Chapter Text
“Whilst our catch up chats are always such a delight Dustin, I actually have an important question for you.” Speaking with minor annoyance into the phone, Max had been ringing all of her now long-distance friends for half the afternoon, with Dustin as the first one to pick up.
“Something sciencey boggling poor Mad Max’s brain?” Taking on a lightly teasing tone, Dustin Henderson wondered why Max was calling. Not that he didn't want to talk to his friend, but they'd already done a catch up call last week when Lucas and Suzie had been free too. This call was unexpected, and therefore a mystery that the brainiac was all too eager to receive clues for.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, Max reminded herself that she just needed to get the words out, and this would be over and done with. “Holly is worried about Mike and wants me to talk to him. But he's being a shithead and no one knows where he keeps disappearing to. All of our ideas struck out, and Nancy and Will aren't answering the phone right now. So I'm left with you.”
“Tell me everywhere you've already checked.” And so Max did. She listed off the bench facing the library, the cemetery where Eddie and El’s graves were (despite El never having a body to bury), where Castle Byers used to stand, and even the church.
“I'm about ready to scour the damn tunnels.” With a huff and a gentle massage of her temple to try and reduce the stress headache forming, Max leaned up against the wall beside the corded phone she was using.
There was silence for a moment, before Dustin asked another question; This one was much more out of the blue than Max expected though. “Mike's story. The one he's working on about us? Do you know where he is up to?”
Thinking back about what Holly had said, Max did her best to explain. “Holly mentioned Mike's been claiming writer's block, and he's not up to adding me in yet that's for sure. Uh, Will still isn't rescued yet and -”
“Sattler’s Quarry.”
The sudden interruption from Dustin caught Max off guard, causing her brain to crash and reboot briefly. “Sorry, what?”
“You'll find Mike at Sattler’s Quarry. He saved me there once… I'll let him tell you the full story. But I'd bet my bottom dollar that's where he is.” Sounding completely certain, there was a sense of almost grim urgency to Dustin’s voice, with a level of resignation mixed in. “I'm glad I caught your call. Only five people know what happened there, and short of Mike, I'm the only one you could ask. I know gentle isn't your thing, but go easy on him when you get there ok? You probably understand better than most what he's going through.”
Getting the chills and clenching her jaw as Dustin spoke, Max did her best not to be too curt when responding. “Well that's not cryptic at all. I'll go check out the quarry.”
“Call me after, ok? I'm not going anywhere.”
“You got it. Thanks…” Hanging up the phone, Max sighed, grabbed her jacket and keys, and headed out to find one Michael Wheeler.
~~~~~
He wasn't there to jump. Even if some small part of him felt like it might be the only answer that stops him from feeling so much inner turmoil. The Quarry was just the one place that afforded Mike a sense of calm he'd never felt anywhere else. Closing his eyes, he could still feel the sensation of being caught by El’s powers, causing him to just hang in the air over open water before being pulled back up.
Sure it had been terrifying, but if it helped Mike think through the noise of grief, then so be it. He didn't regret jumping. Regretting being caught however, the jury was still out on that one.
As time passed, things tried to return to normal around him. He figured there was probably some degree of PTSD that was keeping him from going forward, not just the grief. Writing a book was supposed to be a cathartic way through, a way to accept his feelings and acknowledge the pain but it was stirring up so many more questions than Mike ever realised it would.
There was the sound of gravel crunching behind him, which did briefly startle him from his thoughts. People rarely used this road in the first place. “Holy shit Wheeler don't goddamn do this to me.” The sound of a bike dropping to the ground was followed by stomping, angry footsteps, as Max appeared at his side. Sitting down so both their legs hung over the edge, Max forced her arm around Mike’s to ensure he couldn't pull away. “You better not be thinking about going over.”
There was some silence, before a small smile appeared on Mike’s face. “Thanks Max. You're a mean person, but I knew you cared somewhere in there.”
“Yeah, well, someone in this shitty town needs to tell things like they are. Even if it comes across mean.” They both sat there, arms entwined as they stared out over the quarry before Max decided to break the silence. “Dustin gave me some real cryptic bs about why I would find you here… Do you wanna talk about it?”
There was a sigh from Mike. It wasn't like he intentionally wanted this to be a secret from his friends, but it was something that just hadn't needed to come up before. “Whilst Will was missing, Lucas and I had a fight. Then El used her powers and intervened, so Lucas stormed off. See, we had been following Dustin’s compass idea trying to find the gate but El had been throwing us off to protect us, but Lucas wasn't buying it. Anyway, it was just me and Dustin and we were trying to find El.” He took a moment to breathe. Emotions had come rushing back as if part of him was reliving every second at breakneck speed. Max gave him a small squeeze of reassurance with her arm, staying silent as she didn't want to interrupt.
“Dustin and I went looking for El,” Mike spoke softer now, speaking slowly instead of just trying to get the story over with. “But instead Troy and James found us. Our biggest bullies in middle school. They chased me and Dustin through the forest, and up that road just there,” pointing in the same direction Max had ridden in from, this action briefly broke both friends’ gazes from the water below them. “Dustin got a cramp, and so Troy caught him. Took out this knife… and threatened him.”
“Holy shit-” Max couldn't help herself, disgusted by what she was hearing.
“Yeah, holy shit.” There was a small, hollow laugh from Mike. “Threatened to take out the rest of Dustin’s baby teeth via knife, if I didn't jump into the quarry.”
“What the actual fuck was wrong with that kid?!” Glad she wasn't there yet, Max had half a mind to find Troy right now and deck him.
Nodding in agreement, Mike could see how it was a stupid thing to come to, but he continued to explain. “El had made him pee himself in front of everyone in the gym, but he blamed me because I was the one who pushed him and caused everyone to look in the first place. Now, credit to James, he tried to talk Troy out of this too, but he wasn't hearing it.” Taking a deep breath, Mike steadied himself for the final part of the story. The part that even Dustin didn't know in full.
Why are you telling Max this? Part of him wondered, but the answer was easy. She's the only one who would understand.
“I stood right here, on this rock I'm sitting on now,” he glanced down at it briefly. “And I thought, ‘Lucas hates me. El ran away from me. Will might never come home and Dustin needs my help.’” Tears formed in his eyes. “And I knew that my friends were smart and they wouldn't stop looking for Will. I wanted him to have friends to come home to that he deserved to have by his side. If that meant I wasn't in the picture… so be it. Dustin needed help now. And I just…”
“You actually jumped?” Max’s voice wasn't incredulous, cruel or even pitying. It was simply a question for clarification, like she was still processing everything. Mike nodded, and used his free hand to wipe his eyes. “Damn Wheeler… Didn't think you'd have it in you. Sorry, you had to go through all that. What happened after?”
“Well, El saved me, of course. Caught me half way down with her mind powers, brought me back up and proceeded to break Troy’s arm. He ran off, told the police and that's how Hopper found out we had El. But… The feeling of falling never really went away. It's the only way I can centre myself when shit really hits the fan, you know? And thinking about all this… It's made me question myself more than I thought.”
Nudging him gently so he would look her way, Max smiled at him. “Well don't forget you're not alone. Not all your friends got out of hell the first chance they got. Plus, Holly has been worried about you.”
“Sorry.” Mike looked sheepish at that. “Didn't mean to make her worry about me too.”
“So, anything else you wanna get off your chest? Seems like a pretty solid confession place. Maybe second only to a church or the graveyard, honestly.” The church was a natural place of confession, like a police station. But the graveyard was Max’s equivalent to what the Quarry had come to represent for Mike. Billy’s grave was her confession place.
“Yeah but this one is a wildly different topic.” There was a nod and a laugh, as Mike looked to the sky. “Remember how Will came out to us, just before we went to fight Vecna?”
“Hard to forget.”
“Well, I've been stuck replaying it in my head. Not the words specifically, I understand what Will was saying and all but like… Do you have to like just boys or just girls, do you think?”
Raising her eyebrows, Max took a minute to work out where Mike was going with this. “No, I think you could probably appreciate both. Something you wanna tell me Wheeler?”
They both stood up together, stepping back from the edge before dusting themselves off. “Going through everything again for my book just made me wonder… What if I shouldn't have dated El? I mean, you of all people know I was a terrible boyfriend. And I never… I never actually said “I love you” to her face - pathetic, I know.”
“Dude, what's pathetic was you couldn't even write it in a letter. Trust me, I heard about that one.” Now that they weren't in danger of imminent death, Max pushed Mike to vent some of her annoyance at him.
Not minding the push because he deserved it, Mike nodded. “Yeah, I'm pathetic through and through, I know. But… I hurt Will too. And now he's gone again, I… keep wondering what would have happened if I realised sooner. About both him, and me.”
“So, if you're not straight and you're not gay, what does that make you exactly?” Wondering what word would be there for it, Max didn't know how Mike would be able to identify his feelings in a solid way.
“What about bisexual? You know, bi meaning two or or both really in this instance, and the fact that the others are “homosexual” and “heterosexual”?’ Shrugging, Mike wasn't entirely sure if that's how it worked but it made sense to him.
Thinking about it, Max couldn't fault that logic. “You're the words dude. So, is that the reason you've been coming out here and worrying the shit out of everyone?”
“Again, sorry!” Headed for their bikes nearby, Max and Mike retrieved their rides as they spoke. “But yes, I've just been trying to work some shit out about it.”
“Well if it matters, it's cool with me. And I won't tell anyone. Unless, of course, I need to blackmail you, then I might~” There was a teasing wink as Max kicked off, Mike following close behind.
“I wouldn't have it any other way!” Following her down the road again, the friends, no matter how much they butted heads, enjoyed each other's company as they rode back into town. Hawkins could be a lonely place. But if you looked hard enough, there was always someone waiting to remind you of why you called it home.