Chapter Text
Mike Wheeler was an unapologetic optimist to a fault – always had been. And honestly, he wondered, what obstacles did he come up against that had ever seriously challenged this worldview? After all, he had lived through 5 years of him and his friends beating seemingly insurmountable odds. Everything that had happened since that fateful night of November 6th, 1983 when Will went missing only to be found miraculously alive a week later had taught him to believe in happy endings, even under world-ending circumstances.
Sitting in the back of the Bradley’s Big Buy truck heading out of the Upside Down – this time for good, Mike tentatively allowed himself to enjoy the sense of relief that came from the Party successfully defeating Vecna and rescuing his sister and her fellow classmates from his clutches. At last, the world had righted itself and his loved ones were safe and sound.
He turned to gaze down adoringly at his telekinetic girlfriend who was huddled beside him, her arm wrapped snugly around his own. Once again, El had faced down the worst kind of evil imaginable and somehow won. Mike’s brow furrowed as he contemplated the harrowing events she had encountered since she was born in the lab. He released a long, drawn-out sigh at the direction his mind had gone in. It had taken him years to learn how to tamp down his fears for her safety and be confident in the fact that she knew the limits of her own abilities. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her – El was one of the most capable people Mike had ever known – but sometimes he worried she was all too willing to put others’ needs above her own, eager to play the invincible superhero people needed her to be.
Unbidden, he recalled the argument between himself and Max in the summer of ’85 which had led to him accusing everyone of treating El like a machine. That day in Hopper’s cabin now seemed miles away from the present, yet the level of fervor Mike felt at the memory was no less intense. He wanted to rage at the world for what it had put El through – at the mountainous burdens it had placed on the shoulders of this teenage girl. After all of this, Mike resolved, he would spend the rest of his life fighting to give her the world, because she deserved nothing less.
“El?” He whispered, breaking the peaceful calm that surrounded them.
After a slight pause, the girl in question turned her head to give her boyfriend her full attention. “Yes?” She replied, quirking her lips slightly. However, Mike couldn’t help but notice the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. It hadn’t for a while.
“Is everything okay?” He asked, taking her hand in his and intertwining their fingers.
“Yes.” She nodded, breaking eye contact and leaning to rest her head on his shoulder.
Mike hesitated. “Are you sure? Do you…do you want to talk about what happened in the lab with Hopper and Kali?” Suddenly, he felt shame at not having asked her earlier on the trek back to Murray’s truck. His sister may have been found safe, but El’s sister hadn’t been able to make the return, he thought sadly.
El tensed up. “No…not right now.” She said, her tone becoming wary. There was something just a little bit odd in the way she said it that Mike couldn’t quite identify, but he brushed it off, chalking it up to the ordeal she had been through.
“Alright,” he soothed, squeezing her hand once in comfort. “Just know that I’m here if you ever wanna talk about it, okay? I love you.” He ducked down and kissed the top of her head.
Almost as if a dam had been broken, the girl sniffled and turned her gaze to his once again, her doe brown eyes welling with tears as she looked at him with a wistfulness he didn’t understand. “Mike, I-I’m so thankful to have you. By my side. I’m afraid that you’ll…you will never understand how much you mean to me.” She said with feeling. “How you have made my life better, since that night in the woods when you found me.”
“El…” Mike trailed off helplessly, panicking at the sight of her tears. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” But she ignored him as he cupped her face and wiped her tears from her cheeks gently with his fingers.
“I would do anything to make sure you are safe. Anything. Even if…even if that meant that-”
Meant that what? Mike wondered. But before he could voice that frantic thought aloud, he was cut off when there was a sudden jolt and the truck swerved precariously, tires squealing as Murray tried to make a U-turn at the appearance of a convoy of military vehicles.
Oh shit.
They were surrounded instantly with the full might of the US army, two armed men wrenching the truck doors open and demanding that everyone get out of the vehicle. In the ensuing commotion, Mike tried to keep his eyes on El but was wrenched away from her and slammed into the side of the truck by a soldier with his hands up, next to Dustin.
“El.” He hisses, grabbing Dustin’s attention. “Do you see El?”
Dustin scans the vicinity but try as he might, he can’t pick her out from the swarm of soldiers that flanks their group on all sides. “She must’ve escaped!” He ventures hopefully.
The swell of relief Mike feels at his friend’s words threatens to overwhelm him. But just as he begins to smile, almost like a magnet, his gaze is dragged back towards the Gate.
His heart stops.
El.
His girlfriend is standing at the centre with her head held high and a defiant expression on her face. Suddenly, it feels to Mike as if time is collapsing in on itself and he is thrust back to that singular moment in the abandoned classroom at Hawkins Middle, his younger self watching helplessly as this girl sacrifices herself to save them all from the Demogorgon.
Goodbye, Mike.
No, no, no, NO! is all Mike can think as he pulls away from the side of the truck and races towards the Gate with everything he has in his lanky 16-year old frame. Bullets are fired in his wake and a soldier tries to hold him back, but Mike. Doesn’t. Care.
“Get off me! GET OFF ME!” He howls, wrestling out from under the man’s grip.
For the very first time, he thinks he understands how El must feel when she uses her powers because absolutely nothing can stop him in this moment from getting to her. He can hear Nancy and his friends calling for him to come back to safety, but everything fades into the background as he only has tunnel vision now for El. I can’t lose you, not again.
One moment, he’s sprinting towards her and the next, he’s crashing down into an infinite pool of water surrounded by darkness. Mike doesn’t even take the time to get his bearings, because he knows exactly where he is.
He is in the Void, his mind linked with El’s.
Mike looks up from where he fell to see El striding towards him with a resigned look in her eyes.
“You have to get out of there!” He shouts at her, scrambling up from his knees and dashing to close the distance between them, water rippling behind him with every step he takes. “You have to get out!” He repeats wildly as he reaches her and clutches onto her shoulders with both hands.
“None of this will ever end.” She replies brokenly in his embrace. “Not if I’m still here.”
“No, no, no, no we’ll-we’ll figure something out. We’ll figure something out! We’ll fight back - we always do!” Mike implores her. Please don’t do this.
But it’s like El doesn’t hear his soul screaming for hers.
“I need you…to talk to the others,” she says, looking up at him mournfully, the unspoken truth she was hiding back in the truck now revealed for Mike to see in its entirety.
“No.”
“I need you…to thank them for me. For being so kind to me. And teaching me what it means…to be a friend.” She sobs as tears run down her cheeks.
“Please don’t do this! Please don’t do this!” Mike begs her. He numbly wonders how he and El went from dreaming of a future together with three waterfalls just days ago to this nightmare here and now.
“Mike, I need you to help them understand my choice!” El insists, clutching onto him tighter with urgency. She knows their time is running out.
“But I don’t! I don’t understand!” He argues back, willing her to reflect on just what she’s asking him to do.
“I know.” El replies, smiling sadly. “But you will. One day…you will.”
A sense of calm washes over Mike. He has run out of options - except for admitting the ugly, honest truth. It is strangely freeing.
“No, I won’t.” The conviction with which he says these words halts El in her tracks.
“Mike…” She starts to say again, but the boy in question looks away and begins to laugh humourlessly. El grows afraid. She’s never seen this side of him before – Mike’s positive façade has broken down and the glimpse of the haunted spirit she sees beneath is someone she doesn’t recognize.
He looks down at her again with a glint in his eye. “El,” he says solemnly. “I know you think you have to do this to save everyone – save me – but…did you ever stop to think about what would happen to me if you’re gone?”
“You would be safe –”
“No!” he shouts, then huffs in frustration. “No. I wouldn’t make it without you, El. I barely survived last time when I thought you were dead, and I know I wouldn’t be able to do it again. Not after…not after knowing you. And loving you.”
“W-what are you saying, Mike? What do you mean?” El questions, peering up at him with a panicked gaze. Dread tingles up her spine.
He stares at her solemnly. “I’m saying…” he hesitates but then continues on. Out of nowhere, Friends Don’t Lie runs through his head and he barely restrains a hysterical chuckle. “I’m saying that I once called you for 353 days when I had a single shred of hope that you were still alive. Still out there, somewhere. If you’re gone, for real this time, there’s-there’s nothing left for me here. On this Earth.”
“No!” El cries. Her brain is panicking. She tries as hard as she can to deny what he’s saying, tries to find the seed of doubt in his eyes - but she comes to the terrifying realization that there is none.
“My life isn’t worth living without you, El. Don’t you see that?” He shakes her. “Nothing is worth anything without you!”
“But Mike, the military…they will always come after me. Dr. Kay will never stop searching for me and then s-she’ll kill you.” She says tearily. “I can’t-I can’t-”
“Screw the military! I would spend the rest of my life on the run, hiding from those bastards if that’s what it took to be with you. I don’t care about the danger.” He hugs El to him and buries his head in her neck. He suspects there are certain fates worse than death.
“Please don’t leave me, El…” Mike begs, his voice raw and stricken with grief. 5 years of pent-up hurt fills his plea. The words pour out of him like a confession, as if he’s making up for what his younger self didn’t have the chance to say to her the first time. He lifts his head and presses his forehead to hers, his eyes filled with sorrow. After a moment, he leans down to kiss her passionately, moving his hands from her shoulders to clutch onto her waist.
El kisses him back with all of the tenderness she holds for him as tears stream down her face, one hand moving to cup his cheek while the other goes to run her fingers through his hair. What could be a second or an eternity later, she pulls away to stare up at him wonderingly.
“I love you, Mike…” She whispers. There's a strong resolve behind her voice.
Mike stares back at her, trying desperately to memorize her face. But before he can say anything, he is violently wrenched away from the Void, jolted back to his physical surroundings as his body is tossed several feet into the air and through the open door of a military barrack.
He yells in shock as he’s thrown back, but the sound is drowned out by the chaos that is the final destruction of the Upside Down. No one else notices where he lands, too busy trying to shield themselves from the flying debris.
Mike’s head slams roughly into the wooden floorboards that rise to meet him and then all he knows is nothingness.
_
To be continued…