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The Upside Down had reluctantly released Will Byers back to his mother on a gray, drizzling Saturday on the twelfth of November, the boy impossibly surviving after being medically classed as dead for a few heart stopping moments, then miraculously surviving, and Joyce Byers had not let him out of arm's reach since.
Which was, as far as Mike Wheeler was concerned, a completely reasonable policy, and one he intended to adopt for himself as well.
He'd been at the hospital more than he'd been at home in the two weeks since. His mom had stopped even really commenting on it after the first few days, just packed him sandwiches and dropped him off at Hawkins Memorial with a soft, tired look on her face that Mike didn't examine too closely, because if he thought too hard about why everyone was being so gentle with him lately, about the version of the last week where Will hadn't come back at all, his throat did something tight and awful that made it hard to breathe.
So he didn't think about that. He just showed up. Every day, right after the final bell, signaling the end of another suffocating day of school, backpack still on, walking the eleven blocks from Hawkins Middle to the hospital because his bike had a flat tire nobody had gotten around to fixing yet, and every day the same nurse at the front desk, a heavyset woman named Maggie who'd started slipping him extra pudding cups from the cafeteria without anyone asking her to, waved him through without even checking the visitor sign-in sheet anymore.
"He's had a rough one today," Joyce told him, on the Thursday that mattered most, meeting him in the hallway outside room 214 with her arms crossed tight over her thin cardigan, dark circles bruised deep under her eyes. She looked, Mike thought, like she hadn't slept since August. "Fever spiked again this afternoon. Threw up twice. The doctors keep saying it's just his body 'processing the trauma' or whatever, but-" Her voice caught, and she pressed her lips together, hard, the way grown-ups did right before they weren't grown-ups anymore for a second. "He's asking for you. He's been asking since lunch."
"Can I go in?"
"’Course you can, honey." Joyce's hand came up, brief and warm, to rest against the side of his face, the same gesture she'd been doing to Will constantly since he came back, like she needed to keep confirming with her own hands that her son, and the boy who had grown up to be basically classed as her second, were real and solid and still there. "You're good for him. Better medicine than half what they're giving him in there, probably."
Mike ducked past her, cheeks going warm at that, and pushed the door open quietly.
Will looked small in the hospital bed. That was the thing Mike still hadn't gotten used to, three visits in; Will had always been small, the smallest of all of them, but this was a different kind of small, a wrong kind, all sharp collarbone and thin wrists poking out of a hospital gown two sizes too big, his light brown hair matted flat against the pillow, dark circles under his eyes that made him look about six years older and six years younger all at once. There was an IV taped into the back of his hand, pumping god-knows amounts of strong pain meds into his blood system. There was a chart at the foot of the bed nobody could seem to fill in properly, question marks scrawled in more than one place where a diagnosis should've gone.
But his eyes fluttered open when the door creaked, and found Mike immediately, and something in his grey, exhausted face eased all at once, soft and grateful and unguarded in a way that made Mike's chest hurt in the good way, the way it always did lately.
"Hey," Will said, visibly brightening a little at his best friend’s presence. His voice was hoarse, thin, scraped raw from the vomiting Joyce had mentioned. "You came."
"'Course I came." Mike dropped his backpack by the door and crossed the small room in about four steps, dragging the ugly vinyl visitor's chair right up flush against the bed rail, close as it would go. "I come every day. You know that."
"I know." Will's mouth curved, small and tired. "I just like hearing you say it."
Mike's ears went hot. He reached over without thinking about it much, it had stopped feeling like a decision somewhere around visit four, just an automatic thing his hands did now whenever he was in a room with Will, and closed his fingers loosely around Will's, careful of the IV line taped down the back of it, thumb rubbing slow over his cold knuckles.
"You're freezing," Mike said, frowning.
"’M always freezing now. Mom says it's a fever thing. Or a…" Will's face did something complicated, flickering toward the window and the cloudy November light beyond it, and Mike knew, without being told, that he was thinking about the other place. The Upside Down. The place none of them had the right words for yet, besides a flimsy name, not even Will, who'd actually been there. "I don't know. I just get cold a lot."
"D'you want my jacket?"
"You'll be cold."
"I don't care." Mike was already shrugging out of it, the same worn, dark jacket he wore basically every day regardless of weather, and he draped it clumsily over Will's blanket, tucking it in around his bony shoulders with more care than he'd ever admit to putting into anything. "There. Better?"
Will's eyes had gone a little glassy, and for a second Mike panicked, brown eyes widening a fraction, thinking he'd done something wrong, until Will's mouth wobbled into a small, wet smile and he said, very quietly, "You're such an idiot."
"Takes one to know one."
"I mean it nicely."
"I know you do." Mike settled back into the chair, still holding Will's hand, absent-mindedly rubbing his thumb back and forth over his knuckles, and found, the way he always found in this room, that the tightness in his chest eased a little just from being close enough to touch him, to see the slow, steady rise and fall of his breathing, to have proof, minute by minute, that Will was here and not gone and not wherever that awful upside-down place had almost kept him.
"You don't have to stay the whole time," Will said, though his hand tightened around Mike's the second he said it, which rather contrasted the offer. "Your mom probably wants you home for dinner."
"I don't care about dinner."
"Mike-"
"I'm not leaving," Mike said, more sharply than he meant to, and then, softer, ashamed of the sharpness. Dustin and Lucas had always teased him for having a ‘Will voice’, whatever the hell that meant. "Sorry. I just… I don't wanna leave you here by yourself. ‘S not fair. You've been here practically a month and it's boring and it smells weird and the TV only gets four channels and one of 'em's just static half the time."
"You've catalogued the room's flaws."
"I've had time. I'm here every day." Mike scowled at him, but there wasn't any real heat in it, just the specific fond exasperation that had become their whole language this past year. "I brought comics. Do you want comics? I brought the new X-Men, and Dustin says it's actually good this time, not like the last one where he wouldn't shut up about how they got the powers wrong."
"Read it to me?"
"You can’t read? Are you okay?" Mike’s voice was dipped in honey, sickly sweet as he softened his eyes at Will, brows slightly pinching together in concern.
"My eyes hurt when I read too long. The doctor said to not ‘over-do’ it." Will's mouth curved, small and a little sly despite the exhaustion carved into every line of his face, and Mike recognized, with a rush of fond helplessness, that this was at least forty percent manipulation and he did not care even a little bit.
"Yeah, ‘course." Mike murmured, already reaching into his backpack for the comic, already settling further into the chair, close enough now that his shoulder pressed against the bed rail, close enough that when Will's hand found his again a minute later, restless, seeking, the particular clinginess that came over both of them lately and that neither of them examined too closely, Mike just let it happen, laced their fingers back together over the blanket, and started reading in the low, careful voice he used just for this, just for Will, just for these quiet hospital afternoons that had somehow become the most important part of his whole week.
After about a half hour of Mike softly reading out the scenes shown in comic strips, Will started subtly squirming, fidgeting and a little bit whiny. At first Mike thought something was hurting, and kept asking him if he was okay. Will played it down for another like ten minutes, but Mike saw Will’s eyes slowly fluttering shut and he kept trying to sit up straighter to not fall asleep. The little actions made Mike’s heart swell with adoration.
After a while longer of Will fighting off his impending slumber, he sighed, giving in, and tugged at Mike’s hand, “Hey, can I be annoying?” He drowsily muttered, tilting his head at the other boy.
Mike looked up from the papery comic, smiling fondly, “You could never be,” he reassured with a little squeeze to Will’s hand. “What’s up?”
Will yawned suddenly, like he was unable to contain it any longer. Adorable, Mike thought to himself, face melting into a smile he knew definitely looked very goofy, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“‘M super sleepy, I wanna lie down and I still wanna listen to you read,” Will began, pausing and hesitantly searching Mike’s eyes, “...do you think you could come sit up here with me? So I don’t have to keep reaching over to hold your hand?”
See, the obvious solution to this was for Will to stop holding his hand, maybe even Mike just leave so that he could rest. But when have they ever been normal about anything?
The idea made Mike’s entire face visibly brighten, smiling widely and nodding a bit too eagerly, “Yeah, okay!” he chirped and immediately started scrambling to push down the silver railing on the edge of the bed. Will smiled softly and shuffled to the side to make room for Mike. It was a single bed, so they were gonna be pretty squished together, but neither of them minded.
Mike hopped up onto the mattress, grinning as he unhesitantly wrapped an arm around Will’s shoulders, the other holding the flimsy comic in his palm. Will leaned his head on his best friend’s shoulder promptly, cuddling up to his side.
Mike frowned a little as something clicked in his head, “Wait,” he realised, “I can’t turn the pages now.”
Will propped his chin on Mike’s shoulder to look at him, sleepy eyed and so, so pretty Mike thought, a warm blush creeping up onto his cheeks. “I’ll turn them.” Will mumbled with a little smile, looking back down.
He turned about three pages before they both dozed off, cuddled up and snored gently. It was the best sleep either of them have had in weeks.
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He eventually got kicked out at seven, same as always, a different nurse this time: younger, kinder-eyed, with a name tag that said DEBBIE, poking her head in to say visiting hours were over and Will needed his rest.
Mike did not take this well.
"Five more minutes," he mumbled sleepily, already knowing it was a losing battle, already hating how much his voice cracked doing it. He buried his face further into Will’s soft hair, between that weird state when you’re half awake and half dreaming.
"Sweetheart, it's already been an extra twenty. Your mom's probably wondering where you are."
"She knows where I am."
"Mike." Will's voice, quiet and a little amused despite the exhaustion pulling at his eyes. "It's okay. You can come back tomorrow." He did that cute thing again where he looked up at MIke through his thick lashes; his big green doe eyes had always been Mike’s weakness.
"I don't want to leave you here by yourself all night." Mike whined, leaning his head back like moving from where he was squashed next to Will was the biggest task ever.
"I won't be by myself. Mom's staying over again. Jonathan's coming after his shift." Will's hand found Mike's one more time, squeezing weak but insistent. "I'll be okay. I promise."
Mike hesitated as he looked down at Will, jaw tight, the specific miserable stubbornness that Nancy called "being a whiny little gremlin about it" whenever he complained at home about hospital visiting hours cutting his time short. He didn't want to go. He never wanted to go. Some awful, panicked part of his brain, the part that had spent a solid week in November genuinely believing Will was dead, buried, gone forever into some quarry lake, still didn't fully trust that Will would still be here tomorrow if Mike wasn't in the room to make sure of it.
But Will was looking up at him with that soft, patient, exhausted expression, the one that always undid Mike completely, and Mike found himself leaning down before he'd properly decided to, pressing a quick, clumsy kiss to Will's forehead, right at his hairline, the way his own mom did to him sometimes when he was sick, except it didn't feel like that at all, it felt like something else entirely, something warmer and more complicated that Mike didn't have any real words for yet at twelve and didn't feel any particular need to find words for either. It was just a thing he did now. Just a thing that felt right.
"I'll be back tomorrow," Mike said, quiet, against his hair. "Right after school. I promise."
"I know," Will said, and his hand caught Mike's sleeve for just a second longer, tugging him back down, and pressed his own small, chapped-lipped kiss to the corner of Mike's mouth; quick, shy, barely there, more instinct than plan, before letting go, ears gone pink against the white pillow. "G'night, Mike."
Mike's whole face had gone hot, and something in his chest felt like it was going to burst clean out of his ribs, warm and enormous and entirely too big for a hospital room. "Uh- I… um.. N-'Night, Will."
He stumbled off of the mattress, feeling like his face actually had steam coming off of it from how much it was burning, gathered his backpack, and his jacket- no, he decided, glancing back at where it was still tucked snug around Will's shoulders, he'd leave the jacket. He'd survive one cold walk home. Will needed it more.
"Keep the jacket," he said, at the door, when Will opened his mouth to protest. "I'll get it back tomorrow. You'll just have to see me again to give it back."
Will laughed, a real laugh, small and surprised and a little wheezy from days of coughing, but real, and it was, Mike thought, walking home alone in the cold eleven blocks back to Maple Street with his forearms goosebumped and his chest full up with something he didn't have a name for yet, absolutely, completely worth freezing for.
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Lucas and Dustin came by on Saturday, loud and clattering into the small hospital room with a stack of comics and an AV Club walkie-talkie Dustin insisted Will needed "for morale," and the whole visit dissolved almost immediately into an argument about whether Lucas's D&D character could actually beat Will's in a straight fight, which Will participated in from his pillows with more animation than he'd shown in days, propped up against Mike's shoulder where Mike had wedged himself onto the very edge of the bed despite at least two separate nurses telling him not to sit there again.
"You'd get crushed," Lucas said. "Your guy's got, like, zero constitution."
"He's a cleric, he's not supposed to have constitution, he's supposed to have intelligence-"
"He's got low everything, is the problem-"
"Guys," Dustin said, holding up both hands like a referee, "can we please focus on the actual important thing, which is that I brought Will an actual, real, working walkie-talkie, so he can talk to us even from in here, which is objectively the coolest gift anyone's ever gotten in a hospital, probably in the HISTORY of hospitals-"
"It's really cool, Dustin," Will said, and meant it, turning the little unit over in his thin hands with something soft and grateful in his face. "Thank you."
"Don't mention it. Dustin’s expression softened in that uncharacteristic way that only Will drew out of people. After a moment, the subject got dropped in favor of arguing about the D&D character sheet again, but Mike wasn’t listening, he almost never was whenever WIll was next to him, but this time it was mostly because Will's head had drifted sideways to rest against his shoulder somewhere in the last five minutes, eyes drooping heavy with the specific exhaustion that came over him fast and total these days, and Mike's whole attention had narrowed down to just that: the warm, solid weight of him leaning in, trusting, safe.
"You're falling asleep," Mike murmured, close to his ear, careful not to disturb Lucas and Dustin's increasingly heated debate about hit points.
"'M not."
"You are. Your eyes are closed."
"'M resting them," Will mumbled, but he didn't move away, just burrowed a little further into Mike's shoulder, and Mike- heart doing that same enormous, complicated thing it had been doing for weeks now, ever since the awful terrifying hope of getting Will back had settled into this new, quieter, fiercer kind of love he didn't have grown-up words for yet- just shifted his arm carefully around him instead, holding him steady, and let him sleep.
Across the room, Dustin caught sight of it over Lucas's shoulder and opened his mouth like he was about to say something, Mike could already see the gears turning, already braced for some loud, mortifying comment, but something in Mike's face must have stopped him, because Dustin just closed his mouth again, and smiled instead, small and genuinely fond, and went back to arguing about hit points like he hadn't seen anything at all.
Mike pressed one more small kiss into Will's hair, soft, quick, the kind that had become as natural to him now as breathing, and settled in to wait out the rest of visiting hours exactly where he wanted to be.