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Micheal Wheeler never expected it.
Sure, he had thought about it, putting random pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together, hoping that they’d make sense. He told Will that he was like a sorcerer. But it was a wild theory.
He was stunned when it came true.
-
Dumbfounded, Mike had stood there after returning to consciousness. Though bruised and left arm throbbing, he was starstruck; staring right at his best friend Will Byers. The boy whom had just gained telekinetic powers right in front of his very eyes and saved him from a board game monster.
Will had saved him. Not the other way around. Will wiped the blood dripping from his nostril, and to Mike, it felt like it was happening in slow motion.
In the moment, time stood still. Mike’s eyes grew wide and his pupils dilated to the size of the moon. A smile appeared across his face. His entire face flushed. Ignoring the burning sensation in his arm socket and the pounding of his head, he quickly darted to Will.
“Holy. Shit.”
Mike’s breathing was uneven and he gasped as he sputtered the words out. He clung to Will’s shoulder as Will inhaled, breathing heavily. Mike crouched down slightly.
“What did I say—Sorcerer.”
Mike grinned as he tightened his grip on a half-delirious Will’s shoulders to help him stand.
“I can’t believe—This is insane—What did I say—This is huge—“
Mike’s words tumbled out rapidly, falling over each other like whatever he was saying was straight nonsense. He was rambling on and on, and Will barely caught any of it in the partly conscious state he was in. Joyce rushed over.
“Oh, Will—“
Mike slung his stinging left arm under and around Will’s shoulders, supporting half his weight.
“We’ve got to get back to the Squawk—the others…and we have to make a new plan.”
Joyce nodded, meeting Mike’s eyes with sincerity. She slung an arm to support the rest of Will’s weight.
-
“You mean to tell me that Byers did that to the Demo? Holy shit.”
Drowsily asleep on the couch at the Squawk, Will was left out of the party debrief of the events of the night. Mike, with crossed arms, paced across the room. Lucas leaned back in the chair, rubbing his hand on his head as he nursed his scrape from the demogorgan. Robin was up, basically running around trying to make sense of the entire thing.
“Yes, Robin—all 3 to be exact. He saved all of us.”
Mike’s mind was still running at a hundred miles an hour, trying to take in everything that had happened. He was remembering Vecna, before he had passed out. He shuddered at the memory.
He knew he was there before he saw him. It was a feeling, like the ones Will got. After spring break in California and the earthquake in Hawkins, he started getting them. Like when he closed his eyes at night, Vecna haunted him in his dreams until the early hours of the morning. Mike would lie awake, paralyzed in fear until it was time for school in the morning. Caffeine was his only lifeline.
Exhausted, his brain drowns out Robin’s rambling—not on purpose; he just can’t focus. His head was too loud. His ears starting ringing as the throbbing in his head increased.
-
Mike Wheeler had spent his entire life being the protector, the leader, the heart. He shoved his own emotions, guilt, and insecurities away, deep into the back of his heart. But that’s what Vecna does—he takes your greatest fear and brings it bubbling back up to the surface. Then, you are unable to hide from it. You can’t even run.
-
Mike had nearly jumped out of his skin.
Robin’s voice was now muffled, but Mike wasn’t in the room with her. Rather, he wasn’t in the room with anyone. Glancing around, he observes carefully; the walls were cracked and vines twisted into them unnaturally.
It was still the Squawk, but it wasn’t. A cracked grandfather clock chimes, disoriented, in the corner of the room. Mike whips his head around, immediately alert. It all sounds like he is underwater, drowning in some mysterious pool of his own thoughts.
“Micheal…”
A thick, hoarse voice echoes around him. An uneasy feeling creeps up his spine. Reaching to his shivering neck, Mike’s hand comes to a halt. He wipes his nose and metallic red blood appears across his fingers. Frozen in place, his stomach drops as the whole world suddenly goes dark.
-
Gasping for air, Mike inhales heavily as his eyes peel open. He looks around at the void he’s lying in. In the distance, there’s a figure. Mike scrambles to his feet.
“No. No! Leave me alone.”
Vecna just laughs, reaching his slimey arm out. His left arm. He twitches it and Mike screams, his shoulder erupting with white-hot pain. The ground splits beneath him in three loud CRACKS.
He falls into a memory. Mike strains as he stands up and tries to make out the people in front of him. It’s himself, Lucas, Dustin, and El. The quarry when they were 12. Behind the firetruck. He knows this. When they thought that Will was dead.
“You see, Micheal? You see what happens?”
Vecna mimics Ted Wheeler’s voice. Those words alone are enough to make Mike’s heart drop and his stomach lurch.
Mike attempts to block it out. He thinks of El—the Snowball dance, reuniting in California, his monologue to her inside Vecna’s mind. But he still hears it.
“You’re so naive, Micheal.”
Vecna twists his shoulder again. Mike screams a bloodcurdling scream as he’s pulled into another memory.
“She needs you, Mike, and she always will.”
Mike gasps as he pulls himself upwards to his feet. He sees himself, inside the van in California, Will’s painting in his hands. Will is crying, looking out the window into the distance.
Mike reaches out, wanting to ask what’s wrong, wanting to help. But he can’t.
“You’re fearful, Micheal. Might as well change your name to Mike the Afraid.”
Mike is dropped into another memory. The Hawkins Lab. Will’s glossed over eyes, Will’s now memories. Will screaming as he’s sedated. Mike can’t relive this one. He can’t.
In his minds eye, Mike pictures the best memory he can think of. He remembers every detail vividly, bringing it to life. Vecna snarls, trying to fight it, but he cannot.
“Hi. Do you want to be friends?”
Mike stares at his younger self. Younger Will nods eagerly in answer to his question as they swing together on the playground. Joyful. Happy. Not a care in the world.
A tear runs down Mike’s face, escaping from the corner of his eye. He remembers this moment well; of course he does. It was the best thing that he had ever done.
But then, Vecna breaks through into his sacred memory. Vecna raises his hand and Mike is flung up against the school wall, darkness overtaking him as his head collides with the brick.
-
“Will. WILL!”
Mike hovers low in the middle of the room, eyes rolled back into his head and convulsing uncontrollably. Will is stirred awake by Robin, who panickedly tries shaking Mike awake.
“Mike! Mike! Shit! Wheeler?”
Lucas stands, his eyes wide like discs. Remembering what happened to Max, he rushes over and shakes Mike. He grips his shoulders tightly.
“No, no, no! No, man. Stay with us, c’mon. C’mon!”
Will rushes to his feet, swaying slightly. He clutches Mike’s shoulder tightly, heaving as he gasps for breath and his voice nearly cracking from his tears.
“Mike! Mike please…”
-
Mike is anchored tightly by the vines in Vecna’s mindscape. His vision is foggy, but he sees Vecna in front of him. A vine twists around his legs and then his throat, forcing all the air out of his lungs.
“You’ve always been too naive, Micheal. Too brave to let anyone save you. Had too big of an ego to show that you love anyone. And now—it will come back to haunt you again. You will die, and your friends and family will die, never knowing how you felt.”
Mike struggles against the vines; against the truth. Tears flow down his cheeks because he knows that Vecna was right.
The vines tighten, constricting Mike’s chest. Vecna raises his hand above Mike’s head, but he refuses to believe that this is the end.
“No,” he gasps, “you’re wrong.”
Vecna pauses, but then he just laughs.
“Naive, boy. You don’t understand anything at all, do you?”
Mikes brow furrows as he tries to understand. He begins to see black spots in his vision. But then, he hears a voice.
-
“Mike. Mike, I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t know if this is like before.”
Will’s voice shakes, though firm. Mike recognizes it and the vines loosen ever so slightly.
“Mike, I—I lied. El didn’t commission the painting. I made it. But everything—everything I said was true. I know you feel like you have to hide your feelings all the time, but you are still Mike the Brave even when you show your emotions.”
Vecna snarls as Mike closes his eyes, sobs threatening to rack his entire body.
Will sputters, “But you saved me. Countless times. You never gave up on me. You never give up on anything or anyone. That’s why you’re the heart. So,“ Will’s voice cracks, “don’t give up now.” Sobs rack Will’s body as he clutches onto Mike’s shoulders.
Vecna growls and it echoes across his mind.
“You know he’s just saying it to make you feel strong, Mike. It’s not true. You can’t even make yourself believe that it’s true.”
Mike sputters as the vines continue to choke him. And the tighter and tighter they grasp, it feels like Mike nearly loses the battle. For a moment, it feels like he has lost.
Vecna raises his hand above Mike’s head. Mike tries to scream, but no sound comes out.
In the Rightside Up, Mike begins to levitate toward the ceiling. His body jerks back as his feet leave the floor completely.
“MIKE, NO!”
Vecna twists his hand and a sickening CRACK rings out throughout the Squawk as Mike’s left arm suddenly twists at an entirely wrong angle.
Robin screams as she covers her mouth, wide eyed. Lucas staggers back, raising his arms up behind his head, his eyes like discs. And Will—Will sobs.
“Mike, Mike—please,” Will’s voice breaks instantaneously. “I need you. I don’t want—I can’t do any of this without you.”
Mike fights. He doesn’t let Vecna win.
Vecna snarls, urging the vines tighter, but it’s not enough. Though Mike’s vision blurs at the edges, he manages to gasp and sputter out words.
“Will… he’s right. I was scared. But not anymore. Not anymore.”
Mike’s body convulses midair in the real world. Vecna growls in his mindscape. The vines constrict tight across Mike’s chest. Black spots appear in his vision as darkness threatens to overtake him. He screams out a sob. Vaguely, he hears Will’s shrieks and Vecna’s deep laugh as he raises his hand again. Mike chokes out one last sentence.
“I love them, all of my friends and family, and most importantly—Will; I love you.”
It’s like an avalanche.
Mike’s words echo off the walls of the mindscape.
A force sends Vecna back and he groans.
The vines writhe and recoil, retreating.
Mike gasps for air as his vision swims.
In the Rightside Up, the lights flicker as Mike’s hovering figure crashes to the ground in a crumpled position. He is halfway held by one of Will’s arms. Will falls to his knees and drops to the floor.
Will clutches Mike’s jacket, gasping as tears stream down his cheeks. Robin places a careful hand on Will’s back. Lucas grabs Mike’s shoulder and breathes shakily.
“Mike…oh my gosh…Mike, please wake up,” Will sputters out.
Mike coughs weakly, gasping unevenly.
“Mike?”
Mike’s breath is shallow, his lips tinged blue. Deep red blood slips from one of his nostrils and his face is etched with pain.
Lucas sighs shakily, heaving a painful breath of relief. Robin clutches Wills shoulder as Will bows his head over Mike’s torso, half sobbing, half laughing from relief.
Mike’s eyelids flutter as he reaches out, blindly placing his hand out on the ground.
“Will?” He whispers, raspy. “Don’t… go—“
Will chokes back a sob. Bittersweetly, he puts his hand over Mike’s, rubbing their thumbs together.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers.
“I’m right here.”