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Mike didn’t see it coming. That wasn’t the main point, though.
As if things couldn’t get any worse, all the tragedy that had befallen Hawkins prompted Karen and Ted Wheeler to drag their children to midnight mass at… well… midnight. What was worse than the boring speeches and awfully slow hymns was the painful memories that would invade Mike’s mind of the years he used to be a choir boy. Picturing Mike Wheeler dressed to the nines in choir robes is a ridiculous thing to do, and yet it was the only thing in Mike’s head as he watched the fresh-faced pre-pubescent boys squeak out Jesus songs. Thank god he hit puberty and became tone deaf.
But that wasn’t the point, and Mike hoped that will never be the point. The less that part of his life is talked about, the better. The point was that, considering everything that had happened in the year of 1986, he really should’ve expected this. And yet he didn’t.
It had now been ten minutes of sitting in the snow- no, scratch that. In order for it to make any sense in his head, Mike must start from the beginning.
In March of 1986, Henry Creel cursed the town of Hawkins. More importantly, he cursed Nancy Wheeler. Mike didn’t dare repeat the so-called prophecy Vecna had showed her. As bad as choir robes was, picturing himself in a body bag was worse. But accompanying the awful visions was a clock chime - four, to be exact. And that was why, at exactly one o’clock in the morning, at a cathedral with a bell and a clock tower, Mike really should’ve seen it coming.
Ironically, Nancy did. At twelve o’clock, at least. She watched the seconds on the clock and stuck her fingers in her ears for the twelve chimes, counting down each one. After the clanging stopped, she was left with nothing but the awful anxious feeling she gets in her gut almost daily. But that was it. All of this, however, was completely unbeknownst to Mike. He was too busy thinking about the fact that he used to be in the choir.
One o’clock did catch her off guard. She hadn’t realised how much time had passed. It was one clang, just one stupid clang. That was all it took. Nancy would’ve found it utterly embarrassing, and will once she’s in the correct state of mind to be embarrassed with herself.
Mike dragged her out of the church before anyone else could notice. She was so close to losing her shit with him, and he was so lucky he was just a slightly stronger than her. He managed to get her outside without anyone realising, that was the main thing.
“Shit, shit. Fuck, uh…” he stammered out, watching his sister slump into the biting snow. “I don’t know what to do, Nancy.”
She didn’t respond with anything helpful, so instead Mike turned to his memories. Will panicked, a lot, but he never had full on outbursts. Nancy wasn’t, yet. And he’d do everything he could to not let it get to that point, but even the hyperventilating in the snow was beyond his area of expertise.
“Just, okay, just- just breathe.” Mike dropped down, exhaling at his own command. “Hey, hey, it’s Christmas, right? We’re getting new shit in, like, six hours. That’s fun, right?”
It didn’t work, which didn’t surprise Mike in the slightest. The last time he checked, this was Nancy, not Holly.
“It’s okay. You’re not- it was just the church bell.” his hand hovered over her shoulder for a moment, before putting it back into his pocket. It was fucking freezing, and watching his sister grip the snow-covered grass with white knuckles was enough to turn Mike’s fingers blue by association. But he wasn’t prepared to touch her, yet, because touching Nancy during this state was a no-no.
He’d only been in this situation once before, and it was considerably easier because he wasn’t the only one there. It was during the second visit to Max’s hospital bed, accompanied by Lucas, of course. Mike wasn’t even sure what had happened, but one minute he was getting a drink from the vending machine and the next he was watching his terrified sister claw herself away from Lucas’s grip as he attempted to calm her down. And neither kid really knew what they were doing but they got through it together, and eventually Nancy was getting through it, too.
But now Mike was alone, sort of alone. And it wasn’t like the time in the hospital because Nancy was more in freeze than flight.
He had lied before. He did know what had happened at the hospital. It was seeing Max in that bed, body broken. The guilt had been drowning Nancy, and suddenly Max’s body became Mike’s in her head and then Lucas had dropped something and he turned into Bruce and everything all got warped. She had told Mike that after, he just liked to pretend he didn’t know. But he did. And as much as he hated thinking about all of that on most days, on Christmas Day at one o’clock in the morning, he could admit it was good he possessed this knowledge.
He shuffled around, getting in front of her so she could meet his eyes. There were tears running down her cheeks and Mike was briefly reminded of the car-window raindrop races they would have as kids. She never used to cry around him. Mike wasn’t oblivious, he was aware his sister cried a lot, even before she had much to cry about. But she always had the pride to lock herself in her room to do it. Until this year, now everyone seems to be crying.
“Hey. I’m here. It’s me, it’s Mike. I’m here.” he voice was as low and murmured as he could get it. “It’s Christmas Day, and we’re at the church. It’s just gone one and mom and dad are inside pretending they’re religious.”
It would’ve gotten a laugh any other time but instead the grip on the snow (now snowball) just loosened a little. That was more than enough for Mike.
“Earlier on you were complaining because Holly’s old enough to keep quiet now. Which means you can’t use taking her babbling away as an excuse to leave anymore.” Mike told her. “Good. I was always jealous of that.”
Nancy’s breath shuddered.
“And Mom hopes keeping all of us up late will make us sleep in on Christmas morning, but we’ll prove her wrong, won’t we?” He smiled.
It’s strange, how easily the mind can deceive someone. Nancy’s brain played tricks on her constantly, people turn into other people, places turn into other places. Reality turns into memory. Mike will never know what it’s like, but his brain did play a similar sort of trick. He imagined the two of them in just a couple of hours, running into their parent’s bedroom shouting ‘Merry Christmas!’ and begging Karen and Ted to let them open presents before breakfast. And although Mike was fifteen and Nancy was eighteen, suddenly they were five and eight in Mike’s head. Despite his adult sister being right in front of his eyes, and his own lanky body being more than enough proof that he had aged, he had momentarily forgotten any of it had happened at all.
It has now been twenty minutes of sitting in the snow. Nancy is no longer panicking, but she isn’t really anything else either. Mike guesses it’s a good thing but he can never be too sure. But she’s fine. As in, she’s not on the verge of passing out or doing anything stupid. And now that Mike has had time to think, he realises he should’ve seen it coming. Only now is he figuring out that Nancy got through the first twelve chimes an hour ago because she’s smart like that. And only now is he also figuring out that there’s a hell of a lot more she does that he doesn’t notice. Like ‘forget’ to turn the hall light off because Mike is afraid of the dark. And still drive him to school even after graduating, not because Karen forced her to, but because she wants to. How she will never shoot a gun around him because it reminds him too much of the incident in Lenora, and how Eddie only got a memorial section in the school newspaper last year because Nancy threatened to fire all the newspaper minions if they didn’t include him.
Mike vowed not to be as useless as he felt.
“Home?” he asked, getting a short nod in response. He stood up, brushing the snow off his jacket and pulling Nancy up, too. He then took off his gloves, putting them on her positively frostbitten hands, and led her to the car. She was too out of it to process the fact that he was driving, and he was too out of it to worry about not having a license yet. That was something for the list of things he’d done for her. Not tell her he learnt to drive. Because, if he was being honest, he liked it when she drove him to school. Getting yelled at by his often sleep deprived older sister was Mike’s version of a morning cup of coffee.
As soon as they got home, Mike turned the heat up in the house, and then promptly turned it back down after picturing his father getting all worked up over the bills. Once Nancy was falling asleep in bed, he took the car back to the church, suddenly feeling very adult. He was reminded of all the times he got way too upset at Nancy for staying up too late on Christmas Eve, because famously, ‘he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake’. And suddenly he was the one awake too late, watching a plane fly across the car window and pretending it was Santa Claus in his sleigh.
He got back to the church just in time for the service to end, telling his parents Nancy slipped away and walked home. Ted only mumbled something about respect and Nancy could do no wrong in Karen’s eyes since she went missing for, like, half a day. Which was completely unfair to Mike on every other day but on Christmas he could let it slide.
That was the thing about him and his sister. They yelled, and fought until they broke shit that Karen claimed was valuable but came from the Dollar General. And god, he hated Nancy sometimes. Like the days where she would count down the seconds until she’d leave for school without him and he willed the toaster to cook the Pop Tart faster. Or when she’d tease him for bad report cards, and laugh at the nerdy shit he loved which was super hypocritical of her, to be honest. But he was just as bad and he knew it. Not that he would list the bad shit he did, because he’s already thought about the choir boy thing today and he can’t ruin his reputation any further.
The point was - and this was the main point - that Nancy was his sister, and he couldn’t ask Santa for a better one.
He tried that six years ago, and to be fair he did get a sister, but Nancy was still his favourite.