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bixxelated · 9 months

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Wavelength

Chapter 1: The Freak with Superpowers

(archiveofourown)

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Author's Note: chapter cw for canon-typical racism, ableism and bullying

--o--o--o--

wave·length | \ ˈwāv-ˌleŋ(k)th

noun

1) Physics

The distance measured between two points in consecutive cycles of a wave.

2) Phrase

A shared orientation leading to mutual understanding.

--o--

We all know the story. Deep in Hawkin’s dark underbelly there is a cataclysm lurking, waiting for the best opportunity to boil over. It’s a disaster that’s been several years—perhaps decades—in the making, with no one around to prevent it save for the very people responsible for it. In another story, in a different world, this disaster would have gone unnoticed until the last moment, invisible until it was too late to do anything about it.

But in this world, there are signs.

The first sign is subtle. Only twelve-year-old Will Byers is perceptive enough to catch it, and even then he doesn’t think much of it, only realizing it’s true nature until much, much later.

Friday afternoon before their very lives start to fall apart, he and the rest of his friends are happily walking down the school halls, making their way to the AV Club now that classes are over for the week. It’s a typical afternoon spent playfully bickering amongst themselves, trying to decide whether or not Mr. Clarke would ever allow them to disassemble and reassemble the new Heathkit Hamshack radio due for delivery any day now.

They’re all laughing at Dustin’s insistence that they could totally justify it under “educational purposes” when Will notices that the group is one short. He turns back to see Mike lingering at one of the windows of the hall a few meters behind them. He’s looking out solemnly into the parking lot, brows furrowed and his nose crinkled in thought.

It’s an unusually intense expression to adopt for seemingly no reason. Oddly picturesque, even. Will’s fingers itch for a pencil, but he follows Mike’s gaze curiously, tries to find whatever it was that caught the other’s attention instead. All he sees are chattering kids filtering out of the school, crows cackling and cawing in the bare trees, happily undisturbed. Similarly, cars and buses slowly make their way across the parking lot unbothered, picking up students to then disappear into the woods at the end of the road. Red and orange leaves sway in the wind under a calm autumn sky.

There’s nothing out there strange enough to have caught his friend’s attention. Will cocks his head, and opens his mouth to ask what’s wrong, but then Dustin and Lucas beat him to the punch, calling out for Mike to catch up.

The moment is lost. Mike flinches so hard he jumps, concentration broken, and he picks up the pace to rejoin them with red cheeks. But not before throwing one last glance over his shoulder at the large windows of the hallway, where nothing is happening outside.

--o--

That first moment goes forgotten in the eventful weekend that follows. But the second sign is much more obvious.

Sunday night before everything goes to hell, Will finds himself sitting with his friends in the Wheeler’s basement as they enter the final stages of Mike’s long-planned campaign, who’s currently narrating an encounter between the rest of the Party and a very stubborn and particularly crony old oracle who refuses to give them the last key to unlock the final temple.

Will is so busy trying to decide on a course of action with the other two (read: yelling their ideas over each other frantically) that he almost doesn’t notice the way Mike’s attention is caught, the way his gaze slides over to the basement windows, brow furrowed with concern. But he does.

“Mike?” Will dares to ask, breaking character.

That snaps Mike out of it. He turns back to blink at them, mouth turned downward.

Will opens his mouth to say something, but Mike rallies quicker than expected and stands up.

“Uh… sorry guys. Bathroom break.” He offers as an explanation, but they watch in dumbfounded silence as he completely ignores the basement bathroom to climb up the stairs to the first floor instead. The lights flicker and stutter just as he slips through the door.

The rest of them share a glance, engulfed in awkward silence.

“...What the hell?” Lucas finally voices out loud. “He totally ruined the flow of the game! What’s up with him?”

Dustin shrugs back, perplexed but not worried, but Will can’t shake the feel of unease settling over him. He swallows and stands up. “I’ll go after him. Wait here.”

He doesn't find Mike in the upstairs bathrooms. He’s not in the kitchen or living room, or even in his room or Nancy’s either. Instead, Will finds Mike outside of all places, sitting on the porch with his back to the door as he looks out into the crispy autumn night.

“Mike? What are you doing out here? Everyone’s waiting on you.” Will says. Mike turns to look up at him, and the next words die down in Will’s throat as he notices the trickle of blood steadily sliding its way down his lip. “Woah… are you okay? What happened?”

Mike grimaces, then turns back to look out into the night. “Don’t worry about it. M’fine.”

“Are you sure? You said you were just going to the bathroom, but it’s been a while and everyone’s getting impatient….” Will settles down on the doorstep beside Mike, frowning slightly. “What are you doing out here? Why is your nose bleeding?”

Mike blinks, taken aback. “It's bleeding?” He swipes a hand under his nose, and his eyes widen when he pulls it back to see dark, viscous red staining his skin. “…Oh. It's probably just allergies or something. From the cold air and stuff.”

“Uh… okay.” Will cocks his head. “And… why did you come out here in the first place?”

Mike is quiet for a moment. “Just… needed a break.”

“A break?”

“Yeah,” he sniffs. “I just wanted some fresh air after spending so long in the basement. That’s all.”

So he says, but Mike’s gaze quickly returns back to the distance, eyes narrowed and searching, looking almost worried. Will frowns and casts a look in the same direction, but just like on Friday he doesn’t find anything that would be noteworthy enough to catch his friend’s attention. All he sees is just another calm November night in the neighborhood, lights on in every home, sprinklers spraying every front yard.

“What are you looking at?” He asks. “Is there something out there?”

“I just… I thought there was…” Mike spares one last glance at the distance, biting his lip consideringly, before he shrugs, clumsily wiping his nose with his hand. “…No. No, it’s nothing. Nevermind. I’m just being dumb, I guess.”

Will gives him a careful glance, unsure of what to say.

“Anyway, let’s go back inside. You still gotta get that keystone from the Oracle, remember?” Mike gives him a wan smile in an attempt to be reassuring, a somewhat pointless act with the blood smeared all over his cheek, and stands up. “Can't finish the game without it. C’mon.”

And he slips through the door before Will can protest otherwise, so Will doesn’t see any other option but to head back inside with him.

They clean up Mike’s nose and go back to the basement to resume the game, but it’s nothing like the way they were playing before the break. Something about it all doesn’t feel right. It’s most obvious with Mike, who keeps stuttering as he narrates and keeps losing his train of thought, but Dustin and Lucas seem to sense it as well. They all do their best to ignore the awkward tension, but they don’t really regain their former enthusiasm until the near end, when Mike reveals their final encounter, a battle with an army of troglodytes and… a demogorgon, of all things.

Unfortunately, that’s the moment Will’s nerves get the best of him, and on his turn he sends the dice flying off of the table. Even more unfortunately, that’s the moment when Mrs. Wheeler decides that it’s time for them all to pack up and go home. Mike darts upstairs to put up a token protest, but Will suspects he’s not as bothered by this turn of events as he appears to be.

Lucas and Dustin clearly do not miss it either, shooting Will a worried glance as they all scramble around the basement in search of the dice.

“He doing okay?” Lucas whispers on the ground. “He’s been acting really weird since the bathroom break.”

“I… I don’t know.” Will whispers back. “I tried to ask about it but he said it was nothing.”

“Is it a landmine thing, do you think?”

“I dunno.” He shrugs. “It’s hard to tell but… maybe?”

Admittedly, things have been going so well lately that this change of moods is surprising, but by now they’re old pros at handling Mike. If they need to, they can fall back onto one of the usual game plans.

Still. Something about this feels different than the other times before. So once they’re all exchanging goodbyes at the garage, Will stays behind, grounding his bike with a leg to watch as Dustin and Lucas set off for their respective homes.

Mike doesn't even notice, absentmindedly chewing on his lip while he stares out anxiously into the night sky. His dark eyes are still searching for something that Will can’t see.

The garage lights flicker. Will takes a deep breath full of crispy night air. “Mike?”

Like last Friday, he jumps to attention as he snaps out of his thoughts, and looks over at Will, bewildered.

“You sure you okay?” Will asks, as soft and unassuming as he can make himself.

Mike only stares at him, eyes so wide and helpless it hurts to see him like this. Will watches as his throat works without speaking, and it just makes the concern churning in his guts sharper. “Mike?” He asks again.

Mike swallows, and he finally forces a small grin to his face. “I’m fine, Will, really. Don’t worry about me.”

Will studies his pale face. It really doesn’t seem like he’s fine, but he’s been around enough of Mike’s moods to know he’s not gonna get anything else out of him tonight. Not like this. So he switches tactics. “It was a seven.”

Mike blinks, taken aback. “Huh?”

“The roll. It was a seven.” He explains. “The demogorgon. It got me.”

“Oh… right.”

Will scratches his cheek with a shrug. "Guess Lucas and Dustin are gonna have to fight the troglodyte army by themselves next weekend."

“Yeah… I mean,” Mike blinks, and then smiles back, weak but much more genuine than before. “They’re totally toast without you.”

That startles a laugh out of Will. “Go easy on them okay? See you tomorrow.”

Mike hesitates as he opens his mouth. Just for a moment. “...See ya.”

Will nods and takes off on his bike.

To his surprise, he finds Dustin waiting for him a few blocks up ahead. “So?”

“What?”

Dustin throws a thumb over his shoulder, in the direction Will just came from. “What’s the prognosis for our dearly beloved dungeon master, Dr. Byers?”

Will frowns, thinking for a while, before he finally says, “I’m not really sure. He seemed uneasy about something but it… it’s hard to explain. It’s not like all the other times before.”

“Ah, well… maybe tomorrow he’ll be in a more talkative mood, and we’ll drag the whole mystery out of him then,” Dustin hums thoughtfully, and then grins. “But in the meantime… how about a race? Winner gets any comic they want.”

--o--

There were signs that night that will seem so obvious in hindsight. Things that could have maybe… well. Not prevented the incident. Too much had already snowballed by then to stop the avalanche in its entirety. But perhaps it could have better prepared all those involved for the things that were yet to come. Maybe in another world, with more fear, or more trust, it could have been so.

But in this one there is a race, and then there is a monster, and a world turned dark and cold and inside out, and then Will Byers will be too busy trying to survive to think about any of those signs for a long, long while.

--o--

There’s more questions out there in the world than a million classes with Mr. Clarke could ever hope to answer. There’s more variable unknowns than all of the town of Hawkins could ever collectively name together. Things that are far beyond what humanity is currently capable of perceiving, let alone understanding. Things they don’t even realize they know nothing about.

Mike is well aware of that gap. The vastness of the world around him lingers in the back of his mind, always, like the space in between his gums when a baby tooth is missing. He used to like the uncertainty, he thinks. There used to be a time where he could take comfort in how small he felt in the grand scheme of life. There was so much to figure out about a world beyond the town limits, it felt like an adventure waiting to happen.

But that was before… a lot of things. Now, he takes comfort in living in the middle of nowhere, Indiana; in sleepy little Hawkins where nothing ever happens. The monotony is brain-rotting, sure, but he likes knowing what's lurking around every corner. He likes that it's too small for any shadows to ever take an interest.

Or at least that’s what he thought for a long, long time. Hawkins was supposed to be safe and quiet, isolated from all those scary unknowns prowling the outside world. But now…

There’s something in the woods. There’s something in the woods and Will didn’t show up to school today.

“Stay out of it.” The Chief of Police tells the remaining Party in Principal Coleman's office. “Leave this to the adults; we’ll find Will soon enough.”

But there’s something out there. Mike thinks, searching but not finding any of the bone-deep concern that should be present in the Chief’s expression, especially after that freak phenomenon that occurred over the weekend. Doesn't he know? Why isn’t he taking this seriously enough? There’s something in the woods and I think it took Will.

“We could help!” Mike blurts out instead. “If you let us come along to Mirkwood, we could show you where all of Will’s favorite hiding spots are, and—I’m really good at finding people—”

“No.” The Chief firmly says. “No, no biking around looking for your friend, no investigating, no nonsense. This isn’t some… what did you call it? Lord of the Rings book.”

“The Hobbit.” Dustin can’t help but interject.

Lucas whacks him in the side. “How is that important right now?”

“He asked!”

“‘He asked.’” Lucas mocks back. They quickly dissolve into a round of petty bickering and slapping hands, which Mike finds himself in the center of, despite his protests.

“Hey.” The Chief says, annoyed. “Hey, hey! I don’t care about your adventure book or whatever it is you’re talking about. The point is that this is not a fairy tale, and you’re not going to do anything to endanger yourselves any further. Understood?”

“But we could help!” Mike tries again, shoving Lucas away from him. “You don’t know Will like we do, you need us—”

“Trust me, the last thing that we need is for the rest of you to get stranded in the woods as well. After school, you are all to go home immediately, and you stay there.” The Chief’s voice is steel. “Do I make myself clear?”

Dustin and Lucas gulp.

“Yessir, Mr. Chief, sir.”

“Yeah. Crystal.”

Mike crosses his arms and says nothing.

A gruff eyebrow twitches. Annoyance blooms into outright displeasure, and the Chief stands up, looming over them all. “I'm going to ask one last time. Do I make myself… clear?”

Cold, cold ice engulfs his stomach, standing at odds with the angry thumping of his heart. Mike purses his lips and stubbornly meets the Chief’s unrelenting blue gaze, desperate and furious and pleading all at once. But the Chief is large and intimidating, and finally he has to avert his eyes, staring down at his feet instead. “…Yes, sir.”

He’s never felt more powerless than at that moment when they leave the office.

“—shouldn’t have challenged him to that race.” Dustin is saying morosely, as they all make their way out of the empty school. “He got a headstart on me because I bet him my comics and he really wanted my X-Men 134. Shit and the last thing I said to him was that I was gonna kill him! Guys, what if—?”

“Well, well, well! Step right up, ladies and gentlemen!” They hear right as they step outside the building. “Step right up and get your tickets for the freak show.”

Mike stiffens at once, and turns around to see Troy and James grinning like sharks from behind them, bloodthirstiness and amusement rolling off of them in waves. He’d gotten so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed them approaching, which is just… great. Just what they need at that moment.

Troy puts a finger on his chin, considering. “Hey, who do you think would make more money in a freak show?” He asks James cheerfully as he steps closer to them. “Midnight—” he punches Lucas’ chest in demonstration, too hard to be taken entirely as playful. “Toothless,” a punch to Dustin as well, “or Basketcase?”

One final punch.

Annoyance swells under the physical throbbing in Mike’s chest, overpowering all his other anxieties. “Can we not do this today?” Slips out of his mouth before he can take it back. “Surely you have better things to do than stick around school to bother us.”

He regrets it immediately when their amusement just increases. Troy and James zero in on him, eyes glinting brightly like hungry wolves spotting a lonely lamb, and his heart skips a beat.

“Why, what’s the matter?” Troy smirks toothily as he advances on Mike. “Haven’t you cuckoos heard of friendly teasing before?”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. He should have kept his big mouth shut, Mike thinks, as Troy shoves into his personal space, forcing him back and away from the others. His breathing picks up, and his hands go cold and clammy as he tries to put some space between them. Dustin, sensing that things are about to go south, does what he does best and starts babbling, suggesting to do the arm thing for James and Troy in an attempt to distract them, but he goes largely ignored for once.

“S-shut up,” Mike tries to say, but it comes out too quiet with his throat clenched as tightly as it is.

“Aw, don't tell me—didja have one too many meltdowns there, Wheeler? Nuthouse finally decided to have you committed? Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll fit right in with the other freaks.”

He punctuates the word “freaks” with a hard shove to the shoulders. Mike yelps as he overbalances, sneakers slipping on loose gravel, and he falls backwards onto his behind with a loud thump that makes his teeth clack against each other.

“Stop it, Troy.” Lucas growls, but James very pointedly plants himself in between, his larger figure as imposing as a boulder. It doesn’t stop Lucas from leaning out to the side to glare. “Leave him alone!”

Breathing heavily, Mike glares down at the ground and tries to ignore the angry thumping of his heart. “‘M not a freak.”

“What’s that? I can’t hear you through all that mumbling.”

Mike says nothing, insides clenching as he stubbornly pins his gaze on the pebbles and dirt.

Troy steps closer. “I said speak up, Wheeler. Where's that spine of steel you just showed us all? You gonna cry on me instead, you useless coward?”

“Is there a problem here?”

Mike flinches and looks up to see the Chief’s stony visage centered on them as he approaches the scene, a deeply amused officer Callahan following at his heels.

Troy blanches. “No sir. No problem sir, we’re just playing sir.”

The Chief’s eyebrows go up. He raises the tip of his hat and turns to Mike with an obvious question on his face.

Mike clenches his jaw and looks away.

“Right… well, how about you boys play a little more carefully, huh?” He reaches out with one huge hand and effortlessly hauls Mike to his feet, backpack and all, while leveling an unimpressed stare at Troy. “Wouldn’t want anyone getting into trouble over a game.”

“N-no, of course not.” Troy stammers. “Just having a bit of harmless fun between friends.”

“We were just leaving anyway,” James adds meekly.

“Yeah, my mom needs me home to do… stuff.”

Chief Hopper keeps his hard gaze on them but does nothing as Troy and James proceed to high-tail it out of there as unsubtly as possible. He snorts one last time at their retreating figures, before turning back to the kids just as Dustin and Lucas bound over to check on Mike.

The corner of the Chief’s mouth twists down as he watches them. He visibly wrestles with himself for a long moment before he finally asks, “you okay there, kid?”

“Yeah. It’s fine.” Mike bites out as politely as he can manage, dusting himself off. “Everything’s fine.”

Chief frowns, but goes on. “Those two didn’t rough you up too much, did they? Did you uh… need a ride home or something?”

Mike takes a deep breath and does his best to shove the rage down. He feels like a shaken soda can, bubbling emotions pressing against his insides, ready to burst out of him through the smallest gap, but he’s not stupid enough to lash out at the Chief of Police in spite of his feelings. Forget incurring Hopper’s wrath—Mom would have his hide for it. “No. Like they said… we were just playing.”

“Right… then…” The Chief lingers a few moments more, before moving along. “Get home safe, you three.”

They watch together as the two officers trudge away into the parking lot, the sun already starting to lower in the sky. As Hopper pulls out his keys, he throws them one last glance before making a comment to the other officer as they step into the police truck and drive away.

Lucas is the first to break the silence, leveling a worried look at Mike. “Are you really okay, though?”

Mike avoids their gaze. “I’m fine. No injuries. Just… rattled.”

“They’re assholes.” Lucas says quietly.

“Yeah, you shouldn’t listen to them, Mike.” Dustin adds. “They’re stupid wastoids with chewed up wads of gum for brains. What do they even know?”

Maybe more than you realize. The words linger behind his teeth, but there’s no point in bringing them into existence, so he stays quiet and follows after them to the bike racks.

--o--

Large, rumbling thunder clouds darken the sky by dinnertime, bringing in a thick, humid cold and the strong scent of rainwater along with them. The rolling sea of gray reflects exactly how Mike feels inside, churning and somber.

“We should be out there too.” He says out loud, stirring his mashed potatoes without taking a bite. “We should be there helping look for Will with everyone else.”

“We’ve been over this, Mike.” Mom sighs, wiping a napkin over Holly’s messy cheeks. “My heart goes out to the Byers, it really does, but the Chief says—”

“I don’t care what the Chief says!”

“Michael!”

“We have to do something, Mom.” He begs, willing her to understand. “Will’s in danger, I just know it.”

“All the more reason to stay put.”

“But Mom—!”

“No means no, Michael. Until we know Will is okay, no one leaves the house.” She fixes a steady glare on him. “End of discussion.”

Mike sits back and fumes as Nancy chooses that moment to ask Mom for permission for what is definitely not a study session over at Barb’s house. Predictably (and hilariously), she gets turned down for her efforts, but Mike barely pays any attention over the lump of dread sinking down into his stomach. He’s had enough.

Appetite lost, he slips out of his chair and heads down to the basement despite his mother’s calls for him to finish dinner.

He’s fiddling with Will the Wise’s figurine and looking at the basement windows morosely when he hears footsteps creaking, and he glances behind him to see Mom coming down the stairs cautiously, her every movement lined with worry and bittersweet affection.

“Hey.” She says softly, holding up a small bowl full of ice cream. “I brought you butter pecan. Your favorite.”

There’s more rumbling from outside. Mike’s gaze returns to the figurine in his hands. “I don’t want it.”

A pause. Mom drags over a chair and settles down beside him. "I know how worried you are for Will. But there are a lot of people out there looking for him already."

Mike’s mouth twists, thinking of all the things that he and only he seemed to notice over the weekend. “It’s not enough. I need to be there too.”

“You don’t know that honey. I’m sorry that we can’t do more for Will, Mike, I really am, but I want you to understand what it’s like from our point of view. Losing a child is a parent's worst nightmare and I wouldn’t—” a deep breath, as an old fear creeps up to the surface, “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if anything happened to you too. You or Nancy or Holly. I can't look out for all three of you and search for Will at the same time.”

"Will would look if it was me." He says certainly. "The Byers would be out there if it was me."

Mom sighs, and leans in to press a soft kiss against his forehead. "Have some faith, alright? The police will take care of this Mike. They'll find Will, and he'll be over to play your story game with you before you know it.”

She smiles at him. Mike tries to smile back, but it chafes against the tumultuous emotions swirling deep inside him. He quickly drops the smile as soon as Mom goes back upstairs and casts another glance out at the window, where the wind’s picking up outside.

The police won't be able to find anything. Not when they didn't even notice whatever happened in the woods over the weekend, both yesterday and last Friday. Whatever it was that created that strange energy, it had been strong enough to radiate over miles and miles of distance, surging deep in the woods from the other side of town. Hopper hadn’t seemed too worried about that surge when he’d been questioning them; in fact, Mike has yet to hear a whisper of it in the newspapers, or in the TV news, or even from Mom’s lips as she gossips on the phone—and if Mom hasn’t heard about it, no one has.

But Mike had known, and hadn’t said anything about it. He hadn’t known how to explain why he felt so nervous without revealing more than he was comfortable with, and he’d let his personal fears override the gut instinct that told him that something was wrong. If only he’d been brave enough to listen to that feeling like he’d wanted to, if only he’d told Will to not bike to his house on his own, if he’d told him to call Jonathan to pick him up or begged him to stay the night, even if they had to sneak him into the basement or something—

Troy’s earlier words tumble around the inside of his skull, echoing with every bounce. Coward. Coward. Coward. Dustin had said he was wrong, but wasn’t it cowardice that’d kept his mouth shut? Maybe if Mike had said something, Will would be home right now, safe and sound, scribbling away on his sketchbook while Jonathan makes dinner, or chatting with Mike over the supercomm about their unfinished campaign.

He’d been a coward and Will had paid the price. Troy had been right in that aspect… but he’s also wrong, because Mike isn’t useless. He can still make up for his mistakes. He might be the only one who’s able to. He owes it to Will to try.

The resolve kicks Mike into action, sending him scrambling around the basement for his things. Backpack by the stairs, flashlight on the shelf, a sneaker in the bathroom, the other under a chair, jacket behind the couch cushions—

And supercomm. Mike snatches it from the D&D table with one hand and holds it up to his mouth, pressing on the speaker button with his thumb as he takes in a breath to call to Lucas—

Then he hesitates. Bites his lip, releases the talk button as he lowers the supercomm…

and stashes it into his backpack instead.

I don’t need to get anyone else involved in this. It’ll be easier to find Will if I’m on my own, anyway.

--o--

“Will!”

Wind. Rain. Thunder. Mud. These are all elements Mike finds himself battling as he slogs through Mirkwood’s vast woods with nothing but a flashlight.

"Will!"

The beam of light is just barely bright enough to slice through the dark. Without it, he’d be navigating the thunderstorm completely blind. He's traipsed through this forest with his friends plenty of times, but it's never looked this threatening before. The trees seem wild and unfamiliar in the storm, branches shaking and stretching as if reaching out towards him. Mike’s heart is beating so fast it feels like it’ll leave a permanent outline on his skin.

It’s taking all of his energy to focus on looking for Will, and even then he’s struggling to keep his bearings. It’s… scary. He won’t lie, he’s a little terrified of being out on his own like this right now. But he can’t just quit, not when he’s just barely started. If he quits, who will find Will?

“Will!” He calls again, forcing himself to move forward. “Will! Will Byers! Wi—”

A flash of lightning. Rumbling thunder. The faintest sound of voices answering through the rain. But not the type he wants to hear.

The search party! Mike realizes with a start, insides turning to ice as he whips around. How did he not notice before? There they are in the distance, a crowd of voices calling for Will with genuine concern as they march through the undergrowth.

He’s too far away to be seen, but they’re still too close for comfort. If anyone finds him outside at this hour of the night, he’s dead meat. He turns on his heels and sprints off deeper into the woods as fast as he can go, until he can no longer sense the search party.

Panting, he looks over his shoulder just to make sure he’s lost them, only for his feet to tangle in the undergrowth. He goes down with a startled yelp, slipping down a ditch and rolling in wet leaves and mud until he reaches the thankfully shallow end of it.

…Ow.

Cold, terrified and now uncomfortably wet, Mike hears the faintest traces of laughter ringing in his traitorous head as he gasps for breath in the frigid November air. The laughter sounds suspiciously like Troy’s voice.

You can do this, you can do this, he tells himself, and slowly pushes himself up from the mud onto his hands and knees, only to discover with a start that his flashlight won’t turn on anymore.

“Crap, crap, crap,” he hisses as he checks it over. It's useless—his fingers are shaking and stiff with the cold, and without any light to help him he can’t figure out what’s wrong with the flashlight. He’s stranded in the dark.

Great. Just great.

Oh you stupid freak! Imaginary Troy mocks him in his own head. What did you think you were going to accomplish, running around in the woods like a moron?

Maybe the voice is right. Maybe this was a stupid idea. It’s not too late to turn back, is it? He's pretty sure he can find his way out of here, still. If there’s really something out here in these woods, something that caused that surge and took Will, Mike doesn’t exactly have a way to defend against it. He can still change his mind, still go back home and try something else, maybe hope that the search party will figure something out…

But Will’s face as he last saw him flashes in his mind’s eye, his dimly lit figure standing under the garage lights. He remembers hazel eyes looking up at him, face furrowed with concern, but determined nonetheless. Unwilling to abandon him, even when Mike was being difficult. And not just in that moment, but countless moments before.

He can't quit now. He can’t risk losing that.

No one else can do what I can do. Maybe I can’t use all of my abilities, but I might be the only one who can find Will.

Settling back on his knees, Mike forces himself to take a deep breath. And then another. And then another. He closes his eyes, digs his fingers into the twigs and the cold moist earth, grounding himself with the scent of wet greenery and freezing rain.

He’s so used to suppressing his abilities that it's almost painful, the way he forces the energy compressed tightly in between his ribcage to surge outward, stretching more and more and more until he has a wide bubble of awareness cast as far as he can make it go without being nigh unbearable. Mike had almost forgotten how it felt to open himself up to the world like this.

In the dark, the faint pulses of life from the forest around him carve out a picture that helps him vaguely make out his surroundings. He doesn’t see so much as feel the outlines of the trees rooting deep into the ground, the undergrowth that flourishes on the forest floor hiding small animals from the storm. It’s pretty in its own way. Bright, yet delicate like glowing strands of silk, but all muted sensations compared to the shining, shifting lights of the search party trudging through the forest a distance away, completely oblivious to his presence in the woods.

They’re bright, or so he thinks until he notices the lone figure sprinting through the forest on the other side of his perception, as bright as a bonfire, fear and desperation coming off of them in droves as they weave through the trees.

Will? He wonders, eyes opening. But he knows as soon as the thought enters his mind that this person is not his friend.

As if reading his mind, the figure stops. And turns in his direction as they pant for breath. The snarled cloud of their emotions subside in place of something else rising to the forefront, allowing him to read everything else about them, and his concentration is broken by shocked realization.

“No way,” Mike gasps.

He scrambles to his feet as the bubble collapses, breaking into a run at once—or at least as much of a run as he can manage with the forest terrain threatening to trip him up again, mud splashing against his already-dirty pants. He feels lightheaded and breathless and euphoric all at once, as he sprints through bushes and around trees, drawing in closer by the second.

There’s movement up ahead, thundering and crashing through the forest like he is. It should be scary. Maybe Mike should be terrified, because this isn’t anyone that he knows from Hawkins. He usually knows better, he does, he shouldn’t be running towards a total stranger, but—he just—is it really—he just needs to see —

Something jumps out of the bushes in front of him, and Mike comes to a halt so abruptly that he nearly slips on the mud again. The wet clothes, the developing bruises, his burning lungs, the sounds of the storm above him—they all turn into distant sensations, as if muted or far away. He stills, shock and curiosity mirrored in the wide brown eyes before him.

They’re a similar height and age, but the kid standing before him is not Will. They’re not even a boy, he realizes after a moment. They're a girl. A girl with hair shorn so close to her scalp she might as well be bald. A girl who only has a dirty, overgrown t-shirt to protect her from the elements of the storm, and is soaked down to the bone as a result. A girl who’s hungrily drinking him in just as he is her.

A girl who has superpowers just like him.

--o--

They’re both soaking wet when they get back home. Mike’s not completely sure how he manages to get them both back over to his house in between the rain and the darkness and the single bike between them, but he does. In the blink of an eye, he finds himself down in his basement with the girl late at night, rainwater still dripping down his face as he watches her look around the room, grimacing when he notices the trail of grime she leaves wherever she goes. He’s going to have to be careful about that and make sure to clean up all of the muck they tracked in before Mom sees it and figures out what he was up to.

“I know it’s not much.” Mike tells her gently. “But you can stay here for the night. No one really hangs out down here besides me and my friends. Should be good enough to keep you hidden from my parents at least.”

The girl doesn’t react to his words, instead poking her head into the blanket fort, and looking it over cautiously as if the whole fort is liable to collapse on her at any moment.

“You like it?” He asks, walking over to pat at the fort carefully. “I built this with my friends for a sleepover. I’ll give you my sleeping bag and you can stay in here if you like. It’s nice and warm.” Although it might not stay that way for long given all of the water she’s dripping onto the blankets.

She looks up at him, silent as the grave. There's something about her that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up uneasily. Not because of her, exactly, but because of what he sees when he looks at her. The silence. The way her oversized, wet t-shirt clings to her skinny frame. Her complete and utterly lost expression. Everything about her sketches out a nightmare he’s had too many times for comfort.

Who are you? He wonders silently. Where did you come from? Are there more of you?

He doesn’t voice those questions out loud though. He can tell it’s not the moment to ask them. She’s frightened and skittish and still very wary of him, even though he's given her no reason to be. No need to scare her any further.

So instead, he goes over to the laundry basket and takes out a pair of pajamas that he was wearing just yesterday night. “You must be freezing in those clothes. You can change into these if you want, they're clean enough. I’ll get you a towel too so you can dry off properly.”

She eyes the pile in his hands for a long moment before she finally dares to reach out for them. Something in her expression flickers as soon as she touches them, and she gently holds the fabric up to nuzzle into it.

Mike’s throat clenches. It's like she’s never seen a pair of PJs before. "We have a bathroom down here too, right over there in that door, so you can put those on in there.”

By the way she looks at it, she’s apparently never seen a bathroom before either. She goes to investigate it with PJs in hand, but as soon as Mike moves to close the door with her in it, she whirls around and her free hand shoots out to hold it open, startling him.

“No.” She tells him firmly.

Mike blinks. “O-oh, so you can speak," he notes dumbly.

The girl doesn't say anything else, but the distrust evident in her body speaks volumes.

“Okay, then… I have to change too, so… do you want to switch places?”

She searches his face for a long moment, before she nods.

Mike smiles weakly and steps aside so that she can slip out of the bathroom. “I’ll change in there then. And you can change out here. Just be sure to tell me when you’re done so I can come out, okay?”

She looks down at the bundle of clothes in her arms and nods again.

Maybe he shouldn't be leaving a complete stranger unsupervised while he locks himself in the bathroom, but she doesn't seem to mean any harm. She’s scared, sure, but he doesn't sense any ill will emanating from her, not even as he changes. Sure enough, when he comes out he finds the girl calmly settled inside of the blanket fort, rubbing the pajama shirt in between her fingers with fascination.

She looks up at him, and his heart starts beating faster just by the sheer amount of intensity he sees in her eyes. Her gaze is so heavy it feels like the weight of the entire world is pinning him down when she looks at him. But for some reason, she doesn't make him feel afraid.

On impulse, Mike goes over to kneel in front of the blanket fort. He’s practically blocking the entrance, but she doesn’t react overly negatively to having him there sitting so close to her. Instead he follows his gut and holds his hands out to her, offering his palms facing upwards while maintaining direct eye contact.

She stares at him for a long moment before her gaze drops, and she slowly reaches out to put her hands on top of his.

Mike sucks in a breath.

Holy shit. She's so strong.

Her touch is electric, in an almost literal sense of the world. As soon as her skin meets his, he jumps, startled by the swirling amount of sensations that suddenly triple in intensity—the warmth of her blood chasing away the chill lingering in her hands, the oxygen that fills her body with every breath, the steady flow of her emotions shifting with every thought, every feeling ripping through him, every swirl of energy setting his nerves on edge. It’s overwhelming at first. It feels like standing in the shadow of a giant wave—at least until he figures out a way to brace himself against her rhythm, to make space for what’s seeping into him, to match her very essence until his heart is beating as her own.

Never has he been so aware of another person in their entirety. As soon as he’s able to map her out completely, something deep inside him clicks, warmth spreading through his entire body, flipping the tightness in between his ribcage until it turns inside out.

At once his senses clear and spread out like ink in water, enveloping his surroundings and filling in details and dimensions that he's never noticed before. The air itself becomes lighter. Mike peeks out from his eyelashes to see his clothes and hair bobbing like he's underwater, and then realizes it’s not just him alone. The blankets of the fort are shifting as well, and as the lights flicker, toys and tools around the basement start to detach from their spots, rising gently into the air.

Dizzy and breathless, he turns his wide eyes back on the girl, but she’s too busy looking around in wonder, taking in the effects of his powers.

Of her powers reflected back at her.

--o--

“…Hey, um… I never asked your name.”

A pause. A ruffle of clothes.

“…Woah, is that for real? …Oh. Sorry, I’ve just… never seen a kid with a real tattoo before.”

“…”

“Um… what’s it mean? Eleven?”

…Tap, tap.

“That’s your name?”

“…”

“...Eleven. Okay… well, my name’s Mike, short for Michael… maybe I can call you El? Short for Eleven?”