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Nothing could make gym uniforms look appealing.
Even if they were worn by the most chiseled, good-looking man on the planet, school gym uniforms would still be ugly as shit. Maybe it was just a Hawkins High thing. Maybe the green text plastered onto a washed out gray t-shirt and bright yellow shorts is the only ugly gym uniform to exist.
Dustin didn’t know, but he hated them either way. The smallest drop of sweat would become an obvious stain, and it was made out of the most uncomfortable fabric on God’s green earth. It made it extremely hard to maneuver in, especially when he was playing basketball against Lucas.
“Come on, Dustin,” Lucas said, dribbling the ball in front of Dustin. “Block me for real.”
Dustin, in fact, did not want to block Lucas ‘for real’. During the entire game, Dustin just sort of stepped in front of where Lucas was, typically a couple seconds too late, with no effort involved. He hated playing basketball.
“I am blocking you for real,” said Dustin. As Lucas prepared to shoot, Dustin lazily lifted his arm. “Look. Blocked.” Lucas playfully scoffed and rolled his eyes, then ran around Dustin to the side of the hoop.
“Go for three!” Mike shouted from the sidelines, his hands cupped around his mouth. Given Mike’s way, he would have played one-on-one’s with Lucas during the rest of their free time in gym class, but Lucas insisted that he play up against Dustin as well. He insisted that he play up against Dustin, the one who’s always snoozing at Lucas’ games and shoots baskets like his goal is to shatter the backboard. Because that makes total sense.
“Oh no, Lucas,” Dustin said with mock-terror, tiredly waving his hands around. “Please don’t score three points. How will my life ever be the same.”
Lucas only laughed and dribbled the ball on the floor a few times. He repositioned his feet before taking his shot. Standing idly, with no intention to stop the ball, Dustin watched it go straight over his head and into the hoop.
Lucas whooped and cheered for himself, even saying, “Sinclair with the three!” as if he were a sports announcer reporting on his own game. Lucas came up to Dustin and shook his shoulders, hollering in the most annoying way possible—the exact way that he knew would make Dustin break. It wasn’t until Dustin eventually laughed and told him to fuck off (lovingly) that Lucas began his match with Mike.
Mike, dissimilar to Dustin, was actually interested in playing basketball. It wasn’t like he was any good at it, though. Out of the seven two-pointers that he attempted with his face basically touching the net, he only scored once. Lucas juked out Mike a number of times, and every single time, Mike was on the floor. No offense, but it was really embarrassing for Dustin to watch.
“Should I dunk on you?” Lucas asked. “I think I should dunk on you.”
Mike stood up and brushed off his knees. “Lucas. I swear to God. If you—“ He would’ve finished his sentence, but Lucas was already heading down the court so that he could get a running start. “A good player doesn’t tell his opponent that he’s about to dunk!” Mike yelled.
“And you would know all about that, wouldn’t you?” Dustin said, a taunting smile on his face. Mike sneered at him, then turned back to Lucas. He tried to stand his ground and lock his knees so that he wouldn’t get knocked over again, but that soon turned out to be pointless.
While moving as fast and as forceful as a train, Lucas quickly approached Mike while dribbling the ball. He could have easily ran to the side of Mike in order to dunk, but that wouldn’t be any fun. As soon as Lucas came close enough, he reached out his hand, pushed Mike straight to the ground, then proceeded to dunk on him.
From the sidelines, Dustin cheered Lucas on, and Mike could only spew a string of swears at Lucas as he dropped from the rim.
“You could have just scored the point without making me eat shit!” Mike said to Lucas, standing up. He dusted off his shorts and rubbed at his elbows. “Goddamn show off.”
“Ah, that felt good,” said Lucas. He stretched his arms and looked at Mike with a smug smile. “Wanna go again?”
Mike rolled his eyes and flipped off Lucas. He couldn’t help but laugh, though, because it was kind of funny, and Lucas’ and Dustin’s laughs were infectious.
After Lucas convinced Dustin to play another match with him, Mike couldn’t help but notice how differently Lucas played against him. Instead of trying to make Dustin fall down at every chance he got, Lucas would move very predictably and keep his eyes on Dustin the whole time. After every point that Lucas scored, he would toss the ball straight to Dustin instead of making him go fetch it like he always did with Mike. Even when Lucas went to dunk on him, he didn’t forcefully push Dustin to the ground and laugh. Instead, he got his point without even touching Dustin and cheered while slinging an arm around his shoulder.
First of all, why couldn’t Lucas have been like that with Mike? Second of all, why wasn’t Lucas ever like that with Mike? It could’ve been because Lucas knows how shit Dustin is at the game. Or it could’ve been something else.
Mike decided to do something about his theory. He started another match with Lucas, then complained about the air pressure of the basketball.
“What are you talking about, it’s fine, Mike,” Lucas said, bouncing the ball around.
“No, I think the pressure’s low. You should go get a new one. You and Dustin,” said Mike. Lucas stared at Mike, confused, then glanced at Dustin who looked equally as confused.
“Whatever,” Lucas sighed, shrugging. Knowing him, Mike was probably never going to give this up. He placed the basketball under his arm then began to walk towards the gymnasium’s storage closet. “Come on, Dustin.”
They made their way to the storage closet and Mike followed behind them. As soon as the two went inside, Mike pulled out the door stopper and let the large, white, metal doors close in on each other with a loud bang.
“What the hell?” Lucas said. He turned around and eyed the doors. He tried at the door handles, but they wouldn’t budge. “Mike, these are the doors that lock from the inside. Can you open them back up?”
“Oh, are they really? I had no clue…” Mike said. The sarcasm in his voice was almost tangible, and Lucas hated it.
“What the hell! Open the doors!” Lucas said. He glanced back at Dustin, who was at the end of the room, leaning up against the basketball bin.
“Oof,” hummed Mike. It sounded like he was wincing. “Don’t think I can. You see, these doors are locked from the outside as well—“ the doorknobs rattled just a bit “—and the only person with a key is Mrs. Powell. Unfortunately, I don’t see her anywhere around here at the moment. She must be out.”
Great. What an inconvenient time for their gym teacher to not be there.
“Are you playing some game on us? Why the hell are you talking like that?” Dustin asked, walking towards the door.
“No reason. No reason at all, my friends,” Mike said. Lucas and Dustin looked at each other with a ‘what the fuck’ expression before they faced the door again. “Perhaps, this is the perfect time for confessions. There’s nothing like a private storage closet for sharing details about your life, is there?”
“Confessions?!” Said Lucas. He looked at Dustin. “Are you- are you angry at me or something? You wanna get something off your chest?”
“No,” replied Dustin. “Are you angry at me?”
“No,” said Lucas. He huffed, then turned back to the doors. “Okay, Mike, there’s no point in this. Just let us out.”
“No, not until you guys confess. Have fun. Bye.” With that, the only sound outside of the storage closet was the chatter of the other students in the class and the fading squeak of Mike’s sneakers on the gymnasium floor.
Dustin pounded at the door and played with the knob a couple of times, but nothing budged. “This kid,” he sighed. He walked away from the doors and into the path which was created by metal baskets, tubs, and garbage cans filled with sports equipment. The closet itself wasn’t very large, about a quarter the size of a normal classroom, and didn’t leave much of an area for personal space. The singular lightbulb hanging from the ceiling did absolutely nothing to help with the feeling of claustrophobia, either.
“Do you even know what he’s talking about? A ‘confession’ or something?” Lucas asked.
“Nope. No clue,” said Dustin. He took a glance at his watch. “Shit. There’s five minutes before class ends, and everybody’s probably going down to change.”
“I hate Mike Wheeler.”
“Should we just lie to him? Tell him we made up?” Dustin suggested.
“We never broke apart in the first place,” Lucas said.
“He doesn’t have to know that. And he obviously thinks we have, anyway,” said Dustin.
Lucas pondered the idea for a moment, then realized that they couldn’t lie to Mike even if they wanted to. He was probably way down in the locker rooms, cackling to himself about how two of his best friends were going to be late to their next class because he locked them in a storage closet together.
So, instead of continuously banging on the doors, hoping to gain the attention of a passerby (like any normal person would do), Lucas and Dustin decided to savor the time in which they weren’t in class.
They searched through every shelf and every bin, looking for the stupidest stuff they could find. Stuffed away in a corner, Dustin found a bunch of foam pool noodles which he proceeded to whack at Lucas until he attacked back by flinging frisbees at him. They hurled volleyballs at each other’s heads, impaled each other with the bottom of pogo sticks, and had competitions over who could throw a football at the lightbulb the hardest without breaking it. Spoiler alert: Neither of them won. Lucas tried throwing the football, but he missed terribly, and the ball ended up hitting Dustin square on the forehead. After that, they put Dustin’s head inside of a football helmet for protection.
After all of Lucas and Dustin’s fights and skirmishes, their war (dubbed, “The Great War Of The Storage Closet,” by Dustin) came to a close with the final battle. Each Lucas and Dustin wielded a pool noodle as their weapon and a kickboard as their shield. Lucas had complained about the unfairness of Dustin having double protection (his helmet and his kickboard), but Dustin only responded by saying, “I’m extra malleable. If anything, it’s a disadvantage.”
During the battle, Dustin stabbed Lucas in the leg (they found red ping pong balls and used them as blood) and Lucas cut Dustin’s arm off, leaving him only with his right arm to wield his sword (he tucked his left arm behind his back).
“Surrender now,” Lucas said in a voice that was far too deep for his face to ever match. “Or bathe in your own blood!” He backed Dustin up against the doors, holding his sword against him.
Dustin shook his head, grimacing. He lifted his pool noodle into the air and yelled, “Viva la Henderson!”
With that, Lucas struck Dustin with his sword, right into his gut. Dustin coughed and gagged, and gripped at the pool noodle as if it were stuck inside of his stomach. He dropped his own weapon and started to slide down the wall. “If I’m going down… so are you…” Dustin choked out. He grabbed Lucas’ shirt and pulled him to the floor alongside him. Slowly, Lucas kneeled down until he was on top of a “dying” Dustin.
Lucas stared down at him then started to take off his helmet.
“Fuck, dude, you’re pulling at my hair,” Dustin said, breaking character as his helmet was tugged off.
Lucas lightly laughed, “I don’t know what you want me to do about that!”
Finally, Lucas got the helmet off of Dustin’s head, but Dustin was sure that a huge chunk of his curls were pulled out in the process.
Lucas tossed the helmet to the side. “Any last words?”
“Viva. La. Henderson,” Dustin emphatically repeated.
Lucas reached for the pool noodle which Dustin had dropped and plunged it straight into Dustin’s neck. As Lucas scattered red ping pong balls around Dustin’s head, Dustin wriggled and jerked under him. He suddenly relaxed and lolled his head to the side, eyes closed.
Not until Dustin broke character and started laughing did Lucas realize how close they really were. His knees were placed on either side of Dustin, which in any circumstance other than killing your enemy, was really weird. If Lucas leaned in a bit further, Dustin would probably be able to feel his breath on his face. And if he leaned in even further, then—
Typically, Lucas was one to think out his actions before he acts. He was the one person in the Party who didn’t move on impulse or a gut feeling. But something about the way that Dustin’s messy curls framed his face, the way that a stray strand of hair rested on his forehead, and the way that his features laid on his face in such a perfect array were all things that clouded his logic to the point of no return. So Lucas leaned in even further, and he kissed Dustin.
The kiss barely even lasted two seconds because Lucas couldn’t believe what the hell he was doing. What the hell was he doing? He quickly pulled away and scrambled to his feet, mumbling, “Sorry.” Slowly, Lucas felt himself crumble because something like that was one of the stupidest things anyone could do. And it was irreversible. So incredibly irreversible.
Dustin raced to his feet as well and looked at Lucas, while all Lucas could do was stare at the floor out of embarrassment and avert his gaze.
For a few seconds they were submerged in an awkward silence before Dustin said, “What was that? True love’s kiss or something?” He lightly laughed.
“Huh?” Lucas made eye contact with Dustin for a moment, then quickly looked away.
Dustin shrugged. “Sir Henderson isn’t any Sleeping Beauty, he won’t come back to life with a kiss. Just so you know.” Lucas opened his mouth, probably to apologize for a second time, but Dustin cut him off before he could utter a single word. “But maybe…” Dustin took a large step towards Lucas so that their bodies were only a few inches apart.
“Maybe…?” Lucas hesitantly asked. His breathing picked up and his body stiffened with Dustin so close to his. What was happening? This wasn’t supposed to happen. In Lucas’ mind, Dustin would yell at him in anger for kissing him like that and then seethe at him in silence until somebody unlocked the door. Nothing like this was supposed to happen. All Lucas wanted to do was sweep away the stray strand of hair hanging over Dustin’s face, but every muscle in his body refused to let him do so.
Dustin placed a hand on Lucas’ waist. “Maybe Sir Henderson can’t be revived with a true love’s kiss. But I can.”
Lucas blinked. “…What does that even mean?”
Dustin slightly smiled. “I don’t know. Just kiss me.” With that, Dustin pulled Lucas closer to him and connected their lips again. This time, Lucas didn’t pull away, and his hands found their way upwards to cup Dustin’s face. Dustin placed his other hand on Lucas’ waist and pulled them even closer together as their lips moved in sync. Lucas didn’t know what was happening between them. Dustin didn’t know either, but neither of them complained because the kiss filled that empty hole in both of their hearts in which they didn’t understand what was missing.
Dustin’s stomach churned as Lucas slid his hands through his hair. He deepened their kiss and ran his hands up Lucas’ back, which made him lean into Dustin and tug at his hair a bit.
The two were so engrossed in each other that neither one could hear Mike’s voice from outside the storage closet, asking, “Have you guys figured everything out yet?” nor the jangling sound of keys, nor the sound of the door lock turning. It wasn't until the doors were flung open by Mike, a sun’s worth of light pouring into the closet, did Lucas and Dustin finally pull apart.
Mike stared at the two of them, Lucas’ hands tangled in Dustin’s messy curls, Dustin held on to Lucas like his life depended on it, and their bodies pushed together with not an inch of individual space. They looked back at Mike like deers caught in headlights, and Mike smirked wide. “So, my plan worked then?”
“Mike!” Lucas exclaimed. He disentangled himself from Dustin, breathing heavily. He licked his lips and Mike snorted.
“Come on, you guys. Class started half an hour ago.” Mike started to walk away and Dustin caught the door before it could close on them again.
“Hold on, what do you mean, ‘your plan worked’, Mike?” Dustin asked as they walked out of the gym. “What the hell does that mean?”
Walking in front of Dustin, Mike shrugged his shoulders. “Dunno.”
“You knew? You wanted… this to happen?”
Mike shrugged his shoulders again. “Dunno.”
Lucas and Dustin gave each other the same ‘what the fuck’ expressions as when Mike first locked them inside the storage closet. However, the thing about Mike that truly baffled Dustin—apart from the fact that he was an oddly large advocate for two of his best friends making out—was how Mike knew that Dustin should be with Lucas before Dustin himself even knew. Did Lucas even know? Or was Mike just a one-time matchmaker with a one for one streak?
However it happened, Dustin was glad it did. And as he watched Lucas walk down the corridor towards the locker room, he had a surprising revelation: Lucas was the one person who could make gym uniforms look appealing.