Chapter Text
Will was gone. He was actually gone. That was his deceased body in the lake. Will Byers was dead. Mike's best friend since kindergarten was dead.
How could Mike live without Will? He couldn't.
Eleven was supposed to help them find Will alive. She said he was alive. But he wasn't. He was dead and there was no denying it. That was definitely his body that the firemen had pulled out of the lake.
Mike didn't believe it at first. He thought there was no way that his best friend in the whole world was dead. It took a minute to sink in, and the disbelief quickly turned to anger towards El.
Dustin and Lucas tried to stop him, fighting back tears as Mike yelled at El for giving him false hope. He then stormed away. He grabbed his bike and left, going back to his house, trying not to cry.
That was Will's body back there, alright. The same as when he had left Mike's house four days ago. The only difference was that his skin was as pale as death - because he was dead. His light brown bowl-cut was all messed up from the lake water. He was still wearing his yellow and blue plaid shirt, the light wash jeans, the red and yellow sleeveless puffer jacket that he always wore when it started to get cold out, the same blue and white sneakers. Hell, he even still had his backpack, and his watch. The watch that matched with Mike's own. A watch that they had both promised never to take off - like girls do with friendship bracelets.
It was definitely Will, there was no denying it.
Mike didn't immediately go home. As much as he wanted to curl up in his bed and cry himself to sleep, he made a stop on the way. He went back to Will's house. The same place the group had been at before following the sound of sirens to the quarry. The place that El had led them to, saying that Will was "hiding" there. No, he was missing from there. Actually, turns out he was dead!
He dropped his bike by the front porch and ran to the woods. He was definitely crying now. In the woods, there was a small fort that Will had built with his brother, Jonathan, years ago. Castle Byers they had called it. They had many memories there, but Mike still felt that it was a safer place to go rather than home; he didn't like his parents or sisters to see him cry.
Mike moved the old curtain that served as a door to the fort made of sticks. He walked inside and sat on the old mattress. (It was really the only place to sit.) He looked around at all of Will's amazing drawings that were hung all over the walls. He didn't want to think about how he would never be getting a new drawing from Will ever again.
Next to him, on the mattress, was a navy blue sweater that Will must have left the last time he was there. Mike chuckled through the tears; the sweater was definitely his, but Will had borrowed it at forgotten to return it. He didn't mind. He picked up the sweater and tugged it over his head. It may have been his sweater, but it smelled like Will. Like vanilla, and maple syrup. No, it's not weird that he knew what Will smelled like. Totally.
He allowed himself to cry into the sweater, pulling the sleeves over his hands. He couldn't stay there for long, though. His mother would get worried if he wasn't home soon. So, he collected himself, hoping it didn't seem like he had been crying, and he trenched back through the woods, to his bike.
Mike biked home, fighting the tears in his eyes so that he could see the road. If he let himself cry, the road would blur, and he could crash. He could die. Well, actually, would that be so bad? No, he couldn't think like that. He shouldn't think like that.
As soon as he got home, he dropped his bike in the grass and burst in the door. He wanted to quickly check to see if El had gotten back safely, then run up to his room to cry. Hopefully, without running into any family members.
That plan failed. As soon as he walked in the door, his mother seemed to notice something was wrong. She got up from the couch and walked over to him.
"Michael, what's wrong?" She asked, putting her hands on his shoulders to ground him.
Mike couldn't bring himself to say that Will was gone. Instead, he did something that he hadn't done since third grade.
He hugged his mom.
He wrapped his arms around her and let himself cry. His mom must have been surprised, because it took her a second to hug him back and pat his back to comfort him. She didn't know what was wrong, but she obviously didn't need to in order to make sure Mike felt okay.
After a moment, he finally let himself speak through the tears. "I- I can't. He- he... He's gone. For-forever." He sobbed.
"Who?" His mom asked, confused and concerned, "Who's gone?"
Mike took a deep breath and tried to answer clearly - although he failed. "Will." He cried.
His mom didn't answer for a long moment, but still kept hugging him. "Oh. Oh, sweetie." She said, empathetically, though he wasn't sure if she completed understood.
"He's... He's dead." Mike sobbed into his mother's shoulder. "I don't... I don't know wh-what...what to do."
His mother finally let go of the hug. She put her hands on Mike's shoulders and looked him in the eye, trying to be on his level. Mike looked up at her, though she looked blurry because of the tears cascading from his eyes. "I know this is hard, Michael. Would you like me to leave you alone or do you want me to do something else?"
"I was just... I was just going to go up to my room." He told her, finally able to speak clearly, "I think I'd like to be left alone."
"Okay." She agreed, and sat back down on the couch next to Mike's dad.
Before heading up to his room, Mike wiped the tears from his eyes and walked down to the basement to see if El had made her way back safely. Sure, he was mad at her and yelled, but that didn't mean he didn't care about her.
He stepped off the bottom step and walked towards a table in the corner that Eleven had been sleeping under. There was a sheet covering it, so Mike had to move it out of the way. He looked, but...
She wasn't there.
He turned around, thinking she might have been sitting on the couch, and he just missed her because he expected her to be under that table.
She wasn't on the couch.
She wasn't in the bathroom.
She wasn't sitting at the table where the party played D&D.
She wasn't anywhere.
She hadn't come back, and who would blame her? Mike had barley known El for three days, and he snapped at her when she gave him false hope that Will was alive. She probably didn't feel like she was welcome there anymore. Maybe she had gone home with Lucas or Dustin. Mike had left too soon to know, and he certainly hadn't cared where she went when he left.
But now, he was grieving his best friend, and didn't know if his new friend was safe. God, Mike hated emotions.
He pulled the sleeves of his sweater over his hands again, and ran upstairs to his room. He shut the door, and kicked off his shoes. He laid on his bed, crying into his pillow and taking in the scent of Will that was still left on his sweater.
He cried and cried and cried. He covered himself with the blanket, and cried himself to sleep.
Mike awoke the next day to his mother knocking on his door and barging in. He didn't want to get up. He didn't want to go to school. He wasn't okay.
His mom walked over to his bed, "Hey, sweetie, I know you probably aren't up for going to school today, so I won't make you. I just came in to check on you and tell you that I'm leaving to take Nancy to school and run some errands with Holly. Okay?"
Mike nodded, acknowledging her, but not wanting to speak.
"If you need anything, call dad at work." She told him, placing a kiss on his forehead and walking out of the room.
Mike would have slept in a lot longer, but Will's scent on his sweater almost made him cry. He got up to take it off, and looked around the room. His entire room - his entire life - was covered in memories of Will. Every picture he looked at, every drawing he admired, it was enough to make him cry. He wanted to scream. He took the sweater off and carefully put it in his closet instead of the laundry basket. If the sweater was washed, it would lose Will's smell, - and call him weird, but he didn't want to lose that if it meant that he would always have a small part of Will.
He stepped away from his closet, and noticed his walkie-talkie sitting on his nightstand. He figured that Dustin and Lucas had stayed home, too, so he called them.
Mike pressed the PTT button on the side of the walkie, "Dustin? Lucas? You there?" He asked, hoping it didn't sound like he had been crying all night. A minute passed with no response, so he tried again, "Lucas? Dustin? Hello?"
This time, there was a response from Lucas, "Mike, go away, some of us are grieving."
Mike pressed the PTT button again to respond, "Yeah, like I'm not." He was sure the eye-roll was audible. "I can't even look at Will's drawings without crying. I can't look at his pictures. I can't even wear my sweater that still smells like him."
Dustin responded this time, "Jesus, Mike, you sound like a goddamn widow."
"I-" Well, shit. Mike thought, that's kind of true. He was acting like a widow. Holy shit. HOLY SHIT. He was totally in love with Will. Goddamn it, why did he have to realize this after Will was dead. "Why the hell are you right?"
"Well, actually, in order to be widowed, you would have to be married." Dustin corrected, "And I'm pretty sure that you're not."
"I- well..." Mike trailed off, thinking about a memory from second grade.
Thankfully, Lucas finished for him, laughing a little, "In second grade Mike and Will had a pretend wedding. They even proposed to each other and everything." Even Mike laughed a little at that.
"Seriously?!" Dustin asked, laughing, "Why did no one ever tell me?!"
"Can we talk about something else?" Mike asked, "My husband is dead." He half-joked, laughing through the pain.
"No, no, no." Dustin said, "I need to hear more about this wedding."
"Mike proposed with his sandwich." Lucas told him. Dustin probably fell off his bed laughing. "He said, and I quote, 'Will, you're my best friend in the whole world. Please marry me.'"
"LUCAS!" Mike shouted, embarrassed. "Shut up!!!" Guess this was just their way of grieving.
"Okay, okay, okay. We can talk about something else."
"Yeah, like, how's El?" Dustin asked.
"She's not here." Mike told him, sadly. "I thought she went home with one of you."
"Wait, so Eleven is missing?"
Yeah, Eleven was- "Shit. Shit. Shit." Mike panicked, "Okay, um... Meet me at Mirkwood in an hour, and we'll look for her."
"No, I'm not going with you to look for that freak that gave us false hope that Will was okay." Lucas responded, "You guys can go, but I'm not."
"I'll help you look." Dustin assured him, "I'll be there in an hour."
Mike set the walkie back down on his bedside table, thinking about what Lucas had just said. He made a good point about El. She had given them false hope. But, at the end of the day, she was human and humans make mistakes. She might not have known that Will was dead.
He moved back over to his closet to look for some clothes to wear that weren't yesterday's - which he had slept in. He ended up picking some dark jeans and a band T-shirt that he assumed was Will's. He knew it was fairly chilly out, so he grabbed the first jacket he found, which was a green one with blue accents.
He changed quickly, then went downstairs and toasted some eggos for breakfast. He ate them quickly before grabbing his backpack and running outside to get his bike.
Mike arrived at Mirkwood a few minutes before he had planned to meet Dustin there. For once in his life, he was early. He waited there until he saw Dustin biking down the road towards him, waving. Mike waved back.
He was entirely ready to start searching for El as soon as Dustin got there, but instead, when Dustin got close to Mike, he hopped off his bike. Mike followed suit.
"Look, I know you need a hug, but aren't going to ask for it, so..." Dustin hugged him, then whispered, "And I kinda need a hug too."
Mike let Dustin hug him, and he wanted to cry again. They had a good laugh earlier when they were talking about second grade, but they were still grieving. The hug was very comforting, but not quite like Will's hugs. He'd never get to hug Will again. He should have hugged him more when he had the chance. As much as he enjoyed the hug, it wouldn't help them find El, and it wouldn't bring Will back.
Mike stepped away from the hug and quickly wiped away the few tears that had escaped from his eyes, "Thank you." He whispered, not wanting to speak at a higher volume, incase his voice would break. He didn't want Dustin to know he almost cried.
They hopped on their bikes, starting the search for El.
As they rode, they discussed the places that she could have possibly wandered off to. They figured that she wouldn't want to be around a lot of people, and she most definitely didn't want to be found. She couldn't have gone far in one night though, so she was probably still in town.
They stopped at a stop sign, and noticed a small store to their right. There were people gathered outside - but not like they were meeting up. It seemed something bad had happened. A few people moved out of the way, and Mike saw why they were gathered there; the glass door was shattered.
Dustin spoke, "You don't think...?" He didn't finish the question, but Mike understood what he meant.
"Definitely." He responded to the unfinished question. Eleven. She must have been there, and something upset her, so she shattered the doors with her powers.
If it really was Eleven, then she must have run away, because she wasn't at the store. They continued down the road, searching for her. Stopping by the woods, they got off their bikes. It was likely that El had run off into the woods.
"Eleven?" Dustin called out as they trekked through the woods, their bikes in tow. "Eleven!"
"Eleven?" Mike shouted, "El! ELEVEN?"
No response, - at least not from El.
Troy and James, the biggest bullies at school, the boys that had been torturing Mike his whole life, stepped out from behind a tree. He registered way too late that Troy was holding a pocket knife.
"You're dead, Wheeler!" Troy shouted.
Troy was very mad at Mike because of something that had happened two days earlier. Mike, Dustin, and Lucas had brought El to school with them for an assembly about Will's disappearance. They had dressed her up in some of Nancy's old clothes, make-up, and a wig to hide her real identity from the bad men. During the whole assembly, Mike could hear Troy and James snickering, very obviously not caring. It upset Mike because it was a messed up and disrespectful thing to do. So, after the assembly, when all the students were leaving the gym, he called after Troy. Troy turned around, looking annoyed when he saw Mike.
"You think this is funny?" Mike had asked.
"What did you say, Wheeler?" Troy had responded.
Mike confronted him, "I saw you guys laughing back there. And I think that's a real messed up thing to do."
"It doesn't matter. Will's probably dead, and he's in fairyland now, right?"
That had been the last straw. Mike pushed Troy to the floor. Mike stepped away, not wanting to be within punching distance when Troy got up.
Troy got up and started walking towards him, anger plastered on his face. Mike was sure he was done for, but suddenly Troy stopped. Though, it didn't seem like he wanted to stop. It was more like he was being forced to. Mike looked behind him and saw El's nose bleeding. She had used her powers on Troy. He looked back at the bully and saw that there was a wet trail down his leg. Gross.
"Troy peed himself!" Some random kid had shouted. Everybody laughed at Troy, and he looked completely embarrassed and upset. Good, he deserved to be laughed at and humiliated.
Back in the present, Dustin shouted, "Shit! MIKE, RUN!"
Mike ran through the woods, following Dustin. They had dropped their bikes so that they could run faster. Troy and James were chasing after them.
Mike and Dustin ran through the woods, all the way to the cliffs above the quarry. Dustin complained about a cramp in his side and slowed down, but Mike told him to keep running. They thought they had finally lost the bullies, but then they saw James approaching them from the woods on the other side of the cliff. They turned to look behind them, and sure enough, Troy was running towards them with his pocket knife.
There was nothing they could do. Nowhere they could run. Mike turned around again so his back was facing Dustin's. He picked up a rock while Dustin grabbed a stick. Mike held up the rock, holding it up in a threatening manner.
"Stay back!" Mike ordered, trying to hide the fact that he was completely freaking out. Why did Troy have a knife? "Don't come any closer!"
Of course, James didn't listen. He stepped closer to Mike, and was only a few feet away. Mike threw the rock, missing horribly.
"Nice throw, frogface." James chuckled. Mike winced at the name-calling.
Mike didn't know what was happening behind him, but he heard Dustin scream and immediately turned around. Troy had Dustin in a headlock, bringing the pocket knife close to his face.
"Get off me!" Dustin begged.
"Let him go!" Mike shouted. He couldn't lose another one of his best friends. "Let him go!"
"Stay back or I cut him." Troy threatened. Dustin was squirming, trying to get out of the headlock, but failing.
"What do you want?" Mike asked. Troy had to be doing this for a reason, but Mike would have thought that Troy would want to cut Mike, since he thought that Mike made him pee his pants the other day.
"I want to know how you did it." Troy said through gritted teeth, clearly still angry - and embarrassed. "I know you did something to me. Some nerdy science shit to make me do that."
"You mean piss your pants?" Mike asked, crossing his arms, proud for honestly no reason. "Because I'm pretty sure you were just scared. Like a goddamn five-year-old. So, why don't you go run home to your mommy and daddy and cry to them about how you embarrassed yourself in front of the whole school."
Dustin, on the other hand, actually answered the question, "Our friend... has... superpowers." He struggled to speak since he was stuck in the headlock. "And she... she squeezed your tiny blatter with her... mind."
"Shut up, both of you!" Troy snapped. He seemed to think for a moment, "I think I should save Toothless here a trip to the dentist." The bullies nicknamed Dustin 'Toothless' because he didn't have any teeth. He had a condition called cleidocranial dysplasia, a genetic condition that affects particularly the skull and collar bones. This meant that Dustin didn't have any collar bones, and his teeth were still coming in - even though he was twelve-years-old.
"Let him go." Mike demanded. "Let him go!"
"Sure, I'll let him go." Troy paused, "But first... it's your turn." What?
"My turn for what?" Mike asked. Was Troy going to put him in a headlock too? Was Troy going to cut him? What did Troy want?
"Wet yourself." Troy said, as if that explained anything.
"What?" Mike was still confused. Did Troy want him to pee his pants right then and there? Because that sure as hell was not happening.
"Jump." Troy said simply, nodding towards a ledge that hung over the quarry. "Jump or Toothless gets an early trip to the dentist."
"Stop!" Dustin begged, "Mike, no! Don't do it!"
"I'll cut him right now." Troy threatened, bringing the knife even closer to Dustin. Dustin whimpered in fear.
Mike accepted his fate. "Fine. I'll do it. Just, hold on." He walked to the ledge, looking down at the water below him.
"Mike, no! Don't! Do it!" Dustin begged, "Don't do it, please don't do it. I don't need my baby teeth!" Mike couldn't see his face, but it sounded like Dustin was crying. "Mike. Mike, seriously, don't!"
Troy started a countdown, "Dentist's office opens in five..."
Mike stood on the edge of the cliff. If he jumped, the water below would feel like landing on cement. He would die.
"Four...
He was going to jump. He had a chance to save Dustin, something he couldn't do for Will. Will was dead, so what purpose did Mike serve in life? What did he have to live for? Every day, all he longed for was Will. Weather they were hanging out with the rest of the party, or it was just them; Mike loved being with Will. Will was the best part of his day. Every day.
"Three..."
But now, Will was gone. Dead. The grief overtook him, and tears formed in his eyes. Mike would be dead, too, if he jumped. But, he wasn't jumping without purpose - he was saving Dustin. And honestly, dying didn't seem like the worst idea anymore.
Mike jumped.
He hit the water, it really did feel like landing cement. He didn't feel it for long though. Everything went dark.
Mike took his own life.
He escaped the endless pain of grief.