#𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐈𝐒𝐍'𝐓 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐔𝐏 ( interactions )

[expldn]

𝐖𝐇𝐎: mike wheeler & open! 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓: nurse he got out again 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: ...melvald’s...., afternoon, one week since luke’s disappearance

mike wasn’t a perfect dad, but he was doing his best. he’d always been doing his best. god knows he couldn’t have done it without the help of...everyone. him and luke were at odds more often than not, but that didn’t even matter anymore. mike would give anything...do anything if it meant so much as a another slammed door in his face. a hug. he thought he was comfortable with his loss, that he knew how to work under pressure, but the way he paced his empty house and hawkins p.d at all hours of the day indicated he clearly didn’t. mike wasn’t sleeping, hardly eating, floating around everywhere he could in hawkins like luke might show up any second. he didn’t want statistics about missing children from hawkins p.d, he wanted his son. 

more than that, he wanted joyce around. mike figured she was probably the only person who understood what he was feeling. he wanted el around too, they hadn’t been able to find will without her. how did they stand a chance of finding luke? even will would’ve been a comfort, firsthand experience to help. but instead, their whole operation felt like it was chugging along with one wheel and tons of bent rims. mike didn’t know how many times he could scream in powell’s face to find his son, or how deep in the woods he’d have to go before turning back. nancy had given him a firm talking to about how he couldn’t find luke if he wasn’t taking care of himself, and after crying in his sister’s arms for a while, mike went home after and slept a couple of hours in luke’s bed. 

the next morning came and mike was at hawkin’s p.d first thing in the morning, then he dug around the woods a little bit when he realized his flashlight was dead. how long had it been dead? how come mike hadn’t noticed? he tore for his car, cutting off other vehicles on the road as he ran to melvald’s for some batteries. history repeated in motion, mike tore through the store, exhibiting no restraint. he shoved past other patrons screaming nonsense, “i need batteries to find my son! my son is missing! move!” he threw items off shelves, unable to find the D batteries he was looking for. maybe they were behind these items? “fuck. fuck! fuck you!” mike yelled, first to the shelves then to the patrons who had stopped to side eye him. didn’t they know? didn’t they care? “how can you all walk around like everything is fine! huh? well i hope your fucking kids go missing! i hope you never find them!” he dug into the crowd before his final shout, “help me find these fucking batteries or keep shopping!” mike pointed his finger at a woman, “and put your phone down! stop that! don’t-- don’t call anyone! i mean it!” 

[expldn]

𝐖𝐇𝐎: mike wheeler  & @nancyonpaper​​​​​ 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓: mike is an annoying younger brother, luke is a loving nephew 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: nance’s place <33

mike and nancy did their best to keep in touch. even when they fought, even when they were mad at each other, even through the sad times. after so many left, and dad took holly to indianapolis, mike felt oddly closer to nancy. like she was the only one left. and of course, mom was around. but mom was mom, and she worried, and there was only so much mike could tell her. that didn’t mean life was perfect though. they still fought, and borrowed each other’s cars, and did laundry at the other persons house and left it there!!! mike wasn’t usually very picky, but it had been about two weeks since nancy left her laundry, for whatever reason, and he was fed up. he planned on taking a quick drive up there, but luke of course, wanted to see his aunt so he tagged along. once they arrived at nancy’s, luke didn’t bother helping his dad with the laundry baskets and instead sprinted up to give nancy a hug, “aunt nancy!” he exclaimed, seeming much younger than thirteen when he saw her. luke wrapped himself around his aunt, watching his dad struggle with the two laundry baskets. “he’s mad at you.” he snitched, quieting down by the time his dad got to them. “your shit?” mike scoffed, setting both of the baskets down, he refused to carry them any further. he continued babbling on, “hey, i totally get it. we all forget things, but weeks?” he was skeptical, “what’s going on with you?” mike’s tone read one part angry, the other concerned, but he leaned more into worry when he asked, “you doing alright?” joyce had been difficult. for everyone. had anyone checked on his sister before now?

[expldn]

𝐖𝐇𝐎: mike wheeler & @nancyonpaper​  𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓: who has to call dad?!? nose goes!!! 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: mike’s place, afternoon

nancy had been upset, annoyed, and mad at mike several times in their lives, but never had he seen her so dangerously hurt around him since luke had gone missing. he did his best to ignore it and so did she, working side by side, but at the end of the day, they were both feeling the effects pretty hard. it was getting to the point where everything felt hopeless, and mike was trying his best to get creative with solutions. he’d searched the woods with lucas and tried to follow up with the twins. desperate times called for desperate measures, so him and nancy where camped out in the living room of his town home, filing through papers from nearby cities, listening to leads off the hotline murray had set up, and making calls. 

this was the way they comforted each other. while mom had been emotional and clingy to them at times, dad ensured they were messed up enough that even just hugging felt weird for them. so instead, they sat, mostly annoyed with each other, and worked diligently. because the truth was, neither one of them wanted to be alone. mike crumbled up what felt like the thousandth leadless newspaper and threw it behind his shoulders. part of him felt bad they weren’t out with the various search parties, but maybe he could convince nancy to go tomorrow. 

mike reached for his landline, tugging it onto his couch, which he leaned against as he sat on the floor. his fingers ghosted over familiar numbers before he glanced at nancy, “has anybody called dad?” it wasn’t likely luke had taken a visit to grandpa ted, he barely knew the guy, but maybe if he was angry enough to skip town, indianapolis seemed like a good place to go. he held out the phone to nancy, “you should call him.” mike suggested. there was no way he was going to do it. dad had been annoyed with mike...well...it felt like since birth, but their tensions escalated when mike had decided to go to college for writing and ted told him it wasn’t a real career. mike pushed the phone towards nancy again, “go on.” 

[expldn]

𝐖𝐇𝐎: mike wheeler & @artificerdusty​​​​ 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓: the weekly dustin-mike-lucas sleepover (before lukey arrives <33) 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄:henderson’s house this time !!!

going to joyce’s services had been surreal and brutal for a number of reasons. there was a part of his childhood that died, a part mike didn’t know he still had. when he was a kid, he thought adults were invincible, and while mike had come to learn that nobody, not even el, was invincible, there was never part of him that considered joyce would die one day. mike had known her as long as he’d known will, and she was kind to him through it all, cindy and the institutionalization. no matter what, joyce still used her spit to wipe his face as if mike were her own boy. she never let him feel alone, she never let anyone. 

mike knew that post funeral it was time to wrap things up in a neat little bow, or pack it away in their adult sized brief cases. he could sometimes be really good at that, an expert even, but other times, he was just stubborn enough to cling onto something. in this case, it had been the lights that weren’t allowing him to rest as much as he wanted. what did it mean? the only difference between this time and all the other times is that mike didn’t want everyone to think he was having another psychological break. that made him think of joyce even more. her and murray never accused him of anything like that. not even once. 

whatever luke was saying to him from the passengers seat was lost on mike and he sighed as he put the car in park on dustin’s driveway, he waved luke off, “go say hey to your uncle...” luke only looked back at him skeptically, “you’re not gonna ditch me here again are you?” he said pointedly. mike merely rolled his eyes, “no. i’m not.” fuck his goddamnit fucking minute to take a breather, he guessed! he walked inside with luke, not bothering to knock, “hey-o!” mike called throughout the house, setting their things by the door. “where’s lucas?” he asked nobody in particular as he moved into the kitchen. mike made himself at home and grabbed a bowl out of the cupboard to put some snacks in, but willa sprinted by and mike jumped, dropping the bowl. “shit! shit!” he yelled, exasperated. wondering why dustin was nowhere in sight, he beckoned through the house, “dustin! where are you? i need the broom!”