Chapter Text
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” Mike hears as a pillow hits him in the face. “I got you breakfast. I’m leaving for the bus stop, my dad’s about two hours out from here. Merry Christmas.”
“Hmph?” He pulls himself up out of the pillows, hair covering his eyes and disorienting him.
“Breakfast. Leaving. Christmas. Wake up.” He shakes his hair out of his eyes, and Max comes into focus. “Are you going to see Will again today? Got a grand romantic gesture planned?”
“No,” he groans, sitting up and seeing a bagel and a cup of coffee on the nightstand.
“Given up already? Really? I expected better of you.”
“Christmas is his favorite day of the year,” he says, swinging his legs off the edge of the bed. “No way I’m taking that from him. I can wait ‘til tomorrow to ruin his day.”
“So romantic,” Max says affectionately. “I’m gonna go visit my dad. I’ll be back sometime tonight. Don’t worry about me, unless you get really bored.”
Mike flips her off over his shoulder, but adds a genuine “Have fun,” before she closes the door.
He wonders what he’s going to do with himself for the rest of the day while pacing the hotel room with his bagel (and hey, Max actually got cream cheese on it, that was nice of her). He tries to enjoy the view a couple times, but standing still doesn’t suit his current mood.
He can’t see Will today, he knows that, but confining himself to a hotel room also clearly isn’t going to work, at least not without him driving everyone next to him, above him, and below him with his pacing and stupid ways of fidgeting.
He decides a walk in town is what he needs now, not because he expects to find anything in town, but if he walks a circle in this room one more time he might actually go insane.
Unexpectedly, his walk takes him to a Radio Shack, one of the only places open on Christmas. (Why a Radio Shack? Are there unexpected Christmas electronics emergencies… lights, he supposes. But maybe it’s that it’s one of the few stores that’s a chain and not local.)
He wanders aimlessly around for about ten minutes before stumbling upon the Walkmans, and is reminded of something he’s carrying in his backpack. His savings from work are running short, but he’s still got the cash he’s been skimming off his dad’s wallet (so he’s better than stealing from Nancy now, the same isn’t true of his father) and it’s not so much. And it would break the monotony of the day. And prepare him for tomorrow…
A week after Will leaves, Mike goes back to the Byers’ house.
In the end, the house wasn’t in good enough condition or on good enough land to sell. A development company bought it, along with some of the surrounding land, to put in offices or something. He hadn’t really cared enough to notice what the name on the sign was.
The Byers had locked up when they left, but Mike knew the back window lock had been busted for years, and hadn’t been fixed when they cleaned out the house. He takes his chances, and sure enough, it slides open and lets Mike through easily. Into the Byers’ house, the place that had been more of a sanctuary to him than his own home for nearly ten years. Now it’s empty, devoid of the life the Byers always gave it.
Walking into the living room, he passes by the wall where Joyce painted the letters to communicate with her son, the room that was strung first with Christmas lights and then with paper as they followed the workings of the upside down. Then to Will’s room, standing over the spot where he used to lay his sleeping bag the many nights he spent here. The desk where Will drew the beautiful art for their campaigns. The shelf where his action figures and favorite dice used to be lined up. All of them empty now, like a body hollowed of its soul.
He wanders the halls up and down, trying to find something in them that will bring him any sense of closure, something other than the stale smell of cigarettes.
He’s ready to leave, his chest still empty, when he spots something on the floor, and picks up a small cassette tape with a masking tape label written on Jonathan’s handwriting: Will’s first mix.
It feels like an invasion of privacy– something of Will’s, something he probably would want back, something never meant for Mike’s hands.
But he wants it. In his stupid stubbornness this summer, he was left with walls papered with Will’s drawings, and ten years’ worth of memories, but all of them felt empty and not something proper to remember him by. His music… was always something he’d kept to himself. Kept him grounded, even in the Upside Down. It’s his. And Mike wants to know that.
He tucks the tape into his pocket and doesn’t even bother to close the window as he bikes home, letting cold air fill the empty shell of the home.
He grabs one of the Walkmans and takes it to a counter, where a tired-looking man with long hair rings him up. Mike steps out of the store onto the concrete curb, putting the tape into the player and letting the music– Clash, Bowie, other bands he doesn’t know– fill his ears and obliterate his thoughts for a few precious moments.
He loops it a few times while meandering the town, thinking about how Will lives here, this is a place he knows, that knows him– maybe he buys his groceries there, his clothes there, walks through this park– this is his home.
And this time, he’s not a part of it.
Hours have passed before he’s entirely realized it. He’s only forced to acknowledge time when he realizes how hungry he is– he skipped lunch and it’s starting to get dark out. Max might be back at the hotel, might be worried about him but probably not– so he stops in the convenience store on the way back to buy some food.
Max returns almost the same time as Mike, bag and board in hand, looking considerably more chipper than yesterday. “Got us a Christmas feast?”
“If you count canned soup and Ritz crackers.” They step into the elevator together.
“My dad’s ‘roommate’ gave me cookies,” Max offers. “Which was pretty nice, considering I showed up without warning.”
“How’d that go? How’s your dad?”
“Surprised. But he’s… I mean, he wants to see me more. I want to see him more. He says he’ll work on working something out. Not tell my mom, at least not yet.”
“That’s… wow, you’re having all the luck,” he says, though not bitterly.
“Yeah, we’ll see. We’ve still got our romantic missions tomorrow to go.”
For now, though, he actually feels like he knows what to do for that. He might not be the most romantic kid in Hawkins, but he knows Will. And he knows how to do what’s right, even when he doesn’t show it. So, he’s ready for his moment of truth.
“We’ll see.”
~
Christmas music plays softly from the TV while they eat their far-from-elaborate Christmas dinner. They’re leaned against the foot of the bed, Max with her head resting on Mike’s shoulder, hair trailing down his arm.
“I didn’t get you anything,” he mumbles.
“Yes, you did,” she says, poking at her soup with a plastic spoon. “Doesn’t this trip count?”
“You’re paying for your part.”
“I wouldn’t have done it without you,” she replies. “In fact, I kind of forced you to take me.”
“You could’ve, though. We’ll call it even.”
“I don’t like owing people,” she whispers to him. “But I don’t really mind with you.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Max.” He puts his arm around her shoulder. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas.”
The Christmas truce ends the next day, and they make the trek back to the Byers’ house, this time with a little more determination, Max with less apprehension, Mike with many times more.
Finding Will’s room from the outside, he taps on the glass for a minute before a frustrated Will appears.
“What do you want, Romeo?”
“You live in a ranch house, I’m hardly chucking pebbles,” he says drily, and for a moment it’s like they’re friends again, joking back and forth. “Look, I’ll leave you alone forever after this, if that’s what you want. I just… I need to end this the right way, if I have to. Please.”
“Don’t let my mom see you,” Will sighs, pushing aside the screen to let Mike in. It’s harder to squeeze in than it was when they were in middle school, but he makes it into Will’s room.
This time, he takes the moment to look around, and finds it similar to his room in Hawkins: his cassette player, his same bedding, his art supplies and some drawings. A Clash poster is new to the mix, as is an easel. It still looks like Will, though.
“Well?” he prompts, breaking Mike’s reverie.
“I… I know you don’t want to hear me apologize again,” he says, this time without a script, only the feelings to transmit. “But it’s gonna be hard not to make this sound like one, so just please be patient with me.
“Look. I was an asshole. And I want you to forgive me, but I understand if you can’t. So I want… I want you to be able to let go. Being your friend was the best thing that ever happened to me. Walking up to you, on the swings, that first day of preschool… that was the best thing I’ve ever done. And because you mean so much to me, I don’t want to hold you down to anything you don’t want.
“So here’s your drawings. And here’s… look, after you moved away, I broke back into your house and found this.” He holds out the mixtape. “I held on to it, for so long, instead of giving it back to you like I should have. I couldn’t let you go, and I felt like… keeping this thing of yours held you to me, somehow.
“I know I’ve made you miserable, and I’ve hurt you, and you want to be able to get over me. So I want you… I want you to be able to let go of me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let go of me. But you… you should be able to let go of me.”
Will looks at him, seemingly speechless. Mike breathes, a little worn out from how quickly he spoke as he bared his soul, heart racing from the adrenaline in his veins. In the silence, Mike hears shouting at each other in the next room, though he can’t hear the words.
“I told Jonathan I thought you were selfish,” Will says, holding his gaze, eyes behind an unreachable veil. “And he said you weren’t. That you give your whole heart to someone else, and then it works for them and them alone. And I guess I hated that it didn’t belong to me anymore.”
Now it’s Mike who is totally speechless, not really understanding what Will means but needing him to continue.
“I don’t want to let go of you,” he says, stepping towards Mike. “I never did.” And he places his palms on Mike’s chest, flat and relaxed, the opposite of his own tensed muscles, tilting his head up slightly to press a kiss to Mike’s lips.
He pulls away before Mike’s brain catches up to the pressure on his lips.
“It’s embarrassing how much longer than you I’ve probably been thinking about that.”
Mike shakes his head dumbly. “I’ve… thought about it… a lot,” he admits, and Will bows his head away with a smile.
Will moves his arms up, now wrapping them around Mike’s neck and clasping his hands behind. He kisses Mike again, this time long enough for him to take it in, the warmth, the softness. He’s kissed El, but somehow, this feels like a first kiss more than that ever did.
“Now, do you want to tell me how the hell you ended up in California?”
Max climbs in El’s window with much less ceremony, El barely even having time to take in her presence before she tumbles in through the frame.
“You shouldn’t be here,” El says nervously. “Joyce and Jonathan–”
“I had to see you,” Max interrupts. “I’ll be quiet. Okay?” She does her best at a confident smile, trying to bring everything– well, everything she’d ever hoped a girl would say to her.
“I missed you,” El admits with a shy smile. “But Max– we can’t, you shouldn’t–”
“Look, El,” Max says with a sigh, wishing she didn’t have to be the one to explain this. “Who told you that… kissing girls was against the rules? Because that’s total bullshit–”
“It’s not–” El flexes her hands, cracking the joints, clearly thinking hard. “They explained… it’s not safe. Here. Now.”
“Oh.” Max bites her lip– not as bad as she expected, then. They’re just trying to protect her, in their way– still out of line, in Max’s opinion, but more understandable. Who wouldn’t want to protect El? “But that’s… I mean, with just anyone. We can trust each other, right?”
El nods. “I trust you.”
“And I trust you,” Max agrees. “And I like you. A lot, El.”
“I like you too,” El says, the smile that Max so loves returning to her face.
“Can I… Can I kiss you again?” Max asks nervously.
El agrees enthusiastically, and Max leans across the bed to kiss her firmly, slowly, savoring it, enjoying the long sought-after feeling of kissing a girl, and then pulling away to read each other’s smiles.
In that moment, all is peaceful: across the hall, Will and Mike are curled in each other’s arms, speaking in happy whispers; El and Max enjoy the peace of just being girls together. There is a stillness and balance in the world. In that moment.
“And I thought, like, a game that wasn’t medieval could be cool, you know? Maybe a 1920s game, where there’s potions that are illegal instead of alcohol, and there’s speakeasies run by fae–”
“And a kobold mob,” Will suggests eagerly. “Or a ‘50s setting? Where all the new technology and weapons are from artificers–”
The two of them are completely caught up in sharing their favorite thing together, sharing being together– Mike with his arms around Will, Will leaning back against his chest– when they hear the sound of shouting from the hallway crescendo, now clearly Jonathan and Max. Mike stands to see what’s wrong– but Will pushes him back. “Let me see first.”
The noise still drifts to Mike through the cracked door. “As if you’re one to talk, what, telling her it’s ‘against the rules’ to like girls? The fuck–”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jonathan hisses. “We need to talk somewhere else–”
“Somewhere she can’t hear?”
“You always take this too far, Max,” Jonathan hisses. “If you just let me talk–”
“Fine. Talk. I’m sure it will fix everything.”
Jonathan leads Max around the corner, and Mike cranes his neck out the door to hear what’s going on.
~
“You don’t understand what happened,” Jonathan says. “When El started school in the fall, there was a girl at school– she was El’s age, she’d been held back too– and they were friends, and… one day, someone found her and El kissing behind the school. The other girl blamed it all on El, and it was– things haven’t been the same at school since, most people think it was just hearsay but we can’t have her go through that again. It’s– safer like this.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Max snaps, probably too harshly, but she’s still angry. “You don’t know El at all if you think that will work. The more you try to box her in, the more she rebels. Haven’t you seen that before?”
“And you encourage it. You’re not one to talk, Max–”
“Because she shouldn’t be locked up! And it’s not like I’m telling her to run off and do anything.” Max shakes her head. “You keep her safe by explaining why. Telling her what is and isn’t safe. Not fucking… lockdown.
“Maybe you’re right,” Jonathan says. “But we talk about it. Not just show up out of nowhere to tell her to do whatever.
“Fine. Then let’s talk. With El here.” She crosses her arms.
“Alright,” Jonathan agrees. “You’re right. Let’s–”
But then he turns around and sees Mike standing behind them– who Max has only just noticed, otherwise she would have gestured to him to move long ago.
“Okay, what’s going on?”
It takes a little (read: a lot) of time to explain to Jonathan, and Joyce when he insists he can’t hide them here– what’s going on, and they certainly don’t tell all, but it’s less of a disaster than they were expecting.
And Max, for one, was prepared for a total disaster.
Mike and Will are brushing knees the whole time and trading glances out of the corner of their eyes, so she assumes things went well for them– then again, they acted like this back in Hawkins, too, the idiots– and despite that generally mortifying nature of talking to adults about dating, they’re all happy and comfortable.
(El’s her fucking girlfriend. How did that happen? How did she get this lucky?)
They are all loath to part, but there’s not room for them all in the Byers’ house, and she and Mike still have the hotel room. Mike and Will take far too long saying good-bye, and she and El giggle about it together.
Then it’s time to walk back home with Mike. And the conversation she’s been putting off crawls on her skin like a physical feeling.
She forces the words out like they’re casual. “So, when are you going home?”
~
“The 28th,” he says glumly. “I spend all day here tomorrow, then leave first thing in the morning. I told my mom I’d be back before New Years’ Eve. It’s her favorite holiday.”
“That’s not bad,” she offers. “A full day with Will. And then you get to spend the rest of the holidays with your family and the party.”
He nods. “It won’t be the same going back to Hawkins. This time. Knowing… what I know. I actually think it’s gonna suck.”
“It’s hard,” Max admits. “But… Will will always just be a phone call away. And you have your friends, when you think you can tell them.”
“And you,” Mike adds. “I know it’s cheesy, but I’m really happy we became friends–”
“I’m not going back to Hawkins with you,” she interrupts.
“You’re spending the rest of the holidays with your dad–?”
“I’m not going back to Hawkins at all.” Mike sees tears in the corner of her eyes. “I talked to my dad… he was supposed to call my mom today. Let me stay here until things are better at home–”
“You can’t just leave!” Mike says, aghast.
“You really want me to go back to Hawkins? With everything at home for me?”
“I–” he shakes his head, abruptly guilty. “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just…”
“Yes?”
“I’m sick of people leaving. Will, El, Jonathan, Mrs. Byers… Nancy’s going away to college soon, Steve and Robin too probably… and now you. I’m not sure I could handle another person leaving.”
“It’ll be you, too, soon,” she tries to reassure. “Getting to go. Live your own life.”
“And what’ll I do in the meantime? With the party going every which way– Dustin and Lucas aren’t the same as they were in middle school, and you know it. Everything’s going to change, and–” fuck, shit, why is he crying– ”It’s going to be without all the people I… love.”
She’s heard Mike say he loves someone, and then she’s heard Mike admit he loves someone. And now something different all together.
In the middle of the empty country road, she wraps her arms around him, and even though he’s taller, he buries his head into her shoulder. There’s no fixing this for him… stuck in Hawkins for three more years at least, in the closet, the people he loves in California.
“Don’t discount the people around you. Dustin, Lucas…. Nancy, Steve, Robin as long as they’re there… And don’t act like we won’t visit all the time. Or that Will won’t build a Cerebro of his own, or–”
“Alright, I get it,” Mike says with a watery laugh. “It’s just… I’m gonna miss you a lot, Max.”
“I’ll miss you, too. But this will be better for me.”
He hugs her again, in a warm, tight way she’s not used to– not familial, not romantic just… what a best friend is supposed to feel like, she thinks.
She takes it in like a good-bye, because she knows she’s not really ready for that. That leaving will be hard, almost as hard for her. But she needs it.
“You’ll be okay,” Max whispers. “I know you will.”
They have one day of pure happiness in California, and it’s like a second Christmas. Max’s first good Christmas, one for Mike to enjoy without guilt. For a moment, they could be back in Hawkins.
Jonathan asks after Nancy, misses her, and Mike feels his stomach sink again, knowing that will be him and Will soon. At least he’ll share that with Nancy, if he ever feels like he can tell her.
Then before he knows it, he’s waiting at the bus stop with Will, dragging out their good-bye as long as possible.
“Max is gonna get to visit on the weekends,” he sighs. “Lucky. Meanwhile I’m gonna drive my family crazy taking up the phone, or Dustin taking Cerebro–”
“And I’ll be just as bad,” Will promises. “I wish you didn’t have to go–”
“I wish you never had to go the first time,” he replies. “But you seem happy here. And… that’s good. Doesn’t make me miss you any less, but…”
He nods sadly before switching the subject. “I was surprised to see you here with Max. You never seemed to get along that well with her, even after Starcourt and everything.”
“Yeah, turns out I was being an ass about that, too.” He shrugs. “She’s actually… pretty cool.” Headlights round the corner, and he sees the bus approaching. “I guess this is good-bye, then.” And he works to keep himself from crying, because he doesn’t want that to be the last thing Will sees.
“I guess it is.” And then, to Mike’s complete surprise, he looks around to check that no one else is there, and kisses him firmly on the lips. “Keep in touch.”
He rides the high of that kiss all the way to Texas.
Karen Wheeler has been waiting for her son to come home ever since he called two hours ago from a bus stop, telling her he was almost home.
Christmas was lonely this year, just the girls. Her first Christmas without Ted might have been strange enough, but with Mike gone… she felt alone. She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to stay, of course, poor thing. But she always felt more connected to him than her girls.
Nancy was strong-willed and knew what she wanted, which meant she didn’t always need a lot of guidance, but she was quick to clash with her mother, and they rarely saw eye-to-eye. Holly was calm and easy to raise, and still so very young, but had the air of a girl who would find an easy path through life.
Mike, though… Mike was emotional and complex, and came to his mother when he needed things. He didn’t tell her everything, but he came to her for comfort. She saw that sensitive boy, who wasn’t supposed to be like that, who was told to be something else. Living her life in a town that told him to be someone different. To want the things he didn’t want. To not want the things he wanted.
Karen knows that. Karen has lived that.
So she just wants to see her boy safe and at home again.
He doesn’t knock– of course he doesn’t, teenage boys bouncing from one place to the next like anything– so Karen is surprised when he comes in, bursting in on her smoking at the kitchen counter.
“Michael! You’re home. We missed y–”
Her son doesn’t speak, but collapses into her arms though he is near a foot taller than her now, falling against like collapsing into bed.
“Are you alright?” she says, not used to this closeness from Mike except when something was very wrong.
“I missed you.” He sounds like he’s been crying, but his voice is steady. “I… I think I want to stay in Hawkins next Christmas. I missed it here.”
“We missed you too, Mike,” Karen says, rubbing circles on her son’s back. “You don’t have to go anywhere.” And she kisses him on the cheek; he’s too tall now for the forehead. “There’s a plate of spaghetti in the oven for you. It’s good to have you home.”
“I think I’m gonna shower first, if that’s okay?”
“Of course.” She smiles. “Merry Christmas, Mike.”
He mumbles a “Merry Christmas” in return as he leaves. It wasn’t a long conversation, but she rarely has those with Mike, and he felt more honest, more open than usual.
She’s glad he wants to stay.
As he leaves, a piece of paper falls out of his backpack, and she goes to pick it up, reading it over with her brown knitted in confusion. But before she can process what it means, the phone rings.
“Karen Wheeler.” No longer Wheeler Residence.
“Karen! It’s me, Joyce.”
“Joyce! It’s so good to hear from you. How have you been?” She always liked Joyce, despite their many differences, and had felt like they’d been drifting apart for years, though their boys stayed close.
(Mike was always Joyce’s favorite of Will’s friends, and Will Karen’s favorite, so she was sorry for the lost connection.)
“Oh, I’ve been alright. Spending Christmas with the boys and El, you know– I just wanted to call to wish your family a merry Christmas, and happy new year.”
“Pass on mine as well, Joyce. And Mike’s, he just got home,” she says. “You know… I think your family should come back to Hawkins next Christmas. We could put you up here, even.”
“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to put you out–”
“Of course not. We’re always happy to have you. And besides,” she adds, looking at the piece of paper in her hands. “I think our boys missed each other.”
“You’re right, I think they did.”
“Then it’s settled. You come out here next year.”
Karen can’t help with being a little satisfied with herself as she hangs up. Her children might not tell her everything– she’s their mother, and children will be children– but she has to learn to know how to help them even when they don’t. And she thinks she may be figuring that out as she figures herself out.
The first step was leaving Ted.
And now, the piece of paper in her hand.
Lighting another cigarette, she throws the bus ticket from New Mexico to LA into the kitchen trash, and sets a place for her son.