Chapter Text
*Mike*
Mike padded across the carpeted landing, trying his best not to make a sound as he clutched the banister, listening intently for the hum of conversation downstairs.
"Yeah, I think he's still asleep-he got in late last night.
How was your flight?" That was his mother, he could tell from her soft, warm voice; shrill at the edges.
"Good. You know they're trying to ban smoking on planes now?" a gruff, male voice grunted.
"Hop, you know it,'s bad for the kids to be inhaling it."
"Yeah, well, they'll all be doing it in a couple of years." Almost seven years had passed since El had closed the gate and it had taken her with it, and it had haunted Mike every waking hour since.
The defeated look in her hazel eyes. The tears rolling down her pallid cheeks.
Goodbye, Mike.
A shudder rolled through his body, and he suddenly felt sick. Stop.
But there was something else from that night in '87 that haunted him, too.
Something he'd tried equally as hard to bleach from his memory.
After months of sleepless nights replaying the two memories in tandem; a perfect cocktail to fuel his self-loathing-Mike had finally decided to do something about it.
So he wrote.
He wrote the ending he knew El would have wanted-the ending he was desperate for.
But there was one thing he couldn't bring himself to write.
If he was honest-and it wasn't often he was these days
—he'd become a drone of himself in the months that had followed the party leaving Hawkins. He didn't blame them-he would have left, too. If he could.
Eventually, he had. A year too late, sure, but he'd finally started a writing course at a community college two towns over.
When his mother had called two weeks ago, confirming his scheduled visit and telling him Hopper, Joyce and Will would all be flying in from Long Island, it was the first time since that night that Mike had felt alive.
He hadn't seen Will since graduation-and though it was a year after El's death, he could only remember snippets of the day; shards of cracked, lifeless memories he'd only half-lived. He couldn't even remember whether he'd hugged him goodbye the day he'd left for college in New York.
Though he did remember writing letters to him in those tender weeks, frantically scrawling his innermost thoughts without the faintest notion of them ever being sent.
But now, he was here.
His mother's voice drifting from downstairs, her syrupy tone she saved for guests-telling him they'd arrived.
Fuck.
Mike dragged a hand through his mussed, black curls.
He hadn't even brushed his teeth yet, or showered.
Come to think of it, when was the last time he'd changed his sweater?
Tugging at the neck, he took a quick whiff and decided he'd have to deal with his wardrobe at a later stage.
He scampered off to the bathroom, splashing his face with cold water and brushing his teeth in record time, before hurrying back to his bedroom, slipping under the covers, his heart pounding.
He was here.
Mike mentally went over what his mother had told him about Will, and his life in New York-commuting from Long Island, where Hopper and Joyce had settled;
Friday nights at The Saint; a new group of eccentric but lovable friends.
Will had moved on; that much was obvious.
Mike, on the other hand, was still the same-still stuck in the time warp 1987 had on him.
It wasn't long before he heard the rapid knocking on his door, no doubt thanks to Holly.
"Mike, get your skinny ass downstairs now!"
Playing the fool-lord knows why-Mike called back, voice faux-groggy. "What-why?"
"Um, hello? Joyce, Hop and Will all get in today?"
"Are they here yet?"' His heart skipped a beat at the words.
"They just arrived-and Mom says you can't just hole up in your room like last time."
But this wasn't like last visit. This time, Will would be here.