Chapter Text
The van makes a violent shake and Eleven’s hand finds its way into Mike's. He looks toward her and smiles, she smiles back. It’s a shy one, not hopeful but something close. Mike wishes he felt the same.
He looks around at the faces of the children they’ve pulled from Dimension X and settles on a familiar brown head. Will is leaning against his mother and holding onto her for dear life. Mike watches, wishing he could reach out. He feels the need to hold onto a piece of him until all of this was over.
The bomb was set and he was sure the chorus of ‘Purple Rain’ was playing as they drove. He isn’t sure what made him choose it. Between Robin yelling about his Butthole Surfers pick and the anxiety of their impending mission, his brain had just made the choice for him. It felt real, realer then anything this entire week.
Will’s chest rose and fell with a sharp breath. Mike stared at his chest, broader than he could remember. Mike’s own breathing began to match Will’s. In and out, in and out.
If Mike couldn’t have his leg pressed to Will’s, his breathing was enough to settle that he was here. Present and living, right in front of Mike.
El’s thumb smoothed over Mike's hand. Cold and wet from the battle and it stung slightly over a cut Mike can’t remember getting in the last few hours. He slowly turns towards Eleven. Her eyes far away and thoughtful. He understood.
It wasn’t over yet. Even with the children smiling and laughing, Murray singing from the front, and even Will, slouched over in the comfort of his mother’s embrace. There was an air of unease. Perhaps it was radiating from Mike himself, but it was almost so thick it made him choke.
“El,” Mike whispers, over the laughter from the others. She looks to her side and nods at him to continue whatever he is pondering. “What do you think will happen now?”
Her eyes widen a bit at the true question in his voice. She seems to take him in and he tries to smile, but it comes off as forced. Eleven squeezes his hand and twists to look around the van before answering.
She gets close to his ear and whispers, “We find three waterfalls.”
Mike swallows. El pulls back with a wisp of a smile. Her eyes never truly meeting his.
Mike can’t help the annoyance the answer brings to the forefront. He knows, he knows, that he told her that. It’s not that he didn’t mean it then, he did. He’s just frustrated that she ignored his real question.
He had shared with El his nerves about this bomb, his nerves about everything to be honest, before the plan began. It felt like she was shutting him down, like his worry wasn’t enough to be addressed.
His annoyance isn’t truly at El, but at everyone in this van. Hell, everyone in this town. Mike just wants someone to stop smiling for a minute. He wants someone to realize that they aren’t done yet.
Their lives can’t keep going until the Upside Down is gone. Until his bomb goes off and takes every horrible memory along with it. The grief, the shame, the nagging wrongness he feels every time he looks too long at El. At Will…
He doesn’t reply to El and her hand slowly moves from his with a final squeeze. She turns to her side to speak with someone else.
Mike’s eyes find Will once again.
This is how it’s been for the last 18 months. Mike feels like Will is sunlight slipping through his hands. A flash and then nothing. He can’t help but think he won’t ever find himself not looking for Will in every room. Making sure he’s there, safe. Just close enough to reach out and touch if Mike needs to.
And recently, he always needs to.
Whether it’s in the basement watching a movie with the party or before a crawl when no one but Mike seems to notice Will in the corner. Hands finding warm shoulders with a joke or a kind word. Will always indulges him. A smile, a laugh that pulls his bunny teeth to the front or a turn of the head and a nose scrunch.
Every time Mike tries to comfort Will, Will ends up making Mike feel a little brighter. As if his smile alone can brighten his day, lift the weight from his shoulders and carry it with him. Bunny teeth and all.
Will huffs a laugh at something Mrs. Byers says and his hazel eyes lift in time to meet Mike’s.
On any other day, any other minute, Mike might smile or turn his head to the side in a way Will commonly calls his 'puppy look'. Bbut today is different, this minute is different. Mike couldn't hide his anxiety even if he wanted to.
He stares at Will and Will stares back. No huff through the nose or roll of the eyes. He just looks at Mike. Really looks, as if he was trying to memorize every freckle on his face, the curve of his lips. Mike unconsciously licks them.
Will’s eyes find Mike’s once more. The green meets brown and softens in a way that only Will has ever seemed to look at him. Never searching for something more, content. Like Mike himself is just… enough.
Will twists his head to the side, asking a silent ‘you okay?’. Mike shrugs and turns his head.
He doesn’t want to worry him. Mike’s unease shouldn’t have to burden his best friend. Not after everything that’s happened to him through these years, much more than Mike could ever understand.
A large bump makes everyone gasp, quieting themselves. Mike’s hand reaches out once more for Eleven’s, while his eyes look across the Will. Will’s eyes are large and concerned, but Mike breathes a sigh of relief when he sees them. In and out, in and out.
Will’s okay, I’m okay. He thinks.
It isn’t until the back wheel of the van bumps over the end into the Mac Z that he realizes his hand is empty. Mike turns.
“El?” he says to the empty space next to him.
Before he is able to glance around the van, the side door is slung open and hands grab at his shoulders.
“The fuck are you doing!”, he yells, as everyone in the van is dragged but men in uniform out onto the concrete.
Mike hisses when his knees hit the ground, pulling his head in to take a breath before looking up.
The Mac-Z is full of soldiers. Of course, Mike thinks. Not a single person in their party thought about this? What idiot decided to go through the front instead of just having El make another hole in the ground.
A hand hauls Mike to his feet and he grumbles the entire way up. If he’s going to federal prison, he’s not going to make it easy on anyone.
Once he’s up, he takes in the red pulsing light coming from the large gash in the center. Hundreds of people are moving about, guns drawn and serious expressions on their faces. He turns to count all his party members, eyes staying on Will for a considerable amount of time.
He’s breathing faster than in the car and Mrs. Byers seems to be screaming at an officer to let her over to her son. In any other circumstance, Mike may have smiled at the scene.
“Where is she?!” A voice yells above the noise. Mike looks to see Dr. Kay pushing her hair out of her face wildly. She scans everyone they’ve pulled out of the van, soldiers looking through all of them. “Where is she?”
This time it seems that she is asking their party specifically.
Who? Mike thinks. Who could she–?
Then he sees her.
In the middle of the pulsing red, a figure stands alone. Brown hair pulled into a ponytail and feet planted firmly.
No. Not her, Mike thinks.
An explosion comes from behind El and the lights around them flash erratically. Still Eleven stands, firm and calm. Her face shows more contentment than Mike has seen since the night of the SnowBall.
Screaming begins then. Yelling her name and thrashing against the arms of the soldiers holding them back. Mike doesn’t even register that his voice carries over them all until he has to take a large gulp of breath to keep going.
Still Eleven stands, maybe even taller than before, while all the world around her darkens and flies in whirls.
Tears fall down Mike’s cheeks. He wonders faintly the last time he had an anxiety attack.
He’s doubled over and scanning the crowd when a familiar voice joins in the chaos.
“Will!” Mrs. Byers screams. “No please! Let me get to my son!”
Mike starts scrambling towards her before he’s pulled back harshly into the arms of the man behind him.
“WILL!!” She screams again and Mike feels like he’s drowning.
His eyes fall on Will and his erratic breathing stops entirely.
Will lays on the ground shaking back and forth. Blood pouring down his face, smudging the mole above his upper lip, his eyes. It’s everywhere. Rivers from his ears, his nose, god his eyes.
The screaming registers next. Not his own this time, not even Mrs. Byers’. Will’s.
Will is screaming so loud, Mike can barely stand. Mike has listened to more than enough anguish from his best friend in the last week alone, but this… This brings him to his knees.
He’s going to be sick.
“Will,” he whimpers. No yelling, no pleading, just pure heartbreak slipping through his lips. His body limp to a point that the soldiers let him go. “Please,” he begs to no one.
The screaming continues and Mike begins vomiting what little he had in his stomach. The bile burns up his esophagus and it grounds him, reality pouring in.
He hears them now. Not just Will but Dustin, Lucus. Jonathan above them all, pleading to let him through. Mike can’t look up and see them. The loss of hope from earlier finally slipping through the cracks this week, these years, have created.
A pulse begins at the back of Mike’s mind, a pull trying to drag him up and out. He fights against it. He needs to stay here, he has to. Even if he can’t look at WIll, if this is his last moments on this earth with him, he wants to be here.
20 yards away on the ground and seizing, not safe and not close enough to touch.
Mike finds his voice and forces the darkness out one last time, one last look. He has to see him, has to help somehow.
With all the strength he has left he screams, “Will!”, moving towards his body. 10 more steps, 5 more, 2–
“No!,” Mike screams as his vision is consumed with black. He falls to his knees and a sob wracks his body.
2 fucking steps. 2 steps and he could’ve been right next to him. Maybe even be shot for his insubordination on the way down. Good, he thinks.
A cruel laugh leaves his throat when his senses catch up to him.
Water is what he notices first. Only an inch in the never ending blackness. His hands are slightly submerged and the front of his pants are now soaked. He’d heard about this place many times, hoped to be in it one day even. Now all he can think of is the fact that he was only 2 steps away. 2 measly little steps.
A hand on his shoulder forces him out of his thoughts. Mike knows the owner even before he turns around.
“What’s going on?” He stands while turning towards her. Mikes grabs her elbows as she rests her hands on his shoulders. “Please, Eleven, please. Tell me what’s going on.”
Tears fall freely down his face. Eleven softens and wipes them off before pulling Mike into a bone crushing hug. He lets her. He lets her push away all the madness that is happening outside the Void. Lets his hands cross behind her back and his voice break over sobs.
Eventually he pulls back to look at her and sees the same look on her face as he did when she first banished the demogorgon all those years ago. Restraint, slight chill, and decisiveness. Mike pulls back even further.
“Eleven,” he starts, “What are you doing?”
A tear falls down her smooth cheek and she wipes it away quickly.
“I cannot stay,” she finally replies. Mike’s eyes widen.
“What do you mean you can’t stay?” He almost yells, hands running through his disheveled curls. He pulls back fully and begins to pace, water rushing around them. El stays silent and listens. “You’re going to stay in the fucking Upside Down while it blows up? While we all beg you to come home!”
El looks down, her eyes flashing with grief before she looks up again. She doesn’t reply, Mike pushes on.
“You’re just standing here,” he laughs hysterically, “While Will screams in agony on the concrete with blood pooling around his bo–”
His voice cracks out before he can stop it, his head now in his hands. Mike clears his throat and looks up to Eleven once again. She hasn’t moved since he began, her eyes unreadable.
The last 10 minutes catch up to Mike and he stares at his girlfriend for a moment collecting his thoughts. He chooses his words carefully.
“Eleven, why aren’t you surprised by this? What am I doing here?”
This time his words come out calm. He has to get her to answer, to be honest with him for the first time in 18 months. Maybe the first time since they were 13.
“I told you,” she begins, taking a small step forward. “I cannot stay here. Not with Dr. Kay and not with you.”
Mike pulls his head back in shock.
“Why not?”, he responds. “Come with me and Dustin and Lucas. Come with Will.”
The end comes out a bit squeaky, but he gets it out. Maybe Will will be okay, maybe they can get out of this.
The look on Eleven’s face does not make him feel better. She takes a step closer to him before speaking again.
“I cannot be a pawn in their game, Mike. I cannot watch what happened to me happen to anyone else.” She says this slowly, waiting for him to catch up. Mike tries his best not to scoff.
“You all will be fine,” she continues. “You and Dustin will go explore in studying and Max and Lucas will have each other.” She smiles at the end, as if this is the best case scenario.
It takes a beat for the sentence to settle. For the wrongness of the words to take shape within Mike’s mind.
“You knew,” he states. Not a question, not even a confrontation. A simple statement. Loaded and aggressive. Mike steps towards Eleven and she takes a step back.
“You knew this would happen,” Another step. “You knew he would d-die. You knew,” His voice breaking in earnest now as he takes another step.
Mike has felt many emotions in the last week. Love, support, grief, fear, even wonder. But now, all he can feel is betrayal. Deep and biting, a wound crusting over that will never heal. Never has he felt so disgusted, so blind.
She knew. Eleven knew that the bomb would kill Will. That destroying the Upside Down, the Mind Flayer, would destroy at least a piece of Mike’s best friend, and she let it happen.
“Mike,” she pleads. “He begged me not to tell you. Not to tell anyone.”
There are tears in her eyes now. Mike gasps and stops any movement towards her. He clenches his jaw and forces himself to take a breath. He needs to understand and his mind can’t comprehend what is happening right now.
She continues, “He realized that if killing 001 didn’t kill him, that destroying the Upside Down would.”
Eleven searches Mike’s face and lets him take in the information. It’s nothing he hadn't thought of by now. He just wishes he would’ve caught on earlier. What he really cares about is–
“Why did he tell you?” He asks before he can help it. Quieter, “Why you and not, n-not me?”
Eleven’s eyes shift between Mike’s. Not searching exactly, just checking. Trying to find in his eyes what she so clearly already understands.
“I spoke to him tonight before we left,” she begins. “He heard Kali and I talking and grabbed me before we could leave.”
Eleven’s eyes begin to well with tears and a small sniffle comes from her. Mike begins to soften.
“He was angry, I have never seen him so mad,” She lightly laughs. “Will pulled me to a corner and made me swear to him I would not do it.”
Eleven looks at Mike now and he knows the answer to the question before he even asks.
“Do what?” Mike holds his breath.
“Die,” Eleven states plainly, like it doesn’t wreck Mike’s entire world.
“El-”
“No, you will let me finish and then you can talk,” she states calmly. It’s clear to Mike, Eleven had anticipated this conversation, planned it even. Pulling him into the Void was not a split second decision. She knew he would need an answer.
“Will begged me to reconsider when I spoke of my plan. I have never seen him in such distress.”
Mike would be floored by her expanding vocabulary if he wasn’t hanging on every word like drops of rain in a drought.
“I could not understand what he was saying through the tears. Until-” she stops for a moment to collect herself. “Until he said I could not leave you alone. Someone would have to stay with you.”
She pauses. Mike isn’t sure if there’s more, he isn’t totally sure he wants to hear the rest. Will begged her to stay, for him. Will knew that at the end of this, he wouldn’t be here by his side. By anyone’s.
“Will told me he was not sure if he would make it out at the end. He seemed sure to me,” Eleven gives a sad smile to Mike with this statement. “001 was too deep. Will told me he could sense his connection, that it was not something that could just ‘go away’.”
Mike couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He couldn’t understand the deep nagging pull that would have had him releasing his dinner onto the ground if he had anything left. His best friend, his best friend since he was five years old, knew he was going to die– possibly in front of Mike. And instead of telling Mike, instead of sharing his worries for his own life, Will begged Eleven to stay with him instead.
Mike would laugh if even a sliver of his lungs were open enough. Will Byers, who had gone through more in the last 5 years than any child Mike could possibly imagine, was begging for Eleven to stay so Mike could have a shoulder to cry on.
“He was very sure that I would need to be the one who stayed,” Eleven continued. “He said that the Upside Down would have to go, for everyone. He told me it would be selfish of him to ask you not to destroy it.”
Mike felt like he’d been stabbed.
“Will explained that you would all understand. That he was finally able to make a choice for himself. That you knew he loved you all and that destroying 001 and this,” she searched for the word, “hell, was worth more than he could put a price on.”
Mike did laugh then. An ugly thing, from the back of his throat. It almost came out as a grunt. Eleven flinched.
Of course, Mike thought. Of course Will fucking Byers would consider his life a fair price for the relief of the Upside Down being blown to shreds. Doesn’t he understand that his life has always been the one we were fighting for, searching for? That without him we wouldn’t even care about the rest of the world. That fighting this monster wouldn’t even matter if I couldn’t be next to him when it was all said and done.
Mike was laughing hysterically now. Doubled over and wracked with a guilt that words could not describe. Guilt that transcended a bomb of his own creation, a debt beyond whatever years Mike had left without the hellscape of the Upside down. A gushing and bleeding self-reproach that could bury Mike alive if he could only muster the strength to pick up the shovel.
“Is that why you’re leaving?” Mike eventually asks through the ugly hacking sobs he was making. “Do you think you need to die for us to have some sort of fucked up peace?”
Eleven shakes her head once and Mike nods. He knows why she is doing this, not that he agrees.
“Should I even try to convince you to stay?” he asks.
El shakes her head once more. Final. Cold and considered.
Mike knows he should say more. God knows, he has more to say. He should beg on his knees, sob and pull at her legs and maybe if he was less exhausted, he might.
He knows that’s terrible, what kind of shitty ass boyfriend is he that he wouldn't at least ask his girlfriend of almost 5 years to stay, to live. Mike just can’t find it in him to fall to the floor in agony for a decision that he knows he cannot undo. He wouldn’t be in the Void if anything he said would be able to change her mind.
Eleven is smart. Smarter than any of the boys, hell even Hopper, have ever given her credit for. She knows Mike, probably better than he even realizes, and she knows how deeply he cares for her. She wouldn’t have brought him here to talk if she wasn’t completely certain of her decision to leave.
Still, Mike isn’t strong enough not to ask. One more selfish decision won’t kill him. Honestly, even if it did, he’s not quite sure he cares at the moment.
“Was I not enough reason to stay?” His voice barely above a whisper.
Even knowing the selfishness of the question, he still feels it fester in his stomach once spoken aloud.
Mike should be explaining to her all the reasons to stay. Telling her of the adventures they would share, the life they could lead if only she chose to be right next to him. Instead he fishes for all of the insecurities that she may be able to drive home. All the reasons to hate himself a little more, once there is no one else to use a mirror image of light he can cower behind.
He knows the look he will get if he meets Eleven’s eyes. Mothering, almost. So much like Mrs. Byers due to all the time spent in her home. He can’t meet them, already on the edge of hyperventilating like a toddler.
A beat passes while no one speaks.
God, what could possibly be taking so long out there, Mike thinks unprompted. Maybe time works differently in the void?
“Am I ?"
“What?” Mike questions, looking up now in complete confusion.
“Without him,” she demands, an almost challenge in her eye contact.
Mike is too stunned to comprehend what is happening.
“What are you even talking about?” He lashes back, defensively. “I’m not the one leaving here.”
“Knowing what you know now, could I have ever been enough without him?” Eleven asks, although she seems to know the answer.
No.
It’s all he can think when faced with the direct question. No one would be enough to keep him off the edge without Will pulling him back. The grief of losing that piece of himself would most certainly destroy him.
How could he do this? How could he not tell me? How could he leave me?
Mike rubs the stubborn tears from his eyes, not allowing them to fall and looks away suddenly. Stripped too bare to look Eleven in the eyes.
“This- this isn’t about Will,” Mike defensively spits back, trying to find his footing again. “This is about you leaving me.”
Eleven looks like she was ready for the change and stares at him head on without a word. Though she seems strong and cold as ice, there are tears in her eyes threatening to fall. Mike walks towards her and puts a hand on either side of her face.
“How could you know his plan and leave me to grieve alone? How was I supposed to ever grieve him without you there?” Mike cries to her, before settling his face in the crook of her neck.
Mike doesn’t seem to notice the straightening of Eleven’s spine at the words, or how such a deep hurt and resignation crosses her eyes at the question. After a few moments she pulls back with her head held between Mike’s two large hands.
“I’m sorry, Mike.”
Mike stares at her as one single tear falls down her face and silence washes over them.
“I love you,” she says in such a small voice he barely hears it.
He doesn’t reply and it doesn’t seem like Eleven even thought he would.
He can’t muster anything to give her so he does the only thing he ever knew how to do with her in the first place. His last selfish act before the light comes back in. He takes 2 steps forward.
Mike kisses Eleven deeply.
The familiar wrongness is there beneath the anguish and heartache, but he pushes it down to give her the scrapes of who he is before the chaos is back and he is 2 steps away once again.
Mike’s eyes acclimate long after the sound of Mrs. Byers’ sobs register. 2 steps away lies Will Byers. Eyes open and green. Deep hazel once again in place from the deep white they once were when Mike left this place.
Mike tries to breath but finds that Will’s chest is no longer rising like it was in the van. Close enough for Mike to touch but not safe.
His last thought before the final blast is that of swings and capes, of a die that landed on the number 7.
…
When Micheal Wheeler opens his eyes again he is met with the retreating backs of two children on bikes. They laugh and shove each other, yelling about seeing each other tomorrow.
Is this hell?
“It was a 7,” a voice beside him breaks through.
“Huh?” Mike returns before turning towards the young voice.
He is met with the image of a 12 year old Will Byers standing in his parents garage.
Can’t be hell then, is Mike’s first thought.
Before Mike is able to even reconcile the last 10 seconds of his life, Will twists his head and scrunches his nose.
“The roll. It was a seven,” a young Will continues. Mike can do nothing but stare. “The demogorgon, it got me.”
Mike’s mouth opens slightly but nothing else comes out.
What the fuck is going on?
This must be his 7 minutes before he dies. The blast must have killed him and his subconscious is playing the worst moments of his life before he finally slips into nothingness. At least he gets to see Will again, even hear Dustin and Lucus laughing in the background
Little Will makes a small huff while getting on his bike. Mike is still too stunned to speak.
“See you tomorrow!” Will says before pedaling off into the night across Mike’s driveway.
Mike stands completely still as Will moves away from him second by second. Mike is frozen to the spot and unable to breath now that Will is out of his sight.
The light above the garage flicks twice and it finally forces Mike to move. Muscle memory kicks in as he snaps the garage light-switch into the off position and walks to the door.
Whatever is going on, at least he got to see Will before he finally enters hell.
Mike opens the door and walks inside to wait for his 7 minutes to be over.