Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Tuesday, November 3rd, 1987

We don’t need no education

We don’t need no thought control

Syd Barret’s rhythmic tones blare through Mike Wheeler’s headphones as he thumbs through his worn copy of On the Road. His eyes strain to read the tiny print with the small sliver of dawning sunlight peaking through his window. It’s early in the Wheeler house, but not unusually for Mike. 

He’s always liked being the first one awake in the house. No one else can hear his thoughts that way. It’s just him and the weirdly comforting musings of Jack Kerouac. 

Ever since the real-life, honest-to-god, earth-shaking devil came for Hawkins, Mike hasn’t slept well. He knows it puts Nancy on edge because she’s always shoving sleeping pills under his door at night. He takes them, and wakes up from the nightmares anyway. It’s never exactly the same dream. Someone he loves is always in trouble, usually El or Will, and he’s always running to them. Mike wakes up before he gets to them, every time.

Soon, he’ll begin to hear the signs of life stirring in the bedrooms around him. He’ll smell the bacon sizzling on the stove and groan when Holly’s incessantly loud alarm clock goes off for the fifth time. This morning is like all others since the Byers moved in. Cue Ted’s robotic shuffles to the bathroom as soon as he wakes up. That means his mom will be putting on a pot of coffee, perfectly ready to brew by the time Joyce’s addict hands can get a hold of it. Right on time is Holly’s alarm- Mike turns his walkman’s volume up louder. 

Stand still, laddie!

Only when Mike is sure that everyone else in the house is awake, that his undisturbed moment of peace is over, does he get ready to join the circus. 

“Breakfast!” Holly wails up from below.

“Coming!” Mike yells back. 

“Nance, c’mon,” Mike raps sharply on the bathroom door. “Let me in or I’m gonna take a whizz on the floor right here!”

It opens, revealing Joyce, shocked yet amused. 

Mike ducks back, sheepish. “Sorry Ms. Byers.”

“Whizz away”, she says, stepping aside.

With snobbish and perfect Nancy Wheeler timing, she stalks out of her room glaring at him, tossing a “Wow” over her shoulder as she follows Joyce downstairs. 

Mike scowls. This is not a part of his normal routine.

Downstairs, it’s a zoo. His mom is doling out plates toppling over with eggs, biscuits, and pancakes to Holly, who is struggling under the weight. Ted is sneaking strips of bacon under Karen’s nose while he stares unblinkingly at the kitchen TV morning news. Nancy is swatting at Jonathan’s unkempt hair, who ducks haphazardly. Joyce is helping herself to what Mike assumes is her third cup of coffee that morning. 

Mike pauses at the bottom of the stairs, but his moment of reprieve is interrupted. 

“Mike, help me set the table!” His mom calls over the drone of side chatter.

Miraculously, they all manage to sit down in one piece. Over the clanking of silverware and plates, Mike hears Jonathan and Will arguing about a missed alarm. 

“-not always Jonathan’s fault,” asserts Joyce.

“Mike, what do you think?”

Mike realizes a beat too late that Will is talking to him. “Oh, yea, totally Jonathan’s fault,” he adds unhelpfully. Jonathan mutters something about ‘bias’.

“Totally,” Will grins, and Mike can’t help but return it.

“What’s that?” Will points to Mike’s book. He hadn’t realized he’d brought it with him.

“Oh, it’s just this book I found at the library,” Mike says. He chews his lip, wanting to say more. “It’s kind of quirky, but it’s about two best friends and their journey across post-war America.”

“That’s cool!” Mike breathes quietly in relief, because Will’s response sounds genuine. He tells himself that he’s only territorial about this book because it’s radical and weird, and he doesn’t want people to think he is weird. 

“It kind of reminds me of our own road trip out West,” Mike says quickly, swallowing a thick bite of eggs. Will’s cheeks darken. 

“Holly, can you pass the bacon?” Ted Wheeler practically shouts over the din of the room. The plate gets passed around, Mike snagging his own piece before he stands to help his mom clear the table. 

“Dishes in the sink everyone!” Nancy and Holly follow suit, then quickly grab their jackets and bookbags. Immediately, the urgency in the air accelerated like wildfire. Mike thought it was nothing short of a miracle that they all made it out of the house on time every day. 

Mike and Will hop on their bikes in tandem, with Holly close behind, and the three of them begin their journey to school.

Holly, panting already, pesters Mike. “The Morning Squawk, Mike, we’re gonna miss it!” He doesn’t know if Robin knows about her secret superfan Holly Wheeler, but he’s never going to let her find out. It would just go straight to her ego.

Mike clicks the radio attached to his bike just in time.

“Good morning, Hawkins! This is WQSK The Squawk!” Robin’s energetic voice peels out of the tiny radio, followed by a squealing chicken cry. Holly giggles. Mike is not as amused.

“It’s looking like a regular day in Hawkins. Fifty-five degrees, low chance of rain, medium chance of arrest, high chance of helicopters…”

Mike tunes the rest of Robin’s morning report out. He likes Robin, and sometimes even finds her funny, but often he wishes she’d stick to playing records instead of rambling on about the significance of the new Parental Advisory label. It could be worse, he mused. It had been worse this past summer when there was hardly anything to do but hang out at the Squawk. Lucas had spent every free moment between Max’s side and the basketball court, and Dustin frequently dodged their calls in favor of moping around or radio-calling Suzie. The only times the four of them really got to see each other was after each Crawl, when the whole party would debrief the night, coming to the same conclusion every time: that the Upside Down was empty. That left just Mike and Will, which should’ve felt weird, but didn’t. One day in early June, Will suggested they visit Robin and Steve at the station, and it became the regular hangout spot. Mike was pretty sure Will just wanted to hang out with Robin all the time, but he let it slide because he would follow Will anywhere. Besides, Robin wasn’t all bad. She would let him play around in the studio after hours, and introduced him to his new favorite band, the Butthole Surfers. If it weren’t for Robin, Mike would’ve never learned how to make a mixtape.

“-while we’re on the subject of things not to do, please steer clear of the Military Access Control Zone, aka the MAC-Z-”

Mike hates this part of their commute. He hates that the only access to the Upside Down was guarded by a hundred armed militants, and that the same army was intently hunting down El. 

They reach Hawkins Middle School, making sure Holly makes it to her class, and bike the short leg to the high school. Mike and Will enter the school side by side, like always.

“Hey, so Lucas told me that his basketball game is coming up on the 9th, and I really think we should go and support him. What do you think?” Will asks Mike, peering up at him.

“Yeah, great-” Mike starts, but stops when he sees the scene unfolding at the hallway intersection. Andy Harper and his goons have Dustin cornered against a locker, and to Mike’s dismay, he realizes they have ripped up his Hellfire shirt. 

Mike and Will watch as Lucas saunters up and taunts Andy. Mike would never admit it, but having Lucas as a star power basketball player did wonders for the party’s school reputation. People actually left them alone for once. It didn’t hurt that Lucas had a manner of speaking that commanded everyone in the room.

“If you touch Dustin again, I’ll kick ‘em so hard they’ll pop like water balloons,” Lucas threatens. 

Mike jumps in, standing tall over Andy, “I say kick away. Stop this meathead from reproducing and further infecting the world with his unique brand of idiocy.”

He watches Will’s reaction, who shows a ghost of a smile. Mike kicks himself internally for not coming up with a better quip.

Andy scowls and turns back to Dustin, shoving him back into the lockers. “I hope you brought a change of clothes, Henderson. No one wants to see that shit.” Mike thinks that was a bit rich coming from Andy, who often looks like his mother ironed his face. 

Dustin flips Andy the bird as they walk off. Mike opens his mouth to ask if he’s okay, but Dustin is already pacing down the hall. The three boys jog to catch up.

“You gotta stop provoking them, man,” Lucas warns.

“Oh, so this is my fault?” Dustin sounds exasperated. “For what, wearing a T-shirt?”

“You know it’s more than just a T-shirt!”

“You know, I can’t be like you guys and turn the other cheek while they spread their bullshit about Eddie, about Hellfire.”

“Eddie never gave a rat’s ass about what those mouth breathers were saying about him and you know it!” Mike argues. He gets where Dustin is coming from, probably the most out of any of them. Eddie didn’t take to Mike like he had to Dustin, but Mike had still idolized the guy. “What he would care about is finding and killing Vecna.” Maybe this will get through Dustin’s stubborn skull. 

“Do you seriously think I don’t care about that, Mike, really?” 

Or not. 

Now it’s Mike’s turn to be exasperated. He knows Dustin is smarter than this. “I think you’re fighting two battles. You need to be fighting one.” He gestures with his fingers for emphasis.

“Mike’s right,” says Will. Mike feels grateful. 

“What if you seriously get hurt?” Will adds.

Grateful and guilty. Mike hadn’t been thinking of Dustin’s safety. 

Lucas nods. “You’re drawing attention! Remember what Hop said. We need to keep our heads down.”

“Follow the rules, blend in,” Will recites.

“Stay focused on our next Crawl,” Mike finishes resolutely. 

“Do you even hear yourselves right now? Blend in? Follow the rules? That’s not what we’ve ever done!” Dustin sounds angrier than before. Mike’s patience is running thin.

“We stay true to ourselves. We’re supposed to stay true to our friends. We stand up for what’s right, no matter the cost.”

Mike looks down. On a deeper level, he recognizes that Dustin is right. How can he stay true to himself if he can’t even be there for his friends?

“You’re not listening to us,” Lucas snaps.

“No, you’re not.”

Dustin doesn’t give them a chance to respond as he walks away. 

“Dustin!” Will calls out for him. 

“Unbelievable.” Lucas palms his face.

Mike feels a big rush of guilt settle in his stomach. “Let him go, we’ll see him later.” Later. He’ll apologize later. 

The bell rings, signalling that it’s time for class. The trio splits up, promising to meet for lunch like always. Mike’s first class of the day is English Lit, but he finds he can’t really focus on the lecture. He rubs his temples, feeling a headache coming on.

Steve had been complaining about Dustin’s erratic behavior to see it, but no one dared to intervene. How could they, when every other word was spit with malice? Mike knew Dustin had been struggling, they could all see it. But things had gotten worse after the last Crawl. Dustin had royally pissed Steve off by insulting his driving skills, and the fight had almost gotten physical, but Robin fussed at them for endangering her precious vinyl cabinets. Afterwards, Mike, Lucas, and Will had all comforted Dustin, telling him he was right, and taken jabs at Steve. At the time it was funny, but now Mike wonders if they should’ve taken it more seriously. 

Dustin wasn’t the only one losing patience. The Crawls were growing tedious, and the group weary. They were due for another one soon, but if it turned up empty like all the others, Mike was worried they would have to switch gears. Whatever they were doing was certainly safe. Easy. But it wasn’t working. They weren’t any closer to finding Vecna. 

–

“Grab me a Coke, will you?” said Will to Mike, who was perusing the limited soda options at the canteen. 

“Yea, man.” Mike thought he saw Will wince. Man. Should he have said friend? Confused, he sat down and pushed Will’s Coke over the table silently.

“I’m telling you, he’s lost his mind,” Lucas popped the tab of his Dr. Pepper. “He actually told me he wanted to start Hellfire again.”

Remembering the situation at hand, Mike looks at Lucas in concern. “What? When did he say that?” He eyes Will, gauging his response, but he’s unable to read his face. Mike rarely mentions their old party around Will, because he doesn’t know if it upsets him that they joined a new one without him. Oddly, it feels like a cheat move. 

“This weekend. He was talking about finding the lost sheep,” Lucas shakes his head.

“And we thought the shirt was bad?” says Will. “When’s the last time he talked to Suzie?”

Mike thinks. “I don’t know.”

Lucas’ face hardens. “I’m telling you, he’s lost his damn mind.”

A sharp clatter startles Mike. Dustin’s lunch slams on the table as he thunks into the seat to Mike’s right. 

“Who’s lost his damn mind?” Dustin interrogates, staring the trio down.

“Uh- the-” Will flounders, looking panicked at Mike.

“Andy!” Mike finishes quickly. “Andy lost his mind.”

Dustin looks unconvinced.

“Yea, like when he came at you this morning,” Lucas chimes. 

Will starts, “Yeah, that was-”

“Messed up,” Mike agrees.

“It’s rude.” Lucas chomps on a fry.

Before Dustin can press the matter, their radio trickles to life.

“Hey there, friends, it’s Rockin’ Robin.”

The boys straighten.

“Sorry about the abrupt departure. I hope you survived without me. We had some annoying technical difficulties-”

Mike waits apprehensively. Was that a baby crying?

“But to make it up to you, we have a very special treat that’s sure to turn your day upside down…”

A pop-synth beat peals out of the tiny speaker. 

“Holy shit,” says Lucas. “Already?”

Mike recognizes one of their signature code words and instantly knows the meaning.

“Paper, paper, gimme paper!” Mike gestures to Will, who digs his notebook out of his backpack and passes it to Mike. Will runs over to his side of the table, and Mike has to bite back a shiver when he feels him lean in close to hear the radio.

“Heres a few fun facts about the boss.”

Mike needs to focus. 

“-born Diane in the North end of Detroit.” He scribbles down North, then a G, then a 1, as Robin’s encoded message pours through the receiver. 

That’s Zone G1. Mike mentally recalls the map and knows they haven’t covered that one yet. 

“That’s right, ten”. He writes down ten and hopes that Will can read his chicken scratch.

“-I mean Michael Jackson as a scarecrow-” 

Mike groans inwardly. He appreciates Robin’s dedication to her craft, but not the long-winded snooze-fest of musical fun facts. 

“-this movie has a runtime of over two hours.” 

Mike writes it down and looks over the results with the others. Silently, they pack up their things and head to the woods. 

He slams down his personal Crawl guide, and haphazardly dumps out his hand-painted figurines. He’d had the idea to turn old toys into sensible characters they could use to make sense of their plans. Mike had spent all summer painstakingly painting the details. Even the WSQK van was perfect! Holly had found him one night, and bullied him mercilessly ever since. 

“Okay. Robin said the burn would start at 10:00, meaning Hopper should be at the Mac-Z around 9:00,” said Mike. 

“He will be, if Nancy has anything to say about it,” Lucas smirks. Will laughs.

“Can we focus?” Mike pouts.

Will nudges Lucas teasingly. “Like sister, like brother.”

“What is that even supposed to mean?” Mike asks, but the two are too busy laughing to answer.

Mike sighs and moves on. “Lucas, we’ll take our usual observation post.” Mike plants the mini versions of him and Lucas on the map. The paladin and the ranger guarding the church. When Lucas found out about Mike’s secret side project, he’d begged him to include the wristrocket on his figurine.

“Once the burn starts and there is sufficient cover, we’ll signal Hopper, who’ll make his move.” Mini-Hopper and a mini-military truck get stuck on the map.

“And the Crawl begins.” Mike moves Hopper and his truck along the road to meet the mini-WQSK van. He looks at Dustin. “Now, you and Harrington can follow along in the Rightside Up. Just remember, try to keep the telemetry signal in between-”

“Negative 60 and negative 70 dB,” Dustin cuts him off sharply. “Easy-peasy.”

Mike brushes off the daggers Dustin appears to be sending him with his eyes. “You’re gonna travel up Cornwallis for about six miles.” He moves the two trucks in sync. “And as the convoy reaches this Shell station-” He flips a page and places the truck, “-here, we can radio Hop, which will drop the old man at the border of G1. Sound good?”

The other boys nod, but don’t reply. Mike tries to catch Will’s eye, but ends up with Dustin’s.

“Something wrong?”

“Nothing. Just, what does zone G1 even have? A Big Buy? What are the chances Vecna’s shopping for Lucky Charms?” Dustin says dryly. 

Inwardly, Mike agrees, but he knows Nancy won’t, and he’d never go against a Crawl plan. As boring and uneventful as they could be, the Crawls were the only thing that Mike had felt control over since the spring of 1986. They gave him purpose, made him actually feel like a party leader again. He didn’t want to lose that. “It doesn’t matter. We stick to the plan. We break into the Upside Down the only way we can, through the MAC-Z gate, under the cover of a burn. Once inside, we search one zone at a time, methodically, until we figure out wherever the hell he’s been hiding.” It’s sensible. Stable. It’s routine. 

“We don’t stop looking. Even if it takes a hundred more Crawls, a thousand.” Mike sees Will nodding and feels emboldened. “We don’t stop looking until we’re goddamn sure that wrinkled, noseless, rotting bastard is dead and gone and never coming back.” As Mike speaks, he feels a sense of finality in the air. It could just be the cold of November, but he thinks that his friends feel it too.

Maybe Mike can be a leader again.

He puts one hand in the center, glancing around. “Everyone in?”

Lucas doesn’t hesitate, slapping a firm hand over Mike’s own. Will’s is next. Mike turns to Dustin. For a brief moment, he thinks he might be losing his friend right in front of him. And then Dustin speaks.

“I wanna see Vecna’s heart on a platter. I just wish I could do it myself.” To Mike’s relief, Dustin adds his hand to the pile. 

“For Eddie.”

“And Max,” Lucas adds.

Mike and Will nod. 

Suddenly energized, Lucas grins. “On three, ‘kill Vecna’. One, two three-”

“Kill Vecna!” Their voices chorus, carrying loud up into the sky. 

Lucas whoops and hollers, drawing a laugh out of Mike and Dustin. With glee, Lucas stands up on the table and leaps into their arms. They slap arms and bump chests and a warm feeling of brotherhood grows inside Mike. 

“Military man!” he says to Lucas.

“Just wanted to see if you had my back.”

“Always.”

Mike claps Dustin on the neck, making sure he hears this. “I’ll always have all of your backs.”

Dustin meets his eyes and nods, and Mike knows he understands. That’s what he loves about his best friends. When words fail, they can still reach each other. He knows he needs to have a longer conversation with Dustin, but it will have to do for now. 

A sharp gasp echoes from behind them, followed by a thunk on wood.

Mike turns to see Will, double over, clutching a tree like a lifeline.

He doesn’t waste a second, and neither do Lucas or Dustin.

Mike reaches Will first, touching his shoulder. 

“Hey, are you okay?” 

“Yeah, it’s okay, I’m fine,” Will breathes.

He scans him for injuries and quietly exhales when he sees nothing is wrong, at least externally. Lucas reaches to touch Will’s back and Mike shoots him a look. He doesn’t know why, but he’s always felt that he’s the best at taking care of Will in situations like these.

Will’s eyes are bright, and he breathes fast and hard. 

Before Mike can stop himself, he blurts out, “Was it him? Was it Vecna?” He swallows hard, praying with every bone in his body that the answer is no. Even though he just gave a rousing speech about bravery, Mike feels very afraid. 

“I don’t know. I just had this crazy feeling, and then… the sky was spinning-” 

Mike looks up, half-expecting it to give him an answer.

Will fights hard to catch his breath and Mike tightens his hold on him. He slowly falls back against the tree, forcing Mike to drop his hand. It feels cold. 

“I don’t know, maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I just get nervous, sometimes, before Crawls.” Will looks at Mike, and suddenly Mike can’t move.

“Yeah… I get nervous too,” tries Lucas, “But the sky doesn’t spin for me. Does it spin for you guys?”

Mike keeps his eyes trained on Will. He tries to think of something comforting to say. “Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe he’s close.”

Something unspoken passes between them. Suddenly Mike feels like he’s looking at a much younger Will, and he feels his lunch threatening to make a reappearance. 

The bell rings. Lunch break is over. This time things will be different, Mike thinks. 

“Okay. Squawk, six o’clock. We stick together, stick to the plan. If anything happens-”

Suddenly Mike didn’t know how to finish that sentence because the possibilities were too awful to verbalize. 

“It won’t,” Lucas said firmly. “We’ll stick together, like always.”

Will nods. 

“Are you okay?” Mike asks again. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever stop asking. 

Will looks at him gratefully. “I’m okay, Mike.” 

Dustin and Lucas begin to walk with him back to the school, Mike trailing behind.

He’s okay.

With a sharp lurch in his lungs, Mike is able to breathe again. 

–

His afternoon classes pass slowly and painfully. He feels his headache return with full force, accompanied with an inability to sit still. Mike can’t stop thinking about what this could mean. Could Vecna finally be coming out of hiding? It feels too heavy of a thought. And why would Will be affected? It didn’t seem like Vecna’s typical targeting methodology. Will hadn’t gone into a trance with milky white eyes, nor had he started levitating.

Mike shudders, hearing the snapping of bones echo in his head. 

If Vecna finally has returned, Mike doesn’t know what his newfound motivation could be. He’s already torn Mike’s world into four pieces, and collected his four souls. Nobody knew what the rest of his plan had been, before he’d been interrupted by a fiery Molotov cocktail. No one except for…

Nancy rarely spoke of the visions Vecna had shown her then, in Eddie’s trailer. She said she could hardly bear to even think about them. Everyone knew it was bad. Almost two years had passed and she still walked around like a soldier returned from the war, shotgun in her glove compartment. Sometimes Mike could feel her eyes trained on the back of his head, especially when they prepared for Crawls, almost as if she was making sure he didn’t disappear. It never bothered him because he knew Nancy liked to have things under control, like he did. He just wished she would tell him what she was so afraid of, and then maybe she wouldn’t have to shoulder it alone.

Distantly, he registers movement around him, and realizes students are leaving. Mike remembers it’s Tuesday, so he has to get Holly from school. Holly likes to insist often and loudly to their mother that she’s definitely old enough to bike home alone. Mike remembers that he had done it all the time at her age, but of course, that was before. Mike lives in the after, now, and he’d much rather see his sister home safe. 

Mike sighs, checking his watch again. She’s never this late. If it was any other day, it wouldn’t bother him. But he has a Crawl to get to. 

He heads into the middle school building, calling her name. Turning the corner, he sees her perched on a bench, nose tucked in that book she loves so much. 

“Holly.” She doesn’t respond, completely engrossed. “What are you doing? C’mon, I really have to get going.”

Holly’s voice is small, “Sorry.” She puts her book down. “They told me to wait.”

Mike looks through a classroom window to see his mom talking to Holly’s teacher. He realizes this wasn’t a planned meeting, otherwise his mom would’ve told him he didn’t have to get Holly today. Holly looks forlorn, and Mike recalls a conversation-turned-argument his parents had a few weeks ago. He sits.

“Is this about your mystery friend again?” Mike feels awkward, unsure how to approach this kind of conversation with his nine-year-old sister. A name pops back into his head. “Mr. Whatsit?”

Holly looks nervous. “He’s only trying to help.”

“Help… how?”

“By protecting me.” Suddenly, Holly looks very worried. She lowers her voice, like she’s sharing a secret, “He says- he says that there are monsters in Hawkins, and… they like to eat kids like me.” Her lower lip trembles as she looks at Mike. 

A chill wraps around Mike’s spine. He knows Holly is only imagining things, but monsters? It was eerie. He can see that she looks scared, though, so he decides to lie.

“Monsters aren’t real, Holly.” The words are thick on his tongue. 

Holly shakes her head, “I don’t believe you.”

Sometimes Mike forgets his sister is actually smart. “I know you’re scared because of everything that’s happened. With the crazy stories people tell, I get scared sometimes too.” The truth feels lighter. 

“No you don’t.” 

“Are you kidding? Everyone in Hawkins is scared shitless. Anyone who says they aren’t are full of it.” Holly’s mouth quirks upwards. “Like that mouth breather in your class… What’s his name again?”

“Derek?”

“Yeah, Derek.” Mike pauses dramatically. “He probably wets his bed every night.” 

Finally Holly laughs, and Mike is thrilled. He gets an idea.

“Do you know who I turn to when I get scared?” 

Holly shakes her head, eyes wide with anticipation. Mike tugs off his backpack and pulls out the small blue pouch he stores his figurines in. He finds the miniature version of himself and presents it to Holly.

“Mike the Brave. He goes on these adventures called dungeon crawls.”

Holly’s interest is piqued. “What’s a dungeon crawl?”

“Basically, he explores these underground worlds, where he fights monsters, evil wizards, and sorcerers and stuff. But… Mike the Brave is never scared. So, whenever I’m feeling frightened, or nervous, I just imagine that he’s at my side, and I feel better. So maybe the next time you get scared, you don’t need this Mr. Whatsit. Maybe you just need… Holly the Heroic.” Mike delights in her confusion.

“Holly the Heroic?”

“I was gonna wait a few more years, but-” Mike knows that Holly needs this. He draws out a small girl, dressed in bright blue robes with sparkling blonde hair. Holly’s eyes trace over the toy with wonder. She takes it, grinning. 

“She’s a cleric, which means she has divine powers. She can cast spells of protection to ward against evil spirits, and even cooler, she can cast a dimension door, which can teleport you to anywhere you visualize.” At first he thinks he lost her with the lore, but he finds that she is hanging on his every word. 

“I mean, come on. Can this lame-o Mr. Whatsit do any of this?” 

“No”, she laughs, and Mike knows he won her over.

“She’ll keep you safe. I promise.” Holly nods, and leans into his side.

“Thanks Mike,” she whispers. 

–

Mike sends his mom and Holly home with a kiss on the cheek and a white lie about his whereabouts for the night. He arrives at the WQSK headquarters just before six o’clock, but he is not the first.

As he enters the Squawk, he finds Robin and Will sprawled lazily on the couch, whispering and giggling like they were sharing hot gossip. Mike pauses in the doorway, and something sharp twists in his gut. He scans Will’s face. Will is smiling, pure and bright. He looks so much happier than he did just a couple hours ago. Is it because of Robin? Did she comfort him? Does Will prefer that? Mike doesn’t know. He’s pretty sure he’s worked out whatever has been going on between them since June, but sometimes he thinks… Mike doesn’t know what he thinks. He feels dirty for spying on them like this. He shakes himself out of it and enters the room.

“Mike!” Will sits up in surprise. 

“Michael,” Robin salutes him, but doesn’t move from her cat-like position on the couch.

Mike ignores her, walking over to sit across from Will. “How are you feeling?” He feels his voice drop a decibel, like it’s a secret. He isn’t sure if Will wants his moment of panic aired out like that.

“I’m good, really,” Will reassures him. “Thanks for asking,” he says softly.

“Yeah, of course.” 

Mike doesn’t know what else to say. Will is still staring at him, and his mouth is dry. 

Robin hops up abruptly. “Gotta check the radio transmission frequency, I forgot, silly me. Okay bye!” She scurries off.

Will watches her go, looking less than happy about it. Mike suddenly regrets coming inside in the first place. Shame bubbles up in his stomach. He was clearly interrupting something.

“Mike.”

Mike startles. Will’s hazel eyes seem to burn into him. “Are you okay?”

Mike tries for a smile and he can tell he failed when Will frowns harder. “Totally. I just have a headache.” It’s not a lie, because he would never lie to Will. He tells himself that omissions of the truth are not the same thing. 

“Oh, okay.”

They are interrupted by Lucas and Robin barging in. 

“Dustin’s not picking up the goddamn walkie,” Lucas growls. 

Mike checks his watch. Dustin should’ve been here half an hour ago. 

“I called his mom, she hasn’t heard from him either,” adds Robin.

“He’ll show,” Will says confidently. “He always shows.”

Mike hopes so. He really needs tonight to go off without a hitch so he can stop feeling so out of control, and have a fresh start tomorrow. 

“Hey, look,” Lucas points out the window to three distant figures moving steadily up the hill. Mike instantly reacts. 

“El!” Excited, he grabs Will’s arm and drags him outside and down the hill to meet her. El sees them running and breaks into a jog of her own. The three of them collide in the field, all smiles. With El’s rigorous training schedule and the issue of the state-wide bounty hunt for her head, Mike and Will only get to see her every few days. He breathes in the familiar smell of her hair and instantly feels better. 

“Dustin, this is not funny!” Lucas, who has moved to stand outside, is practically shouting into the radio now. 

El turns to Mike. “What is wrong?”

“I should go help him,” Will thumbs back at Lucas, darting off quickly. 

“Rooftop? I’ll explain,” says Mike.

The rooftop of the Squawk is sort of sacred ground for Mike and El, in a twisted, humorous way. Mike knows it's weird to frequently habit the spot that his ex-girlfriend dumped him at over a year ago, with said ex-girlfriend, but he doesn’t care. He and El have never really played by the rules anyway. He thinks about that day a lot. She told him she wanted to talk, and he let her explain how she had fallen out of love with him. She had found something in herself that day in the pizza freezer, and while Mike’s words were certainly fuel to the flame, El herself had ignited her own quest to discover who she was. And that journey didn’t include Mike. He had expected to be crushed over losing the love of his life, and at first, he was. The first thing he asked her, begged her, was if they could still be friends. She had cupped his face and spoken in that knowing tone, “We will always be friends, Mike Wheeler.” After that, it hadn’t felt as world-altering. As time passed, Mike realized they were so much happier together as friends. He doesn’t have to worry about failing as a boyfriend anymore, because he knows he won’t fail her as a friend. The rest of the party was shocked to hear the news, but they grew to understand that it was a change for the better. Now, just before every Crawl, Mike and El sit on the rooftop and gossip about Joyce and Hopper, or giggle about Will’s snoring. It’s their reprieve from the real world, a time when they can both let go of the heavy weights they carry. 

“Do you think Dustin is okay?” El asks now, as the sun sets behind them.

Mike sighs, “I hope so. He was acting weird today.”

“Weird how?”

“Just angry, scared, reckless. Not himself.”

“Hopper’s the same. Not himself.”

“Maybe it’s just getting to us, you know?” Mike feels the truth of the statement settle as he says it. “Being stuck in here, not knowing where Vecna is, no end in sight. I mean, we’re really starting to lose it. I mean, we really need to catch a break. And maybe we will. Because earlier, Will had a feeling.”

El’s eyebrows raise. “If Will has a feeling…”

“Then it means something,” Mike confirms. “So, maybe tonight’s our break. Maybe even our last crawl. We find Vecna, and we end it once and for all.” The bravery he felt before in the woods wells back up inside him. 

El looks out at the horizon. “And then what happens?”

“You mean after we totally demolish Vecna?” El smiles. “In my campaigns, if the party wins, then they all live happily ever after.” 

“Happily how?”

Mike recalls memories of past wins. Handing out gold tokens to his friends, hosting pretend parties, that time that they all took turns hoisting Will up on their shoulders. “Well, usually what happens is the party doesn’t return to their local village, because too much has happened. They’ve seen too much, so they travel to a faraway land. A peaceful land, somewhere beautiful, with three waterfalls or something, and they all start again. Together.” Mike tries to picture what that might be like. A happy ending.

“Do you think that could be real, for us?” El asks quietly, her brow furrowed. 

“Yeah, of course,” Mike reassures her. “I mean not the three waterfalls part, but the other stuff, yeah, of course.” He’s glad that he can still make her smile. “If Vecna’s gone, then what’s stopping us?” Mike says, thinking about it. With Vecna gone… there was a whole world of possibilities. He’s pulled out of his daydream by a shout from below.

“Hey, lovebirds!” It’s Lucas with that stupid nickname. Mike hates it, because Lucas only started using it for him and El after they broke up. “Chief’s almost ready. Let’s do this!”

Down in the basement, the party packs for the Crawl. Mike dons his usual camouflage vest and beanie that gives him horrible hat-hair. He waits with the group while Steve checks that the telemetry tracker is synced up properly with the Squawk van’s signal receiver. 

Steve’s voice comes in through Robin’s radio, “-exactly am I supposed to monitor this thing and drive without Henderson?”

“Uh, hear anything from Inspector Gadget?” Hopper asks.

“Nothing,” Mike reports regretfully. He knows the others are angry at Dustin, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t too, but he’s also worried. He’d never miss a Crawl on purpose. 

“I can do it. I can monitor,” Will offers hopefully.

Joyce shuts it down. “No, you’re staying here.”

“Mom, I helped Dustin set up the antenna. I know how to work it.”

“Out of the question! It’s just a wheel.”

“It’s not just a wheel.” Will is exasperated.

 Joyce turns to her other son. “Jonathan, you- you can work it, right?”

Mike thinks privately that it's a little unfair to not let Will have his moment. Jonathan and Will share a glance, seemingly exchanging something only they can understand. 

“Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think so,” Jonathan acquiesces.

“You better not think. You better know,” Hopper grunts. “You lose me out there, I’m not coming home.” 

“I can handle it,” Jonathan affirms. He follows Joyce and Hopper up the stairs. Mike catches Will’s face illuminated by the projector light. He looks dejected, and Mike hopes Will knows that Joyce’s decision wasn't made because he is faulty or weak. He’s not. She just couldn’t bear the thought of Will not being protected. Mike gets it.

“Time to go,” says Lucas. They say their goodbyes and split ways, biking after the Squawk van into the night. They reach the church a short while later, and hike up the stairs to the top. From there, they have a perfect birds-eye view of the center of the MAC-Z. Lucas, with the better eyesight, wields his binoculars to keep track of the soldier’s movements down below. Mike plays as the message man, relaying information back to Hopper and the Squawk. 

His walkie crackles to life. 

“Squawk to Crow’s Nest. Anything, over?” says Joyce. 

“Negative, not a peep,” Mike replies.

He hears loud smacking to his right, and turns to see Lucas brutalizing a piece of gum.

“Ugh. Do you have to chew so loud?” Mike complains.

“Snipers chew gum,” Lucas stays stoically.

Mike resists the urge to face-palm. “You’re not a sniper.”

A rumble of trucks alerts their attention. “Package incoming. Four trucks, outer east gate on Main,” Lucas reports. 

Mike repeats this into his walkie. 

“Burners heading for the gate,” Lucas says.

Mike waits for his signal. Lucas counts down on his fingers silently. “Burn commencing in five, four, three, two… and… boom.” They watch as huge gusts of high-pressure flames scorch the thin layer of vines separating the two dimensions.

Lucas spots movement. “Trucks moving in.”

“Trucks moving in,” Mike parrots.

Hopper’s quiet whisper sneaks through the walkie. “Am I clear?”

“Clear to the East.”

“East is clear,” Mike copies.

“And to the West?” Hopper prompts.

Lucas holds up a fist. “Hold. We got a straggler,” warns Mike.

Lucas moans, “C’mon, get the hell outta here!” 

At once, Lucas’ fist turns sharp and angled. “Clear!” 

Mike watches with bated breath as a shadowy figure moves through the smoke and hops into a truck, disappearing out of sight. 

“He’s in,” he tells Joyce.

The burn finally finishes, giving way for the first of the trucks to move through. 

“Open sesame,” Lucas jokes. They watch as the last truck, carrying their precious cargo, rolls through the gate.

“He’s flipped,” Mike confirms. He lets out a sigh. Their part of the job is done, he just has to hope that everyone else’s goes off without a hitch.

When they arrive back at their bikes, Lucas slaps him on the back.

“Look at us, the dream team! Kickin’ ass, takin’ names, singlehandedly running covert anti-military operations-”

“Well-” Mike starts, but Lucas is on a roll.

“-and being the single most crucial members of the party to successfully pull off a Crawl every single freakin’ time-”

“Lucas-”

“Nah, I’m just playing. But seriously, when have we ever lost?”

The squeak of the tires on the asphalt is all that Mike hears. For once, he’s actually surprised by Lucas’ unwavering optimism. 

“Shit, I didn’t mean…” Lucas trails off, suddenly crestfallen.

“No, man, I know!” Mike says quickly.

“Of course we have lost. So much, so many times. I lost-” His voice breaks, and Mike’s heart with it. “I just meant that sometimes, when it gets to be too much, I pretend that my life is different. I pretend that things are better than they are, in hopes that it comes true. But each reality check hits harder than the one before, and I always feel like I’m betraying her for trying to be happy without her. Some days it’s just so hard, Mike.”

Right then, Mike thinks that Lucas is the strongest boy in the whole world. He slams on his bike breaks, because he is not about to say this without looking him in the eye. Lucas stops too, confused.

“Lucas. You are Max’s rock. You are her lifeline! I’ve never seen any greater commitment than the one you have given to her. But you deserve a break too. You deserve to be happy, as happy as you possibly can while you wait for her to return. That’s what she would want, Lucas, I know it.” 

Lucas sniffles. “Thanks, Mike.” As far as Mike Wheeler pep talks go, it could’ve been worse. Mike doesn’t know how it happened, or really why, but three of his loved ones thanked him today for words of encouragement or concern he gave to them. He feels the tight knot that has been inside of chest since the beginning of time unravel ever so gradually.

Mike’s walkie screeches to life. Lucas and him stare at, surprised to hear from anyone so soon.

“Crow’s Nest, do you copy, over?” It’s Robin.

Mike snags the button, “We copy, what’s up? Over.”

It’s silent for a beat. 

“Robin?”

“Mike, we have a problem. You need to go to your house right now.”

Mike’s knees almost buckle from the fear that courses through him. “Robin! What’s going on?” 

“Nancy and El are on their way. Meet them there, Mike.” He growls. He doesn’t have time for her long-winded explanations.

“Robin, what the hell is happening!”

“The Demogorgon. It’s at your house.”