He's the best person I've ever met. [It almost feels like a good-natured challenge - "You think he's a good kid? Well I'll show you!"] Once in kindergarten, he gave a total stranger his favorite toy because she looked sad. He was always doing stuff like that, all the time.
[Some part of him needs to speak the good things, needs to erase everything that happened in his last few days in Hawkins. Will is a force of good, a force of light, not some vessel for a terrible monster.]
[That tone, the fierceness of it, actually makes him smile. Maybe it's weird, but, honestly? Seeing someone who cares so much about their friends.]
Then I'm sorry you're here without him. [Yeah, more kids here isn't ideal. But being here without someone you care for that much? That's got to be worse.]
And I'm more sorry I didn't get a chance to know him better.
[Mike is the rare tween who not only says he would die for his friends, but has actually almost done so. If loving one's friends was an Olympic sport he'd get gold.]
It's okay. [It's not, but he's not sure what else to say.] It really sucks back home, but I guess it sucks here too. I don't know where he'd be safer.
[Until a scant few years ago, Mike had always operated under some unconscious belief that kids couldn't die, or didn't die, or whichever universal constant kept such a horrible thing from happening in his sightline. He and his friends were invincible, ambling over train tracks and across racing creeks, careening around blind curves on their bikes. Sure, the news would sometimes show a grainy school photo, and his mom would make a sad noise in her throat and remind him not to talk to strangers. But until the fall of 1983 - the night he walked out into the rain and realized it doesn't take a deep, strange wilderness to swallow a person whole - he had never quite understood that any day, any second, it could happen to one of them.]
... 'M sorry. [The words feel clumsy and embarrassing, but he's not sure how else to respond. It's like standing on the edge of one of the sinkholes, hearing your voice get sucked into its awful gravity.] That- ... that really sucks.
[He rolls over, and what his voice fails to convey is there in his eyes, behind the unfocused glaze. They're even redder than Peter's, unused to the weed's effects; it looks like he's been crying, and the pained scrunch of his brow doesn't suggest otherwise.]
I have a little sister too. [Oh, smooth transition. Great conversation skills. Somewhere in the back of his brain, Mike is kicking himself.] And an older one. They've both been here, sort of.
[And maybe one still is, in an overgrown field off the highway. Mike visits her sometimes, white-knuckling his bike too far away from the well to hear anything, just in case the awful, undead caricature of Holly is still down there.]
[ It's an uncomfortable weight to drop on someone out of nowhere — except it's not really out of nowhere. It's painfully... relevant, grief and death and loss being a common ground in this conversation, and weirdly enough, Peter offering up the information to Mike is some attempt at that, at conversing, at connection. It's... an awful thing to connect about, but there are so many awful things. And somewhere along the way, Peter's grown to find it easier to connect with someone about the dark things, than to try to focus exclusively on lighter ones. He's fun at parties.
Even so, there's something apologetic to his own features when Mike rolls over to face him, a little twinge of ache at the way the younger boy's face looks. All glassy-eyed, bloodshot and with an upset there in him. But then Mike says he has a little sister too — and an older one, and they've both been here, and they're not just words to fill in some silence; they mean something. Certainly to Mike, and also to Peter.
It's... a weird awareness, a sudden one: he's never talked to anybody else who has a little sister. Surely others here do, but he's just.... never encountered the topic. And it seems like a small thing, but it's actually a big thing: that particular common ground with someone else. Something he's never had, not in an entire year here, not until this very moment. ]
Charlie was here, too. Not for long, just... one night. [ It was a merciful ghost, compared to how it could have been: his sister arrived whole and unknowing of anything strange or scary or wrong, comprised of a thousand fireflies. She'd vanished quietly when the sun rose. He got to tell her he loved her.
Peter sits up a little, slowly folding long legs inwards to a crossed position. More... attentive, his eyes focused, even if they're gloopy and half-lidded. He stares down at the reddened pair looking up at him. ]
[Ghosts. A Deerington construct, then? Is that what Peter's sister had been, for that one night? Mike remembers tromping through the woods with Max, coming upon Billy talking to a woman made of fireflies. That would have been better, he thinks. A sister made of fireflies can't rot before your eyes. Can't die.
Sometimes, he worries the one he got couldn't either. He worries she's still down at the bottom of that well, waiting for her big brother to comes back for her.]
No. Nancy was really here, a couple times.
[Never for long. Never when he's really needed her. It's still a pain so acute, he can't help the dazed, sluggish wince.]
Baby Holly was- [A trick. A monster. Something meant to kill him.] She was something else. Something the town made up.
[ Oh. Here here, the way people's loved ones from back home sometimes show up. Like Will's brother, and River's. They don't seem to stay. A shadow passes over the older boy's face (as if a perma-shadow ever really leaves it), and he nods his head in quiet, solemn understanding. What dictates... the rules, to it all? Why do some people come, but then go back? It's cruel, really.
....Holly was something else, Mike says, something the town made up, and ironically enough, Peter did have experience with the... people coming back. The ones scratching themselves up out of their graves. His grandmother came back that way, only he was still too new here, too fresh, too broken, to fully understand that it wasn't all just in his head. It feels like a nightmare, the way she'd crouched on the front lawn drawing those weird shapes in the ground, and reached for him with that awful, shimmering hunger in her eyes (not love, he never made the mistake of thinking it was love). The way she tried to feed him that weird dirt—
...But he's seen some of the various forms this place has twisted loved ones into, by now. He's run into some monster-version of his mother here, too. "Something the town made up" could be... any horrible thing. ]
Fuck that, [ he says quietly. It sounds more sad than angry. And then he confesses something he's never confessed aloud to anyone. ] I'm always scared it's gonna do that to Charlie, too. That one day it's gonna send something to me that's worse than a ghost. [ The mental image in his head is..... horrifically vivid, too.... real. He thinks he knows exactly what she would look like. The worst part is he thinks he deserves it, that it's always been meant to come for him. ]
Yeah, fuck that, [Mike mimics, the words even softer, even hollower on his tongue. He can't stop thinking about the well, about the infant shrieks echoing out of it. Steve's hand on his shoulder, a glower in his eyes. He'd wanted to do it, Mike remembers. Take the blame away from Mike, not force him to live with the exact memory that's still playing behind his eyelids. But Steve hadn't gotten it: Holly didn't know him, not like she did her big brother.
With Mike, she didn't know to be scared until the second he threw her in.]
Do you, uh. [Mike sniffs, clears his throat. His heart feels too fast, and he's sweated through his shirt.] Do you wanna go play video games? We've got a bunch back in my room.
[Anything to stop thinking about the feel of a rotting, pink hand clasping his jacket.]
[ The conversation topic is some weird mixture, something Peter.... kind of needs to approach, but also needs to shy away from. But even just this much, is a lot for him. To talk about his sister at all with someone, to.... share that part of himself. There was a time, not too terribly long ago really, that he couldn't even say her name out loud. So this has meant something, even if it's been strange and difficult and felt a little like a fever dream. The marijuana probably hasn't helped. ...Or maybe it's really helped.
Regardless, Peter's... more okay to talk about it than he used to be. But that doesn't mean Mike is, and Peter's taking on a different sort of role than he normally does. The role of the one making sure that the other person is going to be okay, that this isn't too much for him, and so as soon as Mike says that, Peter's going to say 'yes', (he hears that sniff, and it makes his chest hurt) because he'll do whatever Mike needs him to do. Even if that's backing away from this now, not venturing any further in.
Peter's not a big brother anymore, but maybe he can still try to watch out for them. The younger ones here. ]
Oh dude, you have video games? [ All of this — the stuff about Will, the stuff about Mike's sisters — isn't forgotten; none of it's forgotten. It's just got to be tucked away for a little, and Peter sits up, blinking glassy eyes and hoping Mike's okay. ] Let's do it. I mean, you're probably gonna kick my ass since it's been ages that I played anything.
[ A little smile that's meant to be self-teasing and just comes out soft; he'll grab some snacks on the way out, stuff them into his hoodie pockets so they have extras. Being Mike's personally-tailored room, it'll no doubt come with its own hearty stock of junkfood, but Peter'll leave some of his snacks there anyway. Just to make sure Mike has plenty. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shiro.
He's the best person I've ever met. [It almost feels like a good-natured challenge - "You think he's a good kid? Well I'll show you!"] Once in kindergarten, he gave a total stranger his favorite toy because she looked sad. He was always doing stuff like that, all the time.
[Some part of him needs to speak the good things, needs to erase everything that happened in his last few days in Hawkins. Will is a force of good, a force of light, not some vessel for a terrible monster.]
no subject
Then I'm sorry you're here without him. [Yeah, more kids here isn't ideal. But being here without someone you care for that much? That's got to be worse.]
And I'm more sorry I didn't get a chance to know him better.
no subject
It's okay. [It's not, but he's not sure what else to say.] It really sucks back home, but I guess it sucks here too. I don't know where he'd be safer.
no subject
[He would say it. But on the other hand, he's not from their world. So he can't say for sure.]
... but you'd know that better than I would.
no subject
[He tucks his foot up into the seat, grubby sneakers shedding dried grave mud.]
My sister's boyfriend, [ he clarifies.] He's here.
no subject
[He ends up leaning on the hood for this, the trepidation on his face turning to something warmer.]
Both parts of it. That you know he's okay -- and more familiar faces for you.
peter g.
[Until a scant few years ago, Mike had always operated under some unconscious belief that kids couldn't die, or didn't die, or whichever universal constant kept such a horrible thing from happening in his sightline. He and his friends were invincible, ambling over train tracks and across racing creeks, careening around blind curves on their bikes. Sure, the news would sometimes show a grainy school photo, and his mom would make a sad noise in her throat and remind him not to talk to strangers. But until the fall of 1983 - the night he walked out into the rain and realized it doesn't take a deep, strange wilderness to swallow a person whole - he had never quite understood that any day, any second, it could happen to one of them.]
... 'M sorry. [The words feel clumsy and embarrassing, but he's not sure how else to respond. It's like standing on the edge of one of the sinkholes, hearing your voice get sucked into its awful gravity.] That- ... that really sucks.
[He rolls over, and what his voice fails to convey is there in his eyes, behind the unfocused glaze. They're even redder than Peter's, unused to the weed's effects; it looks like he's been crying, and the pained scrunch of his brow doesn't suggest otherwise.]
I have a little sister too. [Oh, smooth transition. Great conversation skills. Somewhere in the back of his brain, Mike is kicking himself.] And an older one. They've both been here, sort of.
[And maybe one still is, in an overgrown field off the highway. Mike visits her sometimes, white-knuckling his bike too far away from the well to hear anything, just in case the awful, undead caricature of Holly is still down there.]
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Even so, there's something apologetic to his own features when Mike rolls over to face him, a little twinge of ache at the way the younger boy's face looks. All glassy-eyed, bloodshot and with an upset there in him. But then Mike says he has a little sister too — and an older one, and they've both been here, and they're not just words to fill in some silence; they mean something. Certainly to Mike, and also to Peter.
It's... a weird awareness, a sudden one: he's never talked to anybody else who has a little sister. Surely others here do, but he's just.... never encountered the topic. And it seems like a small thing, but it's actually a big thing: that particular common ground with someone else. Something he's never had, not in an entire year here, not until this very moment. ]
Charlie was here, too. Not for long, just... one night. [ It was a merciful ghost, compared to how it could have been: his sister arrived whole and unknowing of anything strange or scary or wrong, comprised of a thousand fireflies. She'd vanished quietly when the sun rose. He got to tell her he loved her.
Peter sits up a little, slowly folding long legs inwards to a crossed position. More... attentive, his eyes focused, even if they're gloopy and half-lidded. He stares down at the reddened pair looking up at him. ]
Were they ghosts?
no subject
Sometimes, he worries the one he got couldn't either. He worries she's still down at the bottom of that well, waiting for her big brother to comes back for her.]
No. Nancy was really here, a couple times.
[Never for long. Never when he's really needed her. It's still a pain so acute, he can't help the dazed, sluggish wince.]
Baby Holly was- [A trick. A monster. Something meant to kill him.] She was something else. Something the town made up.
no subject
....Holly was something else, Mike says, something the town made up, and ironically enough, Peter did have experience with the... people coming back. The ones scratching themselves up out of their graves. His grandmother came back that way, only he was still too new here, too fresh, too broken, to fully understand that it wasn't all just in his head. It feels like a nightmare, the way she'd crouched on the front lawn drawing those weird shapes in the ground, and reached for him with that awful, shimmering hunger in her eyes (not love, he never made the mistake of thinking it was love). The way she tried to feed him that weird dirt—
...But he's seen some of the various forms this place has twisted loved ones into, by now. He's run into some monster-version of his mother here, too. "Something the town made up" could be... any horrible thing. ]
Fuck that, [ he says quietly. It sounds more sad than angry. And then he confesses something he's never confessed aloud to anyone. ] I'm always scared it's gonna do that to Charlie, too. That one day it's gonna send something to me that's worse than a ghost. [ The mental image in his head is..... horrifically vivid, too.... real. He thinks he knows exactly what she would look like. The worst part is he thinks he deserves it, that it's always been meant to come for him. ]
no subject
With Mike, she didn't know to be scared until the second he threw her in.]
Do you, uh. [Mike sniffs, clears his throat. His heart feels too fast, and he's sweated through his shirt.] Do you wanna go play video games? We've got a bunch back in my room.
[Anything to stop thinking about the feel of a rotting, pink hand clasping his jacket.]
— wrap ♡
Regardless, Peter's... more okay to talk about it than he used to be. But that doesn't mean Mike is, and Peter's taking on a different sort of role than he normally does. The role of the one making sure that the other person is going to be okay, that this isn't too much for him, and so as soon as Mike says that, Peter's going to say 'yes', (he hears that sniff, and it makes his chest hurt) because he'll do whatever Mike needs him to do. Even if that's backing away from this now, not venturing any further in.
Peter's not a big brother anymore, but maybe he can still try to watch out for them. The younger ones here. ]
Oh dude, you have video games? [ All of this — the stuff about Will, the stuff about Mike's sisters — isn't forgotten; none of it's forgotten. It's just got to be tucked away for a little, and Peter sits up, blinking glassy eyes and hoping Mike's okay. ] Let's do it. I mean, you're probably gonna kick my ass since it's been ages that I played anything.
[ A little smile that's meant to be self-teasing and just comes out soft; he'll grab some snacks on the way out, stuff them into his hoodie pockets so they have extras. Being Mike's personally-tailored room, it'll no doubt come with its own hearty stock of junkfood, but Peter'll leave some of his snacks there anyway. Just to make sure Mike has plenty. ]