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Mike always knew – rather, speculated – that he'd be the hero. It didn't matter what being the hero meant, he thought that it had to be him. He's not the youngest of the party, nor is he the oldest since that spot – surprisingly – goes to Will. He's somewhere in the middle, being born in April while Dustin in November and Lucas in August.
There wasn't much of an argument about who was stuck in the middle, since Lucas acts like he's part of the older group and Mike can't seem to grow up even as he gets older and changes. His voice will always be loud, it will always unsettle the bystanders around when he begins to talk with his friends, and his friends will always look at him with wide eyes as if to say "not so loud". Because of this misfortune given to Mike, he often tries to compensate.
So it goes like that. It begins with Mike simply pushing Troy for kicking at Lucas’ shoes and chanting in a low voice, "midnight, midnight" . They were in assembly for an upcoming event the school was holding, and it was annoying the hell out of Mike because Troy seemed to think he had a right to disrespect Lucas like that.
Mike gets a punch to the face for pushing him – not a very painful one, considering their lack of strength and ability to fight, but still causing a nosebleed that spilled over his lips nonetheless – and Lucas helped pull him off the ground, Will by his side and holding a hand under his chin so the blood didn't get all over the floor. Lucas led him to get cleaned up, Dustin holding the door open for them.
He took him to the nearest bathroom and wiped at his nose with some of the paper towels, Will and Dustin watching with furrowed eyebrows, and he told him, "You didn't have to do that. You should've just ignored him." In a soft and quiet voice like he was ashamed, as if he had anything to be ashamed of.
“What? He was being an asshole!” Mike exclaimed in confusion upon hearing that sorrowful tone in Lucas’ voice. It made his blood boil. Lucas grabbed his chin to keep him still while he wiped more blood from his nose.
“Doesn't matter.” Lucas mumbled, just barely glancing into Mike's eyes.
“Why do you say I should've done nothing?” He didn't get it, he never would – and for the most part, that was okay, but Mike hated it. He wanted to understand so bad, and he almost felt like crying because of how upset not understanding made him.
“Because..it's-” Lucas huffed. Dustin and Will shared looks, one that conveyed they finally got what Lucas was so guilty about. “Look what happened to you.”
“So?” Mike shook his head, and Lucas held him tighter to clean the blood from his lips now.
He avoided Mike's eyes. “It's stupid. Why should you get a..a nosebleed all because- you know..?” He couldn't even say it to him, it seemed like he didn't get it and that was a foreign idea to him. That Mike would never think that way and so he couldn't connect the dots.
“What?”
“You got hurt all because I'm- I'm black, Mike.” Lucas dropped his hand for a moment. “That's why he was calling me midnight . It's not because of the way I act, it doesn't have a double-meaning. It's all because I'm black. And it pisses me off that you got hurt because of that.” He wet the paper towel a little more to get the dried blood off of his chin.
“Oh.”
And even though Lucas didn't outwardly (or, vocally) appreciate his brazenness, Mike still felt like he did good – like he finally found his role amongst his friends with unfortunate upbringings. His purpose, whether truly real or not. He declared himself the protector, a hero to save his friends from anything no matter the severity.
Then these so-called heroic defenses get grander and grander by the year. First it was a punch in fifth grade for pushing Troy when he called Lucas midnight , then it was a hard shove in sixth for pulling Elizabeth Mackentire’s hair after she purposely bumped her shoulder into Will and made him fall, a shove and a kick to the stomach in seventh for tripping Jason Mcroy, a series of hard punches before the teacher pulled the kid off him in eighth for spewing insults at football player David after he called Lucas that wretched nickname, and finally, a broken bottle to the throat in ninth after he shoved Kenny into the lockers for calling Will a queer. He never got severely hurt, the guy just wanted to scare him for giving him a nosebleed.
Now, it seems a lot more complicated than it was. Vecna had been terrorizing for months, and it instilled fear within the party. He'd attacked Chrissy Cunningham, Fred, Patrick, and nearly got Max – left her half blind and using a wheelchair, attending physical therapy every week to help – but he's been silent for a while. Stalking, hiding, waiting. Max says that she doesn't feel so trapped nowadays which inclines everyone to believe she was spared for some reason. Vecna planned to choose her, but focused his sights on something else. Went dormant, so to speak.
This almost convinces everyone that it's over, but Mike wakes up from a nightmare with a horrible headache, drenched nearly completely in sweat, and it only gets worse from there. The headaches, or migraines, for lack of a better word, are persistent and heavy in Mike's mind. He's been having nosebleeds at random – when he's eating, doing homework, taking a test, washing his hands in the bathroom, or biking home.
At first, this doesn't strike anything within him, having bled all over the living room carpet once as a kid, crying and screaming because he thought he was going to die. It was just a nosebleed, the doctor said. Happens to a lot of kids, teens, and adults.
He tells the party it's nothing, because while he used to have nosebleeds here and there when he was younger, the thing is..they weren't ever like this. So frequent and quick. And so Mike then believes that he's probably being stalked by Vecna. It’s the most plausible answer, though he can't really be sure enough to let everyone know.
Days pass, and that heroic – sort of savior complex – inside of Mike is telling him to see it through, to keep enduring it and fighting it off so that his friends won't have to suffer. So Max won't have to, so El won't have to, and so Will won't have to feel the guilt that comes with everything that happened.
He feels like maybe that's what he's meant to do, considering all other world-ending battles have never left him with a scar nor playing as a sacrificial hero to save everyone. Hell, Eddie stole that spot to save Max, and nearly ended up six feet under himself. Paramedics say it was a miracle because his heart stopped for a good thirty seconds on the way to the hospital. Mike feels like he owes this to them, being the least targeted out of everyone. Always just getting in the way.
Mike always knew that he'd be the hero. He just didn't think it would end like this, preparing to give his life for even an ounce of hope for a clearer future ahead of his friends. Maybe his younger self would be upset to hear about this, or maybe he'd be smiling because he was useful to his friends in the end.
So for every night, right before he goes to sleep to inevitably have a nightmare and wake up sweating, he prays that if he is the chosen one for Vecna's hunt, he is the last one that he'll touch. He prays to whatever is out there, God, another higher power, that the universe will be kind to his friends and he will end the cycle of pain and suffering once and for all if everything that's been happening is an actual sign.
He's out with the party – the original four, because Max and El wanted time to do their own thing – when it happens. He's sucked into the red smoke, with the crawling inclination that death is approaching, marching just behind his back. His first feeling upon entering this realm, seeming other-worldly (he'd never even been to the upside down, for Christ's sake), is immediate sorrow. The souls, the bodies, the spirits of those caught by the nails of Vecna are crying out and roaming this place in search of release and it's heavy.
Then Vecna’s voice, a distant beckon, chimes lowly amongst the clouds with sounds of slithering skin and wet stomps – "Mike," he calls out for him, tries to coax him into stepping closer in his curiosity.
Outside of this chamber of red and the rotten smell of death, Dustin exclaims swear words under his breath upon seeing Mike suddenly stop in his tracks with only the whites of his eyes showing. It has become so telltale and triggering that they almost instantly catch onto what's happening.
"I thought it was over!" Lucas shouts, and it's good that they're not in public, just in the woods looking for the old spot they used to hang out at and play pretend.
"He didn't have any symptoms! oh, shit, shit, shit!" Dustin grabs ahold of Mike's shoulders and shakes him mindlessly. He doesn't know of the nightmares, the painkillers, the incessant and reoccurring horror of blood spilling over Mike's lips and ultimately into his hand once he's realized he's having a nosebleed.
"What's his favorite song?!" Will asks hurriedly, prying Dustin off of him. He thinks maybe the shaking could make it worse somehow, though he's never witnessed it before, just heard the story of Max crashing back down into Lucas’ arms with Kate Bush blaring in her ears.
"I don't know! I forgot what it was called!" Dustin panics – the song is something by Bronski Beat, the boy had it on replay a lot when they would hang out in his basement – and he hurries to reach Mike's house, which isn't too far from where they are.
Lucas and Will call out for Mike, trying to get his attention over whatever's happening.
It's hard for Mike to listen to their faint, muffled voices. Especially when Vecna's voice takes over everything and echoes so loudly. He's the leader of this purgatory, this dripping in agony place that appears sent from hell. He controls the spirits that die here, manipulate their memories and suck them in as his own, feeding off of their knowledge of Hawkins like a blood-sucking parasite.
"Mike, join me," His voice whispers – it reverberates in the red, with the faint echo of a pained cry. Mike doesn't respond, but he doesn't run either. Then suddenly, the red turns to black and when his eyes open (he's not sure when he ever closed them) he sees the faux image of his house. “I have been waiting for you. Curating the perfect movie, planning.”
Holly is on the floor in the living room coloring, his mother is drinking wine, and his father is on the couch where he almost always is. It looks too real and Mike feels his chest squeeze like he almost can't breathe.
He hears the faint echoes of his mother yelling at his father about never doing anything to help her, then the sound of Holly asking them to stop arguing. It's too photorealistic, when he bends down closer to Holly and sees her look up at him with a weird, hollow look in her eyes. She's confused and weirded out by Mike, and as soon as he steps back, she looks down again and continues playing with her feet swaying back and forth gently. Mike’s breaths shake in the air, and they hang around instead of immediately dissipating. The air is so heavy here.
Nancy is upstairs when he crawls up the creaky steps carefully. She's laying in her bed on the phone in a way that Mike feels he's definitely seen before but can't exactly remember when it was, and when he peeks his head in, she scoffs just as she had years ago.
"Get out!" She yells, and the door slams shut without her having to get up.
"Don't you see, Mike?" Vecna appears from his room oddly enough, the place he's not able to see into even though the door is open. It's just a black, lifeless void that makes Mike think maybe it's his hub in the Creel house. Vecna was manipulating the realm he lives in to recreate Mike’s childhood. He walks with his hands hanging numbly by his side, as Nancy described it to him after she told him of the vision he showed her. "This is not the place for a boy like you. You are special; different." The implications are rough-edged and Mike remembers hearing that word thrown around a lot when he was growing up.
Doctors called him different, his parents whispered it at night, his teachers muttered it into their ears during parent-teacher evenings, his sister said it through the thin walls of her room to her then-boyfriend Steve Harrington. Everyone called Mike different, everyone except Will – Will never called him different ever, and maybe it was because he, too, was called different, but it still made a difference. Now Vecna is surfacing the bitter taste that word leaves in his mouth. Different.
It's like he knows everything about Mike. It's like he's seeing into his mind and slowly eating away at his memories and that freaks him out. It runs a shiver down his spine, he can't bear the thought of losing all of his memories of Will to him.
"I'm not different." Mike defends himself, but it’s not very confident or insistent. It's almost a question, asking Vecna to tell him if he really is. He notices how his own voice is echoing now like he's accepting where he is and sinking into this world more and more.
"You are a remarkable kind of different." Vecna says, stopping in front of Mike. "I understand that you feel a certain way for your friend–" Mike hates that he knows exactly who Vecna means. He hates that Vecna knows this. "–but I have a proposition."
Mike stays silent. Fear trickles down his throat but he's not afraid of Vecna himself, it's the feeling in the air that raises goosebumps all down his arms.
"You..help me, and I will help you." His hand comes up, all charred flesh and claws, and brushes Mike's cheek in a way that makes him shudder.
"Screw you." Mike spits angrily – the flashing images of everything that's terrorized him and the party for years now makes him boil inside, and he feels even worse now knowing the face behind it all. Standing before Vecna makes him seethe. "I'd rather you just kill me now."
"Would you?" Vecna asks. His hand comes down from Mike's cheek and the scenery changes again. They're in an office. Mike doesn't recognize it at first but soon the dead couches and lack of color and life clocks as familiar in his mind. Vecna was curating a movie for him, he said. A series of memories that haunt Mike.
It's the office of the therapist Mike's school recommended he saw. His parents took him there, left him there alone because his mother mostly trusted that he'd be smart about what he shared.
The therapist asks a younger Mike a few questions. He was about thirteen or fourteen here. Older Mike watches in horror – and Vecna enjoys the show.
"Are you suicidal?" She asks, staring at the paper.
"What?"
"Have you ever thought of, considered, or tried, killing yourself?" She reiterates tiredly, and her eyes still never leave the assessment she's filling out. Younger Mike gulps and shifts in his seat.
Older Mike can see the remembrance of jumping off the cliff with full intent to end up dead, and proceeding to go back every week and look down for a few hours, thinking and wondering.
"I.." Younger Mike begins, but he clearly doesn't know what to say. Older Mike knows now that the answer 'no' would have been better. "I jumped off a cliff two years ago even though I knew I'd die. I keep going back there to sit by the edge and wonder about it. Does that count?"
The therapist finally looks up. On her face is concern and shock. She never expected him to give her anything on that, and especially not a 'yes'.
The scene changes again, and Mike is fifteen now. He's by the cliff. His shoes are right up over the edge and rocks tumble into the murky green water below.
Older Mike feels winded actually witnessing it in third person. Seeing himself look over the edge and actually thinking about jumping to end everything is daunting. It looms over him. He doesn't want to see anymore.
The scene is about to change when Mike shuts his eyes tightly and presses his hands over his ears. "I don't want to see anymore!" He shouts, and when his eyes open, he's back in the Creel house with Vecna.
"You see, Michael, I would just kill you, but that would be giving you the satisfaction of what you want."
"I don't want that." Mike says, tries to convince him, but he knows it's futile because Vecna is already in his head. He knows what Mike desires most.
"Do you want the proposition?" He ignores the blatant lie.
"I want you to kill me now." Mike insists, just as soft music begins to play – the opening to Small Town Boy echoes all around, not from his room, not from the house. It’s like it's playing straight from the sky as if it's a God-like interference. Mike is religious, he is, but that – the way the song is everywhere but nowhere in particular – makes him think that maybe it's not God -like. He believes in evil power too. That's what this feels like, the song coming in and out in waves, sort of like a broken record player that keeps slowing down and speeding up.
"Hear that, Michael? Your little friends are trying to save you." Vecna taunts him, because he knows Mike won't run like Max. He's not desperate to get out. He doesn't feel that same fear of death as she did, and he knows. "Shall we look at them?" He asks, not waiting for an answer as he opens a cloud within the red and it reflects the image of what's happening outside with his friends in the dark forest.
Mike is standing still, headphones on his ears and his friends all by his side praying and yelling frantically.
"Why is it not working?!" Lucas freaks out, it's been long enough that Mike should be out by now. His voice is echoing as if he's in an empty room, and it sends a shiver down Mike's spine.
"Come on, Mike! Please, get out of there!" Will begs – his hands grip Mike's shoulders, and Mike wishes he could feel the soft fingertips but he can't. He tries so hard to look at his fingers and imagine the feeling to manifest it, but the darkness in this realm is too thick for him to get through. He feels sick instead, like the agonized souls are pulling him down with the intention of trapping him here so he can know what they feel. So he can feel what they failed to have Max feel.
"Shit, is this not his favorite?!" Dustin exclaims, but he was right. Small Town Boy is his favorite, but a darker part within him wants him to stay and let Vecna end this torture. Die like a hero, putting an end to this all. The only reason why he's after Mike is to punish Will for defeating him up until now. Will has angered him time and time again by disobeying his manipulation and finding a way around his obstacles every single time.
"Oh, they're upset . It’s a nice view, isn't it?" Sick is not a strong enough word for how Mike feels. Haunted could be better though still not fully encapsulating the feeling of dread building in his gut. "Let's mess with them." Vecna raises a hand over Mike's face, and in the cloud, Mike's body begins to float and the three boys around him jump back in fear. They all stare up at him.
"Mike! Mike, run! get out of there now!" Will shouts from below him. Mike's body is frozen but all he wants – more than death like a hero itself – is to be laying in his basement with Will by his side. Utterly alone and together, more importantly. But his body can't move even if he tried. Vecna's dark energy is too heavy, and the hand over his face is preventing him from pushing through it, especially when his own cumbersome body carries that sorrow in his bones too. That looming sense of dread that hangs in the air, so powerful that Mike can almost smell it.
"I think he'd miss you most, don't you?" Vecna asks rhetorically, and his claw-like fingers dig into Mike's eyes before he can react and pull something like Max to escape and find himself at home with Will.
“Mike, cut it out.” Will laughs, raising a hand to cover the camera that Jonathan let them borrow for a few hours so long as they don't break it.
“Open your gift.” Mike aims the camera at the box in Will's lap and zooms in on it, having memorized the controls by now.
“Why are you filming me?” Will asks, a smile on his face with his fingers slipping into the ribbon around it.
“Just wanna capture your reaction.” Mike lifts the camera to point it at Will and he looks down immediately with a soft laugh, pulling at the ribbon and tearing off the wrapping paper. It's a box inside, obviously, and he opens the lid slowly. Their friends all around stay quiet in anticipation since Mike hyped up his gift for Will so much.
“No.” Will gasps, looking up at Mike with sparkling eyes while he films him and this time, he doesn't look away or cover the lense. “Mike, no. No way.”
Behind the camera, Mike giggles and nods, gesturing for him to pull out the gift. Will reaches his hand in and brings it back out with a square cutout of foam with a key stuck in it and a small note that says Hawkins Elementary Playground under the big tree.
“A key?” Dustin asks. “What?”
Will laughs in shock, tears brimming his eyes because it's been so long that he nearly forgot about it but remembered because it was one of his favorite memories with Mike. He’d recognize that key anywhere.
“I'm so confused.” Max whispers, staring at the key. It's like Mike and Will are in their own world though.
“Do you like it?” Mike asks quietly, a giggle following his words while Will gently pulls the key from the foam and holds it up so Mike can record a good view of it.
“You're kidding, you have to be.” Will says despite it being real and right in front of his eyes. He stands up quickly and hugs Mike tightly, key still in hand.
Mike's focus on filming falls away and he hugs Will back, the lens getting a view of their friends looking confused.
“We can go check it out later.” Mike says, then he pulls back and Will nods.
“Do you want to tell us what it is now?” Lucas asks, raising his hand. Mike pans the camera to him and zooms in a bit. He explains that he and Will made time capsules back in third grade with notes to their older selves and each other, even putting little trinkets that they favored in there. And for the last thing, they both put a mysterious item in each other's capsule before their teacher had them bury them.
They were told to retrieve them when they turned fifteen, but they had too much on their minds and so Mike decided to surprise Will for Christmas after they turned sixteen.
15 year old Mike, It's Will from second grade! Isn't this so cool? It feels like I'm talking to the future. I kind of am! Are we still friends in high school? God, I hope we are! I don't think I could live without you. Never did ever since we met. I'm not even sure how I lived before then!
Are you happy? I hope you are. I hope that you're getting everything you want and more. Like that black kitten you begged your mom for! Did she finally get you one? She was so upset when you kept asking her about it but you didn't care.
What about us? What's going on with us? Do we have any new friends? Part of me hopes it's just me and you but I really think we might meet more people for you to bug late at night. Does your mom still make you go to bed at eight?
It's driving me crazy that you can't send me a letter back so I know what happens in the future! I'm just so excited for you to be able to read this! I wonder what I'll be like when I'm fifteen. Am I cool? Am I handsome? I bet I am. I bet you are too.
I really wanna know what new movies are out! I wonder if they'll make another Superman movie since you loved that one so much. I wonder if you still love it. Ugh, I want to ask you so many questions but you won't ever be able to answer them! I hope they make time travel a thing in the future so you can send me a letter with all the answers.
I really, really, really, really hope we're still friends!
From, 7 year old Will! (Crazy, right??)
Will in the future, It's Mike! I'm in second grade right now. You're 15 when you're reading this, that's insane! What's going on in life? What's new? Are you still even in Hawkins? You never know. You could move away at some point before you're 15. But I hope you don't! You better not ever leave me alone in this town.
So what stuff do you like now? Are you still drawing? I pray you are because you're really good at it. You're gonna make a ton of money off of it and we'll be rich! We can split it, right? Or we can buy a house together and live there forever. At least it's better than being at my house now.
Are things still okay between us? Like, are we still good friends? I doubt that we aren't. I mean, come on! Nothing can separate us. Right? I don't know why I'm asking, you obviously can't say anything back. Sorry, I don't know how to do this. Or what I'm supposed to ask.
I guess I can just say that I hope you're okay in the future. I know a lot of stuff has been going on and you're not the happiest now and so I hope you're doing better at 15! Maybe by then we're already making a fortune and we're living in the forest alone. That would be cool.
We can get out of this town when we're older, right? When we're 18 or so. I know you're only 15 when you're reading this but we can wait three more years! It's not that far away. I can wait. I'll always be waiting, even if we can't leave at 18. We always have 19 and 20 and well, we should be gone by then.
My sister says Chicago is a cool place to live. She remembers visiting some of my family with my mom there when she was my age. I think my dad was taking care of me then.
We should totally go to Chicago. We can spend all our money on action figures and video games! That would be so cool! I can't wait until you see this. I really want to know if we're planning to leave Hawkins.
I don't know. I really like being with you. It's so much better than being at my house alone with my family. You're my favorite person right now! I don't know if that changes in the future but I hope it doesn't. I like your company. I should wrap this up. Our teacher wants us to hurry up so we can learn how to write stories.
See you in 8 years!
From, Young Mike.