and beckoned the others to follow with a large sweep of her arm. “Come on already.”
Will grinned and, after a quick glance down at how steep the hill was, hurried to catch up to Robin. Lucas followed soon after, and Mike stood there with a stubborn frown that he didn’t really understand.
Nancy brushed shoulders with Mike as she and Jonathan trailed behind Robin, giving him a quizzical glance as she did. After casting a soft glare to the side, Mike stepped down from the edge and trudged along behind his sister.
For a long while, there was nothing. The Abyss seemed to stretch on endlessly, and the only indicator they had that they were going the right way was Will’s vague idea of where the source of the hive mind was (that being Vecna, of course). At some point, Mike begged Nancy to let him use one of the many guns she had been carrying. He didn’t want to have to defend himself with a candlestick and a dream.
She shrugged at his request. “Yeah, sure. Here.”
Mike beamed as his sister pulled one of the weapons off of her back, thrusting it into Mike’s arms, followed by a sash full of what he assumed to be magazines of some kind. He stopped walking to toss the magazines over his shoulder, grinning as he figured out a good grip for the gun. “Holy shit, sick!”
Nancy smiled, faltering in her step for only a moment to glance back at Mike before sidling up next to Joyce.
After letting Mike enjoy his fantasies for a few seconds, Lucas brushed the other boy’s shoulder and muttered, “Dude, those are flares.”
Mike blinked at Lucas as he continued forward, earning a snicker from Dustin before glancing down at the gun to inspect it a bit closer. He peered at the sash of magazines strapped over his chest and… sure enough, now that someone had mentioned it, they did look like flares. He gritted his teeth and jogged to catch up with his sister. “Nancy–!”
Despite his demands for her to give him a real gun, Nancy refused, and Mike was left to grumble about his “useless flare gun” to anyone who’d listen.
Sometime after that interaction, Will suddenly began to complain about a headache. Joyce and Nancy exchanged a worried glance that didn’t go unnoticed by Jonathan or Mike. Mike hurried to the front of the group, arriving a few seconds after Jonathan, who had his hand on his brother’s back and was muttering a question about his head.
Mike made it just in time to hear Will’s shaky response.
“It’s the hive mind,” he managed, one hand pressed to the side of his head, expression tense. “I think—I think something’s coming. Something big.”
“Something or somethings?” Nancy asked, peering past Joyce to glance worriedly at Mike. It wasn’t a typical worried expression, though; Nancy always looked more frustrated or prepared when she was worried, like she was preparing herself for something. In this case, Mike figured that made sense.
Will winced. Mike instinctively flinched forward, wanting to help, but Jonathan was in the way, and he and Joyce were already resting hands on Will to assist him if the headache got too bad.
“A lot,” Will whispered. “They’re— It’s like an—an army.”
“A lot of what?” Lucas interjected, drawing the Byers and Wheelers’ attention. “Demogorgons?”
“Bats?” Robin asked, peeking past Lucas.
“Demodogs?” Dustin offered.
After a moment’s hesitation, Will nodded.
All of them.
Mike swallowed hard, a cold sweat running down his back. “... We need to get ready.”
“Ready for what, exactly?” Robin inquired, glancing around at the others as they began to unload their weapons. “What are we even fighting?”
“A little bit of everything, apparently,” Steve replied. Mike was kinda glad he’d spoken before Mike, because if Mike had to answer Robin’s question, he would’ve been far meaner about it. Unintentionally. Probably.
“Will, you and Mom should stick together,” Jonathan instructed, holding his brother gently by both arms. “You can’t fight like this.”
“It’s not that bad—”
“It’ll just get worse as they get closer,” Lucas cut in sternly. He paused, then nodded toward the older Byers. “Jonathan’s right. You should just stay behind us so you don’t get hurt.”
Will opened his mouth to protest, but decided against it, clenching his jaw and glaring down at the ground in defeat. Mike felt bad; he knew Will hated feeling useless, like he couldn’t help the party at all, but Mike also knew that Lucas and Jonathan were right.
“How are we doing this?” Steve asked, holding his weapon in both hands as he addressed no one in particular. “Square? Circle? Splitting up into groups?”
“Splitting up would be a bad idea.” Dustin put his hands on his hips and glanced around the group, squinting at Will for a moment before shrugging at Steve. “I think a circle’s our best bet. Then Will and Joyce can be in the middle. It’s the best way to cover all sides.”
“No blind spots,” Lucas hummed, nodding approvingly. “I like it.”
“Okay, well, we’d better get this plan going, because…” Robin trailed off, head angled up toward the sky. Everyone followed her gaze, turning to look at the yellow horizon, only to see a dark cloud approaching.
Nancy squinted. “Are those…?”
“Bats?” Dustin finished, eyes widening as he paused to press his lips together nervously. “Yeah.”
“A shit ton of ‘em, too,” Steve muttered sourly.
Lucas cleared his throat. “We’ve got more company.”
“What?” Mike turned around, squinting at the small dark line on the ground. “Oh, shit.”
“That’s a lot of demos,” Dustin breathed.
“Alright, we gotta hurry,” Steve announced to himself. He turned to address the group, pointing at the different members as he categorized them. “Sinclair, Wheeler—you’re gonna focus on demos. Use the flares and projectiles to weaken and distract them so Henderson and I can finish them off. Robin, Jonathan—you guys focus on the bats. Use the flamethrowers to ward them off. Nance, keep a lookout for anything on the ground or in the sky. You can hit ‘em hard and fast. Mrs. Byers, just focus on Will. Make sure he’s good. We’ll keep everything away from you, okay?”
As Steve went through the roster, everyone nodded and broke off to prepare for the battle. Mike was still a little sour that Nancy had given him a flare gun of all things, but at least he had a ranged weapon. He shuddered thinking about what might go wrong if he had a melee like Steve or Dustin.
Before settling into the circle, Robin approached Mike with an annoyingly gentle smile. “Hey, Wheeler. How you holding up?”
“Fine?” he replied curtly, keeping his eyes down on his gun as he loaded a flare into it.
Robin nodded like the snippiness didn’t bother her. “Well, I just wanted to, uh… I dunno. Clear the air, I guess.”
Mike furrowed his brow and met Robin’s eyes. “What?”
The girl paused, an awkward smile frozen on her face, then glanced to the side and shrugged. “You’ve been sorta…” She hesitated, then scoffed gently. “I don’t know how to put this. You’re pretty protective over Will, right?”
A scoff escaped Mike’s throat. “He’s my best friend. Of course I’m worried about him.”
“I.. didn’t say that,” Robin murmured. She shook her head and shifted gears. “Anyway, that’s—that’s what I wanted to talk about. You’ve been kind of a dick towards me, probably ‘cause Will and I are friends, but you don’t have to be.”
“I’m not—” Mike started, but cut himself off when he realized she was right. He huffed in annoyance and lowered his voice. “I don’t care that you’re friends.”
Robin hummed like she didn’t believe him. “Seems like you do.” She put her hands up in mock surrender when she noticed Mike’s glare grow harsher. “Look, I’m not trying to be rude. It’s just… something I’ve noticed. But seriously, you can relax. I can guarantee that I won’t take your spot as Will’s best friend or anything.”
“We’ve been friends since we were, like, five,” Mike retorted. “You’ve been friends for, what, two days?”
“I mean, it’s been a little longer than that…” Robin mumbled.
“Obviously he’s not gonna replace me with you,” the other continued. It came off a bit harsher than Mike had intended, but even when Robin’s features tensed slightly, he only felt a slight twinge of guilt.
“Ouch,” she chuckled, glancing toward Will. “I get it, I guess, but… I’m not trying to, uh—” she lowered her voice and leaned in slightly, raising an eyebrow— “steal him from you.”
Mike blinked, then narrowed his eyes. “ ‘Steal him from me’ ? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing!” the other replied quickly, offering her hands up again as she backed off. “You just… you don’t have to be so, uh…” She trailed off, gesturing loosely to all of Mike.
The boy sighed, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, okay, I get it. I wasn’t trying to be a dick, it just…” He paused, jaw tensed, and risked a glance at Robin. She was staring at him expectantly, a sort of excitement teasing her face. Mike soured and shook his head, irritation crawling back up his throat. “Nevermind. Just— don’t let anything get to Will, or I’ll kill you.”
Robin’s eyes bore into Mike for a second before she blinked, grinning. “You got it, boss.”
“I’m serious,” Mike stated flatly.
“I am well aware,” Robin responded, faltering slightly in the upbeat tone she’d taken on. “Don’t worry, I’ve got experience with this stuff. Not as much as you, obviously, but… I won’t let anything get to Will. Swear on my life."
Mike pressed his lips into a thin line, studying the girl before him for a few seconds. He didn’t like the placating vibe she was using, and he felt like there was some sort of implication behind what she was saying, but he didn’t have the energy, motivation, or time to deal with it right now.
He averted his eyes and hummed in acknowledgement. “Thanks. I guess.”
The other’s smile widened at Mike’s response, but she didn’t say anything else. She just nodded once and turned around to join Jonathan on the other side of the haphazard circle the group had taken on.
Once she was gone, Mike sighed, relief flooding through him. He didn’t exactly hate Robin, but talking with her one-on-one was exhausting. It took energy to pretend like he cared what she was saying, and he was conserving all of his energy for the oncoming battle. She probably thought he was an asshole. Mike wasn’t sure he minded.
Steve shuffled closer to Mike, glancing back at Robin before turning to the boy to his left. “What was that about?”
The other just shook his head. “Just… uh, nothing.”
A moment of silence passed while Steve studied Mike’s expression, his own darkening suspiciously. “Uh huh. Don’t be a dick, Wheeler.”
“Wh—” Mike tossed his arms out to the side exasperatedly. “What is with everyone calling me a dick today??”
Steve shrugged. “Maybe you should quit acting like one and we’ll stop.”
“Whatever,” Mike grumbled, casting a glare off to the side. If anyone else wanted to insult him, they’d have to wait until the onslaught was over, because he could hear the demos approaching on land.
“They’re here!” Nancy called, turning to face the group briefly before returning to face the oncoming army.
“Bats, too,” Jonathan added. “Mom, how’s Will?”
Mike glanced over his shoulder to check on Will himself. The boy had taken a seat on the ground, calves tucked beneath him, hands grasping at his head. Mike felt a lump form in his throat as he reminded himself that it was, in fact, not the right time to drop everything, fall to his knees next to Will, and dote on his every need.
He hated seeing Will in pain, but there was nothing he could do about it right now other than fend off the demos and keep his best friend safe.
“Not great,” Joyce replied worriedly. She was crouched down next to her son, a comforting hand placed on his back. “Will, honey? How are you doing?”
Will whined under his breath. “There’s too many.”
Joyce and Jonathan shared a look. Dustin spun around at the waist to furrow his brow at the two in the middle of the circle. “What did he say?”
“Nothing,” Jonathan interjected quickly, a slightly nervous pang lacing his voice. “There’s just—”
“A lot of monsters coming,” Joyce finished. “It’s really getting to him.”
“Shit,” Dustin mumbled, turning a concerned expression onto his friend before facing outward again. “We’d better be ready for this.”
“We’ll be fine,” Steve reassured him. “We’ve got Nancy.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere!” Nancy called, casting Steve an unamused smile from Mike’s left.
“Is it flattery if it’s true?” the other shot back.
“Can you not?” Mike interjected, splitting his exhausted stare between the two equally.
Steve smirked and Nancy rolled her eyes, but they thankfully listened and returned their attention to the approaching demos.
Mike clenched his jaw and brought the gun up to his cheek, stabilizing it so that one of the demogorgons was within his line of sight. Nancy did the same, and Mike subtly glanced at her posture, shifted his own to match it, and tried to ignore the smirk that crossed his sister’s face when she noticed.
“Everybody ready?” Steve called out, grip on his weapon tightening.
Various replies rang out into the air, mostly halfhearted whoops or acknowledgements of Steve’s announcement. Mike got the feeling he wanted to add onto it, but a yelp rang out from behind them and caught both Mike and Steve off-guard.
Joyce immediately responded, voice loud and panicked enough to send a wave of fear down Mike’s spine. “Are you okay?”
Mike made the mistake of glancing back to check on Will.
A gunshot rang out next to him, and he jolted back to attention, shakily fixing his flare gun’s aim as everybody else began to fight.
“Focus, Mike!” Nancy shouted, unwavering in her attack on the front line of demogorgons.
“I’m trying!” he snapped back, closing one eye and pulling the trigger of his gun. It bucked back into his shoulder, causing Mike to stumble back a couple of steps. He recovered quickly, tensing his body more to compensate for the gun’s recoil, and tried again.
This time, he didn’t fall backward. Also, the flare actually hit one of the demogorgons, so that was pretty cool.
Unfortunately, Mike’s weapon didn’t do much to stop the demogorgons; it just slowed them down. He didn’t like how close they kept getting, especially since Steve was right next to him and needed the demos to be close to attack them, but he liked how the flares did more damage when he used them at close range.
They all fell into a sort of rhythm once they figured out their weapons, how to use them best, and how many demos and bats they needed to worry about. Mike stopped getting so nervous when he missed one of the demogorgons because Nancy would jerk her gun over and blast it in the head, then move back to a couple that were charging toward her without a second thought. He wished Nancy had given him her gun instead of the flares, but damn was she good at using it. Mike figured it was better this way since he probably would’ve wasted half the shots anyway.
For a while, Mike was doing well. But he was starting to get tired. He’d assumed that the onslaught would’ve dwindled or even stopped by now, but no. The demos were unrelenting. It felt like a hydra; when they’d kill one demo, two more would rush out to finish the job. There were a few close calls, but the older kids flanking Mike’s left and right made sure to cover Mike’s mistakes whenever he wasn’t paying close enough attention to every side.
He saw a demogorgon to his right and swiveled his gun toward it, shooting a flare into its mouth. It screeched, stumbled backward, and gave Steve the opening he needed to jab its chest with his own weapon.
What Mike didn’t see was the demogorgon to his left, the one that was rushing toward Will, who was still down on his knees in the middle of the protective circle everyone had made around him. Nancy was facing her left, focusing on a couple of demodogs that Lucas had just momentarily downed with his projectiles; Joyce was distracted, shouting warnings at Jonathan when he was about to be caught off-guard by a demodog barreling toward him; and Mike was aiming at a demogorgon to his right, one that was about to lunge for Dustin and Steve, under the incorrect assumption that Nancy would be able to cover his left for a few seconds.
That was how it got in. And that was how it was able to reach its claws out and grab Will, pulling him off the ground and tossing him out toward a rock all in the same sweep of motion. It followed through by twisting back around mid-air and bringing its other hand down on Lucas, who was only able to dodge the attack because he tripped over Robin, both of them falling to the ground as the demogorgon flew over them.
Mike hadn’t really been paying attention to the demogorgon, though. He saw something move in his peripheral vision and, assuming it was another demogorgon, swiveled around with the flare gun to aim at it. But it was moving away from the group, and that was the first thing that he noticed as being weird. The second thing was how it collided with a boulder and crumpled to the ground, laying there unmoving for a moment before Mike realized what it was.
Will.
All the air left his lungs.
Mike lunged forward before he even thought about what to do. He was at Will’s side within seconds, dropping to his knees next to the other and pulling Will upward, hands beneath the boy’s head and shoulders to support him.
“Will!” he shouted, studying the other’s face with terse fervor. “Will, are you okay?!”
The boy didn’t move. His eyes were shut and his features were softer, almost relaxed, but Mike didn’t want that. It wasn’t good that Will wouldn’t respond.
“Will!” he tried again, jostling his friend slightly.
Nothing.
Mike swallowed thickly and spun around to check how the group was faring. They seemed to be holding their own fairly well, and while none of them appeared to have noticed Mike’s absence, it was their lack of a reaction to Will being missing that irked him. He gritted his teeth and turned back to Will, muttering something while shifting his grip.
Then, he felt something on his hand. He checked it quickly, the sight of wet crimson making his stomach drop.
“Shit,” he mumbled, glancing back at Will’s face, hand returning to the boy’s head.
He chewed his lip, looked back at the others one last time, then moved his hands. One went to Will’s legs while the other rested on his back, allowing Mike to pick Will up with a slight struggle. Once he was up, though, he was moving immediately. He didn’t know where exactly he was going, but he knew he had to get Will somewhere safe. Before he knew it, he was setting Will down behind a cliff edge, careful not to drop him and cause more harm than what was already done.
Mike hardly even registered the tremble in his hands as he pressed one of them to Will’s forehead. Then, he gently smacked Will’s cheek in a futile attempt to wake him, mumbling soft pleads and assurances in the hopes that somehow, his words would reach Will and pull him from his slumber.
Still, nothing happened.
“Please, Will, come on,” he begged quietly, nose stinging. “Come on, man. Wake up.”
He tried everything he could think of, which, admittedly, wasn’t a whole lot. He did take off his beanie and tug it over Will’s head, though, thinking that it might help with the bleeding. Eventually, Mike accepted that Will wasn’t coming to anytime soon. He sat down with his back to the sharp incline of the inner cliff edge, pulled Will into his lap, and got his flare gun ready. It wasn’t much, but maybe it could deter anything that noticed them.
While swiveling the barrel back and forth to cover each side that was exposed, Mike kept sneaking glances down at his friend, checking to make sure he was okay. A couple of times, he had to stare at Will’s chest for a few seconds to ensure it was still moving. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if Will suddenly stopped breathing. It was honestly the only reason Mike knew the other was still alive.
It took a while for the distant sounds of shooting, shouting, and screeching to die down. Mike didn’t know exactly how long he’d been sitting there with Will, but he was rather relieved that the first living thing that he pointed the gun at was Joyce.
She jolted at the weapon but relaxed when Mike did.
“Sorry,” he managed, lowering the flare gun with a sigh.
Joyce opened her mouth to reply, but stopped short when her eyes landed on Will. “Oh my god.”
Before Mike could even register what she’d said, Joyce was on her knees in front of Mike, grabbing Will’s shoulders, arms, hand, face… She was moving around quite a bit, surveying Will with wide eyes and erratic breathing that felt like a mixture of relief and panic.
“What happened?” she asked finally, looking up to meet Mike’s eyes before studying Will again. She pressed her fingers against his neck, waited for a few seconds, then sighed, sitting back. “I—I knew he was gone, but I didn’t—I didn’t see, and I—I wanted to look for him, and I was about to, but then Jonathan stopped me because we were still being attacked and—”
“Joyce,” Mike interjected, ducking his head down to catch her gaze. Her voice had broke near the end of her ramble, tears welling up in her eyes as she’d gesticulated wildly before being stopped. “He’s— It’s okay. I mean, I barely even— I—” He cut himself off, staring at the ground before taking a deep breath and clearing his throat. “Um, he was attacked by a demo that got through. I didn’t see it until Will was… he got thrown by it, I think, and he hit his head on a rock. I don’t know… he was bleeding, so I—I put my hat on him, I don’t know if it did anything, but… I got him away from the fight and—and we’ve been here since.”
The woman was silent for a few seconds, staring sorrowfully down at her boy’s face, stroking his cheek with her finger. “... Thank you for saving him, Mike.”
A lump formed in Mike’s throat. Saving him?
He was the reason Will had even been vulnerable in the first place. He wasn’t sure if Joyce knew that. Would she feel differently if she did?
Mike looked away. “... You don’t have to thank me.”
“I know,” the other admitted quietly. Mike turned to her, studying her face as she spoke. “You’re best friends, so it’s… it’s probably not that big of a deal for you. But I was supposed to stay with him, and I—I wasn’t able to…”
She trailed off. Mike didn’t need her to finish for him to understand what she was trying to say.
“I get it,” he whispered. It was Joyce’s turn to gaze at him while he looked away. “The—The demo got in because I wasn’t paying attention. I was part of that circle to protect both you and Will, and I— it was able to get to Will because I was distracted.” Tears threatened his eyes again. He kept his voice low because he knew if he spoke any louder, it would crack, and then he definitely wouldn’t have been able to hold back tears. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh,” Joyce responded softly, placing a comforting hand on Mike’s, “it wasn’t your fault, honey. I mean it. We were all distracted—any one of us, if we’d been paying a bit more attention to Will, we might’ve been able to catch the demogorgon before it got to him. But it isn’t your fault, okay?”
Mike blinked to clear his eyes and tried to ignore the tears that slipped down his cheeks. He nodded, silent, unable to think of anything to say. It made sense, what Joyce was saying, but Mike wasn’t exactly convinced. He still had this doubt in his mind, some persistent voice that kept telling him that he could’ve done more, should’ve done more… It made sure that Joyce’s words didn’t have the effect she’d wanted them to.
Despite that, Joyce took Mike’s nod as confirmation that he believed her. She smiled (though it didn’t quite reach her eyes) and let her hand drop from Mike’s. She took a moment to shift her sitting position, then took Will’s hand in her own and studied his face again.
“Has he moved at all?” she asked quietly.
Mike took his bottom lip between his teeth and slowly shook his head. “No.”
There was a beat of silence as Joyce rubbed her thumb over the back of Will’s hand, then nodded.
They sat there in silence for the rest of the time. Mike kept himself occupied by surveying their surroundings to ensure their safety, occasionally joining Joyce in staring sadly at Will.
When they were finally found by the rest of the group, it was Robin who first spotted them. She sighed, grinning, then turned and waved down everyone else like she hadn’t just followed Joyce and Mike’s replies to the group shouting their names wildly.
Lucas, Dustin, Jonathan, and Nancy were the next ones to arrive, each expressing relief at seeing their respective family members or friends. The younger boys crouched down in front of Mike, to one side of Joyce, while Jonathan kneeled next to Will and interrogated his mother about his brother’s state. Nancy stood behind Dustin and Lucas, glancing at Will worriedly before flicking her gaze over to Mike, face tense like she couldn’t decide whether to be angry at Mike or be glad he was okay.
“What happened?” Lucas asked, brows knitted together in worry as he looked between Will and Mike.
“A demo got in and threw Will,” Mike explained quietly. “I just… I grabbed him and hid. Joyce found us when you all went to find Vecna.”
“Dude,” Dustin sighed, “we thought you just ditched us.”
“Or died,” Lucas added.
Mike tried to smile. He wasn’t sure if he succeeded.
“Why didn’t you tell anybody?” Nancy inquired, hands on her hips.
Her brother met her gaze while the other two boys turned to glance up at her. “About what?”
Nancy blinked at him like he was stupid. Then, she tossed her hands to the sides with an irritated huff. “Oh, I don’t know—maybe that Will got attacked? Or that you’d run off with him? Or even about where you were going?? We were so worried, Mike!”
“I—I’m sorry,” he managed, partially shocked by his sister’s outburst.
“You should be!” she snapped back.
An awkward silence fell over the siblings as the Byers continued to murmur amongst themselves, Dustin and Lucas pretending not to be paying attention to the Wheeler siblings’ argument.
After a few seconds, Nancy sighed heavily and crossed her arms. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Mike glanced down at Will, then averted his eyes. “... I’m glad you’re okay, too.”
“Uh,” Lucas interrupted hesitantly, “sorry, but… we should go. We still have to get back to Hawkins, and destroy the Upside Down…”
“Oh, shit,” Mike muttered suddenly, turning wide eyes to his sister. “Where’s Holly?”
“She’s with the others, getting out of the Abyss,” Nancy replied, earning a relieved sigh from the other. “But Lucas is right. We need to go.”
“I got Will,” Jonathan piped in. Joyce opened her mouth to protest, but Jonathan muttered something that Mike didn’t quite catch, and the woman relented.
Mike was reluctant to give up Will, but he wasn’t sure what else he could do other than let Jonathan take his brother and carry him back to the gate they’d used to get to the Abyss. He spent most of his time staying near Will or keeping his eyes on the other. He wanted to inquire about the battle with Vecna, but honestly, he didn’t have the energy. He was just… too worried about Will, he supposed.
He didn’t even remember much about how they got back. He could recall the tearful reunion with Holly, but even while riding in the back of the truck with her and the other kids, he couldn’t bring himself to think about much else other than Will. Maybe it was the guilt mixed with worry about his best friend; he wasn’t too sure. All he knew was that when they finally made it back to Hawkins, they rushed Will to the hospital and waited fitfully in the lobby while the doctors did what they could to help.
Most everyone left when it started getting late. Joyce, Jonathan, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin all refused to go, though, and ended up falling asleep in their chairs. Jonathan was the only one to stay awake until someone came out to discuss Will’s condition, at which point everyone was stirred from sleep to hear Jonathan relay the news.
“What did they say?” Mike asked. Dustin yawned as Jonathan fidgeted with his hands, staring at the ground reluctantly.
“Is he gonna be okay?” Lucas appended, rubbing his eye.
Joyce just stared at Jonathan, brows drawn together nervously, bottom lip taken between her teeth.
After a moment, Jonathan inhaled, sighed, and cleared his throat. He was reluctant, painfully so, and it caused a lump to form in Mike's throat before he was even struck with Jonathan's answer. “Uh, they… they said that head trauma is a bit… weird, and there’s a possibility that he’ll have some, uh… memory loss.”
Mike blinked. Memory loss?
Joyce brought a hand to her mouth, a strangled inhale slipping past it.
Lucas sat back in his chair—slowly, like he thought moving too quickly would make everything worse.
“Memory loss?” Dustin echoed, voice slightly hoarse. “What, like he—he won’t remember what happened?”
“They don’t know for sure if he even has it,” Jonathan clarified, “or how bad it is if he does have it.”
“But he’s okay, right?” Mike demanded. His voice sounded a bit hollow.
“Yeah, they said he’ll be okay. It's nothing bad."
“He’s not… gonna be in a coma?” Lucas managed, leaning back in, fingers interlocked in his lap.
Jonathan shook his head. “No. The doctor said he should wake up soon.”
“Will he forget us?” Joyce inquired shakily.
Everyone turned to Jonathan. Mike wasn't sure if it was just him who noticed the air being sucked out of the room. Maybe it was just him.
He swallowed. “Mom, they don’t even know if he has amnesia. It’s just a possibility.”
“Can we go see him?” Lucas asked.
“Not yet,” Jonathan responded, a twinge of disappointment weaving into the even voice he's tried so hard to maintain. “We have to wait a little bit. They have a couple other things to… to take care of until he can have visitors.”
“I’m his mother,” Joyce pointed out, voice cracking as she jabbed a finger to her chest.
“It’s just their policy, Mom,” the other replied gently.
“Well, it’s bullshit!” Joyce snapped, quickly retreating into her chair with her arms crossed and a quiet huff of an apology that none of the boys felt was necessary.
“I know it is,” Jonathan relented with a sigh, “but we can’t really do anything about it. We just… They said we can stay here until Will’s ready for visitors.”
Mike swallowed thickly. Those words kept bouncing around in his mind: Memory loss. Will might have memory loss because of him.
“Okay,” Lucas mumbled, searching the ground for nothing in particular. “I’ll… I’ll call Max in the morning, when they start allowing visitors.”
“I should call Jane,” Joyce added softly. “Should I call…?”
She trailed off, whoever she was talking about going unnamed. Mike felt like he knew who she meant despite that.
“No,” Jonathan responded.
His mother nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t think so.”
Mike looked down at his hands, thumbs fidgeting aimlessly in his lap. “Do I call Nancy? Or… my mom?”
“Isn’t Mrs. Wheeler still here?” Dustin asked, brow furrowed.
The other paused for a moment. The realization dawned on him that he had no idea what happened to his mom. Guilt wormed its way into his chest and made a home there, sitting heavily behind his ribs. “I… I don’t know.”
Joyce reached out, hand resting gently on Mike’s interlocked hands. Mike glanced up at her hesitantly, thankful for the comfort even if he told himself it was unnecessary. “We can ask the front desk if she’s here. Otherwise, I’ll bet she’s at home, resting up and reuniting with her girls.”
“What about your dad?” Jonathan interjected.
Mike turned to the ground. “I don’t know. I think he’s here, too?”
“We’ll ask about Ted, too,” Joyce added. Mike nodded despite not having the overwhelming urge to see his dad right then. He supposed he was still worried and would be relieved to see that his dad was okay, but Mike wasn’t as concerned for Ted as he was for Karen.
“Well,” Lucas began, “I guess there’s not much to do right now.”
“I don’t think I can go back to sleep,” Dustin admitted quietly, glancing between the others.
“Me, neither,” Mike agreed. “I don’t want to leave, though.”
“You don’t have to,” Joyce assured him. “We can all just… sit together and talk, maybe.”
Mike glanced at Lucas, who shared a look with Dustin, who shrugged. “Sure.”
And so they did. Dustin, unsurprisingly, had fallen asleep pretty soon after they settled into boring conversation. Jonathan didn’t engage much but offered his two cents here and there. It ended up mostly just being Mike, Lucas, and Joyce talking with one another about nothing in particular, just trying to keep their minds off of Will’s situation. Still, there was this heavy blanket settled over them constantly, like the very thing they were attempting to avoid thinking about was constantly teasing their thoughts. That’s how it was for Mike, at least.
Eventually, morning came. Lucas used the phone first since he only had one person to call, then handed it off to Joyce to phone everyone she was planning to call. After that, Joyce and Mike asked the front desk about the Wheeler parents. The woman working let them know that both Karen and Ted were admitted currently, but that they were asleep and still in recovery, so visitations were limited to certain times of day. After learning that Mike’s parents were okay, Mike and Joyce settled back into the lobby with the others until those that were called arrived.
Jane and Max arrived at the same time, Jane rushing in ahead of Max in her wheelchair, both of them wearing panicked expressions. Jane, with her hair down and a nice outfit on that didn't quite match—a purple and white striped flannel, off-white graphic tee, and blue jeans—and Max, who looked like she'd been up for hours. Despite that, her hair was tied carefully into dual braids that had that iconic messy look, and she moved with purpose as if she wasn't tired at all.
Lucas stood and rushed to greet Max, hugging her and giving her a peck on the cheek, then offered her a bit more information about what happened with Will in the Abyss. Jane made a beeline for Joyce and immediately began interrogating her about Will’s condition, deflating slightly when Jonathan told her they didn’t have any new information.
So, everyone settled back into the lobby, silence sitting heavy over them all as they were left with nothing to do but wait for Will to wake up.