Broken ribs was fucking painful, especially when you can’t stop coughing. It’s Wills turn to shrink under the sympathy, he can’t exactly say ‘it happened during CPR’ because that makes it worse instead of better. ‘Yeah I died a bit’ is no comfort at all.

“I was twelve so I mostly remember being mad I had to have bed rest at the hospital and I didn’t even get a cast.” The whole painkiller fuelled memory is a blur of tests and people saying words he didn’t understand and trying to press him for details of his time in the upside down, asking questions he didn’t have answers to and nightmares every time he dared to sleep.

“They do hurt a bit, sometimes, but I don’t know if it’s because they got broken,” it could be whatever the spores did to his lungs that mean he still has fits of wheezing or just having utterly terrible posture, he’s prone to hunching, trying to make himself smaller and less visible. “I get told to sit up straight all the time so it could be that, who knows.”

Will shrugs, it’s easier to be blasé about everything and skip over the scary or painful parts so the anxiety is kept at bay, doesn’t sweep through chilling his blood and tightening his throat until he feels like he’s dying all over again.