Chapter Text
A scorcerer, An honest to god, real life scorcerer. That was what Will was. A real life scorcerer.
The vision of Will killing the demogorgon replayed again and again in Mike‘s head. The deep feeling of dread and paralyzing fear when he saw it climbing torward him, the futile attempt of shielding his face with his arm being the only thing he could bring himself to do even though he knew it could slice through it as easily as butter if it tried. When it would try.
But that hadn‘t happened.
The fear turning into confusion when he slowly opened his eyes to see the demogorgon stuck in mid-air, not frozen, no, looking like it was fighting some restraint. The feeling, however, that Mike could not describe was when he saw Will, eyes white, hand out, focused look on his face, seemingly holding the demo in place.
Will‘s other hand sticking out too and then his head and Mike‘s eyes darting to the demo again as it began lifting up. He had flinced when all its limbs broke at the same time and it fell down, dead. What happened after that was a blur.
Well he had hugged Will, his body warm but shaking, but oh god his best friend was a real life scorcerer, whom he now owed his life.
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How they made it back to the Squawk he did not really remember. Everyone was tired, hurt, stressed, confused. Somehow putting one foot in front of the other. They needed to rest before continuing making plans. They managed to make some makeshift beds in the Squawk, lucky with the amount of couches there.
Joyce had her whole focus on Will. Well of course she did. And Mike didn‘t blame her. He knew it had started to bother Will how close she held him all the time but he also knew firsthand, better than most except for Joyce really, how it was to worry about him, feeling like if he lost his eye on him he would just disappear.
He had seen how Vecna had looked at Will at the MAC-Z while he held him in the air in front of him with possession in his eyes. There was a certain energy to it that he felt like had not fully gone away. Like Vecna was still there, looking at them, looking at Will, smiling, laughing. Mocking them, showing them that they still had no control over the situation.
The stress of it all was starting to give him a headache. He thought of his parents in the hospital, his little sister missing. He had a deep fear for the life of everyone he holds close and like always he felt responsible of keeping them safe. He felt like he was failing them. He was failing them all. Someone was going to die and it was going to be his fault for not doing what he was supposed to.
„Mike?“
He flinced when a hand touched his shoulder gently. He turned his gaze from the dot he had been staring at on the floor to the kind face of Joyce Byers.
„How are you feeling love? Has anybody taken a look at the cut on your face?“
Oh yeah, he had forgotten about that. That could also explain the headache. He suddenly became very aware of every pain in his body, especially the one on his shoulder after being pushed to the wall in the bathroom.
He looked Joyce in the eyes and shook his head slightly. She sat beside him on the couch and gently started cleaning the cut with a damp rag.
„Will is already asleep now, this whole... thing... really made him exhausted.“ She sounded exhausted too. „Lucas is fine, Murray patched him up, everybody is fine.“
„He got the kids.“ Mike whispered. Joyce put the rag down.
„And that is not your fault. There isn‘t anything else we could have done at that moment.“ Joyce put her hand on the good side of his face. God how he missed his mother. Missed her tight hugs and kind words. Was it selfish of him to wish for that when she was somewhere else fighting for her life? „You should get some sleep too Mike.“ A moment more in this position and he would have started to cry. Instead he gave her a small smile and a nod and stood up. She was right, he was really tired.
He went to the makeshift bed on the floor next to the desk he had called dibs on. He really wanted to shower, but there was no shower here, he would have to find a place to do that the next day. Maybe he would be able to go to Hopper‘s cabin. He just knew he was not gonna go to the Wheeler house. No, not yet. Though the blood had been cleaned up the place did not feel right, it still felt dangerous, it still felt tainted, it didn‘t feel home...y. He didn‘t want to be alone in there, especially not being as vulnerable as he would be in the bath. Nancy was gone too. Oh god his whole fucking family was gone or injured or both and he never felt so helpless.
He took off the dirty and bloody clothes and tried to make himself comfortable. He couldn‘t. The weird energy from the MAC-Z hadn‘t gone away. Something in the back of his mind was still mocking him, watching him. It felt heavy. Eventually he fell asleep, undreaming.