Work Text:
Dustin once told Mike that the first few weeks of Eleven being gone were going to be the hardest. That it was so strange for her to be gone that Dustin thought about her all the time.
He promised Mike that once the first few weeks passed, things would get easier.
When he said that, Mike just couldn't understand what he was talking about. How could it get easier when things were already so easy?
Those first few weeks were the last time anything would ever feel easy for Mike.
*
Beginnings are easy in ways that middles and endings could never be.
You can not be tired of a beginning because you haven't had enough time to adjust to it yet.
It is easy to pretend that she is just exploring for a little while, that she's gone on an adventure and that she will be back soon.
Mike thinks she deserves a break anyway, after being stuck in a lab for so long, he can't blame her.
He's happy that she's making new memories for herself.
*
Mike won't take down her fort. His dad keeps asking him to as his mom watches from the sidelines with a look of pity in her eyes.
Mike always refuses.
Eleven would be upset if she came back to her fort being gone, that's not fair.
His dad shakes his head and mutters something about Mike being "corrupted." His mom just rubs Mike's shoulder and says that Mike can talk to her about anything. Nancy watches him with a worried expression, she doesn't tell him anything, but her eyes say Eleven is dead, just like Barbra is dead. People die, Mike. People die.
Sometimes he thinks her eyes might have been telling the truth, then he remembers Will's funeral and shakes the thought out of his head. His friends don't die.
*
It was hard to be sad about Eleven going missing when Will had just returned. At first, Mike could hardly think about her while containing all of his excitement about Will coming back.
He was basically living at Will's house once he was let out of the hospital. Mike, Lucas, and Dustin told him all about Eleven. Will says he wishes he had met her.
Mike closes his eyes. Thinks: No, you don't. You shouldn't have to miss her like we (I) do.
Says:
"You will, when she comes back."
He doesn't miss the look that Dustin and Lucas exchange.
*
Mike talks to Eleven every day on his SuperCom. He tells her that he misses her, to come back soon, and then he tells her about his day.
He knows it must be boring to be alone for so long, so he makes sure to explain everything thoroughly. He pauses after every word he thinks she might not know the meaning of, explaining that as well.
Some days, he does his homework while he talks to her. He doesn't know how much the bad men taught her, but he knows that she's probably not learning now, wherever she's hiding.
He tries his best to teach her whatever he knows so she could go to school with them when she gets back.
*
Nancy approached him about taking down the fort.
He's knows that she's heard him talking to Eleven at least a few times. He's also sure that he's heard the floorboards near the basement door creak while he spoke, as if someone was listening in. He never stopped talking.
She told him that it was okay to miss Eleven, that he deserved to miss her. But pretending she was still alive was only hurting him, and he needed to let go.
Mike forced her out of his room and slammed the door behind her.
He carried on as if her words didn't affect him. He carried on as if nothing had changed, that yes, of course Eleven was still alive.
He never told her that that was the day he began to spiral. He never told her that the only thing that had been holding him together was the idea of Eleven being alive. If she thought he was hurting now, she was about to be proven dead fucking wrong.
*
Will is the only person who still believes Mike when he claims that Eleven will come back. Dustin and Lucas say that they agree with Mike, but he isn't stupid. He knows that they think he's crazy.
Will doesn't think Mike's stupid or crazy. He said that it only made sense that Eleven would be alive. She had managed to survive so much and if Will could survive, so could she.
It made sense. It really did. So Mike chose to believe it.
*
The day Mike can't quite recall the sound of her voice is the day he decides that he is never falling in love again.
When he says this to Steve while Nancy is getting ready for their date in the other room, Steve simply laughs and ruffles Mike's hair. He says that Mike's still young and that he will probably fall in love another hundred times in his life.
Mike says nothing and storms out of the room. That day, he decides that he hates Steve, more than he already did.
He just doesn't get it. No one understands.
The next day, Mike asks Nancy if she really loves Steve. She says that she does.
He then asks her if she thinks she will love him forever. To that, she shrugs and says that she's not sure.
And that's how Mike knows she's lying. They both know the answer. She won't.
And that's what scares Mike the most.
*
In science class, Mr. Clarke brought up the topic of decomposition. He said that even after a body fully decomposes, it never actually disappears.
Mike wonders if it's possible for a body to decompose if it was turned to ashes before the person even died.
Sometimes Mike feels like everything that happened with Eleven and the Upside Down, and everything in his normal life, are completely separate. As if they happened in two different worlds.
He is suddenly hyper aware of the fact that they both happened in the same universe and in the same world and in the same places and in the same school.
He wonders if Eleven's ashes are still floating around in the halls of the building.
He wants to be sick.
*
Mike still speaks into his walkie every single day, but he's not sure who he's talking to anymore.
He claims that he's talking to Eleven but sometimes he imagines that he's just in a bubble, a sound proof bubble, and no one can hear him speaking at all.
No one can hear him. No matter where he is, it feels like he's invisible. Sure, his friends talk to him and his family occasionally does as well, but no one's actually listening.
Sometimes he thinks that the only place he feels heard is in Eleven's fort, even if he's knows no one is really there.
*
Sometimes Mike wonders if Eleven was ever real. Like maybe, she was just a figment of his imagination and she never actually existed.
It's true, isn't it? She isn't really real.
Sure, there were a handful of people who saw her too, but what other proof did any of them have?
She doesn't have any sort of identification, like an id, or a birth certificate, or anything. So she doesn't exist in the eyes of the law.
And she didn't leave anything behind to prove her existence. So she must not be real.
Sometimes Mike wonders if everyone in his life are playing one big joke on him, and Eleven was never actually there. Like it was all just an elaborate scheme to trick Mike for some sick reason.
Sometimes he wishes that were true.
*
Mike likes to think about his life like it's a movie. It feels like one sometimes.
He thinks about how perfect it would be if their story played out on the big screen. It would only have a few flaws that could be easily fixed.
One of those flaws being the fact that in movies like theirs, there always has to be a big, sad, climatic death at the end. A death that he believes he should've taken part in.
It should've been him.
It's never the funny friends, or the distressed mother, or the brave cop, or the main character, who are meant to die. It's certainly not supposed to be the superhero who dies either.
If the superhero dies, it leaves no room for a second movie to be made and causes the viewers to leave the theatre feeling thoroughly upset and disappointed.
It should be the loud, stubborn, obnoxious love interest and best friend, who's death will make you sad but will never cause you to cry real tears.
It would've been the perfect ending.
Mike should've known by now that his life is far from perfect.
*
Mike doesn't call Eleven for the first time in 353 days when Will claims a new monster from the Upside Down has arrived. He is taken to the hospital and Mike follows. He decides that from now on, he will focus on Will.
On his family and friends. On people who are really there.
So he sleeps in uncomfortable chairs and stays glued to Will's side whenever possible.
He ignores the feeling of being watched and repeats the same thing over and over in his head like a mantra:
she's not real, she's not real, she's not real, she's not real.
*
When Bob dies, Mike's ears are ringing and he wonders if he might be dying as well.
He can barely feel Will, who is completely limp in Mike's arms, and he thinks that he can't die now, because Will is unconscious and can't protect himself. Mike can die later if he has to, but not now, he can't die now.
Mike also thinks that Bob would be the perfect character to die in a movie.
Then he thinks that he wants to die all over again. Mike doesn't deny himself of it this time, he deserves it.
*
When Eleven walks through the door, Mike feels like he's not in control of his own body. He feels like he's suddenly floated up and away from the world, watching things happen from afar.
He watches as he steps forward, towards Eleven (this girl, who is she? I thought she wasn't real-), and he can just barely feel himself tell her that he never gave up on her.
He hopes she can't tell that he is lying. He hopes that he's not as transparent as he feels.
And then he let's out all of his anger towards himself at Hopper, and he will scream and yell and punch until he is sobbing in the man's arms.
Mike will think about beginnings and middles and endings and movies and superheroes and stupid fucking love interests and he thinks that yes, he may be a terrible person, and yes, he may be a liar, but at least he didn't lie about one thing:
He said he would never fall in love again and he meant it.
He would go on to never say 'I love you' to anyone until the words were forced out of his lips at the age of 15.
That's when he knew he would be forced to be a liar forever because he still didn't mean it.