Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The air in the pool building was already heavy, weighed down with chlorine and heat, but inside the sauna, it was suffocating. Every inhale burned the back of Max's throat. Sweat clung to her temples and soaked the back of her shirt, sticking her to the floor as if the tiles themselves wanted to drag her down with everything else.

Billy stared at her through the sauna's narrow window.

His face was twisted with something strange, a blend of confusion and pain. The veins along his temple pulsed black for a second, but then his expression shifted. For a split moment, something soft flickered in his eyes, a shimmer of sorrow, of something familiar.

"Max," he said.

His voice cracked like a branch under pressure. Quiet. Pleading.

Max didn't respond at first. She just stared, frozen in place, the heat boiling the thoughts from her head. Her fingers hovered near the metal latch of the sauna door, slippery with sweat, barely able to grip anything. She couldn't move. She could barely think. All she could hear was his voice.

"I'm sorry," Billy said. "I didn't mean it. I didn't want to... he made me. The giant shadow... he made me."

It felt like her heart dropped through her stomach. The others were behind her, silent. Tense. Watching. She felt Mike shift beside her, inching closer. Lucas whispered something but it didn't register. Her ears rang like she was underwater. She looked at Billy again, really looked at him. His eyes were bloodshot, his face pale and wet with sweat. He looked like a scared kid. Like her brother again. Not the monster. Not the thing that had screamed and thrown El across a room.

"Please," he whispered, his voice cracking.

Max's hand twitched, fingertips brushing the latch. Just slightly. She didn't unlock it. But she didn't move away either.

"Max," Mike said, sharper now. "Don't. He's playing you."

But she couldn't stop staring. Something in Billy's face tugged at the old string of hope inside her, the one that still believed he might be in there. That if she just said the right thing, did the right thing, she could pull him out. She could fix it. She could fix him.

Billy's shoulders shook. His head lowered. His body sagged like he was giving up.

"Max..." he breathed, and it almost sounded like a sob.

And then the glass exploded.

There was a split-second flash, tile glittering midair, and then his arm burst through the window like a bullet. A jagged shard of tile gripped in his fist aimed straight for her throat. Max didn't scream right away. Her body locked up. It was too fast.

But Mike moved.

"MAX!" he shouted, his voice raw with teror.

He lunged at her, grabbing her shoulders and shoving her sideways with all his strength. Max went sprawling, crashing hard onto the tile floor. Her elbow cracked against it and pain shot up her arm, but she barely felt it.

The moment she hit the ground, a terrible noise followed, wet and sharp, like tearing meat. A gasping sound. A grunt of pain.

She twisted around just in time to see Mike recoil, blood soaking the side of his shirt. He stumbled backward, gripping his ribs, but Billy's arm came through the broken window again, and this time it didn't miss.

The hand wrapped around Mike's throat and pulled.

Mike's feet left the ground.

His front hit the door with a sickening thud, and his body jerked as he was yanked against the jagged frame. Glass scraped across his ribs, cutting new lines as Billy's forearm crushed against his neck. Max saw Mike's legs kicking weakly, his hands clawing desperately at the arm strangling him.

His face turned red, then purple. His lips trembled, mouth open in a silent, panicked gasp.

Lucas screamed. "He's killing him! He's actually killing him!"

"Mike!" El's voice broke, high and panicked, but her power didn't spark. Her hands were shaking, her face pale with shock.

Max stared for half a second too long, frozen in horror. The way Billy's arm bulged with pressure. The ugly sound of Mike's wheezing. His fingers twitching, growing slower by the second. Blood dripping from the stab wound, pooling along his beltline, seeping into the waistband of his jeans.

Will was on the ground near the lockers, clutching his neck, rocking back and forth. The lights above them flickered. Every bulb buzzed and flared.

And Mike... Mike's eyes were fluttering, unfocused. His hands dropped.

He was fading.

Max's heart slammed into her ribs.

"No," she whispered, scrambling to her feet, panic overtaking everything. "No, no no no -"

Lucas shoved the metal bar into her hands.

Max didn't hesitate.

She ran full-force to the door and brought the bar down with everything she had. The first hit struck Billy's wrist, the second cracked against his forearm. She didn't stop until Billy screamed and his grip faltered.

El's eyes flashed.

And then Billy flew.

He slammed into the far wall of the sauna with a bone-rattling crunch, landing in a heap.

Mike dropped.

He hit the ground with a sick, wet thud. Like a puppet with its strings cut. One arm bent awkwardly under him, the other twitching once before going still.

Max dropped to her knees beside him.

"Mike? Mike- hey-"

She rolled him carefully, and her hands came away red. Blood was soaking his shirt, running in thick rivulets from his side. The gash was deep, jagged, and pulsing. Her stomach flipped.

His lips were a bluish-purple now, his eyes half-lidded. His chest was rising, but barely. Every breath sounded like it hurt.

"You stupid, stupid idiot," Max choked out, pressing both hands to the wound. Her voice shook with panic. "Why would you do that, you didn't have to- you didn't- "

He didn't respond.

"Mike, come on, come on- wake up, dammit- "

El dropped beside her, her hands hovering, unsure where to touch. Her face crumpled, eyes spilling over.

Will was crying now, quietly, his back against the lockers. Lucas looked like he might throw up. No one moved. No one knew what to do.

Max could barely breathe.

Mike's blood was warm and slick under her palms, slipping through her fingers no matter how hard she pressed. He looked so small. So fragile. His body shuddered with every weak gasp.

"Don't die, you absolute moron," she whispered. "You don't get to die. Not for me. Not like this."

She felt a pulse under her hands, faint, but there. Barely...

"Lucas!" she shouted. "We need towels. Now!"

Lucas ran, skidding on the tile.

El finally moved, pulling off her flannel and bunching it up to help stop the bleeding. Max adjusted her pressure, but it didn't feel like enough. Nothing did.

Mike's eyes twitched slightly. His throat made a quiet, rattling noise. It wasn't a word. It was barely anything. But it was enough to make Max feel like she could breathe again, just a little.

"You're gonna be okay," she whispered, more to herself than him. "We've got you. You're gonna be okay."

The flickering lights above them crackled once more and went out.

Everything went quiet.

Chapter Text

He was still breathing.

That was all Max could focus on. Not how much blood was on the floor, not the steam warping the room into a nightmare, not the others frozen around her like statues cracked under pressure. Just that. That Mike was still breathing.

Barely.

Every inhale came in sharp, shallow stutters, like his lungs were too small or too bruised or too full of pain to work right. It was a wet sound, like breathing through broken glass. His ribs jumped with every movement, and his throat hitched on each exhale like it hurt more than it helped. There was no rhythm to it. Just survival.

Max kept pressing into the wound. The flannel El had thrown down was already soaked through. She didn't know if she was even putting pressure in the right place anymore. Her hands were red to the wrist. Her knees were burning against the tile, but she didn't dare move. She could feel the heat still radiating from the sauna, feel it sinking into her skin, but it was nothing compared to the heat coming from Mike's side. He was burning up. Or bleeding out. Or both.

His lips were still purple. The color wasn't fading. His face looked pale enough to disappear.

And his eyes... God.

His eyes were open, but they weren't seeing anything.

They darted frantically around the room, black and blown wide. Every few seconds they jumped from one place to another, not focusing, not settling. Max saw them flick past her face, past El's, past Lucas. He looked like he didn't even know they were there. The movement was jerky and fast, like he was fighting off something, like he was stuck in a moment that had already ended for everyone else but not for him.

He blinked, a quick, trembling flutter, then again. The third time his eyes rolled back just slightly, just enough for the whites to show for a second. Max's heart stopped. He wasn't gone. Not yet. But he was close. Too close.

"Mike," she whispered. "Hey. Hey, come on. Look at me. Please."

No reaction.

She leaned closer, her hands still pressing, her breath trembling.

"Can you hear me? Mike?"

Still nothing.

El was kneeling on the other side of him, her fingers touching his hair like it would anchor him, like he might come back if he felt something gentle. Her eyes were wide, face soaked with tears, but her mouth didn't open. She wasn't talking. Just watching him, helpless.

Lucas came back with a towel, shaking, and handed it off without a word. Max traded it in place of the flannel and pressed down hard. More blood came. It was impossible to tell if it had slowed at all. Her eyes stung. Her throat burned.

Mike blinked again. Quick. Twitchy. His lashes were wet with tears, but there hadn't been a sob. Just the constant streak of them sliding down his face, falling into his hair, into the crook of his neck, disappearing in the mess of red.

His chest jumped again. A hitch. A gasp. Not a breath. Not really.

"Shit," Max whispered, pressing harder. "Stay with me. You're still here. You're okay, we've got you. You're okay."

But he wasn't. He looked anything but okay.

His eyes were still fluttering, rolling slightly, then snapping back forward. Wide. Scared. Blown so black they barely looked human. The whites were bloodshot, completely rimmed in red. It looked painful. Like his body was reacting too hard to everything at once, trying to stay conscious, trying to scream without making a sound.

There were more tears running down his cheeks now, slow and constant, like his body was leaking emotion without permission. Like it didn't even matter that he wasn't responding. It was all just spilling out of him anyway.

And his throat... the handprint around it had darkened into something ugly. Red, raw, bruised. The shape of Billy's fingers was clear, each line angry and deep. Max could see where the pressure had cut into the skin. Where the blood vessels had burst in his eyes. Where the bruising was starting to spread across his jaw and down his neck. It looked like someone had tried to rip his voice away with their bare hands. It looked like it had almost worked.

"El," Max said, her voice cracking. "What do we do? What the hell do we do?"

El didn't answer. Her eyes were locked on Mike's face. She was shaking.

"Lucas," Max said louder. "Do something!"

"I don't know what to do!" he shouted, panicked. "We need help, we need Hopper, we need- "

"He's not gonna make it to Hopper if we don't stop the bleeding!" Max snapped, even though she knew it wasn't fair. Her voice rose higher. "Will! Help me- we need more towels, or something, I don't know- just do something!"

Will moved like a ghost, slow and shaky. He stumbled off to the side without saying a word, disappearing around the corner toward the locker room.

Mike made another noise. It was a breath, maybe. Or a sound. Something that almost sounded like a whimper, but broken and dry. His head turned slightly. His eyes moved. He blinked again, rapid, twitching.. then rolled upward.

"Mike," Max breathed, "Mike, no, stay here. Right here, okay? You're not going anywhere, you hear me?"

She cupped the side of his face, not moving her other hand from the wound. His skin was cold. Too cold. Even with the heat in the room, he felt wrong. Drained. Fading.

The others were crowding around now. Lucas hovered close behind her. El was still kneeling, crying silent, steady tears. Even Dustin had arrived from wherever he'd been, his eyes wide and mouth open in shock, holding some kind of first-aid kit he must have found by the front desk.

No one knew what to say.

Mike blinked again. The movement was weaker now. Less urgent. His eyes twitched, then rolled partway again, like he was slipping under despite himself. Max felt her chest clench so hard it hurt.

"Don't you dare," she whispered. "Don't you dare leave us. Not like this."

He didn't respond. Just another short, sharp breath that rattled and stuck. A twitch of his fingers. A slow roll of his head.

Max pressed harder, not caring about the shaking in her arms.

"I swear to God, Wheeler, if you die, I'm going to kill you," she whispered, even as tears fell down her cheeks and into the blood below.

Mike didn't answer.

But his chest rose again. Faint. Strained.

And that was enough. For now.