Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The rock at the edge of the cliff where Mike Wheeler stands is compact and rough, weathered by time and cruel storms and the avarice of the humans who have chosen to fashion it into their stomping ground. It's humans like these that have turned the skies around them smoky blue-black, and humans like these who are holding Dustin at knifepoint.

Dustin Henderson is one of Mike's dearest friends. He's one of the smartest of the Party (their longtime group of friends), though rather short like the rest of them and bullied for the birth defects he has resulting from cleidocranial dysplasia, a super-rare genetic disorder. It's caused him a toothless smile and an absence of collarbones, which Dustin doesn't really mind, but somehow others do. It's a condition that's marked him as abnormal, and in all honesty, that's the only reason Dustin resents it. He's mused to the Party on more than one occasion that maybe if he were born without it--if he were born "normal" like the rest of them--then maybe they wouldn't be bullied as badly...but Mike knows that this is not the truth and wishes now that he had reassured Dustin better when he'd had the chance. Because now he doesn't think he will have the chance and he's scared that he won't be able to stop the bullying from escalating too far just this once.

This time, it's gotten particularly bad. He can still hear the taunts of Troy Walsh and James Dante in his ears from when they'd cornered them out here, those mouth-breathers that don't even deserve to have names. People like them, people who threaten such terrible things...they're worse than scum, but they've got power in how they've filled out sooner than everybody else and how they're strong from athletics. And because they have power, they crave control, and because they crave control...they take it out on the Party, much to Mike's ever-lasting chagrin.

All the other times stuff like this had happened, they were able to take it and move on; there were four of them, him and Will and Dustin and Lucas, and though they didn't really have the strength to stave off Troy and James entirely, they could take it in doses and brush it off, insulting Troy and James behind their backs and forgetting the pain of cuts and bruises with long, fulfilling D&D campaigns and afternoon bike rides spent exploring their strange little town called Hawkins, Indiana. Sometimes, they had even come to this very quarry, Sattler Quarry, the one that makes Mike's head spin now with its gaping maw and soulless stare.

Where Will had "died" and been fished out, where Mike had wanted to drown too when he'd been found, because if Will was dead, then why should he be alive? Why should he deserve to be alive? If any of his other friends had been presumed dead like Will had been, Mike knows he'd feel the same, but when it comes to Will, the sentiment is two-fold; after all, Will was his first friend and the most precious of all to him, though outwardly Mike always makes it a point to pretend not to choose favourites.

Yet even though Will was not really dead--or, at least, so the Party believed him not to be with a strengthened resolve now (they'd heard his voice! they'd heard that song, Will's favourite song!) --he still wasn't here, and neither was Lucas because of their stupid argument, and at the moment it was just Mike and Dustin versus Troy and James in an impossible to escape situation. 

The ultimatum they'd been given was the ultimate ultimatum, too, and this bothered Mike still more. Bullies shouldn't be allowed to have this sort of sway, yet here they fucking were-- "you jump or I cut his teeth out". Except, the choice to make was always obvious from the beginning, and so now all that has to happen is for Mike to overcome his paralysis and come to terms with it. Because even though he hopes somewhere in his heart that Troy and James will grow out of being cruel kids one day, and even though he knows they're underestimating the gravity of this situation very severely, it's also obvious to him that there is nothing that he can do in the way of stopping them if he hopes to save Dustin. And that's what's most important to him, above all: saving his friends. 

Mike hopes that he can survive the fall into the quarry so that he can still save Will, too, if he's alive after all. But if Mike doesn't manage to survive the fall and the body that was retrieved from the quarry was truthfully Will's all along, at least they'll meet again somewhere in Heaven, if he's lucky. And then Mike can apologise for being a horrible friend and letting Will go out into the pouring rain all by himself instead of pleading with him to sleepover for just one more night, because he's certain Mrs. Byers wouldn't've minded whatsoever; she never did whenever they'd asked before.

Mike hopes too that Troy and James will stop being dicks for just long enough to legitimately uphold their end of the bargain. God, Mike would really, actually hate them if they ever harmed anyone like the way they said they would, because Mike can only just barely imagine the gore of forcibly getting one's teeth removed without any sort of dental equipment being involved at all. Pulling teeth with string, a doorknob, and good ol' gravity is painful enough, so sawing them out must be absolutely excruciating... Worse, what if the metal on that switchblade was rusty and they managed to give Dustin an infection? Mike was pretty sure that getting one of those could be fatal, but that was only hearsay from one of the rare stories his dad had told him when he got self-conscious about his lack of parenting prowess, so he wasn't sure whether or not his words could be believed.

Yet, regardless of whether they were true or not, Mike wouldn't wish any sort of treatment like the kind Troy and James were threatening on anyone, except maybe Troy and James themselves. A taste of their own medicine, if you will. Because if Troy and James don't follow through and fuck off after Mike jumps off this cliff, whether he lives or dies in the aftermath he'll just get back up and somehow find the strength and guts to kick them into submission, because he won't stand for anyone harming a hair on any one of his friends' heads. Hell, he'll even haunt them just for good measure if he winds up dead after all this.

Over his dead body will he let any one of his friends get hurt on his watch.

It makes him think about how this isn't such a bad way for him to go if this is where it all ends for him. Everyone has a cause worth dying for, after all, is what Mike believes, and his is protecting his friends. They're the source of his happiness, his good memories, his courage, his will to live...they deserve at least his protection. They always have, and they always will...always.

The countdown starts.

Mike wants to do everything he can for all of them, but he knows his time is limited now.

5!

Because looking back down into the depths of Sattler Quarry, he knows there is no way anyone has actually survived jumping into it; he's heard a few stories, but now more than ever he's certain they were lies.

4!

This will be his last act of courage, and he's okay with that.

3! 

He'd never really gotten to be courageous before this--not even when playing D&D-- but...he's proud of himself for having made some good friends, and he's comforted by the fact that he's lived for at least a decade.

2!

It's way more years than most cave-children got to live, or so at least Mr. Clarke had told them.

1!

And anyway, he's doing this...
"For the Party", Mike mouths, and he does it. His feet lift off the edge, and he disappears into the depths of Sattler Quarry.

Chapter Text

When Mike Wheeler’s remains are recovered from Sattler Quarry, no one present at the scene can hide the shock and grief that washes collectively over their faces. “A little boy has been found dead today here in Hawkins at Sattler Quarry, marking the second death at the site in under two weeks,” a reporter at the scene intones, and everyone there is thinking about how awful it is that a thing like this has happened in their little town where nothing is supposed to happen. 

“The boy, aged 12, was a student of Hawkins Middle named Mike Wheeler, described by his teacher-mentor Mr. Scott Clarke as being a bright young boy that all of those close to him will miss dearly. He leaves behind sisters Nancy and Holly Wheeler, mother Karen Wheeler and father Ted Wheeler in the wake of his death…” the reporter continues, and everyone there desperately wishes that they were dreaming. Because this can’t be real, there can’t be another young boy dead, there just can’t-- because he reminds the parents gathered of their little sons and daughters at home and reminds those without children there of the youths they got to enjoy that these boys will never be able to.

“Police are wary of Wheeler’s death in the aftermath of previously missing Will Byers also being found dead at Sattler Quarry just under two weeks prior to Wheeler’s death. It is currently uncertain whether there is a link to Mike Wheeler and Will Byers’ deaths, but police say it is plausible and are currently beginning an investigation into the matter. Now to Chief of Police Jim Hopper for further clarification,” the reporter says as they hand over the microphone, and everyone there is falling apart, weak at the knees and tears in their eyes, and they almost can’t keep going but for the sympathetic look Hopper gives them as he takes the microphone, so they steel themselves and listen to what he has to say about this horrific tragedy.

He doesn’t bother with pleasantries as he begins, because he’s Jim Hopper for one, and for two maybe because he recognises that this is a time of grieving for everyone gathered here, these fair citizens of Hawkins and stricken family members of the victim. As outwardly ordinary as they may look, all of these people suffer together in times like these, clinging to the vestiges of normalcy. Jim Hopper isn’t the picture of a devotee to normalcy of all things, it’s true, but today society can’t afford a rebel, and today society needs him to step up, so in this town’s moment of need he doesn’t say words that are clipped or unkind, but words that he knows are best for situations like these because they’re oddly soothing, objective ones.

“In the wake of the deaths of Mike Wheeler and Will Byers, an extensive investigation into the situation has been opened. As has been said, we believe that there may be a plausible link between Wheeler and Byers’ deaths, although as of now the facts we are in possession of require verification and we have yet to commission an autopsy on Wheeler’s body. As it is, we will hold an open press conference at Town Hall this Friday for a debrief on the preliminary results of this investigation, and on that same day, there will be counselling resources at Town Hall set-up for those close to the victims to access.” He pauses, because he briefly believes that only the salient details are necessary, and god forbid he accidentally let loose the truth that Will Byers definitely isn’t dead to a town full of unsuspecting citizens, but then he looks poor Karen Wheeler in the eye, and he thinks about how distraught dear Joyce Byers is, even though her son is technically still missing and not really dead like he’s stringing the public along to believe until he can find the kid, and he remembers that secretly, he is a compassionate man.

“These boys have died much too soon, and all will assuredly remember their lost youth as we enter into a period of mourning for them. Let us have hope for Hawkins.” 

As he hands back the microphone to the reporter, he takes one last glance at Karen Wheeler and sees her family in shock, already struggling to cope alongside her. Their loss reminds Jim Hopper anew that in his heart of hearts, the loss of young lives pains him doubly so because of the loss of his own little one, Sarah, all those years ago. 

But he doesn’t like to think about her, even with as dearly as he’d loved her, so he focusses instead on how his words have finally placated the audience before him. Their chests swell in a strange rhythm that he gets carried away by, full of breath and loss and a hint of relief, and their faces are still tear-stained, lined with worry and emptiness, but their eyes talk about emotions lighter than before, of remembrance in place of sorrow, and of the resolve to honour those boys, because their grief isn’t as personal as the Wheeler’s and the Byers’ and–-

-–Dustin Henderson shuts the TV news programme off, because his heart is heavy and he is sick of himself. Mike Wheeler, one of his best friends in all the world, was dead. He’d died two days ago, on a bloody Monday of all days, because Dustin Henderson was a stupid fucking waste of a person –or so he believed– and his awful birth defects didn’t simply prevent him from attaining true happiness this time; no, this time they’d managed to kill one of his friends, and it was all Dustin’s fault, and…the tears are flowing again, he realises, but he can’t manage to stop them because it feels like this sorrow will never end.

He isn’t alone in feeling this way. The Party collectively share his sorrow, faces hollow as husks and eyes filled with watery regret as they mourn; none of the Party would have ever imagined that one of their own would be taken from them like this.

And so, none of them can quite handle this, all of them gathered with that girl–-Eleven (the one that Mike had taken care of, more selflessly than any of the rest of them would have, and god it’s depressing to think that that had all started just a week ago)–- whose impassive face would seem infuriating to the whole lot of them if they could bring themselves to care, if they could bring themselves to do anything but cry and shiver and mourn and remember in their dead friend Mike Wheeler’s basement.

This room, if there were any in the Wheeler’s home, seemed most like Mike’s, more so than even his bedroom; he’d played and laughed and triumphed with them in the confines of these walls countless times over the years, each memory almost better than the last. Looking around it now, it’s hard to avoid the remains of his presence, imbued in every corner from over the short 12 years he had lived. 

To the left of the bottom of the stairs, there’s the hauntingly familiar game table, marked with the remnants of their last, unfinished campaign: halted in the face of Will’s disappearance and with no hope for continuance in the aftermath of Mike’s death.

On the shelf behind them, there’s that red box, faintly glittering in the sun; it’s the one that Will had made for Mike in third grade, a box made to represent their D&D conquests and to hold the drawings that Will would excitedly make for Mike, week after week. If only everything were normal again, if only Mike were alive and Will back with them, so they could see Mike reverently place another group of Will’s drawings in that very same box and they could learn not to take them for granted, those pictures that represented true friendship and happiness.

In Eleven’s hands is Mike’s walkie talkie, arguably one of his most prized possessions. It’s one of four, because the Party all has one each so they can communicate with one another. They’d all treasured theirs–-they were Christmas gifts from back when they were 9 years old and finally old enough to bike around by themselves–- but Mike was one of the most grateful for his, because he was finally able to escape insufferable weekends wherein the Party had nothing planned and the only people Mike had for company were his mother, his absent-minded father, and his sister who wanted nothing to do with him now that she was growing up. Briefly, they collectively wonder if it would be possible to bury Mike with his walkie talkie like dogs are buried with their favourite toys, because at least that way if the afterlife really does exist, there’s a fighting chance that Mike could speak to them from beyond the grave, and then he wouldn’t be lonely. But if that were true, then it would also be plausible that Will isn’t really alive like they thought he was, so they put a lid on that conversation and sit in near-silence again, air punctuated by the sound of sniffles and the aura of possibilities that are too harrowing to consider.

Somehow, this had all been a little more bearable before they’d admitted it to themselves aloud, before they’d actually talked about Mike being really dead–-as in, there’s-no-possibility-that-they-could-revive-him-like-in-a-game-of-D&D dead–- before they’d reckoned with the fact that they’d have to bury him, that they’d have to attend Mike Wheeler’s funeral at 12 years old with the fear of Will possibly being dead too hanging over their heads. It was like opening Pandora’s box, and now the atmosphere is heavier, and sadder, and lonely even though they’re together, closing in on their small, hunched-over bodies. It’s only interrupted by Karen Wheeler opening the door to the basement some hours later, with Eleven hidden under the newly-rebuilt fort so she wouldn’t notice. When she walks down the stairs, they meet her at the bottom, and they all stare at each other with puffy, deadened, sorrowful eyes before she pulls them all into a hug and she tells them it’s real, because she’s just been down to identify his body at the coroner’s. Mike is really dead, and they’ll really have to have a funeral for him, and it’ll be really hard to live life knowing that Mike is dead and can’t come back, especially right after Will’s death, too, but Mike and Will would want them both to live on and be strong for them, to find a way to cope and rebuild their lives without them. She tells them she’s sorry–-even though they all know somewhere deep down it was none of their faults, least of all hers–- and she tells them that they’re welcome to spend as much time as they need in this basement they all consider to be Mike’s, because she thinks it could help to sift through the memories made in this room and to keep them close to their hearts, the good memories of sleepovers, campaigns, boxes of pizza, birthdays…and as she finishes telling them this, she plants a kiss to all of their heads like she would have to Mike’s if he were still alive, a kiss meant to leave them with a feeling of motherly fondness. But when she goes back up the stairs, they’re left with the mutual understanding that they’re all trying not to break.

–-

As it turns out, attempting to hold oneself together is much more difficult than simply succumbing to one’s grief, a sentiment that happens to be the only thing that Will Byers feels he can be sure of in these days, though he suspects those around him expect him to be on more stable footing by now, since it’s already been a month since he was rescued from the Upside Down. He remembers it almost like it was yesterday, and most days he wishes it were yesterday, because at least then he could return to a point in time where he didn’t know that his best friend in all the world, Mike Wheeler, was dead. It was a point in time where he’d felt a little hope, because despite the hellishness of his stay in the Upside Down, he’d been fuelled by the thought that his friends and family would be waiting for him if he managed to get out. He’d been looking forward to seeing the Party, Jonathan, his mother; they were the special people in his life, and he’s pretty sure the only reason that he’d had enough energy to keep running in the Upside Down all that time in the first place was because he knew they were looking for him, that they were concerned, that they cared about him. And he knows they still care, but it’s not the same for any of the Party, at least, now that Mike is gone. They all feel hollow now, and Will wishes everyday that they didn’t, that they had Mike again, but if they couldn’t have Mike… He wishes that they could go back to the day he saw all of them again after he was rescued, to the one blissful moment of relief they shared that he really was alive, and not dead like they’d feared, because the moments after when they’d told him all about Mike’s death made him feel like he was back in the Upside Down all over again.

He just couldn’t believe it was real.

Even now, he wants to believe it isn’t…but he’s had to accept it for what it is, this terrible thing that should never have happened to Mike of all people. If Will Byers could have sacrificed himself to save Mike Wheeler, he sure as hell would have, and sometimes he wishes he could now, except he knows he shouldn’t because all it takes is one look at his mother upon his return for him to understand that she would be much too upset if he did a thing like that. He’s too young to think these thoughts, probably, but he’s sad and upset so he gives himself a break.

He gives himself a break a lot these days, like when he lets himself cry as Mrs. Wheeler gives Mike’s red box filled with Will’s drawings back to him, a week after his return from the Upside Down. Or when he wakes up from a nightmare that mixes the terrors of being chased by the Demogorgon with the foolish mirage of Mike being alive; it’s the one where he’s running again, and the Demogorgon is about to catch him, but all of a sudden Mike is there, leading him out of the Upside Down, and Will is endlessly grateful, so he goes to capture Mike in a hug, only for Mike to morph into the cold, blue-grey spectre of death the second Will wraps his arms around him. He wakes up from that one in the middle of the night nearly screaming every time , and truthfully the only thing that calms him down is wandering outside to Castle Byers, so every night he goes out there and reminisces on the good memories he has of him, Mike, and the Party until his mom finds him there in the morning, staring at the twine laid out on the wood table in front of him.

Needless to say, it’s difficult for Will to navigate how he’s supposed to feel now. He’s still living, but his best friend isn’t, and that seems like a horrible, awful injustice to him. It isn’t fair, because Mike must be lonely, wherever he is, and no matter how many times Will tells himself he’s just feeling survivor’s guilt, he can’t rid himself of the feeling.

Will he ever be able to get rid of it? It’s a possibility that he won’t, the psychiatrist Will’s mother had wanted him to see had told her some days ago, and in that same building, Lucas’ therapist is in the middle of telling his parents something along the same lines, all hushed voices behind a mahogany door.

Lucas Sinclair is here because he feels so, so immeasurably guilty. Irrevocably so, even, he’ll say when it’s been a particularly bad day. Ever since he’d gotten into that stupid argument with Mike, he hasn’t been able to get the words out of his head. He’d already made up his mind to apologise to Mike later when he was in the middle of those woods, stubbornly trying to find Will all by himself, but in the end he never got the proper chance to, for…obvious reasons. And it feels like the guilt is going to eat him alive. 

He’s talked about it with his therapist before in the few times he’s been here, about how every day, it manifests in his daily life, like a maggot that he can feel burrowing into his mind further by the day. It’s a little nagging voice in his head that berates him for his actions, tells him it’s his fault, and he knows it’s not his fault, but then again (and this part he doesn’t discuss with his therapist)…

Dustin had told him all about what had really happened to Mike. Will didn’t know, and the police sure as hell didn’t know–-though it was infuriating, since that meant that Mike’s cause of death was ruled unknown in the end, and the investigation postponed–- but Lucas knew, and it made him think about how Mike might be alive now if he hadn’t been so selfless, or if Eleven had been magically there to stop Mike’s fall (if she could even do that sort of thing, the freak ), or if…or if Lucas had been a better friend, or just a better person and had been there to save Dustin so Mike didn’t have to do it. So Mike didn’t have to let himself fall what had to be about 5,000 feet into that quarry just so fucking Troy Walsh and James Dante would finally have the fucking sense knocked into them.

Every day, Lucas feels like killing Troy Walsh and James Dante himself, but he knows that violence is not the answer.

Violence was not what Mike would have wanted, and that’s why he chose to slip away into that quarry, where his life was taken and the Party’s happiness with him. 

What really happened to Mike, what Mike did…maybe Lucas will finally tell Will someday soon, and maybe when he does, he’ll stop feeling this violent rumble in his chest.

–-

Everybody agrees that what Mike did was admirable, it really was. And that’s what they speak about before the funeral, where all Mike’s family and friends and friends’ family gather; all of them are there, not a single one missing–the Wheelers, the Byers, the Hendersons, the Sinclairs.

The funeral occurs almost two months after Mike’s death, and they’re not burying Mike’s body in a casket; instead, they’re burying his ashes. The whole battle with the Upside Down, the ongoing grieving process, and the fact that they all knew that every one of their group had to be able to be there for it–-because that’s how Mike would have wanted it to be–- meant that it was impossible for Mike’s body to be buried, because that has to occur a week or less after death. But that’s okay, because this way, the pain is lessened just a little bit, and Will muses to his mom in the quiet, contemplative voice he’s gained from maturing far too fast in the past couple of months that at least not even a creature from the Upside Down will be able to desecrate Mike’s remains now.

It’s a short ceremony, and during it there’s a speech given by the Party in memoriam of him, and they all cry anew and nearly break again, because even though it’s been almost two months since Mike has died, it doesn’t make his death any less raw.

Will is still having his nightmares and painfully wishing in the dead of night when his mother can’t hear him that he could take Mike’s place, or at least join him to keep him company.

Dustin still can’t help but think that maybe if he weren’t so flawed and easily bullied, Mike would still be alive.

Lucas still can’t help but feel the roar of violence in his chest, even after he’s told Will and everyone else about what had really happened alongside Dustin.

Karen Wheeler’s eyes still look hollow, and Joyce Byers isn’t any better off, though her fortune has been better than Karen’s in these past couple of months.

They all feel like cracked porcelain, but for Mike they congregate today, speaking in memories of him. So after the funeral is over, Joyce tells stories about a younger Mike and Will having playdates at the Byers’ house, and Jonathan tells Karen Wheeler that he always thought that Mike was a good kid. She smiles when he says that, and she regales them all with tales of Mike’s toddler days, when he’d been a more demanding yet sweet child.

They go on for hours, like mothers do, and before they know it they find themselves in front of the Wheelers’ basement, the one that all of them will never be able to not consider Mike’s.

And when the Party enter into the basement, they look around it like they have for what feels like thousands of times over the years. They see the remnants of their D&D campaign still lying on that game table, the place where Mike’s red box used to be, Mike’s walkie talkie that didn’t end up getting buried with him after all. They think to themselves that even though they’ve been through too much already, there will always be good memories to cherish. And when Karen Wheeler comes up to them and kisses them each on the head like the night that Mike’s body had been recovered from the quarry, when Will was still missing and they’d first begun to feel this heavy sorrow that lives in their hearts, they burst into tears.