Chapter Text
“Don’t tell me.” Lucas groaned into his palms. The rhythmic taps of a nearby monitor stilled the room in its mechanical heartbeats. Dustin and Mike sat next to each other on a cold bench while an assistant nurse fumbled through her supplies, looking more dazed than Dustin himself, who drifted in and out of consciousness.
“Please don’t tell me…” Lucas repeated, voice deepening into his cupped hands. “Don’t tell me you guys actually clashed with them again…”
“What? Is that bad or something?” Mike blurted, poking his neck out from his slumped posture. Dustin’s eyes tried to look up at Lucas, but the many pulsating bruises and scars made Dustin look nearly unrecognizable.
“Bad? Mike, it’s just plain old stupid. I think you should be more upset at your guys’ own tom-fuckery. I mean, what the hell? What were you two even thinking? And—with them? Them?”
Dustin hissed as the nurse applied more gauze to his temple, “Lucas, they were threatening to—”
“I know.” Lucas cut in, his hand raised to silence the two. “But… It’s just. Y’know—“
“What? Are you saying we shouldn’t do something? That we should just take it?” Mike retorted, sarcasm dripping from his lips as he spat out a tooth onto the floor. The nurse shot a look at the dark-haired boy before crouching to retrieve his lost molar with a handkerchief. Mike immediately doubled down and apologized with a nod.
“I mean, I know you two were only doing what was right. And, the fact that you two survived is honestly kind of commendable.”
“Yeah, barely…” Dustin snorted.
“But just because you did it, doesn’t mean it should become like—a regular fucking thing. Last time you two were here, the nurses had to call your guys’ parents. And if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, the whole school heard about it the next day! Made a whole PSA about it and everything, y’know?”
The two boys glanced at one another with bloodshot eyes. The memory provoked a churning guilt in their gut. They recalled the beading sweat dripping from their backs as their principal alluded to their lectures and warnings at the jocks who toyed with them, knowing that soon after this PSA had concluded and everyone was out of the gym, they were in for more lethal beatings.
“Just stop, okay? Before one of you gets seriously done in…” Lucas’ voice softened slightly by that last sentence—genuine worry for losing his friends quivered his lips.
The nurse had just finished tidying Dustin’s face (if you could still call it that) under all the swelling and dried blood. She left the room momentarily, promising to come back to treat Mike. As the door clicked closed, the three teens breathed in the room; its cold artificial air, the freshly ironed hospital bedsheet, the antibiotics and packaged medicine, the awkward stillness.
“They won’t leave us alone, Lucas. What other choice do we have?” Mike sighed, slumping his elbows to his dirty knees.
Lucas exhaled deeply, refusing to look at Mike’s good eye. “There’s always a choice. The right choice.”
“What about Eddie? Did they give him much of a choice?” Dustin countered sternly.
“I—“ Lucas opened his mouth at first. But his throat betrayed him, because he knew no amount of words would dissuade the truth. Lucas’ gaze softened, and his shoulders slumped into defeatedly. Because he knew that no matter how much he pushed back, they wouldn’t stop.
Not for him, not for anyone.
They’d keep diving headfirst into fights they couldn’t walk away from, trading safety for loyalty without a second thought. Lucas hated it; hated the bruises, the split lips, the constant fear—but worse than that, he hated that he understood why they did it.
And so, the room fell into silence yet again.