Chapter Text
4th November 1996
Sunlight peeks through the yellow curtain, whispers of the cool November wind come in from an open window, the sound of clicking from a typewriter can be heard, and a gentle knock fills the silence.
“Mike?” His mom’s muffled voice seeps through his door. Mike stills for a second, pushes his chair back and opens the door. “Breakfast is rea-” Karen’s words come to a stop as she looks up to her son. Eyebags sagging under his dark eyes, hair all tussled around like he was pulling at it mere seconds ago, and his room - God, his room. Crumpled paper was both on his desk and floor, dirty clothes were almost in every corner, and his bed that she had never seen be made.
If he were still a teenager, she would’ve excused the state of Mike’s room but he’s an adult now, and she can’t be the one cleaning up his mess. She looks back at her son's face, she used to remember a time where his eyes were bright and full of life, where she could hear laughter from his bedroom, and, as annoyed and embarrassed as she is to admit, she missed the son of hers that fought back. The Mike who glared at her when she told him that he couldn’t invite his friends for a sleepover because it was a school night, the Mike who screamed at her when she burst open their basement door and complained that their D&D game was taking too long, the Mike who fought tooth and nail when she suggested that his best friend was not coming back from the dead.
But most of all, Karen misses her son, who wanted to live, because as she makes eye contact with him, Mike is nothing more than a shell of a person.
“Breakfast is at the table; I’m taking Holly out to shop.” Mike nods at his mother, only really registering the first half of her sentence, before he can close the door, Karen’s hand stops it.
“And Mike? If you can, clean your room and please get some rest.” She tries her hardest not to show pity as she smiles at him. Mike utters a small “Sure” and closes the door fully.
Mike stayed there just standing for a few seconds until he turned around; his mom, once again, was right. He does need to clean his room. He starts with the discarded paper on his floor with black ink smudges, words that were misspelled, and a couple of sentences that just looked wrong to him. After finishing the bedroom floor, he begins to make his bed – though he knows it’ll end up the way it was now later that night. His desk was the hardest thing to clean, not because of the mountain of papers or the heavy typewriter that looks so broken and beaten if he attempted to lift it a tiny bit; it will break, or his mustard colored coffee cup that has left a permanent brown stain under it and the numerous empty bags of snacks – No, it wasn’t that, because to clean his desk thoroughly he has to turn to his left side and see a bright yellow canvas like square stain surrounded by darkened wallpaper that once held his most prized possession.
He took the painting down 2 years after that night, he didn’t like the feeling of guilt washing over him every time he looked at the Paladin’s shield, or how his eyes started to well up with tears as he looked at the party, still together. Or maybe it was the intent and meaning behind it that seemed wrong in a way he can’t figure out. He supposedly was ‘The Heart’ of the party, and yet he can’t even face the people he was supposed to protect.
So, to him, the only solution was to take it down, roll it, and put it in a box with the other stuff that makes him feel not like himself. Or at least, not who he thought he was.
Mike, who is too stubborn to reopen a wound from the past, leaves his desk a mess and gets out of his dungeon. It’s too early in the morning to think about his regrets; he can barely breathe when he writes about it, what more when he thinks about that too much.
As Mike drinks his second cup of coffee, the storm of thoughts he keeps in a chest inside his head, locked with a key begging to be set free, is interrupted by a loud ringing noise. It’s the family phone, someone’s calling his house, he thinks about ignoring it since there are only a few people who know that he’s back living at his parents’ house, and he’s too ashamed to talk to anyone about the reason why. Mike lets it ring for a couple more seconds until his moral obligation takes over him and he picks up the phone.
“Wheeler!” A voice over the years he has grown akin to, maybe not all the time, but in his darkest moments, the redhead's high-pitched voice anchors him whenever he’s close to drowning, “Where are you? We’ve been waiting for hours.” Mike can hear Max’s signature eye roll at the end of that sentence. Even after knowing her for a decade and counting, their friendship was still something he couldn’t quite put a pin on. When she woke up from her coma, all Mike could feel was relief, even if the first thing she said to him was so to go screw himself and the feeling of guilt for not being there for her and Lucas washed away almost instantly. Over the years, she was the first person he’d call when Mike wanted to think about what college Eleven could’ve gone to, or what El’s major would be (Mike thinks she would do great in Social Work, helping kids to overcome the trauma they have much like her), Max would be one of the few people he’d call when his body doesn’t feel like his anymore, when the things he writes starts sounding robotic. Max Mayfield might be a pain in the ass when they were growing up, but she’s the hand that pulls Mike up when all he wants to do is sink deeper into the ocean.
But sometimes he felt jealous of her. Mike isn’t the kind of person to be envious of a lot of things. His family is fairly wealthy, and he doesn’t want many materialistic things. I mean, his parents paid for his college tuition, the studio apartment he stayed at, and Holly’s education at the same time. Mike couldn’t even begin to find things to be jealous of Max Mayfield, after all, she had survived a 2-year-long coma, broken bones, and lost her vision, was paralyzed for quiet a bit, and not to mention, since she was a kid, her home life has always been a wreck and has only started to even out. No, Mike could never fathom a reason why he would feel envy for the life that Max has bravely endured, but he is jealous of something that she has, the thing he’s always been envious of her for having. Mike felt immense jealousy coursing through his veins whenever she talked about her time with him. Mike is a lot of things, but when it comes to things he has always craved for, his jealousy shows tenfold.
“Don’t tell me you just woke up, Wheeler.” The moment Mike hears those words, he looks up to glance at their calendar. It’s the 4th. He completely forgot the party’s plan. He mutters a soft “Shit.” Under his breath, he was supposed to wake up early and pick the party up at the airport, but he glances at the analog clock, and he’s an hour late. Mike carries the phone in his hand as he discards his coffee into the sink, “I’m on the way, just got a little problem with the...” His mug crashes into the sink, he grimaces as he takes the remnants of it to the trash bin “the... uh, the typewriter! Be there in 15!” Mike hangs up the phone before Max can even utter an answer. He hurries up to his room and picks up whatever clothes are lying on his floor. He almost trips going downstairs, and as he reaches for the front door, he stops and turns back around up to his bathroom and quickly grabs a pair of his glasses.
He opens the car door and slams the pedal. The party is going to kill him for this. He puts on the radio to calm his nerves; it hasn’t been incredibly long since the party saw each other and hung out. It has, however, been (in 2 days at least) 7 years since some of them stepped foot in Hawkins since 1989. And, not like he keeps count or anything, but it has been approximately 2 years, 10 Months, 29 Days since Mike last talked with him. He remembers their last conversation; it’s one of the many memories he wishes to forget.
The ends of their shoulders touching, the quite December breeze making their noses red, the lingering looks between them, thousands of words they both, for some odd reason, can’t let out.
Mike doesn’t remember who started the arguing first, who drew first blood, but he does remember his broken and bleeding nose, his bloody and bruised knuckles, as well as the surroundings of his left eye starting to turn purple. The screams of words that he never would’ve thought could come out of his mouth, and Mike ever so clearly remembers him shooting back,
“We’re friends, Mike. Friends.”
He doesn’t like to think about that night.
(He also doesn’t like to think about how those were their last words they ever said to each other.)
He puts the car to a stop and gets out to find his friends in the ocean of people going on vacation; Hawkins has grown in popularity for its reputation because of the whole ‘an earthquake making Hawkins’ ground split into four’ thing.
“Mike! Over here!” Mike turns around to see Dustin waving at him and showing off his pearly white teeth with how big his smile is right now. Mike walks up to them only accidentally hitting a couple of people. Dustin has his arms open for a hug, and Mike immediately crashes into him. He doesn’t know how, but Dustin lifts him up as he cackles loudly. “Alright, alright! Put me down.” Mike almost too loudly shouts at Dustin, as his shoes touch the floor again, he sees Lucas to Dustin’s left and hugs him, although not as chaotic as Dustin’s. God, he missed them so much.
“Took you long enough. A problem with your typewriter? Sure,” Mike looks to his right to see Max sitting down and reading a magazine, not even bothering to greet him. “Nice to see you too, Mayfield.” Max stands up and hugs him that, if she wanted to, could kill him with how tight she holds him. She smiles at him, not a smirk, but a sincere smile. Max knows this is hard for all of them. But she knows that it’s hard for Mike to see him again. As Max looks at him, Mike is suddenly aware of his surroundings and realizes that he wasn’t there with the party. He turns to his sides, left and right, through the crowds and the exit door of the men’s bathroom.
If you asked Mike what he would even do if they saw each other again after loudly declaring to each other that they did not want to see or hear from each other's lives again, he would not know how or what to answer. And as he looks to the sea of people, he hopes, in some small, stupid part of his mind, that he decided not to come at all.
Is it stupid and selfish to think that? Yes, Mike knows that. Is it because he doesn’t know if their “friendship” can be salvaged? Yes, but Mike doesn’t want to entertain that thought.
He gets distracted by Dustin telling him about his newest invention during his work travel to Europe, and as Dustin animatedly recounts the story of how his team had a breakthrough with duplicating or cloning mammal cells, his gaze lock with a pair of hazel eyes he could never forget – no matter how many drinks he consumed that could poison him, he will always remember the pair of eyes that sparked with joy when Mike asked if he wanted to be friends with him on that swing set.
Mike was a lot of things; he has published books that became the number 1 best-selling book in the NY Times, he is known to have an outstanding vocabulary and imagination with his acclaimed fantasy novels. People may know him as someone smart and virtuous, but Mike, to his friends, is outspoken, oblivious, and a complete idiot. And at this moment right now, as his mouth opens and he begins to speak before thinking, he completely agrees with his friends now more than ever. Mike doesn’t know what takes over him, maybe because it’s been almost 3 years since he saw and had a conversation with him, or perhaps it’s because, for some reason, in those 2 years and 10 months, he has become so painfully beautiful. His hair is parted down the middle; his features, since the last time Mike saw him, are sharper on the edges but softer in a way that shows he has remained his kind and caring self, even though he has been through hell and back.
Or maybe it’s because Mike, 2 years: 10 months: 29 days ago, realized that he was irrevocably, undoubtedly, and foolishly in love with his best friend.
As he comes closer to the party, Mike's breathing comes to a stop, his ears block everything surrounding him out and he can only hear his heart beating for something he shouldn’t want, as his mouth opens to speak the name he never thought he’d ever say again,
“Will”