Chapter Text
Will has been digging his own grave, recently.
And, alright, maybe this is a little bit of a hyperbole when Will hasn’t been doing anything particularly violent or dangerous; maybe it is in the sake of his terrible lack of self-care or any actual regard for his own wellbeing, but it wouldn’t be quite right to say it in such a way, because it all makes it sound like it’s on purpose, like he’s looking for his own death.
Maybe he is. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
But he’s not, and that’s what matters.
What matters, of course, is the thorough lack of sleep he’s gotten, and that he’d forgotten to drink water this morning, so his throat is a little dry and scratchy, with the help of the toast he’d munched on while driving with one hand on the steering wheel. What matters is that he still needs to finish his reading for his English literature class, and his jacket is wet around the shoulders.
What matters, obviously, is that it’s raining.
It’s raining.
It’s raining, and Will is not having a good day.
Which – it would mean more, he supposes, if most of his days held any semblance of being good.
As it is, he’s never been a skilled liar, and it’d be a difficult bluff to pull off when most of his weeks have been spent in the same foggy state. Perhaps he couldn’t call them good, but he couldn’t call them terrible, either; he couldn’t call them anything, not when he barely remembers most of them.
He knows they’re nothing good nor bad, but maybe something else, something more undefinable, something less coherent, because Will has been spending the past year and some in a strange limbo, one he’s settled into somewhat uncomfortably, yet resigned to it, anyway. It’s an in-between gray purgatory of okay and just fine, and it’d be something worrying if it weren’t true.
Will is okay. He’s doing just fine, and there’s nothing to worry about.
It’s still raining. God.
It’s still raining, and Will had felt the annoyance spike up when he stepped out of his house and got absolutely poured on, cringing as he felt wet raindrops running down the side of his neck. Thunder rolled in the distance, and he had debated turning right around and back into bed. Exhaustion and impatience never mix well, and especially not for him.
Maybe it’s for the fact that Wednesdays are always a little difficult to wake up to, when Tuesdays are spent going to practice right after school and cramming in homework until he can barely keep his eyes open, splashing cold water on his face to continue working on math equations. His legs are always sore when he gets to bed, and he rarely remembers what his dinner was.
Wednesday mornings consist of hitting the snooze button until he has six minutes to get ready, shoving half-burnt toast into his mouth as he hurries to get into his car, and the rain, of course, is just the cherry on top of his bad mood.
And it’s not that Will – hates rain. He doesn’t, not really. Sometimes, it’s even nice, when he’s driving home and it’s getting late and the radio is quiet, or when he has time to read, and the pitter-patter of raindrops accompany the silence.
Will, however, can’t exactly find it in him to be happy about the impromptu thunderstorm when he spends at least thirty-five seconds running in the rain at seven a.m. in the morning.
It’s already a cold morning, and the lack of an umbrella doesn’t help, not when the Byers-Hopper household has yet to get enough umbrellas to sustain all of them, so Will has to brave through the rain with his hand-me-down denim jacket and his backpack brought over his head, splashing in the wet as he hurries to get to the doors, and he’d be more self-conscious about it if he didn’t spot Jeremy from his English class doing the same a few feet behind him.
Personally, it isn’t his version of a good morning, and especially not when his hair is damp and so is his clothing, and the entire hallway full of students is filled with squeaking shoes and overall unhappiness, either from those who had to walk in this weather, or those who had got caught in it with no umbrella on hand, and honestly, this morning would have gone way better if it hadn’t rained at all, and – it’s really starting to sound like he hates rain. He doesn’t. He doesn’t.
El had, luckily for her, spent the night before at Max’s, where they probably had enough umbrellas to bring to school, and she was hopefully fortunate enough to escape the onslaught of rain that pours outside while catching the bus with Max. Then again, maybe it’s a fair trade-off, being a victim to the rain while avoiding taking the godforsaken bus.
She isn’t there when Will gets to his locker, her’s right beside his, and it feels a little lonelier than usual when he grabs his books and closes his locker shut. He doesn’t dwell on it, however, just like how he doesn’t dwell on most things, and instead continues on to Room 318.
Despite being out of the rain, a gray cloud hovers over him anyway, and tiredness clings onto him like a leech. Some girl laughs loudly as she passes him, and Will has the split-second panic that maybe she’s making fun of him.
That’d be stupid to think, though. It’s not as if anyone would notice him long enough to tease him, not when he’s a faded-out frame in the background. Maybe Will hasn’t been digging his own grave. Maybe he’s already a ghost.
Perhaps he’s being dramatic about it, but it’s true; he’s been downgraded from a zombie to being back to the dead, regarded with almost no notice, and it seems like everyone outside of his friends and family skims right over him, as if he isn’t there at all, some spirit that has yet to move on. It’d be fitting, for someone like him, always stuck in the past.
(He would’ve asked to be a ghost, once upon a time, when he’d been relentlessly picked on and pushed into lockers, when he’d yearned to be blended into the background.
He’d wanted to smudge a mess of oil pastels over his body and scrub himself into the canvas, smearing away his harsh edges and erasing his silhouette, pressing hard enough to rip the linen. Then he’d just be a black hole, sucking in all the light.
Self-portrait, 1988: Will Byers.)
He frowns at himself and keeps walking. He takes a turn to the right, and a guy in a green hoodie nearly trips on a wet puddle, holding onto his friend to stay standing. They both laugh as he passes by, and something in him is rotting.
Maybe he’d prefer being a black hole to being this – whatever this is. If this is a ghost, then he’d hate to be one.
Or, at least, if being a ghost means he’s so tired all the time, because all he feels, lately, is tired and gray. Desaturated. A picture Jonathan would leave out of his portfolio. He wonders what else is tormenting him to keep him around, even in the afterlife. He’d hate to fade away into time like this.
Will’s shoes squeak when he walks, and he can’t find it in him to be too embarrassed about it when everyone else does as well. He holds on a little tighter to his books, and makes his way to his first class.
The morning is stormy and quiet. Will tries his best not to let it get to him.
It’s hard to pay attention in school when his mind feels like one of the muddy pools in the parking lot.
It’s foggy and there’s distant words floating around in his hazy brain, and he can’t even find it in him to care enough to doodle, pencil hanging loosely in his grip while it hovers over the margins, half-heartedly scribbling down any notes that wander into his ears.
It’s a strange experience, and especially when his mind is so full of static, he can’t find it in him to think at all; his day slips through his fingers in the same pattern of incomprehensible sounds that used to come through his radio, from time to time, when he’d be on the wrong channel, and sometimes Will feels like if he were in a time-loop of the same day, he wouldn’t have noticed in the slightest.
His teachers all say the same thing, and his classmates all say the same thing, and sometimes Marlene from math asks him what he thinks about her new lip gloss, and sometimes Charlie from English tells him the painting their art teacher hung up of Will’s looks really cool, he digs the blue shades or whatever, and sometimes his art teacher asks if he’s considering a career in art, and sometimes it’s enough to snap him out of his daze, and sometimes Will can’t take it and skips two classes in a row to breathe in, breathe out, and convince himself not to jump off the nearest bridge.
Will is coming to the conclusion that he hates Wednesdays.
He goes nearly three hours without saying a single word, and it’s only when he’s nearly falling asleep in his seat in his fifth hour, staring ahead at the chalkboard, that someone nudges him on the side. He jerks up, and turns to find Lucas grinning at him.
Will tries to blink awake. “Hey.”
“Hey, man,” Lucas greets, too awake for nine a.m., like he usually is. He’s much more put together than Will is, but perhaps that makes sense, seeing as Lucas is one of the quote-unquote ‘Cool Kids’ now, even if he still bugs Will about the latest X-Men comics. “You okay? You look like you just woke up from the dead.”
“Thanks,” Will replies dryly, but finds it in him to sit up a little straighter. Days aren’t so bad when he and Lucas find some time to chat before class starts, and he’s trying to shrug off the exhaustion that racks at him so often, nowadays. “Just slept late last night. Powell’s giving out a test today.”
Lucas cringes. “Seriously, already?” He taps around with his pencil in his right hand, energetic in his desk. “I feel like school just started.”
Will shakes his head. “It’s already October, Lucas.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he waves off, leaning back into his chair. He drums his fingers and his pencil against the edge of the desk, fiddling around, and Will slowly blinks at him. God, he doesn’t know how Lucas has it in him to move so much. He should’ve grabbed some coffee before leaving today.
It’s not as though his lack of sleep is an uncommon thing; it’s been running rampant since middle school, and it’s only been recently that it’s getting worse, an incapability of falling asleep and staying asleep, no matter how hard he tries. He doesn’t know what his problem is. Maybe it’s because November is inching closer.
Even so, there’s some solace to find in running. He’s always been good at running away, after all, and maybe there’s some strange comfort to find in it, just this once. Neither his mother nor Hopper question it when he goes out for hour-long jogs that wear his legs aching, although it’s not as if he allows any time for their concerns when he gets home and stumbles into the shower, just to fall asleep right when he gets out.
Still, no amount of running or wearing himself out had worked yesterday. Exhaustion had itched at his bones, but his eyes couldn’t stay closed for long. His hands shake a little when he reaches up to rub at his eyes.
Lucas clears his throat, and Will looks over at him.
“So.”
“So,” Will echoes. He can already tell where this is going.
“So,” Lucas draws out, awkward, but charmingly so, and Will cracks a slight smile. Lucas grins when he catches sight of it. “Me,” he begins, fiddling with his pencil, “and Dustin were going to go to the movies later today, and we wanted to know if you’d want to come with.”
He’d asked the same thing last week, and even if Will hangs out with his friends semi-regularly, it’s more often than not he declines.
And it’s not that he – doesn’t want to go to the movies. He’s just been tired lately. Maybe also running from a few skeletons, but it doesn’t seem right to say it out loud. Maybe he just doesn’t care about going to the movies.
Possibly the guilt is getting to him, though, when he resigns to reluctantly reply, “I – maybe.” He looks away to the chalkboard, and some squirmy feeling in his palms settles in. “Is it just going to be you guys?”
A beat passes, and a few more students filter in, scrambling to get to their seats before the bell rings. “Yeah,” Lucas replies, and a chair noisily squeaks against the tilted floor. “Yeah, I think so.”
Will turns away to look at Lucas, who carefully avoids his eyes, trained to the desk in front of him, notebook unopened and seemingly incredibly interesting. “Really?” He's skeptical. No one can blame him.
“Yeah,” Lucas repeats. There’s a long silence, where neither of them speak, and Will’s mouth is twisted into a frown. “I mean,” Lucas slowly adds, and there’s the tap-tap-tap of his pencil, “I – I think maybe –”
“Alright, class,” Mrs. Miller loudly calls out, clapping her hands as she walks to the front of the room, heels clicking, “notebooks out. We’ll be starting off on page thirty-eight.”
Will very carefully turns in his seat, pulling out his notebook and flipping to a half-filled page from yesterday, already littered with uninterested and messy doodles. He brings out a pencil, and quickly jots down the first question.
There’d be some advantages to being a ghost, Will supposes, such as being able to dissipate into thin air, or sink through the floor and into the earth’s core, warm and alight. He could take a nap, then, if the universe bid it.
Or maybe he’d be invisible all the time, to absolutely everyone, and Lucas would never have invited Will along, or even sat in the seat next to him. Maybe he’d be in the seats across the room, next to his other team members, and everyone would forget Will had ever existed. Maybe Will’s soul would rot away in this stupid town.
As it is, as much as Will is invisible, Lucas is a determined friend. When he looks up and meets Lucas’ questioning eyes, Will gives a minute shake of his head with remorse worming its way into his stomach, and tries to ignore the disappointed look that’s sent his way.
There’s a guilty pang in his chest, and his fingers around his pencil tightens.
He keeps his stare ahead.
It’s still raining when school lets out.
It’s mostly drizzling, however, and it’s a drastic improvement in Will’s book, as he hurries out of the building and towards his car. He makes no effort to shield himself when raindrops fall into his hair, and bullet onto his shoulders.
He hurries into his car and starts the ignition, sighing as he falls back into the seat. The chill of autumn lingers in his car, and he raises a tired arm to turn on the heating. Warm air bursts into the car. He rests his hands on the bottom of the steering wheel. There’s oil paint underneath his nails, and he frowns as he picks at it.
El joins him, a little later, raindrops dotted on her face and lips shiny with gloss.
“Hi,” she greets, smiling while she tosses her bag into the back. Her apple-scented perfume follows her, and it reminds him of August. She buckles in her seatbelt. “You were not at lunch.”
Will shrugs as he backs out of the parking spot, turning the steering wheel under his hands. “I ate in the art room. I didn’t want to stop painting.”
(It’s only half true. He’d slowly eaten his way through his sandwich, sitting on the floor and staring up at his painting, a block of buildings near the Hawkin’s library during a sunset, while trying to figure out what to do with it. He'd almost been tempted to tear a hole through it. Artistic expression, or whatever.
Pinks, tans, yellows, purples, patches of gray, and a big rip in the middle.
Landscape painting, 1988: I Hate This Town.)
El nods in understanding, and she leans forward to turn on the radio, some poppy song filtering in. It’s never his taste in music, although El enjoys it, but he and Jonathan have slowly been recruiting her into songs that have the Byers brothers’ seal of approval. They’ve yet to make much progress.
“We missed you,” El says, after a second, and the corner of Will’s mouth quirks up in a half-hearted smile. She’s always sincere, quick to make her sentiments known.
“I missed you guys, too,” he replies honestly. “Anything interesting happen?”
“Max threatened to beat up Ryan after school if he didn’t stop bothering us,” she reports, and Will looks away from the road for just a split second, eyebrows brought up in surprise.
“Ryan Grenier?” Will doublechecks, even if Max isn’t below threatening one of the members of the football team. They may be bulky and made of mass muscle, but an angry Max terrifies Will more than any of them could.
He watches as El shrugs from the corner of his eye. “The one with the big shoulders.”
Will turns onto Washington Rd., clicking off his signal. “Oh my God.”
“And then I made him trip on a pudding cup.”
“Oh my God,” Will repeats, resisting the urge to facepalm. “El.”
“It was funny!” El defends, and Max’s sense of humor has definitely been rubbing off on her, even if the idea makes him laugh, too. Madonna’s voice floats in the air between them, and Will is still tired, but it isn’t so bad, now.
“I can’t believe I missed all that,” Will sighs. There’s the squeaking sound of the windshield wipers, sliding from side to side, and Will looks both ways, before he continues on the street.
The remnants of summer are gone now, and Hawkins is dreary and warm-colored, trees falling red-stained leaves onto the ground, and the crush of orange and yellow litter the ground. He likes the prettiness of it, the natural beauty that comes with the earth, but the familiar view of it all makes his stomach churn, a reminder of the worst anniversary.
Madonna’s voice tunes out and is replaced with Michael Jackson, and El nods along to the music. Will drives past the general store just as the chorus hits.
El is quiet, for a second, before she asks, “You will be there at lunch tomorrow?”
Will chews on his lip. He doesn’t want to lie, but sometimes, it’s more tempting to be alone in the art room, oil paint on his hands while he works in silence, than the rush of students around them as he pokes at shitty cafeteria food.
He doesn’t like disappointing El, though. And maybe it’d be nice to speak more than ten sentences.
“Maybe,” he settles. El nods.
“I will trip Ryan Greener again,” she promises, and Will lets out a startled laugh.
He turns onto their street, and the exhaustion wears away, just a little. Just enough.
It’s easier to breathe when he gets home.
He pulls on a thicker sweater, and can’t find it in him to fix his hair when it’s messy from rubbing against the cotton. His mother is out grocery shopping, with Hopper at work, and El’s music softly plays from her room. Jonathan is about seven hundred miles away at college.
Will tries his best to focus on the book he’s reading, and it’s only thirty-eight pages in that he can’t find himself to concentrate anymore, zoning out in the middle of paragraphs and his gaze landing on the wall opposite from him, under the blank space between his The Thing poster and a stack of old, forgotten comic books.
It’s after the fourth time he catches himself blinking out of it that he snaps the book shut and gets up. His hands itch for a cigarette.
He knows it’s not the healthiest hobby, he’s seen the infomercials, but no one in his life has the heart to reprimand him for it, and maybe it’s for the fact that, after everything he’s gone through, he’s allowed a smoke once in a while. It’s not as if either his mom nor Hopper could call him out on it without being a hypocrite, anyhow. Maybe Jonathan would try, but his own smoking habits wouldn’t fly by unnoticed.
He swings open the door and steps outside, the creeping cold of autumn sneaking into his sleeves, wrapping itself around his stomach. He shivers, and sits down on the edge of the porch, feet against the steps. The wood is wet and freezing to the touch.
It’s still raining.
A cigarette does wonders for his nerves, the same steps of breathe-in-breathe-out that follows, a heartbeat of a routine. He watches the smoke scatter in the breeze.
Today was not a good day.
It’s only something past six, and there’s still plenty of time for the day, but Wednesdays are never good, and something in him almost pegs it as bad, nothing fine or okay or not good, but just bad, bad, bad.
It’s something strange, too, when nothing about it had been particularly too unsettling; sure, his morning had been quieter and a little lonelier without El, but his happiness certainly didn’t only depend on his sister.
It couldn’t have been his poor breakfast, not when he has it quite often, lately, waking up too late to have a proper meal, and it couldn’t have been Lucas, because talking to him cheers him up, no matter the content of their conversations.
He would blame it on the lack of sleep, but he’s had better days with far less rest. He doesn’t know what his issue is.
It’s an ordinary day, the twelfth of October, no specific anniversary, yet there’s a string of something sad and unpleasant boiling under his skin. He takes in a deep breath, the smell of nicotine in the air. There’s the sound of gravel against the rubber of the tire, and he closes his eyes. His mother is probably home.
So maybe he had woken up on the wrong side of the bed; maybe he had gotten a little less than four hours of sleep last night, and he’s just remembering that he hadn’t done the back of the worksheet for his fourth hour, and maybe the sandwich he’d chewn on was swirling uncomfortably in his stomach, and his hair is getting too long and keeps poking into his eyes, wet and uncomfortable, and maybe Will is having a bad day.
A car door clicks open, and then shuts. The crunch of leaves follows. He taps away the ash at the end of the cigarette and leans into the palm of his own hand.
Still, it’s fine. It’s all fine. He’s allowed a bad day or two. It’s fine.
“Will?”
He startles, nearly dropping his cigarette, and quickly opens his eyes.
What’s not fine, however, is when he finds Mike Wheeler on his front porch step.
There is something haunting Mike Wheeler.
He, a long time ago, would have ditched the idea of ghosts, because there’s already enough weird shit he’s seen, already enough that he’s had to wrap his mind around, and there couldn’t possibly be more abnormalities to fit in this small world. There is enough to deal with, and ghosts were something in a different league, a different genre of monster that does not belong.
Then again, maybe it makes sense, amongst alternate dimensions and superpowers, that ghosts would fit right in – Mike has seen enough death, of course, to have at least one wandering soul latched onto him, because he thinks he’s a pretty good target for torment, after all. He’s always had it the easiest, out of all of them.
(El would frown if he ever actually said that out loud, and Lucas would tell him to stop being so down on himself. Max would say this isn’t a competition, that they’ve all got shit to deal with. Dustin would recommend a therapist, or a listening ear.)
Besides, he thinks, nothing in their world really makes sense, so maybe it’d be a perfect paradox, to include more things that don’t make sense, to have even more inexplicable things in their world full of chaos.
Nonetheless, Mike isn’t a fan of the idea of ghosts.
This doesn’t derive from the fact that he’s being haunted.
After all, ghosts have never cared for Mike Wheeler’s opinion, of all people.
Senior year, much like the rest of high school, is a drag.
Unfortunately, however, it’s even worse, because now it feels like a strange lapse of time between childhood and the next phase of his life, and now he’s a little too old to be next to the fourteen-year-old freshmen in the gym class he’s avoided for the past three years, and it all feels like a terrible waste of time. At least he can drive himself to school now, and skip without too many teachers looking at him weird.
Senior year means that he has to pick a college to go to, soon. Senior year means that almost all his friends have a job, and they’re all too busy to hang out together as a group. Senior year means he drives Holly to her friend’s house, and his parents don’t question it too much when he leaves without explanation.
Senior year means that Dustin is a part of their school’s science club, that Max skips school for things she deems far more interesting, that El learns to “live a little” and join her, that Mike delves deeper than ever into his writing, that Lucas has continued his basketball career far enough to be in their school’s varsity team.
“Game Friday,” Max tells him when she slides into her seat next to him in their shared math class, despite their entire group knowing. She talks to Lucas on the way here. “You’re going, right?” She asks, because Mike has yet to confirm it.
She phrases it like a question, but her tone implies otherwise. They both know Lucas’ games are a touchy subject, when once upon a time they’d all been so split apart that none of them had even attended a single game of his. Freshman year was a bitter nine months. Mike is not who he used to be. The memory makes him wince.
Senior year also means attending all of Lucas’ games, because Mike still carries that guilt around, and he’s pretty sure all three of them do.
“Yeah,” he nods, leaning back into his chair, and Max doesn’t reply as she turns away, knee bouncing as she fidgets with a pen.
Mike chews on his cheek, and spaces out as class begins. He knows this routine.
This routine being, of course, the same exact routine he has been following for the past month and some weeks already, falling close to Halloween, in just about over two weeks. School is merciful like that, in the mind-numbing schedule it forces him into, because his mind drifts away, yet his body functions along on autopilot.
In about forty-two minutes, the bell will ring, and he’ll greet El by his locker, and both of them will talk and head to the west side of school, and she’ll turn to the right while he continues on to Room 112. He’ll sit in his seat, a row away from the window, and jot down notes while thinking about anything else.
He has lunch after that, and he stops by his locker to shove his things in and shuffle into the lunch line, Lucas joining him, and Dustin arrives out of breath and with two textbooks in his arms, because his locker is all the way across the building, and he has two AP classes after lunch. Mike will sit across from them both, and it’ll be just the three of them, because El and Max have a different lunch.
The next three hours will go by in a daze, and when his mom asks how his day has been, he’ll say it was good, even though he has absolutely no recollection of it.
It’s a practiced routine.
Mike hates it.
His days feel strangely empty, as though there was something missing, and it’s weird, because he has practically everything in perfect place; he hangs out with his friends quite often, he’s on track to go to a good college, his grades are well enough, and he might not have a girlfriend anymore, but he’s happy without one. He’s okay.
And, still, something in him turns over in discontent, unsettled and wanting something else, something he can’t put a name to, something that had lived before the ghost that follows him. He doesn’t know what it is. He almost doesn't want to know.
It’s there, when he’s with his friends, and Max and El will be giggling together, and Lucas and Dustin argue back and forth about something that really doesn’t matter, and he’ll lean away and the ghost will whisper, There’s something else. There’s something not here.
It’s there when he’s driving alone to and from school, music loud, but not loud enough to hide away the feeling in his stomach, the emptiness when he moves forward and turns up the radio. It’s there in the passenger seat, the shadow claiming shotgun.
It follows him around in strange places; a phantom, it doesn’t discriminate any time of day for when it wants to attack; Mike will spare an off -hand look to where there’s a worn binder on his bookshelf, and get a weird, twisting feeling in his stomach, and it aches. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.
Mike hesitates going into the basement. He tries not to think too much about crossing onto Elm Street, flying by Cornwallis Street when he’s running errands to the grocery store, and he tries not to think about it when he walks by the art room after school, and he tries not to think about it when he catches a glimpse of a familiar denim jacket.
He tries not to think about it at night, when all he has is restlessness and too much time to himself. He tries not to think about it when he visits El and rushes past the closed bedroom door across the hall. He tries not to think about it all.
If he thinks about it, it’ll come back, and his chest will start to feel weird, and he doesn’t like it, doesn’t like the ugly cold that fills his body once he lets himself wonder why he avoids these things like the plague. He hates the way he misses something he shouldn’t. Not like this.
There’s something following him, and it has been, for the past two and some years, and he doesn’t know what it is. And, instead of addressing the problem, instead of thinking about it, he looks away and hurries up his pace, as if that would do anything to get rid of it.
And it doesn’t – it’s there constantly. Sometimes, it’s even near his grasp, brushing past his fingertips, and Mike will look in its direction, and it’ll disappear once again, a memory locked away out of sheer determination.
Mike knows that if he really, actually wanted to, it’d be in the palm of his hand, right now.
But Mike has never known what he wants, and he certainly doesn’t know now. Maybe it’s better this way, to not know the thing that haunts him. Maybe it’s something terrible. Maybe it’s a heart buried under the floor. Maybe it’s a demon, so Mike pulls back his hand.
And, instead of calling an exorcist, he lets the ghost take up half his ribcage.
He doesn’t want to be called crazy.
Senior year continues in a daze.
(When the final bell rings out for the day, Mike wastes no time in pushing open the doors, keys in hand and autumn wind brushing against his cheeks.
Once upon a time, he would have waited back to talk to a few friends, like they used to. Mike would have had someone to walk with while he hurries to his own car, no silence when he takes a seat and pushes the key into ignition.
Now, he carefully avoids looking at the bike racks, lest the ghost appear again. He steers out of the parking lot, and turns on the radio.
It’s not playing anything he particularly likes. It’s better than silence.
It’s indiscernible scribbles on a lined piece of paper, and it’s enough.)
Mike Wheeler knows that he’s never had good timing with these sorts of things.
These sorts of things being, of course, the big realizations that every character has that comes to change their life; the steep rise to climax, that dip to the epiphany that leads to a world-revolutionizing solution, that aha! moment when it all comes together, and the audience leans back in second-hand satisfaction.
Mike Wheeler’s aha! moment begins in the middle of Lucas’ basketball game.
It’s one of his first games as a member of their high school’s varsity team, and Mike is proud, he is, except he doesn’t know shit about sports, because, despite attending all these games for the past three years, his knowledge about basketball doesn’t go beyond the fact that the ball is supposed to go through the hoop, and that Lucas is good at it, so no one can quite blame him when his thoughts begin to drift off to unrelated territory in the midst of the game.
His mind has been doing that a lot lately. Drifting off. Sometimes Mike feels like he’s watching his own life float by.
Dustin and Max chat amiably next to him, about something or another, but Mike, in all honesty, isn’t in the mood to talk. Not tonight, at least. It makes him feel strangely lonely, which is ironic, really, considering the fact there’s bleachers filled top to bottom with people. His eyes absentmindedly stare at the court, but the game goes unseen.
Maybe that’s where it begins.
Maybe that is where it all begins to unravel, because when in the world did Mike start feeling lonely?
He’s got no reason to, not when he’s here with his friends, and he’s watching Lucas play, and if he really wanted to leave, he could invite El over, and she’d come over without question, because even after their breakup, she had insisted on remaining the closest of friends.
And yet, he’s feeling weirdly lonely, like there is some sort of space next to him that’s yearning to be filled, but there shouldn’t be. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s got his best friends beside him to keep him company, and his other best friend is playing great on the court, and his parents are happy with him and his grades are fine and he’s fine.
One of the players shoots, and the ball narrowly makes it through the hoop. The people around him cheer. It all feels far away.
He glances over at Dustin, who claps, and Max, who keeps her hands in her pockets, but stares attentively at the court.
He looks down at his own hands. He feels strange. A weird ache floods his body, drowning out his bones and pouring into his stomach. This is weird.
It spirals from there, he thinks, because the rest of the game flies by, and suddenly Mike is mindlessly trailing after his friends, and they’re looking around for Lucas, who could, frankly, be anywhere, being the cool guy that he is, now.
Crowds trickle through the doors, and Mike bumps an arm against Max as he turns to catch sight of Lucas. God, they should really start planning out a place to meet up after every game.
Mike spots him near the bleachers, and he calls out, “Lucas!”
He waves out an arm, and Lucas looks up and around, before his eyes land on the three of them, making a quick move to jog over to them.
“You guys made it!” He grins, skin with the slightest sheen of sweat, and he moves to hug Max.
“Oh my – no, you’re all sweaty,” she yelps, moving away at the last second, but she’s smiling, and doesn’t move away when Lucas entwines their hands. “God, you smell.” Lucas doesn’t stop grinning.
“You say this like we don’t go to every game,” Dustin replies dryly.
Lucas offers him a shrug. “You don’t have to, you know.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Mike tells him, and crosses his arms as he glances around the room. He feels strangely impatient, and he can’t stop looking around. He doesn’t know what his problem is. He doesn’t even know what he’s looking for.
The conversation carries on without him, and he’s glad for it. He’s not in the mood to talk, and it’s apparent in the way he isn’t quite sure what to say, awkward in his own body while he holds himself close. That weird feeling in his chest still hasn’t left.
He’s been getting like this a lot, recently, when there’s a lull in his own socializing, and he steps back to find himself attached like an oddly fit puzzle piece; he finds himself looking for something he isn’t even aware of, leaning away and into something that isn’t there, seeking the company of someone that doesn’t exist.
(Lucas would say he needs a girlfriend, or a new hobby. Max would say that he needs to get out of his own head. El would pat him on the arm and ask what she could do to help. Dustin would ask why he feels this way, and come up with an elaborate plan to stop it.)
“Are you leaving with us?”
Mike blinks back to his friends, and barely catches the end of Lucas’ reply, a refusal with some sort of excuse of meeting up with his team members, hurrying to apologize. Dustin waves it off, and Max lightly punches him in the shoulder.
“Have fun, loser,” she bids, and Lucas nods dutifully, squeezing her hand one last time before letting go. They all chime in a goodbye as he hurries back to his team.
“Lucas!”
The call of his name is quiet enough that if Mike hadn’t been watching, he would have missed it. As it is, he watches as Lucas turns his head, and brightens at the sight of the person. Mike follows his gaze to find –
Will.
He’s smiling wide, and some blonde girl stands next to him while he and Lucas chat away, and Mike can’t stop staring as Will gestures a shooting motion, and Lucas laughs, and Will grins at him, and it’s a short conversation, clearly, as Lucas pats his arm and begins walking away.
Will turns to the exit, blonde girl following, and Mike barely manages to tear his eyes away. He frowns, and his stomach feels strange. Bad. He feels vaguely dizzy.
“Who was that?”
Dustin pauses in the middle of his sentence, furrowing his eyebrows as he looks over to Mike. “Who was who?”
Mike gestures to the doors, but Will is long gone.
And that’s where it begins.