Chapter Text
At the age of 18, Mike Wheeler has objectively gone through more shit than most people ever will in their lifetime. Fighting interdimensional monsters, running and hiding from the government, going into another dimension to kill of a delusional psychotic man, Mike’s done it all.
Its been six months since the party defeated Vecna, and things have gotten significantly better. Thanks to Will, El, and Kali, they’d been able to kill Vecna and also destroy the upside down. They also managed to help all the kids—including Holly—get back to the right-side up, alive, though they all had no memory of anything, not the upside down, nor who Mr. Whatsit was.
The only thing Holly remembers though, is having a “dream” of Max, where they’d gone on some adventure and defeated an evil villain. Needless to say, every time the party decided to hang out together, Holly always dragged Max away for at least 30 minutes to discuss God knows what.
Max is… alive, her consciousness has been restored, but for the rest of her life, she’s going to be bound to a cane at best, and a wheelchair at worst. Her bones had cracked in horrendous ways, which she needed over 17 surgeries to fix. If it wasn’t for the military forcing the party to sign NDAs in exchange for money and a promise to stop doing their crazy ass experiments, there’s no way Max’s parents would have been able to pay for her surgeries and the physical therapy she needed for her to be able to stand, walk, or simply grip a pencil.
And she would be blind for the rest of her life. The doctor said she could view some amount of light through her eyes, but that’s the furthest her eyesight would go. It was a depressing day in the party, everyone huddled up next to each other and crying, except for Lucas, who kept on comforting Max and assuring her it’d be fine. On the outside, Lucas seemed fine, but when Mike had gotten out of the hospital room to use the restroom, he saw Lucas silently crying into Will’s shoulder, his body shuddering with each sob yet no noise coming out. Mike and Will’s eyes met from across the room, and Will silently nodded towards Mike.
I got this.
He seemed to be saying.
Mike and Will hadn’t been getting along, or well, they hadn’t been getting along as well as they had before Will moved to Lenora. They talked, they gossiped and trash talked people—troy—but they weren’t like before. Will didn’t come to Mike anymore when he had nightmares, instead going to Robin of all people, and Mike… well he didn’t know how to approach Will. Ever since their fight in the rain, there seemed to have been an invisible wall that they couldn’t bridge.
Which is why, when Mike sees a 13 year old Will and a 13 year old… well, himself, passed out on the his bed in his room, he’s shocked to say the least. He genuinely thought that he’d been dreaming, which was odd because he’d never had such a… vivid dream in his life. Unlike Will or El, he can almost immediately tell when he is having a nightmare, and force himself to wake up. So, for him to be seeing himself and Will, 5 years ago, it feels like what a lucid dream probably should.
Until the soft-spoken adult Will, standing beside him, spoke up. “What the fuck.”
Well, shit.