Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Having survived and averted the near-total destruction of humanity just two years ago, Will had learned a lot of things: to cherish the little moments in life, to let those you love know that you care about them whenever you have the chance, and to be grateful for the mundane, because dealing with the little annoyances of life is far better than, say, having a supernatural entity invade your mind or watching your hometown almost fall to ruins at the behest of one man’s emotional volatility.

Will tries to remember these things and takes them to heart everyday. However, as time rolls on, it gets harder to remember such lessons that once had a visceral grip on his heart. Sometimes, the noise of a life that isn’t tormented by supernatural horrors is louder than that voice in his head reminding him to be appreciative.

Like right now. Standing behind the register at Melvald’s. Listening to Mrs. Wilson ask him for the twenty-sixth time since he’d started working here (yes, he’s been counting) when he’s gonna get a girlfriend.

Objectively, Will’s glad the world didn’t end, and it’s not like he wants the Upside Down to open up ever again. Not after everything he, his friends, and his family had to live through.

But…

Somebody asking you when you’re gonna get a girlfriend loses its charm after the third time. Especially when you’re gay, and especially when there’s only one person in your life right now that you’d want to date, but you can’t, because he couldn’t clearly be less interested in the thought of dating you, because he would never think about you in that way.

Would he?

“Here’s your change,” Will holds his hand out with a few quarters and nickels in his open palm. He has a polite smile on his face, but it feels more like a pained grimace.

And it clearly shows, because, as she takes the change, Mrs. Wilson’s next words are, “Oh, it’ll be okay, dear! You’ll find somebody someday!”

Will keeps the smile on his face. It feels very forced.

“I have a niece over in the next county–she’s just about your age, sweet as can be, loves art. Come to think of it, she’s like you in a lot of ways! I can bring her by next time she comes to visit!” At this, Mrs. Wilson offers him the warmest, sweetest smile Will thinks he’s ever seen in his two months of working at Melvald’s.

It makes him feel a twinge of guilt when he tries to offer the same smile back and lies straight through his teeth. “Thanks, but I’m really trying to focus on school right now.”

Which, yeah, his junior year of high school is definitely kicking his ass, but he isn’t helping himself by spending his days in Algebra II making doodles of the Party in the margins of his notebook, drawing one very specific paladin in significantly more detail than the others.

“That’s okay, darling. A lot of people don’t meet their future spouses until college.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot.”

“Any girl would be lucky to have you.”

Will sends a prayer of thanks to whoever’s listening when somebody else walks up behind Mrs. Wilson, and he finally has a way out of this conversation that’s gonna stick him in an early grave. “Thanks, Mrs. Wilson, but I need to–” he gestures behind her.

Mrs. Wilson follows his hand, then, seeing the girl behind her, makes her eyes grow wide and looks back at Will, eyebrows raised. She’d be a good catch, she seems to silently communicate.

Only Jonathan and his mom really know the truth about him–he and Mike had only ever awkwardly stepped around whatever truth existed around Will’s painting to him, and it hadn’t really come up with the rest of the Party. So, yes, Will is only out to exactly two people on this planet, but each day he works a shift at Melvald’s and has to hear one of the older ladies give him girl advice, he comes closer and closer to the edge of just…letting it all out. At this point, it would almost be easier to have everybody in Hawkins know he likes boys than have to put up with one more I just don’t understand why you haven’t started dating yet! conversation.

But, that’s an issue for another day. His biggest problem right now is getting Mrs. Wilson to leave, making it through this shift, and then getting home as fast as he can to work on the Algebra II problems he hadn’t done in class today.

In the politest tone he can muster up, Will says, “Thank you for shopping at Melvald’s.”

Mrs. Wilson finally takes the hint. Before she walks away, though, she leans over the counter and whispers, “Let me know how it goes, okay?”

The incredibly small corner of his soul that’s impulsive has to bite back the urge to say It won’t go anywhere, but I appreciate the sentiment.

When the bells on the door finally jingle, signaling her departure, Will lets out a sigh that makes him sound like a pressure cooker trying to let out some steam. His brief relief is only interrupted by the girl who shifts in front of the register to take Mrs. Wilson’s place, dragging a notebook and a package of pens with her. Her hair carefully frizzes out from her head in the teased style all the girls at their high school are sporting this year, and her eyes are almost the same color as the freckles that dot along her nose and cheeks. Will recognizes her–they’ve had class together almost their whole lives, and he remembers a particularly rough streak there in middle school where she’d almost achieved Troy Walsh levels of aggravation with the Party. She’d seemed to mellow out over the years, at least.

Katy! Her name is Katy.

“What was that about?” Katy asks with a nervous laugh.

Will doesn’t have the time or the disclosure to go into the nuances of it all, so he settles for a simple, “I don’t really know,” before ringing up the notebook and pens. “Three dollars and twenty-eight cents,” he reads off robotically, eyes already scanning the store, trying to make sure none of the other older ladies that like to pepper him with questions about his love life are hanging around. He seriously doesn’t think he can handle another one today.

Katy hands him a five, and he mechanically opens the register to start making change. Sure, he might have a solid C- in Algebra II right now, but he has math skills where it matters most, and he can make change on auto-pilot at this point. He even has a better end-of-shift register count than his mom does, which is something he takes a weird amount of pride in.

His fingers are just beginning to slip over the pennies in the drawer when the door jingles open again, and Will’s head jerks up, worried another one of the old ladies had arrived to kill him with kindness. His heart automatically lurches into his throat, and he can tell Katy’s a little worried about him with how wide her eyes grow.

But then, sweet relief mingled with that fluttery nervousness he still hasn’t grown used to over the past several years settles into his chest as he sees Mike Wheeler step through the door and give him an awkward wave.

Oh thank God.

Ever since Will had started having to work, what with Jonathan being off at school and Hopper having to work in the next county over given the whole he technically died in a mall fire thing, his friends had been really supportive in showing up during his shifts to check on him, talk with him, or, in Dustin’s case, sometimes make his life a living hell. Will can’t count the number of times he’s had to explain to Dustin that just because he works here doesn’t mean his friends can just take stuff for free, and, yes, he will have to pay for the two packages of gummy bears he took and ate while he was here.

They usually come as a big group, but lately, Mike’s been showing up on his own before the rest of them. He always comes with the group later, of course, but the earlier visits are something he and Will just never bother to mention in front of everyone else. They’d always had a special sort of friendship, and it felt right that they’d spend extra time with each other outside of the group.

And it makes sense that Mike’s the one who initiates it, because Will’s the one with the tighter schedule, not him. It’s not like Will’s being weird about it or anything, or that he’s seeking Mike out, even if under all the rightness of them hanging out alone together there’s an underlying sense of nervousness that makes Will’s stomach swoop and his hearing go all fuzzy when Mike looks at him like that.

Kinda like he is right now, finishing his awkward little wave and gesturing down one of the aisles as if to say I’ll be down there if you need me.

Will grins back, his first genuine smile of the day.

Which says a lot about service jobs, considering a smile hasn’t left his face since he clocked in at 4.

Katy’s voice quickly cuts through all the butterflies currently swarming Will’s stomach, though, and he only just notices her head turned around to look at his best friend. “Is that Mike?”

Mike’s already wandering down the aisle nearest to the photo development center, and both Will and Katy’s eyes trail after him.

Then, reality sets in. Will shakes his head and reminds himself he can’t be seen gawking at his best friend in public, let alone on the job, and holds his classmate’s change out. He tries to keep his voice calm and steady, the kind of tone you’re supposed to use when talking about your best friend. “Um, yeah. It’s Mike.” He holds the coins in his hand out. “Here’s your change.”

Katy doesn’t turn around, though. Her eyes keep following Mike, resting on the back of his head that pokes up from the tops of the other aisles.

Will also notices a soft blush creeping across her nose and cheeks.

Oh.

Oh.

On the one hand, Will can’t help but agree: yeah, he feels the same exact way every time he looks at Mike, and it’s taken him a while to finally get his face to stop heating up when Mike looks at him like he’s the only person on earth or to keep his heart rate down when Mike gets a little too close.

On the other hand, Katy just doesn’t feel the same way about him that Will does at all. She has a very surface-level knowledge of Mike–they’ve all been in class together for ages, of course, but she’s never bothered to try and be friends with him or the rest of the Party. She’d mellowed out and become sweet over the years, but Will remembers some particularly rough middle school years where she’d decided she was going to make it her mission to call the Party every single combination of insulting names (slur or otherwise) she could think of. So, yeah, she’s nice now, but the past doesn’t look too great, and it doesn’t even matter, because it still doesn’t change the fact that she doesn’t know Mike like Will does.

You see, just based on surface-level impressions, Mike can be…a little rough. He looks amazing, obviously, but his personality kind of has to grow on you. He doesn’t have a great poker face, and his mouth moves way faster than the emotionally-developed parts of his brain do, so most of his interactions with strangers tend to be comprised of scowls and snappy, quick-to-judge thoughts being said out loud when they should’ve stayed in his head. Most people see Mike and how he acts and think Hm, yeah, I’d have better luck with the feral raccoon that lives under my house.

Will, however, knows Mike–he knows all of his less-than-admirable parts (re: the scowling and having no filter), and he knows all of his great parts, too, the ones that make it so easy to be around him as his friend. Mike is brave, persistent, caring to those he loves, and he’ll do anything if it means helping a friend out. The rest of the world only sees a small glimpse of the real Mike Wheeler, but Will? Will has seen it all.

Which means that he, objectively, has a greater claim to these feelings than this girl, no offense to her. Like, yeah, anybody can get all blushy when Mike looks in their direction, but to get flustered when Mike looks in their direction when you’ve survived interdimensional monsters and unspeakable loads of trauma together? When you’ve fought in the rain and screamed at each other until both your faces went red? When you’ve had movie nights almost every weekend since you were in elementary school?

When you’ve survived a days-long road trip in the back of Argyle’s pizza van?

That is extra special.

Also, seeing their classmate look after Mike with that much interest makes something hot and spiky unfurl in his stomach. It burns all the butterflies to ash and replaces them with black widows or poisonous snakes, all writhing around and screaming for blood.

It’s not…It’s not jealousy. Will isn’t jealous or possessive–he’s a good friend, and he wouldn’t be like that to Mike, because then he’d be weird about everything, and then Mike would ask him why he’s being weird, and Will can’t bear to have to fess up to everything, and–

“Here’s your change,” Will repeats, trying to break the line of thinking he’s quickly spiraling towards. He even shakes his open palm a little and nudges his fingers forward to tap against Katy’s elbow.

“Oh! Sorry,” she says with an apologetic smile, quickly scrabbling for the coins from Will’s hand. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me–”

“It’s fine, really,” Will says, even if he has to strain the words out because Katy’s eyes are once again wandering over her shoulder to glance down the aisle and stare at the back of Mike-fucking-Wheeler’s beautiful black hair.

Katy shoves the change into her pocket, clutches the notebook and pens to her chest, and gives Will a soft smile. The red in her cheeks makes her freckles stand out even more. “Thank you!”

Will nods, and he knows his Mike-induced smile from earlier has completely shifted back into customer-service mode: blank, empty, only there for social niceties. “Yeah, no problem.”

Then, Katy turns around, and she walks back towards the photo development center and the office supplies aisle.

Towards Mike.

The mass of writhing creatures in Will’s stomach lurches at the sight, and it feels like his heart is dropping out through the soles of his shoes.

“Wait–”

Katy turns around, shooting him an innocent look. “Hm? What is it?”

Hell, she really has mellowed out over the years. She’s really sweet, and nice, and Mike deserves to have the attention of someone like that. If he blinks fast enough, Will can almost see a picture-perfect image of them in the distant future, married and in front of a house in suburbia, a gaggle of freckled children playing in their yard–

It makes the anger currently seething through his stomach spike higher.

“Uh, sorry–” Will clears his throat, tries to throw on his best confused grin, and says, “It’s just–the door’s that way, and I thought you were done shopping–”

“Oh, I am!” Katy responds, holding the notebook up once more. “I just wanted to talk to Mike.”

The grin falters on Will’s face. “Um. Right.”

“And then I promise I’ll leave,” she teases.

God, she’s cute. Will’s gay, but that doesn’t mean he’s blind, and he can tell she’s super cute and super nice, and she’s gonna talk to Mike, and ten years from now he’ll be giving the best man speech at their wedding and describing how he was there that first, fateful day these two locked eyes on each other and just knew it was meant to be.

Before Will can respond, Katy gives him a final wave, turns on her heels, and walks purposefully down the aisle where Mike is, her head up high. Will’s eyes follow her the entire time, halting when her head disappears below the aisle shelves, and then all he can see is Mike, his head turning around, eyebrows lifting up in surprise, the bright fluorescents making his hair gleam.

They’re too far away for Will to hear their exact words, but the store is quiet enough that he can tell when Katy initiates their conversation.

He can also tell that Mike’s voice sounds…nice. Polite. Like he isn’t trying to end the conversation as soon as possible.

Which is just awful.

Not for Mike–no, that means Mike must be having the time of his life, since his usual tone with strangers is either cold or mildly annoyed. But for Will? Yeah, it’s awful, and it doesn’t help the writhing in his stomach or the racing in his heart or the clenching in his jaw.

It’s not jealousy.

He just cares. A lot.

Too much.

He groans, setting his face in his hands, and his shoulders slump further than they already are when he feels how warm his face is. He’s surprised Katy hadn’t just flat-out said What? Afraid I’ll take away your stupid crush?

When he finally pulls his head back up, he can see Mike has shifted some, leaning his arm on the top of the shelf in the aisle. He rests his head on his hand and nods along, eyes glued to Katy and her pretty freckles and teased hair, his eyebrows raised in interest. Will still can’t make out exactly what they’re saying, but the conversation seems to be mostly amicable, or enough so that Mike’s face hasn’t twisted into a frown and he hasn’t said something any decent human being would regret uttering in polite conversation.

Great.

Will tries to ignore them–he really does!–but after approximately two minutes stuck on the register with nothing to do but stare at the sticky note full of tally marks reminding him of how many times Mrs. Wilson had taken it upon herself to prod Will about his love life, he can barely stand it. He can hear their voices, raised and polite, and his eyes flick up every few seconds to catch glimpses of Mike, still leaning on his hand, looking as thoughtful as ever, stuck in a pose Will’s hands ache to draw. Meanwhile, the forest fire raging up from his stomach and into his chest isn’t helping at all, and it’s like every lick of flame screams for him to do something, anything to stop the madness happening before him.

It’s only two minutes, but it’s unbearable.

And it’s not jealousy.

Biting down on the inside of his cheek, Will spins around to glare down the assistant manager on duty. He’s one of the many Keith-variants that exist around Hawkins–guy in his late-twenties, prefers magazines and cheesy snacks over human interaction–and, as usual, he’s not paying any attention to the store. His nose is stuffed in a magazine that’s bordering on softcore porn more than anything else, and his eyes are glazed over, taking in the material as if it’s the daily stock reports in The New York Times.

“Excuse me?” Will tries. His voice comes out tight and crackly, like an unstable radio connection.

Keith Jr. holds up a finger and gazes at the magazine for a moment that feels like two decades. Slowly, he lowers the periodical, gently shuts the cover, and leans back in his chair. “What is it, dipshit?”

If it weren’t for the fact that Will would hear about it later from his mom, he’d be rolling his eyes so hard they’d pop out of his skull. Instead, he lets another one of those wonderful fake smiles stretch across his face. “Could you watch the register for a few minutes? There was a shelf I forgot to restock earlier.”

Which is the truth, okay? Will remembers seeing an empty shelf and two boxes of something near it, and he also distinctly remembers deciding he’d deal with it later. Well, later is here now, and it’s reasonable for him restock because the store is dead.

Except for Mike and Katy, who are still talking in one of the aisles.

Keith Jr. blinks languidly over his glazed eyes. “You need to stock?”

Unfortunately, Will’s mind had taken to wandering back to that aisle with Mike and Katy, wondering what they could possibly be talking about; he’s not paying too much attention despite how vital Keith Jr.’s answer could be to his mental health for the rest of this week, and when he zones back in, he swears he hears the word stalk.

Which makes him jump, of course.

“No! No, it–it’s not like that,” Will stammers, and he almost lets out another groan when he feels his cheeks heating up once more.

“So you don’t need to stock?”

The realization hits Will a little too late. He rubs a hand down his face. “No–I do. Could you please just cover for me while I run back there?” Even though he can’t guarantee the veracity of the statement, he adds, “It’ll only be a few minutes.”

Keith Jr. blinks again, a crease forming between his eyebrows. He looks disbelieving, but nevertheless, he lets out a sigh. He pushes up from his chair, and as an avalanche of pretzel crumbs falls from his Melvald’s vest, he waves Will off. “Sure, whatever. Go be weird somewhere else.”

Will’s already moving from behind the counter, too preoccupied to even think about rolling his eyes or snarking something back to his assistant manager. No, his body’s being drawn forward to where his brain’s been fully focused the past several minutes, like a missile to a homing beacon. Before he completely stomps over to the Mike and Katy Meet Cute aisle, he has enough wherewithal to check down the aisle on the complete opposite side of the store, the one with the empty shelf he thinks he’s remembering correctly.

He breathes a sigh of relief to see that there is, in fact, a completely empty shelf. At the very end of the aisle, right next to the stockroom door, sit two boxes, waiting to be torn open and their contents stuffed onto shelves for the hungry hands of consumers to devour.

He can do this.

Feeling more assured of this half-baked plan by the second, Will approaches Mike and Katy’s aisle and takes a deep breath. That fiery serpent in the pit of his stomach still burns and writhes, but it purrs a little at this action. It’s like a little moral compass, reminding him that what he’s doing is right, actually.

It’s not jealousy.

So, Will wanders down to the other end of the store and enters the aisle. At first, all he can see is Katy and her styled hair and her hip resting against one of the shelves, her head turned up with interest. He just has to glance a little ways up to see Mike, still resting his head on his hand, looking down at their classmate and politely smiling along with what she’s saying.

“–So you don’t like prom?”

“It’s not so much that I don’t like it as I just disagree with it on principle. I mean–”

Will can’t even bother to hear the rest of it, because of course she’s asking him about prom–he’d seen how she’d looked at him. Obviously she’s interested, plus, prom is about the only thing most of the teenagers in Hawkins have been talking about the past three weeks.

And she obviously doesn’t know shit about Mike Wheeler, because anybody who’s had more than three conversations with him knows he has an anti-establishment streak in him, and, yeah, obviously he wouldn’t like the idea of prom. The only reason he’s even going this year is because the rest of the Party had convinced him that it would be a fun way for all of them to hang out, and it would be El's first real prom, since she had been too sick with the flu last year to go.

Katy’s responding to whatever Mike just said, and Will only realizes he hasn’t moved an inch since he entered the aisle until Mike catches his eyes and quirks an eyebrow up as if to say Dude, are you okay?

This just makes Will feel like he’s caught in some kind of gravitational limbo, torn between letting his stomach continue to be consumed by flames and letting those soft, nervous flutters stir back into his chest. Mike’s looking at him, and it’s like they’re the only two people on earth.

And Katy, who’s such a sweet girl, is still fucking talking to Mike about prom.

Will blinks a couple of times, shakes his head, and finally closes the distance between him and these two. He purposefully walks up, shoulders back (because he is the one who works here, and thus has the most authority out of the three), and once again plasters on his widest, fakest customer-service grin.

“Will?” Mike asks. His mouth is twisted into a smile, but his eyes grow a little concerned. It’s something that hasn’t gone away since the Upside Down chapter of their lives ended–anytime Will’s acting weird, Mike always has to make sure he’s okay.

And, in this case, it kinda sucks, because that means he knows Will’s acting weird.

But it’s also kinda nice, because it means he isn’t focusing on Katy, wonder girl extraordinaire, and her thoughts on prom.

It’s not jealousy.

“Hey!” Will begins, voice a little nervous and higher-pitched than usual. Remembering that Katy’s also there, too, he turns back to her and tries to widen his smile, just a bit, so he can hide the unwarranted anger he feels at her cute freckles. “Hey, Katy!”

Katy smiles back and shoots him a confused look. “Hey?”

“Is everything okay?” Mike asks, and dammit, he reaches over and gently grasps Will’s forearm, just above the elbow, a reassurance that he’s there.

That coil of anger lessens, just a little; Mike’s looking at him and is concerned about him and is touching his arm.

He didn’t touch Katy’s arm.

“Yeah! Yeah, everything’s fine,” Will starts, his blood pressure settling just a little. “Actually, I–well, I needed some help moving something, and I wanted to see if you could maybe…?” He trails off, because the lie already sounds pretty ridiculous coming from his mouth, and he feels like if he makes it to the end of the sentence, Mike might notice something’s up and call him out on his bullshit. Also, Mike just kind of naturally understands Will, even if Will doesn’t fully express his thoughts, and that burning beast in his chest reminds him that this is a good way to get an extra leg up on Katy. Yeah, she might have been trying to flirt with Mike, but Mike understands Will–

Mike’s grip tightens on Will’s arm, and he looks resolute as he stares right into Will’s eyes and nods. “Of course. Yeah, whatever you need, Will.”

He wants to let out a sigh of relief, but he can’t look too relieved, you know? It would be noticeably weird if he looked like he’d witnessed the second coming of Christ just at the mere mention of Mike abandoning this conversation to help Will out. So, he tries to pull a sheepish look on his face and looks between the two. “I–I’m sorry, I know you guys were talking and everything so, like, don’t feel like you have to stop because of me–”

“No, it’s all good! I think we were almost done talking anyway, right?” Mike asks Katy.

Katy looks like she’d been thinking otherwise, but she still nods. “Um…Yeah! We were, like, basically done with the conversation.”

“Okay. Well, I’m glad I didn’t, you know, interrupt or anything,” Will adds.

Katy narrows her eyes at him, just the slightest, then turns back to Mike. “You still don’t think you’ll make it to prom?”

Mike’s hand feels warm and clammy against Will’s arm. “Well, my friends and I were gonna go, so.”

“Are you going with somebody?” she asks, eyes alight.

“Uh…Nope. Not that I'm aware of.”

“Really?”

Mike shoots Will a weird glance. “Yeah. It’s just gonna be like a friend thing.”

The fire starts to burn a little brighter in Will’s chest again, but he can swallow it down this time. He thinks the smile is helping, or at least he prays to every deity it is and that he doesn’t look like a freak serial killer about to claim his next victim.

For a moment, it looks like Katy steels herself, and then she begins to say, “Well, if you don’t have a date, I was wondering if–”

“Oh no!” Will smacks his palm to his forehead and screws his eyes up. “I’m so stupid–my manager told me I only had a few minutes to move that thing, and it’s already been a bit, and he’s probably wondering what’s taking so long–”

“We can go move it now,” Mike offers, eyes directly on him once more.

The fire settles down, soothed once more.

Another crisis averted.

Even though Katy is definitely glaring at him now. “Right,” she huffs out, then looks back at Mike. “I’ll see you around, I guess?”

But Mike’s already tugging Will down the aisle. His smile is polite, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes as he glances over his shoulder at their classmate. “Yeah, I’ll see you around.”

They retreat further into the store, and once Will hears the jingle of the door bells and sees Katy’s figure pass by the windows and out of sight, he can finally breathe again. All those hot, spiky emotions from earlier nearly dissipate, and all he can focus on is how Mike’s fingers still haven’t left his arm, how they’re walking in step and their shoulders brush together.

Everything is as it should be.

“Seriously, dude, are you okay?”

Everything is not as it should be.

“Um…Yeah?” Will tries. He screws his face up a little. “Why would I not be okay?”

Mike pulls to a stop at the end of the aisle and shrugs. “I don’t know. You just seemed really nervous and, like…absent-minded.”

“Ouch.”

Mike releases his arm only to lightly shove him in the shoulder. “Not like you’re stupid! Like you were really preoccupied with something else.”

Well, yes, that is the truth, but Will’s already in too deep at this point, so. “Oh! Um…I guess I was.” He scrambles around in his head to try and remember what, exactly, he’d said was his reason for Mike needing to help him immediately, and, when he finally remembers, he starts hurrying down the back aisle, towards boxes that await them by the stockroom’s door. “You know, my manager is kind of an ass, so he was telling me to hurry. I was just worried about getting it done, I guess.”

Mike trails behind him. “Okay…But why do you need my help?”

Will stops in front of the boxes. He doesn’t even know what they’re for, but at least he has something to corroborate with this wonderful little lie he’s crafted up. He crosses his arms. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why do you need my help?” Mike leans against the endcap, and the bright fluorescents snag against the scrutiny in his eyes; he looks like he’s in the middle of solving some gigantic puzzle, and it’s all coming together to make a picture that says WILL BYERS IS A FUCKING LIAR AND JEALOUS AS HELL in big, bright letters.

Not jealous, Will reminds himself, but it’s really starting to sound like a lie at this point.

“Come on, Will–you’re stronger than all of us except El, and she’s only stronger because she can literally move shit with her mind. And you’ve gotten especially stronger since you started working out.” To punctuate his point, Mike leans forward and squeezes Will’s bicep, just a little bit.

Once again, Will feels like he’s drowning in fire. This one feels different from those spiky emotions from earlier, though–it’s not some pitiful creature screaming to be let out to wreak as much havoc as it desires, but something that ignites when Mike’s fingers press into his skin that makes Will want to draw closer, to finally just let it all out and end this mess for good.

Worst of all (or, best of all, depending on if you ask Will or this newly-hatched monster that’s running around like an angry toddler in his chest), there’s this teasing look Mike gets in his eyes sometimes when he looks at Will that makes him hope that maybe, just for one moment, this stupid years-long crush isn’t entirely unrequited.

But it all has to be a joke, or simply a testament to their friendship that they can be like that with each other.

It’s not like he’s just some random girl in the corner store who can walk up to Mike and ask him to prom.

“Oh, right,” Will finally manages to breathe out, and, for good measure, he pulls a little out of Mike’s reach and gestures towards the boxes. “Well, I pulled a muscle in my back the other day–nothing too serious!” he adds as he sees a rush of worry flood Mike’s eyes. “I, uh, pulled it while I was working out. And now I just need some help moving these over to the shelf to restock them.”

Mike nods along until his eyes trail down to the boxes and he scans their sides. “You pulled a muscle in your back, so you need help lifting boxes of tissue?”

Fear claws its way up Will’s throat as he slowly turns his gaze down to the boxes and, for the first time that day, reads the word Kleenex printed across them.

Shit.

“Yeah, I do,” he surprises himself with how easily his mouth begins to form around the lie, “Because the muscle I pulled is this, like, really small one in this very particular area–there are certain motions I can’t do that well right now. It’s not so much a weight issue as it is a motion issue.”

Mike purses his lips and nods, but he looks disbelieving. “Right. You need my noodle arms,” he holds his lanky limbs out for emphasis, “To move two shipments of tissues because you pulled a muscle in your back.”

And then, because the guilt is already starting to settle around his heart, making it feel like a cold stone, Will sighs, “Listen, I just need help with this, and then you can go catch up to Katy so you guys can continue your conversation–”

Mike cuts him off with a sharp laugh, already stepping around him to scoop one of the boxes up into his arms. “Uh, no, I think I’m good.”

The beast in his chest shudders with contentment. Mike doesn’t want to talk with her. It makes the guilt he feels about lying nearly drain out of him, and his curiosity is piqued. “Oh. Was it–were you not having a good time?”

Shuffling down the aisle to the section of empty shelves, Mike shrugs. “I don’t know. She was nice–I just didn’t want to talk about prom, and that’s the only thing she wanted to talk about, so I was struggling a little.”

Will’s thankful he’s about a half-pace behind Mike and can actually smile with relief. “That makes sense. I mean, obviously you’re not a huge fan of prom–anybody that’s bothered to actually talk with you would know that.”

“Right?” Mike tosses the box on the ground near the empty shelves, and they both make their way back to the other one. “Don’t get me wrong: Katy’s gotten a lot nicer, but she didn’t even think twice about me before, like, last year.”

“Yeah! Remember in middle school when she used to call us all those names?”

“Holy shit, how could I not?”

They both snicker a little at the memories, and Will feels a little bad that it’s at this girl’s expense, but also, no, he doesn’t. She’s walking down the street, probably moving on to the next big thing in her life after having narrowly avoided a future picture-perfect nuclear family with one Mike Wheeler, but Will? Will’s right next to Mike, and they’re laughing and reminiscing about the good times (well, middle school wasn’t the good times, but the past always looks a bit rosier when you’re with the people you love, okay?). They have an actual foundation for a relationship, not just some random meet cute in a run-down general store in a run-down American town.

But as they make it back to the empty shelves, the second box in tow, that coil tightens in Will’s stomach again as he recalls the end of that conversation, Katy’s chin lifted high as she’d said Well, if you don’t have a date, I was wondering if–

He leans against the shelf and crosses his arms. Before he can stop himself, Will asks, “So…Was she trying to ask you out? To prom?”

Mike looks up through his messy bangs, but his face scrunches up in confusion. “What?”

“Katy. It sounded like she was gonna ask you out,” Will supplies, even if he has to nearly grit the words out through his teeth. Leave it for him to pull off a lie and then try to completely undo all of its work: he’d finally gotten Mike and Katy away from each other, and now it’s like he’s trying to shove them back together.

Maybe he should begin preparing that best man speech.

When Mike stands up, his toes bump into one of the boxes as he leans a little too close into Will’s space. It sends another one of those nervous jitters down his arms and makes him half-delude himself into believing Mike maybe does see him as something more. “You think she was asking me out?”

“Wasn’t she?”

Mike huffs a sigh of frustration and shrugs, shoulders pulling up to his ears. “I don’t know? If you ask me, she just really wanted to talk about prom.”

Will can’t tell if Mike’s just avoiding the topic or if he’s really just that oblivious. “I mean, she had started to say something.” Right before I interrupted her. “Remember? She said something like, ‘if you don’t have a date, I was wondering’…?”

Mike lets out another laugh. “How do you remember more about that conversation than I do? No, dude, after you showed up I kinda lost focus on whatever she was saying.” He pauses, and while Will tries to compose himself after hearing that Mike had lost focus once he’d walked up to him, Mike tilts his head to the side. “Was she really trying to ask me out?”

“I thought it was obvious.”

“Hm. Oh well.” Mike shrugs, and he kneels down next to one of the boxes, his fingers already tearing at the packing tape to get it open. “I would’ve turned her down anyway.”

Will has to purse his lips to keep from smiling, because that would be mean, okay? And he tries to be a nice person as much as possible, even if he had been kind of an ass to Katy. It’s nothing personal against her, of course. If anything, it had more to do with the Mike part of the equation than her.

It doesn’t change the fact that he does feel like smiling, though.

“Really?” he asks as he kneels beside Mike and starts to work on the other box. “Why? She’s sweet, she’s smart, and she looks…nice.”

If Mike does notice him stumbling over that last word, a simple nice when most other teenage boys would be saying something like hot, he doesn’t bother to show it. Just as his fingers tear through the last of the tape, he shakes his head. “Yeah, I guess. It’s just…” he sighs, then looks up at Will through his bangs, “I don’t think she’s really my type, you know?”

Will has to catch himself from saying Me too, so he settles for a nod and keeps his eyes firmly on the box in front of him, how the boxes of tissue inside it jump a little when he tears the last of the tape off. He grabs ahold of one, starts to stand up to add it to the shelf–

And Mike’s hand clamps down on his wrist. His voice reaches the whiny pitch that lets Will know he’s either being overprotective or a brat about something. “What are you doing?”

“Stocking?” Will shakes the tissue box around in his hand for emphasis and tries not to focus on the warmth that radiates out from Mike’s willowy fingers.

“But your back.”

“What about it?”

Mike narrows his eyes. “Your back? You know? The one with the pulled muscle that doesn’t allow you to lift boxes up?”

“Right.” Will lets his arm drift down.

Mike still doesn’t let go of his wrist, though, and it feels like some divine punishment against him for the antics he’s pulled today. With a little smirk, Mike finally snatches the box from his hands and places it on the shelf instead. “How about I put them on the shelves, and you use the price sticker thing? That way we get it done faster, and your manager doesn’t get mad at you.”

Oh, yeah, Keith Jr. had been an unwitting victim in this lie, too. Will swallows against the dryness in his mouth and, eyes still on the place where his wrist and Mike’s fingers meet, he nods. After about five seconds too long, he has enough willpower to pull away and runs back to the counter for the price gun.

“You having fun over there?” Keith Jr. drawls as Will snatches the tool from the shelf beneath the register.

“Loads,” Will deadpans.

Once back in the aisle, Will and Mike make quick work of the restocking, falling quickly into a natural rhythm that only comes from having known someone for most of their life. Mike pushes a box onto the shelf, and Will ticks a little price sticker onto it just in time for another box to take its place. They don’t even have to talk while they work–their company is enough for each other.

Will just has to keep his mind from straying in the direction of that newly-awakened beast that’s apparently been lying dormant in his chest for a while. He can remember flashes of it from a few summers ago, when all it seemed Mike wanted to do was stick his tongue down El’s throat. Will had thought that was just a function of him being more immature at the time, as well as how little he knew of El; she and Mike had spent so much time alone together that he barely knew her as a person, and it was a lot easier to see her as just another obstacle in the way of letting their Party be like how it was before the Upside Down–of Mike being Will’s best friend, and Will being Mike’s.

That feels small in comparison to whatever lives in his chest now, though. Sure, he and Mike had had a big fight about the whole thing that summer, but Will hadn’t gone out of his way to sabotage Mike spending time with El. He’d just kept his feelings to himself (and maybe smashed Castle Byers to pieces in the process). No, this is an entirely new monster, one that’s willing to lie and fake injuries if it means Mike doesn’t get asked out by somebody else.

It’s not jealousy.

When they finish, they step back to admire their handiwork which, admittedly, is a little shoddy. They’d been working so fast that the boxes were in approximations of neat, orderly rows, and the price stickers danced all over the different boxes. One of them even managed to have a sticker stuck to the actual tissue.

Oh well–just another victim in the day’s carnage.

“We make a pretty good team,” Mike notes, nodding towards their less-than-stellar work.

It still makes warmth spill into Will’s chest, though, so unlike the fiery hot spikes from earlier; this feels soft and light, and he wants to hold it as close to himself as possible. The words are an echo of something Mike had said just a couple of years ago–I think we’d work better as a…team. Friends. Best friends–and it reminds Will of why he can’t help but love Mike. They do make a good team, and after all they’ve been through together, supernatural or otherwise, they just get each other.

Even if that means devising intricate rituals to keep other people away from each other.

He grins and looks up to find Mike studying him. Their gazes linger, snagged against each other, and Will thinks Mike must be struggling just as hard to pull his eyes away from Will as Will is with him.

“Byers!” Keith Jr.’s voice calls out from the front of the store. “Your little friends are here!”

Will rolls his eyes, which makes Mike laugh. “Okay!”

“And it’s been more than a few minutes!”

“I’m aware!”

“And would you please tell that red-head to quit glaring at me? It’s not my fault she doesn’t like the literature I choose to engage with!”

“Have you told him that she’s blind and only looks at him based on his voice yet, or…?” Mike asks through chuckles, and Will nudges him in the ribs to get him to stop.

As the front door’s bells jingle once more, and he hears the familiar sounds of his friends–Lucas and Dustin engaged in a debate about the actual mechanics of the Delorean in Back to the Future, Max already loudly complaining about Will’s assistant manager, and El giggling at the camaraderie of it all–Will is willing to write this whole day off as an irregularity. Just a weird little blip that won’t matter tomorrow. Even when Mike grasps at that spot on his forearm right before his elbow, shoots him a daring grin, and nudges him forward to the rest of their friends, Will thinks they can be normal like this for the rest of their lives, if need-be. He’d much rather bet on the safety and familiarity of Mike’s friendship than risk it all at the behest of the gnawing creature in his chest that wants to push everyone else out of Mike’s way while screaming more more more.

Everyone quickly joins in on Lucas and Dustin’s debate, and when the Party is fully split down the middle, Keith Jr. gets to be their tiebreaker. He chooses the team Will isn’t on, of course, but it’s fine, because they’re all safe, together, and enjoying their lives like normal teenagers are supposed to do.

Even if Will can’t stop noticing the way Mike’s jacket shifts against his elbow, or how Mike looks at him with particular interest whenever he speaks, or the way he wants to pull Mike away whenever one of their friends reaches out to poke him, tap his hand for attention, or–in Max’s case–smack him across the back of the head.

It’s not jealousy.

Chapter Text

Okay, maybe it is jealousy.

It’s two days later, and Will’s stuck working the morning shift on Saturday. When he’d first started working at Melvald’s two months ago, he’d been forced to pick between having the top or bottom half of his day being completely subsumed with cash register dings and restocking shelves, and he’d decided that working in the morning at least meant he could be free in the evenings to hang out with the Party. It sucks for Friday nights, though, because he knows he’ll have to be up at the ass-crack of dawn to bike over to the store, open the place promptly at 7 a.m. with Keith Jr., and be pulled back into the swirling vortex of horror that is the American workplace until 3 p.m. The Party still comes and visits him, of course, which makes at least one of those hours slightly more bearable.

The past few weeks, though, Mike has been showing up for an extra hour during these morning shifts, and it’s made everything all the more bearable. Will isn’t entirely sure how Mike can stand spending this much of his free time at Melvald’s, especially when he isn’t getting paid minimum wage (woo-hoo!) like Will, but, hey, he isn’t going to complain.

Except, maybe, he might complain today.

It’s not the girl’s fault–again, in the increasingly complex equation that has become Will’s emotional state, the Mike factor has more to do with it than whoever else is on the other end. Maybe if Will paid attention in Algebra II, he could actually write the equation out and solve for x, but that line of thinking quickly falls by the wayside because he knows what x equals.

It’s not jealousy!

“Who’s that?” the girl exclaims, mouth dropping as her gaze fixes on the messy black waves and beaked, freckled nose of Will Byer’ best friend loitering outside the store.

Oh, God, it is jealousy, huh? That’s why his insides feel like they’re writhing and his chest feels hot and spiky, right?

“Who’s who?” Will fakes nonchalance as he tries to count out change. This poor girl paid a dollar for some fifty-cent gum, and in between what Will has come to think of as a dragon breathing fire in his chest and the sudden sour taste at the back of his mouth, he keeps messing it up. He just needs two quarters, yet each time he reaches for change, he comes up with some new monstrosity of math: seven nickels and two dimes, or a quarter and an indeterminate amount of nickels, and, on his third attempt, just a fistful of pennies.

“Uh, him?”

Will tries to play up the ignorant act. Maybe if he hunkers down long enough, this girl will realize he’s going to be of no help to her at all and leave. “There’s a lot of hims around here, you know,” he teases.

The girl whips her head around, cocking an eyebrow, and returns his sharp grin. “Wow, thanks, Sherlock.”

“Anytime.”

“But, seriously, who is he? I didn’t think No Name, Indiana, would have guys that look that good wandering around.”

Oh, that’s the other thing–this girl isn’t even from here. When she’d first approached the register, her accent quickly gave away that she was from somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, and it wasn’t until Will had made some polite conversation with her that he’d found out that her family was on their way back to New Orleans after a camping trip up in Michigan.

Which, like–that’s interesting. Hawkins is flyover country and most people don’t think twice about it unless they need to stop for gas or food, like this girl’s family. Will doesn’t think he’s ever met somebody from that far away (apart from the interdimensional monsters, but that doesn’t really count).

And, once again, Will is put in the ethical dilemma of feeling some measure of…something against this poor girl. It’s totally unfair to her–even he can admit this! But that winged beast shooting fire up from his stomach and into his chest that had become his new beacon of moral decision-making in a matter of days is clawing at his insides and reminding him that he needs to keep these two away from each other at all costs. This girl is nice, she’s witty, she’s from a city in the US that might as well be a different country with how far away it is, and she’s beautiful–smooth, dark skin, glowing brown eyes, curly hair fanning out almost like a halo to remind Will that she basically is an angel, and he’s…

Well, he’s already trying to think of everything he can possibly do to keep her and Mike from meeting. Ever.

“Hello?” the girl tries again, waving a hand in front of Will’s face.

Shit–he’d zoned out, hadn’t he? This was getting less and less manageable by the moment. “Oh! Um, yeah. I guess good-looking people exist everywhere, you know?”

Heat rushes into his cheeks. Wait, he’d said good-looking in a vague reference to Mike–would she know? Could she tell? Could she see through his ribcage down to the monster in his chest screaming for vengeance?

She must not, because her eyes are back to gawking out the window at Mike, who, after glancing at his watch and letting out a huff, finally stomps up to the door.

“Oh shit, he’s coming–” the girl comments, as if Will hadn’t already noticed, because his eyes follow Mike almost everywhere he goes.

“Yeah. Here’s your change.” He doesn’t even bother to try and hand it to her, just sets the two quarters he finally managed to capture in his increasingly sweaty palms next to the girl’s pack of gum.

“My what?”

“Change. Fifty cents.”

The girl doesn’t even look his way as she grasps for the gum and coins and slides them into her other hand.

And then, the door jingles open, and Mike-fucking-Wheeler steps through. One hand grasps his backpack’s strap while the other lifts into another awkward wave in Will’s direction, a weight visibly being lifted from his shoulders when they lock eyes. Warmth enters into his features, removing the chilly exterior he often reserves for the general public.

Will thinks he could enjoy it more if the girl wasn’t also looking at Mike and, worst of all, waving back at him.

Even though Mike could not have been more clearly waving at Will.

The girl quickly turns back to Will and shrugs. Her smile is radiant, and Will wishes he could have half of the confidence she has. Maybe he needs to go live in New Orleans. “Well, it’s not like I’m gonna be stopping through here anytime soon.” She ruffles her hands against her hair to try and get it to poof out more. “Wish me luck!”

Will opens his mouth and has just enough time to bite down on the harsh Nope! that rests on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he forces his mouth into that familiar, tight customer-service smile and raises his eyebrows up. He watches as the mystery girl from New Orleans spins on her heels, throws her shoulders back, and walks up to the nearest aisle where Mike currently stands, reading the back of a can of peas as if it’s the newest Stephen King release.

The point where Will realizes the beast in his chest might possibly be jealousy is when they start talking and, God, this is far more unbearable than the Katy incident a couple of days ago. At least Mike and Katy had been on the other side of the store then, and Will could barely hear them; sure, the curiosity nearly ate him alive, but everything was left to the realm of imagination. Now, though? He can hear every single teasing word and, if he leans just a little over the counter, can get a full view of what must be the origin point for Mike’s future marriage.

Not only is New Orleans girl sharp and beautiful, but she’s bold. Her voice is full and vibrant, her words lightly teasing, and she doesn’t shy away from immediately starting off with, “How’d somebody like you end up in a town like this?”

That beast begins clawing at Will’s insides once more. Oh, holy shit–they’re talking, and talking’s gonna lead to exchanging numbers, which’ll lead to more talking, which’ll lead to them visiting each other across the country, and, before he knows it, Will’s gonna get an invitation in the mail one day inviting him to their wedding in front of some beautiful little building in the French Quarter, and Will’s still gonna be stuck in Hawkins trying to work his way out because, well, he grew up in a single-mother household, and that just kinda sets you back economically apart from a lot of your friends, no matter how hard you try.

Hence the Melvald’s job.

He looks down at the stupid vest he has to wear over his stupid polo shirt, and he almost tears it off right then. It's mocking him, just another reminder that, while the female populace of everywhere has free reign to waltz into the store and immediately start flirting with Mike, Will has to stay behind the counter for subsistence wages, and he couldn't flirt with Mike no matter how badly he wants to, because he's a dude, and Mike’s a dude, and New Orleans girl is right–this is No Name, USA, and he doesn't want to end up on the wrong side of someone's prejudiced ire.

Even if some of his and Mike's interactions could be classified as flirty–like, seriously, there's a reason Will always feels in limbo around Mike, and it's because every now and then, Mike says or does something that makes him feel like he's not the only one being insane: all the careful little looks, always making sure Will's okay, the fucking bicep squeeze from two days ago–

What keeps Will grounded is the full knowledge that Mike has never expressed any interest in any guy ever. Therefore, Will must be making it all up in his head.

Mike deftly counters her flirtatious statement with one of those shy grins he sometimes gives, and Will almost combusts right there.

He–he's looking at her like that?

Will knows New Orleans is a little different from Hawkins, but they still play the wedding march, right? Or are they gonna have one of those non-traditional weddings where they play Tina Turner or Prince while they walk down the aisle?

The beast in his chest is screaming. It wants to be let out, to be free to stop this at all costs.

So, Will glances behind himself to where Keith Jr. rests once more, heels kicked up on his desk, munching on some Doritos as he engages with the newest issue of Softcore Porn for the Faint at Heart.

Will clears his throat. "Hey, um, I'm really sorry, but–"

"More stocking you gotta do?" Keith Jr. doesn't even look up from the page and crunches on another chip.

Sighing, Will nods. He can't believe the last incident was more put together than this one–he doesn't even know how he's gonna get this to stop. "Yeah, just a few things."

Keith Jr. raises a dismissive hand and waves him off. "Whatever."

Will’s already moving from behind the counter before his manager can even finish his half-hearted assent. He walks out, notices the aisle is right there and Mike could see him if he lingers around for too long, so, naturally, he wanders up the aisle next to it. The shelves are lined with another unending array of cans–soups, fruits, broth, those stupid tins of sardines that his dad used to eat all the time–and as the labels form into one indistinct blur of colors, he tries to think of something. The fiery creature he’s coming to realize is, in fact, jealousy doesn’t help him out, either. It’s more like a child that screams unceasingly for some base need, and Will’s the hapless parent trying to think of every solution possible to the matter. Does he just walk up and talk to them, try to join the conversation? No–that’d be awkward at best. Does he ask Mike for help with an issue that definitely, one-hundred-percent, totally exists? No–that’s what he did last time, and Mike might catch on to him.

Does he pull the fire alarm and force everybody to vacate the premises?

No–it’s technically illegal to pull a fire alarm if there’s no actual fire. Will’s already lying enough, and he doesn’t want to have to explain to whoever replaced Hopper at the police station that he’d pulled the alarm to get his crush to stop talking to the cool girl stopped over in Hawkins on her way back to her super interesting life in New Orleans.

He wanders further down the aisle, pulling a little out of the reach of their voices. It actually lets him concentrate a bit better on what they’re saying, and as he listens, his eyes blankly scan the seemingly-infinite number of chicken noodle soup cans that sit on the shelves.

“And you like D&D?”

“Yeah! Well, my parents say it’s of the devil, you know, but as far as they’re concerned, I’m at art club every Tuesday night working on my latest masterpiece and not engaging with the forces of evil.”

“Right? The media propaganda is such bullshit–”

Will has to blink a couple of times to keep his soul from ejecting out of his body, and for a moment, those red rims push into his vision once more, physical manifestations of the flames that he thought only existed in the pits of his stomach. She’s witty, beautiful, plays D&D, and likes art?

It’s jealousy. Yeah, he’ll admit it now: it’s jealousy, burning bright and red, consuming every thought in his brain. It screams at him to make Mike get away from this girl as fast as possible.

He just doesn’t know how.

They keep talking and laughing in the next aisle over, but Will’s still stuck standing in the middle of this one, eyes desperately flitting around to find something, anything to make it all stop. The clawing in his chest quickens, the back of his throat stings, and his heart’s beating so forcefully that he’s sure he can feel it pulsing in his brain.

His eyes snag on the soup cans once more.

Then, his mind begins to race at a feverish pace.

It’s a plan of sorts. Not great by any stretch, but it’s better than standing here doing nothing.

The tin cans shine with an almost heavenly glow under the fluorescent lights, and for a moment, Will’s convinced it's the beast in his chest pointing him in the right direction. The shininess of the cans swell under the light, and the conversation the next aisle over grows louder and louder in Will’s ears.

“Wait, so you’re from New Orleans?”

“Yep! Born and raised.”

“That’s where all the spicy food is, right?”

She laughs. “Some of it, yeah.”

Unwarranted disgust curls up in his stomach, followed by a fresh wave of guilt. She’s honestly amazing and doing absolutely nothing wrong, except, everything is wrong because she and Mike are talking and laughing and flirting.

The cans pull into focus through his foggy vision once more.

Am I really going to do this? he thinks to himself.

Damn right you are, that tight, jealous coil in his stomach responds, and then Will watches, helpless inside himself, as he leans closer to the shelf, raises his hand–

–and knocks over an entire row of cans.

Which–okay, yeah, it’s not a great look, but his original intention was just to cause a bit of commotion. Something just distracting enough to pull Mike away from this girl’s attention.

Except, it all goes spinning out of control almost immediately. Several cans fall over and hit against his shins and toes, and when he jumps away to avoid more of the falling products, his foot catches against one of the cans rolling on the ground, and he trips.

Well, trip is a generous word. It’s more like he slips, falls against the shelves of the aisle, then slides to the floor, his arm catching on each shelf on the way down to the floor.

It’s…humiliating, to say the least.

“Will!”

But, hey, at least Mike’s coming to help him–

There’s the sound of sneakers scuffing against the floor. Both Mike and the wonderful future Mrs. Wheeler skid into the aisle where Will’s currently pushing himself up from the floor, this time careful to avoid the cans that are still rolling around everywhere, knocking into the other shelves and slowly making their way to the back of the store. He accidentally bit the inside of his cheek a little too hard and can taste something coppery in his mouth, and he’s definitely going to have a nice smattering of bruises across his shins come tomorrow morning, but he feels alright otherwise.

With a sinking feeling of guilt, he realizes that he’s progressed from faking an injury to actually getting injured in the name of staving off potential suitors for Mike.

God–he needs to go to a psych ward or, like, drop off the face of the earth and resurface in Thailand under a different name.

That train of thought stops immediately when Mike rushes up to him, both of his hands on Will’s arms, trying to steady him. They lightly push him into the shelf, though, which just makes everything worse, because now it’s starting to feel like one of those weird fantasies his mind traipses into on the days in Algebra II when it’s too boring to even draw. Here they are, Mike pressing him into a stable surface, his hands as gentle as ever, eyes wide and careful, scanning Will’s face. If it really is a mental fantasy spun out of control, then this would be the part where Mike’s hand moves up to his neck and he asks Will if he’s okay.

Mike’s hand moves up to the back of Will’s neck, and he asks, “Are you okay?”

Will blinks several times, unable to tell if this is real or not.

Did he just stupid his way into creating one of his Algebra II fantasies?

“Uh,” Will says intelligently.

“Holy shit, you’re hurt!” Mike’s voice sounds annoyed, but Will knows it’s not directed at him–obviously Mike’s mad at the fact that circumstances had been put into place which allowed for Will to get hurt.

He’d probably be actually mad at Will if he knew who’d set up those circumstances, though.

“I’m fine–”

“No, Will, you’re bleeding!” Mike’s hand moves from the back of his neck to his jaw now, his thumb lightly touching at a spot that Will’s only just now recognizing is stinging and tender. When Mike pulls his hand away (much to the disgruntlement of the spikes of fire billowing in Will’s chest), there’s a fresh sheen of blood covering the pad of his thumb.

“Oh.”

The girl from New Orleans comes into focus now, too. She leans a little over Mike’s arm and looks at Will with great concern. “You okay? It sounded like you got hurt pretty bad.”

Even though some of those flames start to lick up again at the sight of this girl–this sweet, nice girl, leaning into Mike enough that their arms are touching–Will can’t help but smile. Genuinely smile.

She’s way too nice, and Will is being way too jealous.

It doesn’t stop the spite he feels at how close they’re leaning together, though.

“Yeah! I’m fine, just, you know,” he waves his free hand around, “Klutzy.”

“You’re not fine,” Mike emphasizes, and he actually holds out his arm to gently, gently move the girl out of the way, his other arm wrapping around Will’s shoulders. “You’re hurt, and you need help.”

“Is there something I can do?” the girl offers.

“No, we’re good. Have fun going back to New Orleans,” Mike calls over his shoulder as he guides Will to the front of the store. He looks entirely disinterested and only half-heartedly sends a wave behind him.

Will feels a little guilty, okay? He does.

But he also leans in a little closer to Mike, enjoying how perfectly they fit next to each other, how they’re just the right heights so that if Will tilts his head just a little, it’s resting on Mike’s shoulder.

The girl from New Orleans clearly reads the writing on the wall, and, just as Mike and Will are walking behind the counter to the register, she catches both of their eyes and waves. “Next time I stop through Indiana, I’ll be sure to give y’all a visit!”

Will has to bite down on his tongue and the coppery taste still seeping around his mouth to keep from saying You’re nice, but please never come here again!

Mike looks up briefly through his bangs, face blank at the prospect of this girl ever stopping in Hawkins again and specifically seeking them out. “Oh, okay.”

“Have a safe trip!” Will offers, hoping this covers up for the fact that he’d literally knocked over soup cans to get her out of here.

Again–it’s nothing personal.

Especially not when she shoots both of them warm smiles and backs out of the door, only to bounce down the road to the gas station where two very disgruntled-looking parents lean against the hood of a station wagon with their arms crossed.

The guilt sits like a chill in Will’s chest, but that fire from earlier is still there, now lessened into a soft glow that mingles nicely with the warmth coming from Mike’s arm that’s still around Will’s shoulder. It reminds him a little of Halloween night in eighth grade, when Mike had pulled him out of his episode and immediately taken him back to the safety of his house. He hates remembering most things about the fall of 1984, but the memories he does hold on to from then almost always involve Mike, warmth like this, and the comforting knowledge that he has at least one person who knows and trusts him more than anyone else.

Unfortunately, though, Mike doesn’t actually know everything about Will–not anymore. He hadn’t for a while, and Will’s doing an increasingly poor job of hiding it, especially if he’s gonna start tearing Melvald’s to pieces anytime somebody tries to flirt with Mike.

“Let’s get you fixed up,” Mike says, shaking Will’s shoulders a little. It makes him blink a couple of times, startled, only to turn his head and find Mike’s right in his face–like, noses almost touching close.

Keith Jr.’s voyeuristic eyes don’t help; Will doesn’t even have to look to know they’re sticking out over his literature of choice, observing their every move.

“I’m sure it’s fine, Mike, really.” Will pulls back just a little in the hopes of Keith Jr. losing interest. “I was a klutz, and it just sorta…happened.”

“But you’re still hurt.”

Will presses his finger to his jaw. No blood comes back on it. “I think it’ll be fine. It’s not bleeding anymore.”

Mike, as per his usual, won’t take no for an answer. “But it still needs a bandaid, or it’ll get infected.”

“Since when do you care about wound care so much?”

Mike rolls his eyes, finally drawing his arm away from Will, which makes the fiery beast start to rumble somewhere in Will’s stomach again. “Just tell me where your first aid kit is.”

“It’s really not that–”

“It’s right here,” Keith Jr. announces through a mouthful of Doritos, for once actually at the ready to do his job. He reaches below his desk and swings the plastic white case up, shaking it in the air for Mike to grab.

Mike and Will share a careful, judgmental look with each other before Mike sighs, “Great…thanks.”

Within a matter of minutes, Mike has the kit splayed wide open, his fingers digging through the mismatched contents that hadn’t been properly restocked since before the Vietnam War. There’s a container of antacid whose contents have been completely reduced to powder, a handful of bandages of indeterminate sizes, two packets of dried-out disinfectant wipes, and a bunch of tylenol pills buried at the very bottom of the kit, as if somebody had simply scooped some up and thrown them in instead of putting the actual bottle of medicine in like any sane person would do.

After a couple of minutes of Mike’s fruitless searching, Will says, “You really don’t have to do this.”

“I want to–”

“Mike, it’s fine–”

“A-ha!” Mike’s fingers, pinched together like a pair of tweezers, pull out a single, still-wrapped band aid, apparently at just the right size he’d been looking for.

Will makes to grab it so he can end the unnecessary attention (and get Keith Jr. to go back to perusing his low-grade porno selection of the day), but Mike dangles it just out of reach.

Sighing, Will reaches forward and tries to grab it again. Mike still has more on him for height, though, and Will can’t quite reach it.

“I thought you had a pulled muscle,” Mike notes, mouth twisting into a smirk. “You aren’t supposed to be reaching for stuff like this, right?”

A weight drops down from the top of Will’s head and into his feet, clearing out every other emotion in its path. He feels trapped and cornered, and with Mike this close, he can probably see how Will’s face is getting warm, and then he’ll connect the dots with everything else, and then Will will have to admit in the middle of Melvald’s with a skinned up jaw, a bruised ego, and Keith Jr. watching him from behind an adult magazine that he’s been in love with Mike for years.

“You okay?” Mike asks, the corners of his mouth tipped up. He still dangles the bandaid out of reach.

Will swallows against the heat racing up the back of his throat, and he manages to nod, pulling away from how close he’d been leaning towards Mike. “Yeah, my back just…it got a lot better, actually.” After a moment, he adds, “I took an epsom salt bath, and that seemed to do the trick.”

“Oh, did you?”

Will crosses his arms. “Yes, now could you please just give me the damn band aid–”

Mike’s face contorts into a look of incredulity. “You can’t even see where it needs to go!”

“I can guess.”

“That’s stupid! You literally won’t even get it on right!”

“I can go to the bathroom and look in the mirror–”

“Bullshit–”

“Then what, Mike?” Will throws his hands out.

Keith Jr. crunches on another handful of Doritos.

Mike stammers for a few seconds before huffing out a sigh, dropping his hand down to unwrap the bandaid and muttering, “Here–”

And then, just as if it was one of those Algebra II fantasies, Mike tilts Will’s head up with one hand, his fingers slightly twitchy against Will’s skin. He holds Will there for a moment too long, biting the inside of his cheek, before he pulls away. His fingers peel off the back of the band aid, and he gently rests the gauze against Will’s scrape. Then, he slowly unfurls the wings of the band aid and presses them into Will’s jaw, the adhesive only slightly sticky given the material’s age and the fact that Will has a thin sheen of sweat that’s suddenly jumped onto his skin.

Whatever…thing lives somewhere in the confines of his torso now settles, happy and bright, like a cat nestling up to its owner with purrs and kneading paws. He’s nervous, sure, but he can’t deny how peaceful and right it all feels.

How could anybody tell him it’s wrong?

Mike’s hand doesn’t leave his jaw just yet, and he smooths down one of the bandaid’s sides with his thumb. “See? I got it.”

Will wants to respond, but all he can do is stare into the yawning abysses of Mike’s eyes, how their dark browns are so deep that Will feels like he could dissolve into them for an eternity and still never reach the bottom.

Maybe he should knock over cans more often or make up lies to keep other people away from Mike. It’s objectively wrong–he knows it is–but also, he’s a junior in high school, he’s severely traumatized after the hell he’d lived through, and, on top of it all, he’s pretty sure he’s the only gay kid within thirty miles of Hawkins. It’s not an objective moral right, but in a game like this life where the odds are stacked heavily to Will’s disadvantage, yeah, he thinks it might be okay to be selfish every now and then.

Just as long as he can, like, be smoother about it. Preferably in ways that don’t involve making a scene in the middle of the corner store that he works for.

“Yeah,” Will finally manages to say, and, just barely, he tilts his head a little to press more into Mike’s touch. “I guess you did.”

There’s a sound of great wheezing that’s punctuated by crumbs spilling out everywhere. Mike and Will jerk apart and whip their heads around to Keith Jr., who’s shaking his head and letting Dorito detritus spill down his shirt, eyes screwed up in pain.

“Are–are you okay?” Will tries to ask, which is a lot better than what Mike says.

“What’s your fucking problem?”

Keith Jr. finally finishes hacking up his last mouthful of chips and stands up, fanning his magazine across his face. “Nothing. I just have a general disdain for all matters of love.”

“Love?” Will squeaks out at the same time Mike throws a hand out towards the magazine and says, “Clearly!”

Keith Jr. rolls the magazine up, like he’s about to swat at a fly, and waves it in Mike’s direction. “Are you sure you two aren’t going to prom together? Because if not, you might want to let each other know. You both look pitiful.”

Will’s face drops into his hands, but not before he catches Mike flipping Keith Jr. the bird as he spits, “We didn’t ask you or your stupid magazine!”

“Whatever. I’m going to the break room. You watch the counter, Byers.”

Pulling his face back up, Will’s met with the register keys being tossed onto the counter right next to him and a very disgruntled Keith Jr. glaring at him.

“If you manage to stay on the register the rest of your shift like you’re supposed to,” Keith Jr. says, shooting him a venomous glare, “Then maybe I won’t tell your mom that you decided to knock over a whole shelf of soup.”

Okay–maybe Keith Jr. is paying more attention than Will gives him credit for. Also, there’s a certain level of cognitive dissonance Will is experiencing at the fact that his assistant manager thinks the whole potentially destroying merchandise thing sounds more incriminating than the fact that Mike had tenderly bandaged a scrape on Will’s jaw while they’d been staring into each other’s eyes right at the front register.

It truly feels like his life has only grown stranger since they closed the Upside Down for good two days ago.

This time, Will doesn’t hold back rolling his eyes. “Fine–I’ll stay on the register.”

“And then you can clean those cans up after your shift is over.”

“Okay–”

“That’s bullshit!” Mike starts. “You legally have to pay him to work!”

Keith Jr. waves the magazine in Mike’s direction once more. “Don’t make me rope you into it, too. You think labor laws hold that much sway in the American workplace?”

Mike scrunches his nose up and tries to formulate a response.

After a few moments of silence, where Mike can’t seem to offer a formidable rebuttal, Keith Jr. slowly retreats into the confines of the break area, keeping his eyes glued on them for as long as possible before completely disappearing into the room’s shadows.

“What’s his problem?” Mike grits out through his teeth.

Will rubs a hand down his face. “I don’t know–he’s literally just like that.”

Mike’s already moved on to other topics, though, because his eyes have settled on Will again, and he tilts his head so some of his waves fall into his eyes. “Your band aid is messed up,” he comments, pointing to a spot on his chin to indicate.

“What?”

“Here.”

And once again, Mike’s hands are on his face, smoothing down a side of the bandaid that had apparently popped off Will’s jaw, whether due to the sweat or the motion it takes to talk.

“Mike–”

But Mike just grins. “It’s okay. I got it. See?”

And then, he has the audacity to rub his thumb along Will’s jaw once more, and not just over the bandaged part; no, he trails it almost all the way up to Will’s ear.

It makes Will wonder if there’s actual electricity shooting out of his skin, or if he’s just imagining it all. He knows how he feels, obviously, but he seriously can’t get a read on Mike right now. They’re friends–best friends–but in moments like these, Will wonders if Mike’s staring out across the exact same chasm he is, wondering how much it would take to jump and finally close the distance.

Will actually considers it–just for a moment–and the beast in his chest purrs with contentment, reminding him that this is, objectively, morally correct.

The only thing that holds him back is that it’s fucking Melvald’s, he’s still stuck in his dorky work vest, and he can hear the intermittent crunches from the break room that let him know Keith Jr. is still around and, quite possibly, still watching them.

“See? I…I’ve got you,” Mike repeats, except he replaces one pronoun for another, and it’s changed the entire meaning of the sentence.

Will’s heart is either turning into a fiery, blobby mess, or the insides of his ribs feel like they’re getting hit with a battery ram, trying to push him forward, closer, just close enough–

The door jingles open.

“What’s up dorks?”

“Hey! Those are our friends–”

“Max, please quit pretending like you don’t care about them–”

“I care about Will!”

Mike and Will snap apart, and Mike wheels around, crossing his arms fiercely and sending a glare Max’s way. “Hey! You care about me, too!”

Max pulls closer to Lucas’ guiding arm, holding her white cane across her shoulders like she’s a general holding her gun. “Really? Because that’s news to me.”

“Max,” El giggles, poking her in the side, which makes Max reach out and poke El in the side, which sends both of the girls into peels of laughter.

Will is…happy to see his friends. He is happy. The little dragon that’s once more scratching at his insides might say otherwise, but, deep down, he knows he’s happy to see them. Even if his face is burning, and he’s already contemplating ducking beneath the counter in the name of looking for something only to tear one side of the bandage off, just to see if Mike would notice.

Starting a new life in Thailand sounds really, really nice right now.

“Woah!” Dustin exclaims, eyes growing wide as he looks down the store aisles, and Will already knows exactly what he’s looking at. “What happened here?”

Will sighs, thankful the lie comes easier and easier each time he says it, “I just tripped and knocked over some of the cans. It’s really not that big of a deal.”

“Holy shit,” Lucas mutters, his own eyes snagging on the mass of cans.

“Are you okay?” El asks, approaching the counter to scan her brother’s face. When she notices the bandaid, her features soften. “You are hurt?”

Will swallows against the knot in his throat. “It’s really nothing.”

Mike rolls his eyes. “It’s not nothing.” He turns to address El. “He was bleeding.”

“Bleeding?”

“It was an accident!” Will emphasizes, and he hopes none of them hear the crack at the end of his voice that’s as clear a sign as ever that he is, in fact, lying.

Huffing out a sigh, Mike shakes his head, then raises his voice to his DM volume that lets everybody know he’s about to call for collective action. “Well, what matters is Will survived, but he can’t leave the register, so we should all go clean the cans up.”

“What?” Lucas and Dustin exclaim in tandem.

Meanwhile, Max shakes her head, coppery waves flying over her shoulders. “Sure, make the blind girl restock groceries. Real smart, Wheeler.”

Mike’s face twists into a sneer. “You can be there for moral support. How does that sound?”

“Just as long as I don’t have to lift cans.”

So, Mike manages to rally the Party together and waves them off to the aisle. Before he completely abandons Will, he turns on his heels and leans over the counter once more. “We’ll take care of it, okay?”

And Will can’t help the smile that crosses his face, even if he does feel like he should maybe disclose to them that he’d intentionally caused this whole mess to begin with. “Yeah, of course.”

“Cool,” Mike grins.

Will shares the smile for a moment, then, it falters. He remembers how Mike had sounded talking to the cool girl from out of town, and it makes some of that prickly jealousy and doubt wriggle its way into his brain. “Hey, um…How did you like talking to that girl?”

The grin falls from Mike’s face. “What?”

“The girl,” Will points out the door for emphasis, “Did you like her?”

“Like her?”

Will nearly facepalms right there. “Not like, like her, but–you know, did you like talking with her? Was she nice?”

After thinking for a moment, Mike shrugs. “I guess? I don’t know–I don’t remember much of the conversation.”

“You don’t?”

He shakes his head. “After you fell, I was a little preoccupied with making sure you were okay.”

Will’s heart catches in his throat, but the beast is soothed once more. It finally curls into a tight little ball and seems to go to sleep, and all the unease bleeds out of Will. “Oh–okay. Um. Thank you, I guess?”

Mike studies him for a moment, biting the inside of his cheek. Finally, he asks, “Is this about something, Will?”

Oh shit oh shit oh shit– “No! No, this isn’t about…about anything. I was just…curious.”

“Right,” Mike draws the word out, and the grin that returns to his face is a lot more playful than before. “Curious.”

“Yeah. You’re my friend. I care about you.”

The damning fluorescent lights reveal all in the aisles at Melvald’s, and, as such, they shine bright on Mike’s face, drawing out the patches of red that have started to fill in across his cheeks. “I mean–I care about you too, Will.”

It’s a careful moment, so simple and precious in the middle of this run-down store, so of course it’s immediately broken up by the slamming of a cane on the ground and Max calling out, “Hey, Wheeler! Get your ass over here so I can morally support your first real attempt at joining the workforce.”

Mike meets Will’s gaze once more before rolling his eyes. He pushes back from the counter and strolls over to the aisle. “Why can’t you just make El put all the cans up?”

“No powers in public–remember?”

“C’mon, El, the store’s dead anyway–”

Their conversation spills all across the store, filling its cold and humanity-devoid corners with warmth. Will leans over the counter just a little, and he smiles at the sight of his friends. Dustin and Lucas are on their knees gathering cans, handing them up to Mike, who sticks them back on the shelves while El and Max stand off to the side. Max takes her moral support duties seriously and nudges cans in their direction or else uses her cane to hit against the back of Mike’s knees to try and make them give out, which makes El dissolve into giggles no matter how many times it happens.

Thankfully, none of that jealousy stirs awake in his heart. No, they’re all just friends, hanging out in one of the only stores in their small town because one of them has to work to help his family out.

That is, until Mike glances over his shoulder at Will and his gaze softens. That smile–the one he’s only ever used around Will–stretches across his face once more, and it’s almost like Will can feel the ghosts of his fingers grazing across his jaw once more.

The monster awakens, just the slightest, calling for more more more.

Chapter Text

Will actually manages to keep things cool for a solid week, which is remarkable for him, considering what lengths he’d jumped to in the span of two days.

He’s been doing much better, making a concerted effort to keep his emotions in check, and he was even able to take the bandaid off after that day, despite how much a small, sick part of him wanted to keep it to remember their faces being as close as they were to each other. He’s been working out just a bit more, and he’s even tried that journaling thing to get all of his thoughts out of his head. Also, it helps that there haven’t been any more cute girl sightings when Mike’s been at Melvald’s during Will’s shifts. Now that prom’s just a week away, most of the girls in town seem set on finding the perfect dresses and scouring around for the latest makeup trends to try.

Good for them. The less time they’re at Melvald’s while Mike’s there, the better it is for Will. He can actually focus and make change properly, he doesn’t knock stuff over as much, and he has all of Mike’s attention for them to talk about their various woes, current favorite reads, and theories about the Hellfire Club’s next campaign.

But it all goes to hell the Saturday before prom, when a guy tries to hit on Mike.

You see, Will had mostly managed to convince himself that he’s the only gay kid in Hawkins and had decided he needed to keep it under wraps, like he’s Spiderman and he has to keep his identity a secret to protect himself and his loved ones. He’d never really considered the possibility that he isn’t the only person like him in Hawkins, and that he could just…act on his feelings if he wanted to. The rules of society dictate that boys can flirt with girls and girls can flirt with boys, but any same-sex fraternizing is wrong and shameful and should best be kept out of the public eye.

So, yes, it’s absolutely shocking this Saturday as Will is performing his end-of-shift spin around the store with the mop. He has to make sure the floors are all cleaned up before the next cashier comes in, and he’d told Mike just to wait around a bit more so they could ride back to Mike’s house together for the campaign the Party is supposed to begin for their usual Saturday evening .hangout

Mike’s doing just that–standing at the end cap of the aisles with the tissue boxes they’d stocked just a couple of weeks ago and waiting.

Will is right across from him on the other side of the store, pushing around the mop water that looks more like liquified dust than anything else, when it happens. The door jingles open, and Will’s head automatically whips up to find one of the most attractive guys he’s ever seen in his life–kind of a Steve Harrington knockoff, but just a little lankier, with his hair long enough to brush against his shoulders despite how big it is. He walks with his shoulders pulled back and his head held high, radiating confidence, and he chews on a piece of gum with the gusto of a dictator of a small fascist state ready to make his fiftieth execution order of the day.

Quickly diverting his eyes, Will returns to the mop bucket that spills over with brackish water. He dips the mop in it once more, squeezes it out in the wringer, slaps it onto the floor…

The new guy saunters down the aisle next to Will’s, and his steps falter. It gives Will a chance to glance over the top shelf at him, and he realizes that he’s seen this guy around before–in fact, Will thinks he even has a class with him.

It must be Algebra II, where he’s zoned out most of the time anyway, because he’s sure he would remember somebody who looks like that.

But all of those little butterflies immediately drain out of his stomach when he follows the guy’s gaze across the store, all the way to the back corner, where Mike stands hunched over, reading the back of a bottle of face cleaner, his lips slightly forming the words as he reads them out loud to himself like he always does.

Will almost shoves the mop to the ground and screams NOT AGAIN! into the empty, uncaring ears of the universe.

Swiping a hand through his hair to tidy it up, the guy straightens his posture just the slightest, adjusts the leather vest that rests over his sleeveless shirt, and continues his walk with purpose, down to the end of the aisle, heading right to where Mike puzzles over the face cleaner.

For one solid week of his life, Will had managed to keep the beast at bay. There had been no hot clawing at his insides or the feeling of snakes writhing around in his stomach–there had just been a sort of peaceful stasis and the comforting knowledge that if Mike kept showing up to Melvald’s, even without the pretty girls there to flirt with him, then it must be because of Will, right?

It’s back in full force now, though. He’s starting to see red around his vision as all the blood rushes into his face and temples, his heart pounding in his ears. His breaths grow a little tight, and he thinks that if he opens his mouth right now, he’d actually be able to breathe fire.

He’s also back to not thinking carefully about things. He’d already mopped the space behind him that would take him directly to where Mike and the new guy are, but he stomps back through it anyway, even as his old sneakers leave dirty streaks across the still-wet floor. The fluorescent lights shine down brightly on them, as if to give a physical reminder that he’s actively tarnishing the floors of his heart by acting like this, or whatever.

Not that he cares, though; no, he’s happy to shove the mop back into the bucket and wheel it over the places he already mopped, right down the back aisle that connects him to Mike. Careful not to catch either of the boys’ eyes, Will keeps his head turned down, focused solely on the dirty water and the way he has to slightly push the bucket to the left because one of its wheels is loose, and it always likes to drift too far to the right. He stops it right in the middle of the back aisle, pulls the mop out, and sloppily half-asses his way through cleaning up this first half of the aisle, the one furthest away from Mike and the stunning, big-haired, egotistical classmate trying to make small talk with him.

In between the noisy swishing from the mop, Will can pick up traces of their conversation. Just like all the other times, Mike sounds politely interested, and the other person sounds absolutely enamored–fascinated, even. This guy’s voice is loud and confident, and Will is genuinely envious of him. God, he wishes he felt confident and collected enough to just approach Mike-fucking-Wheeler in the middle of Melvald’s and flirt as if the world’s burning down around them and they’re the only two people that matter. There’s even a part of him that feels a little indignant at this guy’s behavior–like, yeah, in an ideal world, this would be a normal interaction, and Will wouldn’t have to care, but it’s not (at least for their town) and he does care. How does this guy throw caution to the wind about actively flirting with another man in a public space, but Will nearly falls to shambles at the mere thought of it, even given his and Mike’s previous ambiguous moments in the store’s aisles.

Furthermore, the store had been absolutely dead those other times; right now, there are several other patrons in the store, and this guy still has the nerve to be standing out here with Mike, his arm against the end cap and leaning just a little too close into Mike’s personal space, talking about…what, exactly?

“So…You got a date for prom?” the guy asks.

Will gives a particularly violent shove against the mop and almost sends it sliding through one of the freezer doors. Of-fucking-course he’s asking Mike about prom, just like every other living, high-school-aged organism in the Hawkins town limits.

“Uh…nope,” Mike responds, popping his lips on the last syllable. “My friends and I are all going together as a group.”

Will can practically hear the flirtatious grin ooze out of this guy’s features. “But aren’t any of your friends going with dates?”

“Well, yeah, a couple of them, but we’re all still going together.”

“But, theoretically, you could bring a date.”

Anger pluming up in his chest like thick clouds of volcanic ash, Will resolves to put a stop to this now. He’ll shove an entire aisle’s worth of cans over if it means ending this conversation.

So, he shifts around and decides to start performing his mop duties on the other end of this back aisle. He wrings the mop out again, depositing another cloud of gray into the bucket, before walking the few paces over to where Mike and this guy are standing.

Yes, it’s jealousy, and, yes, it’s ridiculous.

But this is personal. Will has waited years for Mike to notice him, and he’s not about to let some random guy from their high school sweep Mike off his feet and be his gay awakening and then leave Will to be forced with giving the best man speech at their wedding a hundred years in the future when the government finally decides it has better things to worry about than whether two guys are married or not.

Mike briefly watches Will over their classmate’s shoulder, eyes widening a little with interest, but Will doesn’t let himself notice. He keeps his eyes firmly planted on the mop, slaps it down onto the tile floor, and begins to push it around.

And if that just so happens to mean it knocks into the other guy’s shoes several times, then, well, that’s his problem. Maybe he shouldn’t be standing around where Will could not more clearly need to mop.

The fifth time the mop hits into one of his heels, and the guy finally whirls around, Will straightens up and offers an apologetic smile, just dead enough inside to make it so he doesn’t have to let it reach his eyes. “Oh, sorry–I didn’t see you there.”

The guy cocks an annoyed eyebrow and scans Will up and down before quipping, “You sure you didn’t notice the first four times?”

The creature in his chest is back to raging around like an angry toddler. It roars awake and begins slamming against Will’s chest, and it’s so fiery that he worries he’s gonna burn from the inside out.

“It’s just been a really long day,” Will sighs, propping the mop up for him to lean against, “And I’m trying to finish up so Mike and I can go hang out with our friends.”

Mike catches his eyes and raises an eyebrow up, even as an amused smile tugs at his lips.

Ah, shit–he’s probably on to something, but Will’s in too deep to back out now. He’d also rather have Mike find out how deep his feelings actually are than have to put up with this trainwreck any longer.

“Well,” the guy sighs back, turning around to lean against the end cap a bit more and glaring down at Will, “Couldn’t you–I don’t know–finish mopping the rest of the store?”

“The rest of it’s already mopped,” Will lies. He even impresses himself with how quickly it comes out. “This back part’s the last thing I need to catch.”

“Weren’t you mopping that first aisle when I came in, though?”

“I’d missed a spot, and now I’m finishing up with this part.”

“But the rest of the floors aren’t even wet–”

“He’s right!” Mike chimes in.

The heat simmers down in Will’s chest at Mike’s words. He’s actually siding with Will, even though he clearly knows Will is lying.

And the look in his eyes is actually…really sweet.

Or, it would be, if Will weren’t just being delusional about his romantic prospects with Mike.

The guy turns around once more, and his look softens, eyes nearly devouring Mike. “He is?”

“Yeah. I saw him mop everything earlier, but then he had to help someone at the register, and now he’s finishing up.”

Mike isn’t even in on the falsehood, and he’s somehow lying better than Will ever could. Quite frankly, it’s astounding, and Will can already feel the heat beginning to seep up into his cheeks.

The fluorescents highlight the disbelief in this guy’s eyes. “You’re sure he isn’t lying? Because he was hitting my feet kinda hard with that mop–”

“Why would Will lie?” Mike looks downright angry at the thought which–okay, yeah, it sends an icy wave of guilt down Will’s shoulders, because he’s actually been lying for a long, long time to Mike. It makes him freeze in place against the mop, even as Mike makes it a point to shove past the no-longer future Mr. Wheeler to stand next to Will. “He’s just trying to do his job, and you’re in his way.”

The guy holds his hands up in a don’t shoot me position and backs away. “Okay, God–I was just trying to ask a stupid question.”

The flames spike higher, right up into Will’s throat. He furrows his brow and glances at Mike, whose nose is scrunched up and his mouth already running, “You asked, like, ten questions.”

Running a hand through his hair, the guy lets out an annoyed sigh, leans forward, and says in a blank tone, “I was trying to see if you wanted to go to prom with me.”

Except Will doesn’t hear much past the wanted in that sentence, because his ears fill with the rush of blood spinning around in his head, and a thousand different emotions duke it out in his chest for which direction he should go. On the one hand, he has to admire another guy in Hawkins like him who has the confidence to just…ask dudes out like that.

But, on the other hand, he just asked Mike out, which means Will lets the screaming cries of anger, desperation, jealousy, and malice win. He doesn’t even put up much of a fight and simply lets them all erupt into a fiery, volcanic pit.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to do too much, because Mike glares the guy and says, “I appreciate the thought, but I fucking hate prom, and I’m going with my friends.”

That–that also means something, right? Will adds it to the thousands of other data points in his head that paint the image of a Mike that isn’t entirely opposed to the idea of, like, kissing a guy. Kissing Will. Sure, the bar truly is on the ground, but he at least didn’t look grossed out that another guy had asked him out! And he’d rejected him in favor of siding with Will!

Those are good things, right? Even if Will did lie to get them there?

The guy throws his hands up again and mutters a venomous “Fine–whatever.” He goes to stomp away, but, before he does, he snatches a can of hairspray from one of the shelves and waves it in Will’s direction, “But I’m taking this, and I’m not going to pay for it.”

Will rolls his eyes. He’d remit all of his wages in exchange for hairspray if it made this guy shut up and leave.

“We don’t care, actually.” Mike spits back, then nudges Will’s arm, returning all of his attention to him. “I’ll move the bucket around if you mop, okay?”

And, as the tell-tale squeaks of the guy’s shiny new converse echo down to the front of the store, Will finds a kind of peace settling over him once more. For a moment, he allows himself to bask in the attention of Mike’s gaze, and he remembers being this close just a week ago, Mike’s fingers on his face, and that spiky creature in Will’s chest nearly pushing him forward to press their lips together.

He has enough wherewithal to finally nod. “Yeah, sure. If you want to.”

“I would be more than happy to.” The bells on the door jingle, signaling the guy’s departure, though Mike still ducks his head down to ask, “And do we still need to do the whole store?”

Shoulders slumping, Will groans. “Shit–yeah.” When he glances down at his watch, he lets out another groan when he sees it’s already 3:05. He was supposed to be off five minutes ago, and he still has a whole store to mop.

His jealousy antics are really beginning to cut into his free time.

“It’s okay,” Mike soothes, that extra special grin stretching across his mouth once more. “We’ll get it together.”

Will swallows down the heat in his face, even as the beast in his chest presses closer, wanting to be as close as possible to the warmth it receives from being the object of Mike’s attention. “Yeah, together.”

Their shared gaze lingers for a moment, then Mike finally toes at the bucket. “I guess we’d better get started, huh?”

Unfortunately, Will’s mind is in an entirely different universe right now, and he can’t even begin to focus on mopping or making sure he and Mike make it back to his house promptly by 4 so they can begin Dustin’s campaign. He’s still stuck several minutes in the past, wrapped up in the lingering scent of their classmate’s cologne, the sheen of his King Steve hair, and his blatant confidence as he’d leaned way too close to Mike and asked him out to prom.

“Was he bothering you?” Will finds himself asking, and he winces at how loaded of a question it is. On the one hand, he does want to know if that guy as a person in general was bothering Mike, but he’s also trying to see if Mike had been bothered by the fact it was a dude asking him out. It feels like a catch-22, and no matter how Mike answers, it’s gonna be a loss for Will.

Mike’s mouth drops into a frown and his eyebrows scrunch together. “I mean…a little bit. I was honestly glad you showed up.”

Will’s heart sinks a little. Oh. “Really?”

“Yeah. He was just another person who would not shut up about prom,” Mike throws his head back and lets out a melodramatic groan. “I swear, if one more person asks me about it, I’m just going to stab myself right there. That’ll give them something else to think about.”

Will desperately wants to chide Mike for threatening to impale himself if he’s asked about prom one more time, but, then again, Will had been willing to risk bodily harm to get a girl to stop talking to Mike, so he really doesn’t have any room to talk.

He has to nearly choke out the next words, afraid Mike will see right through him when he says them, but he knows he has to ask. He just has to. Otherwise, this moment will haunt him for the rest of his life, like his memory of Argyle’s van and the painting and saying I love you to Mike with El’s name slapped all over it. Yeah, that didn’t exactly make him sleep well at night, and he’s not about to repeat that same mistake again. “So…It didn’t bother you that he was a guy?”

All motion unspooling from his usual twitchy limbs, Mike freezes. He purses his lips, then slowly trails his gaze up to Will’s.

After a moment, he manages to say, “Uh…Nope. That wasn’t an issue.” He studies Will’s face, then hurriedly asks, “Did it bother you?”

“No!” Will says a little too quickly. It’s both the truth and a lie–no, it doesn’t bother him that dudes can ask out other dudes (obviously), but it does bother him that that dude had been specifically asking out Mike. “Not at all. I–I don’t see a problem with. That.”

Real smooth.

“Okay.”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

That beast in his chest is somewhere between jumping from elation and crumbling into despair. At least Mike doesn’t see a problem with guys asking out other guys–that’s a win, for sure. But now everything feels awkward and tense, and Mike looks like he wishes he could be anywhere else but here, next to Will, and it makes him want to throw his hands into the air and ask What more can I do for you? to a person who doesn’t even know how much Will is carrying around.

“Should we…maybe start mopping?” Mike prods. “We’re already running a little late.”

“But you’re always late, so, technically, we’re right on time.”

Mike nudges the bucket towards Will, causing some of the brackish water to spill onto the bottom hem of his jeans. “Shut up, Will.”

Chapter Text

“What do you mean you can’t go to prom?”

Will groans. This is the fifth time in a row he’s having to repeat himself. “I told you–everyone else was busy, so they scheduled me, and it’s non-negotiable.”

Lucas throws his arms out. “But–but it’s prom! You told them that, right?”

“And aren’t you the only high schooler that works here?” Dustin adds. “They, like, have to make an exception for you because it’s fucking prom!”

Shoving the last of the cans from the box onto the shelf, Will lets out another annoyed sigh. “Believe me–I tried. The managers won’t budge, though, and they need somebody to cover the store, so I’ll be here all alone until 10 PM. If you guys want to do something afterwards, I can, but, otherwise, I’m sitting this one out.”

“Mouth-breathers,” El mutters under her breath, and she sends a particularly poisonous look over the counter to Keith Jr. If it weren’t for the fact Will had explicitly told her she shouldn’t hurt him, no matter how annoying he was to Will, he couldn’t help but fear she might take it upon herself to make him fly across the room.

Even Max joins in now. “That’s absolute bullshit, Will. I’m sure the store can survive closing a few hours early so you can go.”

Will snorts, “I don’t think so. It’s lucky that it even makes enough money to keep the lights on.”

“But still!”

The rest of his friends continue to clamber together for some kind of plan to get Will out of having to work, but all Will can focus on is Mike, who’s grown unusually quiet and reserved. His hands are shoved into his pockets, his gaze trails the ground, and he bites the inside of his cheek, deep in thought.

Will manages to wiggle around Max, only incurring a couple of slaps to his shins with her cane, and sidles up next to Mike. He nudges him in the ribs, and it jolts him out of whatever trance he’d fallen into.

“You okay?” Will asks, tone light.

Mike raises his eyebrows, looks like he’s about to respond one way, then lets out a huff. He pulls one hand out of his pocket and rakes it through his hair. “Um…No. Not really.”

Worry thrums through Will’s chest. “Why? Is something wrong?”

“Kind of.”

They share a look. Will stares right back into him, trying to communicate without words in that way they’ve always been able to do. He simply waits, knowing that Mike will talk if he really wants to.

“It’s just–” Mike sighs again, then, throwing a glance at the rest of their friends, gently grabs Will by the elbow and pulls him a little ways away off to the side. They lean against a section of shelves stacked high with loaves of bread. “It’s just…I thought we would go together.”

The words must surprise Mike, too, because his eyes grow frightfully wide and his jaw dangles open.

Will, on the other hand, is left absolutely speechless. When he tries to blink, he realizes his eyelids can’t move, nor can the rest of his body, apart from the blood that’s rushing into his cheeks.

Did Mike…Had Mike thought…?

“That we would all go together,” Mike corrects with a slight cough.

Oh.

Right.

Will is just being delusional.

“I know,” Will tries to soothe, but it’s a little hard when his voice keeps wavering between a soft tone and a frantic I’m literally in love with you and I can’t tell if you feel the same way desperation, “But it’ll be okay. We can all go together senior year. If I’m still working here, I’ll be sure to tell them I’m taking that day off.”

“But this was gonna be the first one where we’re all together! Remember? El didn’t get to go last year!”

“Yeah, Mike. I’m aware. We kind of live together.”

“Still,” Mike huffs, “It’s the principle of the thing. You’re positive you can’t get out of working?”

“That’s kind of not how the whole ‘having a job’ thing works.” Will loves his friends, but there’s definitely a divide between the rest of them and him when it comes to things like this. They’re seventeen and whining about Will not being able to go to prom; Will’s seventeen and knows he has to work so he can buy his own groceries.

Mike must detect some of the underlying sting in his tone and softens. “I’m sorry, it’s just–I was really looking forward to it.”

“I thought you hated prom, though,” Will teases.

“Not if we’re all gonna be together.” He halts, eyes still on Will, then adds, “Not if we’re together.”

The monster’s back to sighing with contentment, like it’s received its daily quota of attention from Mike. It doesn’t help the heat seeping into Will’s cheeks, and the data points in his head are back to making him think that maybe, just possibly, Mike likes him.

“It’ll be okay,” Will repeats. “There’s always senior year, right? I just gotta suffer my time at Melvald’s, and then I’ll earn next year’s prom, and it’ll be even better.”

Mike looks like he’s about to protest, but then, something ignites in his eyes. He pauses for a moment, then finally nods. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

Except there’s definitely something aflame beneath his eyes, and when he looks at Will, it’s with some kind of sick, secret knowledge, like he knows something Will doesn’t but should. His demeanor has shifted from abject to curiously perkier in the span of a few moments.

He also just…won’t stop staring.

“Is there something wrong?” Will asks, brow furrowing as he touches the almost-healed scrape on his chin. Maybe it was bleeding again…?

“Nope!” Mike says, his voice a little too cheerful now. “Everything’s fine, actually.”

Will shoots him a wary look. “You looked pretty sad a couple of minutes ago, though.”

Mike grins back at him. “I’m just looking forward to the future now. That’s all.”

And, honestly, Will might’ve done something pretty reckless right then and there. He’s sick of dancing around his own feelings and not knowing how Mike feels, and in that moment, the most logic his brain can scrape together is Just kiss him already, you fool!

Thankfully, Max has impeccable timing, and she whacks her cane against the ground, startling both Mike and Will. “Hey, nerds–care to share with the rest of the class what’s up?”

“Nothing,” Mike spits back at her, “Will just said we’ll have to wait until next year to all go together.”

Dustin gasps. “But Suzie is flying in and everything!”

“Her parents let her do that?” Mike asks, incredulity evident in his voice.

Lucas hits Dustin in the arm, shooting a careful look at Will. “She can always fly back next year, right?”

“I guess, but–”

“We’ll go to prom next year,” El says with resolution, eyes locked on Will’s and radiating warmth and comfort. “And it will be the best prom ever.”

None of them seem able to argue against that, especially now that their days of monster-hunting are behind them, and they can look forward to the future like this. They all seem more or less settled on the matter, and Will has to emphasize to them multiple times that he’s fine if they all go, just as long as they still plan to hang out Saturday evening like usual. It seems like the best of both worlds for everybody–they get their prom with their friends and boyfriends and girlfriends (or, in Mike’s case, ex-girlfriend), and Will gets to stay employed and can afford to buy toothpaste.

Mike still looks at him with that smile, though, intensity burning in his eyes, the hint of a plan clearly working its way to his features.

Yeah, Will thinks, trying to brush thoughts of Mike away, Senior year–that’s when we’ll get the prom we deserve.

Chapter Text

It’s 8 p.m., prom started thirty minutes ago, and Will is lounging where Keith Jr. would normally be staring with glazed eyes at half-naked women. He has his feet kicked up on the desk, a stack of comics to keep him company, and his Melvald’s vest is slung over the back of the chair.

He’d been here since 6, and there have been exactly two customers, and one didn’t even buy anything. From what he could tell, everybody’s either at prom or waiting at home to make sure the prom-goers get back at a reasonable time and without any hickies dotting their necks.

Mrs. Wilson, his one paying customer of the night, had looked at him with fresh pity as he rang up her five cans of wet cat food. She’d pushed her tortoiseshell glasses up her thin nose and asked, “Now why aren’t you with your girlfriend at that prom everybody’s been talking about?”

Will had made a mental note to add a twenty-seventh tally mark to his sticky note, and he almost just said I’m gay right then and there.

He’d decided to side-step the girlfriend comment entirely, though, and had opted for a simple, “Well, somebody has to watch the store.”

“But on prom night?”

Mike had the right idea–everybody should hate prom. “Yeah, everybody else had stuff to do, so…”

“But aren’t you the only high schooler who works here?”

That really is the irony of it all, because almost all of the employees weren’t able to work because of prom. Most of them are parents and wanted to have time to dote on their children, like his mom with El (which, to be fair, Will is happy for her, but sibling jealousy doesn’t die away just because she grew up in a lab and has mind powers), or else they’re catering the event, chaperoning, helping set up, and what have you. Even Keith Jr. had to take time off, and he’d informed Will it was because he had a good in with one of the bars located just outside of town, and he would be supplying alcohol to minors so long as they were willing to pay a nice sum.

Everybody has a role to play in making this special night come true, Will had supposed.

“Well that’s just not right,” Mrs. Wilson had huffed. When Will was done counting her change, she had carefully shifted it into her hand, then wagged a finger from her free hand in Will’s face. “Next year, you let them know you’re going to prom, and if they tell you no, you just tell me. I’ll straighten them out for you, because this is just unacceptable.”

It had actually made Will smile, and not even one of those plastic customer-service smiles that made his jaw hurt. Putting up with the incessant questions about his love life was almost worth it for moments like that one.

Now, there is no smile on Will’s face. He’s not really frowning, either–if anything, he just feels kind of empty. The comics are great, of course, but it doesn’t stop the gnawing in his chest at the thought of all of his friends in the gym right now, talking and laughing, munching on sugary snacks, perhaps sipping on some Keith Jr.-procured alcohol, and dancing around to Michael Jackson or The Police.

Will leans over and turns the radio up louder. He can at least take pride in knowing that, while his friends and classmates are listening to that top-40s bullshit everybody seems to love, he can listen to the bands that are actually cool, like The Cure and David Bowie and U2. Jonathan might not have had a lot of friends in high school, but he sure as hell knew how to pick out good music, and Will’s grateful for it every day he has to put on a smile and politely nod when El gushes about Madonna.

It’s a little soothing to his bruised ego, especially when the opening beats to The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” start up, and he almost sighs with relief.

As much as he flips through the comics, though, none of them really take his mind away from the high school gym just a few miles down the road. He can’t stop visualizing everything in details so vivid that it’s almost like he’s actually there. His friends swim in front of his vision, all smiling and laughing, maybe a little tipsy, dancing in one big group until the music shifts, the lights dim, and everyone takes the hint that it’s time for the couples to dance.

He sees Lucas and Max drift off alone, then Dustin and Suzie, leaving El and Mike alone. They’d broken up ages ago, right before the world had almost ended, but there’s still a history there. Plus, Mike’s a good friend–he would probably dance with El anyway, no matter what, just to make sure she got that first prom dance of her dreams.

The jealousy rustles awake, low in his chest, but not enough to make him do something stupid like knocking over cans (seriously, what had he been thinking?). It’s just a low simmer that lingers over images of dim lighting, melancholy music with whispered lyrics about faithfulness, hands on hips and shoulders, sparks flickering to life that two of the people he cares about most in his life thought had died out.

He tosses the comic aside and sets his face in his hands, groaning. God, he needs to get over himself.

The song’s just fading out when the door jingles open, and Will curses the fact that he still has two hours left of sitting around, never knowing when someone might stop in and he’ll have to make it look like he’s actually working. He throws his head back, curses whatever cosmic monstrosity decided that this is how his life should go, and pushes the chair away from the desk. As he approaches the counter, he starts to slide the vest back over one of Jonathan’s hand-me-down flannels, eyes still nearly rolling into his head as he begins, “Welcome to Mel–”

The words die out in his throat when he sees none other than Mike-fucking-Wheeler standing in the door, wearing plain black jeans and a dark flannel of his own.

Not a suit.

Will blinks a couple of times.

Mike gives him another awkward wave.

Will shucks off the vest, because this is an interaction that doesn’t call for workplace formalities, and he checks the watch on his wrist.

8:09, it reads.

What is he doing here?

“Hey, Will!” Mike tries, hand still caught in an awkward wave.

“Hi…?” Will glances between Mike and the door. “Why aren’t you at prom?” A weight settles into his chest, and anxiety enters his voice as he asks, “Is El okay?”

“What?” Mike scrunches his face up before shaking his head. “I mean–yeah, everything’s fine. I just…came to see you.”

The radio’s switched over to one of the U2 tracks that came out last year. Wide, atmospheric guitar chords spread out through the store. “Okay? Why?”

Mike gives him a Dude, are you serious right now? kind of look. “Because you can’t go? And you’re all alone?”

“Okay…?”

Throwing his head back, some of his bangs shifting out of his eyes, Mike lets out a sigh and begins to stomp towards the counter. He’s only two steps in when his eyes catch on a stand off to the side, and he rushes over to snatch a bouquet of half-wilted flowers wrapped in blue cellophane. Satisfied with this acquisition, he continues his stomp up to the counter and finally slaps the flowers on the counter, some of their petals breaking off in the process.

Will looks down at them, then back up into Mike’s eyes that still glow with that intensity from last week. “You wanted to buy flowers?”

Mike rolls his eyes. “God, Will, they’re for you.”

To distract from the heat that’s quickly pooling in his cheeks, Will says the first thing that comes to his mind: “You still have to pay for them, though.”

“Fine–just, like, put it on my tab, or something.”

“That’s not how stores work. I can’t just open a tab for you.”

Mike sends him a sharp glare. “I’m trying to give you flowers.”

The full implications of that statement finally crash in on Will, so he carefully drags them closer to him and lifts them up to his face. They’re wilted, sure, but they’re still a lovely mix of chrysanthemums and carnations in all shades of reds, pinks, and yellows, with just a light tinge of brown starting to settle in around their stems.

And Mike gave them to him.

Yeah, he can just put this on a tab somewhere. Or he’ll take the cut out of his pay or, hell, he just won’t tell anybody, because he was gonna have to throw all the flowers out at the end of his shift, anyway.

“Thanks,” he finally manages to squeeze out of his shrinking lungs. He presses the cellophane closer to his chest, then points over his shoulder. “I’ll–um, go put these with my stuff in the back so I don’t forget them.”

Mike’s fingers are drumming in rapid staccatos against the counter. He looks like energy is pulsing off of him in waves, and his eyes go just a little frantic when Will says he’s gonna go to the break room. “Oh, okay. Sure.”

Will pauses for a moment, studying Mike, then adds, “It’ll only be, like, a few seconds.”

“That’s okay,” Mike nods. His tone says otherwise, though.

“Right,” Will breathes out, slowly backing away then turning into the break room to gently lay the flowers next to his backpack. The cellophane crinkles just a little, and he lets out a silent curse when one of the carnation heads wilts off and tumbles to the floor.

Oh well.

Bono’s still crooning about where they’re still building and burning down love when Will walks back out, and he makes it a point to notch the volume down a bit on his way back to the counter. When he steps on his discarded vest, he groans a little at the dirt his shoes are surely gonna leave streaked across it, but nevertheless, he merely kicks it out of his way.

He’s got more important matters to focus on.

“So, why did you buy me flowers?” Will queries as he leans forward on the counter, a mirror image of Mike.

Who definitely can’t hide the red blooming across his own cheeks or the nervousness in his tone as he stammers out, “I–well, you see–it’s prom, and…”

Will nods. Keep going.

“...And you buy people flowers for prom.”

That monster’s back in his chest, pressing forward with its ear to Will’s ribs, trying to make out what, exactly, that phrase is supposed to mean amidst all of its generalities.

Does he mean, like, people just generally buy other people flowers for school dances? Or does he mean that he is specifically giving flowers to Will in a strictly romantic, I want to ask you out to the big dance kind of way?

And when did their friendship ever get this complicated?

Oh, it was probably somewhere in between when Will got kidnapped into another dimension and when Will sat with Mike on his couch on Halloween in 1984 and realized oh, shit, this is how I’m supposed to feel about girls, isn’t it?

“Right,” Will nods, “You buy people…flowers. For prom.”

Mike groans, shoving his hands into his messy waves. “I mean–yes, but you also give specific people flowers?”

There’s a stirring of both contentment and nervousness awakening in his stomach, the monster finally at ease enough to rest once more but not enough to keep its ears up, fully alert.

When Will lifts his hand up to the back of his neck, he catches a whiff of the flowers that still clings to his hands, refreshing and cool.

“Oh.”

Mike leans forward a little. “Oh?”

Will swallows. “Yeah, like–oh.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Will shrugs. “I don’t know, Mike. You’re the one who walked in here when you should be at prom and slapped a bouquet of flowers in front of me.”

Bono’s crooning finally fades out, replaced by the pulsing drums and guitars of Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” It’s glam metal, so–well, Jonathan has lots of opinions on it, which means Will has lots of opinions on it, too, but it’s not that bad.

He’s also way more interested in whatever Mike has to say for himself.

“I–I thought you’d like the flowers, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and…” Mike raises his arms and lets them limply fall to his sides. “And I wanted to spend time with you, okay? I couldn’t stand the thought of being at prom without you.”

Oh, okay. So this is another It’s Hawkins–it’s not the same without you statement that he’s going to spend the next three months up at night dissecting in his brain to try and decipher if Mike really meant it like that or if he was just an oblivious fool who didn’t know how to pick the right words.

Will swallows, then shakily says, “Well, you’re here, and now neither of us are at prom.”

Mike looks down at him, raising his eyebrows. “Maybe we could not be at prom…together?”

Oh, Will knows this one, too. It’s just like Halloween in 1984, one of those together statements that Will will assume means far more than what it actually means, and he won’t find out until his best friend is lip-locked with another mysterious cute girl with superpowers.

As bitter and confused as he feels about his friendship with Mike, he can’t shake how nice this feels, or how genuinely sweet it is that Mike ditched prom and all of their friends just to come here, to stupid Melvald’s with the grimy floors and generic food brands and fluorescent lights that seem to reveal every imperfection a human face could ever hold on it.

And he’s still here when he could’ve walked out ages ago.

So, Will manages to crack his face into a smile. “Yeah. Together.”

It becomes apparent almost immediately that this is exactly what Mike had been planning for, because after he lets out a brief sigh, he grabs Will’s wrists and shakes them around. “Then we need to dance! That’s, like, the whole point of prom!”

“I thought the whole point of prom was just to get wasted and make out with somebody you’ll regret seeing later?” Will teases, drawing out one of the many, many lines Mike has deployed in his grand, ever-sprawling thesis statement against the concept of prom.

Mike’s face burns brighter, though, and he seems genuinely caught off guard. He gently sets Will’s wrists back down on the counter. “Um…Right. Well, I’ve changed my mind, and I think we should dance. Just to say we did it, so people won’t bother us about it later in life.”

Right. Will gives a tentative nod, then moves to step around the counter.

“Wait–” Mike scoots past him and approaches the radio, scrutinizing it. He’s only met with Joe Elliott screaming about doing something in the name of love. “Can we please change this to something more danceable?”

Okay, Will means it–he and Jonathan don’t like glam metal, but it’s definitely preferable to whatever synth pop selection Mike’s probably thinking of.

But also…Mike is being super nice, and he’d even bought him flowers, so Will slaps on his best customer-service smile and grits out a breezy little “Sure.”

Mike fiddles with the knob until it settles on, of course, one of those top-40s stations. The synths pulse with electric energy, and it could be any array of names singing right now–it just sounds like any other pop song that’s come out in the last decade.

But when Mike grabs his hands and drags him out from the counter and begins making him sway to the beat, eliciting laughs from both of them in time with the music, he thinks he can put up with generic pop music. He’s sure Jonathan would understand and forgive him for daring to enjoy himself to a Madonna-Eurythmics-Wham!-Tears for Fears-Bangles song.

Will’s only danced with somebody else once; that was way back at the Snow Ball, when he’d held a girl at arm’s length, feeling like the whole world was staring at him and could tell, could see him glancing at Mike every few seconds from across the room and see that he had been wishing for the girl in front of him to be someone else. Looking back, that little monster of jealousy was there even back then, just a mere pawing at his stomach rather than the hot, spiky claws he’s felt dragging down his abdomen the past few weeks.

Needless to say, Will doesn’t really know how to dance, but Mike doesn’t either. He’s sure if some poor soul happened to be peeking through the windows at this moment, they’d be horrified to see two boys dancing together, let alone with their awkward, jerky motions, but he can live with that.

Just to be clear–Will only really cares about dancing right now because he’s getting to dance with Mike, even if they are just awkwardly jumping around and bumping into shelves all the way down the aisles in time with the beat. His embarrassment is drowned out by their shared laughter, though, and the way Mike’s hands grip his wrists.

And the way that, after the first song, Will finally gathers enough courage to flip his hands around and grasp Mike’s wrists back.

A few more generic tunes pass by, and they still haven’t managed to stop laughing, even as they’ve drawn closer to each other. Will’s only really aware of their proximity when the music fades into a slower tempo, and the sparse opening chords of a song that’s permanently etched into Will’s memory begin to play.

It’s “Every Breath You Take” by The Police.

Their laughs both dry up then, and they stop moving, hands still gripped against each other’s wrists. They turn their heads to the front of the store, where Sting’s voice crackles through the radio to softly croon about his unrequited love.

“Memories, right?” Mike lightly chuckles, though he looks at Will with a bit of nervousness worrying at his features.

Will tries to swallow against the dry knot in his throat, to ignore the stirrings of that creature in his chest that remind him of four years ago. Him, swaying in one corner of the middle school gym, looking over his dance partner’s shoulder to where Mike swayed with El on the other side, their foreheads locked, their lips briefly brushing against each other.

Oh can’t you see

You belong to me?

How my poor heart aches

With every step you take?

“Yeah,” Will manages to strain out. His shoulders involuntarily tense up, and he has the sudden urge to let Mike go, to tell him to go to prom and find the girl of his dreams to dance with and kiss–to do all the normal prom things teenagers are supposed to do.

Not reliving less than optimal middle school memories in a run-down store after dancing with your best guy friend.

He doesn’t have time to let go, though–Mike moves his right hand so it’s gripping Will’s left and holds it up, and his other hand manages to let go of Will’s wrist to rest against his waist.

And before Will has time to fully process what’s going on, they both begin to sway as gently as ever to the song. Will isn’t entirely sure what to do–he can feel Mike’s eyes looking directly at him, but the eye contact feels a little too intense; plus, his only dance experience included him constantly staring over his partner’s shoulder, so his eyes just kind of naturally rest there, anyway.

Every move you make

And every vow you break

Every smile you fake

Every claim you stake–

“What, are the cans of soup more interesting than me?” Mike teases, tilting his head just so that Will’s forced to look in his eyes.

“Sorry,” Will mutters, rolling his eyes. “I just noticed I forgot to put a sticker on one of them.”

“I’m sure.”

“I’m serious!”

“Well, I’m not gonna look at it, so.”

The music begins to pick up into a furious roar, Sting’s voice taking on a tone of more ragged desperation:

Since you've gone, I've been lost without a trace

I dream at night, I can only see your face

I look around, but it's you I can't replace

I feel so cold, and I long for your embrace

I keep crying, baby, baby please

It makes the back of Will’s throat hot and prickly, like the past is trying to claw its way back out of him and into the present, his seventeen year-old self removing layer after layer until he’s thirteen again and at his first school dance, watching what he can’t have get everything he wants. He realizes it would hurt less if he still didn’t feel that way now–even with Mike right in front of him, holding his hand and waist with eyes nearly begging Will to look back, he feels like he’s just trapped in the middle school gym all over again. He’s dancing with Mike, sure, but it’s not with the rest of their classmates, all because he has to work because his family just barely scrapes together a living, and even if he hadn’t been scheduled to work, he and Mike probably couldn’t have danced in the gym anyway. If one of the teachers wouldn’t make a comment, then one of the students definitely would.

It’s that same smallness he’d felt back then, like his body’s trying to fold in on itself and it’s squeezing his heart out through his ribs.

“Are you okay?” Mike asks softly. Their sways have slowed considerably, and they’re just barely moving now.

Will swallows. His throat feels incredibly dry. “Uh…Yeah. Just memories, like you said.”

Mike’s face falls, recognition dawning in his eyes. “Oh shit–that was right after all the Mindflayer stuff–”

Oh. Right. The Mindflayer stuff.

Yeah, that’s what this is about.

He can’t even coax the lie out of his mouth this time, though. “No, it’s not that. It’s just…” he shrugs. “Memories, like you said.”

“Like the Snow Ball?”

Shit. “I guess.”

“But you look sad.”

They’ve completely stopped moving now. Their joined hands hang droopy in the air, and Mike’s hand softens against his waist.

Will’s hand rests against Mike’s shoulder, and he has to make a concerted effort to not run his hands through Mike’s hair. “It’s fine, Mike, really.” Then, trying to lighten the mood, he adds, “Also, Jonathan says The Police are a little overrated.”

Mike doesn’t buy it, though. He tilts his head, studying Will’s face, then asks, “Are you sad because of the Snow Ball?”

For a moment, Will curses the fact that Mike’s so good at reading him, as does the monster slowly awakening in his chest that’s telling him more more more–lean in closer, press your lips to his, make it all go away– “I guess.”

“What about it?”

Will tilts his head up, trying to avoid Mike’s eyes. “I just didn’t have a good time, that’s all.”

Mike furrows his brow. “I thought you did, though. We all got to hang out together–you even danced with that one girl.”

“Yeah, we all hung out,” Will repeats, but even he can hear the malice that’s creeped into his voice.

Mike raises his eyebrows. “You thought we didn’t hang out enough?”

Okay, so they’re doing this now, apparently–awkwardly standing around, holding each other’s hands and waists or shoulders, in the middle of Melvald’s on prom night, while Will is technically clocked in and earning $3.35 an hour. Okay. Cool. This is fine, and the little monster that’s slowly waking back up in his chest is definitely not starting to coax a band of spiky hot fire back up in his chest at the beckoning of those old memories. “I mean, Lucas had Max, and you had El, and Dustin and Nancy were too busy hanging out, so…”

“But you danced with that one girl.”

“Mike, I don’t even remember her name. You don’t even know her name.”

Mike presses his lips into a tight line before muttering out a small little “Right.”

“So, yeah, sorry if it wasn’t fun enough for me, but that was four years ago, and there are more important things in life.”

Then, Mike asks him point blank: “Were you upset at me? Because I was with El?”

There’s that hot clawing at his insides again, and it’s telling him to make it stop, to draw Mike’s attention away from its existence and how it underlies a little part of everything Will does for him. It is jealousy, writhing hot and painful, a bitter longing for something he feels like he can’t have no matter how hard he tries.

But for once, he ignores the behests of the beast. He doesn’t lie.

“Yes,” he says, his voice barely a whisper, “I was.”

Every move you make

And every vow you break

Every smile you fake

Every claim you stake–

Mike completely stops what little swaying they had been doing. Even without the extra motion, he draws Will just a little closer and studies his face. There’s no anger in his eyes, and he doesn’t look like he’s about to blow up. If anything, he looks hurt.

“I’m sorry–” Will starts.

“No–no, Will, don’t apologize.” He starts their gentle swaying up again, but it feels more like an afterthought than anything. “I just wish you would’ve told me.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

Because I realized I had a crush on you, and it was already turning into something out of my control, and gay kids can’t just waltz up to their straight friends and their new girlfriends and tell them he’s upset because he thought they were going to be together forever, not him alone while his best friend and new girlfriend ride off into the sunset.

Will shrugs. His fingers are starting to grow tacky against Mike’s. “Things were really complicated, and you looked happy, so I didn’t want to disturb you or guys or anything.”

“You still could’ve told me.”

Will rolls his eyes. Maybe all of this prom talk was just an elaborate ruse by Mike to psychoanalyze him and decide if Will’s just weird or if he really is gay, like his dad and all the middle school bullies had liked to remind him.

I'll be watching you

Every breath you take

Every move you make

Every bond you break

Every step you take

I'll be watching you

“Well…what about your painting?”

Oh God–they’d managed to go two perfectly good years tiptoeing around the painting Mike kept tacked above his desk and Will’s awkward admission that El hadn’t commissioned it, but he wants to talk about it now? While they’re half-slow dancing, half-arguing?

“It’s really nothing, Mike, can we please just–”

“And what you said in the van.”

Will rolls his eyes. “I was just being stupid, okay?” Then, with the confidence only a seventeen year-old could have, he continues, “I mean, I was fifteen, and everything with the Upside Down was a mess, and–”

“What if I feel the same way?”

Will’s brain kind of crashes at that point, because it’s beginning to feel like they’re having two very different conversations. Or, maybe they’re having the same conversation but backwards: Mike jumping way ahead while Will’s winding all the way back.

The chords of the song are dying out with the last refrains of Sting’s voice. It makes the silence that’s fallen between them so much louder, like a tangible presence that actually presses against Will’s eardrums.

The light overhead flickers, just the slightest, and when it stabilizes once more, it’s brighter than ever. It illuminates the intense swirl of emotions currently darkening Mike’s eyes.

“What?”

They’ve stopped swaying once more. Mike guides their hands down, though he still keeps their fingers intertwined, and his other hand tightens around Will’s waist.

“You said those things in the van. That you needed me,” he squeezes Will’s hand. “What if I need you, too?”

This isn’t one of WIll’s Algebra II fantasies–no, those never, under any circumstances, involve the painting. Even in the ones that progressed up to them being out of college and living together in a big city with new jobs, the painting is never present.

But this is real life, and in real life, actions have consequences. He gave Mike the painting, and Mike’s finally asking about it; he stared with jealousy at Mike and El at the Snow Ball four years ago, and he finally had to admit to it tonight.

Also, it’s real life, and Mike Wheeler just said he needs Will.

Will has basically primed his brain to reject any semblance of an advance from his best friend, though, mostly because he’s been convinced it would all be one big joke or fluke of the universe if it did happen, so his first words are, “Mike, it’s okay, you don’t have to–”

“I don’t have to do anything,” Mike interrupts, a slight edge of annoyance in his voice as his hand tightens around Will’s waist again, his fingers pressing enough through his flannel that he can feel the heat of them against his skin. “I’m telling you because I want to. Because it’s important.”

Will’s hand softens against Mike’s shoulder. “Okay, but–”

“I need you, Will,” Mike continues, “And I know I haven’t been the best at showing it, but it’s the truth. And I just–I can’t keep pretending like I don’t feel about you the way I do.”

Is Mike…Is Mike confessing to his feelings before Will?

Wait–Mike has feelings for Will?

“That’s why I wanted to make sure you came to prom, because I thought I could tell you then, but you couldn’t go, obviously, and I couldn’t just sit around with this hanging around, and I just–” Mike takes a shuddering breath and draws Will a little closer, “I just wanted to say how I felt.”

Will nods slowly. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah.”

Mike raises his eyebrows, carefully studying his face, eyes even trickling a little down to his mouth. “Cool.”

Whatever fiery creature lives in Will’s chest now stirs awake once more, and it’s back to pushing against his chest. More more more.

It pushes enough that Will actually moves forward. There’s so much more that needs to be said, and Will feels like he needs to stop and take a break to straighten out everything in his head, to carefully plan out his next steps. He needs to play the last few minutes over and over again in his head until he’s analyzed them from every angle, and then he should proceed.

But also, he’s learned in the past few weeks that, sometimes, it’s fun to give in to impulsivity. Sure, it can be humiliating as hell, if the scrape on his chin means anything, but that frantic force in his chest is what got Mike to help him stock shelves, got Mike’s fingers on his face, got them to slow dance in the middle of this run-down store.

He presses so close to Mike that their chests are nearly flush against each other.

And they’re close enough that Will has to push a little onto his toes to finally lean forward and connect their lips.

He can’t tell what song is playing on the radio now–he doesn’t care, nor does he care that his first kiss is happening at fucking Melvald’s while he’s technically clocked in for work, because it’s just him and Mike in the store, the bright fluorescents shining, and the soft, insistent give of Mike’s lips against his as he slides his hand from Mike’s shoulder to the back of his hair and finally runs his fingers through it, just like he’s always wanted to. Mike’s hand presses more against his waist, then slides to the small of his back as a grin pulls at his lips.

Their other hands remain intertwined, hanging at their sides, and neither of them makes an effort to pull them away from each other.

Will breaks away first, and, while Mike clearly had been into it, Will still looks at his first crush–hell, his first love–with nervousness, like he’d actually made a big mistake and misread the whole thing. His hand drifts away from the back of Mike’s neck, and he averts his eyes. “Um, if that wasn’t what you meant–”

It apparently is what Mike meant, though, because Mike closes the distance between their lips once more, and this time, he pushes Will forward, backing him up until he’s the one leaning against one of the shelves, their plastic parts gently pressed into his back as Mike rakes a hand into Will’s hair, tilts his head, and kisses him until neither of them have any more words to say, until the song fades into another one, and another, and another.

Until the bell jingles at the door, causing Will to pull away from Mike. He blinks up, grinning at the sight of Mike’s eyes this close to his, as a gaggle of familiar voices pulls into focus, and his eyes widen.

“Everyone else is here?” Will asks.

“Yeah!” Mike pulls away, grabbing his wrist, and tugs him towards the front of the store. “We decided we’d rather have the best prom ever this year with you, so I told them to come here around nine for us all to hang out.”

Will feels like he’s about to dissolve into a puddle of flesh-colored goo on the ground.

“And don’t worry,” Mike grins, leaning closer, “I know how jealous you get, so I’ll be sure to only dance with you for the night.”

Oh. Oh God–the tissue boxes, the soup cans, the mop–

Mike could tell?

Will’s face burns red, and the beast in his chest is caught between the death throes of embarrassment and joyfully contentment.

And before Will can formulate a response, Mike smirks and drags him forward once more. They stumble up to their friends, who are all decked out in their prom gear and loudly complaining about each and every aspect of whatever the high school had pulled together and forced students to buy tickets to.

“It was so dark, and it still smelled like my old basketball shoes in there!” Lucas groans.

“Too loud,” El notes, shaking her head.

“You’re telling me,” Max nudges El in the ribs. “It was so loud I could barely see.”

“Does she just really enjoy making jokes about being blind?” Suzie tentatively asks Dustin, who nods before adding, “Also, that punch tasted awful–”

“That might’ve been my manager’s doing,” Will supplies, then has to further explain when everyone looks at him with confusion: “He said he was going to be selling lots of alcohol to minors tonight, and I don’t think it was a joke.”

“Holy shit,” Mike mutters.

Lucas sighs, arm falling over Max’s shoulders. “Well, either way, I’m glad we’re here. Prom sucked, but it was sucking more without you there, Will.”

“We’d much rather be here,” Dustin emphasizes before his eyes snag on one of the aisles and he begins to pull away. “You guys still stock those gummy bears, right?”

Will rolls his eyes. “Yes, but you still have to pay for them.”

“What, no hand-out for prom night?”

“No.”

Mike leans over and whispers into his ear, “But only for me, though, right?”

It sends a shudder down Will’s arms and–yeah, he could get used to this. He thinks that little monster in his chest definitely could, too. It makes him squeeze Mike’s hand just a bit more, shoot him a quick and teasing glance, then let go to follow Dustin down the aisle.

***

He watches Mike and El dance around with everyone else as he sits on the counter, kicking his heels back against the front of the counter and grinning at the sight of his friends and their antics. Top-40s hits continue to pulse out of the radio, and Will’s beginning to think he could maybe like pop music, just a little bit.

And for the first time since a few weeks ago, Will can finally say that it’s not jealousy that’s filling him to the brim, but joy, because it’s just him and his friends enjoying their prom night how they want to, even if it is a little unconventional.

Mike turns and looks back at him with the goofiest grin on his face.

Nope–the creature in his chest seems to have mostly settled down. There’s no jealousy in him–just a pure appreciation for life and the wonders it can sometimes spawn in the world.

Though he does have a lot of explaining to do.

He might leave out the part about the cans, though.