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He knows he's being over-dramatic by acting like the world is ending over something like this when he’s been in actual situations with monsters trying to kill people and invade their world, but rational thought got thrown out the window when his mom decided to take back her word.
“This is such bullshit!” Mike yells, throwing his backpack onto a chair by the kitchen table.
“Language, Michael!” Karen snaps back, setting down his midterm report card and crossing her arms, “You’re really not helping your case, here.”
“But I already told them I was coming—”
“I don’t care!” she interrupts, “Do you really expect your father and I to pay for a flight to California when you bring home grades like these?”
“I’ll do better,” Mike pleads, practically begging, “I’ll study and get them up, I promise.”
“You keep saying things like that, but it's clearly not happening,” she turns back around to face the handful of dishes left in the sink, returning to what she’d been doing before he and Nancy got home from school. It almost feels like she's trying to drown him out with the sound of the running water.
Mike could have killed his sister when she handed over her grades without hesitation before heading upstairs—perfect because of course they were, she's Nancy. If he could have put this whole conversation off for a few more days, until the flight was booked and canceling the whole thing would be more of a hassle than it’s worth, then this wouldn't have been an issue. Sure, his grades would still look bad compared to hers and maybe he’d get a stern talking to, but it wouldn't have messed everything up like this.
He just stands there, staring, mind racing to try to find a solution. He’s feeling too much—too much anger, frustration, surprise—to think clearly, to form a plan. After a few minutes of near silence, filled only with the rush of water and dishes clanking against one another, he tries to get her attention one last desperate time, "Mom."
The tap is loud enough he’s almost not sure if she heard him, but before he can repeat himself she reaches for the faucet to shut it off.
“I'm sorry, but you’re forcing my hand here, honey," she doesn't even turn around to look at him, which makes her words sting more. It’s like she knows what hurt expression must be on his face, and just can’t bear to see it—not when she knows it’s because of her. She takes a deep breath, "You're not going until we see some real improvement, and that's final," she forcefully grabs a nearby dish towel and starts to dry plates, still not looking, "Maybe by Christmas vacation you'll have earned it."
Mike sort of wants to scream at her, to throw things and cause a scene, break those stupid plates so she’d at least look him in the eye while taking away the one thing he’d been looking forward to. But he knows an outburst won't do anything—besides probably get Christmas taken off the table too—and neither would trying to actually explain anything. She won't listen.
None of this should even feel like a surprise, he thinks bitterly, since over the years it's become abundantly clear that Karen Wheeler is all about empty promises. She says she cares and that he can tell her anything, and he honestly does think she wants to mean it, but the second he says or does something that falls outside of what she thinks is reasonable? It's like she short circuits until coming up with her own rationalization that'll fit the perfect picture in her mind. It's a step up from the way attempting to communicate with his dad feels about as productive as arguing with a brick wall, because she’ll usually at least give him a hug when she sees his face crumple in desperation, but it's still not helpful.
He wants her to understand that maybe he's not doing so great in his classes because he can't focus—he feels like he's losing his mind without El and Will here to keep him sane, without at least their physical presence to distract him from the way his brain runs wild—and that it's absolutely not going to get better if she punishes him like this. But nothing ever goes through, his words either get misconstrued or flat out ignored. There's basically no point in even trying anymore.
Instead of breaking something, or attempting to reason with her, he settles for storming upstairs and slamming his bedroom door with enough force to make a few stray action figures and books topple off his desk and shelves. A little bit of destructive action to let off steam, but nothing targeted that might make her punish him even more. He doesn’t bother picking up anything that fell, opting to flop on his bed instead, considering yelling into his pillow for good measure.
When he'd initially told El he had the okay to visit, it hadn't even occurred to him that it was conditional, that it'd be used as some bargaining chip to get him to work harder. The idea only crossed his mind a week or so earlier when he'd gotten back a Spanish test that went particularly badly, and his dad had alluded to 'consequences' if he didn't shape up. Though really he'd thought it would be more 'No Hellfire nights' not 'You can't go see your girlfriend and best friend that it sort of feels like you're drowning here without'. Frustratingly enough he's not even actually failing any classes, he's just not doing good enough, apparently. When juxtaposed with Nancy's A's it must practically look like failing—he just doesn’t fit their perfect idea of a child the way she does. It's not fair.
He runs a hand through his messy hair, another way he isn’t what his parents want. His dad keeps insisting he cut it, that he’ll look like a girl if he doesn’t soon. Which feels stupid to him—El’s hair had been shorter than his for plenty of the time he knew her, and that didn’t really make her look like a boy. (Okay, sure, when he first met her it kind of did, but he still thinks his dad is full of shit). It’s really not even that long—not yet at least—he thinks Ted would have a heart attack if he ever saw Eddie, or knew how much Mike likes the way Eddie looks. Well, maybe the hair isn’t the only reason he’d flip out about that. Mike shakes his head, he knows his brain is wandering.
As soon as he turns over on his bed, and catches sight of one of Will’s drawings, his feelings about the situation at hand flood right back in. The same anger, frustration, and sadness he’d felt in the kitchen, along with a small shameful sense of relief that’s starting to creep in.
It’s insane, really—in the month since they packed everything up at the Byers' place for good, he’s felt this aching in his heart that just gets worse and worse by the day, like a piece of him was ripped out and sent across the country with them. Yet despite that, he’s sort of scared to face them—so knowing he’ll have a little bit more time to prepare himself, to figure out just what the hell he’s going to say and do when he’s with them, is the one and only bright side to this. Not that his parents or anyone else is going to find that out—or even have any idea what’s actually bothering him besides the fact that they aren’t here. He’d sort of rather chew on broken glass than open up about his feelings to anyone still in Hawkins.
He knows he’s scared for a few reasons. Number one being that when he sees them again, El will absolutely expect (or at the very least want) him to tell her he loves her—and there’s definitely something wrong with him because he doesn’t think he can.
She told him 'I love you too' before she left, thus the dumping of his ass has been rescinded, and he should be ecstatic about that. She’s his girlfriend again, that’s what he wanted—at least it’s what he thought he wanted back when she broke up with him in the first place. But when she told him, and kissed him for the first time in months, it just felt awkward. He'd been frozen, stuck, like something was wrong in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on. Part of him thought maybe since he'd started getting used to the idea of being just friends, he’d been too shocked by her confession to react, and that’s all it was. At least, that's what he planned to say if she ever called him out on it, on the way he just stood there like a statue.
But, just—when he'd said he loved her in front of everyone else, it felt like he was saying something else. Like, he meant what he said, he does absolutely love her, but something was totally different about the way she told him. The look on her face, the kiss... It felt like they weren't trying to communicate the same thing. They were trying to shove together pieces from two different puzzles, that look like they'd sort of fit together, but really don't.
All her letters are signed with ‘Love, El’ and he knows she probably wants him to do the same, but every single time his hand just automatically writes ‘From, Mike’. It kills him the way he can practically see how her face must fall when she reads each one, but he thinks writing it like that just… wouldn't be saying the whole truth, and he knows how much she values the truth. He cares about her so much, he doesn’t want to lose her or do something that’d push her away, so he keeps trying to avoid the subject while feeling like he did that day. Stuck.
Then there’s the other reason, Will. He doesn’t even know what to expect with Will, and that's actually scarier.
Things between them seemed fine in October, Will said he wouldn’t join another party—implied it wasn’t possible to replace Mike and everything he was leaving behind in Hawkins—but the tension from the summer still looms over everything. Something had changed between them. Maybe it happened gradually, and he just hadn't seen it until things exploded, but now that he knows things are different he doesn't think they can ever really go back.
‘It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!’ was just such a stupid thing to say, and he’s going to be kicking himself over it forever—that day still plays on repeat in his mind whenever he walks through the garage. Of course Will likes girls, he’s normal, he'd danced with that one girl at the Snowball and been all nervous and shy about it. Mike had seen the way he was sort of flustered by the whole situation in this cute endearing way, because he'd barely been able to take his eyes off of him until El pulled his attention with her surprise appearance. He thinks it's not that Will doesn’t like girls—it’s just that he wasn’t gonna let growing up mean he has to ditch or diminish all the other things he likes. He's not trying to prove anything to anyone.
Meanwhile Mike's desperate attempt to cling onto the idea of normality made him alienate his friends and treat El like some novelty instead of an actual human being. He’d been so desperate to protect her, and to keep her there with him—because thinking he lost her for good had been terrible and he can’t go through that again—to the point that he’d been stifling her. He knew that he'd been forcing some things as they got closer—thinking that since they’re a boy and a girl and he cares about her things between them obviously had to follow some set romantic path. But making out with her instead of thinking, latching onto her as much as physically possible because it's what he thought he was supposed to do... he doesn't really think that's how relationships are supposed to work. It had sure pissed Hopper off—which admittedly was kind of fun in it's own way—but it's not even remotely how Nancy and Jonathan are, and they're really his only baseline for what a solid relationship looks like. Will had been right to just try to do the things he actually wanted to do, and Mike had been a total asshole about it because he was scared.
He’d felt threatened by Will not being in some rush to grow up like he was, jealous of the way he could just like what he likes without seeming to care what anyone else thinks. He wasn't trying to be something he's not, and it had hit Mike like a truck when he realized that's what he always felt he had to do. That the real him was something that needed to get shoved away, in some dark corner out of sight and out of mind. So he'd lashed out like a wounded animal, projecting his own wants and fears on Will, because Mike knows deep down that he’s the one who—
Mike decides it’s finally time to scream into his pillow. These spirals always end up back here, and he hates it, hates that he knows the answer to so many of the questions swirling around in his head—it’s staring him right in the face, taunting him. It’s so simple, obvious, but makes him feel like he's going to throw up from how nervous it makes him. This is the thing that changed—or, well, him realizing it is what made things change. The way he feels about Will, the way he doesn't feel about El, that's what makes the idea of seeing them again so scary.
It’s probably just going to make things worse, but he wants to believe that he can somehow make this relationship work with El, so he won’t need to think about any of this any more. He and Will could go back to the way they were, and everything would be fine. He just… needs to tell her he loves her, the way she loves him. Friends don’t lie, but he’s starting to think friends can tell half-truths if they’re for the greater good. And hey, maybe if he says it enough times, he’ll start to believe it too.
Someone knocks on his door and he jolts up, twisting around to face the sound.
“Go away!” he yells, hoping he sounds like he’s in a bad enough mood that the person will actually listen.
They knock again and he groans.
“I said go away!” he shouts even louder.
“Mike,” Nancy’s voice comes through, and a little bit of tension drains away, because at least it’s not his mom about to give him some half-apologetic speech about how her decision was really for his own good. Although a very small part of him might sort of agree, he didn’t want to hear it. When he doesn’t respond, she knocks again before announcing, “I'm coming in!"
He shifts until he’s sitting cross legged on the bed, staring at the door. He knows he could get her to go away if he really tried, say he’s naked or something else stupid like that, but he doesn’t have it in him to tell a convincing lie right now, so he mumbles, “Whatever,” just loud enough for her to hear.
She barely waits for him to finish speaking before pushing the door open with an arm holding out his backpack, “Mom thought you might want that,” she throws the bag onto the floor, “And this came for you,” she holds up an envelope with her other hand.
He doesn’t say anything, he just shrugs.
She steps more fully into the room, glancing around at the mess. He used to keep his room so clean, but it just hasn’t felt worth it, lately. Both here and the basement have started to fall into utter disarray, and he can’t find enough motivation to do something about it. She closes the door behind her and gives him a look, like she expects him to just start pouring out his soul or something. It’s like she doesn’t even know him, sometimes.
“What?” He looks at her, but can only meet her eye for a moment before needing to look away. Karen couldn’t look at Mike because she was afraid of what she’d see, and now Mike can’t look at Nancy because he’s afraid of being seen. Which is sort of sad, really. There had been plenty of times over the last few years where all he'd wanted was for his sister to see him—to hang out with him the way she would when they were really little, to act like she cared about what's going on with him when they weren't in the midst of world-ending crises, too. But no, of course the first moment she picks to take interest in him in years is when he's got something to hide.
“I heard you and her. In the kitchen,” she starts, a small frown on her face, “If it’s any consolation, I agree it’s total bullshit,” she comes closer, sitting down on the other end of the bed, leaving enough distance so that they aren’t touching, “I can help you study though, if you want.”
“It's fine,” he picks at a loose thread on his jeans.
“Well, no, it's not. I saw your grades, sure she’s overreacting but it’s clear something's not working,” she sort of laughs, and he can tell she’s looking at him, can feel the weight of her gaze. She approaches everything like a puzzle to be solved, a story she needs to figure out every detail of, and he’d do anything to avoid that level of scrutiny. “I get it if you don’t want me to be directly involved, but there’s a whole tutoring thing—“
“Can you just,” he snaps, before closing his eyes—wincing at the sound of his own harsh voice—he then continues more calmly, “Just leave me alone right now.”
Not that being alone with his thoughts is great, but it’s preferable to this.
She raises her brows, not in surprise, but rather a sort of annoyed disbelief, “What, so you just want to sulk about it? Wallow in your own misery instead of actually doing something?”
He rolls his eyes, then puts on a forced smile, “Yes, exactly,” before he flops backwards, not fully stretched out because she’s still on his bed and doesn’t seem to be moving any time soon.
She's quiet for a moment, clearly thinking. She can accept that monsters from another world and teenage girls with telekinetic powers exist, but her little brother not wanting to do things exactly the way she would want to apparently still catches her off guard. She takes after their mom.
“You know, of all people I get it,” she says quietly after a while, crossing her arms and finally looking away, “Jonathan’s gone too.”
“Yeah, well,” he starts, staring up at his ceiling, “Both El and Will left, so I get to be twice as miserable.”
She huffs out a half laugh, “If you miss Will just as much, why is El the only one you’re writing to?” she holds up the envelope again, before tossing it onto the bed between them.
Well, even without taking into account the numerous mental blocks he’s got going on related to Will, the answer is simple—El started sending letters first. He’s not sure he’d have known what to say if she hadn’t initiated the conversation, but she asks plenty of questions and is still new enough to the whole concept of 'school' that detailing his day-to-day stuff seems to keep her interested. He’s tried drafting a few letters to Will, but each one has gotten ripped up and thrown in the trash because it all just felt stupid—like he’s forgotten how to casually communicate with him altogether.
There’s too much to say, and too much he doesn’t want to say. It leaves him unable to get anything down that makes any sense. Maybe that’s another reason he’s scared to see him—the radio silence is probably hurting Will almost as much as it’s killing Mike. Yet another thing to feel guilty and bad about.
“It’s just different,” he looks off to the side, eyes drifting back to Will’s drawings again. He’s too far away to see the details of the one he's focusing in on, but he’s spent enough time staring at it before to know it’s a doodle of them as their DnD characters—Mike is always just amazed by how he can capture their essence with a pencil. Will has always just understood him in a way other people don't, he thinks that even if some incredible world-famous artist ever tried to draw his likeness, it wouldn't look like him the way it does when Will's the one behind it.
“Well, obviously,” she leans back a little, settling into a more comfortable position, “I mean, you’re not dating him.”
Something tightens in his chest when she says that, and he feels tense all over—almost like he stopped breathing for a second. He keeps his gaze fixed on the wall, and he slowly realizes every single handmade thing decorating his room came from Will, he hadn’t pinned up anything El gave him. He’s got a pile of letters from her starting up in his desk drawer, but they’re shoved away, hidden, out of sight. Nancy’s observant, could she have noticed? He feels caught, like a deer in headlights on a dark country road.
“But you could still write or call or something, I’m sure he misses you too,” she continues, apparently the internal crisis that was trying to surface had gone unnoticed. He silently thanks whatever higher power may or may not be looking over him for that.
Mike tries to bring himself back, to steady his breathing and think over her words, “I don’t have their number,” he says simply. It feels like an excuse, but is technically true. He has their new address—El sending him letters had obviously provided that—but the phone number hadn’t come up since it's not like they were gonna call that way. Phone lines in and around Hawkins are obviously being tapped, none of them are stupid enough to believe otherwise, so for El's safety they needed a different way. Cerebro was the obvious solution, and they had used it to talk over their radios a few times already. Though honestly, he sort of preferred the letters. Yeah, there was the 'Love vs From' situation that stressed him out with each one, but calling for her on the radios almost reminded him too much of the year everyone thought she was gone for good.
Nancy almost looks confused for a second, before she shrugs, “I do, Jonathan gave it to me,” she smiles, “I can write it down.”
He nods. That helps, but it doesn't just fix everything. If he can't find the right words for Will when writing a letter—when he can take his time and think about things—how is a phone call supposed to go any better? Panicking mid-conversation because he wasn’t thinking is exactly how ‘it’s not my fault you don’t like girls!’ happened. If Will hadn't already been upset in the moment—so not thinking too rationally himself—he'd probably have seen right through him, he can't risk something like that happening again.
Nancy moves, starting to stand, before she turns back to him, “I know this sucks, but you’ll get to see them again. Both of them,” she glances up, and her face twists for a second—the sweetness drained from her tone when she speaks again, “What the hell is that?”
Mike turns to follow her gaze, resting square on his newest D&D poster. A wizard summoning this really cool green dragon that he’d just been drawn to from the moment he laid his eyes on it. Maybe it was risky putting something like that up, the dragon was definitely humanoid—muscular and imposing—but frankly the Conan The Barbarian poster felt more revealing. That’s got an actual buff human guy wearing barely any clothes, if it weren’t for the similarly dressed woman kneeling next to him giving the whole thing a little deniability, Mike may as well have put a sign up announcing the thing about himself he’s trying to ignore.
“Oh, uh, a poster? I got it when me and Lucas were at that comic shop a few towns over,” he shrugs, “Cool, right?”
She’s absolutely judging him, but he thinks it’s less about what the poster might imply and more from her general lack of understanding about the appeal of D&D, “It’s something, alright.”
Her gaze shifts around the room, seeming to actually look past the initial mess to see what else is in there. She doesn’t come in here all that much, but he doesn't really want her to anyways—as much as he sometimes longs to connect with her, this isn't the place he wants to do it. He prefers to have his room be his own private space. And he knows she's the same way—she keeps her's pretty off-limits. He thinks the last time he actually set foot in there was when they were trying to find a disguise for El all those years ago. Before that he used to bother her in there sometimes, watch her do her makeup and poke around like the little nuisance he liked to be, (which, when it came to everything with El, had come in handy—he knew where things were and at least vaguely what to do with the fluffy brushes and powder) but she stopped letting him after a while.
Somewhere along the line her wanting privacy just turned into completely shutting him out, and he'd ended up doing the same thing right back.
She points, this time in a less judgmental tone of voice, “I like those ones better,” and he follows her gesture until he's looking to Will’s art once again.
“Well, duh,” he smiles proudly, barely even thinking as he speaks, “Will’s stuff is better than anything else, that goes without saying.”
Maybe that was too telling. He’d been freaking out mere minutes ago about how much of his art was on display, but he just can’t help how happy it always makes him. That he was trusted enough to have all of it, that he was lucky enough to have little reminders of Will around him all the time. He tries to force his goofy smile down into something more neutral.
Nancy just grins back at him, sort of nodding, and walks to his desk for a scrap piece of paper and a pen to write out the phone number. When she’s done, she unceremoniously drops it on the bed. It lands right beside the letter from El. “Call him.”
She carefully steps around the piles of clothes on the floor to make her way out of the room, closing the door behind her.
When he’s finally alone, it feels like he can breathe again.
If Nancy knows what’s going on with him, she’s at least being polite enough to play dumb. He doesn’t really think she does, but if anyone in his house was going to figure out his... situation regarding Will, it’d be her. Despite their admittedly strained relationship, she looks closely at things, pays attention if there seems to be a mystery in front of her. He thinks it comes more from her general curiosity—her inner investigative reporter—rather than some desire to connect with him, but still, same possible result in the end.
He picks up the small piece of paper, staring at the unfamiliar phone number. It feels wrong, he’s known Will’s number like the back of his hand since elementary school, and this isn’t it. The entirely different area code really makes it sink in just how far away the Byers are. How much distance has ended up between the two of them, physical and otherwise.
Nancy’s right, he needs to call him. But he just doesn’t know what to say.
How is he supposed to act normal around Will when a million different things could slip out at any given moment? If he tries to talk about D&D, he’d probably end up blurting out how much he misses playing with Will in his basement, how he does just want to do that forever—the exact thing he’d called childish and accused Will of. One slip up like that and he could figure out what the other things Mike had said that day really meant. El would probably come up in conversation too, and how’s he supposed to explain that mess of feelings? ’Oh, yeah, by the way, I can’t tell my girlfriend I love her because I don’t think I do in the romantic way. Funny thing though, because I think I am in love with y—’
He thinks it’s time to scream into his pillow again. Maybe Holly’s home from daycare and would want to watch some stupid cartoon movie that can distract him until dinner.
It takes two days for him to work up the nerve to call, and another three of trying for a call to actually go through. The line is always busy for some damn reason. When he eventually does get to Will, the only thing they really end up talking about is school—that seemed like a safe enough subject, where things were the least likely to go wrong. Will tells him about really liking his art class, and Mike says that his creative writing class sucks the least. It's mostly just small talk, it almost feels like they're both dancing around saying anything real, until towards the end when Mike drops the news that he's not coming to visit for Thanksgiving after all.