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Chapter 1
Mike gets up from the chair at Max’s side and stretches. “You wanna play the tape? I’m grabbing a Coke or something caffeinated, because it’s going to be a long night. You want one?”
“No, I’m good. Thanks," Lucas replies without looking up; he seems detached.
Max has been in a coma for a year and a half, but Lucas still spends every free second he has with her. Honestly, Mike’s starting to give up hope that she’ll ever wake up, but that doesn’t mean that he’ll crush Lucas’s fantasies too; he goes to visit her about once a week, but not all of the party members do anymore. For some of them, they’ve just lost any remaining dream of reuniting with Max, and for others, it’s just too painful.
As Mike heads back from the vending machine, he spots the back of Robin’s head through the mass of people. Apparently, doomsday equals a shit ton of injured people.
“Hey! Robin! Rockin’ Robin!” He calls down the hallway, but she obviously can’t hear him. It takes a while to push through the flow of people, but once he does, he peers into the doorway. Robin stands next to the empty bed, her hands around the waist of a girl with red hair, who’s clearly a nurse. Mike tries to take a step back, but it’s like his feet are glued down. As Mike stares, the red-headed girl starts giggling, and Robin leans closer and kisses her. On the lips. Holy fucking shit. It reminds him of all he’s had to push down over the years, the pining for his best friend that barely even talks to him anymore, all the disgust at himself after some mouth breather made some stupid comment, all the times he’s been called a queer. He feels the soda slip slowly from his loose grip. He looks down dumbly just in time to see it smack against the monotonous white floor with a thud and starts fizzing. Robin whips her head around and locks eyes with Mike through the open crack of the door. Mike panics, trying to shove himself into the tide of people and failing miserably. He flattens himself against the wall instead, like it’d make any difference. “Who was that?” He hears the red-haired girl ask urgently. “Shit!” Robin whisper-yells; her voice is full of dread. His breath catches, and suddenly his lungs won’t expand. She can’t see you. She’ll know what you are. She’ll tell everyone.
He whips his head around as he feels a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and he forces air into his lungs. It’s just Robin. You know her. She won’t tell anyone. Why would she? She’s the same as you.
“Hey, are you okay?” Her eyes are filled with worry, and Mike realizes that it’s not all for him. She thinks that you’ll tell everyone. She thinks you’re like your dad.
“Yeah. I’m fine,” She thinks you’re like your dad. “You need to breathe, Robin, I’m not an asshole.”
“Oh, thank God. Thanks for the reminder.” Robin literally lets out a long breath, maybe a bit exaggeratedly for comical purpose, but mostly real.
Mike bumps her on the shoulder playfully. “So why didn’t you tell me you had a girlfriend?”
Robin rolls her eyes. “Why should I have singled you out?” She gives him a long, meaningful look. Oh.
“I, uh…” Mike knows exactly what to say, but he chokes on the words. They block his throat, and he knows it’s stupid, but he can’t help it.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. I mean, I wasn’t planning to tell you about Vickie anytime soon.” Cracking jokes has always been Robin’s way of bringing tensions down and trying to hide her own anxiety, but it doesn’t work this time. Mike sees her leg bouncing from the corner of his vision, and rests his hand on her shoulder.
“Really, Robin, it’s okay. I swear I won’t tell anyone.”
“Promise?” Robin jokingly holds out her pinky, but Mike still takes it.
“Now go back to your girlfriend. She’s probably freaking the fuck out.” Robin salutes at him and runs back into the room. Mike walks away, just out of reach of the Coke puddle, and slumps to the ground. How obvious has he been?
They all sit at the Squawk, waiting for Dustin to finally show. Mike’s grateful for the distraction, though, because it leaves no time for his own thoughts to catch up to him. He hasn’t even sorted through his own thoughts yet; let alone how to talk to Will. El taps him on the shoulder, pulling him out of his thoughts. El is the last person he wants to talk to right now, because the entire problem is her brother, but it’s not her fault. It’s Mike’s.
“Do you think Dustin is okay?” She asks him nervously.
“I hope so. He was acting weird today.”
“Weird how?”
Mike sighs. “Just angry, scared, reckless. Not himself.” He’s always been one to pick fights, but not this much. Maybe one of those jerkwads jumped him.
“Hopper’s the same. Not himself.”
“Maybe it’s just getting to us, you know? Being… Being stuck in here, not knowing where Vecna is, no end in sight. I mean, we’re really starting to lose it.” Stop lying to her. She's not a kid. “ I mean, we really need to catch a break. And maybe we will. Because earlier, Will had a feeling.”
They were at the benches in the woods, and it wasn’t just a feeling. Mike, Will, Lucas and Dustin were walking back to their bikes when Will’s head snapped up. His eyes went blank. And Mike faintly heard a small snap! from Will’s neck. ‘Will?’ Mike was quick to react, and was glad that he did, because Will slumped back into his arms. ‘What the hell was that?’ Will looked puzzled. ‘The sky, it was spinning…’ he trailed off. Mike exchanged some looks with Lucas and Dustin before realizing that he was still half-holding Will for way too long. He pulled him up, and Will charged ahead to his bike. It wasn’t just a feeling. It was a vision. And Will was refused to come to terms with it. That everything was getting bad again.
“If Will had a feeling…” Eleven trails off, leaving the rest of her sentence to Mike.
“Then it means something. So… So, maybe tonight’s our big break. Maybe even our last crawl. We find Vecna, we end this once and for all.”
“And then what?”
“You mean, after we totally pureVecna?” This earns a chuckle from El. “In my campaigns, if the party wins, then they all live happily ever after.”
“Happily how?”
“Well, usually what happens is the party doesn’t return to their local village, because too much has happened. They’ve seen too much. So they travel to a faraway land, a… a peaceful land, somewhere beautiful, with like three waterfalls or something, and they all start again, together.” “Do you think that could be real for us?” El has a hopeful look in her eyes. “Yeah, of course. I mean, maybe not the three waterfalls part. But the other stuff, yeah, of course. If Vecna’s gone, then what’s stopping us?” Of course, what El doesn’t know is that Mike wants a happy ending with her brother, but that’s an issue for after they kill Veccna. Maybe. “Hey, lovebirds!” Lucas calls; Mike silently curses him for the reminder. “Chief’s almost ready. Let’s do this.”
It was just like always, at first. Nothing out of the ordinary. Mike and Lucas sat watching the military base from the church tower, waiting for the soldiers to disperse.
All normal things, until the line of cars came to a sudden halt. “They know he’s there,” El nearly whispers through the radio. “We don’t know that,” Nancy responds. “Hopper? Hopper, ARE YOU THERE?” Lucas calls it again and again, and only silence follows until it’s swapped with gunfire and yelling. “There’s too many of them,” someone mumbles. They’re right.
Silence follows, and then a monstrous roar. A demogorgon.
“Call my house and tell everyone to get the hell out,” is the last thing Nancy says on the radio.
☆ ☆ ☆
Holly is missing, probably dead. His mom and dad are in critical condition. And Mike is still stuck on some stupid fantasy with him and his straight best friend riding off into the sunset, thanks to Robin. People try to talk to him, but he ignores them. He lives in a trance for days.
Mike wanders around The Squawk, looking for some way to be useful and not just a waste of space. Nancy already yelled at him twice for going near the bombs, and Miss Wheeler shooed him away when he tried to help, saying something about taking some time to think things over. There’s nothing to think about. This is the final battle, everything all this has been leading up to. Most of them will probably die, but that’s better than millions of innocent people. Mostly. Maybe not Will.
Mike shakes himself out of another rabbit hole of feelings and thoughts about Will (seriously, when did I get so obsessed?) and went to grab Will from the couch area, where Dustin came up with his “master plan” to kill Vecna and sever the worlds in one fall swoop. Mike hears murmured voices, and so he stops for a second just outside the doorway, like the snoopy bitch he is. Will is sitting hunched over, head in hands, across from Miss Byers and Johnathan. His face is tear stained, and he struggles to speak.
“... I've wanted to, but it’s just really hard to say, and the truth is, uh…”
“Will, I don't want you to feel forced to tell us. Whatever it is, you can tell us later.” Joyce's tone is calm and soothing, and Mike has no issue imagining her matching face.
“No. Because later isn't guaranteed anymore for any of us, and I need you guys to know. The truth is, I don't like girls.”
There's a break where no one speaks. It’s clear that everyone is stunned, especially Mike. His mind faces. What?
Will stumbles over his words to fill the silence. “Not like people like Jon do. And, I’ve had this crush on someone for a long time, but now that I really think about it, I know that they- uh, he’s- just my Tammy. Because it was never about him. It was about me.” And now, Will is rambling, and everyone hears the fear in his voice. Maybe in another time, this wouldn't be such a big deal, but it's no guarantee that Joyce and Johnathan will even still want to be near Will anymore, and he understands that.“And today, Vecna showed me what would happen if I told everyone, and how you all would be disgusted by me and leave me, and I can’t tell anyone else yet, but I needed you two to know. And it just felt so real.” Sobs rack Will's body and spread into his voice. “And I wouldn’t be able to live without you two in my life, and I need you to know that before you try to leave.”
“Oh, Will.” Joyce’s voice floats through the air, and Mike knows that she’s hugging him. “We’ll never leave you.”
Mike wipes his face; tears have been falling for a while now. He’s heard enough to figure out who Will’s mystery crush is. His “Tammy”. And so Mike runs.
Who the fuck even is Tammy? And why did Will call him that?
He's running out of the building when Hopper catches him by the shoulders.
“Hey, you okay, kid?” Mile realizes that he must look terrible. He feels his cheek, and it's all wet. He looks down.
“I'm fine.”
“You sure as hell don't look fine. What’s wrong?”
No no no no no you can't tell anyone.
“I don't want to talk about it.” Mike is still looking at the ground, tears slowly dripping to the ground.
Weak weak weak weak weak.
“... Okay. Go get some water.” Hop gently pushes Mike back into the door he just came out of. Mike goes in, having nowhere else to go. He goes to the bathroom and dries off his face with paper towels, then goes to the kitchenette after he looks decent to get some water. On the way there, he sees Will, still sitting in the same spot, all alone this time, starting blankly into space.
Mike walks right past.
Not even a “hi, Will” or anything. Just looking straight ahead, because he can't deal with his own feelings.
What a bitch I am.
Mike helps prep with the others with shaking hands. El notices, and puts her hand on top of his. “It's okay, Mike. We've prepared as much as possible, and we can bear him. I know it.”
“Thanks, El.” He intertwines their fingers.
Liar liar liar liar liar.
This is the time to be brave, if there ever will be. Mike doesn't want to die pretending.
“Hey, El? I actually wanted to talk to you about something.” There's no one around to hear. Just El. Your girlfriend.
“What is it?” She glances up at him, still halfway distracted with a box of grenades.
Mike lets go of her hand, and pulls her hand away from the box. El notices the sudden change, and turns all of her attention to him. “Mike, what's wrong?”
“I, uh…” He takes a deep breath. “I’m not normal. I, I'm not straight. I…” Mike trails off, hoping she'll understand. Praying that she won't yell. Although she has every right to.
And now Mike is struggling to get air into his lungs, just like Robin did. But this might not end so well.
“Oh my God.” Shit. She's mad. Of course she is. “I should've seen it! I swear I did, and I just didn't realize!”
“El, I can explain-”
“Mike, you like Will?” Wait, what?
“That's not what I said?”
“You don't need to. Do I have good news for you!”
She knows about Will?
“You're not mad?”
“I mean, just that you waited this long to tell me. I could've had you two together by now!”
“EL!”
She looks genuinely happy. It doesn't make sense.
“But we were dating for years! I led you on!”
El starts laughing. What the hell? “Mike, I always kind of knew. You're kind of obvious.”
Mike starts laughing too, just from how relieved he is.
“Am I the first person you told?”
“Um, yeah.” Mile runs his hand along the back of his neck, a habit he picked up from Will.
“Oh my gosh! I'm so proud of you!” She shakes Mike's shoulders and squeals.
“All right, you're done.” Mike pushes her away, but it does feel nice to not carry it all by himself.
El sticks by Mike's side for as long as possible after that, sitting by him in the van and resting her head on his shoulder. They must look all coupley, but it doesn't really matter in the end. Not when an evil planet could consume them whole, if they don't do something about it. Mike glances nervously at Will, who was very obviously staring at him but looks away. Probably thinking about how Mike is just his "Tammy".
Murray climbs out of the van and yells for El and Hopper to follow him.
"Hey, wait a second," Mike catches Eleven's hand before she can follow. "Remember that this is what you've been training for. You can do this. And then once it's over, we can go live somewhere else, all of us, somewhere nice with three waterfalls. Okay?" El just nods her head. She can't seem to meet his eyes. She turns around without saying a word, and runs to catch up with Hopper and Murray.
Something about the moment seems wrong.
-----
When Johnathan yells for everyone to break up into partners, Mike runs over to Will. "Hey." Will nods back. He seems distant. They wait for the others to start climbing before them.
The tower is enormous, and Mike struggles to hoist himself onto the first platform. Johnathan told them to rest as much as possible, so they lean over the railing and share a water bottle.
"Hey, Will?" Holy shit I'm actually going to do it.
"Yeah?" He tries to look absent minded and unconcerned unsuccessfully.
"I heard some of what you said to your mom and John, and-"
"What?" He looks terrified. Mike rests his hand on Will's arm. Will tries to shrug it off unsuccessfully.
"What did you mean, when you said that I'm your 'Tammy'?"
Will freezes. "She's this girl, that, uh, Robin used to like. But she isn't like Robin, and you're not like me. So I just want both of us to forget it, because I can't lose you. You're my best friend."
"Will-" He starts to climb the ladder jerkily, ignoring Mike's calls. "Will!" Mike grabs Will's wrist and pulls him back down. He doesn't look up.
"I don't want to forget it. I'm your Mike, not your Tammy."
And he pulls Will back and kisses him softly, somehow thankful for the end of the world.