Chapter Text
Mike Wheeler had been an average middle schooler up until that one fateful day. He had been bullied for his looks, his nerdiness, his clothes, etcetera etcetera, which was normal for children his age he was told. An all-time teacher’s pet, he had enjoyed his school lessons, especially science and math. A few close friends similar to him had lingered by his side and while they had had their occasional fights and squabbles, they always came back to each other, simply because: they had no one else. The alien species that was “girls” had never taken a glance at Mike or his friends, and while they had gloried (as young boys do) in their closeness, each of them secretly wished for a significant other of their own. Mike’s mother was pretty and sweet, yet she rarely tended and cared for her children, and couldn’t remember the last time she had had a proper conversation with one of them. An often quietened voice inside her had been telling her to leave her tedious, dull, and most importantly ageing husband, and find someone bold and young. Yet she knew deep down that she had three kids, and whether they loved her or not she was their mother.
Having such unsympathetic parents, Mike normally kept to himself, spending hours in his basement just to stay away from them. He had two sisters, one older and one younger, and he hardly conversed with them anymore. His sister, Nancy, was a good, studious girl who had accidentally wrapped herself up in the world of boys. She had ignored Mike often, and he had pretended to enjoy it, but he’d missed the sister he had had four years ago, the one who dressed up as a ghost with him for Halloween, the one who made her famous PB&J sandwiches and ate them with him, not caring for the crumbs around her mouth. Holly, his younger sister, had tried to talk to him but he’d ignored her just like Nancy was doing to him. He didn’t realize the cruelty of his acts, but he did it unintentionally, simply telling himself he had no time for baby sisters. Little did he know how much he would miss her infantile personality once she grew up.
Mike’s family was pretty much imperfect and it seemed like they didn’t care for him, so he learnt to untie any bonds of love he had created with them in the past few years, spending as much away from his family as possible and signing up for many extra-curricular activities. His three friends had formed a “party” together, and they met regularly after school. Most of the time the meeting was hosted at his home, seldomly because Mike was the wealthiest of his friends and owned the biggest and best house. Mike was ashamed by this, but also proud. He lived his childhood days carefreely and nonchalant, simply because he didn’t have to worry about life and its problems. College fees and paying rent were far, far away, and when the time came, his money-bearing parents would happily cough up. He’d been a deeply sexist little boy, dreaming of marrying an intensely pretty woman who would cook and clean for him all day and bear him equally beautiful kids. He would work all day since he was the man. Now he was a little more mature, but his fantasies of true love were quite similar.
Anyway, the day that had changed his life completely started out like any other. He had biked to school and entered his first class of the day when he realized one of his best friends wasn’t there. At first, he’d wondered if he was sick, but Will (his friend) had been perfectly fine the day before. Maybe he bunked off...no, Will wasn’t that type of kid. He was as studious and nerdy as Mike was, and loved his single, hard-working mom too much to disappoint her by deliberately not showing up to class, something that Mike had privately envied. Something must have happened, and…..well, hopefully, you know the rest of the story.
Up till now, Mike had never been attracted properly to a girl, simply looking to see who was pretty in his class, yet Eleven was...different. She looked past his apparent “frogface” and his addiction to Dungeons & Dragons; she saw the real Mike, or the Mike he invented for her. He still didn’t know whether she loved him back, but Mike thought the same thing that most other kids his age thought: I’ll get to that later. Daringly, he had attempted to kiss her on the lips once. He had no real idea of how to kiss; it was just a quick peck, but having lived in a bleak cell her whole life, El enjoyed it greatly.
Mike resolved to love Eleven for the rest of his life and marry her when he was old enough to. A not quite subtle proudness seemed to raise him above the other members of the party. He had a girlfriend, and they did not. However, his girlfriend didn’t last long, as she had sacrificed herself for them and disappeared from Mike’s otherwise bleak and dry life. For the next few days, Mike drowned in his despair, not just because El was gone; but also because he would never be able to pay her back. He was forever in her debt.
Mike started to ever-so-slightly fail his tests and not pay as much attention to lessons as he used to. His enthusiasm had vanished. Slowly, he lost the will to meet up with his friends, and spent most nights moping in the fort he had built for her in his basement. He started to think that he would have been better off without Eleven. Frustratingly, his friends had moved on, and he hated them deeply for that, but he knew he shouldn’t. They hadn’t lost a loved one, just a friend, or a disgusting term that they repeatedly used: a “weapon”. With or without powers, Mike knew he loved Eleven, and his heart ached terribly for her every day. Every night, he called her on the radio; but of course, she never answered.
Little by little, he started to change. Surprisingly for him, he joined cross country, something he had thought he’d never do. Running from a faceless, repulsive monster had pumped adrenaline into his legs, and he won almost every race. It was all he could do to forget Eleven. It was like his muscles were screaming at him to get away.
However betrayful he felt, Mike had gotten another girlfriend. He’d decided there was nothing he could do about Eleven, and he wasn’t going to stay single forever, was he? His new girl was called Elizabeth, and she was a blonde, lovely thing. He spent about two weeks with her when he realized the dreadful truth. One day when they were walking to the library, she leant in to kiss him delicately on the cheek, yet Mike pushed her away without much thought.
She didn’t meet up with him after that.
Mike knew he still loved Eleven and trying to forget her would just make things worse. He moped even more after this, and sometimes didn’t even bother waking up until the late afternoon. His mother let him do this for the first few days, but she grew strict and insisted on sending him to school after a week. So Mike just decided to sleep at school, his friends sniggering as they watched his head flop onto the desk. His teachers berated him many times for this habit, and eventually, he phoned up Mike’s parents for an emergency meeting. They also talked of how Mike had grown so antisocial and spent most of his breaks and lunchtime sitting on a bench staring into space, totally ignoring his friends. Mr. Clarke, Mike’s favourite teacher, gently suggested for his former star student go to a counsellor, and at that Mike burst into tears. He would not stop sobbing even after his parents had got him home, yet he wouldn’t tell anyone what he was crying about. Dustin had once told him that he would get his comeuppance one day after living so amazingly, that his life would be as shit as his friends’, as a joke of course, but Mike believed it now. This, this was his shit.
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There was a girl who came to his school. She was sarcastic yet good-hearted and repeatedly insisted on joining their party. Her name was Max Mayfield, and Mike knew she would benefit the party, yet he felt betraying to Eleven. Letting another girl in the party would take El’s place and he didn’t want that to happen. Lucas and Dusting were besotted by her, though, and brought her along on every activity they would have normally done by themselves. Mike eventually grew raged by this and spent as much time with Will as possible, seldomly because he was the only friend who wasn’t under this exasperating girl’s spell.
Once again, Mike started to forget Eleven, but this time it was unintentional. He had finally given up, succumbing to the fact that she was never going to come back. Halloween had set the bar; and he hardly ever listened for El on the radio anymore. However, he couldn’t look at Max and Lucas without feeling just a little bit jealous. It was obvious they liked each other, and Mike just thought it unfair that his girlfriend wasn’t with him.
Then on that fateful night, when the world seemed like it was about to end, she came. It all felt so unreal; yet there she was standing in front of him, black eyeshadow and everything. She hugged him, but not for long enough, or with real emotion. She didn’t even kiss him on the cheek. Strangely enough, Mike was disappointed. He had dreamed of this day for so long that he’d over-fantasized it in his head, so much that the actual occasion was meek in comparison.
He kept her safe for months, seeing her every day, making Hopper literally go crazy. Mike felt gleeful in Hopper’s infuriation, and insisted on kissing El every time he met her. His friends grew distant, yet he didn’t care: the only person that mattered in his life was Eleven. It came to the point where he purposely avoided the other members of his party, just to spend more time with El.
She acted pretty much the same, but then again she couldn’t do anything else since Hopper had banned her from leaving his house unless it was an emergency. She hadn’t even bought her own clothes, wearing Hopper’s old oversized shirts. With nothing else to do, Eleven gloried in Mike’s visits and awaited him every single minute of her life. She had no idea what the world outside was like, and weirdly, she didn’t want to know.
Then all of that shit happened with Mike and Max and the mall…..and I honestly can’t even be bothered to explain it. Let’s move on to when El, Will and Jonathan moved away, shall we?
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Mike felt like his heart had been torn out of his chest and thrown in a trash can. After all that…..she was just going to leave? He knew it wasn’t her decision and that she was probably going through much more than he was right now but he was still hurt. El had said that she could meet him at Christmas and Thanksgiving….but how did he know she wasn’t lying? What if she had found some jock at her new school and immediately fallen for his biceps and good looks? Mike stared at his astonishingly white, stick-thin arms disappointedly. He frowned at his nerdy self in the mirror. He knew he wasn’t the ideal dream boyfriend, but was Eleven that shallow?
Strangely enough, Nancy didn’t feel the same way about her boyfriend as Mike did about El. She didn’t really care, and carried on with her life, focusing only on her studies for college and university. He asked her tentatively about Jonathan, and she blankly replied that she missed him and she was excited to meet him on Christmas. It seemed rehearsed and heartless, but we can go into Nancy’s character in another character study later. Hint hint.
Mike waited impatiently until Thanksgiving. Life felt for him how it did three years ago. Bleak, boring, and monosyllabic. He was 14-going-on-15, yet time hadn’t moved on. Mike was stuck in his naive twelve-year-old body, and it was impossible for him to escape.
The day before Thanksgiving was to Mike’s profound delight. He phoned Eleven approximately seven minutes after waking up, not wanting to seem too eager. She picked up on the third ring, yawning into the phone delicately. He asked her if she was coming over tomorrow, and she didn’t answer. He asked her again, a little more impatient this time, and she replied with a slightly bored yes. He almost screamed with delight, but keeping his cool, he said “that’s nice”, trying to copy her tone.
The next day, he decorated excessively, brown and orange bunting draped everywhere and an immense cornucopia sitting in the middle of the table. She came in the late morning, knocking gently on the door. Mike opened it and grinned when he saw her. He kissed her on the lips. It was a little dull and impassive on her side, but it was still a kiss. They sat down on the dinner table, El opposite Mike. She marveled the decor, and Mike beamed proudly.
Will came too, and Mike was less excited to see him, but he welcomed him all the same. El’s and Mike’s conversation was dry and neutral, about silly little things like the weather or the size of Eleven's new bedroom. Maybe it was for the better, though, since everyone else was sitting on the table and now was not really the time to have deep conversation. Most of the time, they just ate the food. Mike didn’t blame them. His mom was an amazing cook.
She slept over in the attic while Will and Jonathan slept in the living room on the couch. Personally, Mike would have wanted El to sleep with him. Nothing bad or inappropriate, just him getting to hold on to her as much as he could before she left. However, even Mike could see why this was a terrible idea. He went to sleep dreaming of her…
She left hurriedly the next morning, thanking him hastily for the food. He asked her if he could come over to her’s on Christmas, and she replied with a slight nod.
Mike tried to feel happy with El’s visit, but he couldn’t help thinking about how half-hearted she’d been. Did she still like him? Or did she get a new...he pushed the troubling thought away and said goodbye to El and Will, kissing her on the cheek awkwardly.
He called her every week, and most of the time she picked up. Their calls grew more and more identical, as if they were rehearsing lines for a play. They always ended with a tired “I love you” or an exhausted “I miss you so much”.
Near Christmas, he called her once more, asking if he could meet her up again. She waited before replying, her breathing audible through the phone. Mike lingered, his hope slowly fading. Eleven reluctantly admitted that she wouldn’t be meeting him up for Christmas, since she was busy with “school and things like that”. Mike’s face fell but he carried on, perseverant. She also told him that she was breaking up. Mike could have died. He wanted to, anyway. Slamming down the phone before El could explain, he fell onto his bed and cried. Hard.
She didn’t call for a long time after that.
Mike had changed a lot since that phone call. He suffered from depression, constantly feeling tired and bursting into tears at small things. He had also developed a nail-biting habit, and when he destroyed his nails down to the end, leaving them raw and red, he carried on absentmindedly biting his fingers, sometimes causing them to bleed. School grew harder and harder, and he failed all his tests, even when he’d studied for them. The knowledge simply left his head the minute the timer started. Mike’s friends started to increasingly worry about him, and insisted on talking to him and meeting up more, yet he brushed them off selfishly. He simply found no joy in life anymore, and it was all because of one girl.
He found a girl a little after his 16th birthday. Her name was Samantha, or Sam for short, and she was strangely tall for her age. She was new to the school and was bullied greatly, just like Mike. She found Mike sitting alone at lunch one day, as if he was only a boy of seven. Dustin, Lucas, and Max were sitting in front of him, but he paid no attention, and they eventually gave up and left. Mike chewed his lunch monotonously, staring to space, and she sat next to him, since she had no friends to sit with and Mike looked sweet. Sam asked him a few questions about his life and was disappointed when he answered with yeses and nos, but she persevered. A few days later, Mike found himself confiding his deepest secrets in her, mostly about Eleven. She didn’t believe him about the monsters and superpowers, but simply accepted the fact that he was a little bit crazy and thought: so what? The best people are. She kissed him one day when they were in a dark school alley, and he kissed her back fully. He decided he needed to forget Eleven, because she had probably forgotten him.
Life brightened up a bit for Mike, as now he had at least one thing to look forward to each day, and the list was steadily increasing. He went on his first date with her a week later on a Saturday, and it was to the arcade. Fortunately, Sam had pretty much the same interests as him.
Mike grew out of his depression slowly as he met up with Sam more. People still bullied him, but he didn’t care, he was in seventh heaven as long as he had a loving girlfriend. He cried when Nancy left for university, but didn’t stay upset for long. It was lonely at home without someone close to his age, but Holly was 10 now, and for the sake of God, he couldn’t remember her growing up. She was still a six-year-old toddler for him, and he didn’t want that to change. He taught her about things he thought were worldly, like how to play Dungeons & Dragons, or how to deal with boys. Most of his passed-down knowledge went through one ear and out the other, yet he enjoyed educating her.
He began smoking a little after his 17th birthday, and that was why Sam left him. It started when he was driving home with Dustin. Dustin’s mom was guilty of being an avid smoker and Dustin had sneaked a packet of Marlboro Lights from her to try them out. Having almost choked to death, he had hastily passed them on to Mike. When he got home, he tried them secretly in his bedroom, the putrid smoke drifting out of his window. It became an addiction, and all the money he earned from washing neighbours’ cars was spent on cheap cigarettes. His mom still didn’t know, since he only smoked either at school or outside. Sam had figured it out, though, and she persisted in stopping him to stop, saying it was making him smell. Sure enough, even when he wasn’t smoking, he smelled rancid and his teeth were slowly but surely turning yellow. He tried, oh, he tried, but the nicotine ran in his blood, and he could not stop. They had a fight, screaming at the top of their lungs. Sam said that if he didn’t stop, she would break up with him. The smoke had clearly addled his brain since Mike answered back with: “Fine then! Leave me!” So she did.
At the end of the year, Mike had his first real high-school party. There had been one last year, but he had chosen responsibly not to go.
He had decided it would take the weight of his recent breakup off his shoulders, just for one night. And since it was just one night, he should be able to drink a little, right? None of his parents had been rabid alcoholics, so he didn’t really know the dangers of it. With this in mind, he’d seen the statistics and the charts, made promises to his parents, winced at the taste of champagne as a kid….but maybe just one can of booze wouldn’t hurt?
Well, it definitely wasn’t just one can. His first party was one of many, and so were the drinks. His friends came with him to each party, and resolutely carried Mike’s drunken self each time as well. They had no desire for alcohol, and Mike didn’t blame them. It was an acquired taste.
He would never deliberately put his friends in danger by getting drunk, yet on one occasion he woke up on Dustin’s dirty couch, head banging and the urge to throw up growing larger inside of him. He resolved never to drink a drop of beer again, yet two weeks later, he found himself once again leaning over a trash can, his whole body retching.
Graduation was a let-down. High school had done little for Mike, simply keeping him locked in a building full of people who were disgusted by him. He posed for an array of class pictures, sitting next to two jocks, lips curved uncomfortably as they glared at him. He carried on smiling, however. He was free of the bullies, of the schoolwork, of the teachers in just one day.
Nancy came home the day after graduation, cheeks tinged pink from the cold of New York. She insists on driving to Jonathan’s. They haven’t met since that awkward Thanksgiving all those years ago, and dread fills Mike’s heart. However, he eventually agrees with her and starts his new car reluctantly.
Mike had never seen Nancy so happy before, though he couldn’t say the same for himself. He gritted his teeth as he drove, the wind blowing in his face. It was a long drive, with bathroom and food breaks aplenty. The farther they went, the more his bones rattled with unease. The mere thought of seeing his wretched ex-girlfriend’s face made him want to throw up, yet here he was, just four hours away from her house. He had been so besotted with her when he was fourteen...what had changed now?
He nearly went through half a pack on the way. It’s not like anyone cared if he was legal or not. The eyebags and pale skin had added a few years to him, and the drive-through grocery store cashiers rarely asked for ID.
Mike was a complete shitty wreck when he reached Maine. They were just fifteen minutes away when Nancy stopped at a general store to shop for some last-minute gifts, while he stayed in the car. It’s at that when Mike dissolved, hands shaking, sobs wracking his chest. He had the urge to knock his head against the steering wheel, fall unconscious, and wake up in a hospital far, far away from Eleven, but suppressed it. Nancy sat down back in her seat, shock written on her face. She questioned him one, two, three times but he stayed silent, an invisible wall of security built around him. Nancy didn’t press on.
The minute they reached there, Nancy bolted out of the car, knocked the door, and when Jonathan answered she hugged him tightly, kissing him over and over again. Mike was just a side order, trailing behind. He put his chin up in a false sense of pride when he saw El, saying hi with gritted teeth. Despite this, she smiled when she saw him and immediately dived in for a kiss. He let her lips stay there, knowing everyone was watching him. Had the break-up call just been a dream? Had he wrecked a year of his life for nothing?
Eleven held his hand as she walked Mike in, giving him a cutesy tour of her house. It was unsurprisingly small. Mike nodded to Will as he walked past, and he nodded awkwardly back. It was so weird, four years ago they had been the very best of friends and now they were complete strangers. Mike couldn’t help feeling that that was mostly his fault, ever since he had shut out everyone in sophomore year.
El led Mike to her bedroom and shut the door. “What-what are you doing?” He asked in shock.
“Kiss me,” She said, as if it was a reply. She leant in once again, and he gently pushed her away, realising the truth. “El,” He gulped. “I, I don’t love you anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“You broke up with me, remember?”
“No, that was just me being stupid, it was three years-”
“I’m sorry, El. But I’ve moved on.” And he walked out, childish tears springing to his eyes.