Chapter Text
Mike felt the cold in his bones; it was a sharp thing digging into his flesh. He was used to a midwestern winter but the lake sent sweeping and harsh winds through the city, fucking Lake Michagin. It wasn't even a lake, it was a goddam inland sea. He shook his head trying to shake the black hair from his eyes and he ashed his cigarette. He should go inside, he knows that but something about the November chill was working its way into him, gripping and holding him to the pavement. He turned his wrist looking at the watch his parents had given him as a graduation present. He was late. Mike cursed under his breath as he dropped the cigarette and crushed it under the sole of his shoe.
He entered the classroom. It was small and the manufactured warmth made the air feel thick. He dropped his messenger bag onto the seat next to him, heads turned his way and he instinctively pulled a face before riffling through the chaos of his bag to pull out this week's reading Hands by Sherwood Anderson. The professor sat on a desk in front of a chalkboard, legs crossed as he spoke. Mike tried to listen, to absorb the way they picked apart the short story, it had left an uneasy and slight queasy feeling in his gut. The other students' hands raised with varying confidence to contribute to the discussion while Mike stared down at the faded copy of the story marked up in ballpoint pen.
'You want to be like others in town here. You hear them talk and you try to imitate them.'
He had underlined the words twice and there were specks of ink from where he had started and stopped making a note. He didn't know how long he stared at that line. Something bruised and aching in him at the sight.
“Michael?” Mike jolted from the trance and looked up to see an empty classroom and his professor looking at him curiously. Mike stood but didn't move for a moment. His mind was slow, sluggish. When he continued to look at Mike expectantly he moved walking towards the desk.
“Professor Reilly,” Mike forced a small smile on his face. It wouldn't help anything to come off as rude but it felt wrong. Then again so did everything. Professor Reilly nodded an exhalation as he walked around to the back of the desk, and Mike remembered him encouraging the class to call him Thomas but it just felt wrong coming out of his mouth. The man turned and pulled out a small stack of papers from the top desk drawer. He handed them to Mike and he recognized the draft he had turned in there were fluidly written notes in red pen, the twisting pit in his stomach tightened. He knew this silence was for him to fill, to say something, but he didn't.
“Well it was very interesting, there's something so entrancing about how you talk about the lake. The texture, the danger of it, the sense of inevitable pull on the narrator to surrender to it all come across strongly. There's a lot of technical strength here Michael, really there is.” the professor paused and Mike finally looked up at him. There was something curious in his eyes, searching, looking for something Mike didn't know. The older man tapped his fingers when Mike simply looked. “The narrator though, they don't seem to bring any emotion to the piece, there is this intense longing and resistance yet we don't know what is pulling them to stay on shore.”
Mike licked his chapped lips gripping the pages “I don't figure drowning is very pleasant.” He knows he's being a smart ass and is about to back track when Professor Reilly lets out a small laugh. Mike knows he's right but, well there is this pit of sludge that makes up Mike's emotions and he's fairly certain it wouldn't make much sense to anyone as a point of reference.
“What’s under the lake do you think?” the professor tilts his head “is it a better world?”
Mike hesitates before answering. “It’s hell.” He answers plainly Professor Reilly looks like he's about to say something before thinking better of it and nods. Mike turns to leave tucking the pages into his bag haphazardly when the professor calls out as he's about to leave the room
“You really love the lake, It’s obvious in how you write about the water.” When Mike looks back at him it's clear there's something a bit worried and a bit hopeful in his eyes that makes Mike's skin crawl.
“I absolutely hate it.”
***
He walks home, jacket wrapped tightly around him and only one glove on as he smokes, he'll need to cut back before christmas. If his mom finds out he picked up the habit she’d lose her shit. He let himself in, jiggling the key in the lock until it opened. It's a large house that was converted into apartments a few years ago, a few blocks from the river. He had been surprised when his parents agreed to the idea of renting an apartment rather than the dorms but they also know Mike. Sticking him in a shoebox with a stranger was a terrible idea. He walked into the sparse space, there were still boxes against the window. He had brought more than enough things to decorate the space to make it feel like his but the walls stayed bare despite it being his third month in the city. His fingers itched to pull open the box and riffle through them, the memories sealed away in cardboard, the posters and figures, pages and pages of colored pencil.
What Mike had unpacked was records, his collection had grown. He was specifically not supposed to waste the money his dad sent him to live off on frivolous things but he had broken that rule with the cigarettes so the records seemed harmless. He flicked through them before setting The Queen is Dead into the player, the b side, “Bigmouth Strikes Again” began playing and he made his 4th grilled cheese of the week. He sat on the lumpy futon and pulled out his draft. The notes were honest and he couldn't bring himself to disagree, he didn't want to crack himself open onto a page for his peers to scavenge over. While that was true Mike also had a lingering fear that if he engaged with the ever turning dread that had accumulated in him he wouldn't be able to get it back in check. He inhaled his sandwich and considered if he should be concerned about scurvy when the phone rang making him flinch.
Mike inhaled deeply trying to stamp down the fear that had shot up his spine. He was fine, everyone was fine, a phone call was just a call. It was fine. He walked to the kitchen and picked up, clearing his throat.
“Hello?”
“Mike, Hi baby.” His moms voice crackled through the receiver, there was some shuffling and Mike imagined her tucking the phone between her head and shoulder and she went back to whatever she had been doing before calling.
“Hey mom,” He said looking up at the ceiling there was a spider web in the corner “What’s up?”
“Calling about thanksgiving, we're planning on heading up to Joyce and Jim's new property. Apparently Jim spent the summer building a whole house for the kids and so there should be plenty of room for you, Nancy and the boys.” Mike couldn't help the flicker of excitement that the prospect brought to his chest. Dustin, Lucas, Max, and…and Will.
Then he frowned “Isn’t Dustin going to go spend the holiday with his mom in Minnesota and what about Lucas’s parents?”
“According to Joyce Dustin said since he is planning on spending winter break with his mom he would come for thanksgiving at the Byers and since Nancy is already driving from Boston he would just ride with her, and Sue told me Lucas and Max plan to just spend thanksgiving and the day after in Hawkins with them.”
“Okay,” Mike says, I mean if his parents are planning to spend the holiday with the Byers Mike isn't really in a position to give the green light is he?
“Well, are you going to be able to come?” His mom demands
“Oh um,” Mike rubs the back of his neck and glances at the unpacked boxes “Yeah, yeah, I can come.”
“Great, Nancy will call you about coordinating and she can make a detour to Milwaukee. I'll let you go, I'm making dinner. I love you.” Mike bites back the urge to say no, to tell his mom that he’s so sad. In a way that makes the word sound uselessly small.
“Love you too.”
***
Things continue and the days repeat like thin duplicates of each other. He's sitting in the library forcing himself to finish his draft for critique when he gets back from thanksgiving, when a girl walks up to him. Her hair falls in a smooth light brown sheet over her shoulders, she has soft rounded features and wears a thick red sweater that’s sleeves have been rolled up multiple times to settle around her wrists. “Michael? Right?” he looks at her wearily before nodding. She blinks at him for a moment before continuing “can i?”
“Yeah,” he answers, watching as she sits. “Lauren, we're in creative writing together.” He meant to phrase it as a question but his words don’t turn up at the ends properly but she nods anyway.
“You can call me Laurie though,” She smiles and something about it reminds him a bit of Max.
“Well then i guess you should call me Mike, It's only fair.” Laurie huffed slightly.
“I was wondering if maybe you would want to look over each other's second drafts before we start critiques. If I'm being honest I'm kind of desperate here.” Laurie looks a bit nervous and he makes himself smile because she had been a bit brave about it. He hesitates though gazing down at his most current draft before looking back at her. He’d been trying to add something to the narrator, something that tempted them to stay on land, and it felt disingenuous. It was simply a man, unnamed, and to add a family or something concrete felt wrong paired with the amorphous nature of the longing for the lake.
“Okay, sure.” Mike almost immediately regretted it as he passed the pages over as she beamed and dug in her backpack.
Laurie’s story is bright and nostalgic, sun-soaked. It makes a small bubble of fear rise in his throat, because this very, very normal girl is writing normal stories, and what does it mean that he wrote the oily thing Laurie is reading with furrowed brows? He forces himself to focus on the words in front of him. It’s too late to snatch the pages back now without looking like a lunatic.
Her story feels almost like a collage, flipping through a photo album, snippets of memory, and in each there is a girl. The narrator feels like a side character; the real focus is Becca. Bright. Bold. The embodiment of youth. It’s clearly a story about friends, best friends. Mike pulls out a notepad and starts jotting things down.
He finishes first and waits, careful not to watch Laurie as she reads. When she finally looks up and meets his eyes, she looks back down at the page once more before meeting them again. He can’t decipher the expression on her face.
“Why did he go into the lake?” she asks, flipping through the pages again. It stumped Mike for a moment, Professor Reilly hadn't seemed worried about that aspect at all. “It’s so clear he's scared of what's underneath even though it's calling to him, so why?”
Mike fidgets as he considers it “I guess, well-” he fumbles as the words feel sticky but she waits patiently “He wants to know, I think part of him could never live with the possibility that he was wrong, that the bottom of the lake is salvation rather than damnation.” Mike paused looking around trying to verbalize it in a way that didn't make him seem crazy. “It’s like the chance at something amazing is worth the risk of pain when the price is mediocrity.”
She nods and seems to be thinking. “Is he you?”
Mike makes a small, useless sound and looks back down at the table.
“Sorry,” Laurie says, but she doesn’t really sound sorry. She taps her story once with her finger. “She’s me.”
“I guess in a way,” Mike shrugged as if the words meant nothing and thankfully she didn't push any further.
They lost track of time, eventually abandoning their critique for conversation and Mike felt present in a way he hadn't in a long time. She was laughing when he finally realized they had been sitting here for over two hours. He started to pack up his bag.
“I should head out, I have to call my sister about going home,” It was simpler than explaining it was the closest version of going home he had, as thinking about actually going home made him want to peel off his own skin. Laurie nodded and also started to pack up before uncapping her pen.
“What’s your number? We should actually properly hang out.” Laurie looked at him expectantly and he hesitated before taking the pen and ripping a scrap piece of paper from his notebook before zipping his bag. He didn't want to give her the wrong idea but he also knew he needed a friend.
***
Mike did not want to do this, in all honesty whatever reason he had when he agreed had completely left his mind by this point. He stood in his bathroom, the bulb over the sink and mirror weak and yellow. He shrugged and pulled on his jean jacket adjusting it. He would be cold but he’d figured that was better than having to carry around a coat inside. He wore a white t-shirt and a brown flannel with jeans, he thought it looked fine. Maybe, probably. He had to leave and catch the bus, Laurie said she would meet him there.
He tucked his hands into his pockets as he walked he contemplated possible conversation topics. When the bus pulled up he dug through his pockets for change and the driver looked at him flatly before he finally found them. Mike toyed with one of the icy metal buttons of his jacket intently staring out of the window as he rode through the city, as they drove through the lower east side the buildings grew and he remembered for the millionth time that this place was not Hawkins. When he finally got to his stop he lit a cigarette trying to soothe his nerves as he walked.
On the wall of the building were the raised white letters ‘This Is ‘It’’ He took a deep breath as he walked in. It was warm and there were people of all different ages around the room but it wasn’t over crowded. Music thrummed through the space coupled with the murmurs of conversation. It was warm and there was a slight haze of smoke hanging in the air. His eyes scanned the space for Laurie.
Two hands landed on his shoulders “Mike! You made it.” His mind was still trying to adjust to this so he simply nodded. “Come on, let's sit at the bar.” Laurie grabbed his arm and pulled him to where he assumed she had been sitting before he arrived.
“You been here before?” Mike asks as she waves to the bartender. She glances at him and there’s something close to doubt he doesn’t understand that flashes across her face.
“Yeah,” Laurie holds his eyes for a moment expectantly.
“Cool.” He nods. He ordered a beer simply because he was slightly shocked when the bartender asked what he’d like, it tasted a bit shit. As he settles in and starts to relax they fall into comfortable conversation. He starts to feel the effects of the alcohol he doesn't feel out of control but a bit looser some of the constant tension between his shoulder blades loosening.
“So where are you from?” She asks, it's a completely innocuous question or at least it should be. If he said he was from Hawkins no doubt she would know about the public version of events and have a million questions. Beyond that there's the way even talking about home tears open a pit of dread and fear and longing in him.
“Indiana.” He settles on, looking away from her as he runs his thumb along the edge of his glass.
“Oh yeah, I'm from here. Sometimes I wish I left for school but it’s kinda nice.”
“I think I miss people more than I miss home.” Mike shrugged as he spoke and that at least he knew was true. Mossy green and brown flashed through his mind for a moment and he swallowed thickly.
“Well,” Laurie said with a bit of softness in her voice as she nudged him with her elbow “you can find people here too, to keep you company while you miss them.” Mike felt the corners of his mouth lift a bit. “Oh I love this song!” She bounces up and turns to Mike, He raises his eyebrows.
“Oh come on, it'll be fun.” She grins at him and he sighs, He wasn't sure when he had become so much more pliable but something about Laurie inclined Mike to trust her. He stood swinging his arms dramatically.
They used to talk about the weather
Laurie pulls Mike after her towards the back of the bar and they're moving. In all honesty Mike is more flailing about than anything else, Laurie laughing and soon he is too.
Making plans together
Their hands are linked together and Mike spins Laurie around, their palms slightly damp. She's singing along.
Days would last forever
Mike's eyes catch, something getting stuck in his throat. There’s two men, only slightly older than him, dancing. It's a way that is starkly different from the way he and Laurie were dancing, they were closer, the taller of the two had his hands on the other's hips, one of his thumbs slipped beneath the hem of his shirt.
Together we'll break these chains of love
It's too hot and too loud and Mike's throat is tight. He turns abruptly and makes a beeline for the door he needs- he needs air. As he rushes past the bar he notices, the two women leaning into each other whispering, the pair of older men at the bar one with his hand on the small of the other’s back.
He breaks through the door pushing it open and is shocked by the cold, it hits him like a wall shocking him back into himself and he breathes heavily. The sting of the air on his throat reminding him he is in his body. He pulled out his cigarettes, his fingers were jittery as he struggled to light it, the door opened as he cursed the cigarette still between his lips.
Laurie looks at him for a moment, as if she was surprised he was still here at all. She looks him up and down before approaching, opening her purse and pulling out a matchbox. Mike just watches as she strikes it and lifts the flame to Mike's mouth he inhales. The smoke is bitter but his eyes slip closed for a moment. When he opens his eyes he offers the cigarette to her, she takes it and takes a long drag before handing it back.
“You okay?” There's something akin to doubt on her face and Mike isn't really sure of the answer because part of him is screaming and the other is a resounding no.
“Yeah.” He shrugs, His mind goes to Will. Are there places like this in Chicago? There must be, does Will know? Is he dancing with men, their fingers ghosting over his skin? Something about it makes him feel nauseous and something else. Something that looks eerily like anger.
“Im sorry. I just thought,” she shakes her head a bit “I thought you'd like it.” Laurie worries her lip and he realizes how cold she must be in a t-shirt and jeans. “You don't have to stay.” She says honestly despite the slight disappointment in her voice.
Before Mike can even register the words they fly out “I did.” Laurie looks at him confused, “I did like it.” Saying it sends his heart racing and there's a warmth rising to his cheeks. Laurie’s smile is back and seems even bigger than when they were dancing.
“Aren’t you freezing?”
She just shrugged “I'm a Wisconsin girl remember,” She looked up and down the street “Wanna go back in?” Mike considered it and he didn't really know, he had the feeling he was making a mistake when he spoke.
“Yeah let’s go.” Mike smiled and it didn't feel forced at all.
***
When they finally decide to call it a night Mike walks Laurie home, bearing the cold with just his flannel to let her wear his jean jacket but there was a slight buzz of alcohol softening the bite of the wind. “You know Mike, you can talk to me about-” she pauses, pushing the hair out of her face as she walks “stuff.” her voice shows exactly how lacking the word is.
They walk for a few moments before Mike replies “I don't think I have any stuff to talk about.” Laurie looks at him with a raised eyebrow but shrugs “You could, you can too though, if you wanted to.” Mike adds.
She smiles slightly “Thanks.”
***
As Mike rides the bus back it's empty and the night is well into way. He doesn't know how to feel about tonight. The bar and the knowing looks and gentle words and the way that he desperately wants to call Will as soon as he gets home. He knows he won't, he wouldn't know what to say.
There's this excitement fighting fear using his chest as a battleground and he can't form the words to explain it. He doesn't really want to, the idea of it makes the fear swell. A week, in a week he would be with the people who know him fully and he couldn't take comfort in the thought, what if they saw it?