Chapter Text
It was the early summer of 1993 and Mike Wheeler stumbled out of his bed when his carefully set 8:00 am alarm sounded.
He was so excited.
They were recent college graduates and as a gift to themselves, they were going to Magic Mountain.
He was so excited.
He wasn’t usually an early riser, he was more of a night owl due to reading or writing all night but this was an important day. The lanky young man went into the kitchen and turned on the “Mr. Coffee” coffee maker his mom gifted him for senior year. He wasn’t a big coffee drinker but Lucas and Max were and they all agreed that whoever woke up first, had to turn on Mr. Coffee.
After a moment of rummaging through the fridge for fruit, he realized no one else had joined him yet. With a furrowed brow, he went to Lucas’s door and pounded on it.
“LUCAS!”
“What the hell?” Was the muffled reply. He heard shuffling and the door swung open to a sleepy eyed Lucas. “What the hell Mike?”
“Why are you still sleeping?”
“Because I’m tired…”
“Well, stop being tired,” he turned to walk further down the hall to the girl’s shared room. “We have plans today and we’re leaving in an hour and a half!”
He knocked but unlike with Lucas, he heard nothing. With an annoyed sigh, he knocked again. He didn’t want to bother El so much, he didn’t mind disturbing Max.
“Come in!” Called El’s soft voice, he pushed open the door and saw both girls still in their beds. He sighed and threw his hands up.
“Does no one care about making it to the park on time?”
“Can you keep it down?” Max muttered from under her covers. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”
Mike rolled his eyes at Max’s muffled reply before all but running over to El and gave her a quick peck on the forehead.
“You can sleep later, get up.”
He swept out of the room and Max peeked out from her covers and caught El’s amused gaze and they both laughed.
After graduation, the four of them decided to live together for a time while they figured out what their next steps were. They managed to find a three bedroom, two bathroom apartment, where Mike and Lucas took their own rooms and El and Max shared the larger master bedroom.
It worked for them.
“He’s just excited,” El laughed, snuggling deeper into her mattress.
“He’s annoying,” Max mumbled.
Lucas dragged himself into the kitchen as the coffee smell began to fill their apartment. He loved coffee, it helped him through so many study nights and over-nighters with his study group back at Hampton. Mike seemed to have expected the sound of Mr. Coffee alone to wake him up, as his favorite creamer and mug was already on the counter. Mike could be thoughtful when he wanted to be.
He was excited for Magic Mountain, maybe not as excited as Mike was but excited all the same. He poured himself a cup and leaned against the counter with a content expression and drank.
“Ah, that’s the stuff,” he mumbled. He glanced down the hall towards the girl’s room and the door was still ajar from when Mike was there. He could hear the water from their shared bathroom and decided, he better hurry up and take one before El or Max get in theirs, then the hot water will be gone.
El stared up at the ceiling, very reminiscent of her room back in Hawkins, with sticky constellations and planets. She and Max enjoyed talking about zodiac signs and planetary alignments, it was fascinating. She sometimes wondered if her powers were ever affected by the planets moving, she never experimented to find out but it’s always been in the back of her mind to talk with Dustin about.
“Hey!” She jumped, startled at Mike knocking the door open further, his navy towel slung around his waist and dark curls dripping with water. Her eyes followed the water as it traveled down the sharp angles of his face. He was still skinny and lanky, and will probably always be, but he had filled out a little. El found herself smirking a little. She loved him so much.
“Why are you guys still in bed? Get up, we gotta go!” Max groaned loudly from under her covers. “Come on! I don’t want to be late,”
“How is it that you’re late every other time but you want to be on time at an amusement park?” Lucas asked with a laugh, appearing next to Mike, his cup of coffee in hand.
“What? I’m not always late,” Mike disagreed, rushing to his bedroom. Max rolled her eyes.
“He’s such an Aries,” Max said, stretching her limbs but not moving from the bed. Lucas rolled his eyes at the astrology comment, he always listened whenever Max brought it up but he didn’t take it seriously, but he enjoyed her interest in it. Though he had to admit that sometimes the horoscopes and personality traits were spot on. Mike buzzed with “Aries energy” as Max has said before.
“Why are we getting there so early?” El asked, running a hand through her brown curls as she sat up. Mike returned with jeans and a Spider-man shirt in hand, his eyes were wild with excitement and his hands (still holding the shirt), gestured as he spoke.
“Because the Millenium Force is new and I don’t want to wait in line for hours. I want to be first.”
“You do realize that we’re not going to be first, the ride’s been open for a week,” Lucas said, folding his arms. Mike blinked slowly at him, his face not impressed.
“Obviously, I’m talking about today, Lucas,” he threw his arms up and stalked out of the hallway. “We’re leaving at 9:30! You have thirty minutes!” He shouted from the kitchen. Lucas laughed and ran back to his bedroom.
Max and El continued to laugh when the boys left. Max and El shared the third bedroom when the four of them decided to live together. They’d just graduated from their different schools and they’d been planning this trip to the amusement park for weeks. It was their graduation gift to each other. Except for Will, who took a gap year after high school to do a road trip with Jonathan across the country.
“Does Will work today?” Max asked, flopping back onto her bed. El yawned and hopped off hers and opened her closet.
“Yes, but his shift isn’t until later, but he said he was going in early to help Adam set up his booth.”
“What do you think of him?” Max inquired, her blue eyes curious as she looked at her best friend.
“What do you mean?” El asked, as she rifled through her tiny closet.
“Do you like him? Adam?”
"I guess so. He’s nice and sweet and he makes Will smile, that’s the most important thing,” El answered. She pulled out one of Mike’s t-shirts he didn’t know she stole yet. She smiled and tossed it over her arm and focused on finding jeans or shorts.
“Who’s nice and sweet?” Lucas asked, leaning against the door frame.
“Adam,” El muttered, pulling out a pair of denim shorts. Lucas nodded and said ‘oh’.
“Do you like him?” Max asked. Lucas folded his arms as he thought of Will’s new… boyfriend? Were they dating yet? He didn’t know, Will wasn’t always forthcoming with his personal business and Lucas wasn’t the type to ask. He always figured Will would share when he wanted. At least he was better than Mike who rarely shares anything. His love for El was obvious to him since they were twelve but it’s like pulling teeth otherwise.
“Like who?” Mike asked, appearing suddenly, causing Lucas to jump and say “shit!” “Sorry, who are you talking about?”
“Adam,” El said, laying her clothes out on the bed and considering her shoe options.
“Who?” Mike asked bewildered. Lucas chuckled at Mike’s confusion.
“Will’s boyfriend! God, why don’t you guys know your friend’s boyfriend’s name??” Max demanded sitting up, her red hair was a mess around her head and blue eyes narrowed. Mike blinked owlishly as he thought of Will’s… were they dating? Last time he was around, they did a Star Wars marathon and Adam was just as into the movies as they were. He was loud and energetic compared to Will’s more reserved personality. As far as Mike knew, they were close but dating? He was unsure.
“Yeah, he seems alright,” Mike said with a shrug. “We haven’t been around him much. Plus-”
“Are they dating now?” Lucas asked cutting in, causing Mike to slap his shoulder with the back of his hand. He hated being cut off. Lucas ignored the hit and focused on the girls, they always knew things they didn’t, it was some kind of sixth sense. Did they miss something? Mike was the observant one and Will generally would tell him things first, so if anyone would know, it would be Mike. But since Mike didn't know either, Lucas was lost.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be speculating until we see them today,” Mike added. “We know how Will can be, he may not have wanted to make it a big deal-”
“And we’re making a big deal,” El added, understanding exactly where Mike was heading in his response. There were times where she wondered if they shared the same brain.
“Exactly!” Mike exclaimed. Then, Mike seemed to realize that Max was still in the bed and El was still trying to put an outfit together and glanced at his watch. “You girls still aren’t ready?” Max shot him a look and he raised his hands in surrender. “Ladies, sorry. Jeez.”
“Lucas, can you make me a coffee?” Max asked, finally climbing out of bed. Lucas pushed himself off of the wall and walked into the kitchen as Max went into the bathroom, the door closing behind her. El finally chose a pair of shoes and her eyes roamed over her outfit and she nodded with approval. Mike remained in the doorway, watching as she put her look for today together.
El had many talents and putting clothes together became one of her best. Ever since that outing with Max during the summer of ‘83, she’s been very particular about what she wore, outside of when she lived in California with the Byers and wore more modest clothing. He learned she loved color, weird shapes and designs, especially asymmetrical shapes. He remembered loving her new looks over the summer but there was so much going on that he hardly had the chance to tell her how much loved the look until that quiet moment in the store, when she was injured.
“Mike?”
He was snapped out of his memory at the call of his name and he smiled softly, as she stood in front of him, looking up at him through her eyelashes.
“Yeah?”
“Are you… okay?”
“Oh yeah, I was just enjoying watching you pick out your clothes,” he kissed her forehead again and looked over the outfit on her bed. El noticed the direction of his eyesight and darted over to the bed just as he walked over. His strides are much larger than hers. Damn their height difference. He folded his arms and furrowed his brow seeing the familiar t-shirt laid out with a pair of denim shorts. “You stole my shirt?”
El blushed, yanking the shirt from her bed before he could reach for it. He looked at her, eyebrows raised and El smiled sheepishly, the shirt tucked close to her chest.
“I just wanted something of yours, to remind me of you,” she said softly but Mike guffawed. His dark eyes wide with amusement.
“I live with you El! You can see me every day to remind you of me! Plus, you’ve got so many of my clothes already! I have to go shopping through your closet just to find clothes I already own.”
He wasn’t actually upset. What he was saying was true though, they lived together and saw each other every day and whenever he couldn’t find a shirt or a pair of boxes, he always went to snoop through El’s drawers or closet because more than likely, that’s where it was. He didn’t mind. He loved seeing her in his clothes actually, but he couldn’t make it easy on her every time.
El just blinked slowly at him while he went on this fake tirade.
They did this every so often where he brought up how she always stole his clothes and how he never had anything to wear because she was wearing it. She knew he didn’t mind her wearing his clothes, so she smiled softly at him, tossed the shirt back to the bed and stood in front of him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck, she caressed the back of his head, her fingers combing through the long black strands. El knew Mike loved when she played in his hair, it was calming and while he wasn’t actually upset, it was her go to. She felt his shoulders drop as he sighed and rolled his eyes.
“My clothes look better on you anyway,” he muttered. Damn his height and lankiness. He wasn’t as skinny as he was when he was a teenager but he would always be lanky. Mike often joined Lucas on his morning runs and sometimes the workout after, but he’d never be as athletic or athletically built as Lucas. He just did it so he’d stop being so awkward and look like a baby deer when he ran.
El giggled and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him gently. He accepted the kiss and they stood, their foreheads touching.
“Ugh, seriously?”
They broke apart hearing the bathroom door open and a freshly showered and towel wrapped Max walked into the room, rolling her eyes.
“Is there still hot water?” El asked her friend. Max made a confirming noise and El pecked Mike’s lips again and disappeared into the bathroom. Mike checked his watch.
“You ladies have just over 30 minutes!”
“Hey, is Dustin meeting us there?” Lucas asked, walking past Mike to give Max her favorite red mug.
“He’s picking us up, he has the biggest car."
At 9:30 on the dot, an obnoxiously loud horn blared under their living room window.
“Ugh, I thought he said he was changing that tacky ass horn,” Max said, walking over to the living room window. She and Lucas climbed out onto the fire escape and peered down, seeing Dustin’s 1971 Chevy van.
“Hey!”
The two laughed seeing Suzie clearly climb over Dustin from the passenger side to wave at them. Max shook her head and waved back and climbed back through the window to grab her trust fanny pack. Lucas yelled down that they'd be right out and returned to the apartment.
“Alright, let’s go. EL come on!” Mike grabbed a few water bottles and stuffing them into his backpack.
“You know there is water and other drinks at the park right?” Lucas asked with a smirk after closing the window and locking it.
“You know how expensive that shit is?” he said incredulously. “You’ll thank me later.”
The group headed down to Dustin’s van. He actually managed to find Eddie Munson’s van after everything, it was abandoned in the woods near Reefer Rick’s house and Dustin took it upon himself to salvage it and restore it as best he could. It’s been his vehicle ever since he got his license. He usually kept his science gear and anything he managed to find to build his ideas, which the group was expecting to have to navigate around.
When Lucas slid open the back door, he nodded approvingly and Max peered around him to also make note of the people friendly van.
“Wow, I was fully expecting to see your science stuff back here,” Max observed, climbing into the back.
“I made sure Dusty-bun cleaned up for you guys,” Suzie chirped from the passenger seat. The group thanked her, reminiscing on how they’ve had to pile into the back and hold Dustin’s gadgets because he refused to store them while with his friends.
“ANYWAY!” Dustin said loudly, interrupting the overlapping conversations. “Let’s get going, the park opens at 10 and I know we’re trying to ride that new ride right?”
“You don’t even ride roller coasters!” Max called from the back.
“Whoa!” Dustin shouted, a finger raised. “I do so, I just have my limits.”
“There isn’t anything wrong with limits,” El said with a laugh. Dustin shouted “THANK YOU EL!” and sped off down the road.
They bobbed and sang along loudly to the music blasting from the radio. They laughed and talked while Dustin weaved through mild traffic to make it to the park before opening.
“Hey, can you play this?” Mike asked, passing a cassette tape up to Dustin. Dustin took the cassette while at a red light and glanced at the title. He met Mike’s big eyes in the rearview mirror and nodded.
The party grew quiet as the first strum of a guitar began to play. Dustin stared at the road as memories of Eddie Munson playing the greatest final guitar performance in the Upside Down assaulted him. He felt his eyes prickle as he thought about his friend and how awesome and brave he was. It wasn’t fair.
Mike listened to the song, the song he never got to hear Eddie play, but he heard about in full from Dustin who was there. Mike was quietly distraught when he heard about Eddie’s death, Eddie introduced him to metal, which he enjoyed for the most part, and Mike wanted to be so much like him back then. Eddie was himself and so cool and Mike took so many notes. His hair was already long but he got a haircut so it could look more like Eddie’s, he wanted it to be as long as his. It never was because he kept getting haircuts but it took him a while to move on from Eddie’s signature hairstyle. He’d also insisted on picking out his own clothes, finding things he actually liked and not things his mom thought were best… it was freeing. He missed Eddie and he would never say it aloud, but he was a little jealous that Dustin got to hang out with him without him.
“To Eddie,” Mike said, raising his fist.
The others raised their fists in salut. “To Eddie.”
Everyone considered their fallen friend. Some never got the chance to meet him and others were remembering his wild energy.
Suddenly Dustin's voice cut through the silence. “Alright, enough of this mushy shit,” and the radio clicked back on and “What Is Love?” by Haddaway played through the speakers and they continued their drive to Magic Mountain.