Chapter Text
It stung like a violent wind
That our memories depend
On a faulty camera in our minds
…
'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous paces bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round
And everyone lifts their heads
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said
That love is watching someone die
— “What Sarah Said” by Death Cab for Cutie
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There’s a ceiling light that needs to be fixed in Hawkins Memorial Hospital’s ICU waiting room. It rests between panels on the ceiling, holding its bright fluorescent glow for a couple of seconds before rhythmically flickering on and off over and over again. Will knows this because he’s been sitting beneath it for what, according to the square clock hanging behind the reception desk, has now been a little over seven hours.
Seven hours is a long time to be in one place; it’s a long time to be staring down an empty, coolly lit hallway waiting for something, anything, to happen. However, all this waiting hasn’t done much to quell the racing in Will’s chest, nor has it soothed the shaking of his hands or the metallic taste that fills his mouth when he accidentally tastes the blood dripping from his lip that has been bitten raw.
A few hours prior, when there’d been people streaming in and out of the room, Will had wished for nothing but silence. It seemed like it’d be heaven to be alone with his thoughts—to not have to listen to Karen Wheeler’s sobs or the dejected voices of his friends and family trying to talk him into getting some air or going home to change his clothes. But now that the only other person accompanying him is the elderly receptionist (who may or may not be falling asleep at her desk), and the only sound echoing through the room is the gentle buzzing of the faulty blue-toned lights, Will is starting to long for their return.
It’s eerie being alone in this place.
The white, colorless walls surrounding Will take him back to times he’d rather not recall; times where he hadn’t been fully himself. The wires, his blue paper gown, the screams of agony, the blackness of the halls that he was dragged through, and that scorching heat that refused to dissipate—the feeling of helplessness as he watched the lives of countless soldiers get dragged from them, as he watched Bob’s life get taken by something that wasn’t really Will but also wasn’t not him.
That’s all he seems to be good for, Will thinks dryly. Hurting people . He looks down and starts to feel a little nauseous again at the sight of the spattered dark red blood left behind on his sweatshirt, jeans, and shoes, the blood that doesn’t belong to him but really should. Maybe, if Will hadn’t been so stupid, or if Mike hadn’t been so self-sacrificial, it would’ve.
Will had wanted to stop him—he really had—but it all had happened so quickly that Will couldn’t even comprehend it. The memories come back to him now in a way that’s oddly choppy—reminiscent of a slideshow, almost; quick bursts of freeze-frames all blurred together.
One moment, the demodog had been rushing towards him, its claws outstretched and its disgusting, slimy jaws opened wide. Will remembers the dull clunk of his shotgun jamming in his hands and the feeling of doom that had washed over him as he rapidly beat his fist against the barrel, praying for a give as the monster dashed closer. He remembers forcefully shutting his eyes and bracing for an impact that never came, hearing a shout and a thud , then, in a blur, opening his eyes and seeing his best friend on the ground, his feet rapidly kicking at the beast atop him to no avail.
From there, Will only remembers bits and pieces. Somewhere in his adrenaline-induced haze, he must have bashed the thing’s skull in with the butt of his gun, but he really only knows that because of the fact that he can recall the weapon lying bloodied next to Mike on the damp, leaf-covered forest floor, and the fact that the demodog was long dead before Will crumpled onto his knees at Mike’s side.
There had been blood; so much fucking blood .
It had soaked through the already-dark fabric of Mike’s sweater—which had been partially shredded—nearly blackening it. Will can still smell it. The odor of iron was so potent that he swore he could nearly taste it, and it mixed with the scent of the demodog’s rotting flesh in a way that couldn’t be described as anything less than nauseating.
He recalls staring down at Mike’s injured face and barely being able to recognize it under the thick, slowly flowing layer of maroon painting his features. There was no telling where the slices on his face ended or began, and even if there was, Will’s vision had been blurred by tears to the point where he wouldn’t have known anyway.
At some point in his daze, he’d managed to pull his walkie-talkie out and reach one of the adults, who’d—by some case of divine intervention—known the spot Will was in based on his shitty, dry-heaved description.
It could’ve been anywhere from thirty seconds to an entire hour, Will thinks, that he sat there waiting for someone to arrive. One of Mike’s dark eyes (the one that wasn’t covered in blood) had been flickering open and shut like he was fighting to stay conscious, and every now and then Will had heard him weakly gasping for air.
There wasn’t much first aid left in the small backpack Will had brought with them—Mike had forgotten to refill it, and there hadn’t seemed to be much need for it anyway, as their patrol was close by and only intended to last the better half of thirty minutes. Nevertheless, Will had taken out a slightly damp towel and done his best to stop any bleeding he could.
However, it was impossible to pinpoint a single place to apply pressure, and the longer Will sat there, the more wounds he noticed. Desperately attempting to recall a single thing from freshman year health class, he’d pressed the cloth to where the left side of Mike’s neck met his collar and his chest.
He doesn’t remember much after that, but he will never forget the feeling of Mike’s fresh blood seeping through the towel and onto his hands. Will recalls blanching at the heat of the liquid as it hit his fingers, such a stark contrast to the chill of the nighttime air that surrounded them—the feeling of the ground’s moisture seeping into the knees of his jeans where he’d knelt beside Mike.
After Hopper and Jonathan arrived, everything blurred together.
There was the car ride, but Jonathan had forced Will to sit beside Hopper in the front seat while he and Mike sat in the back. After, there were wisps of light and panicked shouts. The sound of Hopper’s engine revving. Glints of nearly blinding streetlights rushing past. The pressure of a firm palm on his shoulder.
Will doesn’t know exactly how he made it into the ICU, but eventually he did, and he has hardly moved since. His eyes burn a hole into the formerly white canvas of his—no, Mike’s —Adidas shoes, now so covered in grime and blood and whatever else that their original color is difficult to discern.
He curses Mike for being selfless.
Giving Will his clothes, letting Will sleep in his room, going on night patrol with him even when it wasn’t necessary—Mike gave up everything just to make Will happy, to make himself needed.
And now, when Will needs him the most, he’s in critical condition lying unconscious in a hospital bed.
Ever since they’d arrived, updates from the nurse have been sparse. The last time she poked her head out was around three hours ago, and that was only to tell Will, El, Nancy, Jonathan, Will’s mother, and Karen that Mike’s vital signs had shown slight improvement, but that nothing was certain. She’d seemed optimistic, yet there was a soft glint of anxiety behind her eyes that made Will feel almost worse.
After another hour and a half of no updates and a clock slowly ticking into the dead of the night, the others had made the decision to get some sleep and return home, comforted by the nurse’s promise that Karen would be telephoned the moment anything significant occurred. Jonathan and their mom had practically pleaded with Will to come home and change out of his bloody clothes, bargaining that even if Mike’s condition improved, Will wouldn’t be able to go inside his room.
When Will didn’t reply, his mom had moved to hold his face in her warm, gentle hands. Her tired eyes looked at him with hurt and sympathy as the warm smell of cigarette smoke wafted off of her, drowning out the bitter smell of blood that seemed to be clinging on to Will.
“Baby, look at me,” she’d muttered softly. “None of this is your fault, okay?”
Will had stared back at her with blank, expressionless eyes and nodded gently. The look on her face told Will that she knew he didn’t believe her.
Eventually, after much struggle, they gave up on attempting to convince him and reluctantly left him sitting in the eerily bright room.
Alone.
It’s torture not knowing what Mike’s condition is down the hall; it’s torture not knowing if the next time he feels the warmth of the other boy’s eyes on him will be in an hour or never again; it’s torture feeling the blood on his clothes, recalling the moment Mike put himself in front of him over and over again, and wishing he could have done something different. Maybe if he hadn’t hesitated—had stopped Mike instead of flinching—things could be different. It should be Will in that hospital bed.
Suddenly, he’s drawn away from his thoughts at the sound of a door shutting and gentle, rhythmic footsteps steadily approaching. Will feels bile rise in his throat before recognizing that the footsteps aren’t coming from down the hall where Mike is residing, but from the waiting room’s entrance on the opposite side.
Will perks up in anxious anticipation as he waits for the figure to round the corner, before letting the tension fall from his shoulders as Lucas steps into the room.
Upon his entrance, the two of them simply look at each other for a couple of moments (Will sees Lucas hold back a wince as he glances at Will’s clothes) before Lucas’s large hands grab a chair from beside Will and pull it out so the two boys can sit face-to-face. He plops down onto the cushioned seat with a hum.
Lucas’s lips are gently quirked into a sad smile, but the dark skin under his eyes has purpled slightly, and there’s an air of dejected tiredness about him that Will can definitely empathize with now. It dawns on Will that it’s been a little while since the two of them have had a proper conversation, and guilt washes over him at the thought.
“Hey, Will,” Lucas speaks quietly, but it’s not in the same way that Will or Jonathan had spoken to him earlier. They had been careful—talking to him as if he were much younger than he is—where Lucas isn’t.
“Hey, Lucas,” Will’s voice is rough from misuse and all the crying he’d done hours ago, and he winces at the sound of it as he speaks. “What are you, um, not to be rude but—”
“Doing here?” Lucas interrupts him, a bit amused at Will’s reluctance. “Well, I was already in the other unit staying with Max, and I heard what happened, so I wanted to see how you were doing.”
Will narrows his eyes in suspicion. “And Jonathan didn’t put you up to this?”
Lucas chuckles at this, shaking his head. “No, you’d be surprised, actually. Nancy was the one that came and told me about everything and recommended I check up on you.”
“Nancy—?”
“I know, it’s weird,” Lucas says. “But, y’know, she really cares about Mike—and she probably wouldn’t admit it, but you know she cares a lot about you too, about all of us .”
Will flinches when Lucas says Mike’s name. It had felt less real when he and Lucas could skirt around why they were really here.
I don’t deserve Nancy’s care , Will thinks. She shouldn’t be looking after me when I couldn’t do the same for her brother .
“So, um, what did she tell you about what happened?” Will says instead, looking down at his blood-stained shoes.
“Well, she was pretty vague, but she told me that you were out on patrol with Mike, and he got attacked by a dem—a bear , sorry.” Lucas pauses, waiting for Will to meet his eyes again. “But, from the looks of it, my guess is that you’ve found a way to blame yourself, right?”
“Lucas—”
“Will, look at me, man,” Lucas’s eyebrows scrunch together, and he smiles sadly. “I told you why I was already at the hospital, right?”
Will’s eyes widen in realization.
Max.
Months ago, he remembers coming to the hospital and seeing Lucas at Max’s bedside. Will had never known her particularly well, but it was unnerving seeing her lying so weak and absent when he’d never seen her—with her bluntness and sarcasm—be anything but strong and full of life. Later, El had told him then that Lucas had been there, grasping onto Max’s body as her life slipped away from her. He pictures Lucas’s guilty, exhausted eyes—the ones Will had seen every time he’d popped into Max’s hospital room.
“But—it wasn’t your fault, Lucas,” Will sputters. “You—there was nothing you could’ve done, and you were with her the whole time—”
“If that’s so easy for you to accept, then why can’t you give yourself the same grace?” Lucas asks, voice quiet yet firm. “Doesn’t that apply to you as well?”
Will falls silent. Lucas sighs.
“Look, I’m not here to try and convince you to go home—even though it’s two in the morning and you do look like shit,” Lucas starts, and it draws a smile from Will for what he thinks is the first time in nearly eight hours. “We both know that’s not going to happen. But I want you to be kind to yourself, man; it’s what Mike would want.”
Will looks at him for a few seconds and holds Lucas’s gaze as he stares back. In doing this, he realizes that, although the boy in front of him has been worn down and exhausted by what this world has thrown at him, he still has that spark of youth in his eyes that shines through despite the maturity. There’s hope there, no matter how small, and it forces Will to really comprehend how young he is—how young they all are.
Mike has barely turned sixteen, and Max missed her own birthday while in her coma. Will stares at Lucas and briefly feels that if he were in the other boy’s shoes, he probably wouldn’t be managing half as well.
“How do you do it?” Will whispers, and he feels tears begin to well in his eyes. “How do you stay so strong after everything that’s happened?”
Lucas shifts in his seat and sighs softly.
“Can I tell you something, Will?” He places a hand on the other boy’s shoulder, and Will can feel it shake through the fabric of his shirt. “I’m scared. I’m really fucking scared.”
Will’s eyes widen.
“But, since the whole thing with Max happened, I’ve learned that it’s okay to feel like that. It’s okay to cry and feel like your whole world is collapsing in on itself, because that’s love ,” Lucas continues.
“All that love you have for this person is bottled up inside yourself, and it has nowhere to go—no way to get out except through fear, sadness, and anger,” Lucas’s voice breaks slightly. “And, I don’t know if your love for Mike is the same as my love for Max, but you have a special love for him, and he loves you too. So much.”
They’re both shaking now, and the tears Will had been fighting to hold back have started to roll down his reddening face. Lucas is here , and he’s being so honest with Will that it’s almost frightening. It makes Will want to be honest too; it makes him want to stop hiding.
He bites the bullet.
“Lucas, I’m going to tell you something, and you have to promise you won't hate me,” Will sniffles, his serious hazel eyes not leaving Lucas’s dark ones.
Lucas’s eyebrows press together in concern, and he slowly nods.
“I do,” Will whispers, his voice shaking. “I do love Mike the same way you love Max, and I—”
“Oh, Will— ”
And, with that, Lucas stands up, pulling Will to his feet and enveloping him into a tight hug. Will starts sobbing, his tears soaking into the shoulder of Lucas’s shirt in a way that’s definitely gross, but Lucas doesn’t seem to mind. It's beautiful, Will thinks; being loved unconditionally. Especially when it’s the last thing you expect or believe you deserve. Lucas’s hands soothingly rub Will’s back where it’s trembling, and after a few moments, he slowly steps away.
“Will, I could never, ever hate you for that. Do you understand?” Lucas’s voice is hard, yet loving. “And neither could Mike, or Dustin, or Max, or El, or anyone else that matters, you hear me?”
“But Mike would find it disgusting—he’d be so uncomfortable, and—”
“Will, here, sit back down.” Lucas sinks back down into his chair, and Will follows. “Can I tell you a story? One that Mike would kill me for if he knew I was telling it to you?”
Will’s teary face contorts into one of confusion. “Um, sure?”
“Do you remember the summer before you moved, when you and Mike had that big, blowout fight at his house?” Lucas asks. “And you biked away in the rain?”
Will holds back a wince at the memory but nods. Remember? He thinks. How in the world could I forget?
“Well, I don’t know what in the world he said to you, but the moment you left, he came back into the house so frantic that I thought that you’d died or something. I kept on asking him what happened, but he wouldn’t tell me no matter how many times I’d asked, and you could tell it was messing him up.”
Lucas pauses and fondly shakes his head with a smile.
“And then, without explanation, he told me we had to bike to your house to apologize. I told him he was crazy ‘cause it was pouring rain, and your house was all the way on the opposite side of town, but he said he’d go with or without me, so I didn’t really have a choice.”
“30 minutes later, when we finally made it to your house, we were, like, pounding on your door and shouting your name,” Lucas laughs. “And when we realized you weren’t home, I was about to say we should go back, but Mike told me he ‘knew where to find you’ and got back on his damn bike.”
“I—I didn’t know that happened,” Will mutters, trying to process the information he’s just received. “I mean, I guess I knew you guys biked across town because you found me at Castle Byers, but I didn’t entirely process that, I guess.”
“Yeah, I remember thinking Mike was a lunatic —and I still do, to be fair—but, after that, I realized that if I ever really hurt Max , I’d probably do the same exact thing.” He smirks at Will, teasing. “Love makes you do crazy things.”
Well, if we’re both going crazy, then at least we’ll go crazy together.
Yeah, crazy together.
Will’s breath hitches, and he opens his mouth to say something, but Lucas continues to speak.
“Y’know, it’s an odd feeling sitting here with you while Mike is in there , because nearly four years ago, when we came to visit you after you’d been in the Upside Down, it was the other way around.” He says softly. His eyes are far away as if he’s recalling all that had happened that year. “And I bet he never talked about it to you, but he had your back the whole time, Will, even when you weren’t there.”
Will hums in acknowledgment but doesn’t ask him to elaborate. It feels like he’s already having a bit of an information overload, and his brain is buzzing in a way that’s slightly overwhelming.
“But really, my point is that Mike loves you, Will, in whatever way it may be. He might want to act all tough or try to hide how much he really cares, but he gets so lost without you—hell, we’re here because he risked his life to save you. He’d never find you disgusting or intentionally push you away, especially not over something like this.” Lucas affirms, gesturing down the hall.
“You really think so?” Will questions, voice barely audible.
“I know so.” Lucas grins back at him, and Will is so overwhelmed with appreciation and care for him that he thinks he might start crying again.
He thinks about what Lucas said, about Mike loving him, and it scares him to his core that he’s starting to believe it. All of his life, he’d fought against that feeling of hope, rejecting the possibility that his feelings could ever be reciprocated in any way. Yet, when Lucas speaks about how Mike feels, he’s so earnest .
Lucas truly believes that Mike loves Will, and it’s the most exhilarating yet terrifying thing the boy has ever told him.
After their conversation, they settle into comfortable silence. Lucas grabs some old, dusty magazine off a glass coffee table while Will stares off into the distance in thought.
They stay like that for another 45 minutes before there’s the signature creak of a heavy, metallic door swinging open, and the two boys nearly jump out of their skin, heads snapping towards the direction of the sound.
Mike’s nurse is making her way down the corridor towards them, the heels of her shoes rhythmically clicking on the ground as she grows closer.
Will holds his breath.
When the woman finally makes it to the waiting room, she’s holding a clipboard in her small, gloved hands, and her expression is tired and hard to read. It strikes Will that she is very young—surely no older than her mid-twenties. He wants to thank her for everything, but words fail him as he watches her open her mouth to update them on Mike’s condition.
He braces himself for the impact of whatever words she speaks, but instead, his eyebrows raise in confusion at what she says.
“Are either of you Will? Um, Will… Byers?”
Will and Lucas both glance at each other in bewilderment before Will slowly and anxiously nods.
The nurse gives him a strained smile.
“Well, I’m here to inform you that Mike is now maintaining consciousness and showing rapid improvement and stability in his vital signs, and we expect him to make a full recovery.” She glances down at her clipboard, then back up at the two of them.
At that, Will feels all of the tension he’d been holding in his body suddenly rush out of him, and it makes him a little dizzy. The relief falls over him with intensity, and he releases a loud, shaky sigh. Beside him, he hears Lucas do the same.
“So, um, technically I’m not allowed to let anyone into the room at this time because it’s not visiting hours and you aren’t family,” the nurse starts, briefly glancing at the receptionist who is definitely asleep. “But, Mike won't stop asking me if ‘Will is okay,’ and he’s, like, freaking out and refuses to take my word for it unless he sees you himself.”
Will’s eyes widen in embarrassment and something akin to fondness, and he hears Lucas snort.
“So, if you’d like to see him, please do me a favor and comfort him while I take my smoke break.” She continues, shaking her head as she walks out of the waiting room and into the hallway where Lucas had come from earlier.
After she leaves, Lucas turns to give him a smug smile, raising his eyebrows teasingly as if to say, I told you so .
“Oh, shut up,” Will blushes before his expression shifts to one much more genuine. “Do you…want to go in and see him with me?”
A contemplative expression crosses Lucas’s features, but he quickly shakes his head.
“Unless you want me to, I think it’s best for you to see him alone,” he smiles sadly. “And I’m going to go back to Max’s unit, if you don’t mind.”
Will nods sympathetically, watching Lucas slowly stand up and begin to walk towards the room’s exit. He realizes, with a jolt of guilt, that while Will got Mike back, Max still hasn’t come back to Lucas. Even in Will’s relief, he can acknowledge the toll this must take on the other boy.
“Hey, Lucas?”
The boy turns around expectantly, “Yeah?”
“Thank you,” Will smiles, eyes teary. “For everything . If Max could see you right now, I know she’d be proud. Take care, okay?”
Lucas smiles shakily as a couple stray tears fall from his eyes before nodding gently and turning around, leaving Will sitting by himself again as his footsteps fade into the distance.
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