Chapter Text
The blood was stuck on his fingers, it seeped through the sponge he held.
He should be at the hospital with Holly— but the house needed cleaning. It was still a wreck, only a day ago did they defeat Vecna and get Holly back.
And it’d been two days since his moms heart stopped beating— three since his dads.
Four days since the attack.
Mike shoved the thoughts down his throat to be digested later, he needed to clean. Holly would be released from the hospital tomorrow morning— since Nancy was gone now, too, Mike was going to have a rough legal battle for custody.
He wasn’t ready to lose his— now only— sister.
First it’d been Eddie, then Max, then his parents, then Steve, finally Nancy.
Mike wasn’t sure if he was shaking or it was just his not stopping back and forth motion— but his shoulders shook. He let out ugly held back whimpers as the minutes dragged on.
He hadn’t slept since before Vecna was defeated— not to mention showered. Mike still had Nancy’s blood on him. It was now combined with his mothers old and dried gore.
Suddenly, the loud became quiet— just for a moment. Mike shook his head before the figure in front of him could get a word out.
Mike's eyes darted back to the blood on the hardwood floor.
“Mike…” said Lucas, his coily hair was messier and the bags under his shimmering brown eyes were heavy. Lucas wore his SWQK hoodie— a blue one, the color of the sky or of Dustin’s old sneakers before he dirtied them up. “What are you doing here? You worried everyone. Mike, your head still had blood—”
“—I need to—“ Mike cut him off, but he didn’t trust his voice as much. “—clean. I need to clean, for Holly.”
“Michael. You need to sleep.”
“I can’t. Lucas, I can’t. She’ll need me.”
“She’ll need you in the right state of mind first. We’ll take her to Hoppers to be with Jane and Joyce, the rest of the party can help you clean— tomorrow.” Lucas’ hands found Mike's shoulders. He shifted both of them away from the scene.
“Lucas. I have to—“
“It’s okay, Mike. Come on, please?”
Lucas stood up, holding a hand out for Mike. Mike looked around, locking eyes with a family photo on the wall. He looked back to Lucas, the boy was a blur to Mike as tears threatened to spill. Mike grabbed Lucas’ hand.
Lucas used his other hand to steady Mike as he stood, not trusting that the boy would remain standing on his own.
“We can set up a mattress in the basement. Does that sound okay, Mike?”
Mike nodded slowly. The corrupted scene wasn’t in view anymore, they were on the porch of the Wheeler residence. So many memories.
Lucas helped Mike sit on the concrete steps.
“We should head to get Dustin and Will from the hospital.”
“And— and Holly?”
“When you get there, you can sign the release papers. Joyce is there still, comforting her like she does.”
“Luke— I can’t… damn it.” Mike’s tears caught up with him, they fell and wetted the concrete— turning it an ugly and mean dark grey. “I never— I never said I love you to him, my dad. I mean, I guess he never said it either. But— but I— and mom, did she know how much I appreciated her? Hell, she protected Holly the best she could. Did she know that she did a good job? And Nancy—“
Mike broke out into an ugly sob. It echoed into the empty night. No cars drove by since it was past Hawkins curfew— but since the Upside Down was gone, Vecna, too. The military would probably remove it.
Mike buried his face into his palms, the wetness his tears brought made his hair stick to his hands. His face was red— no doubt.
“Mike.” Lucas was crying, too. Mike could hear it in his voice.
All of the losses, and now it is finally over. All that was left was to grieve.
“It’s over— it’s over.” Lucas repeated, and he kept repeating it.
Mike felt a warm hand on his arm, Lucas had his arm around Mike. He pulled Mike against his chest, Mike hugged him and hurried himself in Lucas’ neck.
“I don’t want to have to miss them.” Mike murmured as he calmed down.
“I know. We should—“ Lucas wiped his face and stood up, brushing his pants off, “—go to the hospital. I borrowed Joyce’s car to get here, we’ll have to radio the others to tell them that we found you.”
Mike nodded, his eyes moved to look up at Lucas. He was hauled up onto his feet again, Lucas had his hand on his wrist— not tight but secure— and led him to the car.
The ride was short, but it felt long.
“Oh, Mike.” Said Joyce at the hospital, she grabbed him and tugged him into her famous mom hug— in other words a bear hug. “Are you okay, baby?”
Her words made his tears prickle back up, but he pushed him down. Joyce always tended to remind Mike of his mom.
Will was behind Joyce, Jonathan was next to him with a hand on his shoulder. It looked like he’d been crying as well.
“I’m okay. I should— uh…” Mike gestured to the front desk.
“Of course, and whenever you are ready for her to come home give us a call.”
Mike nodded before walking away.
Mike signed some papers a nurse named Miss Patterson presented to him, eventually a doctor brought out his sister. She was in a pair of light blue hospital pajamas sizes too big for her.
“Mike,” she said, her eyes were watery and her hair was a mess. “Are we going home now?”
Mike shook his head, he nodded to the doctor and put a hand on Holly’s back to lead her to the entrance of the hospital where the others were.
“No, you’re spending the night with Mrs. Byers.” Mike told her, he moved behind her and as they walked he took out her ponytail and combed through her hair with his fingers. Quickly he snatched it back up into a neater pony.
As he looked back to Holly, her eyes were red and Mike noted the many bandaids across her face.
“I don’t want to.”
“I know— I just have to clean up the house a bit, then we can bunker down in the basement.”
Holly nodded slowly and unsure. “I haven’t been home since…”
Mike patted her shoulder, the others watched through the glass as Mike stopped moving to talk to Holly privately.
“I know. And— it won’t be long, I’ll bring you home after tomorrow.”
“I miss mom. And— dad, too. Nancy— I saw her when she… you held her as she…” Holly was crying now, Mike looked to his left to see Joyce with her worried expression.
Mike kneeled down, putting pressure on both of his knees.
He pulled her into the biggest hug he could manage.
Holly pulled back a bit, “you’ve still got some blood,” she put a finger to his temple as she sniffled, “here.”
Mike sighed, his mouth twitched into an attempted comforting smile. “I just need to clean it up a bit, the blood makes it look worse than it is.”
“It’s midnight, we should get going.” Joyce said. She had walked up to see what the fuss was about.
Mike stood up, brushing off his knees. Joyce extended a hand for Holly.
“Be good for Mrs. Byers, you hear?”
Holly nodded and took Joyce’s hand. They walked out of the glass doors of the hospital entrance.
The cold November air hit Mike's face delicately, he’d always loved the cold.
“Hey, Mike,” said a voice, it was Jonathan. “I’ll drive you guys to your place, sound good?”
Mike nodded, Jonathan led the party— the four of them, Mike, Lucas, Will, and Dustin— to his car— no, Nancy’s car.
The Byers don’t have enough money for two cars, Nancy had always let Jonathan use hers.
During the ride, Mike fought like a soldier to keep the tiredness. Though, he heard Dustin and Will’s combined snores.
Will was up front next to Jonathan, Mike sat behind the driver's seat with Lucas next to him.
Lucas was shooting glances Mike's way, Mike could see it.
“Boys, we’re here. You sure you’ll be fine here alone?”
Lucas spoke up, “yeah, thank you. See you tomorrow.”
Groggily the group made their way inside, Mike led them to the basement. Before he could— Lucas found the extra mattress and dragged it out for them. Dustin hit it first, snoring as soon as he hit it.
Will took off his jacket and threw it onto the floor next to the pretend bed.
He looked towards Mike, then lowered his eyes. Mike followed his gaze to his hands. “Mike…”
Will moved closer, he pulled Mike into a hug. Pulling back he looked over behind Mike to Lucas. Lucas and him held a wordless conversation for a few seconds, before Will nodded and went to lay down onto the mattress.
Mike would’ve done the same if Lucas hadn’t grabbed him by the hand and taken him to the bathroom connected to the basement.
Lucas shut and locked the door.
“You should shower.”
“Yeah.” Mike breathed out slowly, he was staring into his palms still. Lucas was in front of him, he put his hands under Mike's and pulled them to his chest.
“Does your head hurt?”
Mike huffed a laugh. “A bit.”
Lucas moved to the shower, he turned the faucet and steamy water rained down.
Mike took his shirt off first.
The party— at least the original party— had been friends for years, they’d seen each other naked countless times.
Despite that, Mike still felt the blush creep up from his neck to his cheeks.
Lucas opened the mirror cabinet, he fished out for white bandages and medical scissors. He grabbed out a bottle of Ibuprofen for Mike— and himself.
Mike was fully undressed and in the shower, Lucas had avoided looking. Lucas snuck out to grab a pair of pajamas from Mike's room. When he got up there, he gaped at the mess. The closet was busted open. Lucas hadn’t even seen it, there was blood everywhere as well. Lucas was irritated that the military hadn’t even bothered to clean it up.
He grabbed dark blue bottoms with thin vertical white lines from Mike’s dresser, shirts were trickier. Lucas gave up trying— he didn’t want Mike to have to wear anything stained with his own dads gore.
Lucas found Mike's dresser drawer filled with spare clothes from sleepovers that the party would forget, Lucas scavenged for potential clothes that could fit. While he was at it he grabbed some for Will and Dustin.
For himself, he found a dark green long sleeve with grey sweatpants.
He hurried down the stairs and quietly found himself in the bathroom again, he’d folded and set the extra clothes for Dustin and Will out beside the mattress.
Lucas changed quickly before he heard the water shut off. Lucas turned as soon as he heard the rattle the shower curtains made.
“You can look now.” Said Mike, Lucas turned to face him. He was shirtless with the pajama bottoms on. “Thanks for— you know.”
Lucas nodded, he made his way towards Mike and gently pushed him onto the toilet seat. Mike's scrawny figure went with ease, his hair was beginning to lose its wetness and curl into frizzy black coils.
He stood in front of Mike, between his spread legs as he pushed Mike’s hair out of the way a bit. “Hold this for me, yeah?”
Mike brought his hand up to hold the piece of hair.
Lucas sucked in a breath, nearly hissing at the so-called “scratch.”
“Mike, it’s still bleeding.”
“Maybe I scrubbed too hard and it opened back up.”
Most of it had been hidden by his hair, it definitely would scar. The wound trailed from the center of Mike’s skull to his temple. It wasn’t deep, it almost looked like a road scratch— Lucas was familiar with bandaging those, considering Max.
It’d been nearly a year since he last heard her voice.
Lucas found the bandages and wrapped them around Mike's head the best he could to contain the light leaking blood.
He cut the tape with the medical scissors.
“It’s over, but it’ll never be the same.” Mike said suddenly, voice cracked and low.
Lucas shook his head. “No, but I— the party will be with you every step, no one’s leaving anymore.”
Mike looked up to meet Lucas’ teary eyes.
Lucas met Mike’s beautiful brown eyes.
“Shit—“ Mike wiped his tears, “I don’t mean to cry again.”
When Mike's hands tugged on his hair, Lucas’ grabbed them both and pulled them away.
“Michael, don’t hide. I want to be there for you, but you can’t hide from me. If you need to, just let it out.”
Mike sniffled. “You too.”
Mike leaned in to hug Lucas’ abdomen tight. Lucas’ fingers circled Mike's hair softly.
“Don’t leave me, ever. Dustin and Will, too. I couldn’t handle it.” Mike sobbed, his voice echoing.
“Never, Mike. Never.” Said Lucas, voice cracking as he spoke through sobs as well. “You should take some of this,”
Lucas grabbed the Ibuprofen from the sink counter.
“Could we stay like this? For a moment— I mean.”
Lucas put the bottle back down, his arms returned to Mike’s shoulders as the boy squeezed his arms harder around Lucas’s body.