Chapter Text
~*~
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
T.S. Elliot
~*~
Mike can’t stop staring at Will, and honestly? He doesn’t want to. His best friend is lying still, staring at nothing, remembering almost nothing, and Mike can’t do anything but sit here and wait. The room is not quite as cold as the Byers’ house has been, but it feels worse being here than it had lying on Will’s bedroom floor bundled up in two layers and three blankets. Here, the walls are white and sterile and there’s not a single one of Will’s paintings anywhere except for the polaroid of the shadow monster drawing. Doctor Owens had left it and now? Now it’s a physical representation of the immaterial presence in the room with them.
Just Will, Mike, and the Shadow Monster. Mike constantly finds himself switching between pacing the three feet of open floor space and slumping down on the chair at the wall in exhaustion. The chair is way too far away from Will, though and sitting in it almost dosing off is usually enough to send him right back to pacing and staring. For the past twenty minutes or so, Will has either been staring at the ceiling or right back at him, although it never feels like he is actually looking at Mike.
The room is silent and it’s just them, until a quiet static crackling drifts through the air, and he remembers that he hasn’t talked to his other friends in two days. He can’t fathom how that’s possible, especially with everything that’s been going on, but now Dustin’s voice drifts through the walkie, “Meet ——eve —— Junkyard.” Surprisingly the battery doesn’t seem to be empty yet, but it’s clear Dustin is still too far away for Mike to communicate clearly with him, considering the amount of static that cuts through his sentence. The only thing he can clearly grasp is the word junkyard, and that feels like a success because at least he knows where they are now. The only remaining question is: Why?
Mike can’t hear an answer, so he guesses Lucas, who must be who Dustin is talking to, is even further away. Still, the moment he notices Will's eyes flicker down from the ceiling to stare at Mike’s backpack with wide, terrified eyes, he dives towards it and starts digging for the walkie. The second he has his it tightly clutched in one hand he goes to stand beside Will, “That was Dustin, our friend. Do you remember him?”
“-- binoculars …—— rocket.” Dustin says, as Will shakes his head, but he still looks at Mike; right at him with stubborn recognition, so there’s still hope. Mike carefully places a hand on Will’s upper arm and presses the button to talk.
“Dustin, it’s Mike, can you hear me? Over.” For a long moment there’s nothing but static, and he’s about to try again, when finally: “——ike, where —— you?” Mike feels a wave of relief wash over him and gives Will’s arm a gentle squeeze before replying, “I’m at the lab with Will. We have a code red. Code red. Over.”
The seconds tick by slowly and Mike has to restrain himself from starting to pace again, by rubbing circles into Will’s upper arm. It’s right when he hears the beginning of Dustin’s answer over the walkie that the door opens and in comes Bob followed by a scientist, who immediately zeroes in on the walkie in Mike’s hand. “Hey big guy, how are you feeling?” Bob is asking, and that and the scientist literally ripping the walkie from Mike’s hands makes it impossible for him to understand a single word of Dustin’s reply.
“Hey! That’s mine asshole!” He yells and jumps to try and get his walkie back, but the scientist is once again taller than him —just as the soldiers had been last year, and like his mom, when she used to take his toys. Mike is never tall or fast enough to do anything. He feels frustration run through him as he watches the man step back towards the door again, while Mike is unwilling to go too far away from Will. Gently he lays his hand back on Will and under the tips of his fingers, he can feel the tension in the boy’s muscles and the slight tremor running through his entire body.
“I’m taking this to Doctor Owens,” the man says, stony faced and without a hint of compassion as he leaves the room again. “You can’t do that you piece of shit!” Mike yells and his body lurches forward, but again, he stops himself from following the scientist out the door because right in that moment Will’s hand comes up to catch his wrist. That’s when Mike remembers the cameras set up in the corners of the room and realises the man must have come in specifically to stop him from talking to his friends.
He feels Bob’s stunned eyes on him, but that doesn’t stop him from sending a middle finger up at the black lens hanging above his head. Still, for some reason he feels the need to apologize for his language, but Bob gets there first.
“Sorry boy-oh, I tried to reason with them—” Bob trails off and Mike studies his face for just a moment. He’s seen Bob around every now and then. Like back in spring, when his mom had taken him to the Radio Shack to get him his walkman, or occasionally when walking to Malvalds with Will, but he doesn’t actually know anything about the guy. Nothing, except that Bob doesn’t have to be here; he just cares for Joyce —and by extension Will— enough to spend his Sunday locked up in a lab with a possessed William Byers. And Mike? Mike appreciates it, relates to it even.
“Thanks, I’m just glad they’re not pointing guns at us this time.” He gives a weak attempt at a smile to show just how much that image doesn’t bother him anymore. And it doesn’t, he hasn’t woken up screaming El’s name in over two weeks, and he hasn’t dreamed of old ladies with blood in their eyes in... No, there had been that instance on Friday, but that hardly counts because he barely remembers the dream at all, and Will had just told him about throwing up literal monsters; of course he’d be dreaming about the crazy shit that had happened last year.
Bob looks stunned the way he had when seeing the Byers’ living room for the first time, and it takes a couple moments of Will’s fingers tapping restlessly on Mike’s wrist for Bob to find his words. “Oh, yes that… that sounds like progress.” Mike uses the time it takes for Bob to figure out what to say next, to gently place his other hand over Will’s on his pulse point in an attempt to stop the twitching.
Will’s hand is pale even against the white of Mike’s own skin, and it is freezing cold. As if all life has been drained from him. He’s looking at Mike with wide, fearful eyes, and Mike is trying to look back reassuringly, but all he can think is, I don’t know how to help you. And it’s worse than the time Will broke his finger falling off his bike, worse than last year, when he’d been missing, because all it took was finding a doctor, or beating a monster. Those were visible threats with visible solutions. Now? Now it’s like he can’t even comfort Will anymore because his fingers are still twitching under Mike’s, and he seems to be barely clinging on to the memories of them. Mike can’t help it; he intertwines their fingers and ignores the feeling of eyes on him.
“I wish I had a walkie like that when I was a kid,” Bob says, finally interrupting the silence, “though I’m sure it’s a lot more fun when you have friends to use them with.” There’s a self deprecating chuckle thrown in, and Mike is oddly grateful for it. This is a feeling he knows all too well, the feeling of being alone and lost. He remembers all too well how he’d felt on that first day of kindergarten, and remembers seeing the same emotion on Will’s face, remembers the way the look disappeared when he’d asked that fateful question and how ever since he’s only felt this lonely once.
“We got them after joining the AV club, but usually I can only really talk to Lucas on it,” he says, all the while trying and failing to ignore the tapping on his hand and occasionally giving Will’s a squeeze.
At his words Bob’s face pulls into a wide grin, visibly brightening up with joy. “The AV club? I didn’t actually think that was still around.”
“Yeah,” Mike straightens up, “We’re the only members, but we’re looking for new members before we start High School next year.” He doesn’t mention that, as of now, they haven’t been successful, but he’s sure Mr. Clark will find someone to take over after them if it comes down to it. “Mr. Clark is so cool, he taught us everything about radios last year and he even taught us morse-” Long tap, tap, “-code.”
A shiver runs down Mike’s entire body. The tapping of Will’s icy thumb against the back of Mike’s hand continues, and this time he’s listening. Tap, tap, tap. Pause.
“Scott is a brilliant teacher I bet.” Tap, tap, long tap. Pause. “But did you know that I basically taught him everything he knows?” Three long taps. “In college he only majored in biology and chemistry, but I was the one who taught him about AV stuff.” Tap, long tap. Pause. “We basically taught each other to be fair.” The same pattern again, and Mike doesn’t think he’ll like the message. “I founded the AV club in seventh grade,” long tap, tap, long tap, long tap. Pause.
Mike does not like the message. SORRY. He turns to face Will’s wide open eyes, and for a split second he’s looking at him with recognition until his eyes darken again, but he doesn’t stop talking.
Neither does Bob, “I had a fundraiser for equipment,”
R
“And I met Scott, who was in the year under me,”
U
“And managed to convince him to join.”
N
The moment Mike finally realises what is going on, he knows it is too late to do anything but listen to Will; something he should have been doing the moment he started to talk. What if he’d missed something? The soldiers, they shouldn’t have done that. There are soldiers here with them, just behind that perfectly pristine door.
“We need to find Mrs Byers and Hopper!” Mike yells, interrupting Bob mid explanation, who startles and immediately sees that something is wrong, when he looks at Mike. He’s sure his fear and uncertainty are clear to see on his face; he’s always been unable to guard his emotions, but he’s never been as happy about that fact as he is now.
He doesn’t want to, but Mike rips his hand from Will’s and runs to the door in the vague hope that either adult is just right outside. They’re not. The only people out there are the two soldiers that, only half an hour ago, had taken Joyce into the meeting room for yet another debrief. Mike runs up to them and is immediately stopped, “I need to get through! It’s a trap! It’s a trap! I need to warn them. It’s a trap!” but they’re not listening. Just like him. No one ever listens. And then the alarms start blaring.
“Shit!”
Seconds later, he’s back in Will’s room, with Bob staring worriedly and Will looking almost apathetic, and Mike wants to throw up, because right then the only way out seems to be held in a tiny glass bottle filled with some kind of sedative. “We need to make him sleep! He’s a spy.”
Bob tries to protest, and Will starts thrashing, “He’s lying!” but Mike knows he’s right, because Will’s eyes are brown and furious.
They should be hazel and, as much as he hates it, they should be terrified.
Mike has never done this before, but whenever he got his vaccines the doctor would notice his curiosity and, to distract him from the pain, show him exactly how to work the syringe. He plunges the needle into the cork and draws in the liquid, shakes the syringe, and just to be sure that not a single bubble of air is left inside, he pushes out a wasteful amount of the liquid when he’s done.
Behind him he hears Will struggle, and Bob is still trying to talk to him, and Mike looks at the needle, and for the first time in his life, the sight is almost enough to make him throw up. Never before has he been this afraid but he’s also never had to do this to anyone. He briefly thinks about waiting, hoping that someone comes for them, or asking Bob, but that’s when the gun shots start.
“Those are gun shots!” Bob yells, and Will is howling, “He’s lying!” and that’s all Mike needs to hear because Will knows that Mike would never lie. Not to Will and not about this.
“Hold him down.” For one more moment, Mike doesn’t look, but there’s screaming now, and he turns around. In one hurried motion, stopping only for a millisecond to not miss the muscle, he presses down on the syringe, as quickly as he thinks is safe.
Time ticks by slowly, very, slowly as Will finally drifts off to sleep.
Byers with a B was always way before Wheeler with a W. That’s why, whenever they’d get their vaccines in school, Mike would be able to see what band-aid Will had chosen, and that’s why they always got matching ones. Except last year, the ones with the sunflowers had already been gone when Mike was up, and instead he had to get a blue one with fluffy little clouds on it.
Now, when Mike pulls out the needle, he has neither a yellow nor a blue band-aid. There’s nothing to stop the red from welling up, but at least Will is no longer screaming. At least, Will doesn’t have to see this.
“Hey big guy, you ok?” Bob is up and around the bed in seconds. Two hands land on Mike’s shoulder and turn him around to face a kneeling Bob. His eyes are open wide, and Mike sees his own fear reflected back to him in the man’s soft eyes. Hopper wouldn’t be afraid. But Hopper also wouldn’t be pulling Mike into a hug and hurriedly muttering reassurances. “That was really brave, you’re really brave. You’re all right. We will all be all right. We just have to get out.”
Mike drops the syringe and nods, quickly wiping the tears from his eyes. “Yes, we need to get out. We need to get out now.” He stumbles to the door and watches as Bob picks up Will, throwing him, and the blanket, over his shoulder. No way to contact anyone. Need to get out. They’ll be ok. Mike’s mind is ablaze. So many thoughts and worries whirring around, and all the while he’s trying to remember the exit route. But he’s never been here before, not in this part of the lab at least. There was only one time, when Will had asked him to come with to one of the checkups and that had been a different room, on an entirely different floor, and all the halls look the same. They’re all the same!
“Do you remember the way out?” He barks at Bob, but when he opens the door to the hallway, his choice is made for him: The only way out is going right, because whatever is attacking them is coming from the front. Gun shots are coming from that distance and something is crashing against the wooden door. Hard. He starts running, looking back every three steps to check that Bob is still behind him.
Mike doesn’t know where he’s going, but it’s not like that really matters. He takes all the turns that lead away from the sound of gun shots or screams or growling. That is until he comes to a sliding halt at a three way intersection. Neither direction seems to be obviously dangerous. There’s no blood on the floor, and no screaming behind either of the doors at the ends of the short hallway. It’s just a boring, white, silently, terrifying hallway. The lights above them are blinding and the alarms are blaring and Mike doesn’t know where to go.
“Shit!” Bob says when he stops right behind him. He’s panting right alongside Mike, and there’s sweat beading on his red face. Mike knows that this man is just as helpless as he is and that he shouldn’t blame him, but once again he finds himself wishing for Hopper. Hopper who had found them at the junkyard and took out at least twenty government guys to get them out of that damned school bus. Hopper would have known the way out.
Mike takes the moment to breathe, but then a sound flows through the air from behind. A clicking and growling. Slow, not rushed like it had been last year, but unmistakable the same. It causes the terror coursing through Mike’s veins to freeze and boil at the same time, and he knows that, left or right, it doesn’t matter because they’ll die if they stay. He makes the executive decision to go right. “Come on, let’s go!”
Just as they reach the door the lights start to flicker, Please, no, not again, no!, and then they go out and the alarm stops and everything is silent except for their heavy breaths. Lights off is good, at least they’re not flickering. Mike pushes open the door and keeps running. He makes it only a couple of steps before suddenly he’s falling. His shoes lose grip on the linoleum floors, slipping on something, and Mike crashes face first onto the ground. The hands he raises to stop his fall achieve nothing, only slipping in the dark liquid.
One thought manages to crash through the barrier created by the blinding pain. Blood. Mike stops it right as it comes up and decides to never think about this again, never think about how his face and his hands are wet and… He looks up and comes face to face with the stiff, no longer white fabric of a scientist's lab coat.
Mike yelps and scrambles back. He’s sitting, unable to make his knees lock, unable to stand up, and scooting back until he hits Bob’s legs. A scream escapes his lips and he only relaxes when Bob quickly steps around him. The man is once again kneeling in front of him, but this time instead of hugging him, he places one of his hands gently on Mike’s face, forcing him to look into his eyes. But Bob’s eyes aren’t warm, they’re not smiling, they’re not certain of anything. What they are is alive, they’re safe, and that has to be enough for Mike. “I’m here, Mike. Remember: We just need to get out and find the others.”
Mike finds himself nodding. Bob’s grip on his face loosens, and Mike takes this moment to look at the sleeping form of his best friend, now haphazardly lying in Bob’s lap and held up by the hand that’s not holding onto Mike. Behind Bob, right where Mike had just fallen lies the body of a scientist. He can’t be the first. We must have run past so many. Shakily he looks further, and then, in the dark, he sees something that gives him hope: The dead man’s hand is clamped tightly around Mike’s walkie.
“That’s my walkie!” He springs up and grabs it, choosing not to notice the resistance of a dead man’s grip. Immediately, he presses down on the button, “Hello, does anybody copy. This is a code red. Over.”
Bob stands beside him as they wait, but there is nothing but the crackling static of an open connection. Mike swears under his breath and tries again, but he knows they can't wait forever, not with the emergency lights still blinking and especially not now that they can no longer hear a single scream or gun shot.
“We should keep moving, but keep it turned on in case someone responds.” Bob says and because both his hands are once again occupied with holding Will, he uses his elbow to nudge Mike forward.
Mike's body starts moving, almost on its own accord. They're going slower now, quiet and careful not to miss any signs or maps, but Mike wishes he was still running. Not that he’s ever been good at it, but at least the rush and adrenaline had kept his thoughts at bay. He can't ever stop himself from feeling, loudly and openly and right now that is not an option. Right now they need to be quiet, even though all Mike wants is to cry and sob into his mother's arms the way he'd done last year when that body was pulled out of the quarry.
This is so much worse, he thinks, because Will might be right here, and Mike knows he's alive, but the way he had to jab a needle into him might haunt him for far longer than that fake body ever could. We're alive, we're going to stay alive, and everything will be fine.
Or at least that's what Mike tells himself. That's what his mind keeps repeating on a loop even as he carefully listens for every sound, watches for any movement, scans the signs, and mutters quietly into the radio praying for someone, anyone to hear them. Once when they pass a fire escape plan, he makes Bob stop. He studies every detail and tries his best to memorise it. The thought that Dustin and his photographic memory would be of so much more use than he is right now, briefly crosses his mind, but then he notices that Bob is also studying the map, and maybe between the two of them, they’ll actually be fine.
Eventually they make it to the foyer, and Mike sends a prayer of thanks up to the skies because they haven't encountered a single Demogorgon. Behind him, Bob breathes out a laugh of pure relief and Mike finally turns around to check on Will. If he just gets them out now, maybe one day he’ll be able to get rid of the guilt of what he had to do and for not listening to Will.
He looks so small compared to Bob's ginormous build, and he's drowning in the hospital blanket and gown, but he's breathing. Mike can see slow deep breaths and fluttering eyelids, which must mean he's still asleep and dreaming. Hopefully it's a good dream.
Just before they reach the door a voice comes through the walkie, “Mike? Is that you? Over.”
Mike feels a sob climb up in his throat at the voice of the one person he'd been hoping to reach. “Hopper? Yes, it's me. Where are you? Is Mrs Byers with you? Over.” The response thankfully, comes out clear and not as choked up as Mike is feeling. They're in the foyer, they're almost out and at least Hopper is alive. Everything will actually be fine.
“Yes, kid. Joyce and the Doc are with me. We're in a control room on the third floor, there are too many of those dog things running around for us to get anywhere. Where are you? Are you safe? Is anyone with you? Over.” Mike feels his already weak knees give way under him at the relief. Miss Byers is safe. Will won't wake up an orphan. He'll have a chance to remember her even if everything from before might be gone, when he wakes up. He feels Bob sit down next to him, and there's no shame in the way he immediately clings to him. Bob is warm and breathing and he's the one keeping Will safe.
“Kid, talk to me. Are you alone? Over.”
“Sorry,” he does choke on a sob this time, but if he's lucky they can't hear it, “Bob, and I are in the foyer. Will is unconscious, I-” should I say it? He doesn't finish the sentence and when Bob takes the walkie from him and speaks for him, Mike is oddly grateful. It gives him the time to breathe for a minute.
“We had to sedate him, Mike said Will was a spy?” At Bob's questioning look, Mike nods and pushes his face closer to Bob's shoulder, right where Will's head is resting. “But we're ok, almost out of the building. Over.”
There's a crackling pause and then Doctor Owens’s voice comes through and shatters all of Mike's hopes in one fell swoop. “The doors won't open. When there's a power outage the building goes on lockdown and the doors are fail secure. Someone would need to reset the breakers and unlock them remotely with a computer.”
From right above his head, Mike sees Bob’s mouth form a shocked little “Oh”, but all Mike can hear is the ringing in his ears. He gives up on controlling himself and wails into Bob’s shoulder.
Today, he watched his best friend forget everything that made him Will, stabbed him with a needle, saw countless dead and mauled bodies, and now the asshole responsible for trapping them here is telling him all of it was for nothing.
A hand wraps around his head, the warmth seeping through his hair right to his fogged up mind. It doesn't help with the fear and anxiety, but Bob's silent support is enough to make sure Mike can quiet his breathing enough to raise his head again.
“So, someone who knows BASIC needs to go find a computer and override the security codes? Over.” Bob must know BASIC or he wouldn't be asking like that. He looks just a tiny bit terrified, but Mike can tell exactly what he's thinking. Bob knows what to do, and he's ready to do it. For a fleeting moment, Mike has this overwhelming sense of He's so cool and then he realises that if Bob goes back in, he'll want Mike and Will to hide somewhere close to an exit. Alone. In the dark, with ‘those dog things’ roaming free all throughout the lab. His hands tighten on Bob's scrubs and he makes the executive decision that wherever Bob is going to go, he will go, too.
“Yes. The breakers are in the basement, and there's a computer, but none of us know BASIC. Over.”
“I do, but I can't leave the boys. Over.” That's right, he can't, but Mike has already decided for him.
“You need to go, and take us with you. I'm not staying here alone. But someone has to do it, so we're going together.” He tries to use his most imploring gaze on him, hoping he doesn't look like a puppy. Because sometimes, when he begs his Mom to let him and Will watch a horror movie together, she'll murmur something about puppy dog eyes, and her ‘baby boy’ and immediately shut him down.
It doesn't work. Bob's eyes soften, exactly the same way his mom’s always do, and the fingers on Mike's head sweep through his hair as he answers, “No, I can't take you with me Mike. We're both completely defenseless, and Will isn't even awake.”
Mike is about to argue, when the walkie crackles to life again, “Take them to the stairwell closest to you. We'll meet you there, and Joyce will take the boys back to the foyer and out as soon as the doors are open. Over.”
They agree, even though Mike, who's starting to come out of his terrified trance, thinks he should help in some way. He's been useless all week, and he'll just continue being useless now, but at least it ensures that he and Will will be safe and reunited with Mrs Byers.
They get up and with one last longing gaze toward the glass doors, they head back into the belly of the beast.