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Once they got back from the Mac-Z to the radio station, they got to work. Joyce gave Murray a first aid kit to take care of his wounds, and she walked over to Robin, who had just put on a vinyl of famous songs for them to listen to.
As Robin went to sit on the couch, she let out a breath and winced in pain. Without a word, Joyce sat next to the girl and started taking care of her.
"You don't have to, mrs. Byers," Robin said, "I can do it on my own, I don't have serious injuries," she reassured the other woman. "The emotional shock was way worse," she said jokingly.
"I know you can, but I wanna do it," Joyce said softly. "Do you not want me to?"
"I'm saying it for you, mrs. Byers, I don't want to burden you."
"You're not burdening me," she smiled softly at the girl and got to work to treat the injury on Robin's head.
Robin felt her body relax as she let Joyce work. She closed her eyes and exhaled softly, having obviously missed the feeling of caring, motherly touches on her.
Somewhere next to them, Lucas was crushed onto the couch, his expression constantly twisted in pain. Erica came and sat next to him, opening a first aid kit and focusing on the scatches on his sternum.
Lucas looked like he wanted to tell her not to, but he couldn't find the strength. After some moments during which Erica was working in silence, she placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Try to take steady breaths," she instructed him.
"I am taking steady breaths," he said stubbornly.
"No, you're not."
"Yes, I am," he insisted, his voice louder than before.
"Your breathing is more uneven than a grandpa's on his deathbed," she said, matter-of-factly.
"Well, I can't exactly control it," Lucas said, exaggerated.
"That's why I told you to try," she said emphatically, like talking to a toddler.
Lucas signed loudly while simultaneously dragging a hand through his face. They didn't talk after that, but Lucas did put in an effort to steady his breathing. Erica noticed, but she didn't say anything.
They stayed like that, existing in silence, as Erica patched up his sternum. Suddenly, from the background, the starting notes of 'Just like Heaven' were heard, and both siblings groaned in frustration.
"Not 'The Cure'," Lucas complained loudly.
"Seriously, why are people with zero music taste in charge of the music?" Erica said, exaggerated.
Lucas nodded in agreement.
In the next room, Mike was in the process of taking off his bloody sweater with some effort, not to hurt his arm, and was left with a white T-shirt. His head popped up when he heard this song.
"Nice song," he said, watching Will who came to sit next to him on the couch.
The other boy nodded absent-mindedly while taking a hold on Mike's arm to inspect it.
While in the bathroom, when Mike was thrown from one side of the room to the other, he hit his shoulder on the wall. Since then, he hadn't been able to move it, and when he tried, it'd hurt too much.
How he managed to help carry Will was still a huge question. Though he assumes that his determination and willpower had a lot to do with it.
"You don't have to do this," Mike tried to stop the other boy.
"I want to," Will said firmly, already heading towards the cabinet with the pharmaceutical supplies.
"But you shouldn't," Mike insisted. "You should rest. You're probably exhausted, that thing took a lot out of you. I can handle myself."
"I know you can, Mike, but you shouldn't have to," Will said softly, sitting next to the other boy. "I'm here, and I can treat your arm. You don't have to do this by yourself," he reasoned, his tone serious.
"But -" Mike stubbornly tried to stop him once again.
"Mike," Will said firmly, only now looking straight into Mike's eyes. Mike's breath caught in his throat, and he visibly gulped before looking up at his best friend's eyes.
"Let me take care of you for once," he said, looking intently into Mike's eyes, "okay?"
When Mike nodded, still a bit hesitantly, Will got the confirmation he needed to start bandaging Mike's arm.
"After all," the older boy said again, after a bit of silence, "I wouldn't be able to rest knowing that you're hurting."
Mike's cheeks flushed at that, a bit. He chose to change the subject so that he wouldn't be the center of the conversation anymore.
"What you did back there was amazing, by the way," he praised earnestly.
Will started shaking his head in disagreement, so Mike continued.
"No, what you did was truly incredible. I mean, taking out that demo like that? That might as well be the coolest thing I've ever seen," he said enthusiastically.
"No, it wasn't, it definitely wasn't cool," Will said, not bearing to look up from his work on Mike's arm.
"What are you talking about? It was amazing!"
"No, it wasn't."
"Are you kidding me? What you did was wonderful, it was unbelievable, it was -"
"It was exactly what he does," Will snapped, looking straight into the other boy's eyes. "What I did was exactly what he does. I used his powers, and I killed these demos the same way he killed Chrissy and Fred and Patrick last year. The same way he almost killed Max," he explained, his eyes getting wet.
"What I did wasn't amazing. It was horrible," he breathed out, his emotions consuming him.
"Will... it wasn't horrible," Mike started slowly, not believing his own ears.
"No, listen to me," he said emphatically when he saw Will ready to argue. "It wasn't. Yes, these powers are his, and he uses them to do his own twisted stuff, but you used them to save us. You saved us, Will. You saved me. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be here right now."
"I- I don't know -"
"I do," Mike said emphatically. "You're a hero. You're nothing like that psychotic asshole. I don't know exactly the depth of your connection, or how interliked you two really are, but I know for a fact that there's not a single force in this universe that can turn the Will Byers I know into a bad person."
Will laughed softly at that, surprised that the other boy managed to pull a laugh out of him. Mike's smile couldn't be brighter.
"Right then, at that moment, I really thought that I was gonna die," he continued, his voice low and his eyes not looking up from where Will was working with his arm. "So, when I saw that demo frozen in the air, it felt like God himself had come down from the sky to save me. But it was no god; it was you. You saved me. And I'll never be able to thank you enough for it," he said honestly.
"You know," Will said after a small pause, "if it weren't for you, I wouldn't have done it. And I don't just mean our talk in the field," he elaborated when he saw the raven ready to argue.
"What do you mean?" Mike asked, honestly curious.
"When I unlocked these powers, I didn't do it completely on my own. There were certain things that gave me the strength to do so. Certain memories," he started.
"What memories?"
"Happy ones. From a time when I was honestly and truly happy. So, I saw mom admiring one of my paintings, I saw Jonathan and me building 'Castle Byers'... I saw me. Running around with the wizard cape I'd made out of that old blanket."
"I remember that," Mike exclaimed. "My mom had been looking for it for like a month before giving up on it," he recalled with a small smile. "I never told her that we took it."
Will scoffed softly and opened his mouth as in to say something. He closed it quickly, though, and got back to Mike's arm.
"Was I in those memories?" asked Mike, whispering, after a small pause, like he was afraid that he had no right to ask.
"Of course you were, Mike," Will said softly, looking up at his best friend, eyes filled with pure honesty.
"Oh," was what Mike could only manage.
"The day you asked me to be your friend... our first D&D games... figuring out the rules, making up our characters, the figurines... it was all there," he continued smiling softly, but not quite looking at the other boy.
Mike couldn't take his eyes off of him. For some moments, they stayed like that, looking at each other tenderly. Mike gulped a bit and opened his mouth to say something, when-
"Guys!" Robin's voice was heard as she burst the door open, "You have to come, we're about to form a new plan- oh," she stopped once she saw their flustered faces. "Did I interrupt something?" she asked honestly.
"No, no," they both rushed to assure her, suddenly sprinting into action.
"We were just talking," Will said.
"Yeah, we'll be there in a second," Mike assured her.
"O-kay," she said, while turning to leave.
The two boys looked at each other, nodded awkwardly and headed out. 'Just like Heaven' had just ended when Robin opened the door.