Chapter Text
Summer fucking sucked.
The sticky dregs of heat traipsing along at the end of August were miserable, humidity bringing with it drops of sweat that gathered at the back of Mike’s neck and created a mess of his hair as they slowly made their way down his back, soaking through the neckline of the plain white and green PE uniform he’d reluctantly donned in the crowded and sweaty locker room.
Dazed, he wondered vaguely if air conditioning was the true gift to mankind from the heavens—Prometheus be damned—and if so, lord , what sins had he committed to make three extra laps around the Hawkins High track an appropriate punishment?
A whistle pulled him from his thoughts, sharp and irritating.
“Wheeler! You’re done! It’s 3:15, the day’s over. Go back inside and shower, and you’re good to go home!”
Oh, fuck that. There’s no way he could make it home, not with the hot leather seat on his bike, or the sticky rubber handles that would press against his already sweaty hands, or the burning metal of the frame that would brush against his legs—now that would be misery at its finest.
He glanced at his watch.
Son of a—it was 3:27, that lying bastard.
He dragged a hand across his forehead, pushing his choppy bangs up and out of the way as he came to a stop, panting heavily.
“Mike!” A voice called, bright and far too cheery for the outdoor sauna they were trapped in.
He looked over to see Will, bouncing on his tiptoes at the edge of the track, red and blue striped tee coordinating with his dark denim shorts and red and white sneakers, his thick, glossy art binder held tight to his chest.
Mike made his way to the grassy border of the track, dragging his feet and forgoing the perfect posture his mom kept insisting would be good for him one day in favor of a comfortable slouch that kept the damp fabric of his shirt away from his chest.
“Why the hell do you do this willingly,” Mike groaned, buckling his knees and falling flat onto his back in the recently cut grass, sharp blades pressing uncomfortably into his forearms. “I will never understand why you chose to join the track team.”
“It’s cross country, Mike,” Will reminded him, tapping him on the nose as he neatly crossed his legs beneath him, joining Mike in the grass. “Track is a spring sport, I don’t start conditioning for that until February.”
“Close enough.” He held his hand above his eyes, shielding them from the piercing rays of the blazing hot sun.
“Hey, do you want to know why I’m here or not?” Will held the binder up, fingers tapping excitedly against the hard plastic. “I’ve got stuff to show you.”
Mike sat up straight, pulling his knees to his chest.
“Wait, do you mean—you finished it?”
“Yeah! It’s just drying in the studio now!” he beamed, grinning widely. “Spent all of study hall working on it, and I went in for lunch too. Even recruited Allison to help me clean up so that I could spend more time on it.”
Mike grinned, his smile lopsided. “That’s awesome, Will! Can I see it?”
“Yeah!” He paused, wrinkling his nose. “Well—you can see it in a bit. Respectfully, you kinda smell like sweat. And bad deodorant. So maybe that comes first.”
Mike rolled his eyes.
“I’ll shower first, obviously. And hey—it’s not a bad deodorant, what the hell?!”
“Mike, it’s worse than the summer where Lucas used exclusively Axe Body Spray. Let’s all be honest with ourselves here, okay?” He pulled himself to his feet, offering out a helping hand which Mike gladly took. “D’you want me to wait for you in the locker room, or should I just go straight to the art room?”
Mike shrugged. “You can wait if you want. I won’t be long.”
“Mm. Explains a lot,” Will commented, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
The gesture made something in Mike’s stomach twist, and he frowned instinctively. What the hell was that?
“What’s up? What’s with the frown?”
He shook his head, hair flipping into his eyes and sticking to the sweat on his forehead.
“Nothing! I don’t know. It’s nothing.” He cleared his throat. “Look, I don’t smell that bad-“
“Friends don’t lie!” Will called out, not even turning around as he made his way back toward the long cinder block building.
Mike watched him walk off, eyebrows raised and mouth slightly parted, before glancing around conspicuously and raising the neck of his shirt to his nose.
Ah, fuck. Yeah, he was right.
“Hey, Will! Wait up!”
~
Mike shook out his hair, spraying water droplets across the grungy locker room as he ran a towel along the damp strands, taking care not to drip any water onto his t-shirt or shorts.
Slinging his backpack across his shoulders, he pushed open the locker room door, heading down the hallway to the art room.
He’d only been in there a few times, coming to visit Will after school. The room was colorful; splashes of paint were tossed haphazardly around the room, remnants of past projects. Paintings, done either in watercolor or something slightly gloopier (Will would know), laid in various states of dryness across the wire metal racks in the back corner. Along the row of windows stood several easels, each heavily stained with splotches of spilled paint and dirty water.
It was atmospheric, pleasant even—that is, if it weren’t for her .
Allison Markenson, his newly-decreed arch-nemesis-of-pain-and-death—sitting at the table next to the easel and stool where Will was perched.
Okay, so he didn’t really have a reason to dislike her. They’d never really talked —but he sat next to her in English, and every aspect of her just grated on his nerves.
The way she’d openly flirt with the boys around Mike was frustrating already (not that Mike had a problem with a girl flirting, but it was far too close to him for comfort—and besides, flirting at school? Gross.), but now her and Will were great friends, and they sat together in art, and now Mike wasn’t allowed to talk shit about her at home because it was obvious that she was into him and then there was the fact Will clearly like-liked her too which was just so not cool because Will knows that Mike hates Allison and like it’s not like Mike cares who Will likes or doesn’t like because he wants his friend to be happy but the least he could do was not go for the girl that was the number one public enemy of Micheal Wheeler, and—
She was awful. There. That’s all.
Abruptly, she glanced at her watch and seemed to start, cursing under her breath and quickly shoving her sketchbook and nice pencils into the satchel sitting at her feet.
“I’m heading out, okay Will?” she called out, picking up her bag and slinging it across her shoulder.
“Bye,” Will responded absentmindedly, narrowing his eyes as he scratched at a spare fleck of paint on his easel. He straightened his back, tucking a stray hair behind his ears. “We still good for Monday?”
“Yeah!” she said brightly, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Meet you in here after school, kay?”
Will nodded, turning back to his easel.
“Sounds good.”
Mike wrinkled his nose. God. Everything from her stupid bleached blonde hair (she should try toner for a change), to her snobby headband (stuck up) to the way she laughed when Will made a joke that was an inside joke (how should she know what it meant) was irritating beyond belief . Besides, couldn’t she see that Will was busy? He didn’t have time to talk about whatever this was.
The door closed with a satisfying click as she left the room, hair whipping around the corner.
Mike turned to Will, uncrossing his arms and sticking his hands in his pockets.
“Mike!” Will grinned, noticing him for the first time. “You came!”
“I mean, I promised I would,” Mike pointed out, quirking his lip. “I’ve been wanting to see your painting for ages, I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Oh. Yeah, ha,” Will said, tucking another small strand behind his ear and glancing up. “You’re right.”
Awkward silence.
Why was it awkward?
“So! Allison!” Mike blurted out, instantly regretting opening his mouth. Stupid, stupid, stupid—
“…What?”
Nice going, Wheeler.
“So, are you and Allison, like—“ he cleared his throat awkwardly. “Are you guys dating?”
Will gave him a weird look.
“What? No,” he said, bemused. “Mike, we’re barely even friends. She just asked me for help with an astronomy project, since she knows I like that stuff. Plus, she helped me clean up earlier, so.”
Barely even friends? What? Okay, so maybe he misinterpreted. Maybe.
“Oh. Uh, cool.”
“Besides, don’t you think I would have told you if we were? You’re my best friend.”
Mike grinned.
“I’m your best friend?” He teased, leaning against the easel. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
Will glanced up at him.
“Oh, come on. You knew that,” he said, smiling lightly and tapping Mike on the nose.
Mike swallowed.
The sun was shining down from the window behind Will, highlighting the green streaks in his hazel eyes and casting a bright shine across his hair. He looked practically angelic, almost like he was in one of the baroque paintings or sculptures that Will always spent so long admiring in his glossy art books.
“Oh, and look! The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa!” Will said excitedly, tugging lightly at Mike’s sleeve and pointing at the open book laying on the beige carpet. “It’s a Bernini, and— see the light shining down on it from behind? They didn’t have electric lighting then, so they installed a window— hidden from the viewer— up above and behind the sculpture, so that it could cast light onto the figures and create an angelic, holy effect.”
“Okay, but why is she making that face?“ Mike asked, bringing his face closer to the book to peer at the photo. “It looks like she’s—“
“Before you make whatever dumb joke you were about to, it’s meant to have erotic undertones,” Will interrupted, glancing back at him, amusement written across his features. “Don’t ask me why, since it’s about a prophetic visit from an angel—”
“Maybe the angel was really hot?” he suggested, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. “I mean, you never know—”
“Mike?” Will waved his hand in front of Mike’s eyes, snapping him out of the memory. “Did you hear me?”
“Wha—huh?” He shook his head. “Sorry, what’d you say?”
“I said, you should probably stop leaning against the easel. It’s not super strong, I don’t want it to break.”
“Oh. Yeah, sorry.” He took his elbow off the frame, shoving his hands back into his pockets and blinking rapidly. “So, can I see it? The painting?”
“Oh!” Will visibly brightened, leaping off the stool he’d been perched on and darting over to the large drying rack stationed at the other end of the room. Moving slowly so as to not smudge the still-drying paint, he pulled the canvas out from the rack, turning the painted side of it towards his chest to hide it from view.
“I still have to gallery wrap it, which—I technically should’ve done that before I painted it, I screwed that up a bit.” Will scrunched up his nose, wincing slightly. “I’m not actually sure if I’ll be able to, now that it’s painted, I don’t want to crack it. Shit.” Noticing Mike’s questioning expression, he added, “It’s like adding the wooden supports to the canvas so that it’s a block instead of a piece of fabric. It’s the same as stretching the canvas, but it’s better for displaying.”
Mike nodded.
It was impressive, just how much Will knew about art and the likes of it. Everything from gallery wrapped canvases, to fancy painting techniques (he fondly remembered the long rant Will had gone on earlier that summer about tenebrism), to the difference between types of paint—listening to Will talk about art was an incredible experience, and a side of him that not a lot of people got to see. He’d grown into himself more throughout their first year of high school, but he was still fairly quiet about his interests, preferring to keep to himself and their close circle of friends rather than looking for big groups or popular clubs.
Track (“ cross country ,” a little voice in his head chided) had been the big exception, much to the chagrin of Mike. Conditioning throughout the summer, and practice nearly every day after school, meant it was rare that Will would be free in the afternoons to play Nintendo games or read comic books like they used to.
Really, though, it was like that with everyone, constantly busy with extracurriculars and clubs. After a brief respite, Dustin had gotten back into drama and theatre (due to perform as Banquo in their production of Macbeth this year, a fact that he would never neglect to mention ever since the successful audition). Alongside Dustin, El had joined him as a ‘techie’ , as she and Dustin called it; as assistant head of the stage crew, she spent a lot of time backstage fiddling with confusing soundboards or painting large backdrops and props. Inexplicably, she’d also founded the knitting club—a fact that’s perplexed Mike ever since she announced it. Lucas briefly picked up basketball their freshman year, before discarding it a few months later in favor of lacrosse, a sport that he regularly declared to be far superior and unlike any other. (There had been a fair few attempted sword fights with his lacrosse stick versus the lightsaber he had hanging up on his bedroom wall). Max had joined debate, a decision that had proved to be mighty overpowering for the inevitable sessions of bickering about movies that happened as they spilled out of the downtown Hawkins theater, and she seemed like she was gearing for the head of the team for the next year, since Molly Tennelsian, the current leader, was set to graduate this spring.
And as for Mike? He was just plain old Mike , much to the concern of Nancy (“Mike, you do know that colleges want extracurriculars and variety in your high school resume, right ?”) and the chagrin of his parents (“Micheal, you need to get out of your room—all of your friends are doing clubs or sports, and you've ended up spending far too much time moping around the house!”). Apparently, spending your time absentmindedly flipping through channels on television or flinging discarded scraps of writing toward the trash bin (and missing horribly) was physically offensive to everyone around him.
“So, here!” Will slowly turned the canvas around to face Mike, who let out a sharp inhale.
He had painted a taiga forest, sharp pine trees cutting lines into the stormy gray sky as a motionless flock of birds flew overtop of the woods.
And sure, the forest was beautiful—but it wasn’t the focus.
At the center of the painting stood a dramatic reenactment of a particularly beloved campaign, their DnD characters painted in dramatic action poses, each completely decked out in shining armor, heavy robes, or animal skin with hints of metal. Throughout the painting, small creatures darted around on uneven legs, appearing to hop in and out of the Party in sporadic attacks that they had begun to successfully beat off.
There were easter eggs from previous campaigns, too; the extra sword in Mike’s holster was the one they’d found in their very first dungeon crawl, and Dustin’s ax was dripping with the bright blue blood of a Troglodyte from an unusually tricky game a few years back.
Lucas was at the front of the Party, his ranger holding his bow up and out, nocked and milliseconds from being shot as he charged forward, more blue and yellow arrows sticking out of the leather quiver strung across his back. Behind Lucas was Dustin, his half-orc character brandishing an ax, with thick furs over his chest and a two-pronged viking helmet protecting his head. Will the Wise was near the back, pointing his glowing staff at an off-screen foe, a glowing green fireball shooting forward.
Small nods to El and Max were there, too; despite the fact that they’d only ever played a single campaign with them before tapping out to go rollerskate and skateboard, respectively, he’d painted El’s crown that she’d insisted on her character wearing sticking out of the satchel bag slung across Dustin’s shoulders, as well as Max’s ornate jade and silver dagger hanging loosely from a leather strap on Lucas’ armor.
But what had really made him gasp was the way that Will had painted his paladin .
He was posed back to back with Will’s character, both seemingly protecting each other from the small monsters prowling at their feet. His armor was silver and ornate, with golden dragon decals with ruby eyes positioned on his chest plate while a tattered and stained red cape brushed the edges of the forest floor—and possibly best of all, tied around his upper arm was a red bandana with a clean white heart, a reminder of the extra life granted to him during one of Mike’s favorite-ever campaigns that they’d held earlier that year.
“Holy shit, Will,” Mike breathed, brushing his fingers along the unpainted edges of the canvas.
“You like it?” Will asked anxiously, his eyes big and round.
“That doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about it,” he said quietly, peering closer at each individual character.
Will let out a deep breath.
“I’d hoped you would,” he said, grinning widely. “Not half bad, eh?”
Mike shot his head up.
“Not half bad?!” he demanded, staring at Will with a huge smile. “Will, that is such an understatement, this is fucking awesome!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah!”
Will lowered the painting, still grinning ear to ear.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said, walking back over to the racks with the painting in hand.
“Like it? God, Will, I love it,” Mike said, craning his neck to still be able to see Will’s expression.
Wait. There was another painting laying on the shelf on the rack labeled with Will Byers in neat, blocky handwriting—one he hadn’t seen.
“Hey, Will?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s that other painting?” Mike asked
“Hm?”
“The painting on your rack. Underneath the other one?”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” Will said hastily. “Just a practice piece. Color theory and composition.”
Mike watched closely as Will slid the painting onto the shelf above the mysterious piece, narrowing his eyes.
Will spun around, clapping his hands a single time before moving to mess with the strings of his backpack.
“So! Ready to go?” he asked, clearing his throat.
“No, wait,” Mike said, peering over Will’s shoulder. “Can I see the other painting?”
Was he crazy, or did Will look pink?
“It’s nothing! Really boring, really,” Will said, pointedly looking anywhere but at Mike. “Unless you want to see half finished sketches and random splotches of color—“
“Yeah, I do,” he insisted, moving his head back and forth in an attempt to catch Will’s eye. “Why don’t you want me to see it?”
Will faltered.
“It’s, uh—“ he coughed. “Okay, look, it’s a nude study, alright? We had to do one for class, it’s nothing, just some random dude, you probably wouldn't even want to see it—“
Mike raised his eyebrows.
“You mean to tell me that your teacher brought in a nude model to pose for a bunch of sophomores?”
“Yep!” Will’s voice sounded strained. “I know, super weird, right—“
“Will, that’s got to be breaking about a hundred laws, there’s no way —“
“Except that she did! She did, yep, so let’s just move on so we can stop talking about the—“ He coughed again, slowly nudging Mike further and further out the door. “—experience, ‘kay, cause it’s no big deal and that’s all the painting is.”
Will closed the door and stood directly in front of it, blocking the door handle from Mike’s reach.
He stared at Will, bewildered.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Will sniffed.
Okay. Fine then.
“Look, it’s fine if you don’t want to show me the painting,” Mike said, tapping Will on the shoulder. “No need to make up a pervy teacher to tell me no. Just—maybe sometime, I could see it? If that’s okay?”
Will visibly wilted, his shoulders drooping down.
“Okay,” he said, defeated. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.” Mike gently bumped his shoulder into Will’s. “Look, are you ready to go?”
Will wrinkled his nose.
“I don’t want to even think about the bikes right now,” he groaned, holding a hand to his forehead. “They’re going to be so damn hot .”
“Christ, don’t remind me.”
“Mmph.”
They walked down the hall together, practically dragging their feet as they finally reached the exit out to the bike racks.
“Ready?” Will asked, taking a deep breath and hoisting his backpack further up onto his shoulder.
Mike sighed.
“Ready.”