Work Text:
He’d been home for less than 48 hours, and Mike was already itching to get back to Indianapolis. He’d forgotten what it was like to have a curfew. He’d forgotten what it was like to share a bathroom with multiple females. He’d forgotten what it was like to not have an individual landline. He’d forgotten what it was like to sleep alone. He’d forgotten what it was like to live in a small town and therefore be unable to go to a random shop and use his fake ID to get liquor. He’d forgotten what it was like to have to sit down at family meals and listen to his dad rant about the AIDS epidemic and how fags were ruining America. He’d forgotten what it was like to live a singular mile away from… him , and to not be able to do anything about it. To put it simply, home didn’t feel like home anymore.
Which was why it was so strange that Mike was in the kitchen, helping his mom prepare Thanksgiving dinner. Well, one dish for Thanksgiving dinner. Mike had volunteered to make the mashed potatoes, and for some fucking reason, Karen had let him. He’d felt badly for her, and was surprised when she accepted his help so willingly. It made sense, though, since Karen was always the only one making the food, as Holly was still a kid, Nancy couldn’t cook for shit, and Ted couldn’t be bothered to lift even a pinky finger. Besides, he had a decent understanding of one specific recipe he’d learned a few years ago. So, as simple as mashed potatoes were, Mike figured his help could take a small burden off her shoulders.
It also helped him avoid the urge to go up to his room and drink whatever alcohol he had left in his bag until he saw double. He’d been on a good streak: twelve hours. Twelve whole hours . The last time he’d had anything was when he’d first arrived in the driveway of his childhood home a day prior, taken a swig of vodka from one of his many flasks, shoved a piece of gum in his mouth, and vowed to himself that he’d never drink again. And so far, he’d kept to his word.
“Mike, can you call the others and set the table for me?” Karen asked from where she stood at the stove, whisking the dark brown gravy in a saucepan. He pulled the hand mixer he’d been using out of the pot, resting it on its side on the counter. He took a few steps toward her and peered over to the saucepan, the scent of pure sodium and chicken broth meeting his nostrils and bringing a smile to his face.
Being away for so long gave Mike a much stronger sense of appreciation for his mom and all she’d done for him growing up; he definitely took Karen’s cooking for granted when he was a kid. He missed eating food that wasn’t boxed mac and cheese on a regular basis. “You’re doing an awesome job, Mom,” Mike said, surprising himself with his own words. Karen looked up at her son with an even brighter smile than his own, her eyes lighting up with a kind of joy that he hadn’t seen from her in a long time.
“Oh, thank you, sweetie! You’ve been a really big help, too!” she replied, and reached up and brought her hand to his cheek. Mike leaned into the touch before lightly shaking his head.
“They’re just mashed potatoes. You made a fucking feast .”
“Language,” Karen habitually reprimanded, smile noticeably remaining on her lips.
“Yeah, yeah,” Mike chuckled, sauntering out of the kitchen and into the foyer. He took a deep breath before bellowing, “ DINNER’S READY, Y’ALL. ” He headed back into the kitchen to grab the dishes, and fixing the place settings on the dining room table.
Once everything was in position, the Wheeler family pulled their chairs out and sat down; Ted at the head of the table, Karen and Holly on one side, and Mike and Nancy on the other. The next few minutes were madness as everyone loaded their plates with food that they knew they’d have leftovers of for the next week. Karen cleared her throat, folding her hands as if saying “grace” was an everyday thing. Mike couldn’t even begin to recall the last time he’d prayed. Wait. Actually…
“Enough. You’ve done enough.”
“Please, God, help me wake up. Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, whoever the hell you are, if you even exist at all… if this is real life, please kill me. I can’t live like this.”
Yup . The last time he’d prayed was in March. The 22nd of March, to be exact. Mike may have sought out this memory on his own accord, but now, he had no desire to remember it anymore. Fuck , why didn’t he bring his flask with him to the table? Oh, right , because he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t drink again.
“Dear Lord, bless the meal we are about to receive,” Karen began, and Mike shut his eyes tightly, shielding his face with his interlaced fingers. “Thank you for this time spent with all three of our children together under one roof. Thank you for keeping them safe and protected while they are away at school. Please watch over them as they return for the last few weeks of the semester. Amen.”
“Amen,” Ted and Holly repeated, and Mike took note of the fact that he and Nancy were the only ones who hadn’t said “amen” out loud. Weird . Mike felt Nancy’s foot nudge his, and he realized that the prayer had ended and he still had his head in his hands. He could have easily fallen asleep like that.
“Yet here we are, baby. Time flies when you’re blackout drunk.”
Feeling a little uneasy at the idea of Elvis Kuiken’s voice infiltrating his thoughts, Mike shifted his gaze back to his mom in order to engage in the small talk that was currently happening. Hopefully the conversation at the table wouldn’t veer too much into How’s School™ territory. Because Mike wouldn’t have much to say. He was still trying to figure out how to announce the fact that he was most likely going to be dropping out of college at the end of the semester. And he wasn’t even near ready to explain the reasons why he was doing so.
How could he even attempt to explain? “Hey Mom and Dad, I’m dropping out of college. You’re probably thinking, Why are you dropping out of college, Michael? Well, for starters, I fell in love with and was subsequently rejected by my best friend in the entire world– you know, the kid who was always coloring at our kitchen table– yeah, that one. Then, when I moved to Indy, I tried to fill the void that the loss of him created by drinking and hooking up with a series of men who– fun fact– all had the same initials as my ex-best friend. And then , at one point or another, the drinking and sex morphed into addictions rather than emotional crutches , and I got so depressed that I stopped going to classes, and I flunked out of literally all of them. Anyway, let’s get back to Thanksgiving, I’m fucking starving .”
Nope . He’d at least wait until after dinner to break the news. He needed to have this one last memory of his parents being proud of him, and the last thing he wanted was to ruin Karen’s hard work with his… drama. If he could even call it that.
Nancy nudged his foot again, a little harder this time. He snapped out of his thoughts to look at her. What crawled up her ass and died? He knocked his foot back at hers, a little harsher than she had, and her expression suddenly turned… hurt ? What did Nancy have to be hurt over? She… Oh no . She was probably just trying to help him come back to reality. Ever since the events of the Vecnapocalypse, she’d become very familiar with his spontaneous mental dissociations. He moved his leg so their feet met gently; an apology for snapping. Silently snapping, but still. Nancy met his eyes, and offered up a light smile. Forgiveness .
“Everyone doing okay…? Everyone has something to drink? How’s the food?” Karen addressed the table, and everyone nodded, unable to speak. Mike felt like he was in a restaurant, and the waiter or waitress had just approached his table as soon as everyone had a bite of food in their mouths. It was almost like they did it on purpose.
“Everything is delicious, mom,” Nancy reassured her mother. “The mashed potatoes are exceptionally good.”
“Aw, thank you, Nance!” the corners of Karen’s eyes crinkled as she took the compliment, “But I can’t take credit for the potatoes, those were all your brother.”
“ Mike?! ” Holly balked at her brother from across the table, her eyes wide. “I didn’t know you could work a stove!” The rest of the Wheeler family laughed, and Mike placed a hand over his heart as he feigned offense.
“Hey! I know my way around a kitchen!” Okay, maybe he was exaggerating a little bit. Time to backtrack . “Well, all the recipes I know are pretty basic, but that was because W–” Mike felt his stomach twist and contort at the next word that was about to come out of his mouth. A name. His name. He hadn’t spoken it out loud since–
“Please don’t go. Hear me out. Will, you’ve got to believe me.”
“Well, I don’t, Mike. I don’t believe you.”
“Because…” Nancy prompted, leaning towards her brother slightly and placing a tentative hand on his shoulder. She didn’t know anything about what had gone down in August. Or did she? Will probably told Jonathan, and Jonathan probably told her. Maybe it was a good thing that Nancy knew. She clearly didn’t hate him, or else she wouldn’t have put a Moral Support Hand™ on his shoulder.
All the dots in his head connected, the more Mike thought about it; Nancy had called to check in on him multiple times throughout his first year at the University of Indianapolis. Granted, he was usually… busy (drinking, hooking up with a guy, drunkenly hooking up a guy… or going to class, sometimes) and as a result couldn’t talk for long, but she seemed a bit… curious about his love life and well being during what was supposed to be pleasantry-filled, surface-level conversation between siblings. He never told her much, but maybe that was the key. Nancy was a journalist, after all, so she probably used the process of elimination or some shit. Any girls? No, God, no. Any guys, then? Not really, no. Let’s talk about that ‘really.’ I’d rather not, Nance. Have you talked with Will lately? Oh-shit-gotta-go-bye-love-you. Yeah. She’d definitely figured it out.
“Because W–” Why was it so hard to say his name? It was one goddamn syllable . His mind certainly didn’t seem to have any trouble playing Will’s name on endless fucking loop for the past three months he’d been away. And not to mention, up until August 1989, he’d been saying that name out loud since he was five years old.
“Because W-Will…” There we fucking go, was that so difficult? Yes. Mike wanted to die. “Will didn’t trust me to not burn down the kitchen.” He let out a shaky breath, expelling the rest of the air he hadn’t been aware he was holding in his lungs. He cleared his throat, gripping the fork in his hand with an iron fist, and stabbed it into the gigantic pile of stuffing on his plate.
“Hmm, come to think of it, Michael… I haven’t seen Will around here in a while,” Karen said more to herself than to Mike, but the second their eyes met, his stomach plummeted out of his ass. “Are you guys still not talking? I would’ve assumed you two had made up by now. I know you two were inseparable.” Way to rub salt in the wound, Mom. Jesus.
“Yeah, no. We still aren’t talking,” Mike said, but figured his mom’s next question would go along the lines of him and Will reconciling eventually , so he added, “And I don’t think we will any time soon. We…”
“Broke up? About time,” Ted joined the conversation for the first time since they’d all sat down, not counting the grunts and hums any time someone addressed him directly. Ted’s bluntness caught Mike so off guard that he choked and nearly sprayed cranberry sauce out of his nose.
“ Ted! ” Karen exclaimed– her response to anything out of pocket that her husband said, which was pretty much any time Ted Wheeler opened his mouth. Mike grabbed his glass of water and chugged it, still recovering from his near death experience by cranberry sauce.
“What?” he tossed a hand in Mike’s direction. “You can’t seriously tell me those two weren’t… gay … together.” Well, he got one of two things right, and not the one Mike preferred.
“We weren’t,” Mike replied, keeping his voice steady as possible. “Will and I were never together. And I’m… I’m not gay.” Will Byers, Elvis Kuiken, Wyatt Bowman, Wes Butler, Walker Brooks, and Warren Blakely would beg to differ. But Ted didn’t have to know about any of that.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Ted shrugged, shoving an abnormally large chunk of turkey in his mouth. Mike narrowed his eyes.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ted waved his fork around, pointing it at Mike as he replied oh-so-nonchalantly, “I’ll believe that you aren’t gay when you marry a woman.”
Mike gulped and desperately shot his eyes across the table to his mom, hoping that she would come to his defense somehow. It turned out that she had already been looking at him, and they gained eye contact accompanied by a silent understanding.
Please don’t tell him.
I won’t, baby. Don’t worry, I’ll find a way to get him to stop.
Right then, Mike had never been so glad his mom had found him having that panic attack on the day Will left. If she hadn’t, she never would have known about Mike’s sexual identity, and they probably wouldn’t be as close as they were now.
“Ted, don’t be ridiculous. You don’t know what you’re–”
“Of course I do, Karen! I’m not blind!” Ted effectively cut Karen off. “Michael isn’t in his right mind, hasn’t been for years. That boy corrupted our son with his… homosexuality .” Karen drew her focus back to her son, her expression apologetic. Well… she tried .
“Dad, tell me you’re not truly that dense,” Mike’s older sister piped up from her spot next to Mike, whose neck nearly cracked with how fast he whipped it to look at her. Was Nancy standing up for him?
“This is none of your concern,” Ted muttered with a tone that said, that’s that, end of conversation, but Nancy shook her head, lifting her elbows up so they collided with the surface of the wooden table with a sharp thunk .
“It is when you’re acting like a bigot and ridiculing my brother at the dinner table.”
“ Thank you , Nancy,” Mike breathed, and she only nodded back at him, as if calling their father a bigot was comparable to a fucking walk in the park.
“Seriously, Dad,” Nancy continued, reaching out to her wine glass, “what is your problem ?” Mike tried not to think too hard about the glass of red wine meeting Nancy’s lips, because Jesus Christ , of all times to lose sight of the situation at hand in favor of a glass of motherfucking merlot, this was not it.
“Maybe we should all just–” Karen, ever the peacekeeper, tried to diffuse the tension.
“I’ll tell you what, Michael,” Ted’s droning voice caught Mike’s attention, “I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these days you walk in and tell us you’ve got that disease. If not from the Byers boy, then from some other faggot.”
Karen shocked everyone at the table when she slammed her fork down onto her plate, the gold-plated utensil clanging against the expensive china. “Ted, that’s enough.”
“What? I’m just saying, Karen, all this gay nonsense is gonna… you know.” Another piece of turkey, down the hatch. “Bite him in the ass, literally speaking.”
Mike had finally had it. “ Fuck you .”
“Michael,” Ted said, not looking up from his food, “ Again .”
“Yeah, language. I fucking know,” Mike retorted with a roll of his eyes, pushing himself back from his spot at the table and standing up, so he towered over the rest of his family. His focus reached his father’s eyes, and he wanted nothing more in that moment than to pull a Vecna and explode them with his mind.
“Michael James, sit down. Now. It’s a holiday, for Christ’s sake,” Ted stared up at his son with a sense of mutual disdain, and Mike slammed his hand down on the back of the chair.
“No. No goddamn way. I’m not going to just sit here and take your shit anymore. I’m done. Happy fucking Thanksgiving. How’s that for language, Theodore? Fucking prick .”
With that, Mike stalked away from the table, taking the stairs two steps at a time up to his room, and slamming the door behind him. So much for announcing his status as College Dropout™. They were probably better off basking in their ignorance. He leaned against the door, dragging his hands down his neck and shoulders in an attempt to contain his boiling rage. But it didn’t help.
Fuck it .
Mike shuffled through his backpack, muttering to himself while trying to find… where was it? What if someone… Oh, thank God. It was still there. He pulled his bunched up socks out of his bag, unfolding them. He twisted the top off of his flask quickly, not even flinching at the sensation of straight tequila flowing down his throat as he tipped the flask upside down. The alcohol didn’t even burn anymore. Mike from a year and a half ago would have freaked the fuck out at this realization, but current Mike simply couldn’t bring himself to care.
He finished the flask off within the next few minutes. He sat down on his bed, waiting for the buzz to set in. Fifteen minutes went by, then twenty. Nothing. The flask had been full . His tolerance must have increased again. He let out a groan of frustration as he got off his bed once more and reached under his bed for his duffle bag. He pulled out his untouched bottle of Fireball Cinnamon Whisky and chuckled wryly to himself. Fireballs were always Will’s spell of choice. He unscrewed the cap, raised the bottle with cheers to Will, wherever the fuck he was on this fine Thanksgiving evening, and drank until he passed out.
Mike woke up a while later, and thankfully, it was still dark outside. It was always the worst when he’d knock out, wake up at the ass crack of dawn, and not be able to fall back asleep. Fuck, what time was it? Mike glanced over at his alarm clock, which read “11:16.” He’d been out for almost four hours.
Mike took a look around his room and sighed down into his hands. He had a mild headache, but not enough to warrant going to the bathroom cabinet to grab an Advil. He’d survive. He dropped his hands into his lap and took a deep breath in. Tonight was a fucking shitshow. He leaned down to grab his backpack, pulled his spiral-bound notebook and a pen out, and opened up to the next clean page. The notebook itself was getting thin, since he’d pulled so many letters out of it over the past year. He uncapped his pen, set the felt tip down on the paper, and began to write.
Dear Will,
I think my family might have set the record tonight for the worst Thanksgiving gathering in all of Indiana. Maybe even the Midwest. Dare I say the U.S.? I should call Guinness and try to set up a meeting. But in all seriousness, I think I’ve reached the final straw with my dad. He’s so homophobic, Will. I–
Mike brushed a few tears away that had gathered in his eyes. God , he hated crying.
I have no idea what I’m gonna do. It’s so hard to wrap my head around. And the only reason why I have to maintain contact with him is because of my mom. They unfortunately come as a package deal, or not at all. He can never know about me, which I’m fully aware is a given, but like… how am I supposed to keep my dad in my life if he can’t accept the biggest part of it? And it physically hurts to think about if I eventually have to cut my mom off. I–
A light knocking at the door startled Mike out of his groove, causing him to slam his notebook shut at lightning speed. Who was knocking at the door? It couldn’t be his mom, because she still didn’t knock. It couldn’t be Nancy, because her knocks were more frequent and persistent. And it obviously wasn’t his dad. So that left…
Mike got up from his bed and turned on his lamp, padding toward the door and opening it a crack. Holly . What was she doing up so late? And what was she doing in Mike’s doorway, of all places?
“Can I come in?” she whispered, anxiously picking at her fingernails in the dim light of the upstairs hallway, teetering back and forth in her pink fuzzy socks. He couldn’t say no, even if he wanted to.
“Of course, Holls,” he smiled, stepping aside and pulling the door a bit further so she could tiptoe into his bedroom. She surveyed the space, which she probably regarded with disgust at how cluttered it was. He crossed his arms over his chest, sniffing involuntarily. The sound prompted Holly’s head to whip upwards and peer up at Mike with narrowed eyes.
“Are you crying? ”
Mike quickly denied any and all accusations, slapping his palms onto his face in an attempt to dry the tears that apparently still lingered there. “No, God no,” he muttered, “I just… got some hairspray in my eye.”
“It’s 11:30pm,” Holly stated, point blank. “You’re crying.”
Well, no use in lying now . “You caught me,” he confessed, and Holly crossed her arms with a satisfied expression plastered across her face, as if to say, I told you so .
“Is it because of Dad?” she asked, and Mike slowly nodded in confirmation.
“Kind of, yeah,” he said, walking back to his bed and sitting on the edge, patting the spot next to him. “But I don’t want you to worry about this kind of thing. You’re–”
“I’m ten, Mike,” Holly said as she sat down beside her brother, whose eyes went wide at that absolutely batshit insane fact, “Only one year younger than you were when everything started with the Upside Down.” Yeah, Holly, I get it, you’re not my baby sister anymore, and that hurts like a bitch. Your point? “Whatever you’re upset about, I promise I can handle it.”
Well, that hit him like a load of bricks. His little sister had grown up. Mike nudged her shoulder with his own. “When did you become so wise and well-spoken?” he teased.
“I have a kickass big brother to look up to,” Holly smiled back up at Mike, and his heart sunk a little bit. “He’s gonna be a famous writer someday.” If only she knew the reality .
Mike shook his head, shifting back a little bit in order to face her completely. “First of all, I’m not kickass, I’m an idiot on steroids. Second of all, you’re being way too nice to me when I absolutely do not deserve it. And third of all, lang –”
“Fuck, shit, bitch, ass, twat. See? God didn’t smite me dead,” Holly replied, as if she’d had that locked and loaded in her mental arsenal, ready to use on the day that her brother scolded her use of profanity. Mike burst out laughing. The two younger Wheeler siblings relished in that moment before the mood shifted once more back into its darker, melancholic state.
“I stand by my original statement: you are kickass, and I look up to you,” Holly confessed, her eyes focused on the wall in front of her. She reached out for his hand, and he looked down then. His hands really were giant, Will wasn’t kidding.
“Well, you shouldn’t,” Mike replied, his voice low. He reached over to his nightstand for the Fireball bottle, taking a swig to try and prove his point.
“Why not?” Did she seriously not get it? Because I’m drunk right now and have been since March , he wanted to say. But he wouldn’t. That was too much to unpack right now. So he told her a… partial truth.
“Because… because Dad was right.”
“Right about… what?”
“That I like guys.” A beat of silence followed, the air thin as Mike’s will to live.
“What’s wrong with that?” his sister asked, and he huffed out a sigh at her innocence. She probably had no idea what he and their dad had been talking about earlier. He debated ending the conversation right then and there, but if he knew one thing about Holly, it was that she was headstrong like no other.
“I like them romantically , Holly.” Another pause.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh. ”
Mike went to take another sip of whisky, but then Holly said something that made him choke on air before he could.
“Is it actually Will?”
“God, Holly!” he exclaimed, setting the bottle down as he glared at her. “What the hell?!”
“I’m— I’m sorry!” she raised her hands in surrender. “It’s just, I thought… I thought you were just lying to Dad as a cover.” Mike shook his head. “So you two never dated?”
“I loved him— still love him,” Mike admitted, “But… we never… He broke my heart.”
“I’m so sorry,” Holly said, and lifted a Moral Support Hand™ to his shoulder. Mike had never felt so relieved that Ted hadn’t gotten to her yet. There was still hope .
“It’s fine,” Mike said, practically on default, and Holly frowned in response.
“Not really,” she looked down at her fidgeting hands– something they had in common with one another. “You’ve been sad for a while now. I can tell.”
“Yeah, well… I deserve it,” he shrugged. But that only made Holly’s grip on his shoulder get tighter. She evidently wasn’t planning to let this go any time soon.
“No you don’t . Mike, you deserve so much b–”
“ Forget it , Holly, okay?!” Mike snapped then, shoving her hand off his shoulder in a quick burst of anger that came and went in a second. “I did this to myself. I– Fuck . Just… go away.”
“O…kay,” Holly hesitated, getting up and walking towards the door. Mike didn’t want her to go, but he’d scared her away. He’d done the same thing with the rest of the Party (They’d called him the other day, trying to make plans to hang out over the long weekend. When Mike asked if he would be there and they said yes, he snapped and said, “I don’t know why the hell you’re even asking, then.”), His friends knew that he and Will had ended things on a terrible note, but Mike’s response was totally unwarranted, and he knew it. Mike regretted his words the second they came out of his mouth, and right now, he felt like he was experiencing déjà vu.
“Um… goodnight, Mike. Please know that I’m here if you ever want to talk. I hope things get better for you.”
Mike lowered his head down onto his pillow, and waited for Holly to close his door before whispering a quiet and remorseful, “Me too, kiddo.”