Chapter Text
With the beginning of December 1987 came Hawkins’ inevitable descent into full-blown Christmas preparation. The streets buzzed with constant commotion—parents stuffing their cars with seemingly bottomless carts of presents, brown paper grocery bags bulging with ingredients for elaborate holiday dinners. Traffic clogged every road, every intersection resembling a parking lot more than crossroads.
“C’mon,” the boy whispered under his breath, his tone thick with annoyance and impatience. He stood in the cold, snow-filled streets, fiddling with the sleeve of his jacket as he stared at the traffic light, willing it to change from red to green.
The second it did, he bolted into the crosswalk without even glancing both ways, sprinting down downtown Hawkins until he reached the front doors of Jukebox Records. Brown, half-melted snow splashed beneath his feet as he skidded to a slippery stop, nearly losing his balance while swinging the door open.
In a perfect world, the music drifting from the shop’s record player would’ve been loud enough to mask his ungraceful entrance—but sadly, it wasn’t. For this boy, nothing ever seemed to be in his favour.
The handful of people spending their afternoon browsing vintage records all snapped their heads in his direction at once. Heat rushed to his face, an embarrassed flush spreading across his cheeks in the most unpleasant way possible.
God, nice going, idiot, he thought, shaking his head as if that alone could erase the moment. He gently closed the door behind him, trying—unsuccessfully—to keep the bell above it from ringing.
“Wheeler!” The tall man standing behind the counter says, with an untastefull tone to his voice. As the boy slowly turns his body back to face him, he could tell that the expression on the man's face that he was poorly trying to hide was filled with rage, but he doesn’t let it fully take over his face until he finishes checking out the customer in front of him.
Mike makes his way towards the counter, and before he lets the man behind the counter say another word he makes sure to get in at least one apologetic sentence.
“Steve, before you say anything I know I’m late for my shift— and I am really sorry— my sisters babysitter was late this morning, which well, y’know, caused me to be late,” Mike exclaims in one big huff, with hand gestures being used to really get his point across, “and I swear—”
“Wheeler!” Steve cuts him off before Mike gets the chance to continue rambling on, else they both know they'll be here for a while. “Not only are you late today, but it's your 3rd time this month.” He continues to add.
Mike feels bad about slipping up so many times, sure. But with his parents constantly out of town for business and Nancy away at college, when Holly’s babysitter cancels at the last minute—or annoyingly shows up late—what else is he supposed to do?
He can’t even count how many times he’s begged his parents to find a stable sitter. Someone reliable. Someone who actually takes the job seriously. But by now, they’ve made it painfully clear they don’t care.
He’s had to take care of more than he ever expected. Feeding himself dinner, keeping track of homework and appointments, and, of course, watching over Holly.
So Mike stopped begging.
And when he can, he doesn’t leave the house.
Part of him doesn’t mind—she’s his sister after all. He loves her, and he’d rather go through excruciating pain himself than let anything happen to her but, it’s a lot. More than any kid his age should handle. More than he feels anyone truly notices.
Steve takes a pause, exhaling, and collects his thoughts before he continues speaking to the boy on the other side of the counter from him. “Look, I get it and all, but you gotta understand that the more you push it the bigger the consequences are going to be. I can’t keep letting you off the hook.” The man says, as he turns to grab his coat off the hanger and slips it on.
Steve was tall, with a thick head of brown hair that somehow always looked like it had been carefully styled—even when he’d clearly just rolled out of bed. He favoured muted colours, usually a clean pair of jeans paired with a basic tee or button-up, nothing flashy, nothing loud. At twenty, he was three years older than Mike, who was seventeen, and though Steve was his manager at Jukebox Records, he carried himself in a way that made it hard to take him too seriously.
He had this habit of trying to act intimidating at work—reminding employees that mistakes could cost them their jobs, or giving that pointed glare when someone dared to slack off—but it was easy to see through. Anyone could. Beneath the “manager” exterior was just a guy who genuinely liked music, liked people, and liked being helpful—he just didn’t always know how to say it without a little bravado.
He had little quirks that made him human. The way he tapped his fingers obsessively when a record skipped. How he could quote lyrics of a song at exactly the wrong moment and laugh at his own jokes before anyone else could. The way he always had an extra bottle of water tucked behind the counter “just in case someone forgot theirs.” Steve’s soft side was obvious, even if he would never admit it.
So when he tried to make Mike flinch with warnings about losing his job, Mike had long since learned to read between the lines. Steve might act strict, but he wasn’t cruel. Not really. And deep down, everyone who worked there knew that, even if he tried to pretend otherwise.
“I really am sorry Steve. Seriously.” Mike says, replying to him quickly, to which Steve responds back: “Yeah. Yeah I know, just make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’ve already lost 20 minutes off my lunch break because of you!”
And there it was, Steve’s typical stern but jokingly self. They exchanged grins that they both were clearly trying not to let slip, and switched places, Mike taking over the counter, as Steve makes his way out the door to take his lunch break.
After hanging his things on the coat rack—sliding into the space Steve’s jacket had just previously claimed—Mike drifts behind the counter and immediately starts flipping through the crate of records stored beneath it. He’s looking for something new to play over the shop speakers. It doesn’t happen often that he gets to choose, but when Steve isn’t working, he lets Mike and the others take control. Mike never wastes the opportunity. He already knows what he’s reaching for. He always does.
Death to the Pixies, his favourite record.
Mike’s parents were very strict about the “no rock music” rule in their house, which Mike found to be the most stupid rule ever. There wasn’t a day that his mother wasn’t blaring classical music throughout the house—on the days they were actually home that is. If you asked him to play something by Beethoven on the piano with no sheet music, and only the knowledge of hearing his songs playing on the home record player, he could probably do it. Even with his eyes closed.
Getting the job was maybe the best thing that has ever happened to him—a blessing in disguise. It was an escape from reality. The expectations of being the perfect son, with straight A’s and an absurd amount of polo shirts he only wore to impress his father every once and a while. An escape from feeling the pressure of having to decide what he wants to do after high school. For a couple hours a day, Mike was granted the pleasure of letting loose, and was able to just be himself. He wore black baggy jeans without a care if they were ripped or not. Band tees with their design peeling off, but he loved them. He even wore bracelets and necklaces—a sickening amount that could annoy the average person but he felt naked without them. And nobody around to tell him his hair is “too long,” or “ too messy.” He couldn’t care less if it was messy. He couldn’t care less about any of it.
He pulls the record free in one smooth motion, straightening up just as he does—and nearly colliding with someone standing on the other side of the counter.
Someone familiar.
Fluffy light-brown hair falls into the boy’s eyes, messy in a way that looks intentional but probably isn’t. Mike blinks, momentarily frozen.
Where have I seen him before?
He’s bundled in the puffiest coat imaginable, with a yellowish-cream knit sweater underneath. It looks well-loved, maybe even handmade, the front tucked lazily into loose, baggy jeans. The boy looks like he’s drowning in warmth, layers stacked on layers like he’s bracing himself against more than just the cold.
“Hi!” the boy says, smiling like he’s been waiting for Mike to look up. “I’m, uh— I’m trying to buy a record for my friend. For Christmas.” He hesitates, rubbing the back of his neck. “He really loves music. I just… I don't know anything about it if I'm being honest,” a soft chuckle left his mouth, following those last few words, “I was hoping you could help me?”
Mike stares a second too long.
J? Jack— Jas— no. That’s not it.
“Um,” the boy adds gently, tilting his head.
And then all at once, in one quick panicked breath: “Sorry, is this a bad time?”
Mike jolts back into himself. “Right— sorry. Not at all,” He shakes his head like that might clear the static. “What were you saying?”
The boy nods toward the album in Mike’s hands. “Is that one any good?”
“Oh—” Mike glances down, then back up. God, get it together. “Yeah, it is. But— uh— what kind of music does your… Sorry who did you say—” Get. It. Together.
“Friend! My friend, that is.” The boy shouts back excitedly, noticing that maybe he’d expressed just a little too much emphasis, so he brings himself down.
“Right, your friend. What kind of music is he into?”
“Pop, mostly. Madonna, Michael Jackson, Prince. That kind of thing.” He shrugs. “I want to get him something different though. Something he wouldn’t pick himself.”
Mike smiles despite himself, and sets the Pixies record on the counter. “This one’s great, but probably not the vibe you’re looking for.” He pauses, then brightens. “Actually— I think I’ve got the perfect thing.”
He leaves the boy leaning against the counter and disappears into the aisles, scanning spines until he finds exactly what he wants. When he returns, he stacks the new record neatly on top of the one already taking up the counter space.
The boy leans in, curious.
“The Police?” the boy says after inspecting the record. “Everybody’s heard of The Police!”
He lifts his head to look at Mike, shifting his stance as a distinct unimpressed smile spreads across his face.
Their eyes meet, and for a moment, Mike wants to get lost in them—wants to think about how they’re the most perfect shade of green he’s ever seen, so vivid they almost hurt to look at. Maybe, if he stared long enough, he’d find some answer there—why he feels so strangely drawn to this complete stranger.
But before he can, he forces himself to look away. Mike realizes, with a sinking certainty, that he’s probably making the boy uncomfortable.
Still, that cheerful, unamused expression lingers on his face—an impossible combination Mike can’t even begin to understand. Even as he looks down at the record, he can feel those bright green eyes still on him, and it makes his skin crawl.
It crawls because he misses the contact already. Because he wishes he were still holding it. He could probably stare into those eyes for hours and never get tired.
Why are you being so weird? Stop it.
It’s just another customer.
“Okay but you see,” Mike begins to say, shifting his stance and lifting his head to look back at the boy. A clear smile was beginning to appear on his face. He loved talking about music, and this boy had just lit a spark in him that could cause them to be here for days if it was allowed. “That’s exactly why I chose it!” Now, bringing hand gestures into the equation, he was really letting himself get carried away. “This is a really hard album to come across, anyone who is serious about music would kill to have this in their collection.”
“Huh,” the nameless boy scoffs.
“What!” Mike says back to him, to which the nameless boy once again responds with: “You sound very confident, and passionate. That’s all.”
Good job Mike, you’ve officially made a fool of yourself.
“That’s a good thing though! A very respectable trait.” He finishes off saying, Mike hadn’t realized he wasn’t done.
Mike shrugs, with a sliver of this embarrassed feeling leaving his mind, but yet, even more painfully aware over the fact that he needs to shut up and play it cool—something that he’s never really been good at. “I like to take my job seriously!”
“I can tell,” the boy laughs. “Alright. I trust you I guess. But if I find out that he already has this, I expect a refund!”
No matter how aware he is of the fact that he needs to play it cool, Mike can't seem to erase the smile on his face. As he slides the record into its paper sleeve, and the boy pulls out his wallet, “We don’t typically allow refunds,” Mike retorts back. The stranger’s lips part slightly, clearly wanting to say something in response until Mike stops him, and continues his sentence to say “But for you, I guess I can make an exception.”
The boy just closes his mouth, giving Mike a node as a response.
And in this shared silence, Mike’s mind keeps wandering back to that familiar feeling—the face, the voice, the way it all feels oddly… close. He almost asks: What is your name? Where are you from? Have I seen you before?
Almost.
Instead, he says, “Isn’t it kind of last-minute to do Christmas shopping? It being in a couple of weeks and all.”
The boy just looks at him, a smile still firmly in place. It’s wide and warm and impossibly sincere. Mike can’t remember the last time someone smiled at him like that.
“Yeah,” the boy says easily. “That’s why I’m asking a stranger instead of pretending I know what I’m doing.”
Mike huffs a laugh, a laugh mixed with regret and a little bit of embarrassment. “Okay. Yeah. Fair.” Then, quieter, “Sorry. That was kind of rude of me to say wasn’t it.”
“It’s fine,” the boy says quickly, with a positive tone. “I’m actually really grateful. What would I do without you?”
Mike feels heat crawl up his neck before he can stop it. He pretends to focus very hard on printing the receipt, telling himself the pink in the boy’s cheeks is from the cold outside, and not him. Not like how the boy is having an affect on himself. No, definitely not him.
Still, it’s hard to ignore how nice it feels to hear.
Trying to shake the daydream for what feels like the thousandth time, Mike hands the boy the bagged record. Their fingers brush—brief, accidental, electric.
For a moment, Mike is sad that the boy has to go.
And that makes no sense at all.
He’s just another customer.
They exchange smiles one last time before the mystery boy lets out another enthusiastic, “Thanks again!” and is gone, the bell over the door jingling as he disappears into the cold.
“God, took you long enough,” a sharp, annoyed voice calls, growing closer with every step. “You do know you don’t actually have to make small talk with every single customer, right?”
Mike spins toward the voice, immediately recognizing that tone in voice—a very specific one that could only belong to Max. The fiery-haired girl appears beside him, her dark, earth-toned clothes practically matching the intensity of her glare. She drops a crate of vinyls onto the floor with a dramatic thud, the impact rattling across the shop like a small earthquake. Mike winces, half-amused, half-impressed by the sheer force behind her entrance.
“It doesn’t hurt to be nice once and a while Maxine,” he says replying back to her.
“Actually, it does. It really does. You people in this garbage town are way too soft and mushy. It’s gross. And you know how I feel about people calling me Maxine!” she says back, placing both hands on each end of his shoulder, pushing the boy back. The shove wasn’t actually strong enough to make him move back so far, but Mike takes this as an opportunity to re-adjust himself nonetheless.
The look she gives Mike is pure threat, but she doesn’t actually make him stop. Anyone else would’ve been corrected immediately and publicly. Mike gets away with it—not because she likes it (she’d never admit that), but because it’s him. And that’s different.
Max had moved to Hawkins from California when they were in seventh grade, though they hadn’t really become close until years later, when they both landed jobs at Jukebox Records the summer before tenth grade. Once they finally clicked, neither of them could explain why it had taken so long. It wasn’t like either of them had a huge circle back then. Not because people thought they were losers—though that definitely didn’t help—but because they’d always been fine on their own, comfortable enough not to chase company for the sake of it.
Still, it felt kind of ridiculous that they hadn’t found each other sooner.
Now, it was impossible to picture life before they became friends. The before felt unfinished, like something missing it’s best part.
They spent most shifts insulting each other’s music taste, shoving records into each other’s hands just to prove a point. They argued over who had to close, who stole whose pen, who was worse at math. They communicated mostly in sarcasm and exaggerated sighs, neither of them ever saying thank you out loud.
But Mike always drove Max home when it got late, pretending it was just because they were heading the same way even though she caught onto that lie ages ago. And Max always made sure Mike ate something during long shifts, dropping snacks on the counter like it meant nothing.
And even outside of work, they were inseparable. If they weren’t at the shop together, they were killing time somewhere else—driving around with no destination, sitting on the roof of Max’s trailer, holed up in Mike’s room arguing over movies they’d both already seen. They shared CD’s, inside jokes no one else understood, and sometimes Max would steal Mike’s precious band tee’s. He’d act annoyed but they both knew it was all just an act.
They talked almost every day, usually about nothing important, and somehow that mattered more than anything deep. Neither of them ever said anything remotely emotional out loud, and if someone suggested they cared about each other, they’d both laugh it off like it was the dumbest thing they’d ever heard.
They were each other's best friend, without a doubt, but they didn't have to say that out loud for it to actually be true.
“Anyways, I need your help organizing this crate. And there are, like, ten more where that came from,” Max says, her tone exaggeratedly cruel, like she’s tormenting him for sport.
“Yeah, yeah, in a minute,” Mike mutters, barely paying attention to her. He’s already lost in his own world, finally sliding the Pixies album onto the player after being distracted for what felt like an eternity, and letting its alternative-rock grit fill the shop.
The girl takes one of the empty seats behind the counter, completely melting into it. Tired, and exhausted from spending the first half of her shift organizing, she lets out an exhale before continuing to say: “Hey—so, what was Will Byers doing in here, anyway? I didn’t peg him as a music geek.”
And just like that—it all clicks.
Will Byers.
The name hits him like a spark. No wonder the face was familiar, no wonder the voice tugged at something deep in the back of his mind. He’d gone to school with him for years, but it was easy to forget about Will—he disappeared from the halls from time to time, kept to himself, blended into the background because he liked being alone. Quiet, unassuming, and careful not to draw attention, he’d always been the kind of kid who just existed around the edges, never asking for anything, never bothering anyone. Usually one of the easy targets for the jocks, and yet somehow… Mike had never really seen him—until now.
Mike leans against the counter, letting it sink in, piecing together flashes: Will’s shy smile in the hallway, the way he tucked his hands into his sleeves, the quiet way he’d watch others go about their day. Suddenly, every overlooked detail snaps into focus, and it feels strange—and a little exciting—to finally see him clearly, after all this time.
As Mike leans against the counter, still piecing everything together, something presses under his elbow—a small, hard object. Frowning, he shifts and lifts it: a wallet.
“Yeah, he was buying a gift for a friend. He just needed some suggestions,” Mike says in reply to Max, though he doesn’t look at her. Instead, his attention is fixed on the brown leather wallet now in his hands.
He figures whoever left it behind must’ve owned it for a long time. The leather is worn and creased, soft with age, and speckled with dried paint. Tiny splatters of every colour imaginable dot the surface, but yellow dominates—bright, stubborn, everywhere.
Tons and tons of yellow.
It has to be the owner’s favourite colour, Mike decides. And for some reason, he finds that kind of cute.
While being surrounded by the sound of Where Is My Mind blaring through the shop, and the squeaks from Max’s chair as she spins herself from side to side in her chair, Mike folds open the well loved wallet with now the knowledge of knowing it belongs to who else but Will Byers. His driver's license being the first piece of evidence greeting him as it sits in a clear plastic slip embedded in the leather.
Mike can’t help himself but study the photo. He can’t help but notice how much he hasn’t changed from when it was taken. His light brown messy hair is still sitting perfectly above his eyes, and if you look closely enough you could see the rosiness of his cheeks defined by the shades of dark gray. You could tell the serious, stone cold look was unnatural on the boy. Mike found himself wishing Will were smiling again, just to remember how good it felt—how something so simple could light up an entire feeling. How could a complete stranger do that so effortlessly, more than anyone else he’d ever known? There were reasons he knew he’d probably never be able to explain, and maybe didn’t even want to, but one thing was undeniable: the boy had made him feel something he hadn’t expected, something he wished he could ignore.