Work Text:
The room was eerily still, the silence buzzing so loudly it pressed against his ears, a jarring contrast to the usual storm of arguments and tactical debates. Beyond the thick walls, the world faded away, while the yellow lights glared down with a merciless brightness, banishing every shadow and leaving nowhere to hide. 01:21 glowed up at him from the battered plastic watch he’d worn since he was a kid, its ticking a stubborn protest against time’s relentless march. His foot bounced, sneaker rasping against the floor and breaking the static hush, and as the minute blinked forward, he felt a strange sense of ending settle over him.
After the chaos in the MAC-Z, they’d retreated to the radio station to regroup. There was still no word from Dustin, the others, or El and Hopper, and their silence had become just another on the long list of concerns. Lucas had found them there, eyes wide and haunted as he described the kids being pulled into the upside down, his voice trembling as he reached the part Mike’s battered mind couldn’t quite grasp.
"The-the demo-" he had panted out frantically, "it froze like someone had paused time and then it-it-"
Mike hadn't needed to hear the rest. He'd seen it. He'd watched on, half awe, half terror, as his own demo had frozen and begun to levitate, straining against an invisible force like a mouse caught in a trap. He'd watched with wide eyes as its spindly limbs crunched and snapped, folding in on themselves. He watched as, both hands out and head thrown back, Will took hold of the creatures threatening his friends and snapped their necks, letting their bodies fall to the ground as he collapsed to his knees, eyes exhausted and firmly back in place, blood dribbling from his nose.
Mike had caught him as he slumped, unconscious, Joyce rushing over moments later to check Will’s pulse—erratic, but strong—before hauling one of Will’s surprisingly solid (when had that happened?) arms over her shoulders and nodding for Mike to do the same. Through a fog, they staggered to an unscathed military vehicle, loading Will into the back, his head cradled in Mike’s lap as Joyce sped them away and Mike tried not to focus on the image of a limp body being pulled from the quarry playing behind his eyelids.
Will was resting, lost to the world since the battle’s end, since he’d connected to the hive mind in a way no one imagined possible. Mike’s own words echoed in his head: You’re a sorcerer. Your powers are innate. He let out a shaky, half-crazed laugh at his own accidental prophecy. Will Byers never did anything halfway; that much was certain.
Mike perched in a plastic chair beside Will, who lay on a bare twin mattress on the floor. Elbows on his knees, he watched Will’s face for any flicker of wakefulness. Five hours had crawled by, and Mike’s eyes burned with exhaustion, a dull headache settling in now that the adrenaline had faded. He knew he should sleep, that it would help, that there was nothing more he could do for Will tonight except be there if he woke. Logic made sense, and he’d seen the worried glances from Lucas and Joyce as they’d retired to their own sleeping areas for the night, but it didn’t matter. Sleeping meant looking away, and Mike couldn’t bring himself to do that.
So there he sat, eyes unwavering even as his back and legs protested the flimsy excuse for furniture he was currently perched on. His stomach ached with a hunger he could hardly focus on, and when he frowned or squinted, the cut at the end of his eyebrow reopened, stinging unpleasantly, but none of it mattered. Will's breathing was deep and even, and, despite everything, he actually looked at rest as his (broad? Again, when?)chest moved rhythmically up and down. Mike counted each inhale, each exhale, the space between them. He traces his eyes from the dark rings around Will's own, to the brown hair that had dried wavy and plastered to his forehead, to the spot just beneath his jawline where his pulse jumped beneath skin, another thing to reassure Mike he hadn't lost him again.
"Hey."
Mike jumped nearly out of his chair, adrenaline spiking once more, fists balled and ready to kill whoever tried to come after his best friend next. But it was only startled blue eyes and hands lifted in gentle surrender, Robin leaning back as if she truly believed he might strike. Shame licked at his cheek. He scratched the back of his neck before ruffling out his own hair, a nervous tick he’d developed as of late.
"Easy, killer," Robin murmured good-naturedly, voice soft and reassuring as if soothing a spooked animal. Maybe that's what he was.
"Sorry," Mike mumbled, sending her an awkward smile.
She smiled in return, motioning to his chair as if seeking permission from Will’s self-appointed guardian. A strange, possessive pride flickered in Mike’s chest as he perched on the very edge of the mattress, careful not to disturb Will. Unsurprisingly, Will didn’t stir.
"How’s he doing?" Mike just shrugged, his fingers fumbling nervously with the fabric of Will’s sock, kneading it as if he could will an answer into existence.
"Same, I guess. His breathing’s deeper," he offered, as if that detail alone could anchor him. He was too tired to decipher Robin’s expression.
"That's good," she reassured him. “No, like, that is actually good. He's sleeping, not just passed out! The body heals itself while it's sleeping."
She talked too fast for his sluggish thoughts to keep up with, so he just shrugged again and focused on not passing out.
The silence returned, heavy and suffocating, and Mike longed to scream until it shattered into pieces too small to ever reassemble.
"Did you... know?" Robin asked.
Mike felt a pickle of annoyance at the question. Yes, he knew that his best friend in the world possessed incredible superpowers, and he just decided to keep it to himself because what? He wanted Will's undivided attention? But then the shame and embarrassment kicked back up because really? That actually does sound like something he would do.
Instead of saying any of that, he responds, "I don't even think he knew."
The air felt tight with a somber tension, and Mike's eyes itched again, burned a little as he swallowed around the lump in his throat. His grip around Will's ankle had turned from a fidgeting kind of passive touch to an iron cuff of his own bony fingers locking around him tight, as if that alone could tether Will back to his body and keep him safe.
"Hey," Robin mumbles again in that same soft 'spooked animal' tone. "He's going to be okay, Mike."
Robin’s words broke the dam, and the sob Mike had been holding back finally spilled out, tears slipping past the voice in his head that insisted boys don’t cry—his father’s voice, sharp and unyielding. Robin’s hand pressed gently between his shoulder blades, tracing soothing circles. When Mike closed his eyes, he saw blood—splattered across the kitchen, staining his mom’s nightgown, trickling down the perfect upper lip of the boy he’d grown up with. His heart ached for his sister, for Max, for Eleven. He missed Nancy, her tough love, and the steady comfort of her fierce loyalty.
He missed Will—not just the boy lying in front of him, but the Will he’d lost to the upside-down years ago, the one who left his basement and never fully returned. He missed the Will from the summer of ’85, when Mike was too tangled in girl drama to appreciate the simple joy of their friendship. He missed the Will he never got to know in Lenora, when his own confusion built a wall between them, until he found himself melting down in a California airport, realizing his best friend had grown up without him. He missed the Will from before everything got complicated, when wanting to spend every moment together was normal and didn’t draw stares. He missed knowing exactly what Will meant to him—everything—without the world telling him what he was allowed to mean to him.
His eyes throbbed, his headache intensifying. Tears slicked his palms and he wiped them on his jeans, scrubbing his face with the back of his hand before looking up. Robin’s face held no judgment, only a gentle kindness and sympathy, her hand still steady on his back like a show of support.
He let out a heavy, almost-laugh. "Sorry."
Robin flashed him her usual crooked, bright grin. "Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me." Her smile softened, losing its teasing edge. "You need to get some sleep, Mike."
Mike was already shaking his head before she’d finished speaking. "I have to be here when he wakes up. He might need me."
Robin’s lips quirked on one side, her eyes searching him, as if she could see something he couldn’t yet name in himself.
"You guys are childhood friends, right? You’ve had sleepovers before. Just share the bed. It’s honestly the simplest solution."
And yes, it was the easiest solution. But also the hardest, thanks to the wild, spinning mess of feelings Mike had for William Byers. His body begged him to agree, to lie beside his favorite person, to match their breathing and drift off next to the one who made him feel complete. But another part of him—the part that fought to keep things with El alive as long as he did—warned him to keep his distance. Boys weren’t supposed to feel this way about other boys.
But it wasn't just 'other boys'.
It was Will. The Will who had been his since that fateful day on the swings.
Robin’s gaze locked onto his, and suddenly, Mike understood. She understood, too. Robin was offering him an escape—a way to sidestep the questions swirling in his head, to claim a moment of quiet comfort. A way to care for Will and himself at once. But there was a catch—
Robin's eyes stared hard into his, and like a light being switched on, Mike understood. He knew that Robin understood. And Robin was giving him an out. Robin was offering him an escape—a way to sidestep the questions swirling in his head, to claim a moment of quiet comfort. A way to care for Will and himself at once. But there was a catch—
"I don't think Will would want that. He's not-" like me rings through the silence.
Robin snorted. "I think you need to tell Will that, Wheeler." She ruffled his hair, using it to push herself up as she headed for the doorway. She flicked off the light, plunging Mike into darkness as his mind scrambled to process her words.
"Wait, Robin! What does that mean?" He hisses across the growing space between them.
She stops and turns back to him, putting her hands around her mouth to stage-whisper, "It means talk to Will, doofus!" Back at him before she slinks away in the night like a ghostly figment of Mike's tortured imagination.
He blinked, staring at Will’s shadowy form beside him. Thoughts spinning, he pulled himself up and lay down next to Will, hip and shoulder pressed into the thin mattress as he traced the curve of Will’s nose with his eyes. He tugged the threadbare blanket over them both, tucking it around Will’s shoulders, and drifted off, counting inhales, exhales, and all the quiet spaces in between.