Everybody close to Mike knows he loves music.
He became infatuated Led Zeppelin when he was ten and started to branch out his taste form there. He was often listening to Queen or Abba in his room and eventually he found bands like The Velvet Underground.
What few people knew was like could play guitar and often learnt his favourite songs on it, playing in his room at ungodly hours. His father hated it and tried his best to stop his son but gave up when he went into his child’s room only to find his wife fast asleep on his bed as he played her favourite song on loop.
Nancy wanted to hate it but after Barb died she found that some nights she couldn’t sleep unless she heard the familiar sound of guitar strings thrumming through the walls. She cried the first night he played her favourite Bee Gees song and was clearly right at his door so she could hear it better.
Holly, the last person who knew this, loved it the most and would often put in requests.
Everybody was concerned about how late he was staying up but they found out when he was fourteen that he did sleep, he just always woke up repeatedly and needed something to ‘settle down’.
Nancy wondered if it was nightmares but he had been doing it since he was ten, well before the upside down.
The Party didn’t know about his habit until the Byers family moved in and on the first night Karen got Joyce, Jonathan and Will together and cautiously warned them.
“Now, it shouldn’t be as much of a problem in the basement, but sometimes Mike plays music when he can’t sleep so it might wake you up.”
Jonathan asked quietly, always soft spoken around Karen, “What kind of music?”
Karen shrugged, “Whatever he feels like playing. Sometimes he practices new ones, but he’s so good at reading the sheets it’s hard to tell.”
The three of them left it at that and held onto their curiosity for the time being. They even forgot about it because nothing happened for the first whole week.
It was only when Will and Jonathan were staying up later to listen to music themselves, talking about what concerts they were going to go to together, that they heard it. Jonathan he looked confused while Will listened to the new album and mumbled something about ‘overlap’ and the cassette being broken. He turned off the music and yet sound still played.
The two looked up at the same time as realisation that it was coming from upstairs set in.
It was nearly impossible to hear and so the two went through the open door of the basement and into the lounge room.
Neither of them knew the song being played but it was clearly well practiced. There wasn’t a single stumble or wrong cord, just a perfect flow of strings being played in the right way.
They went to bed and Will asked the next morning when Mike learnt guitar, only for the older boy to completely dodge the question and slink away as soon as he could.
Will didn’t tell the others because he didn’t want to expose something that was seemingly private or at least special to Mike.
He also didn’t tell anyone that when Mike started to play he’d sneak upstairs so he could hear it better.
Four months into staying at the Wheeler house the party chose to see about playing a dnd campaign in the basement. Mike had stayed home due to a nasty stomach bug that had swept through their school, and so the others were going to leave him alone and just stay in the basement. Mike was already a moody prick, but it was a lot worse when he was sick and only Will got to be treated like normal.
They get to the house and started heading to the basement when they heard it.
“Hey, did someone leave music on?” Dustin asked, looking up the stairs curiously.
The other two head towards the bottom of the stairs and nodded to agree they heard it as well.
Will smiled fondly for a moment before clearing the expression off his face and answering, “No, that’s Mike playing his guitar.”
Lucas gave a surprised look, “I didn’t know he played. Hell, I didn’t even know he had a guitar.”
Will nodded, “Yeah, apparently he’s had it for years and plays when he can’t sleep. I tried to ask him about it but he always dodges the question.”
“What, he won’t even talk to you about it?” Max snorted, clearly amused and probably eager to have something to tease Mike about.
Will frowned and tried not to think of the many implications to that statement. He knew Mike and he weee closer than they were to the others, but he didn’t like the idea of either of them playing favourites. Nor did he like that Mike wasn’t talking to him about something that seemed important and he was trying his best to replaced that.
Will went to answer her but saw Dustin sneaking up the stairs on all fours.
“Dustin!” He whisper shouted at the boy, only to sputter as Lucas and Max joined him with a fair bit more grace.
He groaned and fought the urge to run after them for a solid thirty seconds before caving in and moving up the stairs quickly.
He instantly saw the three of them with their ears pressed against the door. Rushing over to pull them away, he froze in place as he heard something he had never heard before in his life.
His voice was somewhat scratchy, most likely to throwing up for six hours that morning, but it still sounded practiced. It wasn’t super clean and it wasn’t even that loud, but it was smooth and filled with so much emotion.
“I remember I cried, when my father died, never wishing to hide the tears.”
It was beautiful in its simpleness, especially with how carefully he picked every note.
The song was clearly a sad one and yet the eight in Mike’s voice as he sang felt like it was too heavy for just singing a cover. It was near intimate how gently he sang, like he wasn’t just returning words but expressing them as a part of himself. He wasn’t crying or anything like that, but he also was clearly feeling something unbearable.
Sad song or not though, he had a beautiful voice.
“With a heart so badly broken.”
Will wasn’t even sure if he had heard so much emotion in Mike’s voice at that line, as if he was talking about his own mother.
The other three were frowning now even if they had admiration in their eyes.
None of them spoke as the song finished and Mike’s heavy sigh could be heard on the other side of the door. He huffed and there was a soft ‘thud’ sound, maybe his head hitting the wall, before the strings screamed in protest and he began to play something far different.
The music switched to something fast and possibly classical, like a piece by Mozart being played on guitar instead of piano.
They four do them slunk back to the basement and didn’t talk about Mike singing.
It wasn’t a big change or even a big deal, yet what they heard seemed to leave them affected greatly. They learnt something new about their friend and it wasn’t just that he could sing, it was that Mike was feeling and could feel far more than he ever let on.
And none of them knew what to do with that.
