Chapter Text
Mike leant into the windowsill, old paint flaking onto the sleeves of his polo as he puffed out a sigh. The morning was, as usual, boisterous. Having two families in the same house sucked on days like these.
His head was throbbing. Nausea simmered low in his throat, drawn upward by the sweet scent of frying pancakes, and he took a hiccuped breath to keep it down. When he told Mom, she checked him for a fever.
He ran cold.
So, school it was.
He tried to shut the ruckus out—would have liked to plug his ears—as he turned to watch the outside life.
Foraging in the grass was a small, russet-brown sparrow. Its beak sifted through the leaf-litter with delicate precision as it hopped about. Each step was soft, each peck just as gentle as the bird basked in the pale morning sun.
Mike liked birds; he often found himself smitten as he watched them go about their lives. They were calm, pure creatures. They never had many troubles. It almost felt stupid to like them at all—they, in somany ways, were unlike him.
He was brash and outspoken. He was quick-witted, and he always put up a fight.
He wasn't a bird, because a bird could fly free.
Mike pulled away from the window with a sharp inhale.
Grating sound echoed from the kitchen—utensils clattering … stove burners clicking …
He slipped through the doorway.
Without a word, he squeezed past his mother and began to wash out the dirtied bowls from her preparations. He could imagine how hard it must be to cook for so many people, especially without help.
The soap fizzled, hot water biting at his skin as he scrubbed. Harder. He rinsed the bowl spotless and set it in the dish drainer before dipping away into the dining room.
Mike took a seat at the table, where Dad and Holly were already ready for breakfast. Dad had his nose in the morning paper, Holly's in a book. He thought maybe he should have something to read, too.
Or maybe, just maybe, they could actually talk to each other.
Mike shifted in his seat with a repressed sigh. Dad flipped a page. Holly made a face at something she was reading. He didn't dare break the silence until the Byers siblings came through the door.
"Morning," he greeted with a smile, swallowing his sickness.
Plopping down in the seat next to his, Will sniffed as Jonathan took a chair a few seats down. "You're actually up early."
"I actually am." Mike grinned as a fleck of paint caught his eye. He brushed his sleeves off quickly.
"Real shocker, son," Dad said flatly, though his eyes remained strictly on the paper.
Mike rolled his eyes, wanting to retort, but only bit his tongue. Instead, he looked at Holly. "What are you reading?"
She glanced up before turning it to show the cover: A Wrinkle In Timeby Madeleine L'Engle.
He'd never read it, and he didn't have much to say, so he only nodded before turning away to put his head down.
"Elbows off the table," Dad echoed, still not looking at him.
Mike blinked before straightening out.
Soon enough, the table was lined with enough food for two families. They all crowded around. Every seat was full, every voice overlapping.
Mike wasn't very hungry, but he ate a little only to satisfy Nancy's prying eyes.
He poured himself a cup of dark-as-his-hair coffee. It was bitter, but it was what he needed. He didn't mind the taste after the first few sips anyway.
"You're too young to drink that," his older sister commented predictably.
He stuck his tongue out at her.
"Didn't you start drinking coffee at, like, twelve?"
"Nine, actually."
"Hypocrite!" he exclaimed with a pointed drink.
After breakfast, Mike got ready to go. He grabbed his bag and slipped his shoes on, before heading out to his bike with Holly and Will trailing behind.
"Hurry! We're gonna miss it," Holly whined as she mounted her bike.
"We're not gonna miss it," Mike insisted as he swung his leg over his own. Quickly, he fumbled with his radio before placing it in the little basket up front just as Robin began her presentation. "See?"
Huffing, Holly shut up.
The ride to school went generally smooth. Mike listened without much attention as Robin went on her spiel about springtime snowflakes and military zones—the same stuff she always talked about, because there wasn't anything else in Hawkins to talk about. Ever since the earthquake last spring, the town had been in strict quarantine.
His tire crunched over a thick coat of leaves, sending a crow fluttering up into a tree.
Mike wondered if birds ever felt as trapped.
The school day dragged. Mike rested his head against his English textbook as the teacher droned on, pacing to-and-fro in her characteristically clacking heels.
"Iambic Pentameter," she explained. "Consists of five stressed and unstressed syllables. Shakespeare, and other renowned play writes, often used it to convey a sense of rhythm. While we're reading today, I want you to keep your eyes out for this structure, and see if you can identify it later."
Scrawling it on the board in pink chalk for them to remember, she continued. "Now, turn to page 302 in your textbooks, and, yes, we are reading aloud, and it is a part of your grade."
Mike complied.
"The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare," she announced, before assigning roles to certain kids.
Luckily, he wasn't picked. He hated reading aloud.
He sat and resisted the urge to fall asleep as they read.
"Be gone!" the kid reading for Marullus said without much emotion. He stuttered over his words and Mike wanted to crawl out of his skin. Couldn't people read? "Run to your houses, fall to your knees, pray to the gods to intermit the plague that needs must light on this ingratitude."
On any normal day, Mike would have been loving this. He loved literature. English was his best subject. His passion. He loved to read and he loved to write.
Today, however, he couldn't have paid enough attention if he tried.
He only sat, half-lidded, as they continued, puffing his cheeks out as he tapped at the hard wood of his desk with flimsy, chewed-on nails.
"It is no matter. Let no images be hung with Caesar's trophies. I'll about and drive the vulgar from the streets; so do you too, where you perceive them thick. These growing feathers plucked from Caesar's wing will make him fly an ordinary pitch, who else would soar above the view of men, and keep us all in servile fearfulness."
Mike, effectively, zoned out.
The cafeteria was loud. What he usually wouldn't notice, stuck out to him now—squeaky wheels on a mobile trashcan, utensils scraping on textured plastic trays …
Mike, again, put his head down. The once-dull ache in his skull had expanded outward into a stabbing pain, and it would have liked to split him in two.
When Lucas asked for answers to the history homework, he made sure to give him the paper.
Mike didn't care if he felt like he was dying. Because if he couldn't help …
Be quiet. He nuzzled into his arms again with a soft groan. Eyes prickled into him, he could feel, and he just breathed.
When the radio crackled on and Robin's bright voice came through, however, he felt like actually dying.
He immediately jumped up—much to the protest of his jostled head—and rummaged through his bag for a notebook and a pen.
She went on in rapid succession: Upside Down. Crawl. A crawl. They're having a crawl.
He wrote down all the valuable coded information he could process.
Then, they were out.
Mike's hands were shaking by the time he was opening up the binder and actually trying to explain things. Okay. They were searching … where was it, again? They were sending Hopper to search the grocery store. Yeah. Because Vecna was totally stocking his pantries.
In vain, Mike kept trying. He went on and totally ignored Will's furrowed look.
Why was he so dizzy?
His thoughts were slipping from him.
"And I don't care," he found himself saying without really thinking. "If it takes a hundred more crawls. A thousand. We won't stop until that rotting bastard is dead, and gone, and nevercoming back."
They did something motivational. They made a chant. They started to pack up.
As Mike shut the binder and tried to shove it back into his bag, a familiar feeling echoed in his throat. He swallowed it desperately. Somewhere in the distance, his friend stumbled to grip a tree.
His heart thumped hard. He swallowed again, but the feeling only rose.
Quickly zipping his bag shut and tossing it to the side, he grabbed the picnic table and bent to retch before he could stop himself.
Embarrassing was stupidly his first thought as it surged up. Damn-it was his second.
Mike coughed and gagged and felt stupid as his friends looked at him. Will stumbled up from the tree he was perched on with an expression of terror that Mike wasn't sure he knew the true meaning behind. Lucas glanced at Dustin almost comedically.
"I'm fine," he sputtered over the bitter taste in his mouth, because he wasn't going to let them see how … how …
"Dude, what?" Lucas gawked.
"I said, I'm f—" he hacked. Gagged. Felt stupid.
A liability.
That's what they called it. And he knew they didn't mean it, not like that, but it still sucked. Because now he couldn't go.
Which meant he was useless. Which meant they didn't need him. Which must have meant they never really needed him at all, because if they could do it without him then, did they ever really need him any of the other times?
Mike wished he could just head home. But no. Because Holly couldn't bike home by herself, he needed to escort her.
So he waited outside of the elementary for a few minutes. Then a few more. He hoped he didn't throw up again, because that would have sucked, and he was actually really embarrassingly scared of throwing up most of the time because it hurt.
What would he do?
He wouldn't have been scared of throwing up.
Mike shook his head. Yeah. He wouldn't have. So he shouldn't have. Because he was supposed to live up to the title.
Taking a deep breath, he headed in. The doors opened with a dull creak into the stale hallway.
In the distance, Mike saw her; she was sitting on a bench with her head angled down. Her mouth was curled into a frown that made him look twice, and he rushed to meet her.
"Hey," he said softly as he approached, hand tightening around his backpack strap. "What are you doing here so late?"
Holly met his gaze with watery eyes. They trailed him as he took a seat. "They told me to stay."
Mike threw a glance at the cracked office door. Light poured out and scattered on the tile. Nobody seemed to be inside, from what he could tell.
"What … what happened?" he asked.
His sister ran her fingers through a pigtail. "It was nothing."
"It was something."
Her lip quivered, a blink-and-you-miss-it sort of thing. He frowned.
Gently, Mike scooted closer. "Hey, hey, I won't be mad, okay? You can tell me."
Like glass, she cracked.
Her words were quick and vague. "It was Derek. He said something stupid, and I got mad, so I said something back, and now we're both in trouble. But— but that's not fair, is it? Because he said it first. So why is it my fault?"
He blinked. Buffered.
"Slow down," he instructed. "What did he say?"
"I don't remember. I just know it made me mad."
He sighed. School bullies. It happened all the time. He had plenty of experience. He, in elementary—and still, in high school—was the target of many.
"I think …"
He rubbed his eyes. What could he say when he didn't know what happened?
"Listen, Holly," he said, slow and careful. "I think … I think if you thought he deserved it, he probably did."
No. Was that right? Did that sound right?
"Or … no, I mean …" Mike paused. Surveyed the crinkled the look on her face. "I think standing up for yourself is brave of you to do. Okay? I don't know what you said, or what he said, or what anyone said, but …"
Sighing, he trailed off. She looked at him with a mix of hope and confusion.
They sat in silence for a moment. Mike licked his lips. Looked at the office. Glanced back.
"Things have been scary, recently," he said with a start, leaning forward onto his knees. "I think we all need to step back and cut each other some slack, you know?"
Holly nodded.
"All these things people say … the stories people tell, it can get to people. So if kids are being mean, or weird, it might just be … because— because they're afraid."
He didn't believe the words, himself. He could tell she didn't.
"I'm scared."
The words came as nothing but a murmur. A squeak. She quickly looked away in shame, eyes darting anywhere but at him.
Mike sucked in a quick breath and put a hand on her knee.
He smiled.
"Everyone is. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Heck, I get scared sometimes, too."
"No, you don't," she laughed.
"Really! I do," he insisted with a nod, biting back the sickness that reared with the movement.
His smile fell and he looked away. Another breath. A long blink.
"Do you know who I turn to when I get scared?"
Watching on, she shook her head.
He threw his bag into his lap. Unzipping it, he fumbled inside before pulling out a smaller drawstring pouch. It clacked with the movement, and he opened it, before emerging with a small figurine.
Inbetween his fingers, he presented her with a small knight. His paint was scratched and worn from years of use. He had a sword and a shield, and his armor was pretty rough. He'd seen better days.
"This is Mike The Brave," he explained. "He goes on these missions called dungeon crawls, where he pretty much fights evil wizards and monsters and … stuff."
He bit his cheek, feeling a little self conscious.
"But … Mike The Brave is never scared. So whenever I feel scared or nervous, I just pretend he's with me, and I feel better."
Mike's hand fell, and he squeezed the figurine.
Holly looked at him with hope. The silence was heavy for a few beats.
With a sigh, he stood, zipping up his bag and throwing it over his shoulder.
"Come on. They must have forgotten about you, because I don't see anyone."
"But—"
"If they try to call Mom, I'll tell her all about it. Okay?"
Hesitantly, she stood. "Okay."
He took her gently by the hand—the way a noble might—before stuffing Mike The Brave in his pocket. As they neared the door, her face twisted. Mike faltered.
"It's fine," he reassured. "Really, no one's here anymore."
She looked away.
"It's not that," she said with a shake to the head.
Mike blinked.
"Then what is it?"
"I was just thinking. It's stupid."
"It's not."
If he couldn't help his friends, maybe he could help her.
Pushing outside, she shut him out cold. The air bit into his skin, harsh and windy, and pressed into his thick jacket without much hesitance.
A sigh. Mike only got on his bike and began the trip home.
Home was fancy wine. Mike pushed through the door without a word and shooed Holly off to her room. Heading for a glass of water in the kitchen, he listened.
"You don't even know how old they are, Ted!" Mom shouted, tipsy.
Dad's chair creaked as it reclined. He scoffed, an audible eye-roll.
Grabbing a cup from the pantry, Mike hummed to himself, easing it shut before turning to get the pitcher from the fridge.
"You don't care!" she wailed.
Obviously.
He bit his lip as he set the cup on the counter with a soft clink. Gingerly, he poured himself a glass. What else is new?
He took a sip then chugged, hoping it'd help ease his stomach.
Mike wished he cared.
It wasn't fair, he decided.
One year, when the second grade class was making cards for Father's Day, he couldn't think of anything to write down. He handed him an empty card.
Nobody said anything.
It was never bad. He felt stupid for letting it bother him. There was never any screaming, or hitting, so why did he feel like he did?
It was stupid, he decided.
He finished his water, rinsed the cup out, and headed up the steps.
"What would you do?"
Mike lay on his stomach across his bed, puffing a sigh. The knight urged him on.
He flipped onto his back, holding the figure in the air.
It sat silently in his hand. Stared back at him.
He knew this was dumb. He was sixteen. He shouldn't have been doing this.
What was wrong with him?
"It's like nothing I do is actually worth anything," he explained, flexing his fingers. "But I guess you already knew that, huh?"
No reply. Obviously. He clutched it in his hand.
The evening sun was only just beginning to blend into the horizon, dipping beneath the trees in a blend of vermilion and rose. He stared out of the window for a moment, sleep nipping at his lids, before turning away.
They were all at the crawl, being useful, and here he was. Mike threw an absent glance at the radio that taunted him from his nightstand. Next to it, he set Mike The Brave.
Their argument raged on downstairs for a few minutes longer, a flurry of colorful words and hurt remarks, before finally falling silent.
Footsteps stomped up the steps. The water ran in the bathtub. A radio clicked on.
He sighed.
Leaning back in bed, he stared at the ceiling for a while and listened to the gentle tones of ABBA through the wall. The sun slowly fell lower and lower until the world was bathed in darkness.
There was something in the air that night
The stars were bright, Fernando
Mike shifted.
They were shining there for you and me
For liberty, Fernando
Bleary-eyed, he blinked.
Though I never thought that we could lose, there's no regret …
If I had to do the same again,
I would, my friend, Fernando …
Mike was nearly asleep when he saw it.
The lights.
They flickered rapidly, casting the room in strobing shadows. They buzzed, jostling in their bulbs. A dull, thumping vibration shook from somewhere.
…
He stared up wide-eyed—frozen—as the ceiling split into a glowing orange portal.
He jumped up, horrified, as a distinct hand ripped through the phlegm.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
He stumbled over the mess in his floor as he shot for the door, slamming it shut behind him with a quick glance back. The demogorgon screeched as it pulled itself out of the rift.
Oh my God.
"We have to go! Now!" Mike shouted.
The bathroom door swung open to reveal Mom, sopping wet in her bathrobe. She stared, confusion evident in her eyes. He grasped her arm arm tight.
"There's no time to explain," he rushed out as he tried to pull her towards the steps. "Come on! Come on!— shit,where's Holly?"
He saw it as he turned.
The creature burst through his bedroom door, tearing it off its hinges. Mom screamed. It bent to stand beneath the ceiling, rigidly still as it tried to orient itself.
Before it lunged like a dog on all fours.
Mom pulled him into the bathroom and shut the door. The demogorgon crashed into something that was behind them out there. Shit.
He panted. It was blind, wasn't it? It didn't have eyes.
There was something in the air that night—
He clicked the radio off with a slow, shaky hand. The button still sounded. He could almost hear its head swivel.
A loud, thrumming footstep.
Another.
…
"What the hell?"
Dad.
The creature screeched.
Attacked.
Something loud crashed and Mom yelped. Mike rushed to cover her mouth, but he was too late.
Before it could reach them, he swung the door open and pulled her along while it was still distracted.
They bolted down the steps. It tried again. The weight as it landed crumbled the floor behind them, sending them tumbling to the ground.
He got up and hardly felt it, dragging his mother by the hand in desperate motion.
"Go, go, go, go, go!"
Mike was almost through the kitchen before he skidded to a halt. A slick squeal from wet feet on tile and a dull thud spun him around fast. Mom fell.
"Come on," he urged, helping her up quickly. "Come on."
She stood and wavered on her feet. He was about to take off again, but—
—the creature stalked into view.
Their breathing was loud and ragged. A low growl permeated up from its throat as it took a step forward, wet claws squelching against the linoleum. It towered over them.
He froze.
Each breath was thin. This was it. This was really it. His stomach lurched as he faced cold death.
The demogorgon's mouth opened slowly, strings of saliva stretching with the spread of its floral maws, and it chittered. Tilted its head.
Mom grabbed for the bottle of fancy wine. In one smooth motion, she shattered it on the counter and plunged it into the creature's mouth.
"Stay. Away. From. My. Son!" she cried.
"No!" Mike tried to pull her away as it stumbled back. It bellowed, black blood oozing down from the wound, before it struck.
Long, sharp claws raked into his mother's chest and knocked her back into his arms. Her blood splattered. He felt it.
Mike lost his balance on impact and buckled to the ground. He held her tight as it stood above.
"No! Shit, shit. No …" His voice shattered. Thick, hot blood gushed from her neck as she gasped for breath.
It stepped closer, and he found he couldn't scream at all. He only cried. Cried for her. Cried for himself. He couldn't breathe.
Why are you standing there? Just take me. Kill me, already.
He was ready.
But it didn't. The demogorgon clicked. Its shadow grew closer, body obscuring the last of the warm kitchen light.
And Mike found himself sinking into a dark, dark void.