Mike Wheeler Power AU
this has been on my mind for a while; i might try and write it myself-
Mike Wheeler who cant die, Mike Wheeler who can see and talk and interact with ghosts.
(Think like Klaus from the umbrella academy.)
Mike Wheeler who is #13 from Hawkins lab but never showed any powers outwardly so the lab gets rid of him via adoption, they figure he's too young to remember anything from the lab anyway, and if he's living in Hawkins they can monitor him just in case powers do pop up.
Except no powers pop up and at 13 they figure 'He's a normal kid with a very active imagination and no powers' and so they drop the surveillance and focus on El (self explanatory), and Will once back from the upside down and has more promise power wise the Mike ever did in their eyes.
Mike grows up adopted by the Wheelers who thought Karen, who was having fertility problems, wouldn't ever be able to give them a second child like they wanted (Holly was their miracle baby after Mike) They 'Love' him, provide for him, try to connect with him; but its hard; He's hard to connect with.
Mike has an 'overactive imagination' and new imaginary friends pop up each week, The Wheelers think he's being rude when he tells them his newest imaginary friend is a older man named Mr. Charlie; Karen tells him to stop making fun of their old neighbour's death. Mike was never aware he passed.
Mike always seems to know things he shouldn't, like how the late Mrs. Johnson had a drug problem or that Miss Read had passed away in her sleep before the general populace knew she was dead.
Ted tells Karen something is wrong with Mike; that maybe they were wrong to adopt. When Mike brings up his dead grandmother who Karen never talks about she agrees, They take him to a exorcist, they take him to church regularly and slowly Mike gets 'fixed'
Mike is 13 when he first figures out something about him isnt quite right.
When he jumps from the quarry El can't catch him and he falls. He finds himself in a barren white space with a tall women who takes him in her arms and promises everything will be alright. He wakes up on edge of the quarry, El and Dustin looming over him, Dustin crying and yelling and El giving him a look he cant quite decipher.
El 'saved' him, at least thats what Dustin thinks; in reality El brought what should have been his corpse back atop the quarry, and she is very confused as to how Mike survived.
El still disappears, and Mike is left alone with no one to help him figure out what's going on. He cant ask his parents, he doesn't trust or know how to contact Owens so he acts normal and focuses on Will. The quarry death incident is pushed to the back of his mind once he realizes something is wrong with Will and from there things progress like canon until he finds El with Hopper.
Mike still breaks down and gets mad at Hopper, then he's reunited with El.
(in my mind El and Mike don't really get involved romantically, when he's with her he's more focused on trying to figure out how the fuck he didn't die and who the lady in white space is.)
(I suppose you could imagine this with whatever romantic pairing for Mike you want, I prefer Byler; however you can imagine mileven if you want, you do you)
S2&3 progress similar to canon; Max & Billy show up, however Mike still plays D&D with Will and doesn't brush if off like he did in the show, its a good distraction from everything else.
Then things start going sideways with the mindflayer, Mike gets overwhelmed with how many people are being possessed; the mindflayer basically pushes the soul out of its body and suddenly Mike is seeing tons of souls that shouldn't be souls, He realizes something is really wrong when he sees double of Will & Billy (possessed body and wandering soul)
Mike can't really talk to the souls of the mindflayers victims till they die, thats kinda of when he realizes that the people he sees are ghosts.
Will & El move, Mike sends letters to El about his maybe powers, he doesn't send letters to Will trying to call daily instead, Joyces job holds up the line, he wont send letters to Will though, focused on trying to figure himself out, and he can never figure out how to write letters to Will well, they always end up too intimate (insert lettergate here lol)
Will & Mikes family assume he's dating El, He still joins hellfire and still plans to go to california. Max still pulls away, deals with Vecnas curse, Lucas & her are still broken up, Chrissy still dies in Eddies trailer starting the manhunt and Vecna arc.
However Vecna targets Mike first; noesbleeds, hallucinations, the whole nine yards. Mike floats, his bones break and he dies.
Instead of the tall woman in whitespace Mike ends up having a flashback to the lab; he sees himself with El and 01 and the other numbers; #13 tattooed on pale white skin. He sees his adoption after the scientists determined he had no powers. He sees one of them burn the tattoo off him before he's adopted by the Wheelers.
He wakes up in a pool of his own blood knowing more about himself then he ever has, he understands himself better now.
Then he gets shipped off to California.
(This is a rough draft, this has also been eating away at my brain for the past few days. I will be writing more, and refining it. If you wanna use this to write something please do, then tag me, i wanna read it. Also expect more little bits from this AU. I have gotten very attached)
Theres a second part now