everyone gets lost in the upside down and vecna finds mike via mind and makes him hallucinate will crying for help so he has mike running through the upside down aimlessly and running away from the others because will is in danger. once he was far, far away, vecna sends him into a time loop vision where every real second in the real world is an hour in mike’s time loop. the time loop is him getting lost in the upside down and finding will right before something kills him. each loop switches whos getting killed and how theyre getting killed. in real life, mike is still walking aimlessly around the ud forest with milky white eyes and walking in a full daze. hours pass in the real world and the group has reunited and is now split in two groups of trying to find mike and trying to kill vecna
jonathan finally finds mike walking aimlessly, and panics and hides from sight because a demogorgon is following right behind mike, watching him and occasionally guiding him through the woods. he signals nancy, who finds them and hides with jonathan, and the two of them silently follow mike and the demogorgon for a good few minutes
sometimes mike will inhale sharply and turn to the side, before the demogorgon pulls him back on the path and mike falls back into the daze
nancy and jonathan hatch a plan for kill the demo, and they do, and then they grab mike and pull him into the shrubs as more monsters try to find them. mike whispers gibberish so nancy has to hold him closer and clamp her hand around his mouth. the monsters stalk away and nancy tries waking up mike but he just blinks at the ground
queue will and jane fighting vecna and he loses grip on mike so mike wakes up with a start and the moment he sees nancy trying to talk to him he screams and tries to run away. but jonathan holds him down and both the young adults are concerned because mike is still muttering incoherent things but now hes raking his fingers over his face and shaking from head to toe and his eyes(brown now) are full of panic. nancy pulls her little brother into her lap and tries to calm him down but then he clings to her shirt and whispers things like ‘don’t— don’t let it— blood— so much— need to— not fast enough— can’t let you— too much blood—’
nancy strokes his hair and soothes him as best she can until mike was less mumbling and holder her closer. eventually it gets too much and he bursts into tears. nancy and jonathan, who havent seen mike cry in years, are shocked even more and try to soothe him again. mike sobs into nancy’s shirt and shrinks himself as much as he could like he could hide in her arms
once he’s calmed down some, they’re able to bring him back to one of the gates by holding mike’s hand and guiding him with them. his gaze was still miles away, but he quietly walked with them
queue after the final battle and everyone was recovering and making their way back to the group at large and recuperating at the radio shack. will and jane and lucas and dustin finding mike sitting on the couch with a blanket draped over him and mumbling nonsense as he stares off. max, who was already at the squawk when nancy and jonathan brought mike, was sitting in her wheelchair beside him and watching over him. will sits beside him while the rest of the party sits around him, trying to talk him back into reality
jane tries searching his mind and is bombarded with images of everyone dying and scrambles backward as she screams herself out of mike’s mind. tells the group. nancy tells everyone about the demogorgon guarding him
and then will tells the group one of vecna’s last words to them. ‘the lasting mark of time’ or some shit like that idk. they come up with theories and when lucas says something thats the closest to the truth, mike whimpers and hides his face and rocks himself so everyone’s like yeah okay thats what it is
it takes a few days and a lot of patience, but mike finally shows progress in the form of pulling back his hundred yard stare to look at his hands like hes never seen them before. and then a few days later he makes eye contact with will. then he holds hands with will. and then he starts answering people in one word replies. he falls asleep on people’s shoulders and cant sleep unless hes holding someone in some way(because he has to match sure theyre alive)
finally he starts really talking and explains what happened and everyone’s horrified but vecna’s dead so theres not much they can do but get mike therapy and stuff. yay!!!!!!! #traumatizemikewheeler