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Mr. Clarke first met Mike and Will when they were in the second grade. He was on recess duty covering for Mrs. Roth, who was out with a bad cold. It was probably just an excuse to get out of teaching for the day, but he pretended not to mind that he was stuck watching a bunch of screeching children for the day.
He was glancing around the playground to make sure nobody was being beaten with sticks when something caught his eye. Two small boys were sitting on the hill while a group of kids walked past them. One said something, making the rest of the group laugh. As they walked away, he could clearly see the face of a little boy with a bowl cut starting to cry. He was about to go over and offer help when his friend who sat next to him grabbed his hand and intertwined their fingers, saying something that Mr. Clarke couldn’t quite make out. Whatever he said seemed to cheer the other boy up, as they smiled brightly at one another before the one who had been crying rested his head on the other boy’s shoulder. He smiled to himself, relieved he could avoid confrontation for at least another thirty seconds before Tommy Jones ran past him, hitting some poor little girl with a tree branch.
The next time he saw the two boys was in 1983, in their 7th grade. He immediately recognized the two boys from five years ago when they walked in, shoulders touching and hushed whispers being exchanged between them. They seemed to have made two new friends, who walked ahead of them, bickering about something. The four took tables next to one another, and although he had planned on having seating arrangements, he didn’t tell them to move. At the end of class, when he told whoever was interested in joining the Audio Visual Club to stay back, he was relieved to see that it was only the four boys who stayed behind.
They introduced themselves as Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas. They were definitely an odd bunch, but who was he to judge? As he got to know the boys more, his assumption was proved correct. They were the outcasts of the school, constantly being picked on by the little dweebs who sat in the back. Teachers aren’t as dumb as everyone thinks they are. Mr. Clarke heard every insult that was hurled at them, including the constant homophobic remarks aimed at Will Byers.
Scott Clarke felt for him. He remembered being called names when he was young, too, despite having had a very serious relationship with Kimberly Thompson in the 8th grade. However, he had fallen in love with his best friend, Ted, when they were young teens. Despite their attempts to keep their relationship under wraps, Ted’s mom found out and forbade them to ever see one another again. It made all the name-calling worse, knowing it was true.
He could see the way Will would look at his best friend, Mike, as if he had hung the stars and sun in the sky (which was not scientifically accurate, but his minor was English, so he could enjoy a good analogy). It was the same way he would look at Ted. However, Will usually kept his head down. Mike’s feelings were far more obvious.
Mike tried his best to pay attention in class, but he was caught passing a note to Will at least once every period. When he wasn’t passing notes or paying detailed attention to whatever he deemed interesting enough, he was staring and softly smiling at Will as he sketched in his notebook. When class was over, they would always wait for each other to be packed and ready before taking a step, even if their other friends were already on the go. Everything they did, they did it together.
When Will went missing, Mr. Clarke was worried that Mike and his friends were going crazy. He summed it up to coping with the loss of Will, answering their weird questions proposed to him at his funeral, and pretending not to be a little weirded out. However, when Will showed back up a week later, he was sure he was missing something, but he never felt right asking. He marked all of Mike’s absences that December as excused, knowing he was probably with Will at the hospital. They resumed duty like normal when Will finally came back to school, except now the three boys paraded around Will like his personal body guards. No one left him alone for a minute. He could understand their concern, but he could also see Will roll his eyes every time somebody would stand guard while he opened his locker, except for when it was Mike. He must’ve had a major soft spot for him, because Mike was the one hovering the most, but Will never got angry with him. Not even in the fall of their 8th grade year, when their protectiveness over Will had only intensified.
In their defense, Mr. Clarke had noticed Will acting strange as well. He was even more quiet than before, and he was shivering all the time, even in August, when school began. Mike started carrying an extra sweater in his backpack just for Will when he got cold. Mike would often have his hand on Will’s arm as if to reassure himself that Will was still there. He wasn’t surprised when eventually Will was gone from school for awhile and Mike quickly stopped going as well. This time, Karen had given Mike permission to not be at school, so he didn’t have to cheat the system to cover his ass. And when Will returned awhile later, so did Mike.
The annual Snowball followed soon after their return, and unfortunately for Mr. Clarke, he was stuck chaperoning. He uncomfortably stood by the exit, making sure no dirty dancing occurred between the 8th graders. He caught a glimpse of Will dancing uncomfortably with a girl who he recognized from being in the drama club. He felt bad for him, and almost worse for Mike, who stared at them from his spot at the table. The next time he turned his attention back to them, he had the biggest shock of his life.
Mike Wheeler had a girlfriend?
He could’ve sworn that he and Will had feelings for one another, but now he saw him slow dancing with a girl he didn’t recognize and looking very happy about it. Maybe he was wrong.
Nope. Will seemed to have noticed the two as well, and he awkwardly excused himself from his date and rushed to the doors that led to the hallway. He saw Mike look over, but he didn’t appear to follow him like he usually did, so Mr. Clarke took it upon himself. After all, it kinda was his job for tonight.
"Hey, uh, Will?" He called, looking around the hallway. "It’s just me, Mr. Clarke."
He heard a sniffle from around the corner, and he followed it to find him sat against the wall, his eyes red.
"Sorry, I—I’ll go back." Will mumbled, wiping his eyes.
"No! No, you’re fine. I just wanted to make sure everything was alright. " He smiled, kneeling down to his level. "You want to talk about it?"
"Not really." Will said, staring at the floor in front of him. “I just don’t like dances. I don’t like them and everyone else seems to. "
Oh. He gets it.
“Some people just don’t, and that’s totally cool! Some people would rather just stay home, and some people like both. It’s okay to like whatever. You don’t have to feel bad. "
"I just wish Mi- my friends didn’t like them, so I wouldn’t feel so alone." Will said, sighing.
"Maybe they don’t. You never know, some people just like to fit in. "
After that, a door was heard opening. Scott stood up, knowing who it was and smiling at Will.
"Over here, Mike." He yelled out before turning the corner to see Mike frantically looking around.
"Oh. Thanks. " Mike said, awkwardly walking over as Mr. Clarke walked back towards the gym.
"Will? Are you okay? What happened? " He hears Mike ask before he exits.
"Do you like school dances?" Will sniffles.
"I mean-uh-not really, but they’re kind of expected of us. Y’know?"
When the kids go to high school and the Byers family moves away, Mr. Clarke isn’t there to see it. He’s stuck in the smelly armpit that is Hawkins Middle School. However, when he goes to have lunch with a friend who works at the high school, he happens to pass Mike, who is standing at his locker.
His locker was a mess. There is no way he is able to find his books every day. He’s about to jokingly scold Mike for the disaster of papers when he notices that he seems very focused on something. He looks at his hands to realize he’s holding a drawing. It’s a scribbled picture of a dragon, with Will’s name signed in the corner, along with a message that says "Miss you guys!". He hears Mike sigh before carefully putting the picture back on his top shelf, then shuffling through the mess until he finds whatever he’s looking for and slams the locker shut.
As the locker slams shut, one of the crumbled papers falls out of his locker. Mr. Clarke picks it up to hand back to Mike, but he’s gone by the time he looks back up. He looks down at the paper and tries to unfold it to see if he could return it to a certain class to give it back to him, but instead sees a scribbled message with lines crossed out labeled To Will. He feels invasive reading it, so he begins to close it back up, but not before seeing the Love Mike signed in the corner. He carefully slides the note back into the locker.
The next time he saw the pair was at the supermarket, about a month after the earthquake that had paused life in Hawkins. They were standing by the canned food section, where not much remained. They seemed to be on good terms, whispering to one another as Joyce and Sheriff Jim (who he was pretty sure was dead, but maybe he missed a chapter) were grabbing as many cereal boxes as they could.
"Hey guys!" Mr. Clarke said, waving at them as he approached. He was lonely. He might as well reconnect and see if Joyce ever figured out her magnet crisis and why the hell another person in Hawkins was alive after having a very depressing funeral.
"Scott! You sticking around town?" Joyce asked, smiling back at him.
"I’m definitely not selling the house, but I’m going to go stay down south with my mom for a couple months until things get back to normal here." He replied, throwing a glance over to the boys. "And you guys? You doing okay?"
"Uh-yeah! Yeah. Good to see you." Will said, leaning into Mike.
"It’s so nice to see you two are still so close!" He started, before remembering something that had been bugging his conscience. "That reminds me, Mike. Did you ever find that letter I put back in your locker last year? I would’ve stayed to make sure it got back to you, but I wasn’t visiting the school for long.”
"What letter?" Mike asked, his eyebrows furrowed.
"You know, the one that said something like to Will, love Mike with a bunch of scribbles in the middle?" Was he missing something? He seemed to be very out of the loop on a lot of things with these kids.
He noticed the blush spread across Mike’s face as he opened his mouth to speak, before quickly shutting it again and repeating this action two more times. Will’s eyes were wide looking at his friend.
"You wrote to me?" Will said after a moment.
Whoops. Was he not supposed to know that?
"I-uh-I mean-yeah. I just never really, uh, knew what to say. They all didn’t make sense, though, so I guess I just didn’t send them." Mike muttered out, giving Mr. Clarke a death stare out of the corner of his eye, his hand scratching the back of his neck. He saw Will’s face light up, and that seemed to make Mike relax a little.
"Sorry, didn’t know I was keeping a secret!" Mr. Clarke said awkwardly, before coughing to break the tension and motioning towards the fruit aisle. “I need those. It's nice to see you all. Joyce."
He began walking away slowly, seriously considering drowning himself in the milk aisle, when he heard Will say, "I love you too."
Finally, school resumed after a very long, relaxing two years off. Well, not relaxing for Hawkins. After a year of things going further to shit, there was some sort of weird government intervention that lasted about three weeks. Somehow, after that, everything stopped. The weather was normal, the flowers were growing, the pavements were sealed back up, and nobody was complaining about black vibes growing in their yards and goblin dogs trying to attack them. A lot of people were behind on their education, but after a forced intensive summer school set up by the mayor, everyone was back on track to begin again.
Scott Clarke was considering staying in Florida and pursuing a professional golf career when he got a call from Hawkins High asking him to teach junior and senior science. Apparently, they were incredibly desperate and offered to pay him more than he could ever refuse. So he reluctantly returned to his home, excited to show off his new athletic skills if given the chance. He was pleasantly surprised to see Will, Lucas, Mike, Max, and Dustin, along with the new student Jane Hopper, were in his third period. He recognized Jane as the girl from the snowball many years ago.
"Max wants to go, and if Max wants to, then we do it." Lucas said, wrapping his arm around his girlfriend.
"I agree. We need to go out! You guys can meet some hotties." Max said, smiling at them.
“I want to meet a hottie! I’m going too." Jane said, smiling back at Max and grabbing her hand.
"I guess I’m in." Dustin said, sighing. "Mike? "Will?"
"I mean, I guess s-"
“Actually, Will and I are just going to hang out at the Byers' house.” Mike chimed in, cutting off Will.
"Come on, Wheeler. You two are always hanging out alone. Don’t you ever get bored of one another?" Max scoffed, rolling her eyes.
"You don’t get bored of Lucas." Mike replied, giving her a dirty look.
"That’s because I’m her boyfriend."
"And he’s way less annoying than you," Max added.
"Whatever," Mike mumbled, looking over at Will, who stood smiling at the ground.
Oh. My. God.
Has it finally happened? Did they finally get together?
Mr. Clarke paid close attention to them in class. He could see them brush hands whenever they walked, and one time, he walked past their joint desk and saw them discreetly holding hands. They still looked at one another like the other was a shooting star, as if they were the most beautiful thing the other had ever seen and could disappear at any moment. His suspicions were confirmed that year at junior prom.
Once again, Mr. Clarke was forced to chaperone a school dance. Unfortunately for him, high school dances had even more reckless, horny teenagers running around all over the place, which meant he was keeping himself very busy.
After successfully forcing two teens back into the gym after confiscating their weed, Mr. Clarke turned the corner to throw the weed in the outdoor trash can. He did not expect to see the door already open, stopped from shutting by a rock. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness outside, he stepped towards it to see what was going on out there.
Then he saw them. He saw two boys, who he recognized as Mike and Will, kissing against the school’s brick wall. He coughed loudly to alert them of his presence, opening the door gently to toss the weed into the trash a couple feet away.
"Oh my god," Mike started, beginning to explain.
"Don’t worry about it. This was one of the tamest things I’ve seen all night." Mr. Clarke sighed, shutting the lid of the bin and beginning to walk back inside.
"Uh, Mr. Clarke?" Will called out. "Can you maybe not tell anyone about this, please?"
"I would never." He smiled reassuringly, opening the door and making sure the rock was still in place. "I see he doesn’t like school dances that much either."
"No," Will laughed, smiling fondly at Mike. "We never really fit in anyway."
Mr. Clarke sent them one final smile before walking back inside, following the sound of giggling teenagers into a nearby closet.
BONUS
It was the summer of 1964. Scott Clarke was entering his sophomore year of high school, and he was not excited. He walked into his biology class, taking a seat next to the window in the front row.
When he looked up from his desk, he saw this handsome, broad-shouldered, athletic boy walking up next to him. He almost choked when he took a seat next to him and smiled.
"Hi?" Scott said, his voice unsure.
"Hi," the boy said, still smiling widely. "What’s your name?"
"Scott. Scott Clarke." He replied, pushing his glasses up on his face.
"Nice to meet you, Scott." He replied, sticking out his hand. Scott shook it, feeling immediate electricity run through his body. "I’m Ted. Ted Wheeler."