Chapter Text
NOVEMBER 8TH, 1983
Mike remembers the first time he held a gun.
It was a few days after Will went missing and during the years when his father still got off the couch to teach his kids something useful. Mike didn’t want to know how a gun would be useful to him, he never really wanted to hurt anybody. He didn’t want anybody he knew to get hurt.
“Stand upright Micheal, and hold that thing firm boy. The shot isn’t going to fire itself!”
In his backyard, left foot in front, both arms raised, he aimed the loaded weapon at a green beer bottle sitting on the log of a decapitated tree.
“Why do I have to do this, dad?” Mike’s small cracking voice asks, almost in pleading prayer for a divine interjection to stop him.
“Because that’s what happens.” A matter of fact statement made in the familiar unbothered voice of Ted Wheeler.
“What happens when what?”
“When boys aren’t taught to fight and be men and they become girls instead. Like that friend of yours, what’s the name?”
“Will.”
Mike fixes his sight on the gap of dirt between his front and back leg. The once fiery autumn leaves have fallen to the ground now, freezing into winter as an ice cold outline protects its unchanging warm centre of brown. A memory of the passing season and another day in fear of knowing his best friend is standing someplace way colder, pale, lips purple and teeth chattering - a corpse waiting to die. His father notices he’s been gone after a few minutes.
“Son, look up at the target and pull the trigger.”
“I can’t do it”
“You have to.”
“I don’t want to”
“Well, I don’t give a shit Micheal. Suck it up and do it already!”
Tears begin to form in the corner of Mike’s eyes. He shouldn’t even be here, he should be out looking for Will. Suddenly, his divine intervention arrives and his mother yells from inside the house.
“DINNER!”
Mr. Wheeler doesn’t think twice when he decides that his work here is done and walks quickly towards the back porch door to enter his home and claim his seat on the head of the table. Mike lets out a sigh of relief as he puts the gun down slowly on the log next to the bottle and promises himself never to hold a piece again.
NOVEMBER 25TH, 1990
A severe knock on the door. His whole life Mike has been able to distinguish his sister’s sharp door knocks from anyone else’s in the Wheeler family. A talent most have with their loved ones, though many still think it unique.
“Mike! You’re late, we have to go!!”
It feels strange to wake up in his childhood bedroom again. The world didn’t stop spinning after he went off to college but his bed, the paintings and posters on the walls, the comics, are all in the same place as before. The four walls are so old and familiar, he missed it.
Well, not really his carpet or his blue toothbrush or anything he could visualise so easily with eyes closed just because he saw it every morning. What he still longed for, even in his university days, were the special moments. Those that didn’t fit the memorised choreography of his average school day. Days when El and Max raided his room for anything to steal for themselves; when the walkie would go static before a swift answer from his friends; when him and Will stayed up reading comics together, riding their bikes as the lampposts began to turn on - though he could probably imagine that without needing to close his eyes. He didn’t really miss his old bedroom, he did miss his childhood.
Like rewatching a scene from his favourite film, the breezy sunlight peeked through the blinds as on most November days, and the lazy movement of the sheets indicated Mike’s body waking up for a new day.
“Jesus… MIKE LET 'S GO!!” Nancy screamed from the corridor.
“COMING!” His voice was still raspy from not having used it all night, his eyelashes weighing tired eyes down.
Finally standing up, Mike realised he won't be able to delay this any longer and all he could do was just get on with it. He finished packing his last clothes, brushed his teeth in front of the mirror he saw his young face age on over the years, and in a backpack stuffed two comics with some cassette tapes and a Walkman. Bringing himself to put his converse on and to go down the stairs of the Wheeler home, he moved towards the fridge to help himself to breakfast. He didn’t notice how icy and intimidating the house was, or how the couch had an indent on the exact spot that his father claimed as his, or how tidy the kitchen actually was despite all the unacknowledged dysfunction between the family.
Before he could close the fridge door, Nancy came barging in through the front door with that strict look of hers that meant there was absolutely no time to eat at all because he had slept all morning and now he has to wait to get breakfast on the road in a shitty middle-of-nowhere 7 Eleven. Perfect.
As he left his home and moved towards the car with his bags, he laid eyes on who stood on the other side of the road.
Will carried in a cardboard box personal possessions that Mike didn’t recognize and a look on his face he didn’t either. His hair had grown into a many layered mess though it was still short enough to look at his neck, whilst his body seemed to have matured. Though he didn’t reach any taller than before, the lightness at which he walked made him look like he was floating on clouds, as his hips waved softer by every step. He looked happy.
Mike felt so heavy that he genuinely thought that he was about to crack a new entry to the Upside Down on the pavement and fall in forever. Will was always handsome, only this time, a year after seeing each other last, he looked like he knew it. Jesus, he could puke.
On the backseat of Jonathan's car they met each other’s gaze, realising that they have to spend 10 hours - maybe more - sitting in the same miniscule, airless, oppressive vehicle. The leather seat seemed suddenly tighter than before and Mike wondered what would happen when they hit a bump and lifted off the seat, inevitably landing nearer to each other, and what about all their unsaid shit? Everything he compartmentalised, the paint-
“Hi Mike.”
“Hi.”
“Did you bring any music for the trip? I’ll literally die of boredom otherwise and I only have one tape I brought from New York.”
New York City. His life now must be so different than in Hawkins - a big city with high buildings and strobe lighting in clubs and trendy cafes and a whole new group of friends to go out with. Will in college probably had everything Mike didn’t manage to build up again after high school.
“Um… Yeah, I have some.”
“Oh ok, that's good.”
The short silence that came after that would’ve been awkward if Jonathan hadn’t stepped into the driver’s seat.
“If you think I’m even letting anyone near the speaker you are highly mistaken. This is my car, my rules, my aux.”
Will rolled his eyes and Mike wished he could react with a smile like he would’ve before. Instead he just stared out the window as he saw Nancy approaching.
“Hit it.” She said without even having fully closed the car door.
They’d been outside of Hawkins for an hour and forty minutes before anyone said a word. Nancy had a giant map laid bare in front of her; the light from the windshield cast a shadow that framed Mike’s face on the backseat. Highlighting in neon yellow their route, she began to think aloud strategically as the driver slowly understood he should be paying attention to her.
“Alright, so to get from here to Philly it’s going to take about seven hours and a couple of rougher roads, Jon, but once we’ve done that we can drop Mike off at Penn. And then it's only two hours to Manhattan where we’ll get Will all settled again too.”
When she said it like that the distance between Mike and Will didn’t seem so far away. A year before this moment in their last summer with friends, before life got actually serious, the length seemed infinite. But they were best friends and positive that nothing would ever separate them.
Whatever happened to those kids?
Will appeared to have wondered too, because he looked away from the trusty window on the opposite side and observed Mike curiously.
“I really should’ve settled all of this at the start of Thanksgiving but I really thought I’d have more time, I guess it does fly.”
“Well it was all of our responsibilities you know, and at the end of the day we do have a good amount of time to get there. No rush.” Jonathan was always the calmest and most patient, which complemented Nancy’s strive.
“Two hours drive isn’t that far away, you guys should be able to see each other more.” She thought, redirecting herself at Mike and Will.
Goddamn it Nancy, talk about the elephant in the room.
“Yeah, but um, I don’t have a driver’s license.” Mike uttered cautiously, without wanting to confront the question of why he didn’t ever visit. There was no answer that came up in his mind.
“Oh, well maybe I could try to go down to Pennsylvania if I have time. Use some friend’s car or something.” Will attempted, looking at the boy next to him somewhat confused.
Maybe. Try. If.
“Doesn’t Carlton drive? Can’t you borrow from him?” Jonathan questioned.
“No.”
Will didn’t say anything after that and when Mike turned to see, he was facing the window with a blank stare stamped on his face that showed he wasn’t in that car anymore. Nancy shared a look with Jonathan before she focused on her brother’s reflection in the rear - view mirror and tried to guess his thoughts telepathically. Mike saw her but pretended not to. She knew he saw her.
Ignoring Nancy by watching the road outside, his eyes followed the unknown scenery like reading a page from a new book. The world seemed wider and more daunting than in Indiana, but he noticed how wherever he goes - Hawkins or Philadelphia - the highways always look the same. An endless wave of centered yellow streaks and the same wheels rolling on and on and on, expelling any ideas that the world is good or bad, it just chose to be and it wouldn’t ever stop.