Chapter Text
Miami, Florida 2000
You are invited to the wedding of
Jane “Eleven” Hopper and Dustin Henderson
June 17th, 2000 5pm
Hawkins Glenn Event Center
RSVP attached
Mike blinked at the invitation. How the fuck had they gotten his address? There was a stack of essays beneath his arm, his cat winding between his ankles, and a bag slung over his shoulder, but none of it really mattered as he stared at the invitation. It was nice looking, he supposed. Creamy paper with little stars in the corner. He reached back into the envelope and pulled out the RSVP card. Little black words glared up at him.
Solo__ Plus One__
Chicken__Steak__Fish__
His bag fell from his shoulder to his elbow, sending a sudden jolt up his arm. He shoved both pieces of paper back into the envelope and placed it next to a hundred other discarded envelopes, sentenced to laying there ignored until he swept them all into the trash. He wandered further into his house, tossing his keys onto the end table and setting all his work stuff onto the dining room table while Gremlin followed him. Not that it was much of a dining room in his small apartment.
He sunk into the sole, leather chair at the table that he splurged on when he first moved to Florida. The brown leather was buttery soft beneath his fingers and the cushions embraced him as he sunk into them. He leaned forward, resting his head on his wrists and looked towards the entryway out of the corners of his eyes.
He could almost see the open flap of the envelope of the thin table right by the door. Dustin and El, huh. He had never seen that one coming. Once El had actually started getting tutors and catching up in school she and Dustin had loved to talk about physics and math and things that made Mike’s head spin. They talked about going to space and blackholes and math with letters in it. But back then, El had been his girlfriend and his biggest concern was losing her to one of the cool kids or a jock, not one of his friends. He wondered if they’re still friends, even if they hadn’t talked in twelve years give or take.
Lucas and Max are still friends with Dustin and El, which he only knows because Max is the only one he still talks to. He imagined Will was still friends with them, couldn’t imagine them dumping Will after everything they did to save him.
As if on cue, his cell phone rang and Max’s name popped up in pixelated letters. He was still not quite used to having a phone in his pocket, but he enjoyed it. He sighed, imagining what it would be like to not answer, and then picked up the phone. “Shouldn’t you be working?” he asked her.
Her laugh was distorted through the call. “Just finished a stunt.”
“Ah.” He uncapped a red pen and pulled an essay forward, might as well make this productive. “And how much was that?”
“Hmm, I think this job pays twenty.” Twenty grand, for her third job this year of a similar caliber. Mike could only imagine that.
“Be careful,” Mike told her, as if that meant anything to her. He pictured her legs slung over the armrest of one of those canvas Hollywood chairs surrounded by the hubbub of a film set.
“Right.” She paused. Through the line, Mike heard the commotion going on around her and her coworkers talking. “As much as I love talking to you, I’m calling for a reason.”
“The soon to be Mr and Mrs Henderson?” Mike deadpanned. He closed his pen, he couldn’t focus on the little words on the paper. The messy writing of students reminded him of DND campaigns written in composition books, notes passed in class, mixtapes made and passed around.
Max snorted. “She’s keeping her last name actually.”
“Progressive. Makes sense though.”
They both paused again, neither knowing which way the other wanted to take it. Mike hoped she wasn’t calling to persuade him to come. He had vacation days sure, and he could crash with Nancy and Jonathan and Steve, the three of them caught in their perpetual limbo of a teenage love triangle unresolved. It was possible, but left a bitter tang in his mouth.
“You should come,” Max said. She coughed, then cleared her throat. “I’m serious. I know things have been...weird for a while, but that doesn’t matter. Eighteen is more than twelve.”
Objectively, Mike knew it was all his fault. That he lived in an isolation of his own creation.
Max carried on, oblivious to Mike's thoughts. “We’re all going into town ten days before the wedding, for a little reunion before all the pomp and circumstance. You should be there, it’s only right.”
Mike sighed. He rolled the pen between his fingers, contemplating everything. “I’ll think about it.”
“Great, I already talked to Nancy and you can take the other guest room, Steve and Nancy will share while you’re there. Will-”
Mike inhaled sharply. For years, he had been carefully avoiding the sound of Will’s name, pretending that if he didn’t think about it nothing was true. Out of sight out of mind. “I have to go Max,” he said, cutting her off. “I promise to think about it and call you on Wednesday.”
Max sighed, the emphasis of her disappointment carrying across the country. California to Florida. “Bye, Mike. I’ll tell Lucas we talked.” She hung up with the same closing as usual, never forcing their reconnection or a conversation, just putting it there.
Mike set the phone down next to his stack of essays. He stared at the pen words and closed his eyes, thunking his head down onto the stack. The hundreds of pages cushioned the hit.
On his way to bed later, he stopped by the entryway sideboard and picked up the wedding invitation. He placed it on the center of his main table, where he would have to face it until he made a decision.
He dreamt of being eighteen again.
---
His students always stared at him sharp enough to cut. Sometimes it didn’t bother him, that day it did. He sat on the edge of his desk, grading essays as second period, his favorite period, trickled in.
“You look like shit, Mr Wheeler,” one girl, Eva, told him. Her painted lips were pursed as she studied him, hand on her hip.
He capped his pen. “Ah, and you look like you’re breaking dress code.” He flicked his eyes to her bare midriff.
She scoffed and pulled a few papers out of her bag. “I had to watch my siblings the night before this was due but…” She held out an essay.
He took it and tucked it into the pile. “Don’t worry about it.”
The bell rang and most of the class was there. Mike left the door open for the stragglers, who he wouldn’t mark tardy or check for late passes. He did enough skipping in his school days. It was a wonder he ended up as a teacher.
“Okay, okay,” he said. The class looked up at him, all sidebars dropping off. One perk of being the “cool” teacher was that the kids tended to listen to him, probably because he let them curse and break dress code and often let them watch movies. “Today we can do the analysis for chapter four of A Raisin in the Sun or peer review essays.”
The class dissolved into conversation amongst themselves. “Or,” one student, Brad, piped up, “you can tell us what’s wrong with your life and then let us watch a movie.”
Mike laughed, crossing his arms. He leaned against his whiteboard that had a three day old list of homework on it. “Oh yeah?” It had been by accident that he started What Is Wrong With Mr Wheeler’s Life, after a heated conversation with Max between classes had left him fuming and snappy with his students. They demanded he cough up his problems or they would rip up his gradebook.
“Yeah,” the kids chorused.
He sighed. “Fine, fine.” They already knew that he didn’t talk to his childhood friends anymore. “A few of my friends are getting married this summer.”
“The old ones?” One kid asked.
Mike nodded. There was a ripple through the class. “Which ones? Max and Lucas?”
He shook his head, Max and Lucas would probably never get married, content to live in the same condo on the beach forever while pretending that their relationship wasn’t serious enough for forever. As if they weren’t head over heels in love. “Dustin and El.”
The class gasped collectively. One kid shouted, “He stole your girl?!”
“We broke up a long time ago. Senior year, actually,” he pointed out, not counting the spat at the Star Court the year Billy got possessed and died.
“Are you going to the wedding?” Someone asked.
Mike hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Max wants me to go to this reunion before. See everyone again.”
Gia, Emily, and Maria, a trio of trouble and giggles, looked at each other then at Mike. “You’re going to go,” Gia declared. “We don’t know what wacky shit happened to you but I wouldn’t just give up on my girls like that.”
Mike nodded. She made sense. Like Max always said, eighteen was greater than twelve. Not that they had all been friends for eighteen years, he and Will had been friends for fourteen years before he ghosted them all, but it seemed like it, seemed like forever. Maybe it was everything they went through. Maybe it was that they all needed each other so much.
He put on the Animal Farm movie and sat at his desk, forcing himself to grade essays as his mind whirred.
---
The perks of having a cellphone included being able to talk as he drove. The drive from the high school to his apartment was always tedious and forever long. And that day, filled with Nancy’s voice. “Of course you can stay with us,” she said, sounding too excited.
“Thanks Nanc.”
“Don’t sound so glum, El is getting married, that’s exciting, dimwit.”
Mike fiddled with the peeling edge of his steering wheel. “I’m happy for them, really. Do you know when they started going out?”
Nancy hummed contemplatively. “I think when Dustin moved back to Hawkins, to take care of his mom.”
Oh, right. He had called Dustin when he heard of the accident and once more when he heard that his mother had died. That was probably the last time they had talked. All his fault of course. “That’s nice.”
Nancy sighed. It felt like every conversation he had nowadays was filled with sighs from both him and whoever he was talking to. “I always forget you guys ‘aren’t friends anymore’. I mean forever it was MikeandWillandDustinandLucasandElandMax.”
“Why did you say ‘aren’t friends anymore’ like that?”
“Because its stupid, you dolt. No one can undo that many years of friendship so quickly, no matter how stupid you are.”
Mike didn’t point out that that was untrue, that some mistakes were unforgivable. He just hummed in agreement and pulled off the highway, navigating the crowded surface roads home. “It’s not that simple.”
“Okay if you insist. Should I plan on making up the guest bedroom and making the boys behave?”
Mike wrinkled his nose and pulled into his spot in the parking lot. “Yeah. Please.”
Nancy laughed and he could practically see her leaning against the fridge talking on the landline with her hair fluttering in the breeze from the fan. “Perfect. I can’t wait to see you.”
“Me too, Nanc.” He turned the car off but stayed in it. Without the wind whipping through the windows the heat got to him quickly.
Something shuffled on Nancy's end of the line and there were muffled words exchanged. “We all miss you Mike. Mom, Dad, all of us.”
“I miss you guys too.” The memory of all five of them sitting around their oak dining room table with Mom trying to force conversation that didn’t end in a fight ro someone storming off pulled at his chest.
“Good,” Nancy declared. “And call Holly.”
The dial tone beeped and Mike took the phone away from his head. He stared at the olive green screen, any writing washed out by the harsh sun. He cupped his hand around it so he could make out the words enough to call Max. She answered on the first ring.
“Mr Miami?” she asked, as if she didn’t know it was him. “What can I do for you?”
He chuckled at her antics. “I called to tell you: you win. I’ll go to the wedding. And the reunion.”
Max squealed. “Oh perfect. We’re going to fix everything. Oh this made my lunch hour.” He always forgets its only one in California by the time he gets home from work. They're worlds away. The Party scattered to the wind as soon as they could, Lucas and Max to California, Dustin to Boston, Will to New York, Mike to Florida. Only El stayed in Hawkins. At least, the rest of the Party still talks to each other, he assumed at least.
“I don’t know if that’s gonna happen, Max.”
“Oh, have a little faith. And remember to send your RSVP.”
“I will, I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Mike scoffed. He heard her undertone loud and clear. He didn’t have an answer for her, but didn’t quite feel like ending the call. He knew, of course, that it was his fault he drifted away from the group, that he and Max only stayed in contact because there was something so understanding about Max, and something so stubborn as well. He had tried to separate from her as well, but she had said, “I didn’t go all my life having no friends just to lose one of the first ones I ever had,” and refused to let go. He never thought she would be the only one he still talked to, never thought he would ever really consider her his friend. He’s glad he was wrong, very glad.
“Should I tell the others?” Max finally asked.
Mike shrugged, as if she could see. “I’ll call Dustin or El sometime this week.”
Max snorted. Someone on her end of the line screamed. “I have to go, I’ll call you later.”
Mike closed his phone with a loud click and dropped his head to his steering wheel.
—-
Mike filled out the RSVP.
He stared at it, capping his pen.
He put the card in the envelope, wrote his return address on the envelope.
Stared at it some more. He took a deep breath, something angry and anxious swirling in his gut. He could pick up his phone right now and call Dustin and El, he got their new joint phone number from Max, and get it over with. He didn’t know what he would say though, hey, I’m sorry I ghosted you guys, congrats on the engagement.
He took the envelope and walked it to the mail slot in the center of the apartment complex. Standing in the unbearable sun of the mail and pool center, Mike pulled out his phone and dialed the number.
The phone rang and rang, for a second Mike was unsure they would pick up. The dial tone cut off and Mike caught his breath.
“Hello?” Dustin’s distinct voice said into the phone.
Mike took one more steadying breath, before forcing himself to speak before he lost the nerve and let the call end. “Hi Dustin, it’s Mike.”
“Mike,” Dustin repeated. In the background, Mike heard El echo his name in a shocked tone.
“Yeah. I uh-” He ran his free hand through the back of his hair, it was getting long and starting to curl around his neck. “I got the invitation to your wedding.”
There was quite commotion from the other end of the line and then El’s voice, prim and clipped: “We thought we would invite you anyways.”
“Thank you, I- uh- appreciate it. But I’m going to come.” He was fairly sure in that moment, that they really weren’t expecting him to come, that it had been an afterthought invite. Oh, remember Mike? Maybe he should get an invite.
“You are?!” Dustin exclaimed.
Mike nodded to himself. “Yeah, I- uh” Why is this so difficult? Oh yeah, because they haven’t spoken in almost twelve years. He’s thirty years old, for God’s sake, he can do this. “I talked to Max, and she was right, I was an asshole to you guys, and I shouldn’t have ghosted you guys. And I'm sorry.”
He took a deep breath, and El and Dustin, who still knew him so well, stayed quiet. “I’m sorry I took out my… whatever with Will on you two. I’m sorry that I didn’t know you two were together until I got the wedding invite. I want to try again, if you’ll let me.”
Grainy silence filled the air, stretching from Indiana to Florida. Thousands of miles apart, and Mike could perfectly picture their silent conversation.
“No better time than the present, right?” El asked. She sounded exactly the same, yet completely different. In the years they had spent together in Hawkins, El’s English had slowly gotten better and her Russian was impeccable, but now she sounded just like any other native English speaker. El had always been ridiculously smart, but he didn’t realize how smart. That was his own fault wasn’t it, constantly undermining her, underestimating her.
“What?” Dustin said. He sounded as incredulous as Mike expected. He wouldn’t forgive himself if he was in their position.
“He said he was sorry. Let him prove it,” El said. Her defiant tone struck Mike in the chest, senior year rushing back at him in flashes of pictures.
“Prove it how?” Mike asked hesitantly.
“What are you doing now?” she asked.
Mike looked around the beige monstrosity of the apartment complex central hub, grainy poolside flooring, the sandy looking mailbox covers. “Dropping off your RSVP at the mail.”
Dustin snorted and El chuckled slightly. “No silly.” Just like before, just like he remembered. “What are you doing with your life?”
Mike started the walk back to his apartment, it wasn’t far, but it would feel nearly unbearable in the afternoon sun. “I’m an English teacher, I live in Florida.” He paused, what else of interest has he done in the last years. “I have a cat and not many friends.”
Dustin laughs dryly. “Wonder why.”
El shushed him. “Are you coming up for the reunion?”
Mike bit his lip, letting himself into the apartment. “If you’ll have me.”
Dustin and El whispered amongst themselves. “I think it’s what we all need. Do you need to stay with Mom and Dad?” El asked.
“No, I’m staying with Nancy.”
“Ah. It's been a while since she came over for dinner,” Dustin said.
El hummed, “We’ll invite her soon.”
A twisted part of Mike was angry that they had dinner with his sister, angry that he hadn’t been the one anchoring his family to his friends. But a bigger part of him was glad, glad El had more girl friends, that she wasn't alone. It felt more salvageable if El and Dustin hadn’t written off his entire family.
“We’ll see you soon then,” Dustin said.
“And you can make it all up to us,” El said, and Mike couldn’t quite tell what she was thinking.
---
Hawkins, Indiana 2000
The closest airport to Hawkins was an hour away, splitting the distance between a bunch of other small and otherwise notable towns. The summer sun was beating down harshly as he stepped out of the airport onto the sidewalk of the drop off and pick up area. He shielded his eyes with one hand, the other firmly clamped around the handle of his suitcase, as if anyone in Indiana was interested in robbing him. He had gotten careful after years in Miami. He scanned for a face he knew in the sea of cars and taxis, all El had said last time they talked was “I’ll take care of it”. The strap of his messenger bag slides, cutting across the skin of his neck and he exhales a string of curses just as someone approaches him and taps him on the shoulder.
His head snapped up and his eyes met another’s. He inhaled sharply. The eyes were deeply familiar, ones he could never forget, never in a million ears. He surveyed the rest of the face, it had evened out and filled out. It looked healthier, calmer, happier even. “Wheeler,” Will Byers said.
He sounded the same. Looked the same, despite the changes he’d gone through since they last saw each other. But those were the only things the same. His hair was different, cut shorter and sweeping across his forehead to one side, carefully styled; sunglasses balanced on the crown of his head, defying gravity. His clothes were carefully put together, chic and tastefully messy. He exuded confidence and a certain self-assured carelessness.
“What the hell,” Mike said, and Will smirked.