Chapter Text
Mike shoved his hands in his pockets, looking around the room. Robin's voice floated through the air, but he could barely hear her. He barely even wanted to be there. He had been fine in his basement, playing Metroid and scribbling down ideas for campaigns that the rest of the party might actually like. The last one they finished had been on graduation night, and they hadn't pulled their binders out since. Maybe the pain was too fresh. His ideas for the party's future too real.
The gnawing pang in Mike's chest started up again, and he grit his teeth just to will it to leave him be. It had started soon after the portal closed. It was a slight ache at first, then, over the next eighteen months, it had grown, starting up when he least expected it. It followed him in nightmares, in his mind trying to rewrite the past, and it showed up in his waking moments when he couldn't distract himself.
It was guilt. Unfiltered, raw, painful guilt. It clawed at his chest, unforgiving and heavy. Around his friends, it got worse. He was reminded of everything he did and everything he didn't. He was reminded of it all when he was with the party. He was reminded when Will called his house to check on him, trying to distract him with talk about college and how close they'd still be. He was reminded when he passed by the library, by the fields outside town, by the trailer park. It was everywhere. The guilt, the shame, the regret. The feeling that if he had done more, that it would have been enough.
Now, he was standing in the middle of the biggest reminder of all. The place where Vecna's defeat felt within the party's reach. The place where he had promised El their future, together, spinning the stupidest ending he could have thought of to the conclusion of their struggle. A place he hadn't been since their very last crawl: WSQK, the Squawk.
Max elbowed Mike's arm, hard, but it brought him back. "Are you listening?" she hissed. Robin was in the DJ booth, trying to yell through the glass, motioning at the equipment.
Mike rubbed the spot, frowning. "I already know all this stuff. I was president of the AV Club in middle school."
"Yeah, write that on your resume."
Mike shot Max a look, then walked to the entrance of the booth.
Robin turned to face him, chuckling awkwardly. "Sorry, you probably couldn't hear me, but this is all the stuff you need to broadcast!"
Max slid in the booth from behind Mike. She tapped the 8-track player with her knuckle. "So, how does it all work?"
Robin waved her hand back and forth. "I'll show you guys how to do that stuff later. First, I have to show you guys my very complex organizing system for the records. Plus, the transmitter system and all that technical jazz…" Robin paused, looking between Max and Mike. "I'm sure you know a lot about that stuff already, though, right?"
Mike raised his hand as Max motioned to him, saying, "I'm more into the music side of things."
"I mean, I know music, too." Mike said, feeling self-assured until both Robin and Max looked at him, their expressions doubtful.
Mike scoffed. "My taste is good."
Robin walked past him, patting him on the shoulder. "Yes it's…unique."
"It's very specific to you," Max agreed, following Robin. "But not exactly radio material."
Mike brushed off their patronization, leaving the booth behind. "Can't I just play what I like?"
Robin bobbed her head back and forth. "Yes, but you also have to know what the people like."
"What people?" Mike asked incredulously. He knew Robin just played what she liked. It wasn't his fault his tastes didn't align with the general public.
"It's like, making a mixtape for someone," Robin replied. "It has to be for them, not for you."
Mike paused, and Max looked at him. They stopped in front of the back door to the station.
"Have you ever made anyone a mixtape, Wheeler?" Max asked, looking smug.
Mike avoided eye contact with either of them. "No."
"Oh, Michael!" Robin said dramatically, grabbing her chest. "You have got to get on that!"
Mike suddenly felt self-conscious. "How?"
"Think about what that person would like," Robin said, emphasizing with her hands. "Imagine how they would feel listening to each song, to hearing the lyrics and the melody. It's all about them."
She pushed open the back door and led Max and Mike out toward signal tower. Mike was suddenly faced with another vividly terrible memory. It was the night they brought the Demogorgon back to life. The same night Will had used his powers for the first time. The same night he saved Max, but only for all of them to be in danger again. The night when nothing Mike had done or said seemed to matter, and he was left to sit with everything he could have and should have done, but didn't. The guilt and shame were crawling their way up his throat again. He was trying to listen to what Robin was saying, but it didn't help. He just stared at the signal tower, unable to pull his eyes away.
He heard Max say his name once, twice, and finally looked at her as she came rushing into his space.
"Are you okay?" she asked, her face betraying her concern. He looked at Robin, the same expression plastered on her face before she molded it into a tight smile.
Mike knew why Max had brought him here. He knew it was the same reason his mom watched him carefully every morning, why Lucas barged into his basement at random hours of the day to chat or try and drag him for a bike ride, why Will slipped Dustin a new movie from the Family Video to bring to Mike for them to watch. They cared, of course, but he knew they also worried that he wasn't himself, and that he would never be again.
The worst part was that were right. He had been far away for a long time. It was like everything he hadn't dealt with for the past five years had come crashing down on him their last year in high school. He had barely passed his classes. He had applied to one college that he almost didn't meet the requirements for. He had been a mess, feeling like a ghost in his own life. Going through the motions, living in video games and stories he made up. Coping as best he could, and it wasn't enough. The guilt only grew, and now, it seemed, it was obvious.
He didn't know what to do so that his friends didn't worry. He didn't know how to hide anymore. He floated around, touching things but leaving no impression, doing things but having no impact. He couldn't talk about the guilt. They had all lost El. What was the use in talking about it, in wallowing in front of others who felt the loss, but hadn't attached the responsibility to it? No, it was something he would struggle with alone, probably for the rest of time, because El was gone, and the most he had ever given her was platitudes.
Even Will, his best friend, felt unreachable. Will had been to hell and back, literally, and Mike had pushed him to the side, out of the way, time and time again. Watching him from afar, when he should have been at his side. Blowing up at him, when he should have been listening. The guilt didn't just attach itself to his memories of El, but to those of Will, too. He knew Will would do everything in his power to help him, but Mike couldn't let him do that. He wouldn't let him. Mike was fine staying in his guilt if it meant Will could be unburdened, happy. If the only person who needed Mike was himself, he couldn't hurt anyone. Not anymore.
Mike blinked twice, then nodded. "Yeah, I'm okay." He could handle this. He would have to.
Max nodded back, staring at him for a second too long, and they followed Robin to the shed.
It took almost the entire afternoon for Robin to explain the broadcast equipment to Mike and Max, as well as follow that up with a two-hour trial period to make sure they were both "up for the challenge of being a certified disc jockey". Mike went behind the soundboard confidently, and ended up nearly blowing out the speakers in the booth with the shrill whine of feedback three minutes into his trial run.
After a scolding from Robin and a taunting from Max, he was allowed behind the mic again, this time more successfully, getting the hang of transferring between music, sound effects, mic, and speaker.
Max took to it fairly easily, though nervous. She already had records lined up, albums from Blondie and Joan Jett lying next to the soundboard. Robin and Mike clapped silently as she gave her very first call sign announcement on-air, right at the top of the hour. Robin showed them how to record the call sign each hour on an official looking form, emphasizing its importance.
"And don't come crying to me if you guys forget and get a million dollar fine from the FCC," Robin said, arms crossed. "That almost happened when I left Steve in charge and I never let him alone in here again."
Both Max and Mike laughed, but Max dutifully recorded the hour and her name neatly onto the form.
Robin smiled, then caught Mike's eye, motioning toward the door with her head.
"You got this, Max?" she asked.
Max nodded, concentrating.
Robin jumped out of the door and Mike followed her to the lobby. She stopped and held her arms out toward the coffee table, showing off a spread of records. "Hear are some essential listenings. I know you have a cool taste, but a DJ has to have an expansive pallette, not just Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers."
"What's wrong with Sonic Youth?" Mike asked, offended.
Robin pulled a face, but said, "Nothing."
"How did you even know I listened to them?"
"It just seemed up your alley, but anyways," she grabbed the first record on the stack, "you have to embrace your inner yuppie in order truly know your taste. Trust me."
Now, it was Mike's turn to pull a face. "Seriously?"
She held the record out to him. "Don't knock it 'till you try it," she said, grinning.
He hesitated, then reluctantly took the album. Phil Collins stared at him from the cover.
"You know where the listening rooms are, so," she clapped twice, "hop to it, Mikey!" Then, she turned on her heel and headed back toward Max.
Mike watched her go. This was his summer. Spending more time at the radio station, the old mission base. The three of them hadn't even bothered looking into the old storage room on Robin's tour, the one that led down into the basement. Mike knew it hadn't been touched since the portal closed. The military had ordered it cleared, but the party hadn't bothered to help. Mike figured nothing in there was worth keeping. They had defeated the evil. Solved the problem. It was in the past.
They were in the "after". After the Upside Down, after Vecna, after the horrors they had lived through for five years. He had nothing to ease the pain, and after this summer, there would be nothing to fall back on. They would be in the real world, having to lead normal lives like normal people, moving on from the pain that they could no longer remedy, because they all had to move on.
It wouldn't be enough to listen to music all summer and keep ignoring his pain. It wouldn't be enough to take care of the station, to go back and forth between his house and the edge of town, to keep returning to the last site of the biggest struggle of their lives, and pretend to have fun. Nothing he could do this summer would be enough to forget the pain he felt, to ease the guilt that he knew would follow him for the rest of his life. Nothing would be enough, but he would have to do it anyway.
He would go through the motions, letting his friends distract him, floating through the heat of the present as he lived in the past. He would leave no trace, have no way of returning from his memories.
He thought about the mixtape. Mike knew Robin wasn't going to let up until he made one. To her credit, he did want to make at least one before tape was overtaken by the compact disc.
He stared at Phil, then at the spread of albums. He could do it, but it would be something physical, something to keep. Maybe the only thing to keep from this summer. A reminder of him for the person he made it for.
He could be selfish. He could act on what he wanted. He could refuse to keep his deepest, most profound desires enclosed in his chest, next to the guilt, next to the shame. He could put his feelings on a tape. It was faint, a shadow of a declaration, but it was permanent.
When Mike thought about a mixtape, about a direct line for someone to remember him by, he knew who that someone was. He could think about them for ages, forever. He could think about what they would like to hear, how they would feel listening to the tape he had made them. He could imagine knowing that every time they would listen to it, they would think of him.
Mike only thought of one person he could make the mixtape for. He thought of Will.