Chapter Text
When the door opened, Mike felt like he was the last person to look up… He told himself it was because he hadn’t heard it at first, but that wasn’t true. He just wasn’t ready to see who was standing there. The air in the room felt close—too many bodies, not enough ventilation, the faint smell of stale coffee settling at the back of his throat. He didn’t know if he could handle looking at anyone new—anyone who hadn’t already been sitting in the room with them.
But it wasn't Murray at the door. It was Jonathan Byers, eyes red and bangs damp and a face so exhausted it could pretend to be apathetic. All features Mike knew from experience to be the result of having a breakdown and trying to hide and wash away the evidence by splashing water on your face in the bathroom sink. Mike wondered if Jonathan had gotten to the point where he could look himself in the mirror without triggering another wave of tears and having to repeat the process again. It usually took Mike about 2 or 3 times. Given the circumstances, he imagined Jonathan had just given up after the 4th.
Just as well, because the second Nancy stood up and placed a sympathetic hand on his cheek, Jonathan was shattering again. And Mike was forced to look away. He looked diver to the small little huddle Steve had pulled Robin and Dustin into.
Robin has broken down first at the news. She nearly had a panic attack as she tripped over her words– explaining what she'd found in the file and what Jonathan had told her about Lonnie.
The reminder of Lonnie and the details of what happened behind the Byers doors had loosened the pressure valve behind Mike's eyes. Will's artistic skills being a trigger for his father’s– no, Lonnie hatred made him want to feel sick. No wonder Will was always so eager to give Mike his artwork. It wouldn't be safe at home with him. And Mike was quietly grateful that he still had every piece– kept safely in paid protectors in multiple binders in his basement.
Henry Creel had been good at art.
That’s what Robin had said with a devastated gasp.
She and Will had been up earlier talking about the files that Nancy had put into the timeline. Now, Robin was outright sobbing as she looked helplessly at Steve—telling him how disturbed Will had been regarding how much he’d had in common with Henry. Her voice had kept catching with every commonality that occurred to her. But she didn’t stop listing them. Not that Mike could even really process the words.
Mike looked down at the blue sketchbook in his pale, shaking hands. The leather of it felt thinner than it had the night before, as though the weight of it had shifted. He thought about the impossible drawing within. He’d lain awake thinking that Will was somehow gifted with powers of premonition, and that’s why Vecna had wanted him… not… this.
His skin looked even paler when Lucas’s warm, dark hand came into view and wrapped around one of his.
“She recognized him,” Mike voiced his thoughts. “Do you remember? She recognized Will in the science fair photo. Before they ever met, she just… knew him. They were connected.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” Lucas gave a gentle squeeze.
“Back then?” Mike barely huffed.
“Last night. I just…” He took a deep breath. “Wishful thinking.”
Wishful thinking.
His jaw tightened so hard his molars ached, and he had to force his tongue away from the inside of his cheek where he’d been pressing it.
God, part of Mike felt sick at the thought that he’d almost been… excited at the thought that Will had some kind of powers all along. That there really had been this magic about the boy he’d seen swinging alone on the playground—lost in his own little world. Mike had just known he’d wanted to be a part of it—that little world the boy was so caught up in.
There had been a part of him that was relieved to have an answer for all the questions Nancy had accosted him with. There was a retort for why Will was taken, for why he survived when others didn’t. Will had always been—not just different, but a wonder. Nancy never would have had those kinds of doubts if it had been El who’d gone through those things, because she had been born special. And in the sketchbook, Mike had found an odd vindication that Will had been born special too. And now… learning why, Mike wished that neither of them had been.
Not that they hadn’t been born, just that… well. He supposed if Henry Creel hadn’t been their father, they wouldn’t be who they are. He was in their DNA.
From his blood, theirs.
The thought made his fingers curl tighter around the edge of the sketchbook, sharp corners biting into the pads of them.
“They're not… I mean, it sucks. It really—God, I can’t imagine,” Lucas shook his head as if trying to clear the ideas from what he was trying to say. “But it’s not… you know, a death sentence.”
If Mike weren’t feeling so hollow, he probably would have snapped at that. He would have reminded Lucas of the Mind Flayer possessing Will and then how it tried to kill El. How this monster almost killed El while she was trying to save Max.
But he thought back to the other night. How Vecna had held Will aloft—let him dangle helplessly above the ground, and just… left him. Vecna left him alive and without explanation. The implications now were far more concerning.
“There are worse things than a death sentence,” Mike muttered, not sure if he was reminding Lucas or himself. The words felt dry against his tongue, as though they’d scraped on the way out. The corner of his eyes registered Lucas’s head hanging slightly at that and giving a small nod.
“This doesn't change things, you know? Not really. Things are still the same they’ve always been. The only difference is that now we know why.”
“Yeah, but finding out why is supposed to help us figure out how to fight it. How—how do we fight this, Lucas?” Mike stood, needing some kind of movement to keep the frustration from building up. “What do we do with this?” He flung his arms out desperately, casting a glance around the room until he locked eyes with Jonathan, and something hollow cracked within him.
“What do we do, Jonathan?” Mike asked, because he was Will’s big brother, his guardian, his keeper, and for as long as he’d known him, Jonathan had always known how to help Will.
“Mike—” Nancy shook her head, but Jonathan assured her with a look as he pulled out of her arms and stepped closer to Mike.
“How are we supposed to save them from this?” Mike felt his voice crack as fresh, hot tears broke free. His vision blurred unevenly, the fluorescent lights above them smearing into pale streaks. Jonathan’s only answer was to pull Mike into a hug. And goddammit, Mike wanted to sob from the sheer fact that he now felt like he’d somehow outgrown the reassurance a hug from the older boy had always been. He’d always been the closest thing Mike had ever known to a big brother of his own, but now… Mike had grown too tall to feel safe from the embrace. He’d seen too much not to recognize the despondency in Jonathan’s voice and the resignation in his eyes. Jonathan’s chin pressed awkwardly against his shoulder instead of the other way around, the shift small but undeniable.
“Mom and Hop are telling them now,” Jonathan informed. Mike nodded into Jonathan's shoulder. The cotton of Jonathan’s shirt was damp and cool against his cheek. His hand remained firm between Mike’s shoulder blades, steady and grounding, but Mike could feel the faint tremor in it.
That’s all he could do—pretend that Hop and Joyce were going to handle it and everything would be okay. That somehow, by Will and El having their parents there to explain it and hold them through the devastation, it would be easier—would make it pass. Would make it all be something that, once they’d acknowledged it, they could write off and pretend wasn’t real as they moved forward.
But Mike knew from experience that wasn’t how unsightly truths worked. Truth had a way of permeating every barrier—whether you looked through the peephole to see what was on the other side, or whether you pretended you never heard it knock in the first place. It would eventually tire of being ignored and find its way in. You could try to buy time by opening the door just a crack every so often and claiming you’d handle it soon, you just needed more time to prepare to let it in. But every time he did that, it just got harder to forget what he saw on the other side. It got harder to ignore it even if he wasn’t looking directly at it.
His fingers flexed reflexively against Jonathan’s shirt, nails catching slightly in the weave.
Truth was an impatient thing, and Mike knew that the best way to keep it from tearing your home apart on its way in was to upend the door, offer it a seat, and sit with it until it became normal. He still had hope that, one day, he’d be brave enough to do that before it was too late, but the damage was already underway. He didn’t want that for Will.
He didn’t want that for any of them, but especially not Will.
“So what are we supposed to do?” Lucas’s broken voice asked from behind him.
Jonathan looked up at the boy and heaved a sigh. “We help them get through it.”
“Get through it?” Dustin repeated, as if the idea were insulting. “Will and El have been ‘getting through it’ for the past four years, and every time we think it’s over, it just gets worse.”
Mike pulled away from Jonathan to turn and look at his friend. His curly hairs frizzed and wily from where he’d been running his hand through it. His eye and nose were dripping in a way that never failed to break the ice in Mike’s heart. Dustin had always been a crier– more so than even Will. Will had told Mike that he thought that was why Dustin had proclaimed himself their bard. Because he knew too well how easy it was to despair.
“What if it gets worse?” Dustin asked again, someone to answer.
The question landed like a stone in water. Mike watched the ripples of it move across everyone’s faces. Jonathan’s jaw tightened. Nancy looked away. Steve and Robin exchanged a glance that said everything and nothing.
No one had an answer.
Lucas stood, slowly and with the stability of someone standing up in a life boat to address his fellow survivors.
“What if it gets worse?” Lucas repeated the question, in a quiet voice that sounded like he was just realizing what the question really was. He turned to Mike, and there was something raw in his eyes—something that looked like the night they’d lost Max all over again. “Every time it gets worse, we end up losing something we never thought we could. What are we gonna lose this time, man?” He pursed his lips and then looked over his shoulder at Dustin. “What are they gonna lose?”
They.
Mike felt a flicker of guilt at how quickly his thoughts narrowed toward Will. His shoulders tightened again, as mental cracked a whip against his selfish heart.
It was a devastating revelation for both, so why did it feel as though it would be so much harder for Will? It wasn’t as if either of them had grown up with loving fathers. Perhaps it was the fact that El had no preconception of her lineage. Her father figure had been every bit as much a monster as Vecna. She had already known she’d been connected to atrocity in one way or another. Perhaps she had already come to accept that she had been made by monsters. She’d had years now to cement herself in opposition to her origins. She had no identity to lose with this revelation. Only perspective to gain. She was tactical that way.
But Will…
Will had been having his identity ripped from him for years, and Mike couldn’t help but feel that perhaps this would be the final tear.
“What do we do?” This time, when Mike asked it, it sounded less like a question and more like a plea.
None of them knew.
They were all looking at each other, hoping someone else had the answer. Hoping someone would know what to say, what to do, how to make this bearable. The room felt smaller suddenly, the air thick with the faint smell of dust and old equipment, as though even the walls were holding their breath.
“What even can we do?” Dustin pressed.
Jonathan pulled an arm from around Mike and held it out, and soon Dustin was there next to Mike, and he’d dragged Lucas in too. They curled in together.
“Whatever they need us to,” was the only answer Jonathan had.
And it didn't feel like enough.
Robin, Steve, and Nancy found their way into the embrace without ceremony, as though drawn by gravity.
No one spoke.
Mike didn’t know how long they stood there like that. Long enough for the initial tightness in his chest to ease into something heavier and duller. Long enough for his hands, which had been fisted in Jonathan’s shirt, to slowly uncurl. Pins and needles prickled faintly along his forearms as circulation returned to where he hadn’t realized he’d been tensing. Long enough that the silence stopped feeling like shock and started feeling like choice.
The hum of the station equipment became strangely prominent, a low mechanical thrum beneath their silence.) Mike became aware of the weight of them—Dustin’s shoulder pressed firm against his ribs, Lucas’s arm warm and steady around his back, Jonathan’s grip solid and familiar. The combined heat of their bodies gathered between them. It wasn’t particularly cold in the station, but Mike still felt like they were huddled for warmth in the midst of a natural disaster .
He allowed his eyes to close. His mind no longer tearing itself apart looking for an absolution– instead letting it reach for a word that could describe this feeling. The feeling he got from standing in his open garage in the midst of a summer thunderstorm. The feeling he got when he and Will would build a blanket fort to sleep in and be safe (“Just in case the basement is really haunted”). The feeling he got when his parents would fight, and he’d be able to find home in Castle Byers until battle was over.
He could feel the uneven rhythm of someone’s breathing against his collarbone. Someone’s chin dug awkwardly into his shoulder. Someone else’s elbow was wedged too sharply against his hip. He shifted slightly, but one of the arms around him only tightened.
It body heat and shared breath was beginning to feel claustrophobic. Mike turned his head to the side, and found Lucas right next to him. Lucas looked at him from the corner of his eye.
“This is a really long hug,” Mike whispered, his voice muffled slightly by the proximity of too many shoulders. Lucas looked slightly relieved by the comment.
“Yeah, I know. I didn’t want to say anything.”
Mike smiled.
“El’s gonna be pissed that we had a group hug without her,” Dustin managed, voice nasally from the tears. It earned a quiet, breathy chuckle from somewhere near Mike’s ear. He felt the vibrations of Jonathan’s chest as he agreed.
“I’m surprised she hasn’t sensed it and broken down the door.”
As if summoned by the thought, the door swung open, causing everyone to jump and turn to look at it.
Deduction would lead Mike to presume this was Kali.
“This is not the kitchen,” she said from the threshold—every eye now fixed on her from within the tangled circle of limbs.
The sudden rush of cooler hallway air slipped between them, breaking the pocket of warmth.
“Did you…” Lucas glanced around the radio booth for a moment. “Did you think this was the kitchen?”
Kali stared at him before answering, “No.”
There was a tense moment of silence as they stood, still locked in their group hug. No one seemed entirely sure which limb belonged to whom anymore.
There was a listless nod.
Someone had the audacity to cough.
Kali blinked.
Then, without breaking eye contact with—one of them? All of them? Mike wasn’t sure—she reached for the handle and slowly closed the door.
No one spoke. No one moved. It was as if they were all waiting to hear her footsteps retreat down the hall.
Mike didn’t hear a thing. He was certain no one else had either. Just.... silence.
And then, Steve.
“Wait, who the hell was that?”