Chapter Text
Monday 27th of April, 1990 There are a lot of coffee shops in Chicago. Like a concerning amount. They’re scattered around on every street, every corner, inside every store. Simply everywhere. Although, if you look past the big corporate chains, and cafés that sell more pastries than actual coffee, you just might find a small bookstore tucked away in a quiet corner of the city. Its bookshelves line the walls from floor to ceiling while plush green chairs and wooden coffee tables are scattered amongst them. It’s a charming little place, though it’s a wonder its even considered a café, with its singular quiet coffee machine and little beverage variation.
But, here Mike is, working his Monday morning shift as a barista. Actually, working is a strong word, more like sitting behind the counter reading the newest book in their collection. Its become a bit of a routine in these past three months; everyday he picks a new book to spend the next eight hours engrossed in, and then at the end of the day, his long ‘to read’ list grows one book shorter. It works. And yes, technically, he could use this time for studying, but what is Mike if not a hopelessly good procrastinator?
As always, business is slow, the place is deserted with the exception of a few elders, none of which have made any move to get up for the past few hours, so, naturally, Mike uses this time to get emotionally attached to even more fictional characters (he has a problem, he knows).
The bell above the door sounds, breaking the silence that had enveloped the store. Mike continues reading happily, assuming its just another old lady that has come to complete her crosswords in silence. After a minute, he hears a pointed cough from the other side of the counter, successfully jolting him from his thoughts. He glances up and immediately his jaw goes slack and his mind blanks; because holy shit, that is not just another old lady.
It isn’t just anything.
It is, in fact, an extremely attractive guy with perfectly tousled chestnut hair, soft green eyes and long eyelashes, a nose that suits no other description but fucking majestic, slightly chapped lips and – holy shit are those freckles?! Mike feels just about ready to implode, with his heartrate suddenly soaring and he feels and butterflies viciously attacking the walls of his stomach. He stares into kind eyes, colours scattered in constellations he just can’t help but get lost in. He wonders if maybe one day he could memorise each and every colour, every shape, every angle of light his eyes would catch.
Another pointed cough interrupts. Holy shit this guy is a fucking angel and— shit. Shit Mike is staring. Shitshitshit cute guy definitely thinks he’s is a creep now; god dammnit how does he always manage to screw everything up before he even gets a chance to speak?
Caught red handed, Mike quickly straightens his posture, slams his book shut and attempts to swipe at least some of the hair obscuring his vision out of his face (unsuccessfully, he really needs to learn how to tie his hair).
He audibly swallows and awkwardly jolts to his feet, feeling his cheeks begin to burn a bright red.
“Shit—hi. Hello.“ Mike stumbles out, mentally face palming himself at his incompetence. God he really needs to get his shit together because now the handsome stranger his staring at him with amusement in his eyes, holding back a laugh.
“You good there?” Asks mystery man, now fucking smirking at Mike. His heart rate instantly increases and he can hear the blood rushing through his ears. He is totally and utterly fucked. He can feel the little worker bees in his brain flying around frantically trying to make sense of everything. They fail absolutely miserably.
“Uh—yeah. Yes. Me? Good, yes. Totally. uh huh.” He says, nodding, voice cracking in the middle of his sentence as he leans on the counter. Right about now, Mike really wishes he could melt into a puddle never to be seen again. Unfortunately, that’s not possible, so he continues staring at the guy with red cheeks and a hammering heart. At this point the worker bees have given up, they’ve quit their jobs.
“That’s good.” The guy comments a little awkwardly, still concealing a smile as he continues “So, can I order or—”
That kicks Mike’s brain into action, the worker bees rehire themselves and are in somewhat okay condition.
“Yeah, yeah! What, uh, what can I get—start for you?” He says with the most confidence he can muster (which isn’t much at all), while his lips pull into a customer service smile that barely reaches his eyes. He groans internally, if only he’d met this beautiful stranger literally any other time, because then they could’ve had a nice conversation and gotten to know each other, not under the pretence of work or the prying eyes of all the old people in the room (yes, he can feel them staring at him and he’s pointedly choosing to ignore them. Especially Margret who’s sitting closest to the counter and looking at him over her glasses with misplaced curiosity).
He almost misses it when the guy replies,“Just a hot chocolate please.”
Ugh of course he would drink hot chocolate, a sweet drink for an even sweeter person. Mike nods belatedly and punches the order into the machine, now feeling the gaze of both Margret and the stranger bore into his skull. Heat rises to his cheeks once more and he swallows down his nerves. Can’t they just leave him alone? He knows he’s a mess, no need to spell it out for him.
“Name?” He asks, not making eye contact with anyone and continuing to stare at the machine as if it holds all of life’s answers. He really doesn’t have to ask, there’s no one else queuing for coffee and it’s all a little unnecessary, really, but protocol is protocol, right? It’s also a little bit (very much) because he wants a name to remember this stunning human being by (not that he could ever forget). What if he never sees him again? He needs something.
“Will.” The guy—no Will— replies with a small smile. And God that sends butterflies rampaging through Mike’s stomach because that just suits the guy so well. Will. An ethereal name for an ethereal being. Will. Will. Willwillwillwillwillwill—
Before he can get too far into his head he clears his throat and shakes the thoughts away. He just has to get this order done and then he can gawk and panic as much as he likes, preferably when he’s not face to face with the cause of said gawking and panicking. He takes a deep breath and replies with a genuine smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
“Well, Will, that would bring your total to…$3.60.” and he slowly regains his dignity. Mike is proud of himself, one because that was a full sentence (for an English major, that really shouldn’t be as impressive as it is), two because but it was a cool sentence (he used Will’s name, automatically the sentence is cool. Obviously.), and three because Will is now shyly looking away with soft pink dusting his cheeks. Is this flirting? Is that what this is, why he got this reaction? Mike knows he’s shit at flirting, and whether or not using someone’s name is actually flirting or not doesn’t matter; but what does matter is the fact that it worked either way. At this point he’s probably grinning like a teenage girl, giggling and kicking her feet after talking to her crush, but he does not care one bit.
He watches as Will pulls a wallet from his pocket, and Mike’s eyes widen and he forgets to breathe. There, right before his eyes, are rainbows decorating the edges of the wallet. Now, that only supports his theory (that they’re flirting), hello, rainbows have to mean something, right? Or they don’t and Will just thinks it just a ‘stylistic choice’ or whatever Steve had once said when defending his hair. Maybe Will just doesn’t understand the meaning behind rainbows, which, admittedly, is highly unlikely because who doesn’t? Whether it was to steer away from them or to seek them out everyone knows the meaning rainbows hold. Or maybe he does know, and that’s the reason he has the wallet in the first place. Now, if that’s the case, his reaction to Mike’s words makes a lot of sense, as well as their first interaction. Holy shit. They’re flirting, aren’t they?
Mike snaps back to reality as Will pulls out a 5-dollar bill and holds it out to him. As he goes to take it, their fingers brush. He swears he can feel electricity between their hands, his heart thumping relentlessly in his chest. He wonders absently if Will can feel it too; if he can feel the electricity, can feel how his mere touch makes his heart run in circles. Mike lets his hand linger a little bit too long for it to be considered a normal exchange as he takes the note from Will’s palm.
He yanks open the old cash register with shaky hands and rummages around looking for a two-dollar coin, refusing to lift his head. He can feel the heat in his cheeks slowly rising and he knows for a fact that Will can see it too.
Mike inhales deeply before holding open his palm, still averting his eyes as he waits for Will to take the change. Although, this never ends up happening, as Will stares at the open hand, seemingly battling an idea around in his head before he smiles and closes Mike’s hand with his own.
Mike’s breath catches in the back of his throat, gaze immediately shooting up in shock at this sudden contact. The pink that had been colouring his cheeks this whole time now blooms cherry red.
Will’s hand is warm, like really warm, and Mike suddenly feels guilty for subjecting Will to his ice-cold fingers. The air around them seems to crackle with electricity and he can feel his heart beating furiously in his chest, along with thousands of butterflies swarming violently in his stomach. All he can do is stare in shock at their overlapped hands and is almost hypnotised by the way they seem to fit together perfectly. This is it. This is how Mike Wheeler dies at the hands of a handsome stranger, cause of death: Gay.
“Keep the change.” Is all Will says, before slowly retracting his hand with a shy smile painted across his features. Mike slowly lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and continues to stare in shock at his now painfully cold hand.
This has to be flirting right? It has to be. You don’t just go up to random people and hold their hand and smile and say shit like that for fun. This has to be flirting, which, if it is, its totally working.
With no small amount of effort, Mike manages to lower his hand and put the coins back into the cash register before getting started on the drink.
As he grabs an empty ceramic cup, he takes notice of three pairs of eyes on him, and chooses to ignore it once again.
He makes the drink with ease, and if he makes sure to add a little more whipped cream than he usually would, then that’s no one else’s business but his.
As he takes a second to admire his handiwork, he makes a split-second decision, grabbing a napkin and a sharpie. With his heart in his throat he uncaps the pen, hand trembling slightly at the prospect of rejection. What if he’d just been reading this whole thing wrong and Will did just randomly go out and do shit like this for fun? He knows this is a (semi)irrational fear, but it doesn’t stop him from toning down his words to something more neutral. So, before he can chicken out, he scrawls ’I like your wallet :)’ onto the napkin and shoves it onto the plate beneath the cup, spilling some hot chocolate in the process, napkin now thoroughly stained. He groans internally and hopes to whatever deity is out there that his writing is still somewhat legible. He carefully lifts the cup and saucer, ensuring not to spill any more, and places it on the counter.
“Here you are.” He says, eyes flicking around the features of Will’s face once more, knowing for a fact his blush is painfully visible under the warm orange glow of the café lights.
“Thank you.” Will responds with a blinding smile, and Mike absolutely swoons. He’s so screwed. With one more small smile, Will turns away to sit at one of the couches and Mike just stares after him, absolutely stunned. His heart is not letting up, still going a mile a minute, it’s almost painful while butterflies ruthlessly attack the walls of his stomach.
He watches as Will pulls his feet onto the couch so that his knees are resting on the armrest (freaking adorable) while pulling out a book and a collection of pencils from his backpack and begins making lines on the paper. Mike is absolutely enraptured by every movement, sighing as he leans his elbow on the counter, chin in the palm of his hand, cheeks still burning red. Obviously, he doesn’t notice when a certain redhead stalks up right behind him.
“Damn Wheeler, you’re down bad.”
His whole body tenses up as he spins around, coming face to face with none other than Max Mayfield. He glares at her, scrunching his nose up in a very what the fuck manner. This does absolutely nothing to quell the shit eating grin on her face, if anything it causes it to grow even further.
“Hey, don’t get all pissy just because I pulled you out of your gay ass thoughts.” She says holding her hands up, shrugging. Mike opens his mouth to protest but he’s silenced by pointed, disbelieving look. “Don’t even try. Your face shows all your thoughts, I swear even fucking Margret can tell what you’re thinking.” Margret is one of his regulars, she’s not very observant and often gets sucked into her own world. He narrows his eyes at her, knowing she’s right and also knowing that’s seriously something he should get under control. “See, right now I can tell that you’re thinking how right I am and how much you don’t want to admit it.”
“Oh fuck off. Just let me be gay in peace.” He mutters, falling back into his chair dramatically. God he needs better friends. He met Max at work roughly a year ago now. At first they hated each other: Mike was annoyed because he was used to working with his best friend, Dustin, who’d quit after getting a better job offer somewhere else, and Max was apparently to blame for that; whereas Max hated him because he hated her, simple really. They constantly bickered and fought over which books go where when stocking the shelves, as well as Max constantly complaining about the smell of coffee which was apparently Mike’s fault. But after two months, no matter how much the two would deny it, they started to become closer. They bonded over their mutual hatred for tea, (which the old ladies that usually populated the store drank religiously) and, surprisingly, their nerdiness (no matter how much Max protested against it). And now, a whole year later, Mike would consider her one of his best friends. They’d formed a little group, Mike, Max and Dustin.
He came out as gay to all of them about three months ago, and they took it amazingly. Honestly, he couldn’t ask for more supportive friends because the responses he got were a chorus of ‘we know’s and ‘we support you man’s’ from Lucas and Dustin, whom he’d been friends with since his first year of university; and a snarky I thought we already knew this from Max (who later talked to Mike alone and reassured him about everything and even came out herself as bisexual). So really he lied when he said he needed better friends because he couldn’t have asked for a better reaction. But that didn’t stop him from being annoyed at the ruthless teasing he would receive if he so much as looked at another guy. Not that it would be any different if it was a girl, that’s just the way they were.
He loved all of them dearly, they just needed to shut up sometimes.
“No but seriously, you are literally the most hopeless person I have ever met,” Max continues with her teasing while Mike stares at her, thoroughly unimpressed. “It looked like all of your braincells simultaneously combusted just because you talked to an attractive guy!” she stops for a second and reconsiders her sentence, furrowing her brows in mock confusion, “Oh wait, that would mean you needed to have braincells to begin with, my bad.”
At that Mike’s mouth hangs open in faux offence as he brings a hand to his chest as if he’d been shot, “You wound me, Mayfield,” he says in a deadpan before rolling his eyes and continuing, “And besides, at least I actually talk to the people I like.”
Mike smirks as the shit eating grin is wiped clean off of Max’s face and turns into a withering glare. Without another word she stalks away, throwing a select number of fingers over her shoulder as she turns the corner.
Mike one, Max zero he thinks with a smirk, shaking his head at the ridiculous interaction.
Once again, Mike is left alone with his thoughts, and naturally, they drift to Will. How the sunlight that streams through the window illuminates the amber and gold in his hair, causing him to glow with warmth. How his brows are slightly furrowed and his tongue pokes out in concentration as he stares down at his notebook, evidently focused on the task at hand. How his green sweater brings out the emerald flicks in his eyes. He just looked so cute and cuddly; Mike is going to die.
He is once again brought out of his thoughts, this time by Margret, who stands opposite the counter staring over her glasses judgementally. With a sigh, Mike straightened up and plastered on his customer service face once again, she was evidently going to ask for tea…again, and Mike was going to punch something. Seriously, who likes tea that much?!
And with that he took her order and made her beverage, handing it to her with a forced smile, the rest of the day slipping by in a blur of butterflies and stolen glances.
At some stage Will raised his eyes to meet Mike’s, who, to absolutely no one’s surprise, was still staring. Will’s mouth was curved up into a small smirk, cheeks a little flushed and eyes wide; Mike’s heart was hammering against his poor ribcage relentlessly. Will is holding something in his hand and Mike’s heart abruptly stops when he realises what it is. The napkin. The napkin that Mike had written on. The one that Will is holding, no doubt having read what is written on it.
This is good, right? Will doesn’t look like he’s uncomfortable or anything like that, in fact he looks happy, flattered even. That means something right? It has to. This is definitely flirting.
Mike watches with his heart in his throat as Will rummages in has bag, evidently looking for something, for what, Mike has no idea. When he finally finds what he’s looking for, Will sits up and places the napkin back on the table and begins scribbling something onto it with a green sharpie – so that’s what he’d been looking for – and Mike nearly dies right then and there. Because this could go one of two ways. On one hand, Will could be responding to the message positively, flirting back in his own way. On the other hand, he could also be very kindly telling Mike to back off and that he has a partner, because honestly, how could Will be single?
Nevertheless, Will completed the message with a final dot and glanced back up to find Mike staring, again. Colour flushed both their cheeks and Will chuckled with a small smile and shyly looked down and tucked the napkin back under the cup. God he was adorable.
It was thirty minutes of staring and sketching later when, to Mike’s despair, Will’s eyes widened as he glanced up at the clock on the wall. He begun haphazardly shoving his pencils and books into his bag, evidently not caring enough to pack up properly, most likely running late for something, if Mike were to guess. Mike watched with a repeating mantra of nononononono, don’t leave yet! In his head as Will stood and straightened out his sweater as he swung his bag over his shoulder, quickly walking towards the door. When he passed the counter he raised two fingers in a salute and smiled brightly at before walking out a ring of the bell.
All Mike could do was stare in awe with blush, once again, rising to his cheeks as his heart beat a fluttery rhythm. He was suddenly reminded of the napkin and his heart rate spiked, butterflies turning into nervous churning as he watched Will walk down the street. This could go so many ways and most of them were not good, which is just absolutely great for Mike.
Once he was sure that Will had left, he sprinted around the counter, sliding on the tile before stepping onto the carpet with an unbalanced foot, managing to grab onto the counter to stabilize himself. He pushed off the counter and continued to run to the corner table, gaining weird looks from all the old people, but that didn’t matter because what was written on that napkin would determine his mood for the next three weeks at least. When he reached the table he hesitated, what if Will really was going to reject him, or say something entirely platonic? And like, what are the chances his dream guy walked through those doors and happened to like men, like Mike? That was slim to none. So, with a pounding heart he lifted the cup and picked up the napkin. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself before reading the green writing.
I like your pins :)
And Mike’s stomach swooped, because he only had two pins, one was a dnd pin (a d20 with a red serpent curling around it) and the other…the other was a rainbow pride flag, both situated on the pocket of his work button-up below his nametag.
A wide smile broke out across Mike’s face at this information, while he suppressed the strong urge to jump up and down like a child at the fact that his dream guy, liked dnd and, most likely, liked guys. This was ground-breaking news and only confirmed Mike’s suspicions that they were, in fact, flirting. Flirting, Mike was flirting with someone. Not only someone, but Will. This was the best thing to happen to him since he got into Chicago University. It was safe to say that he did not stop smiling for the rest of his shift and all he could think about was warm green eyes and chestnut hair that glowed in the sunlight.