Stay Where I Can See You
Masterlist
pairing: Mike Wheeler X Female reader
description: In a quarantined Hawkins falling apart at the seams, you begin to disappear—not from monsters, but from the boy who swore he loved you. As fear turns into control and protection into isolation, a quiet voice offers you something no one else does: understanding. But in a town where darkness listens, being seen can be the most dangerous thing of all.
content: Angst, Protective Mike, Hurt No Comfort, Arguing, Depression, ominous ending
wc: 4,836
Request
Hawkins doesn’t feel like a town anymore. It feels like a held breath.
Military trucks idle at the edge of streets that used to host bike races and Halloween parades. Fences cut neighborhoods in half like scars that never finished healing. Every roadblock hums with a low, electrical tension—as if the ground itself knows something bad is coming and is bracing for impact.
You learn quickly where you’re allowed to go.
More importantly, you learn where you aren’t.
Mike decides that part for you.
You’re sixteen, but lately it feels like you’re twelve again—waiting, sitting, listening. Staying put.
You don’t mean to start counting the days.
It just happens—quietly, the way habits form when your body learns a new kind of hurt.
One day without Mike speaking to you turns into two. Then three. Not because he’s punishing you, not because he’s angry. It would almost be easier if he were angry. Anger would at least mean you exist in his mind as something to address.
But this is worse.
This is him moving through the world like you’re already somewhere safe and untouched, like you’re a box he tucked away on a high shelf where nothing can reach you.
You’re still his girlfriend. Still his. Still kissed on the forehead when he sees you, still told to stay put, still pulled behind him when danger is near—but lately you feel less like a person and more like a responsibility he carries with a clenched jaw.
Love shouldn’t feel like being managed.
The radio station becomes your waiting room again. WSQK hums and clicks and crackles, the sound of a world trying to talk itself into stability. Robin paces and talks and talks and talks, as if the more words she throws at the air, the less room there is for panic to settle. She makes jokes that would’ve made you laugh a year ago, but now your smiles come late, forced, like your face has to remember how.
Joyce checks on you with eyes that never stop scanning, hands that never stop moving. A touch to your shoulder. A container of food pressed into your palms. A soft, firm, motherly look that says I see you, even if he doesn’t.
Hopper doesn’t say much. He doesn’t need to. His presence is all iron and warning signs. He stands like a wall and looks like one, too—harder than ever, more stern, as if softness is something Vecna could use to pry him open. He keeps El close. He keeps everyone close. He keeps Hawkins itself at arm’s length.
Across the room, Dustin and Steve stand on opposite sides like magnets flipped the wrong way. When they speak, it’s all sharp edges and insults that land too close to the truth. They don’t look at each other when they talk, like eye contact would mean admitting they miss what they used to be.
Lucas visits the hospital more than he talks about it. When he comes back, his eyes look scraped raw from staring at a still body and praying it will move. Max’s coma sits between all of you like another chair pulled up to the table—silent, occupying space no one knows how to fill.
Will’s tension is a constant thread running through the days. He’ll look fine one minute and then his face pinches, his shoulders tightening like he’s listening to something you can’t hear. Jonathan stays near him, quiet as ever, but he looks steadier lately—safer, like whatever darkness used to swallow him has loosened its grip.
Nancy watches everything. She pretends she doesn’t. But she does. Her eyes are always catching on things people don’t say. On hands that don’t reach. On space between bodies that used to fit together.
You catch her watching you sometimes.
Not with judgment.
With recognition.
And still, even with all of them around, you feel alone in a way that makes your ribs ache.
Because Mike is right there, in the same building, in the same town, in the same war—and he hasn’t really spoken to you in days.
When he passes you in a hallway, he’ll squeeze your hand and say, “You okay?” like it’s a checkbox on a list.
And you always say, “Yeah,” because you don’t want to be one more problem.
You’re so tired of being a problem.
It’s in that tiredness that Mr. Whatsit appears again.
Not at the radio station. Not under the watchful eyes of the group. It’s when you’re outside, stepping into the brittle cold behind the building because the air inside feels too thick. The sky is the color of bruises. The fence line down the street glints faintly under the streetlights, a reminder that Hawkins is being held in a fist.
“You keep coming out here,” he says, like he’s been waiting.
You don’t jump this time. That scares you—how quickly your body has accepted him as normal. He shows up a lot, but his presence is so calm, its easy to be comfortable around him. He's a kind local.
“I need to breathe,” you admit.
“Do you?” His voice is soft, almost amused. “Or do you need to be away from people who keep speaking over you?”
You swallow, fingers tightening around the hem of your sweater. “They’re not—”
He makes a small sound. Not a laugh. Not a scoff. Something in between, like he’s humoring you.
“You keep excusing him,” he says gently. “Why?”
The question lands in your chest and stays there.
Because you love him, you want to say. Because he’s scared, you want to say. Because everything is falling apart and at least he’s still here.
But those answers taste thin now. Hollow.
Mr. Whatsit steps closer—or you think he does. You can’t see him, not clearly. It’s like your mind refuses to give him a shape. Like he’s a shadow standing where your thoughts are.
“You don’t deserve to be a side character in your own life,” he says.
Your throat tightens.
He’s right.
The realization is quiet, but it hits you like cold water.
“You’re brave,” he continues. “You’ve been brave for years. And what do they do with brave people?”
You don’t answer.
“They keep them locked away,” he says, voice still kind. “They call it love. They call it protection. But it’s really fear. Fear makes people selfish.”
Your mouth opens, but no words come out. The wind scrapes across your skin. Somewhere in the distance, a helicopter passes, low and slow, like a vulture circling.
“He doesn’t trust you,” Mr. Whatsit says.
That’s the first thing he’s said that makes you angry.
“He does,” you whisper, too fast.
Silence.
And then—softly, like he’s handing you something fragile—
“Then why are you always waiting?”
Your breath shakes as it leaves you.
Before you can respond, the back door to the station opens, and the light spills out. Someone calls your name. You blink, and the space beside you is empty again, as if Mr. Whatsit was never there.
You go inside with your heart beating too hard, your face too still.
You don’t notice Dustin watching you from the corner.
He’d stepped out to throw something away. He’d seen you through the window—your shoulders relaxed, your mouth curled into the smallest smile, your lips moving as if you were conversating.
At nothing.
He’d stood there frozen, trash bag hanging from his hand, stomach dropping like he missed a step on the stairs.
Now, back inside, he watches you tuck your hair behind your ear, too calm for someone who’s been staring into the cold for ten minutes. He watches you blink like you’re waking from a dream.
He swallows hard and says nothing.
Because if he says it out loud—if he says he thinks you’re talking to someone who isn’t there—he’ll be the crazy one again.
So he keeps it to himself and lets it rot.
The day unspools in half-plans and whispered conversations that stop when you approach.
Hopper keeps everyone moving, keeps the tunnels in his pocket like a secret passage only he knows how to use. El stays hidden, quiet but alert, eyes too old for sixteen. Joyce fusses over her and then over all of you, as if she can mother the apocalypse into submission.
Steve and Dustin snipe at each other across the room, both pretending it doesn’t hurt when the other looks away first. Robin talks over them, spilling words like confetti, trying to cover the cracks.
And Mike…
Mike doesn’t look at you.
Not the way he used to.
He’s busy. He’s tense. He’s wrapped in something you can’t reach anymore.
You tell yourself it’s fine. You tell yourself you can survive a few quiet days. You tell yourself you’re being dramatic. You tell yourself you can keep the peace.
You don’t realize how much you’re swallowing until you start to choke on it.
It happens fast, the way disasters do.
A call comes in—static and panic and half-coordinates. Someone’s voice breaks through the crackle, sharp with urgency, and suddenly everyone is moving. Hopper barks orders. Nancy grabs her gear. Lucas’s face goes hard. Will goes pale. Jonathan’s hand is already on Will’s elbow like instinct.
Mike is already out the door.
You’re behind him, feet moving before your mind catches up, because you’re tired of waiting.
“Tunnels,” Hopper snaps. “Everyone—tunnels. We’re not going overground.”
The underground air hits you like damp stone. The tunnel network smells like earth and rust and old rot. Your flashlight beam shakes slightly as you hurry after them, boots splashing through shallow puddles. The darkness presses close, intimate, like the walls are listening.
No one tells you to stop.
No one realizes you’re there until you’re already deep inside.
The sound comes first.
A wet, scraping shuffle. A breath that isn’t human. The hairs on your arms lift.
Then it’s there—too big, too wrong, its limbs moving with that awful, jerky confidence, like it knows this place belongs to it.
A Demogorgon.
The sight of it makes your stomach drop into your shoes. It’s real in a way the fear in your head never is. Its mouth unfurls like a nightmare flower, teeth glinting in your flashlight beam, and the sound it makes—God, the sound—rattles your bones.
Someone yells. Someone fires. The tunnel erupts into chaos.
Your body moves without asking permission.
You don’t think about Mike. You don’t think about rules. You don’t think about being told to stay.
You think about surviving.
You see Lucas stumble back, almost losing his footing on the slick ground. You see Nancy pivot, firing with steady hands. You see Steve—always reckless—move in like he’s trying to be a hero again. You see Dustin frozen for a half-second too long, eyes wide, breath stuck in his throat.
And you see the Demogorgon’s head tilt toward him.
That’s all it takes.
You grab the nearest thing—an iron pipe leaning against the tunnel wall, abandoned from some forgotten construction, cold and heavy in your grip.
Your heart slams so hard you can taste metal.
“Dustin!” you shout.
Your voice snaps him out of it. His eyes flick to you, startled, and that second of attention is all you need.
You throw the pipe—not at the Demogorgon’s head, not at its teeth, but at the side of its body, at the spot that will make it turn. The pipe clatters and bounces off with a dull thunk, and the creature whips its attention away from Dustin and toward the sound.
Toward you.
Fear surges hot through your veins, but you don’t freeze. You grab another object—anything—and slam it against the tunnel wall, making noise, pulling its focus.
“Come on!” you spit, voice shaking with adrenaline. “Come on, you ugly—”
It snarls, lunging, and you dart back, feet splashing through water. Your flashlight beam swings wildly. Your lungs burn.
But it works.
It follows you.
Behind you, Hopper shouts. Nancy yells something sharp. You hear gunshots crack like thunder, and then a scream—a human scream—and you whirl, heart in your throat, only to see Steve yank Dustin out of the way at the last second, their bodies slamming against the tunnel wall.
They’re alive.
Barely.
You keep moving. You keep the Demogorgon’s attention on you. Your whole body is shaking, but your mind is clear in the way panic sometimes makes it.
And then, in the chaos, you see it—a weak spot in the tunnel where boards have been stacked, where something flammable has been stored. Old supplies. Fuel. A rag-draped canister.
An idea sparks, reckless and bright.
You snatch the lighter from your pocket—something you started carrying because Hawkins taught you to always have one—and your hand trembles as you flick it.
The flame catches.
You shove the lighter into the rag, and fire blooms fast, hungry and orange, licking up the stacked boards.
Heat rushes at your face.
The Demogorgon recoils, shrieking, its movements frantic, panicked. It flails, claws scraping, but the fire blocks the narrow path. It can’t get through without burning.
It screams again, and the sound is agony.
The tunnel fills with smoke. Your eyes sting. Your throat tightens.
But it’s working.
You stumble back, coughing, and someone grabs your arm—pulling you away from the heat before you do something stupid like stand there until your lungs give out.
You blink through watery eyes.
Mike.
His face is white with rage and terror, mouth tight, eyes wild in a way you’ve never seen. For a second you think he’s going to hug you, crush you to his chest, say thank God, thank God—
Instead, he yanks you hard enough that it hurts and drags you down the tunnel, away from the others, away from the smoke, away from the fight that you just helped win.
His grip is iron.
“Are you out of your damn mind?” he hisses, voice low but vibrating with fury.
You cough, chest burning. “Mike—”
“No,” he snaps. His jaw clenches. “No. Don’t you ‘Mike’ me.”
The words hit like a slap.
The tunnel behind you is filled with movement, voices, the distant fading screams of the creature. Everyone else is regrouping. Surviving. Breathing.
Mike pulls you into a side corridor, half-shadowed, and finally lets go of your arm like he realizes he’s holding too tight.
His eyes rake over you, checking for blood, for tears in clothing, for injury, like he can’t help it. Like he can’t stop.
“You weren’t supposed to be there,” he says.
You stare at him. Your hands are shaking. Your whole body is still vibrating with adrenaline.
“I was there,” you say, voice raw. “I was there, and we’re alive.”
Mike’s laugh is short, humorless, almost broken. “That’s your defense? That you’re alive?”
“I saved Dustin,” you snap, the words spilling out before you can swallow them. “I— I distracted it. I lit the boards. I helped—”
“You shouldn’t have had to,” he cuts in, voice sharp now. “Because you shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”
Something inside you cracks.
Not loudly.
Quietly, like a thread snapping after being pulled too long.
“You didn’t tell me,” you say, and your voice shakes, but it’s steady enough to scare you. “You didn’t even tell me you were going out. That there's been crawls every month that I wasn't apart of.”
Mike’s eyes flash. “Because I knew you’d try to come.”
The truth sits between you, ugly and plain.
You blink at him. Your throat tightens. “So you kept it from me.”
“I kept you safe,” he spits, like that’s the same thing.
“By lying.”
He opens his mouth, shuts it, then shakes his head like you’re the one being unreasonable. Like he can’t believe you’re making this about feelings when there are monsters.
“You don’t need to know everything,” he says again, voice dropping to that controlled tone he likes. The one that makes him sound calm and makes you sound crazy by comparison.
That tone does something to you.
It takes the tiredness that’s been sitting in your bones for days and turns it into something hot.
“You don’t get to decide that,” you whisper.
Mike’s brows knit. “What?”
You swallow hard. Your eyes sting, and it’s not the smoke.
“You don’t get to decide what I can handle,” you say, louder now. “You don’t get to decide what I’m allowed to know.”
Mike’s breathing is heavy. He runs a hand through his hair, fingers trembling. “You could’ve died.”
“So could you,” you shoot back. “But you didn’t think I deserved to know you were going into that.”
He takes a step closer, eyes fierce. “Because if you knew, you would’ve wanted to come, every time.”
“And you would’ve stopped me.”
“Yes,” he says immediately, like it’s obvious. Like it’s the only answer.
The word hangs in the air.
Yes.
You stare at him, and something in your chest goes hollow.
“You just admitted it,” you say softly.
Mike frowns, confused. “Admitted what?”
“That you don’t see me as part of this,” you say, and your voice is shaking now, the hurt finally crawling up into it. “You don’t see me as your partner.”
His face shifts, panic flickering beneath the anger. “That’s not true.”
“Then why do you keep deciding my life without me?” you demand, voice breaking on the last word. “Why do I have to find out about crawls like I’m eavesdropping on my own friends? Why am I always waiting at the radio station like some… some—”
You can’t even find the word, because the truth is too ugly to name.
Mike’s mouth opens. Closes. His eyes dart away for half a second—like he’s searching for the right answer.
He doesn’t find it.
“I’m trying to keep you alive,” he says finally, voice strained, desperate.
The answer is wrong.
It’s wrong because it’s not we.
It’s not together.
It’s not I trust you.
It’s I decide.
You laugh, and it sounds like a sob.
“I’m alive,” you whisper. “I’m standing right here, Mike.”
His voice cracks. “You don’t understand—”
“No,” you interrupt, louder, and it echoes off the tunnel walls. “You don’t understand. You care so much you don’t even realize you’re killing me.”
Mike flinches like you hit him.
“That’s not—” he starts.
“It is,” you insist, and now the tears are coming whether you want them or not, hot and humiliating. “I feel like I’m suffocating. I feel like I don’t exist unless I’m where you left me. Like I’m only important when I’m safe.”
Mike’s eyes shine. He looks wrecked. He looks like he’s about to break apart.
But his fear is stronger than his understanding.
“You’re acting like I’m the bad guy,” he says, voice rising for the first time, the control cracking. “I’m not. I’m not. I’m trying to protect you. After everything—after all of it—how can you not see that?”
Because love shouldn’t feel like a cage, you want to scream.
Because protection shouldn’t erase you.
Because your life shouldn’t be something he owns.
You wipe your cheeks with shaking hands and look at him—really look.
And the truth comes, clear and brutal:
He doesn’t see you as someone who stands beside him.
He sees you as something to protect from the world—even if that includes himself.
The realization makes you feel cold all the way through.
“I helped,” you say quietly, voice hollow now. “And your first instinct was to drag me away like I was a child who wandered into traffic and scold me.”
Mike’s eyes widen. “That’s not—”
“It is,” you repeat, softer. “You were angry that I was there at all. You weren’t proud. You weren’t relieved. You were furious.”
His jaw clenches. “Because you scared me.”
“And you don’t think you scare me?” you whisper. “You don’t think it scares me that you can look at me like this and still think you’re right?”
He stares at you, breathing hard, and for a second you think he might finally say it. You think he might finally hear you.
Instead he says, voice shaking with desperation:
“I can’t lose you.”
The words would’ve melted you a year ago.
Now they feel like chains.
You close your eyes for a moment, the tunnel spinning slightly, the distant voices of your friends moving somewhere down the corridor. Life continuing. Danger waiting. The world falling apart.
Vecna. The military. The chaos.
They didn’t break you.
Mike did.
You open your eyes.
“I can’t keep doing this, it’s not even worth it,” you whisper swallowing the fire burning your throat.
Mike’s face tightens, panic flashing. “Doing what?”
“Being loved like this,” you say, and your voice is so tired it barely sounds like yours. “Being managed. Being controlled. Being… kept.”
Mike’s lips part, but no sound comes out.
You step back.
He reaches for you, hand hovering, like he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to touch you right now.
You hate that you still want him to.
You hate that even now, a part of you wants to fold back into him and let him tell you it’ll be okay.
But nothing is okay.
The fight behind you has gone quiet. Someone calls Mike’s name. The group is regrouping. The war doesn’t pause for heartbreak.
Mike doesn’t move. He stares at you like he’s watching something slip out of his hands.
You turn away first.
Not because you’re brave.
Because if you look at him any longer, you might stay.
And you can’t survive that.
You walk back toward the others with your chest aching and your throat raw and your hands shaking, and Mike stands frozen behind you, silent in the tunnel, like he’s waiting for you to turn around and make it easier.
You don’t.
Because if you do, you’ll go back to waiting.
And you’re done being a side character in your own life.
Night settles over Hawkins like a lid.
The house is too quiet, your parents are passed out. Not the peaceful kind of quiet—the kind that hums, that presses against your ears until you start to hear things that aren’t there. Joyce had insisted you get home early. Hopper had locked down the tunnels for the night. Everyone scattered after what happened underground, too tired, too raw to pretend nothing had fractured.
Mike didn’t walk you home.
That hurts more than you want to admit.
You sit on the edge of your bed, shoes still on, staring at the place where the wall meets the floor like it might tell you something if you look long enough. Your hands are still shaking. Not from fear—from aftermath. From adrenaline burning off and leaving everything exposed underneath.
You replay the argument again and again.
The way his voice rose.
The way yours broke.
The look on his face when you stepped back.
You’d never seen him like that—terrified and furious and convinced he was right all at once. Convinced love meant authority. Convinced protection meant control.
You press the heel of your palm into your eye, trying to stop the sting.
You didn’t want this.
You didn’t want distance. You didn’t want silence. You didn’t want to walk away while he was still talking.
But you couldn’t stay.
You tell yourself that again as the house creaks and settles, as the wind rattles the branches outside your window.
A knock sounds at your door.
You freeze.
It’s soft. Polite. Not urgent. Not violent.
Just… there.
Your heart jumps anyway.
You hesitate before standing, feet carrying you down the hallway on autopilot. The porch light spills a dull yellow glow across the front step when you open the door, it flickers a few times without you noticing.
He’s standing there.
Mr. Whatsit.
You don’t question it. Not even for a second.
“Oh,” you breathe, a strange wave of relief washing over you. “You—how did you—”
“You looked like you needed someone,” he says gently.
His voice is exactly the same as it’s always been—warm, low, reassuring in a way that sinks straight into your chest. He looks more solid now, somehow. More present. Like your mind has finally decided he belongs here.
You step back without thinking, letting him inside.
He takes in the house with an idle glance, like he already knows it. Like he’s been here before. The thought flickers across your mind—and slides right off.
You don’t want to be suspicious tonight.
“I heard what happened,” he says softly.
Your throat tightens. “Everyone heard what happened.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “But not everyone understood.”
You sink onto the couch, exhaustion crashing into you all at once. He sits beside you, close but not crowding. His presence feels… steady. Like a hand braced confirms you won’t tip over.
“You were brave,” he says.
You let out a shaky laugh. “Mike didn’t think so.”
Mr. Whatsit hums thoughtfully. “Mike is afraid.”
That simple. Not cruel. Not judgmental.
Just true.
“He’s always afraid,” you whisper. “Of losing people. Of things he can’t control.”
“And so he controls what he can,” Mr. Whatsit says. “Even when it hurts them.”
The words land gently, like a blanket placed over your shoulders.
You nod, eyes burning. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”
“I know,” he says. “But you weren’t wrong.”
You look at him sharply. “I wasn’t?”
“No,” he replies, meeting your gaze. “You chose yourself. That takes strength.”
No one’s said that to you tonight.
The knot in your chest loosens just a little.
“You’re not meant to be kept,” he continues. “You’re meant to move. To matter. To help with something much more meaningful. To be seen.”
Your breath shudders. “I felt invisible.”
He smiles at you then—not wide, not sharp. Gentle. Proud.
“You aren’t,” he says. “Not to me.”
The words wrap around you, filling spaces you didn’t realize were empty. You lean forward without noticing, drawn in by the gravity of being understood.
He stands and offers his hand.
“Come with me,” he says quietly. “Just for a bit. I want to show you something.”
Your first instinct should be hesitation.
It isn’t.
You take his hand.
His skin is cool, but not unpleasant. Grounding. Like stepping outside on a winter night and feeling awake for the first time all day.
He leads you through the house and out the back door, into the yard where the trees sway softly in the dark. The world feels muted out here—quiet in a way that feels intentional.
“Where are we going?” you ask feeling tired.
“Somewhere you won’t be left behind, safe without demand," he answers.
That feels like the right thing to say.
You walk deeper into the yard, the grass damp beneath your shoes, the air thick and humming. The trees loom larger, shadows stretching and twisting in ways that don’t quite make sense.
You don’t notice when the air changes.
You don’t notice the way the darkness seems to peel open ahead of you, like reality giving up its grip.
You don’t notice the way his hand tightens around yours—not possessive, just… certain.
“You did the right thing tonight,” Mr. Whatsit murmurs. “I told you the truth.”
You nod, tears slipping down your cheeks without you realizing.
“You were right the whole time,” you whisper.
He smiles.
And walks you forward as your eyes slip close.
The bikes skid to a stop at the edge of your yard.
Mike is the first off his, heart already pounding before he knows why. Steve follows, bat slung over his shoulder. Dustin’s breathing is too fast. Lucas scans the treeline. Will goes very, very still, "I felt it, she was here, and then....just gone."
They all feel it.
The air is wrong.
“Where is she?” Mike says, panic clawing its way up his throat.
The backyard is empty.
Except for the tree.
Its bark is split down the middle like something tore its way out. Or in. The air around it shimmers, warping, wrong in a way they all recognize too well.
An open gate.
A doorway into darkness.
Dustin’s voice breaks. “No. No, no, no—”
Steve swears under his breath.
Lucas steps forward, eyes wide staring at the closed gate. “That’s… that’s an Upside Down gate.”
Mike doesn’t move.
He can’t.
His chest feels like it’s collapsing in on itself, breath coming in sharp, useless gasps as realization slams into him all at once.
She didn’t just leave.
She was taken.
And he wasn’t there.
“She was here,” Mike whispers, voice cracking. “She was right here.”
Will’s hand trembles as he reaches for Mike’s arm, grounding him. “We’ll find her.”
But Mike barely hears him.
All he can see is the space she should be standing in.
All he can think is that he told her to stay safe.
And she listened to someone or something else instead.
The gate hums softly in the night.
And somewhere far away, in a place that looks like Hawkins but feels like a nightmare, you walk hand in hand with someone who finally lets you feel important—
Never realizing you’ve stepped straight into the dark, that you were the first one to be taken in 1987.
