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The radio crackled, the sound tiny like a minor infraction, but it was still noticeable enough for Mike Wheeler to get irritated.
It had been buzzing like that, on and off, for the last few minutes, and despite what everybody told him about his hearing getting worse with age, Mike could still hear the radio sounding weaker and weaker as he lost signal. The reason? He didn't know, it had never happened before. Maybe another incident had happened at the Squawk, things usually did. From where Mike lived, he would always see teenagers who thought they were rebelling climb up the radio tower in the field and mess with the controls.
He never bothered to listen to the Squawk anymore, but not purely for that reason. He had stopped listening to the Squawk years ago, when Robin had stopped hosting. Mike only ever tuned in to listen to her voice anyway, it was a little bit raspy and comforting like a fireplace the night before Christmas arrived in full fashion, and she was one of his closest friends. She reminded him of childhood nostalgia, feeling like a teenager again and bringing him back to the roaring eighties, where everything seemed so much easier and yet so much more complicated.
It was odd, being friends with Robin, and it was even more odd being friends with Steve, who both still lived nearby in Hawkins. Mike never visited them anymore, they were all too busy doing their own busy things, raising children and even grandchildren. All of his friends had moved out of the town years ago, hoping to start fresh and not let the Hawkins Curse get them, whatever that was. Mike was pretty sure that Max had made that up years ago and they had all decided to go along with it.
It turns out that there are some things that happen that have to bring people together, and saving the world from an evil sorcerer made of vines trying to merge two dimensions together was one of them.
Mike used to tell his daughters stories about the Great Battle of Hawkins, which was what they called it before they grew up and learned that it was really just deemed a big earthquake. But Mike knew that wasn't the truth, and he slept a little bit easier every night knowing that his daughters thought he was some kind of superhero when they were growing up. In a way, he was, just a bit. He wasn't the only superhero, though.
Mike always thought it was easy telling his daughters stories of what had happened in his youth, because they were little sweethearts that were half him and half his wife, they always understood him no matter what. Also because they were kids, they loved to play fight and roleplay and make pretend, and as long as Mike brushed off his stories purely as fictional, he could tell the truth about what had happened so many years ago and his kids would listen. He had always been a great storyteller.
His daughters now knew the truth, the pure undivided truth about Hawkins and how his childhood had been turned upside down by demon hybrid creatures that came straight out of Dungeons and Dragons taking his best friend the night of November 6th, 1983. They knew the truth about the girl Mike and his friends had found in the forest late one night while searching for their friend, with a fully shaved head and looking like a boy, wearing a long yellow shirt that was too big for her and drenched from the rain, flinching when Mike faced his flashlight on her. They knew about her telekinetic powers, how she could flip entire trucks with the power of her mind and how strong she had been when she had sacrificed herself to put an end to everything when the time came.
Mike's daughters thought it was all fake, but he smiled wistfully as he explained it all to them as if he wasn't just recounting his entire childhood on the spot, telling the story of how he met his first love and how he had lost her just as easily. She slipped through his fingers like smoke, he could still see traces of her but he couldn't hold her, not any longer. Mike wondered sometimes how he didn't cry telling that story, because it was a sad one. Perhaps that was just what parenthood did to you.
It made you stronger.
Parenthood did wonders to Mike, and he would never admit it, but he was scared the second he held his eldest daughter in his arms for the first time. She was beautiful, with raven black hair like his, though it really looked gray because she had so little. The second her fist clenched around Mike's thumb, his heart melted a little bit and he was so happy but also so, so scared.
Scared that he'd mess up and end up like his father, not absent physically, but just not caring as soon as his kids grew up. Losing interest in them. Mike couldn't imagine that.
He was even more scared of stealing her childhood away from her just like his had been on November 6th all those years ago. Mike was certain that demogorgons wouldn't suddenly resurface in Hawkins, so he had nothing to be concerned about. And even if they did, Mike would never do that to her, he'd fight to shield her eyes from a world that he was never meant to see in the first place.
Then his second daughter was born three years later, and she was just as fair as his first, with the same black hair. His genes were strong, apparently, and her skin was pale and smooth and dotted with small red dots here and there and she was perfect.
It was right there on the spot that Mike decided the best part of marriage was parenthood.
"Piece of shit," Mike muttered under his breath and hit the radio with a vacant hand. The other one stayed steady on the steering wheel.
Maybe it wasn't the problem of the radio, it was the car, and they needed to get a new car. His wife would always bicker with him on that topic, though, so he tried to steer clear of it as much as he could. Arguing with her made him miserable.
The screen made a plastic clank, and nothing changed. The radio signal continued to be bad, maybe even got increasingly worse, Mike didn't know. He hadn't been paying attention to the terrible commentary that was crackling through the speakers for the last few minutes on the drive to pick his kids up from school, and he didn't want to be in a pissy mood when he saw them because the radio was annoying him.
Mike decided that he would try and fix it one last time by turning the volume on and off, and then if it still didn't work after that then he would just drive in silence for the next few minutes. He raised his hand again and pressed the mute button, and then the volume cut out, abrupt silence filling the car.
Silence was much worse than the distorted voices coming through on the radio, because Mike was now left to entertain himself with his own thoughts. It was too quiet, almost eerie, and Mike listened to each rumble of the car, a sound that had become extremely familiar to him over the years but somehow made him feel increasingly uneasier every second he let it go on.
After tapping his fingers once, twice, three times on the wheel and letting the radio sit dormant for a while, he pressed his index finger to the mute button again, which made the volume return to the way it was before.
To his surprise, it really worked, and the sound was back to normal with no crackles or random cuts of silence here and there. Mike sat there feeling impressed with himself when the radio host announced the next song coming up.
"Up and coming artist Chappell Roan has just released a new song, everyone, and she's really milking her rise to stardom with it! People are using it everywhere on TikTok, and she may even go on a world tour soon with some of these crazy hits. But honestly, I'll have to tell you the truth. This is a pretty catchy, upbeat song, but it's got a much deeper meaning behind it… I'll let you figure it out yourself. Consider it your mission for the day. But for now, enjoy Good Luck, Babe! Have a nice afternoon, folks."
The beat started immediately, too fast and matching the speed of Mike's heartbeats, and it led into a funky, synth-pop intro. Mike was put under a trance by it immediately, he loved music with good instrumentals like Smalltown Boy and Heroes by Bowie, and he thanked himself mentally for fixing the radio so that he could finally appreciate some good music without the audio cutting out every seven seconds.
It's fine, it's cool, you can say that we had nothing, but you know the truth. And guess I'm the fool, with her arms out like an angel through the car sunroof.
When the artist started singing, Mike was at a loss for words. Her vocals were insane, hitting each note with clean precision, and maybe it was autotune or some machinery, but Mike had to admit that it was incredibly impressive. Her voice was like steel, headstrong and echoing through the car, Mike turned up the volume and could finally hear the instruments in the background. The bass thrummed to a different rhythm than the beat did, almost contradicting it and there was obviously some keyboard, but it was very quiet as the woman sang.
He took in the lyrics slowly, but none of them really stuck with him. Although the words were put together beautifully, they went in one ear and out the other. Mike didn't understand the significance of the words just yet, but he was a little curious on what the 'deeper meaning' of the song was.
Maybe he'd be able to relate. Maybe he wouldn't. Or maybe he just needed to keep listening to find out.
I don't wanna call it off, but you don't wanna call it love. You only wanna be the one that I call baby!
Of course it was a love song. Mike had to suppress an eyeroll. It felt like every song was a love song nowadays, even most classical music composers made their instruments play out of adoration and tender love. He found it ridiculous sometimes. It was always love, one kind or another, and even though love saves, he found it repetitive sometimes.
You can kiss a hundred boys in bars, shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling. You can say it's just the way you are, make a new excuse, another stupid reason.
Well, good luck, babe!
There came the song title, and it became increasingly clear to Mike that the woman was singing to a girl, and that it wasn't a song written out of friendship. No, it wasn't platonic love, it was romantic, a song written from a girl for a girl who she was in love with. Mike didn't know how he figured that out so fast, but he felt like he had to.
He had a little bit of experience in loving someone of the same gender.
You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling. Good luck, babe!
A little bit was an understatement. It was more like a lot. It had taken Mike years to come to terms with it, and he still hadn't really. Getting married and having kids only ever pushed the feelings away, so he never really accepted it. He didn't think he ever would.
It all just felt so… wrong. Thinking about it was pathetic because looking back it never seemed like such a big deal, but in the moment it was like the world was crumbling down.
That wasn't a metaphor, the world was, quite literally, crumbling down.
I'm cliche, who cares? It's a sexually explicit kind of love affair, and I cried. It's not fair. I just need a little loving, I just need a little air.
He should've seen it coming, there was obviously a reason why he had never taken an interest in girls until El growing up, why it felt like he was being choked every single time El told him she loved him and he couldn't say it back.
Why couldn't he say 'I love you' to anyone but his best friend?
Think I'm gonna call it off, even if you call it love, I just wanna love someone who calls me baby!
That wasn't even a question that should've stuck with Mike for so long, for so many long years, because the answer was obvious, even if he didn't want to admit it.
The singer's voice was wrapping itself around a name Mike hadn't thought about in decades, a name Mike had tried to push away for years because it was too much to handle. He didn't just push the name away, he pushed the person away as well, and he got away. Rumour has it, he moved to New York, met a charming guy and fell in love while travelling the world. That had always been Mike's dream. Staying stagnant in Hawkins had never been the first goal for his future. Mike wrote books now, did the things that his childhood self would've wanted him to do, but he couldn't help but feel like something was missing. It had been missing all along. Mike was glad to see someone do the things he never got to do. He was glad that he got away.
Will Byers.
He was the one who got away.
You can kiss a hundred boys in bars, shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling. You can say it's just the way you are, make a new excuse, another stupid reason, good luck, babe!
The woman's voice was enchanting like a siren's, and the true meaning of the song spilled into the car like syrup. It was sticky and clinged to Mike's arms like tar, and he couldn't brush it off because it was just a feeling, a feeling that wouldn't go away.
The true meaning of the song was deeper than Mike thought it was, and it had cleverly disguised itself as an upbeat pop song when really, it wasn't. It was gut wrenching, painful.
It was for Mike's at least, because he realised that the woman in the song was singing it for another girl who had led her on by kissing her and caring for her in a way that passed regular friendship, no, it was more intimate than that, and then just turned around and said that they were never meant to be, that she wasn't queer like the singer and that it didn't matter.
The song shifted in tone, Mike knew that the bridge was coming and the suspense building up to it was suffocating. He kept on hammering his fingers on the steering wheel, drumming them over and over again, trying to keep himself gravitated to reality before he got lost in his thoughts completely and they consumed him.
When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night, with your head in your hands, you're nothing more than his wife.
He thought about Will, the first person he had truly loved and the first person that might've truly loved and seen him for who he was. Will had loved him for years, Mike knew that now, and he figured it out too late. He might've even loved him before El did, and he loved him before his wife did, a hundred percent, and it killed Mike to think that now Will was happy elsewhere and completely moved on from him while Mike was struggling, grasping at straws forty years later because of some agitating song on the radio.
He remembered it all too well, sitting on the radio tower in the Upside Down, taking a break, his camouflage beanie and vest feeling utterly choked, warming his body up with heat that he did not need.
That day, all he could think about was El, how she was in that water tank in the lab somewhere and rescuing Holly from Camazotz in her mind, and how he trusted her with his sister's life and everybody else's. He remembered stressing out thinking about how the fate of Hawkins and potentially the world fell onto her hands, when he had completely forgotten what had been standing in front of him the entire time.
Hazel eyes, mostly brown with flakes of green in them.
And when you think about me, all of those years ago, you know I hate to say it. I told you so.
He had figured it out the second Will said, "I know, I know he's not like me." He knew it was him, that he was Will's 'Tammy' or whatever bullshit metaphor he was comparing his crush to. Will had already been tearing up at that point, and all Mike could do was watch.
He saw the breeze ruffle Will's hair, oily and greasy from days of hard work and sweating, his hands dusty and bruised, as well as his neck. He stared at his lips the whole time, taking in the way they moved when he spoke, and he spoke with so much emotion glittering in his eyebrows and eyes that it was nearly overwhelming for Mike to watch.
He could tell it wasn't a crush. It was love, Will was in love with him.
How didn't he realise sooner?
And what hurt the most was Mike felt like it was wrong to love Will back, so he never said it. He never got to tell him. The closest he would ever come was saying that they'd be best friends.
Friends? No.
Best friends.
A few hours before then, Will had told everyone his biggest secret before Vecna could use it against him in the final battle. He didn't like girls, and Mike remembered his eyebrows flying up at the sentence. It wasn't what he had been expecting, and his posture had stiffened, knowing that the word choice was completely intentional.
It's not my fault you don't like girls.
I don't like girls.
What possessed him to say that? Mike didn't even know the truth back then, he suspected but could never be sure. He remembered the overwhelming sense of guilt he'd felt thinking back to when they were fourteen, almost five decades ago now, the amount of times he'd unintentionally hurt Will by dismissing his feelings for El or other girls, making him feel that yes, he was different, and it was bad.
Will was his best friend, he was supposed to be the one there for him, and he wasn't. He hadn't been for a long time. Maybe Will didn't get away.
Mike had let him go.
You know I hate to say it, I told you so.
Why were these feelings hitting him now? Now, when he had a family, a wife who loved him and two daughters who he would sacrifice everything for. Was it karma, karma that was always meant to get him in the end?
You know I hate to say it, I told you so.
Maybe Will realised he loved Mike too early, and Mike realised it too late. What could he do about it now, fifty three years of age, married and old, withering away?
You know I hate to say it, I told you so.
Why did he let him go?
You know I hate to say it, I told you so!
The singer's voice escalated to a final high, and the song was nearly coming to an end. Thank goodness, Mike thought with ease, even though his body was anything but relaxed. It was tense, his shoulders were stiff and so was his back. The sudden pain kept him grounded to earth. prevented him from slipping away into his memories again. Luckily, he knew the path to his daughters' school like the back of his hand. If he didn't, he might've gotten lost somewhere along the way.
Mike had been lost for so long, but that song had evoked something within him, dormant feelings he pushed down and prayed would go away for years.
Well, I told you so!
That song was sung in Will's perspective of what happened, what had happened between the two of them was practically identical to what had happened in the song, and for the first time in his life, Mike felt like he understood how it felt to want and want and never to get what you wanted.
I told you so!
It was taunting him. The song, it was taunting him.
Mike lifted his hand to shut it off immediately, but his reflexes were too slow and it had already ended. It ended sounding warped and distorted, just like the radio had been before, and he thought that maybe the radio was malfunctioning again.
But no, he worked it out.
You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling.
Mike couldn't keep driving, not when his head was in the clouds the way that they were. He pulled over on the road in one of the spots that were meant for cars with vehicle malfunctions and sat there, breathing heavily. He didn't care what fine he'd get for doing that if a police officer saw him, he had the money to pay. He just needed a moment to recollect himself.
Was that really the truth? Did that song just perfectly describe everything that Mike had done to Will throughout the years of their childhood? That song was taunting him now but had he been taunting Will for years by giving him mixed signals?
The truth was, Mike was still trying to figure himself out. El was the first girl he liked, he really did think he was the love of his life and it would only ever be her.
Somewhere along the line, Will also became someone he liked. He became the first boy he liked, not just platonically or in terms of friendship. No, never that.
I'm sorry, Will, for not realising sooner.
For not realising I was in love with you.
I'm in love with you.
I always have been.
For the first time in years, Mike finally admitted it.
The truth.
It was no use. Forty years had passed, forty years gone forever, washed down the drain like dirty water. Will would never listen to him talk about how much he regretted everything, how he should've realised the weight of his feelings sooner, because it had been years since they'd talked and judging on how much they communicated with each other, it was clear Will didn't want to talk to him.
If anyone was such a douche to his daughters as Mike was, he would advise them not to talk to him either.
He'd never realised how genuinely shitty of a person he had been, and now those things he had done and said, as well as the things he never said, were stuck as permanent memories that couldn't be erased or changed, no matter how much Mike pleaded or regretted it.
He thought about Will the last time he had seen him, and that was when they were both twenty nine at Mike's engagement party.
Will had been smiling, overjoyed for him and gave Mike a hug. He was happy, he had moved on long ago. Mike was just his 'Tammy', right?
Those hazel eyes were works of art, and Mike could remember the first time he saw them on the swing set in kindergarten. Mike recalled the way Will's eyes shone a dark coffee black when he was possessed by the Mind Flayer, how Mike had snapped him out of that possession because he thought he'd lose Will forever.
Will, the one person who had truly understood him, who would love and care for him no matter what he did. How could he push someone like that away, when they'd been through so much together? He wasn't there for him when Will needed him most either, the air in the car hung empty with regrets and the sound of the phone dialling was the only noise.
"Something came up."
"Michael, what-?"
"I'm sorry, something came up, I'm stuck in traffic and I can't pick up the kids right now," Mike lied, his voice coming out too fast sounding robotic.
He heard his wife sigh on the other end of the line, heard the gears winding in her head as she thought of a solution and a response.
"Don't stress, okay? I'll go pick them up. Do whatever you need to do, just be home soon."
"Alright."
"Bye, love you."
"Mmm." He hung up.
Mike's wife had always been dismissive, so he knew she wouldn't care whether or not he said I love you back, but it bothered him. It bothered Mike.
He'd always had issues with saying I love you in the past, he never said it to anyone other than his daughters, really. I love yous belonged to them.
And Will.
The phone began to ring again before he had a chance to think twice about it, before he had a chance to think about searching up Will's name in his contacts, pressing on his name and praying he didn't change numbers sometime in the last few years.
He picked up after two rings. "Hello, Will speaking."
Mike's inhale was shaky and ragged, like he was struggling to breathe even when he wasn't. Will sounded the exact same as he did when they were twenty, and maybe Mike was just imagining that, but Will sounded so youthful that it almost hurt. Will's voice told Mike that he hadn't changed. His response came out in a breathy exhale and he had to hold back a choking sob, one that had been meaning to come out for years now.
"Will."
The person on the other end of the line paused. It was silent for a long time, and Mike slouched back into his seat, hoping that maybe it would open up and swallow him whole until he heard the response.
"Mike?"