Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

3:57 a.m. is the time that the train from Hawkins, Indiana, to Chicago, Illinois, would always come. Always 12 minutes late, but only on Sundays.

Sometimes it came early, like on Tuesdays it came at 3:40 on Thursdays they came at 3:25. William Byers was a very punctual man, always on time, never late. It was the only thing that he could control in his pathetic, crazy life.

So on contrary, he avoided getting in the bus on Sundays. Even when he was called in that day, he would make up some excuse. Normally, it was something about his dog needing to go to the vet, or ‘𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘩,’ which was very obvious he was lying about, because Will was very non-religious. So yeah, anything to avoid getting on the Sunday train.

A hospital, was obviously not where he would see himself in 10 years, especially only being 18, but it was really just a part time job. He was saving up to go to an art school, obviously. As if he didn’t make it clear by having paintings and drawings and oil pastels all stacked and gathered in his room, at UChicago Hospital, he would often doodle little characters on patients door signs, and take care of the colorful paintings strung all about the buildings, all to try to make his patients feel welcome and cheerful.

Although he wasn’t allowed to talk about his patients back at his home in Hawkins (obviously), he was still able to tell his family and friends about some things, putting alias’s for the patients names as well.

Jane, his step-sister, who worked as a vet, would bother him about the patients, always asking to hear more about them, but he was only allowed to tell her small bits and pieces.

There was one person that Jane knew about very well, based on the amount of times he would come in, scarily, a lot more than a person should. Of course, she didn’t know his name, but she knew a bit of what was going on.

Mickey, of course, had to be the most stupidest alias’s for him to pick.

His real name is Michael James Wheeler, full government name, because yes, Will had looked at his file a concerning amount of times. And now, Will didn’t wanna be rude, but he was pretty sure the guy was on the spectrum, or had something wrong with him, because there was no way this guy was neurotypical.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, but the answer is no. Will did not choose to look at the file because Michael was attractive, but because of the amount of times he had come to the hospital.

In the earlier stages of when Will and Mike first met, Will was sure that, in his self-centered mind, Mike was purposely doing things to get him sick or hurt, just to see Will. Like if you were there, you probably would have thought the same thing. At first it was small things. Cold, Flu, bruised eye, which was a little concerning, bruised wrist, flu. So really they were all normal things.

A half-year after he started to come to this hospital, was when all hell broke loose. Chaos ensured at the hospital, with the New Year allergies, crazy stunts at the beginning of school, and Christmas presents gone wrong. And for Mike, things got worse too.

Sometimes he would come in twice a week with some sickness or bug, but Will just figured the guy just had a bad immune system. Mike would mention some weird things during the inspections, or just be completely silent when he would get sick. Occasionally, he would be super talkative, explaining some wild story with his skateboard, and his friends, doing some crazy trick, leading for him to fracture his wrist, bruise his cheek, and break a finger.

Dustin Henderson, who was a nurse at Will’s hospital, would sometimes see Mike outside of the clinic. Just a few hours ago, a random Friday night, he spotted him in an alley way, with his friends, a red headed girl, and a tall guy. They were screaming and shouting, and Dustin figured he needed to leave in case they were getting into a fight.

“Puh-lease, have you seen Mike? The guy could probably barely throw a punch.” Will shook his head after Dustin’s story, both of them standing next to the door that entered the front room.

“Maybe, but there’s a chance he’s the one getting beat up. I mean, with his latest reports; black eye, bruised leg, fractured wrist, etc,. It all adds up.”

He paused to think. Of course, he mentally groaned. How did Will not see the signs before?

“That.. could be possible. But maybe he’s just,” He took a pause, trying to figure out the right word; stupid, careless, dumb. “Clumsy. Maybe he’s just clumsy.” He repeated, trying to make light of the demeaning situation.

“He could be.. check his file again. Maybe this is all like rooted to one thing. Has he mentioned like, going to a therapist?”

“Not that I know of, but I can check again.”

Suddenly, Chrissy Cunningham, the girl who worked at the front desk, let out a gasp loud enough for them to hear.

“Yes, right away.” Her voice sounded panicked, as she pressed down on the alert button, letting the rest of the staff know that there was a patient with a serious problem.

Will hoped it wasn’t Mike, that he hadn’t been hurt again, and as he entered the room, his prayers had been answered, as it was not in fact Mike, but a guy in his early 20’s, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a busted lip, and a bruised nose. Will let out a sigh that he didn’t know he harbored, as he led the blonde guy, into a room. The guy sat down on the seat, parchment paper crinkling under him.

“Okay, well in order to help you, I’m going to need to know what happened, besides, being beat up.” Will asked, unsure of how to approach this. The guy, who’s name was Jason Carver, looked like one of those guys who peaked in high-school, played on the varsity basketball team, school bully type shit.

The jock let out an irritated huff before started explaining. “Okay, this all started maybe a few years ago. There’s this shitty group of juniors at my high school,” 𝘖𝘬𝘢𝘺 𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘶𝘺 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, “there’s like 3 of them. At first I didn’t know there was a group, cause one of them joined my basketball team,” 𝘉𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘰, “But my gang and I, we all picked on the other two. And the third one, Lucas, got into a fight with me about it, because they were his ‘friends’? I don’t know, they’re all mostly weird, especially the other guy, Mike.”

𝘖𝘬𝘢𝘺, 𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘔𝘪𝘬𝘦’𝘴 𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦, Will thought, 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵?

“Go on.” He urged.

“Yeah, so anyways, we picked on them, and now they’re fighting with us—my crew and I are obviously winning—abut what happened last night.. was something else, man. I think Mike was on his breaking point or whatever, which was kinda funny to watch, so my team and I do our normal shenanigans, and the dude goes feral. Pulls out a knife, a bloody one, and Lucas and the girl start beating us up. Then I end up here.”

Will doesn't know if he’s lying or not, but for this Mike in this story, it must have been really downplayed, the stuff Jason did, because who just pulls out a knife?

But the night goes on, Jason gets bandaged up, goes home, and Will clocks out around 3:10, forgetting to check Mike, his Mike’s file. He was exhausted though, so he could just check on that tomorrow

Chapter Text

So, maybe tomorrow wasn’t the day for Will. The day where he’d see Mike. Or the day after that. Or *days* after that. Unusual.

That meant Mike wasn’t getting hurt constantly for once in his life. Good for him, but on the other hand, Will maybe, *maybe* missed the raven-haired. But, to settle his mind, he pictured him at whatever high-school he went to, talking with his friends, taking classes, causing small troubles here and there.

It was weird, he’ll admit. But, Will just cared so much for Mike, in a doctorly way. *Totally*

Whatever was going on with Mike, he didn’t allow himself to think too hard about it. It was easy to keep himself distracted. Taking care of patients, restocking and ordering medicines, talking with Dustin, and making small chitchat with Chrissy at the front. During his breaks, he’d take online college courses—Yeah, Will was smart enough to start taking college classes in senior year—or doodle little drawings.

Often, he found himself drawing his most recent patients. Whether it were accidental or the patients appearance interested him, he would make the pen drawings in his office. One was of a guy, who had a buffer appearance, not too muscular, and had *amazing* hair, and was with a girl who seemed to be his girlfriend.

“Yes, Robin, of course it still hurts if you touch it— Ow!” The guy—Will checked the file—Steve exclaimed at the presumable Robin, who had touched his bruised eye.

“Maybe next time don’t run into a walk trying to flirt with the customers, dingus. You lost so much aura from that.”

“It’ll work eventually, trust me, it’s all in the mind. Also what does that even mean?”

Will overheard while the duo was sitting in the waiting room, and chuckled quietly to himself. Will acknowledged they weren’t together, and let out a breath of relief. With all the straight couples pouring into the clinic recently, he needed a break.

Unfortunately, as funny it would have been to be their doctor, he looked over at his co-worker, Dustin, who had immediately lit up at the sight of the duo, and went over and greeted them, giving Steve and bear hug and a weird, complicated looking handshake. They seemed like good friends, so he let Dustin take them instead.

He glanced down at his smart watch, checking the time, as it read: ‘5:02 p.m.’ Perfect. He didn’t even work the late shift today, so for the third time this week, he would be able to eat diner with his family. Even better, Jonathan was in town from New York City for a few weeks, and was bringing his new girlfriend.

Lost in thought as he clocked out, he absentmindedly said goodbye to Chrissy, and walked out of the clinic, and stepped into something wet and cold. -he likes it cold- Will took a breath, and squinted his eyes shut, only to look down and see white stuff. Oh..! It was snow! How had he not noticed it was snowing?

He absolutely loved the snow. When he was 13, El, Jonathan, and him went to the woods by their house, and made a huge cave in the snow, with the help of Joyce’s new husband, Hopper, who was also the chief of police.

They had made a small fire in the cave, played games in there, and when no one was watching, when Will would have nightmares of Lonnie, and wouldn’t feel safe in his room, he’d venture out of his room, into the woods with paper and pencils and crayons, and draw. Draw in the snow version of Castle Byers.

So many nights he’d draw in there, or take Jonathan’s CD player, and listen to songs, just to be alone out there. To ignore the outside world. To ignore the bullies who called him a faggot, shoved him into lockers, and harassed him every week. He felt.. safe in the cave. It was something he had built with the people he loved. It was like that love was keeping him safe from all harm and danger, in the scary night woods.

It was tradition. Every year when it snowed enough (which it always did), they would go out, Hopper, Jonathan, El, and him would rebuild the snow cave, even though none of them could fit in it like they used to anymore. It was just something that they did. Something that was theirs.

Until the snow melted in the late spring, he found himself drawn towards the cave, even as he neared 19. Of course, this year they’d have to make it even bigger to fit them all.

••• - - - •••

Clunking up the snowy steps, as the last glimmers of sunlight shown down upon the Byers’ house, Will glanced around at his home. There were five cars scattered around the house. 3 in the driveway, Hopper’s police car, Joyce’s dark green Subaru, and El’s white convertible. Will had parked his own car in the grass space in the other side of the house, his black Honda Civic blending in with woods beside it. Parked at the front of the Byers’ house, was Jonathan’s brown car, a more beat up than the last time Will saw it, but Jonathan had never been an amazing driver.

Will could see his breath in the air, and was prepared to be bundled up in a blanket by the fire, talking to El about the last things that have been happening, what one of his patients said, and El talking about one of her co-workers.

When he went it, he immediately forgot that plan as he made eye contact with familiar eyes. Jonathan’s new girlfriend. She had big dark brown eyes, perfect curly brown hair, soft looking lips, and pale skin. Will couldn’t place where he had seen someone like her before, digging in his mind just to bring up an inch of knowing, but there was nothing.

He broke it when the Byers’ family dog, Chester came sprinting towards him, and jumped up on his chest. The smell of freshly made dinner on the table, made his stomach growl.

“Hi guys!” Will said, leaving Chester with one last pet, as he walked over to Jonathan, and threw his arms around him.

“Hey sweetie, how was work?” Joyce asked from the kitchen, a song softly playing from the radio filled in the background noise.

“It was good, yeah. I mean, nothing important happened, but it was good.”

Before Joyce could respond, he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder and flinched, only to realize that El had emerged from her room.

“Will, you won’t believe what Heather said to Ruby today.” And with that, they faded into a light chatter.

When Joyce called El to help her with the bread a little while later and Jon was using the bathroom, he walked over to greet the brunette girl.

“Hey, I’m Will, Jonathon’s brother, obviously, and you are?” He held out his hand.

“I’m Nancy, it’s nice to meet you.” She shook it.

“So where did you and Jonathon meet?”

“Oh, he and I work at the same News office. A few months back we were assigned on the same project—he took the pictures, and I wrote it.”

“Ohhh, okay. How are you liking it in Hawkins so far?”

“I used to live here, actually, but it’s quite different since the last time I.. visited here.”

“Dinner is ready!!” El called out in a booming voice from the kitchen.

••• - - - •••

Unfortunately, Hopper got here after dinner, and Jon and Nancy had already left. But he didn’t just come alone. He came bearing news from work. Which, is it really thar bad to enjoy hearing gossip from other people’s life’s?

“Apparently, there was a call from this anonymous person, calling to see if we could give one of their friends a wellness check?” He ended the sentence making it sound more like a question than a statement. “The call cut out before she could tell us who it was though, and then—call it a coincidence or not—some guy, think his name was Ted, called and said that something wasn’t right with his son. But the line cut out with that call too.”

Hopper shrugged, eating a leftover donut from this morning on the couch. Like he hadn’t just dropped something that Will and El would be theorizing about for at least a week.

Hopper let out a satisfied huff.

“So, when are we building that cave?”