Chapter Text
When envisioning his “perfect” summer before his senior year of high school, Mike Wheeler had imagined it being chock-full of leading his friends to victory as Mike The Brave against the Demogorgon in his latest D&D campaign, or spending “romantic” time with El in Hopper’s cabin—behind her closed bedroom door, much to the Chief’s chagrin—mouthing along to stupid songs that he didn’t even like on the radio.
What he didn’t envision in his ultimate summer of 1985 plan was listening to the store radio blast the newest hits of Madonna, Duran Duran, and Foreigner while serving ice cream with barely-functioning metal scoopers over an abundantly (and downright disgustingly) sticky counter to the various citizens of Hawkins at Scoops Ahoy, with none other than Maxine “Max” Mayfield.
Oh boy, was Mike in for an exciting summer.
***
Really, Mike had it made out for himself this summer… or so he thought.
That was until Mike realized that his too-perfect, typical suburban parents, Ted and Karen Wheeler, made him get a job at Scoops Ahoy in the recently-opened Starcourt Mall this summer because his dad had told him that, “Real men don’t sit around and play board games all day, they’re supposed to provide for their families.”
Mike’s blood boiled, his inner monologue going haywire thanks to his dad’s pure idiocy.
Oh, okay dad! Sorry that I’m not some bum of an old man that sits on the La-Z-Boy all day and watches TV! “Provide for their families my ass….” What do you even do for work anyway?
So now here Mike was, in his stupid polyester sailor’s uniform, with the dorky hat and all, serving scoops of Superhero flavored ice cream to the elementary-aged citizens of Hawkins, Indiana, and getting way too many requests from customers to try flavors. My boss really needs to enforce a limit on that. During this scorchingly hot mid-afternoon of Tuesday, June 25th, 1985, he was with none other than his annoying, bitingly sarcastic, and obnoxious as ever coworker, Max Mayfield.
Max Mayfield was someone that Mike had initially got off on the wrong foot with. Last year, when she had moved to Hawkins from California and joined their class at Hawkins High, Lucas and Dustin, and even Will, his best friend, had thought that the redhead was cool enough to join their party. Notably, everyone except for Mike Wheeler himself.
This train of thought takes him back to last school year, right before Halloween, when Will tried to convince Mike to let Max join the party.
***
September 8th, 1984
Will Byers, the only person in The Party who could get through Mike’s sarcastic and headstrong personality, was the one forced to convince him that Max was “totally tubular,” as Lucas says, and not totally annoying like Mike thought she was.
The two of them were sitting together in their AP Literature class (Mike’s favorite class) when Will had approached him.
Mike was sitting at his desk, one of his long, wiry legs crossed over the other while he was engrossed in the story of Death of a Salesman, trying to catch up on his reading before the in-class essay they had due that period.
”Procrastinating on finishing your reading again, Mike? Really?”
Will smirked as he admonished his best friend’s lifelong habit of putting things off until the last minute. Mike had done that since the two of them were kids, always waiting to clean his room or do his laundry until his mom threatened to take away his comic books or his D&D dice.
Will had set down his backpack and his own copy of Death of a Salesman as he began to question Mike’s ability to procrastinate just about anything and everything, something that he would never do.
Even though Will had been in love with Mike Wheeler since before he even knew what “love” was, sometimes the other boy drove him crazy, but Will was okay with going crazy if it was because of Mike, because Mike Wheeler was his favorite person, his best friend, and his Paladin.
Mike audibly sighed as he closed the book to turn to Will and quipped back at that previous comment, he rolled his eyes playfully as he took out a pencil and started tapping it on his desk.
”Yes, of course, Will the Wise. Who would I be if I didn’t procrastinate on my homework to write more for our upcoming campaign, or play my Atari until my mom yelled at me to do my homework last night? Seriously, do you even know what I would do to not finish my homework? I’d even do the dishes! Willingly!”
Mike just about rattled onto Will while he was staring at Mike, with a look of slight fondness on his face.
”Listen Mike, Lucas and Dustin actually wanted me to talk to you about something for our Halloween plans—“
Mike cut him off abruptly, snark evident through his voice.
”If this is about that annoying new girl with the skateboard that Lucas and Dustin definitely have the hots for, I don’t want to hear about it.”
“Well no, not exactly but… Lucas and Dustin really think she’s cool, and so do I, and I thought it’d be okay with you if we invited her to trick-or-treat with us since she just moved here. Plus, Lucas thinks she’s “totally tubular”, so he said that she should come with us.”
Will was fiddling with the hem of his shirt while trying to reason with Mike, being that he usually never was one for confrontation, especially with Mike, it made him nervous.
”Will! You’ve got to be kidding me! Everyone in our party knows that trick-or-treating is a sacred tradition, we’ve been doing it together since we were in fourth grade! We can’t just ruin it now!”
Mike was pissed at the thought of some random girl joining in on their years-long tradition. Anyone that knows Mike knows he’s not one that’s susceptible to change, and Will Byers knows that better than anyone.
***
June 25th, 1985
At the present moment, Mike lingers on the fact that both Lucas and Dustin totally had the hots for Max, and that’s why they were so keen on her joining the group, but especially Lucas. Dustin has a girlfriend (shocker right?) up in Utah named Suzie? Susie? Mike doesn’t know how to spell her name, or cares to know how. Mike thinks back to how annoyed he was at his friends trying to let Max into the group, because “The Party,” as the four boys called themselves, was sacred and all of the boys knew that.
Then, all of them—except for Mike, even after Will tried to convince him—invited Max to go trick-or-treating with them that year. Yes, they were juniors in high school going trick-or-treating, but there was no way in hell any members of The Party were popular enough to get an invite to one of Jennifer Hayes’ Halloween parties. While Dustin, Lucas, and Max were busy galavanting around the neighborhood trick-or-treating to their hearts’ content, Mike took Will back to his house, specifically the basement, to calm him down after one of his “episodes”, which Lucas would later inform Max all about the Upside Down and all of the chaos they had gotten into two years ago and the year before she moved to Hawkins.
When Lucas told Max about the Upside Down last year, she officially became a member of “The Party”, since her knowledge about the Upside Down made it so she had to be a member due to the insane circumstances and also the fact that nobody else could find out about what they were dealing with.
The six members of “The Party”—Mike, Will, Lucas, Dustin, Eleven, and Max—all were a friend group together, but there were essentially three duos within the group: Mike & Will, Lucas & Dustin, and Eleven & Max. With this being established in The Party, Max and Mike never really had the opportunity to get close over this past year of her being in Hawkins. Max gravitated towards El to do girly stuff with, like go to the mall and paint each other’s nails or whatever else girls do. Just because Mike has two sisters doesn’t mean he’s interested in knowing what girls do in their free time.
Naturally, Mike gravitated towards the boys in the group, since all of them liked to play D&D together while the girls absolutely hated it. Safe to say, Mike doesn’t hate Max like he used to when she first moved here, but the two of them sure did make an odd pair.
While Mike was busy serving customers at the front of the store, Max was definitely doing something unproductive that could get her written up for the second time this month. The first time she got written up was because she refused to wear the dorky sailor hat that came with their work uniforms. Mike remembers that day like it was yesterday, which it actually was yesterday.
***
June 24th, 1985
Max was at the front serving (for once), while Mike was angrily talking to himself in the back of the store while sweeping and refilling their endless stock of Superhero flavored ice cream.
“Seriously, who even likes Superhero flavor this much? It’s not even good, Rocky Road is way better.”
Begrudgingly, Mike got stuck on stocking duty since Max had made a bet with him that if he couldn’t go one shift without talking about Will’s drawings, he’d have to stock the shelves.
“Wheeler! Too much talking and not enough stocking!” Max all but shouted from the front of the shop after she had served a group of very rowdy teenage boys.
“MAX SHUT UP! It’s not my fault that whenever you bring up hating D&D, you always provoke me to talk about Will! It’s almost like you take pleasure in my suffering, you evil witch.”
Mike quipped back at her while looking at a post-it note drawing that Will had given him, which had their two characters, the Paladin and the Cleric, shaded in colored pencils and what looked like oil pastels? Like hell if Mike knew anything about art, and their characters were going head to head with the three-headed dragon from Mike’s last campaign.
Gosh, I have no idea how Will can even draw this good. If it was me drawing this, it’d just be stick figures. He’s so talented.
***
When looking at Will’s drawing, Mike thinks back to November 6th, 1983, the worst day of his entire life. It was the day Will was taken by the Demogorgon into the Upside Down, and the only thing that kept him steady and prevented him from jumping off the edge of Sattler’s Quarry throughout that entire week was the binder he kept full of Will’s drawings. Even before Will went missing, Mike had always cherished any and every piece Will gave to him. He treasured them like they were gold, always being extra careful when hanging them on the wall of his basement.
Mike wouldn’t know what to do without Will in his life, they’ve always been together and have never been apart for longer than that week. They’re Mike and Will, Will and Mike, the Paladin and the Cleric, and Mike the Brave and Will the Wise. You can’t have one of them without the other.
While looking at the post-it note Will gave him, he starts to feel uneasy, almost like he’s being dragged right back to that moment on November 6th, 1983, where the Hawkins police dragged Will’s “body” out of the water. Mike envisions the memory, how he biked all the way home on Maple Street in the pouring rain with tears streaming down his face. Even though the tears made it hard for him to see, he eventually made it home. Mike bursted through the door and ran to hug his mom, crying his eyes out at seeing his best friend’s dead body. He remembers how it felt like he was the only one that cared about Will, and was so angry at El for leading the group to Will’s dead body instead of him being alive, like she promised he was.
What Mike doesn’t realize is that his knees buckle from under him, and that he’s struggling to breathe. Mike drops the container of Superhero ice cream he was stocking, which collides to the ground with a startling bang.
Max hears a BANG! come from the back of the store, and she’s immediately on high alert. While she’s in the middle of serving a customer, her eyes go wide and she looks panicked.
“I’m sorry, excuse me for one second while I go check what that noise was.”
Max rushes through the door to the back to find Mike crumpled on the floor, it looks like he’s almost hyperventilating. Max can see that he’s crying and struggling to breathe, so she jumps into action.
She dashes up beside Mike, noticing his panicked expression and current state, careful not to scare him. She gently settles next to him and offers a comforting hand to his knee.
“Holy shit! Wheeler! Mike, can you hear me?”
Mike’s breathing is still labored, and he’s still crying, but he manages to give her a nod.
“Okay, good, great, amazing even. Stay here, I’m going to get you some water and close up the shop for now.”
Mike, off in his own little world, spirals into even deeper hysteria about that week of November 6th, 1983, that he can’t think about anything else besides seeing Will’s body.
He crumples the post-it note in his fist, which is so incredibly tight that he leaves crescent-shaped nail marks into his skin. He doesn’t realize this and can’t feel the pressure from it, but he’s too panicked to care about that at the moment.
A few minutes later, Max returns with a bottle of water and settles down beside Mike once again, seeing through him for what felt like the first time ever. She never realized the true extent of what Mike went through the week Will went missing, but regardless, Max is there for Mike, as a friend, coworker, and member of The Party.
After what feels like hours, Mike’s fist finally opens, dropping the crumpled post-it note with a clumsy pen drawing, his breathing begins to slow, and his incoherent sobs turn into subtle sniffles. Seeing this change from Mike, Max begins to approach the topic as carefully as she can.
“Mike, are you… okay? What was that all about?”
Mike takes a couple minutes to process her question before he gives her an answer.
“I- I… don’t know what that was, Max. I was just admiring the drawing Will gave me the other day, and then it just felt like I got transported back to that night all over again. I saw his… body at the quarry, being dragged out, and I just couldn’t get it out of my head.”
Max nods along as Mike recounts the events of the cause of his panicked state, trying to piece together what it was that made Mike switch up all of a sudden like that.
Thank goodness Max had the instinct to close up the shop, she had a feeling this was going to take a while.
Mike continues on under Max’s gaze, “That was the worst moment of my life, and my biggest fear came true that night. I was just trying to stock the shelves when it hit me all of a sudden. I don’t know what I’d do without Will, Max. He’s my best friend, my favorite person, and I…. just… don’t know if I’d still be here if Will wasn’t.” Mike admits.
Mike's attention is focused on looking at the cap of the water bottle Max gave him instead of looking at her directly in the eye.
“Oh, Mike…”
While Max knew briefly about “the incident”, aptly titled by Lucas and Dustin, she really didn’t know all the details of the trauma Mike had experienced because of it. To her shock, hearing that Mike expressed that he would rather die than be without Will again was the point that broke her emotional dam loose.
Usually not one to express her feelings or emotions, especially not to Mike Wheeler out of all people, she leans over to Mike and gives him the biggest, all-encompassing, suffocating hug of her life.
Now, she truly does realize the extent of the bond that Mike Wheeler and Will Byers share.
While sitting next to Mike, with their backs against the freezers and their knees clattering together, she thinks back to the first night she hung out with The Party.
***
October 24th, 1984
The first time that Max got invited to hang out with the rest of The Party in Mike’s basement for their weekly “Star Wars” marathon, the first thing she noticed was the abundance of Will’s drawings on the walls. At first glance, it just looked like Mike had a deep appreciation for Will’s art, but throughout the night, she noticed something peculiar. Whenever Mike, Eleven, and Dustin were on the couch, while Max, Lucas, and Will were on the floor in front of the couch, instead of Mike being focused on the movie playing or El being snuggled into him, he was entirely laser focused on Will.
Well, that’s kind of strange. Not strange for Mike and Will, but why is Mike not watching the movie?
Max quietly observed Mike with a forlorn look on her face, trying to piece together Mike’s weird expression and vibe around Will.
When Max got up, she gave Dustin a look that signaled for him to come upstairs with her. Once they were sure that nobody could hear them, Max finally asked Dustin:
“Why does Mike have so many of Will’s drawings up in the basement and why does he look at Will like he hung the stars and the sun is shining out of his ass?”
Max bluntly whispered to Dustin while she was refilling a bowl of Reese’s Pieces for her and Will to share, since they both loved them.
Dustin, clearly taken aback by this question if his face was any giveaway, since his eyes got wide and his mouth was open a little, took a second to think before answering Max.
“Well, I mean, if I’m being honest, the two of them were like that even when I first became friends with them in the fourth grade. Lucas was there before me, and he told me that they’ve always been that way. Mike always cherishes Will’s art, and that’s been a thing with them even before Will went missing, and I think since Will went missing and came back, Mike is just extra protective over him more than usual. But as far as the “sun is shining out of Will’s ass” part, Mike has just always had a special thing with Will, different from me or Lucas.”
Dustin finally got out, albeit now he looked more relieved than when Max first asked the question, which is good.
Hm, interesting. I guess I’ll just have to observe the two of them myself.
Max sensed something between Mike and Will, but since Mike was dating her best friend, she wasn’t sure what to think. The two of them, Mike and Eleven, were attached at the hip, always ditching the rest of the group to go make out in El’s room at Hopper’s cabin. So, why is it that Mike was so focused on Will more so than his own girlfriend?
Max had a slight intuition on what the case may be, but she didn’t want to make any assumptions because being gay is something that wasn’t taken lightly by any means in this small, conservative town.
Growing up in California, Max was surrounded by gay people, and knew that it was okay to be that way, but here? In a town like Hawkins, Indiana in 1985? Being gay in this town was probably a fate worse than death.
Yeah, it’s no wonder why the whole town bullied Will for supposedly being gay, this place is so fucked up.
After their conversation, Max and Dustin headed back down to the basement like nothing happened. Max settled back down next to Will with some of the Reese’s Pieces she’d found, and Dustin sat back down next to El while everyone was finishing the movie.
***
June 24th, 1985
After sitting with Mike for a couple more minutes, she turns to him and asks:
“Hey, do you think you’re ready to open the shop back up? No rush of course, but I just wanted to check.”
Mike looks at her for a second before giving her a small smile.
“Of course, who else would serve endless amounts of Superhero and Rocky Road ice cream to the begging citizens of Hawkins?” Mike quips back.
“Now that’s the Mike Wheeler I know.” She holds out her hand for him to grab onto, and pulls them both up from the sticky, ice-cream stained ground.
The two of them walk up to the front counter, opening up the counter gate, and turning on the “Open for Business!” sign.
A few minutes later, they hear the bell ring and they’re back in business, Max and Mike, the odd couple.
***
After a few hours of wiping down the front counter, stocking the freezers in the back with endless amounts of Superhero ice cream, and definitely not being productive, Mike and Max find themselves in the break room, eager to get away from the chaos of the past several hours.
Then they hear that stupid, annoying, and ear bleeding sound of the front counter bell once again, Max speeding off to the counter to see what teenagers or old people wanted ice cream, while Mike took a couple extra minutes to finish his turkey sandwich.
Who Max didn’t expect to see was Will, Dustin, and Lucas, all in tow with Auntie Anne’s pretzels from the food court.
Damn it, I knew I should’ve gotten one of those on break. Max thinks to herself as she eyes the three boys.
The first one of out the three boys to talk to her is Dustin, rattling off his ridiculous and disgusting ice cream order he gets every time he comes here.
“Hey Max! Can I get two scoops of Superhero, three scoops of Rocky Road, and one scoop of Strawberry, and some hot fudge too please? Oh, and why can’t you give me the discount that you and Mike get? Your ice cream is so expensive!”
“Ew, Dustin. Seriously? Your taste in ice cream is so gross! Also, I already told you, the discount is for employees only, which means that you can’t get one. About the prices, that’s on my boss, not me.”
After several minutes of chatting with the three boys, and no sign of Mike, Max shouts from the front of the store to the break room:
“Hey idiot, your nerd clan is here!”
“Actually, Max, we’re not a “clan,” we’re a “party,” in Dungeons and Dragons…” Dustin droned on to her at the counter while she was waiting for Mike so she could finally get off work, after all it was almost 8:00 PM, the end of her shift. Lucas had planned a date night for the two of them at the movie theater after she got off work, which is why she was growing increasingly impatient with Mike.
“Oh for god’s sake… WHEELER!!! Are you deaf or something? If I have to hear Dustin ramble on about your guys’ stupid nerd game while I’m working one more time, I think I’m going to quit.”
Mike groaned, he couldn’t tell if it was out of annoyance or because of the pain in his back from the tasks of the day, but as he passed by Max, he saw that she was missing a part of her uniform.
“Max, where the hell is your hat?” Mike questioned while handing Max a rag to wipe down the front counter with.
“It looks stupid and messes up my hair so I don’t wear it.”
Seeing as it was now 8:00, per the clock on the wall, she went into the back to change out of her uniform, smirking at Mike as she walked back.
The audacity of that girl never ceases to amaze me. It’s no wonder she hasn’t gotten fired yet.
“MAX!!! That’s against company policy! You’re going to get written up for that!”
With the door shut to the back room, Max could still hear Mike, and she shouted up to the front:
”You know what, screw company policy Mike! They can’t fire me over a stupid sailor hat!”
When she was leaving with Lucas, their boss suddenly appeared and gave her a write-up for “not wearing company attire while serving patrons.”
Mike watched the redhead roll her eyes as she took the write-up slip, as he was biting back a laugh.
Maybe working at Scoops Ahoy this summer with Max Mayfield of all people wouldn’t be too awful.