Chapter Text
The Hawkins Museum of Science was a dingy little building on the south side of town.
Mike had been once when he was a kid. His memories of it were hazy, but he remembered his mom dragging him and Dustin and Lucas out one hot summer day when she got tired of them sitting in the basement playing Dungeons & Dragons for hours. It had been fun—sort of. Fun in the way you had fun being with your friends, no matter where you were. Not so much a life-changing experience.
He remembered Dustin enjoying himself, explaining details to Mike and Lucas who had pretended to be entirely disinterested. He remembered there had been something with different shapes outlined in metal that you could dip in bubbles to see the sides form. He remembered a geology exhibit where they got to look at different rocks—Mike had been most keen on the sedimentary rocks, with all their layers and layers.
“Do you think they still have the rocks you can touch?” Dustin asked. Mike paused in his footsteps.
“Are you reading my mind?” he said, rather than answer the question.
Dustin chose to ignore him. “I hope they do. I hate just walking around looking at stuff. It’s so boring. I’ve seen all of this before.”
“Yeah, when we were ten,” Lucas scoffed. “Are you trying to say you remember every single exhibit? Because you couldn’t even remember what you had for dinner last night, so…”
“That’s completely different. I don’t need to know what I had for dinner last night.”
“You don’t need to know how clouds form in the atmosphere either. You just like knowing dumb facts to make yourself look smarter.”
“It’s not looking smarter if I actually know it. It’s just being smarter. Smarter than you.”
“Oh, you don’t even want to start—”
“Can you both shut the hell up?” Max said. “God, you’re insufferable.”
“I’m pretty sure there was a magic rock too,” Dustin said, ignoring her.
“There was not a magic rock,” Mike told him. He was pretty sure he would’ve remembered that.
“Not real magic. I can’t remember what it’s called. It had, like, quartz in it or something. You seriously don’t remember this?”
“Dustin, I genuinely do not care,” Lucas said. “I don’t even know why we’re here.”
It was a weird time for a field trip. They only had half a week left in the school year. They had to take a break from finals prep to come look at rocks and prisms and tools to measure water displacement.
It was the museum’s fault, really. The trip had been planned for late April, but there had been an incident at the museum a few days prior that completely destroyed the plumbing in the entire building, and it had been shut down for weeks. Mike was pretty sure the school had intended to cancel the field trip entirely, but one of the mothers on the PTA had thrown a fit over her child missing out on the trip and they’d decided to go right on ahead, a month later than expected.
“What? You think we could be doing something better with our time?”
“I think preparing for the finals we have in two days might be more productive, yeah,” Lucas scoffed.
“Oh please,” Max said. “You wouldn’t have studied anyway.”
“That’s beside the point. It’s the principle of it. They’ve stolen our precious time! Forcing us to learn the—the water cycle!” Lucas said, gesturing to the exhibit they were in front of.
“If you don’t already know how the water cycle works then we’ve got some bigger problems,” Mike said, which made Max snicker. He tried not to look too pleased by that. It would make her get a big head about it. Hearing her laugh was a rarity some days. It was nice to be the one to make it happen.
“Yeah yeah,” Lucas grumbled. “Still. This all seems pretty counterintuitive when it comes to learning.”
“This entire building is about learning,” Dustin reminded him. “Or did you forget about the whole ‘Of Science’ part of the Hawkins Museum of Science?”
“It would be nice to skip to the stuff we’re actually about to be tested on,” Mike agreed.
“Boo. You guys are terrible sports. This is way better than studying.”
“Says the one who’s guaranteed to pass all of his classes,” Mike said. “Some of us are floating at a high C and need these tests to pass.”
“Most of his classes,” Max corrected. “Have you seen his Spanish grade?”
All three of them giggled, ignoring Dustin’s annoyed huff.
“I don’t even know why I’m friends with you losers,” he said.
“There’s your rocks,” Max said, whacking Mike in the arm to get his attention as she pointed to a small little side room they could go check out.
At least they weren’t being watched like hawks. Most field trips had a designated chaperone that they weren’t allowed to stray from. It made the entire experience a lot slower and a lot more boring. This time, they had been tossed into the museum and basically told to go nuts, which meant Mike got to hang out with his friends and he hadn’t even seen Troy in over an hour. (To be fair, he was pretty much positive Troy and his friends had already snuck out of the building to go smoke. It was their answer to pretty much everything.)
“Oh my god, this place is so much more depressing than I remember,” Dustin grumbled.
Maybe it was the light that flickered every few seconds, or the complete lack of interest all the patrons showed. It also could have been the wet floor sign in the corner that gave a decrepit vibe to the whole place. There was only two people in the rock room—a balding guy who looked completely checked out (he was probably high. Mike would rather be high then be there. This whole trip was a complete waste of time.), along with another man who was eyeing the first guy suspiciously. Probably due to the whole high off his ass thing. He probably wouldn’t be too keen on a bunch of teenagers interrupting him either. Whatever. If he wanted to be alone he shouldn’t have chosen a public museum as his location of choice. He was lucky this wasn’t an elementary school field trip. Coughing kids with runny noses tripping all over the place and screaming their heads off? Ugh.
“This one!” Dustin said, grabbing a rock out of the tray of loose stones. Most of them were pretty, colorful rocks Mike couldn’t put a name to. So of course Dustin had gone for a plain, gray rock. It did have a nice white line around the circumference, but it was still pretty ugly. “This is the magic one. I remember that weird line.”
Under the tray was a plaque, listing different kinds of rocks that the interactive had and cool facts about them.
“It’s a wishing stone,” he said, pointing to a section of the plaque. Mike wasn’t about to read all that, especially since Dustin was definitely going to keep talking. “If you make a wish and throw it in the ocean then your wish will come true.”
Max plucked the stone from his hand. “I wish you would shut up,” she said, miming throwing the stone before setting it back in the tray gently.
Dustin made an exaggerated face, opening and closing his mouth like he couldn’t speak. Max waved him off and he gasped in relief.
“Oh thank god! I thought my voice had been stolen forever!”
“By your own logic that shouldn’t work,” Lucas said, pointing at the plaque. “This sure doesn’t look like the ocean.”
“Let’s all go on a field trip,” Dustin said, ignoring Max’s “We’re already on a field trip, dipshit,”. “We’ll take the rock to the ocean and make some wishes. I’d wish for Lucas to be less annoying and then for a million dollars.”
“Okay, first of all,” Mike said. “If you have one rock then you only get one wish. Second of all, why the fuck would you be the one who gets a wish? And third—”
“And he’s still going,” Max interrupted. Mike flipped her off.
“Third, why would you not wish for a billion dollars. It’s common sense.”
“I’m not trying to devalue the U.S. dollar, Michael. Think logically here. It’s all economics.”
“At least shoot for ten million,” Lucas said. “We’re talking magic.”
“It’s not magic though,” Mike said. “It’s a rock. Where’s that rainbow fan that turns white? Do you guys remember that one?”
“That’s a terrible explanation and it means nothing to me,” Max deadpanned.
“Each of the blades is a different color so that when you turn it on they mix together and it turns white,” Dustin explained. “It’s just color theory. It’s boring.”
“We’re staring at a bunch of rocks right now,” Max pointed out. “This entire building is boring.”
“These ones are kind of pretty,” Mike said, picking up a little piece of quartz, just to pretend he was “taking advantage of the field trip”. At least the late timing meant they didn’t have to fill out a worksheet or anything. Usually they’d be left with a sheet of paper filled with the dumbest questions. List and define each step of the water cycle. Explain why the rainbow turns white when all colors are combined. Anything to make their lives harder and the experience less enjoyable in the name of “learning”.
“I change my mind. If I had a wishing stone I’d wish—first—that all of you were nicer,” Dustin said. “Then I’d wish to have a million dollars.”
“Why not start with the million dollars?” Lucas asked. “That’s the perfect way to get us to be nicer.”
“He didn’t wish to be smarter,” Mike pointed out. “Dustin, I just told you you only get one wish. Why the fuck would you start with the stupid one? You’re just asking to—fuck,” he swore, jerking his hand back from the little wishing stone. He had wanted to pick it up, maybe mime throwing it at his friends or something else dumb. But instead it had sparked his finger with a light shock.
“Are you okay?” Dustin asked, as the probably-high-on-drugs guy looked over curiously. The other man stared at him sharply, as though Mike was the one on drugs. Jesus. Tough crowd. Couldn’t even experience an electric shock without someone have a problem with it.
“Yeah,” Mike said, shaking his hand out to rid it of the buzzy feeling. “Just… shocked me or something.”
“Quick, make a wish!” Lucas said.
“I wish you were all less stupid,” Mike told them.
“He didn’t include himself in that which means we’re all smarter than him now,” Max whispered loudly.
“We were already smarter than him,” Lucas said.
“I’m leaving,” Mike said. “If you decide you’re sick of rocks come find me at the color theory fan.”
“How was school?” Mom asked, chopping vegetables in the kitchen as he dug through the fridge for a can of soda. He had seen at least three cans in there yesterday, which meant there had to be one hiding somewhere. Holly wasn’t allowed to have soda, and Nancy wasn’t the type to drink multiple cans in a day. Then again, she was absolutely the type to do everything in her power to hide them so that Mike couldn’t enjoy it. Siblings.
“It was alright,” he said, letting out a pleased sound when he found a singular can of Coke hiding behind the milk in the fridge. Suck it, Nancy.
“You went to the museum, right? How was it? I remember taking you boys there when you were younger. You had so much fun. Until Lucas told you that Dustin was his favorite friend and you cried and cried for hours—”
“Exactly the same as it was last time I went,” Mike told her loudly, interrupting her lovely story. Mike was no stranger to being the odd one out. He loved his friends, of course, but he had always been under the opinion that they loved each other more than they loved him. He didn’t care. Really. He didn’t. It was fine. “And no visible plumbing issues. Dustin said the water in the water fountain tasted weird, though. I didn’t try it for myself to see if he was right.”
“Such a shame they had to close down for so long,” she sighed. “You know Carol? She lives down the street? Her grandson worked there. It was a nightmare for the employees.”
“I bet,” Mike said. He could not care less. “Maybe warn them to fix their electrical next. I swear I got shocked by a rock.”
She blinked at him as she dumped the onions into a pan sizzling on the stove. “A rock?”
“Yes!” he said. “I didn’t even know rocks could hold an electrical current. Maybe it was actually metal and they’re all frauds over there.”
“It was probably the case that the rock was in that shocked you,” she said. “Or maybe you brushed against one of your friends. As far as I’m aware, rocks don’t shock people.”
Mike shrugged. It had sure felt like the rock was attacking him, but he wasn’t about to make that argument when he knew how crazy it sounded.
“Either way, they might already be working on it. There was a van for the power company outside when we left. So perhaps I’m not the only one being assaulted by the earth.”
She hummed, clearly ignoring him.
“What are your plans for this summer?” she asked, as he tried to leave the room without a goodbye. Oh great. He should’ve been faster. Now he was going to get roped into something he absolutely had no will or desire to do.
“Not much,” he admitted, suspicious. “Why?”
“You know John and Mary, right?”
He stared at her blankly. She set down her knife, unimpressed. “Really, Michael? The Petersons? They’ve only been going to church with us since you were in diapers.”
Mike wanted to argue that he hadn’t gone to church since he was fourteen, but he had a feeling that would only piss her off more. Best case scenario she’d chew him out. Worst case scenario she’d start making him go to church again. Absolutely not happening.
“Oh, right,” he said, as though his memory had returned. It hadn’t.
“Their son-in-law was in a bad car accident,” his mom continued. “And their daughter—you remember Rebecca—” He didn’t. “—She’s eight months pregnant. They want to go live with her in Montana until their grandbaby is born and their son-in-law is out of the hospital. But they’re the paranoid type and they don’t like the idea of leaving their house alone for so long. They asked me if you or Nancy would be willing to spend some time there every day just to make the place look more lived in and water their plants while they’re gone. And since Nancy’s got that fancy new internship…”
Mike wrinkled his nose, thinking over the offer. It wasn’t as bad as he had been anticipating. It was actually kind of an incredible offer. He could use some extra cash. Plus, the thought of not only getting to escape his family but having a place of his own to live at for the next month or two? And he could have the Party over where no adults would bother them? There had to be some sort of catch.
“How much?” he asked.
His mom made a face, like she’d been afraid he would ask that. “Unpaid.”
“Uh, absolutely not,” he scoffed. They wanted him to deal with all their shit without any payment? Not happening. Didn’t matter how appealing it sounded. It was the principle of the matter.
“Michael, they are going through a hard enough time right now without having to pay someone just to keep an eye on their house. It’s not even real work. You’re doing it. I already told them you would.”
“Oh my god,” Mike groaned, resisting the childish urge to stomp his foot. “Why even bothering asking if you’re not going to care about my answer?”
“Because I thought you would do the right thing. They’re bringing by the key in the morning. Go finish your homework.”
Mike rolled his eyes to the back of his skull, not even bothering to mention that he didn’t have homework because he hadn’t been at school today. She’d just ask him to clean his room instead. It wasn’t worth the fight. He’d just bother his friends on his SuperComm instead.
Back in middle school, Mike always used to bike to school with Lucas and Dustin. Lucas was easy—he only lived a few door down, and so it wasn’t anything special to meet up in the morning. Dustin was a little out of the way, but not by much, and mornings were always more fun when they were together.
They had grown out of the habit when they started high school. Dustin had his pre-first period, so he was at school an hour before both of them, and Lucas liked being early while Mike liked sleeping in. They tried to keep biking together for about two weeks before Lucas decided he was done dragging Mike out of bed in the morning and told him he was on his own.
He didn’t mind it. It was nice to have ten or fifteen minutes of quiet, especially in the mornings when the days were on the cooler side. Now that it was almost June, biking home from school was the real problem. It was always way too hot out with the sun burning down on his skin. He didn’t have to worry about that too much today. His mom had sent him to school with a key in his backpack and specific instructions to stop by the Petersons house on the way home from school. Boring. He'd do it, yeah, because he wasn't a total dick, but he wouldn't be very happy about it, that he could promise.
Mike skidded to a stop, throwing his bike on the rack next to Dustin and Lucas’s. There was a very familiar car parked in the front of the school, and Mike stood on his toes, trying to see if—yep, there he was.
He adjusted his backpack over his shoulder, checking his watch to make sure he had enough time to say hello. he had a full five minutes before the bell rang. Plenty of time to talk to the cops.
Jim Hopper was a character. He was a lot like Mike, in a lot of ways. He was snarky and rude on the best days and often seemed like he’d rather be doing anything except talking to you. Maybe that was why Mike liked him so much. Maybe it had more to do with the way he’d stepped in to help when Mike had run into him one frigid night—scared and alone and desperate to find help for a friend who refused to ask for it.
Hopper had been the one to step in when Billy had gone off the rails. He had him arrested, and though his father had bailed him out, it was the step needed to get those men out of Max’s house. He knew she still struggled sometimes now that it was just her and her mother, but nothing could be as awful as the sight Mike had come in to when he’d gone to check on her after she went radio silent and found her pale and bloody, passed out on the floor.
“Hey,” he said, stepping up beside where he leaned against his car, and Hopper quirked an eyebrow at him, pulling his cigarette out from between his lips.
“Hey kid, what’s up?”
Mike shrugged. “Saw your car. Did you have to break up a fight or something?”
It wasn’t often that the chief of police ended up at Hawkins High, after all.
Hopper snorted. “No. Some parent got in a tiff about their kid failing. Had to come de-escalate.”
Mike raised an eyebrow. “And they chose you for de-escalation? Not exactly your strong suit.”
“I was in the area,” he said. “How’s your friend?”
Mike frowned, glancing at the school. Max had to be there already. He wished she had a bike so he could tell right from the bike racks if she was present. But now that she lived so far away she’d started taking the bus.
“She’s good, as far as I know,” he answered. “She was acting normal yesterday, at least. Why? Did something happen?”
Fuck. Had her mom been drinking again? What did Hopper know?
“No,” the chief sighed. “Just wondering.”
Oh. Mike might have overreacted there for a bit. “She’s good,” Mike repeated. “Still annoying as hell, but that’s nothing new.”
Hopper tried to hide his grin, shaking his head in amusement.
“Get to class,” he told Mike. “Unless you need a police escort.”
Mike raised his hands. “No, no. I’m all good.”
As though he had predicted it, the bell rang shrilly, and Mike offered Hopper a lazy wave before scurrying off to class.
“Sleep well, princess?” Max asked, a mocking smile on her face as he slid into his seat beside her. That was her way of asking where the hell he'd been. Yeah, Mike wasn't the early type, but he usually made it before the bell rang so he could talk to Max for a few minutes before the start of school.
“Fuck off, I’m not late,” he scoffed. They still had two minutes until the late bell. Sure, sometimes he would oversleep and slip into class a few minutes late, but even if he hadn't been early, he was on time, which meant that he wasn’t going to stand for any slander. “I was talking to Hopper.”
Max narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t nearly as fond of him as Mike was. She used him as a verbal punching bag more often than not, which at least meant she wasn’t using Mike as a verbal punching bag. He couldn't blame her. Hopper didn't, as far as he had told Mike.
"It can be easy to forget how hard things used to be when you're distracted by how hard things are now," Hopper had said. "Even though I'm sure she doesn't miss the Hargroves, the money made her life easier in some ways. I don't mind her taking out her frustration on me. It's a better outlet than some."
“He asked after you,” Mike said, just to add fuel to the fire.
“I’m fine,” she hissed, fingers tapping on the desk. “God, you’re both insufferable.”
“The price of having people who care about you,” Mike sighed. “How ever do you stand it?”
“One day you’re going to go to bed and not wake up and it’ll be because I killed you in your sleep.”
The Peterson’s house was a nice home. Three bedrooms, a little porch with a rocking chair, a small yard with a bed of flowers and a million dandelions across the overgrown lawn. Clearly, lawn care had not been on the top of their to-do list.
Mike didn’t really care. Unless they wanted him to start mowing the lawn, it wasn’t really his problem. He leaned his bike against the wall by the front door, feeling only a little bit like a burglar as he unlocked the door to a house he’d never been in that belonged to people he didn’t remember meeting.
Empty. Thank god. It hadn't occurred to him until he was walking in that maybe they wanted him to drop by to learn how to take care of the house before they left. He hadn’t thought to ask his mom if they had left town yet, and that would be humiliating to run into them without expecting it.
There was a small piano in the front room of the house, next to an old, flower-patterned armchair. Straight ahead was a cozy little kitchen, and to the right branched off the bedrooms. Mike tossed his backpack to the floor by the door, looking around curiously. There was a paper on the kitchen table with instructions for him written out in rushed cursive—when to take the trash out, which plants needed watering and when, and the emergency numbers he could call if something went wrong. Mike couldn’t think of anything that could go wrong save maybe the house burning down that would require him to call their second cousin who lived two hours away, but whatever. He had it if he needed it, he supposed.
Next to the note was a box of Reese’s Pieces, and he hummed in appreciation, opening it up to take a handful. Nice. Not as nice as money, but at least they left him something.
He yawned, a wave of dizziness washing over him. Ugh. He needed to drink water.
There were glasses in the kitchen, and he ran his fingers over the plants on the window behind the sink as he chugged an entire glass. The fridge was pretty empty as well, unfortunately. Not much for him to snack on. His mom would probably buy some food for him if she expected him to stay here for weeks.
He filled the glass again, drinking half of it, and then poured the rest into the plants. Not much else to worry about.
He didn’t linger any longer, locking up the house and biking back home. His head still hurt. Maybe it was just the long day getting to him. So much review in all of his classes for the stupid finals starting tomorrow. He was so ready to be done with it.
His entire body was sore. He didn’t even bother propping up his bike when he finally got home, after what felt like hours of biking. He just tossed it aside in the front yard and stumbled into the house, waving a hello and goodbye to his mother so he could go lay down in his room in peace.
“Michael? It’s almost dinner time,” she called up the stairs after him.
“‘m not hungry,” he mumbled. He was so tired all of the sudden. Why was he so tired? Surely it couldn’t hurt if he just rested his eyes for a minute.
He yelped, tripping over his own feet and catching himself on the wall in the upstairs hallway, nearly knocking over an old family picture in the process. His head felt like it was going to explode.
A small part of him was sending off alarm bells. Something was clearly wrong. Very wrong. He should open his mouth and call for help. He should say something.
But his throat was so very dry. And he was so tired. His head hurt.
He made it into his room, somehow, barely remembering how to shut the door behind him as he collapsed into his bed.
Something felt different. Oh. He was still wearing his shoes. Why did he have shoes on?
He croaked out a tiny whine as his vision escaped him.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Mike groaned, covering his ears with his palms. Why was it so loud? In what world did an alarm clock ever need to be that loud?
He felt better. Not good. Not really. He still felt like he’d been hit by a truck, but he no longer felt like he was on the verge of death. He must have caught some sort of bug.
He took a deep breath, reaching out aimlessly to try and turn off his alarm. It was so loud. He couldn’t find it.
He grumbled, opening his eyes and squinting in the morning light to turn off the stupid thing. Huh. Did his mom get him a new alarm clock or something? He could’ve sworn his was much bigger than this one. It was tiny, so small his fingers could hardly hit the buttons.
“What the fuck?” he muttered, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to stand. He needed a shower. He had his math final today, which he could not afford to screw up, which meant that—sick or not—he had to get his shit together.
“Ow, fuck,” he hissed as he stood, or tried to stand, his head smacking against the ceiling.
He was out of it. Definitely. One hundred percent. He had to be, or else he would have noticed the issue sooner.
The issue being he’d grown a good fifteen feet in his sleep.
“Oh fuck,” he gasped, falling to his knees and scrambling into the corner of his room, wide eyes darting around. Even sitting, his head nearly touched the ceiling. His legs were long enough to reach the door on the other side of the room. What the fuck was happening?
His breathing sped up, eyes darting around the room for a solution. This could not be happening. Nope. He was dreaming. He was hallucinating. This was all a huge joke his friends had pieced together while he slept. Anything would have made more sense.
There was a light knock on his door and he flinched.
“Michael? Are you up yet? You have to leave for school in thirty minutes!”
He saw the door handle twist and slammed his foot against the door, stopping his mother before she could open it. Even sitting against the opposite wall, his foot reached the door easily. What the fuck?
“I’m up!” he said, coughing. “I’m—getting dressed, sorry!”
“Okay, hurry up,” she warned, and Mike stared at the door with wide eyes and a racing heart as he heard her walking back down the stairs.
Jesus Christ, that had been way too close. Too close for what? A part of him screamed. What if this was permanent? What if he’d have to spend the rest of his life like this? A freak of nature, always taking up too much space. He would barely be able to fit through the fucking door.
He took a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to count his breaths until they were slow enough he didn’t feel like he would die. This had to be some kind of mistake. Or—like he’d said before—a dream of some kind. This kind of thing didn’t happen in real life. Especially not to people like Mike. This was something out of a fairytale or a comic book. And when Mike had dreamed of being some kind of superhero, he had meant something like Spider-Man. Not this.
He didn't want to be a giant of some sort. Despite how he wished some days that he was maybe an inch or two taller, this was a million steps too far. For the first time in his life, he wanted to be smaller.
His heart jumped like he was on a rollercoaster and he yelped as he fell forward, hands landing in the carpet.
He blinked. The shag carpet was half as long as his forearm. He looked up to see the door far, far in the distance.
“What the fu—”
His chest twisted again as he blinked, kneeling in his bedroom. Completely normal.
He stared down at his hands in shock, then up at the door, then back to look around the room as though he could find someone to say Are you seeing this? to. But he was alone in his room, just like before.
He took another breath, his hands trembling as he climbed to his feet. He felt like he was walking on eggshells, trying not to trigger whatever the fuck was wrong with him.
It couldn’t be real. He was sick. He was imagining things. He—
He stared at the space above his bed, his body going numb.
There was a dent in the ceiling.
“Mike. Mike. Mike, are you even listening?”
Mike blinked as Max snapped her fingers in his face, seeming more irritated than concerned.
“Huh?”
“Oh my god, you’re completely braindead,” she huffed. “I asked how math went?”
He frowned, poking at his lunch. He really wasn’t hungry. He had a lot more on his mind.
“We didn’t have class. Just the final.”
“Am I actually going to have to take you to the nurse?” Max asked, as Dustin and Lucas shared concerned looks. “Obviously the final is what I’m talking about.”
“It was fine,” he said.
He didn’t even remember how it went. He might as well have taken it in his sleep for how little he’d been paying attention.
He had also been extremely concerned with other issues. He had barely been able to hold his freaking pencil with how sweaty his hands were. What if something happened while he was at school? Completely visible, nowhere to hide? What in the world would he have done?
Not that he was out of the woods yet. He had one more final after lunch and then three more tomorrow. Then he could hide away for the rest of the summer until this stupid, awful dream was over.
But Mike knew it wasn’t a dream. He had seen the dent. He had felt it, standing up on his toes on top of his bed to graze the ceiling. He had barely been able to reach. There was no way he could’ve made that dent if he’d imagined the growing. And he didn’t even want to think about the shrinking. That was a million times worse. He could maybe survive being a giant. Being tiny was a whole other equation. One that he didn’t have any desire to solve, especially after two hours of his math final.
“I don’t have math until tomorrow,” Max said. “So, if you have any advice…”
Mike frowned. “It was just a test. Normal test. Just longer.”
Max turned to Dustin. “You have math next, right?” He nodded. “Perfect. You can let me know what I need to focus on after school. This one is useless,” she said, gesturing at Mike.
Would he be able to get rid of this ability? Would he want to? Regardless of how freaky it was, it was still superpowers. Motherfucking superpowers. Mike would have to be an idiot to give that up. But if he couldn’t control it then he was absolutely fucked. He didn’t know how to hide this. He didn’t know if he could. A vanishing act would be crazy enough, but if he grew to twenty feet tall then everyone would notice. He’d become some kind of science experiment—locked away to study him. And if not that, then the government would still probably try to use him as a weapon. He didn’t want to be a weapon. He walked the mile in PE, for god’s sake. Twenty feet or not, he’d be taken down in seconds flat.
Unless he was bulletproof. Could he be bulletproof now? It wouldn’t be the strangest thing to happen this week—
Mike jumped as Max slammed her hand down on the table in front of him.
“Jesus, what?”
“Be honest with me,” she said, blue eyes hard as she tried to read his face. “Are you high?”
“Am I—what?” She didn’t move. Not joking. “No, I’m not high. How would I even get high? I don’t know where to buy drugs.”
“Eddie,” Dustin and Lucas pointed out in unison. Oh. Fair point.
“I’m not high,” he insisted. “I just… didn’t sleep well.”
“Are you sure?” Lucas asked. “Nothing happened at home, right?”
“Nothing happened,” Mike lied. A part of him wanted to tell his friends everything. A big part of him, actually. Most of him. But he still had that nagging thought in the back of his mind that maybe he was imagining things. Maybe he had lost his mind. What if he couldn’t replicate what had happened in the morning? How humiliating would it be to tell his friends he had superpowers and then not be able to prove it?
No. He had to master control first. That was step one. Step two was figuring out how in the world this had happened.
He wasn’t an idiot, despite what his friends may have believed. And he knew enough to know how to put two and two together. It had to be that rock from the museum. It had to. How, or why he didn’t know. But he had to find out.
“We should do something this summer,” Lucas said.
Mike blinked at him. “Do what?”
“I don’t know, something. Oh! We should go on a trip. Mike, you’ve got your license, right?”
“Barely,” Mike scoffed. Sure, he’d had it since he turned 16 in April, but he never got to use it. Wasn’t like he had a car to use.
“Still,” Lucas said. “I have my license, and you have yours.”
“Whatever,” Dustin said. He had failed his first attempt, so he and Max were both license-less for the time being. Not that Mike felt very confident in his driving skills.
“We should totally go on a road trip,” Lucas finished proudly.
“And spend an unspecified amount of time stuck in a car with a bunch of boys? Absolutely not happening.”
“I can’t,” Mike frowned. “I’m ‘house-sitting’.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “What the hell is ‘house-sitting’? It’s a house. What’s it gonna do? Run away?”
Mike sighed. “Some people from church are out of town for some family emergency and my mom signed me up to stay at their house and keep an eye on it. Paranoid people, I guess.”
“I can’t do it either,” Dustin said. “I’ve got my internship.”
All three of them groaned.
“You’re still doing that?” Max asked. “I thought you hated it?”
“I hate that I’m not doing any actual science,” Dustin corrected. “But the longer I stay the more likely it becomes that I’ll get to do more than deliver coffee. Besides, Peter told me if I stay for the summer then I get to be a paid intern.”
“Who the hell is Peter?” Max asked. “I thought you worked with that weird doctor?”
“Peter’s the guy in charge of interns, and Dr. B is not weird.”
“Yeah,” Mike agreed. “He’s just a dick.”
“Everyone’s a dick to you because you’re a dick,” Max said. “Sorry Lucas. Maybe next summer.”
“Or Christmas,” Dustin said.
“No can do,” Max said. “Some of us who are actually in romantic relationships already have plans.”
Dustin scowled at her as she and Lucas linked hands, raising them smugly.
“Fuck you. Suzie and I had our reasons for breaking up. At least I’ve had a girlfriend.”
Everyone turned to Mike.
“What’s that even supposed to mean?” he said, trying not to let his heart race. Oh god. This was way too close for comfort. His friends didn’t know why he didn’t have a girlfriend. And he totally entirely completely needed it to stay that way for the love of god.
His hands trembled, and he pulled them off the lunch table to hide the shaking.
“We’ll figure something out,” Max told her boyfriend, kinder than she ever spoke to Mike.
“Good luck with your finals,” he said, giving her a quick kiss. She smiled softly at him.
Mike wanted that. He wanted to have that with someone. But he knew he’d never get it. Because the only people he wanted to have that with were men. And he couldn’t have that. Not only because he would get the absolute shit beaten out of him if he ever tried to kiss a man in public (truthfully, Max and Lucas got enough shit as it was, and they were at least straight), but because he didn’t want anyone to know. Being with a man meant admitting to everyone he cared about that he liked men. He wasn’t ready for that. He didn’t think he would ever be ready for that. There was no one in the world he cared about enough to sacrifice the simple calmness of his life for that kind of exposure.
That might be why Mike was having such a hard time with this whole superpower thing, despite it being something he had dreamed about ever since he was a little kid. He didn’t like change. Mainly because he didn’t like the unknown. If he could keep the status quo forever, he would. Change meant things potentially getting worse, not better. Change meant potentially losing the people he cared about. He couldn’t risk that. It was better to be alone than to be alone.
He sighed, standing up from the table to toss the rest of his lunch. His stomach churned. One more class today. He’d have to do it one more time tomorrow. After that, he was free. He could fix this. Turn it into something manageable. Something he could control. And then everything would be okay, and it would all go back to normal, and he’d never have to worry about it ever again.
Right?
Mike was rudely interrupted from his snacking by a hand on his forehead.
“E - use - e?” he asked, mouth full of chips.
“You look so sick,” his mom said, worrying her lip. “You don’t have a fever but—” she sighed. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright? If you don’t feel well I can call the school. We can work out some kind of schedule for the rest of your finals. I hate to think that you went to school feeling so awful.”
Mike swallowed his food. “I feel fine,” he lied. He was not about to go to a doctor. No fucking way. Not until he knew exactly what was wrong with him.
She frowned, sliding into the seat at the table next to him.
“Michael, I know I can be… strict, at times. Sometimes more than I should be. But you know you can talk to me, right? If something is wrong? I don’t want you to feel like you… like you have to hide things from me. It’s okay.”
Well then. That might be the thing that made him sick. What did she know? What was she thinking? Was she suspicious of him? Did she know?
“There’s nothing,” he lied. “Everything is fine.”
Her face fell, clearly able to tell that he wasn’t being honest with her. Fuck. He hated that feeling. They used to be so close when he was younger, back before he knew all the things wrong with him—the things that she would hate about him if she knew. He couldn’t remember the last time he laid down with his head in her lap and just told her everything. Some days he still wanted to. Most days he knew what a horrible, awful idea that was. It was just asking for trouble.
“Mike—” she started, as he felt nausea rise in his throat. The same shaking, awful feeling he had felt the night before. Before he woke up and it had happened.
He stood up in a rush, silently begging his body not to shrink or grow or give out on him.
“I’m really tired, I’m gonna go upstairs, okay bye!” he blurted, ignoring his mother’s awful, confused face as he took the stairs up three at a time. His fingers tingled, his eyes felt heavy. He needed to—shit.
He bit his tongue with a yelp as he tripped in the doorway of his room, landing on his stomach.
“Oh fuck,” he hissed, cramped in the tiny, tiny room. He knew the room wasn’t actually tiny, but it was hard to reorient the fact that he himself was the one changed.
He tried to crawl further into the room, yelping in surprise as his foot caught, stopping him.
He whipped his head around, staring at the offending limb. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said.
His foot was outside the room, caught in the doorframe. He supposed he should be glad his clothes had grown with him.
“Michael?” his mom called up the stairs. Mike’s eyes went wide, frantically trying to twist his foot to fit through the stupidly small doorway.
“I’m fine,” he snapped, frantically sifting through his memories to figure out how the fuck to reverse this. “Don’t come up here.”
He heard her sigh in frustration, but he didn’t hear footsteps on the stairs, thankfully, as he crawled onto his knees and shut the door. He couldn’t even twist the lock. His hands were too stupidly big.
“Okay,” he said, inhaling slowly. Deep breaths. Meditation. A calm mind. Maybe that would help. “This is fine. Everything is fine.”
It was not fine. Nothing was at all fine and would never be fine again because his life was over and he was so tremendously fucked.
“C’mon,” he told himself, sitting cross-legged on the floor, hands on his knees like he was meditating. Deep breaths. A calm mind. This was fine. He just needed to think tiny thoughts.
But not too tiny. He didn’t need to be elbow deep in the carpet again. Never ever ever again. Growing, he could handle. Shrinking? No way. If he got stuck giant, he would make do. It would suck and he’d be a circus freak for the rest of his life, but he’d live. If he was stuck tiny, he would be dead in under a day. No doubt about it. He was perfectly content to shove that part of these new powers in a box and forget about it for the rest of time.
His fingertips went numb, tingling throughout his body, and he blinked.
“Oh, thank god,” he groaned, flopping back against the carpet to stare at the ceiling. Normal. He would never complain about not being tall enough ever again. 5’11 was the perfect height, actually.
Okay. Step one: control. He was getting there. He knew how to get back to normal—sort of. Was it the most effective method? Probably not. But as long as it worked, Mike would do all the meditation he needed. He could already see himself wearing face masks with little cucumbers over his eyes. Superpowers were way more of a drag than he thought they would be.
“Okay,” he said, climbing to his feet to check the time. 4:08. He could work more on control later. If this worked anything like it had in the morning, he had some time before he had to worry about another random shift in size. He wanted to take that time to figure out how the hell this had happened.
Mike had a good twenty bucks to his name, which meant he raided Nancy’s piggy bank for a spare three dollars to pay the museum fee. The workers looked like they wanted to do nothing more than turn him away, less than an hour before they closed, but they let him through anyway.
He made a beeline for the rocks and minerals room, where a few kids wandered and a bored looking employee leaned against the wall.
“Excuse me,” Mike said, watching impatiently as the guy blinked out of his bored stupor.
“Huh?” he asked. “Bathrooms are down the hall to the left.”
“I don’t need the bathroom,” Mike said. “I have a question.”
The man frowned, like there wasn’t a single thing in the world he could imagine Mike asking about besides the stupid bathroom.
“Shoot.” He looked like he’d rather shoot himself than be talking to Mike, but whatever. Only one of them was getting paid to be there, and it wasn’t Mike.
“What’s the deal with that stone?” he asked, gesturing to the table with the rocks. “The, uh, wishing stone.”
The man blinked at him. “We have a what now?”
“Oh my god,” Mike grumbled, stepping over to the display. “The…”
He trailed off, eyes darting around the table, then to the kids on the other side of the room, then back to the table.
“The rock,” he said, pointing. “There was a rock here.”
“There’s a lot of rocks here,” the guy said dryly, pointing at the Rocks & Minerals sign.
“No, I meant a specific one,” Mike said through gritted teeth. “Look, there’s a sign for it and everything.”
The sign doesn’t have any information more than what Dustin had been saying the day before, and the guy stands there for a solid two minutes reading it, before he shrugs.
“Someone probably took it. We don’t keep anything valuable out here. Kids get grabby, you know? It’s not like it’s real magic or anything. Probably a million like it on the beach. If you need anything else you can ask the information desk up front.”
Well, that was a clear Fuck off if Mike had ever heard one. He stared back at the table, looking through the rocks as though he might’ve missed it hidden amongst them. But he knew he hadn’t. It was gone.
Which meant he was right. It had to be the source of his new powers. And he wasn’t the only one who knew about it. The thought sent a chill down his spine. Someone else was after those powers. Who knew what the stone was capable of? Did it grant anyone superpowers? Did it only grant one wish? Was Mike about to be hunted down and kidnapped for powers he never even asked for?
“Thanks,” he said to the unhelpful employee, stumbling through crowds of children and parents back to the front where he’d left his bike.
He had a bad feeling about this. All of it. This read like a comic book, only it felt a hell of a lot worse in real life. At least in the comic books he had a guarantee that there would be a happy ending by the final page. Real life made no such promises. He could be hurt. He could be killed. Not to mention his family. If he put them in danger because of this, he’d never be able to forgive himself.
He had to do this alone. And he had to stay away from the museum. Who knew how much of a target he’d made himself already just by going back? He had to act normal, and casual, and like everything was completely fine.
And he could not, under any circumstances, mess it up. That meant he had to get his shit together. All of it. Growing, shrinking, and everything in between. In case anyone did show up, he needed to be ready. Would it be taking it too far to sign up for self defense classes? Probably.
Okay. He had a plan. Sort of. He had an outline of a plan. And he knew just how to start. His mother had given him the key to it, literally. He had an empty house open that he could use to practice his powers. Sure, maybe the growing would get a little cramped, but the ceilings were high. He could handle it. He would handle it.
Really, he’d dealt with enough in his sixteen years of life. How hard could it be?