Chapter Text
You see, Mike knows he is different, has been since the day he was born.
Since elementary school, when he was bullied for being different.
He still is getting bullied
But he didn't notice how different he was from his friends, not until lunch the day after he was called into the councilors office
Just yesterday Mike was in the councilors office for being smart, so you know Mike thought he would get a break today from all the crazy fucking shenanigans that has been happening since he was twelve.
But low and behold Mike is sitting at lunch with the party and their getting his last nerve.
"I'm telling you guys it's not rocket science! It's just Newtons first law; An object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon an unbalanced force. So in hindsight, if El directed a hit a a soldier, and if I got in the way, then the blow would move towards the direction I was moving to!"
Both Lucas and Max were being idiots for taking Dustin's words into consideration, nodding their heads along like they actually understood what Dustin was saying as if they were fucking professors at Harvard.
Which they weren't.
They both barely pass English and Math, Lucas is better at science but can't do anything but follow what is written down for instructions and if that doesn't work he brute forces his way through it. And Max who thinks it's just so fucking funny to get under Mike's skin, to the point she'll do anything and everything to annoy him, even if she knows she's wrong. It pisses him off.
What makes him even more pissed off is that Max isn't even trying to get under his skin this time, its just her genuinely being stupid like she hasn't seen El's powers before and how they work.
Where when in reality they all know very little of El's powers and anything Upside-down related, which makes Dustin's argument invalid because with what very little they know, they can at least tell that the Upside-down and El's powers don't obey the laws of physics because they've seen it in action.
Mike is pulled out of his thoughts when Will comes and sits down next to him, says a quiet 'hi', then tunes into the conversation that's got Mike's shoulders hunching up to his ears and a white knuckle fist that is hidden under the table where he can feel his nails digging into the skin of his palm. He can feel The Buzz going faster than normal, about the same amount when he wakes up in the middle of the night to go running. And isn't that just wonderful because he has absolutely nothing that can get him out of this situation other than storming out of the cafeteria and making a huge scene.
And personally Mike has done enough of those in his lifetime that he knows the consequences and doesn't want to deal with them.
Mike opens his mouth to tell them how idiotic their all being, how fucking stupi-
"Where'd Mike go?" He hear's Lucas ask, scratch that he's sitting right infront of Lucas, so he was making direct eye contact with him when he asked
"What type of question is that? Im right infont of you." He replied, rolling his eyes at Lucas antics
"Maybe Mike went to the bathroom? Or his locker he was carrying a lot of stuff with him in his backpack when he came and sat down." Dustin questioned
Mike gets it now, their playing a joke on him. "Hardy har har, funny, quit the act guys I know your pranking me."
Mike puts his hand on Will's shoulder.
Correction: His hand phases through Will's shoulder.
What the fuck.
Will shudders and pulls his jacket out of his dark navy blue backpack and puts it on, which is weird because Will always runs warm.
Was that his doing? Mike, ever the scientist, experiments by trying to put his hand on each of the party members shoulder, and watched how his hand phased through them and each of them shiver or pull on a jacket
Again, what the fuck?
His friends moved the conversation along and away from questioning where he went. Not privy to the conversation because he was zoning out, Mike up and left school, trying to figure out what the fuck was happening.
He went to grab his bag not wanting to grab it later from school but remembered he would just phase through it.
Maybe it would be different? After all his clothes are invisible, so maybe whatever is his, is invisible to?
And with all the luck Mike will have for the next coming years his thought was granted, he grabbed his bag and marched out of the school, heading towards the bike rack, when he remembered he still needs to get it fixed and took to running instead
The Buzz was humming underneath his skin at a comfortable level he's never felt before, It felt like before he went into those stupid tunnels, and he is so grateful for it
Knowing no one would be around to help him figure whatever the fuck was happening to him, so he went to Caslte Byers. A safe haven Will, Johnathan, and Joyce had built and had become a spot that Mike could come to whenever his parents were fighting and it got to much, whenever the bulling took a turn to far and he couldn't handle it anymore. He couldn't bother the party with it, Will doesn't need another burden to deal with, Lucas already has enough hatered from he mouth breather's at school, Dustin wouldn't understand and just try and undermine Mike's feelings, and Max has way to much on her plate to deal with his whining.
So he goes here instead, a place where he can cry without judgements from his father and mother, a place where he's not the annoying little brother his sister never wanted.
A perfect place to figure out why he essentially turned into a ghost.
While Mike questioned his reality to the planet as a whole, a loud sound interrupted Mike's thoughts and made him dizzy, a sound almost identical to a gunshot he's been so privy to hear more in two years than he's heard in his entire lifetime. He almost went to duck and hide trying to stay away from whatever confrontation that was happening when he caught a glimpse of who it was.
It was Nancy, shooting a shotgun at target nailed to a large tree and getting an accurate shot -as far as he could see- almost every time.
Not even questioning why Nancy was out instead of at her job, he kept his pace to Castle Byers absentmindly as it was such a familiar path.
If he could shoot like that he'd bet he would be a lot more help than he had been the last couple years.
The Buzz, almost reacting to his wish sped up to a it's normal pace and then settling back down again like it was gone. Which was a little unsettling for him since he has gotten used to the feeling of The Buzz constantly.
And for some reason his bag felt heavier than normal.
Once he got to Castle Byers he put it on the ground and zipped it open. Only to find something he definitely didn't pack on his way out to school this morning.
A revolver sat in his bag right next to the book he was reading for English like it belonged there.
What in the absolute fuck?