Chapter Text
It’s not a crush.
At least, that’s what Chance tells himself.
It’s not like he likes the guy. Not in that way. Not in the pin him against a wall and kiss his stupid mouth until he forgets his own name kind of way.
Except, well. Maybe it is.
Kind of.
…Definitely.
God.
It started with curiosity. That’s all. Started when Jason and the others had insisted that Hellfire was some kind of freaky cult that killed his girlfriend out of revenge, or something. Which was weird to Chance because Lucas was in it and he was a cool dude and didn’t particularly seem like he would kill someone in cold blood.
Then it piqued when Jason had told him and Patrick to head to the library and print out wanted posters. Like this was some sort of cheesy mystery show from, like, the 70s. But he’d done it, because it’s kind of hard to say no to the guy that lost the apparent love of his life, like, a day before.
(Chance drummed his fingers on the edge of the very loud printer as it spits out another blurry black-and-white flyer. Jason is apparently planning to hand these out at the next town hall meeting. He doesn’t read it this time. He already knows what it says.
Wanted. Eddie Munson. Satanic Leader of “The Hellfire Club”. In connection with the murder of Chrissy Cunningham.
It doesn’t say Wanted: Dead or Alive but it might as well.
His eyes are drawn to the figure on the far right. Chance realizes after a moment that it’s the kid that sits behind him in English. Nancy Wheeler’s brother, his brain helpfully supplies. The picture wasn’t particularly flattering to anyone in it—you could barely make out features, just their Hellfire logos.
Mike—that’s his name—wasn’t doing anything of note. Just…standing here, hand on his hip. Shirt was far too long on him. He looked awkward mostly. And definitely doesn’t look like he’d be involved in a cult.
“Isn’t that zombie boy’s friend?” Patrick says after a moment, startling Chance. He looks over and finds him slouched across from him at the table, absentmindedly flipping through the growing stack of wanted posters—not actually looking at them.
“Uh. What?”
“Zombie boy? That kid that went missing a while back?” Patrick supplies.
Chance blinks and stays silent for a moment before shaking his head. “Oh, yeah. Right. I remember that. Will…” he trails off.
“Byers?”
“That’s the one.” Chance clicks his tongue, picking up the final of the posters. “I think they were friends.”
Patrick hums, checking over the copies like they might suddenly tell him what the hell is going on in their town. They fall into silence after that.
Chance’s gaze drifts back to the picture of Hellfire, eyes tracing over Mike again, tilting his head. He opens one of the other three folders Jason had given them, full of different photos of the club. Told them to just pick a good one. Like a very normal, sane person would do. He finds different pictures there—most of them being shot during their games, some candid photos, some of just Eddie. There’s a couple of Mike, and he doesn’t smile in a single one. Which weirdly intrigues Chance.
There’s a specific one that catches his eye. A picture of Eddie with his arms around Lucas and a kid with curly hair and a cap on. Mike’s in the background of this one, staring into the camera. There was a certain look in his eyes. Like he’d already seen the worst thing this world had to offer and hadn’t been able to look away fast enough.
That stuck with him. Intrigued him, for some odd reason.)
He’d forgotten all about that, about him, until he saw him walk into the gym a couple of days after he’d apparently come back from California or wherever he was. Chance wasn’t keeping tabs on him, of course, it’s all on his stupid friends. Whatever, he’s holding a cardboard box and chatting away with Steve Harrington of all fucking people, and a ginger girl he’d seen in the bleachers during his games. It’s certainly an odd trio, and Andy lets him know.
Mike looks over in their general direction as he walks to the donation table. And there’s that look again. That weirdly haunted look, eyes sunken like he hadn’t had a good night's rest in weeks. Chance had watched him curiously until he had to leave to attend to other matters. Told Andy later when he’d asked that it was just “weird, how quiet he is.” That he was trying to figure out if he was actually crazy.
Bu the truth is that: Mike Wheeler is intense. He walks around like a live wire. Like he’s always five seconds from exploding. And Chance can’t stop looking.
There’s something about him—something sharp and unsteady, like glass right before it shatters. He’s not like anyone Chance knows. He’s not like anyone wants to know. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t do small talk.
And for some reason, that makes Chance want to crawl inside his head and stay there forever.
Which—yeah. Weird. Definitely weird.
Especially since he doesn’t even like guys. Right? He had a girlfriend last year. Sort of. They made out at a party once. It was fine.
But Mike is—
He’s not just hot (though, yeah, he is—slouchy and brooding and weirdly terrifying in a way that makes Chance want to either run away or climb him like a tree). He was all bones and fidgeting, and somehow still the most interesting person in the room. Magnetic. Like gravity.
Mike makes him feel like if he got close enough, if he touched that frayed edge of him, maybe he’d finally understand what it is that keeps gnawing under his ribs like teeth.
He didn’t mean for it to go this far. He really didn’t. He just wanted to talk to him once. Maybe figure out what all the fuss was about.
But then Mike had rolled his eyes and told him to fuck off that first time, all sharp angles and narrowed gaze and that mouth , and Chance’s brain kind of short-circuited. Because—god—what would it be like to kiss him? To corner him, shove him against a locker and finally make him shut up and just feel something real?
(And okay. Yeah. That thought freaked him out a little.)
It still does. Because now he’s thinking about it all the time. The way Mike’s eyes narrow at him when he’s annoyed. The way he bites the inside of his cheek when he’s thinking. The way he taps his pen on the table exactly four times before answering a question. The way he bites the side of his thumb when he’s trying not to interrupt.
He wants to hear him break. Wants to know what it sounds like when Mike wants something.
He tells himself it's just curiosity. Just an itch.
But then Mike looks at him like he’s radioactive, and it hurts, even though it shouldn’t. Even though they’re practically strangers. Even though Chance knows Mike probably dreams about stabbing him in the neck with a pen.
God, he really does want to kiss him.
And that’s a problem.
Because the world felt like it was ending. And it kind of was. The sky looked like it bled sometimes. The air tasted like copper and ash and death. Chance’s mom hadn’t come home from work a week ago, and no one would tell him why. He has no one except his up-to-no-good friends and the guy that hates his guts. Everything was going to shit.
So maybe this was his version of a last cigarette before the firing squad. Maybe Mike Wheeler was the only thing left in Hawkins that felt real enough to burn.
He’s obsessed .
And he doesn’t know what to do about it.
The world is ending, and Mike Wheeler’s biggest problem is a guy named Chance.
He doesn’t have a personal problem with the guy, per se, but he’s associated with Andy and his group of basketball goons so he automatically just…doesn’t like him. And that’s fine because that little group also isn’t particularly fond of Mike either!
Mostly because they think he’s an insane blood-thirsty murderer part of the cult that killed Jason and his girlfriend, Chrissy. Which is, frankly, insane. Mike has a mental list of people he’d love to kill and that list did not have Jason fucking Carver in it, no matter how much he hated the guy, thank you very much.
Plus, he keeps trying to strike up conversations with him during their singular shared class (English) which is annoying, to say the least. It’s like, dude, I'm trying to figure out if the heart beating under the floorboards in The Tell-Tale Heart represents guilt or paranoia and you’re trying to make conversation about fucking Star Wars.
So, yeah. Mike doesn’t like the guy.
Nor does he like the fact that he apparently keeps asking Lucas about him.
It feels weird. Like a trap. A fuse waiting to blow.
Mike isn’t stupid. He knows he’s probably trying to gather whatever dumb intel he can find about him by poking around and use it to humiliate him. Or worse—use it to provoke him. Catch him slipping. Say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, and suddenly he’s confirming everything they think about him. That he’s dangerous and unstable. One of the freaks.
And maybe he is a freak. But not in the way they think.
(He has nightmares every other night about real monsters and worse-than-real ones. About Will’s fake dead body being pulled from the murky quarry water. About both his sisters dying in the Upside Down after Mike was too late to save them. And most times he wakes up screaming and in a cold sweat. That’s the kind of freak he is.)
Still, he keeps his head down. Mostly. Gives Chance the cold shoulder everytime he leans over during study hall to ask about his favorite Empire character or whether The Phantom Menace really deserves the hate (which—yes, it does). He ignores the weird glances. The snickers. The way Chance’s voice always sounds too casual, too smooth, like he’s trying too hard to sound like he doesn’t care about the answer.
It’s not like Mike hasn’t experienced it before, especially here in Hawkins. The fake interest. The exaggerated friendliness. That smirk that always lingers too long after Chance asks something just a little too personal.
Like: “Do you really believe in that stuff? You know, gates to Hell and all that?” Obviously he does. He’s been to Hell.
Or: “Were you actually there when they found Chrissy’s body?” No, he was already halfway to Lenora Hills, California—the not-so Golden State.
Or the worst one, whispered like a joke: “Are you dangerous?”
Mike had laughed—short and dry. Said, “Only if you’re planning on pissing me off.”’
That was last week. Now Chance is still trying, still hovering around after English class like Mike personally invited him to.
Lucas tells him that he’s just being nice. That he’s just…curious. Also told him once, hesitantly, that Chance said Mike was “interesting.”
Mike had stared at him for a full minute. “Like…lab rat interesting? Or like, he’s going to kill me and wear my face interesting?”
Lucas had sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He looked tired, probably from all the late nights he spends in Max’s hospital room. “I don’t know, man. Just…not hostile. Kinda the opposite, honestly.”
The opposite.
Mike doesn’t even know what that means. What’s the opposite of hostile these days? It’s not like people are really friendly anymore. Not when there are still open sinkholes in the main roads and things crawling in the woods near the Hawkins Lab.
So, he doesn’t like Chance. Already established. Doesn’t like his perfect hair or his sudden, baffling interest in Mike’s opinions on sci-fi or how he acts like everything is normal.
Nothing is normal. The world is ending.
And now Chance is waiting for him outside of class. Leaning against his locker like it’s some cheesy high school movie. He smiles, all white teeth, like they’re friends. Like they haven’t spent the last few months on opposite sides of a goddamn invisible war.
Mike stares. “Do you want something?”
Chance shrugs. He has to tilt his head up just a bit to even look at Mike. He doesn't know how to feel about that. “Just wanted to say your essay was good.”
“How did you—”
“I asked Mr. Owens if I could read some of the better ones. He said yours was the only one that didn’t make him want to walk into traffic.”
Mike scowls. “Okay. Cool. Congrats on the masochism, I guess.”
“You’re funny, Wheeler.”
“You’re weird.”
Chance laughs—really laughs—and Mike feels something unpleasant squirm in his stomach.
“What do you want?” Mike asks again, quieter this time.
And Chance shrugs again, but there’s something different in his eyes now. Mike doesn’t know what it is. He kind of wants to take something sharp just to poke inside this guy’s brain and really study him.
“I think you’re smart. And kind of intense. And I guess I just—” he pauses, smile faltering just slightly, “—wanted to get to know you before it’s too late.”
Mike stares. The words clang around in his brain like a dropped wrench. “Before what’s too late?” he asks, even though he already knows.
Chance just tilts his head toward the open entrance door where the sky’s gone a little too red and the snow-like particles land on the ground.
This feels like a setup. Like one of those wire traps Hopper puts in the deep woods in the Upside Down—stick your foot in the wrong place, and suddenly you’re upside down with your guts hanging out in front of your face.
He doesn’t trust it. Doesn’t trust him. Not even a little.
But he’s curious to see where this goes. The same curiosity people get when they try to poke a sleeping bear. “Fine.”
Chance grins. “Cool.” And then he leaves. Just like that.
Mike watches him go, jaw clenched and heart beating way too fast for something that dumb. He hates this.