Archive of Our Own

This is so stupid.

Mike cradles the handset of the phone between his shoulder and his cheek, one hand poised to dial the keys on the phone’s base, while the other clutches the flyer so hard it crinkles and creases.

This goddamn flyer.

He brought it in with the mail a few days ago. Alongside bills and bank statements and miscellaneous junk, all addressed to W. Byers and M. Wheeler, there was a half-size flyer. Vague enough, so as to be acceptably distributed where children or bible thumpers or whoever else may find it, but still plenty clear to any worldly adult in what it was advertising. Lonely? in swooping cursive, over a picture of a landline not unlike the one currently in Mike’s sweaty deathgrip laid artfully across silk bedsheets, with a 1-900 phone number printed at the bottom. Your first call is free.

Mike had carried the stack upstairs with him from the lobby, taking the stairs two at a time in hopes of catching Will before he left. He’s picked up a new job at some warehouse just outside of town- mostly paperwork, apparently, filing forms and receipts in the office -and while Mike is happy that he’s away from his busboy job with the asshole manager and far less pay, he hasn’t seen Will in what feels like weeks. He’s picked up the habit of racing home from class or work, whichever one happens to be keeping him out until after dark on that particular night, just on the off chance he can catch Will before he’s gone for the night shift. Some days he does, but that evening had not been one of them. So he stood at the counter and sorted the mail alone, into a keep and toss pile.

And there it had been, dead last in the stack. Mike, gun to his head, couldn’t say what possessed him, but after hesitating for half a second, he had shoved the flyer down the front pocket of his jeans. He tossed the junk mail in silence and got changed out of his work clothes while contemplating the pathetic stupidity of not immediately pitching it with everything else. Ten minutes later, he was on his way back to his room, to dig it out of his pants and toss it with everything else- really, he was -when the phone rang. After Nancy reminding him that Mom’s birthday is next week, I already ordered flowers to the house but you owe me for half. I’m not gonna make you mail me a check but I’m not gonna forget either, and Holly’s the lead in the spring play, did she tell you? What do you mean you haven’t spoken to her since Christmas, Mike? That was over a month ago, honestly, no wonder she misses you so much. Yes, she does, Mike, you’re her brother. My god, and she wants us to go see it. No, she didn’t say it, but I know she does. Jonathan and I could pick you up when we drive through Bloomington- do you think Will would want to come? Well I do, Mike, I mean, I think Will’s been a better brother than you have lately- don’t even try to pretend it was you who picked out that art set for her Christmas present… it wasn’t top of mind.

And then he had another shitty week. A week of fighting to stay awake in lectures and fighting to maintain a polite expression while customers argued with him about whether there’s milk in a latte. A week of running around the city in ice and snow and five o’clock sunsets, trying to somehow be on time for both forms of torture. His usual respite, coming home to watch movies and talk over them the whole time with his best friend, is nonexistent. He saw Will for maybe a total of an hour, given that he now comes home while Mike is asleep and is in bed by the time Mike gets up, and then gone for work by the time Mike comes home. Mike supposes this is probably the dream arrangement for most people with roommates, but most people with roommates aren’t Mike and Will.

So he’s been a little lonely.

There’s also the matter of the previous Friday, where Max and Lucas had insisted Mike get out of the apartment for a night and go get a beer with them. There was a girl sitting at the bar, cute as a button, with big brown eyes and cropped brown hair, and after some gentle prodding from Lucas and some sort of hurtful bullying from Max, he finally got the courage to rise from their secluded corner booth and sidle up next to her.

“What are you drinking?” He had asked, after catching her eye. Lucas’s suggestion, though maybe not with the same panache Lucas had demonstrated it with.

The girl said nothing, glancing passively at what was obviously her vodka-cranberry, before looking back to Mike, and outright cringing. No words, just her entire face scrunched into complete distaste. Who does that? Not even a sorry, not interested, or even a no, thanks. Just pure disgust. Max didn’t even make fun of him when he moped back over to the booth, which is how he knows it was objectively depressing.

Okay, maybe more than a little lonely.

There’s also the regular at work who pretended not to hear him when he finally worked up the nerve to ask for her number and hasn’t been in since. And the girl Max has been trying to set Mike up with for months, and when he finally gave in and told Max he was interested, he was informed she’d made it official with a new boyfriend just two weeks prior. Plus, there’s the guy who’s definitely been making eyes at Mike in his sociology tutorial all semester, but Mike is too pussy to do anything about that just yet, so it’s a whole other can of worms. The point is, a lack of friendship-time isn’t the only issue.

Which brings him to the flyer. Lonely? it practically taunts up at him. You don’t know the half of it, he thinks, and dials the number.

It doesn’t even get through one ring, before some sort of automated system picks up. It’s a woman’s voice, and she only gets as far as Hey, stranger, before he slams the handset down on the base, sitting alone in the silence that follows for several long seconds and feeling his heart pound. This is almost more pathetic, somehow- calling the hotline was one thing, but at least it was an active choice. Now he’s all sweaty over just the sound of some pre-recorded message, like a teenager pretending he’s not stealing glances at the cover of Sports Illustrated in the checkout line. Mike has had sex, in his life. More than once, even! Not much more, but- still.

Then act like it, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Max says in the back of his head. He shakes his head, squares his shoulders, and punches in the number once more, settling further into the couch next to the phone with his knees to his chest.

Hey, stranger, says the woman in the recording, and Mike succeeds in manning up. I’m so glad you called. Someone’s gonna be with you in just a sec- they’re all alone, and they can’t wait to hear your voice. While we’re waiting, it’s a good time for you to punch in the number for your credit card. Don’t worry- if it’s your first call, there won’t be a charge.

Mike scrambles his wallet out of his pocket, and dutifully punches in the numbers, waiting for a moment as there’s silence on the other end of the line.

Just like that, says the voice, and Mike cringes a little, already having second thoughts. The good thing about the phone, though, is that he can bail and hang up whenever he wants, and the girl on the other line won’t even give a shit.

It’s almost time for you two to spend your night together, the voice says. All I need to know is who you’re calling for. If you’re looking for a nice- or naughty -girl, press one, and if you’re looking for a not-so-gentleman, press two.

Mike hadn’t even considered that this might be an option. He follows his gut, and chooses not to examine the way he immediately jams two. He has an actual, worldly-consequences excuse for never approaching real guys, he reasons, so going the professional route feels a little more justifiable. That being said, he can’t think of anyone who would hold it against him if he chose to never talk to a woman again after miss vodka-cranberry.

Perfect, the recording says. Just hold tight, and someone’s gonna be with you real soon.

The line rings once, twice, three-

“Hey, honey. How’s it going?”

Mike forgets for a half a second that this isn’t just another recording, and is silent for a beat too long before he tries to speak and- because there’s no reason this would go any other way -immediately chokes on his spit. He coughs for the most excruciating four seconds of his life, and then chokes out a feeble “i’s’alright”

The guy on the other end laughs, breezy and lighthearted. “You okay?”

“Do you usually laugh at your customers?” Mike asks, a knee-jerk reaction, and he laughs again.

“Only if they’re cute,” he says.

“I’m not cute. All I did was cough.”

“It was cute,” he says. “Your voice is cute, too.”

“Well, I have bad news, ‘cause I'm not cute. It’s a real problem, actually. I have to wear a hood in public, otherwise children run away screaming, ‘cause I'm just that nasty to look at.”

He laughs, and Mike smiles to himself, weirdly comfortable in the rhythm.

“So, are you-”

“I’ve never done this before,” Mike blurts, and there’s a second of silence, before the operator recovers smoothly.

“That’s what I’m here for. You just relax, and I’ll do the talking. Do you know what you called looking for, tonight?”

“Well-” Mike feels completely pathetic at the answer that springs to mind, before he remembers that, in the grand scheme of his life, this guy is literally nobody. He’s probably sitting in some call centre in central Illinois or something, and wouldn’t know Mike from a hole in the wall even if they did pass each other in the street. “I’m just feeling kind of… lonely.”

“Lonely, huh?” he repeats, and before he can continue, the words start to tumble out of Mike like an unstoppable flood.

“Yeah, I mean, my roommate, he’s got this new job. They let him work whenever he wants, basically, which is awesome for him because he’s making so much cash, and I'm happy for him, but, like- I miss him. Is that crazy? It feels crazy, I mean, I can’t just go up to him and be like, hey, man, I really miss you, I wish you would give up some of that livelihood you’re making so we can sit on the couch together. I feel like you’re just not supposed to be like that with your friends. Even your best friends. We live together, I mean, I still see him, but it’s been ages since we actually had time to hang out.”

“I don’t think that’s crazy,” the operator says, thoughtfully, when Mike pauses to take a breath. “You’re allowed to miss your friends, and you can definitely tell them that.”

“I guess,” Mike says.

“I bet your roommate misses you too,” he says, after a beat. “It sounds like you guys are… pretty close.”

“We are,” Mike says. “We’ve been friends for, like, seventeen years, now?”

He lets out a low whistle. “That’s a long time,” he says, then pauses. “And you guys are… just friends?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mike says, then hesitates. “I mean…”

He trails off, as the sentence veers into territory Mike can usually only choke out when he’s drunk past midnight, spread out on Max and Lucas’s carpet and feeling particularly sorry for himself.

“What is it?” he asks, after it’s clear Mike isn’t going to finish his thought.

“I don’t know,” Mike says. “It’s hard to explain.”

“No pressure, but I mean, your secret’s safe with me,” he says, and Mike can’t argue with that.

“Okay, ugh… it’s weird. For the first, like, half of our lives, obviously we were just friends. We were kids, we weren’t even thinking about anything else. And then I had this girlfriend through, like, most of the second half of grade school, who honestly I was just dating because we both felt like it’s just what we should have been doing. Then we broke up at the end of sophomore year, and all of a sudden it’s, like, there I was, with the whole world in front of me, realizing how much I hadn’t noticed while I was just focused on this stupid relationship.”

“What hadn’t you noticed?” he asks.

“I mean, first it was like, oh, shit, I didn’t just rewatch Labyrinth because it’s a kick-ass movie, because if it was just about it being a kick-ass movie, I wouldn’t have been rewinding exclusively Bowie’s scenes to watch them over and over. And then it was like, oh, shit, I didn’t just really look up to this senior that me and my friends used to play d&d with, because when you just think someone’s cool you don’t get sweaty palms and shaky knees and butterflies in your stomach every time they so much as make eye contact with you. And then it was like, oh, shit, my best friend finally stopped letting his mom cut his hair and it’s the middle of summer and I can’t stop staring at the way the sweat drips down the side of his neck, and now that I think about it this has maybe been a problem for me since actually forever. And I wanna lick the sweat off his neck but I also wanna, like, hold his hand and take him out to dinner and get old and wrinkly together,”

“Uh-” he makes a choked sort of noise, and clears his throat. “Right, okay.”

“So, I was like, okay, we’re seventeen in small-town Indiana, obviously there’s nothing for me to do about liking him. But by the time we had moved out of our town, and come out, and all this stuff, it just felt like it was too late. We’ve had… we’ve had these moments, before, but I don’t think it’s like that for him. Maybe he did like me, at some point, I mean, he has to have thought about it before. And maybe if I had made a move when we were kids, it would have been different. But we’re twenty-two, and the moment’s passed, and I missed my chance,” Mike takes a deep breath, a little alarmed by the amount of never-before-spoken thoughts he’s just dumped on this complete stranger. “You know?” he finishes, a little weakly.

He’s quiet, for a second. “Yeah, kind of.”

“Sorry, I guess- you probably don’t know. I mean,  maybe you don’t even like guys, in real life. I don’t wanna assume. I guess people aren’t usually calling to just rant about their lives.”

“No, no, I do,” he corrects, quickly. “I, Um- I do, and, I get it, sorta. But also- it’s more common than you think. People calling just to vent.”

“Really?” Mike asks.

“Yeah, I mean… I'm here to keep you company. That could mean whatever you want it to, and for plenty of people it just means someone to talk to.”

“Oh,” Mike says, feeling a little less embarrassed. “Okay. That’s a relief, actually, because it felt super good to tell someone all that.”

He laughs again. Mike is getting used to the sound, and it weirdly tugs at something deep in his chest. All his anxiety from just a few minutes earlier has evaporated, and he settles comfortably into the couch as he winds the phone cord around his finger.

“Have you ever told your friend any of this?” he asks.

“No, god, no. I mean- he knows I like guys, because he does too, and it felt shitty to let him be all vulnerable and not tell him right back. He was scared I was gonna, like, freak out on him and be too grossed out to live together, so I had to clear that up. But I’ve never told him how I feel. He definitely doesn’t feel the same way, and he’s so important to me, I just… I don't wanna lose him.”

“Can I ask- what makes you so sure he doesn’t feel the same way?” He asks, and Mike snorts.

“Trust me, he doesn’t. I know him pretty well. If he was in love with me- if he was in love with anyone -I’d know.”

“Right,“ he says. “Well, has he ever been in love with someone else?”

“I don’t think so,” Mike says. “El- that’s his sister, but also my ex-girlfriend. The one I told you about. We’re good now, though, she’s like, one of my best friends, and her and Will are super close, too. That’s his name, Will.”

“Will,” The operator repeats, and Mike nods, as if he can see him.

“Yeah, Will,” Mike says, ignoring the way his heart flutters at just saying Will’s name. “Anyways, El, his family adopted her when we were in high school after her dad, uh, had to go away for awhile. That’s when they got close, and we were still together at the time. They moved away, and El swore he had a thing for someone out there.”

“Someone in California?”

“Yeah, in-” Mike pauses. “How did you know they lived in California?”

“You told me earlier,” he says. “That he moved to California for a while. I just… assumed you were talking about the same thing.”

“Oh,” Mike says. “Right. Well, anyways, she dropped it after a while. I guess he must’ve gotten over it once he came back, ‘cause he’s never said anything to me about it. And I know he’s gone out with a few guys here and there since we’ve lived in Bloomington, but nothing really serious. I think he’s just not a super romantic guy- he doesn’t get hung up on people like I do.”

There’s a long silence. “...right.”

“Have you ever… had anything like that?”

“Have I ever been in love?”

“Yeah,” Mike says, then reconsiders. “Or- sorry. Am I allowed to ask you that?”

“Yeah,” he says, with a laugh. “You can ask me whatever you want. I mean, personal information gets dicey, but you don’t seem like a stalker.”

He hears Max’s voice, still affectionately murmuring Stalker against Lucas’s cheek all these years later, and quickly tries to shake those two’s existence out of his mind.
“I’m not,” he says, quickly, and is mercifully rewarded with another laugh.

“Good. Um… yeah, I’ve been in love. Once.”

“What happened?” Mike asks.

“It didn’t work out,” he says, plainly, not bitter, but not completely apathetic either. “We were better as friends.”

“See, that’s how it is with me and Will,” Mike says. “We’re just meant to be friends.”

“I don’t know,” the operator says. “I mean, I don’t know you guys, obviously, but… I wouldn’t be so sure.”

Mike snorts. “You’re right. You don’t know us.”

“I don’t,” he repeats, and there’s a moment of silence, before he takes a deep breath. “Look, I’m not technically supposed to do this unless you ask but… if you ever wanna call back, my extension is 483.”

“Your extension?”

“Yeah, when it asks you to press one or two for a random operator, just type that in,” he says, then, after Mike doesn’t respond, “if you want to.”

“No, no! I- I want to,” Mike says, a little thrown by the truth of the statement, given that he had called expecting to hang the phone up within the first sixty seconds and spend the rest of the evening trying to forget the whole thing had ever happened. “I’ll, um- let me write it down.”

There’s a yellow pad and a semi dried-out pen on the table next to the phone, and Mike scrawls 483 on the first line of the top page.

“Thanks, um-” Mike pauses. “Am I allowed to ask your name?”

“Only if you tell me yours” he says, and Mike is once again reminded that this funny, friendly guy also happens to seduce people over the phone for a living.

“Mike.”

“Mike,” he repeats, and yeah, that’s the only way Mike wants to hear his name ever again. “I’m Andrew.”

“Andrew,” Mike repeats. “That’s, I mean, not to be rude, but I think that’s the most obviously fake name I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“Well, Mike, it’s the name all my customers get. Take it or leave it,” he says, but there’s no real bite, and Mike knows which one he’s choosing.

“I’ll take it,” he says, and Andrew laughs. “I think I should go, though.”

“Okay,” he says, and it’s definitely just wishful thinking, but Mike swears he actually sounds a little disappointed. “Goodnight, Mike. I hope I talk to you again.”

“Goodnight,” Mike says, and he sets the phone back in its receiver.

He stares for a long moment at the three digits on the notepad, and then at the creased flyer laying on the table next to it. He picks the flyer up and balls it tight in his fist, shoving it once again into the pocket of his pants as he flops backwards onto the couch with a colossal sigh.

Mike comes home slightly earlier than usual the next day- the sun is setting, but not down yet! -and finds Will perched at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal and a grin as Mike walks through the door.

“Hey, man,” Mike says, hopeless to stop the ecstatic way it comes out. Will doesn’t seem to notice, though, and speaks through his mouthful of cereal, which Mike of course finds disgustingly endearing.

“Hey.”

“Are you leaving soon?”

“Nah, I’m gonna go in a little later tonight. Do you wanna hang out?”

Apparently, something about being on the night shift means that Will is free to come and go as he pleases, and work as little or, in his case, as much, as he wants to. Mike’s never heard of a filing clerk job that functions that way, and while he’s not so fond of it when Will is out working six nights a week, he’s not complaining right now.

“Yeah,” he says, a little breathless, with a wide smile and a nod. “Yeah. You wanna watch something?”

“I rented The Last Crusade,” Will says, pointing with his chin to the table next to the couch. Mike picks up the case, branded with the name of the rental place down the street, and glances at the yellow notepad sitting next to the phone, where a new message is written two lines below a familiar set of digits.

Mike tries to keep his expression neutral as he sets down the movie and picks up the pad. It’s just three numbers, and there are a million possibilities for what it could mean. If anything, Will immediately assuming it’s the direct line to a phone sex operator with a laugh that sounds like angels singing would make him the freak, not Mike.

“Oh, yeah, El called. She’s with a new host family,” Will says, and Call El in the morning, accompanied by a clearly foreign phone number, is neatly printed in front of him. “She wanted to talk to you, but I wasn’t sure when you’d be home, and it was past midnight there.”

There were several handsome payouts from the government around Hawkins, but none as handsome as El’s. After spending the entire second half of her high school career wearing Hopper down about how responsible she is, she’s using the money to solo travel around several European countries, unquestionably having the time of her life. She’s set to come home in a few months, and as happy as Mike is for her, it’ll be nice to have her back on U.S. soil. She probably won’t stay in Hawkins, and while she may come to Bloomington with himself, Will, Max, and Lucas, or to Chicago, where Dustin and Kali (unrelatedly) are, Mike suspects her adventures are far from over.

“Okay, um, let me just put my stuff down,” Mike says, quickly tearing the sheet off the top of the pad. He anxiously folds it into an increasingly smaller rectangle as he high-tails it to his room, and tosses it onto his nightstand, willing his palms to stop sweating.

A few nights later, there’s a knock at the door.

“We’re going out,” Lucas says, Max standing behind him with her arms crossed, and Mike knows better than to argue.

“I’ll get my coat.”

They’re back at the pub at the end of the block, McKellen’s, shoved into the corner booth. When Lucas asked Mike, three years ago, if he and Will wanted to look for a place in the same building as him and Max, it seemed like a great idea. The only thing Mike hadn’t anticipated was how much he was going to be bossed around about “sitting around alone in his apartment all the time” once he got a little depressed. He remembers a certain period in senior year where Max and Lucas were on the outs, and when Lucas wanted to spend the week faking sick to lay in bed all day, Mike gave him the room to explore that, thank-you-very-much. Lucas got out of bed eventually, all on his own, without Mike nagging him. Though, now that he thinks about it, Will and Dustin were definitely not as on board with leaving Lucas be, so that may have played a part. Whatever.

“Alright, Wheeler, spill,” Lucas says, over the thump of the jukebox and chatter of the college crowd. Mike sets three beers on the table, and frowns at being accosted before he’s even properly sat down. “This can’t just be about Will.”

Mike groans, slumping back in the booth. “That’s the problem,” he says. “Because it is.”

“You’re this mopey just because you miss him?” Max asks, eyebrows disappearing into her feathery bangs as she takes a long sip.

“I mean-” Mike wracks his brain for a less pathetic elaboration, but comes up blank. “I’m not mopey,” he deflects, instead.

While Mike and Lucas chose Bloomington for IU, and Max for the welding program at a local trade school, Will had chosen Bloomington because he was following his friends (Mike, more specifically, but Mike chose to ignore that fact for the sake of his sanity) out of Hawkins. He’s worked a few jobs over the years, but his main and most recent gig was at a brunch place downtown. The manager was an asshole, but he got along pretty well with everyone else, and more importantly (for Mike’s sake) was home before 4:00 every day. Sure, he also went to bed at 10:00, but that was when Mike did his homework, so it worked out. They'd developed a comfortable routine that Max would- and does -call codependent, and maybe that’s not completely unfair, but if they’re both happy, Mike struggles to see what the big deal is.

This, of course, is the big deal. Not even a month into Will’s new job, and Mike is already under constant watch from Max and Lucas under threat of becoming a full-on hermit.

“Mike, I’m setting you up with my friend,” Max says, gesturing for Lucas to pass her purse to her. He does, and she digs through it, holding up a hand without even looking as Mike opens his mouth to protest. “I’m not saying you’re gonna magically get over Will, I'm not stupid, but it might help you start.”

She pulls out a polaroid and slides it across the table, handing her purse back to Lucas to hang on the edge of the booth. Mike picks it up- it’s a shot of Max in her and Lucas’s apartment, Max curled up with a girl he doesn’t recognize in the big plaid armchair Mrs. Sinclair had practically begged them to take off her hands. There’s a guy leaning across the back of the chair that Mike doesn’t recognize either, and they’re all smiling at the camera.

“She’s cute,” Mike says, handing the picture back to Max, and she is. Dark curly hair and a friendly-looking smile. That doesn’t mean Mike is going to say yes.

“No,” Max says, setting the picture back on the table in between them. “Not Jayna. Him.”

She taps the photo, and Mike looks at where her slightly grease-stained fingernail points at the guy leaning on the back of the chair.

“Andrew," she continues, and Mike can’t help the way his head shoots up at the name. “He’s a huge sweetheart, he goes to school with me and Jayna. You’re totally his type, and he’s not looking for anything serious, either, so you don’t have to rush into anything.”

“What does he do for work?” Mike asks, and Max and Lucas exchange a look. They clearly weren’t expecting any answer other than a scowl and a yeah, not interested, and don’t even seem to notice that it’s kind of a weird question.

“He’s a bartender,” Max says.

Mike isn’t deterred. Maybe Max isn’t close enough to him to know the real answer.

“Have you… seen him?” Mike asks. “Bartend?” He adds, when they both look at him blankly. 

“Seen him bartend?” Lucas repeats, frowning, and Mike nods. Lucas turns to Max, who rolls her eyes.

“Yeah? It’s a place over on Kirkwood, me and Jayna go visit him sometimes.”

“And that’s his… only job?” Mike tries not to look too put-out.

Max gives him a what the fuck are you getting at? face. “He’s a student, and he values his social life, so yeah. Plus, his boss actually caps his hours, like a reasonable employer. It’s not like Will, if that’s what you’re so worried about.”

“No, no,” Mike dismisses, distractedly trying to follow what she’s concluded he’s talking about, but getting sidetracked by the reminder of Will. “Speaking of, that’s such bullshit. Like, how can one warehouse have this much paperwork for him to file? And only at night? I’m telling you, whoever he’s working for, it’s weird.”

Max and Lucas share a look. “Warehouse?” Lucas asks, with one eyebrow quirked.

“Yeah, did he not tell you guys? That’s what he’s doing. Filing documents at some warehouse on the edge of town,” Mike pauses, once again aware that the specifics of Will’s job evade him. “Like, invoices and stuff.”

Max and Lucas share another look, communicating in their secret-couple-language that Mike doesn’t stand a chance at cracking.

“Right,” Max says, voice dripping with several layers of something that one-and-a-half-beers-deep Mike doesn’t care to unravel. “Well, anyway. Andrew.”

“Max, I don’t know,” Mike starts, and she rolls her eyes with a loud groan.

“Oh, come on, Mike, at least meet the guy,” she says, and Lucas- the traitor -has the nerve to nod along in agreement. “Look, we’re having a party at our place next weekend-”

“Isn’t that Valentine’s day?” Mike asks.

“Friday is Valentine’s day,” Lucas says. “Saturday is February 15th, AKA the Mayfield-Sinclair Valentine’s blowout.”

“Why would I want to be the only single guy at a Valentine’s party?” Mike asks, and Lucas shakes his head.

“Dude, we know, like, two other couples.”

“So there’ll be plenty of singles-” Max says, looking between them with an expression that says interrupt me again and I’ll kill you. “-including Andrew. Who you have to talk to for at least five minutes before you decide he’s worthless just because he doesn’t have big bambi eyes and charcoal under his fingernails.”

Mike’s tipsy brain hears big bambi eyes and charcoal under his fingernails and is immediately disinterested in everything else, supplying Mike with ample images of both as Max fades into the background. He’s brought back to earth by her tapping on the table while Lucas smirks into his beer.

“Okay?” she asks, giving him her signature you are an idiot stare.

“Okay!”

By the time the three of them wander home, Mike’s had several more beers, lamented plenty about Will, been told to shut up about Will, followed instructions, and actually had a decent night with his friends. He and Lucas hang off each other as they wander up the street to their building, Max laughing loudly as they deliriously attempt to name all fifty states. She’s supposed to be counting, but Mike is beginning to suspect foul play, because they’ve been at it since before they left the bar, and she claims they’re somehow only at thirty-three.

“Delaware!” Lucas says, excited, and Max giggles and snorts.

“No! You’ve said Delaware, like, a hundred times.”

“New Jersey?” Mike offers, and she shakes her head again.

“You got that one, too.”

“South Virginia?” Lucas asks, and Mike shoves him good-naturedly as Max cackles.

“There’s no South Virgina, dude. It’s West Virginia and…”

Max looks up, holding up her hand, next finger tauntingly poised to rise.

“...East Virginia?” Mike guesses, and Max dissolves into cackles again.

He says goodnight to them in the stairway, and they’re already grabbing at each other in a way he very much chooses to ignore as they continue upwards and he heads down the hall.

“You’re an evil genius,” he hears Lucas mutter, followed by noises he is not interested in. Weirdos.

“Will?” he calls out, as he ambles through the dark apartment, but he’s not really expecting an answer. He makes his way into his room, and sees the folded sheet of bright yellow paper, still on his nightstand from a few days earlier. Before he has time to think all too hard about what he’s doing, he finds the balled up flyer, and settles into the corner of the couch as he dials. He doesn’t actually need the page with the extension- really, he didn’t need to write it down in the first place. 483 is burned across the surface of his brain.

This time, the pre-recorded woman asks if he would like to use the credit card on file, and he jams 1, immediately punching in the extension as soon as the next part of the message starts to play. It only rings for a second, before-

“Hey, look who it is.”

“Do you have caller ID?” Mike asks, “or is that just your line?”

Andrew snorts. “I don’t have caller ID,” he says. “But I know who this is. Hi, Mike.”

“Hi, Andrew” Mike says. “Do you get a lot of direct calls?”

“I have… regulars,” he says. “Why, you jealous?”

“No,” Mike says. Yes.

“They all had to ask for my extension,” Andrew says, and Mike actually blushes. He keeps finding new ways to get more and more pathetic.

“Well, aren’t I special?”

“Very,” Andrew says, and warmth sits deep in Mike’s stomach. “So… what are you up to, tonight?”

“Nothing- well, nothing right now. I was… out. With some friends,” he pauses. “I’m a little bit drunk.”

Andrew snorts. “That’s fun,” he says. “Where were you?”

“This pub, down the block. My friends, they’re, uh, friends from back home.”

“That’s sweet, that you guys are still friends.”

“Something like that,” Mike grumbles.

“Not-so-sweet?”

“No, not like that,” Mike says, and sighs. “They’re just… they don’t get it, sometimes. The two of them, I mean, it used to be kind of off-and-on, but they’ve basically been together since we were like thirteen. So it’s hard for them to understand.”

“Being single?” Andrew supplies.

“Being in love with someone who doesn’t love you back.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Mike says, with a sigh. “Like, I can’t just tell them all this stuff I tell you. They’re all, like, oh, Mike, plenty of fish in the sea.”

“Wait, do they know how you feel? About… Will?” Andrew asks, but Mike barrels forward, caught up in the freedom of someone so gloriously disconnected from the rest of his personal life.

“They’re so bossy. Mike, get out of your apartment. Mike, come eat dinner. Mike, go out with this boy. Maybe I don’t want a court-ordered date, did they ever consider that?”

“They’re setting you up with someone?”

“Yeah, some guy from Max’s class,” Mike says, with a sigh.

“Is he cute?”

He laughs. “Cute enough. I ‘dunno if he’s my type, though.”

“What is your type?”

Mike considers this for a moment.

“Will,” he says, a little miserably.

“Right. Will.”

“I’m still gonna… I'll still go out with him, though, probably. She’s introducing us next week. Could be fun.”

“Could be,” he echoes.

“Yeah,” Mike says, with another long sigh. He looks around the room, spotting the rented tape from a few days ago still sitting on the coffee table. “Hey, have you ever seen The Last Crusade?”

“A few times, yeah,” he says. “It’s my favourite of the trilogy.”

“What!?” Mike exclaims, incredulous. “No way, dude. Raiders blows Crusade out of the water.”

“It absolutely does not.”

“Yes it does! Listen, Raiders, it’s our first introduction to Indy, right? So…”

Mike calls him the next three nights in a row. He tries to keep the calls short, because he’s paying per minute and not exactly rolling in dough to begin with, but time gets away from him more and more. Something about talking to Andrew is addictive, it satisfies a deep part of Mike’s soul that he’s been missing badly. He loves Max and Lucas, but it’s not the same, and talking to Andrew- it reminds him of Will, almost, in a super weird way.

On the fourth night, though, he vows to take a break. He’s behind on homework- he always is, but it’s gotten especially bad, lately -and, again, his wallet needs the break.

Until the phone rings around 10:00.

“Hello?” Mike answers.

“Hey, it’s me.”

Mike pauses.

“Will,” he continues, and Mike shakes his head, wicking away his thoughts. He needs to get more sleep, because for just a second, Will sounded exactly like-

“Hey, man, what’s up?”

“Nothing, I just… wanted to see how you’re doing. I’m dialed out from the phone at work, so I can't talk for too long, but I feel like I never see you anymore.”

“Yeah, yeah, I mean… I’m not the one working every night.”

Will lets out a long sigh. “I know. Maybe I am here too much, it’s just, the money’s good, and the fact that I can work as much as I want is… it gets a little addictive.”

“Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you about that, actually. Can you explain, like, what you’re doing? Like… how is there that much paperwork for you to do?”

“There’s a huge backlog of stuff,” Will says. “And I’m the only one doing it. Apparently the guy who had this job before me was just doing nothing for, like, years.”

“Oh, shit, okay,” Mike says, “okay, that makes sense. I was trying to explain it to Max, and… I don’t know, she was being weird. You know what she’s like.”

Will pauses. “Yeah, she’s… something.”

“She’s something,” Mike repeats. “But, hey- speaking of. Any chance you can get Saturday off?”

“Sure. Why?”

“Her and Lucas are having a party. At their place.”

“Isn’t that Valentine’s?” Will asks.

“That’s what I said!”

Will laughs. “They are weird. But, yeah, I should be good.”

Mike debates, for a moment, telling Will about Max’s friend, but decides against it. He spends so much of his week waiting to talk to Will, he doesn’t want to make it about some stupid guy.

“How has it been?” he asks. “The new job.”

“It’s okay,” Will says. “It’s… interesting. I’ve never done anything like this before, but it turns out I’m weirdly good at it.”

“At filing?”

“Yeah, filing. Organizing. All that stuff.”

Mike thinks of Will’s bedroom, clothes and paper and mysterious debris littering every inch of surface available, and can’t help the chuckle that falls out of his mouth.

“Ha-ha, asshole.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” Will says, with a sigh.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, and is quiet for a long second. “Yeah, it’s just… I don’t know. It’s starting to affect me.”

“...filing?” Mike asks, doing his best not to sound judgemental.

“It’s hard to explain,” Will says.

“Maybe the hours aren’t helping,” Mike suggests, and Will sighs again. He sounds so tired, and Mike just wants him to come home so that he can set him down on the couch with a blanket and a cup of tea in his favourite Garfield mug.

“They’re not. But even though they don’t technically care, the pressure is real. The more you work, the better favour you’re in, type of thing.”

“Better favour?” Mike asks. “What does that mean?”

“It’s…” Will hesitates. “Like I said, it’s hard to explain. It’s a weird place to work.”

“Sounds like it,” Mike says. “I mean, I’m sure you could find another job pretty easily, if you wanted to.”

“Yeah, I know,” Will says.

“I’m sorry, man.”

“It’s okay. Look, I should probably get going.”

“Oh, okay,” Mike says, trying not to sound too disappointed. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Talk to you later,” he says. “Goodnight, Mike.”

“Goodnight, Will.”

Mike sits back against the couch, warmth spreading in his chest.

 He needs to talk to a real guy, who is for-real interested in him. ASAP.

“Sarah, I’m clocking out.”

Sarah, Mike’s manager, looks up from the pile of dust she’s slowly been sweeping up. “What time is it?”

“5:31,” Mike says, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Sarah is nice enough, but she’s more than a little anal retentive. She gets angry if they try to clock out even a minute early, but at the same time claims “wage theft” if they go more than five minutes past the end of their shift. She also hates when she catches them repeatedly checking their watches or the clock at the front of the store. It’s a lose-lose-lose, but mercifully, she just gives Mike a thumbs up.

He hears the entry bell chime as he’s taking off his apron and grabbing his things, and assumes it’s just another customer, but when he re-emerges from the back-

“Hey,” says Will, lighting up at the sight of him.

“Hey. What are you doing here?”

“You wanna get dinner?”

Mike nods, helpless to fight the grin spreading across his face.

“Goodnight, Sarah,” he says, and she smiles politely at him as he heads toward the door.

“‘Night, Mike.”

He turns ahead to where Will is already outside, holding the door for him, and jogs to catch up.

They end up at a diner Mike has always thought El would love, with its squeaky vinyl seats and teal countertops. They sit across from each other in a booth near the back, and Will picks at his fries absentmindedly as he stares out the window.

“You okay?” Mike asks, and faces him, nodding blankly.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m…” he trails off, pausing for a second before taking a deep breath. “Are you going to Max’s party?”

Mike cocks his head. “Yeah, I mean, I’m the one that told you about it.”

“Right, right, just… I dunno. I thought maybe you’d changed your mind.”

“Oh,” Mike says. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Will repeats, a little rushed. Mike frowns.

“Hey,  if you don’t wanna go, it’s okay. I can stay home with you, if you want- we can rent a movie, get a pizza? I know this new job’s been kicking your ass.”

Will seems to genuinely weigh this, holding Mike's eye for a long, second, but shakes his head.

“No, no. I want to go.”

“Okay,” Mike says, “but if you change your mind-”

“I know, but I’m good, Mike, seriously.”

Mike nods, and their waiter passes by their table with an easy smile.

“How is everything?”

“Good, thanks,” Mike says, with a nod, and he’s gone. He turns to Will. “Doesn’t he kinda look like-”

“Mr. Clarke with no mustache?”

“Yes! So creepy!” Mike says, as they share wide grins.

Saturday sneaks up on Mike. He doesn’t see much of Will again after they leave the diner and Will catches the bus to work, until he unlocks the apartment door to the sound of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust drifting out of Will’s open bedroom.

“Hey!” Will calls, at the sound of the door shutting behind Mike.

“Hey! You wanna go in, like, 20?”

“Sure!”

Mike sorts through their mail, pulling out a postcard of the Chicago skyline, with a cheery message from Dustin on the back telling them to call soon. Mike smiles at the looping signature, and finds a free magnet to hang it on the fridge with, shoved in beside Max and Lucas’s save-the-date and a polaroid of El and Will asleep on each other’s shoulders in the back of Hopper’s truck.

“What time did Max tell people to come at, again?”

Mike turns at the sound of his voice, and immediately forgets how to speak. Will is dressed in a deep red, silky sort of shirt, unbuttoned dangerously low and exposing pale collarbones and speckles of brown moles. He’s hooking small silver hoops into his ears, and Mike usually forgets they’re even pierced, but is abruptly smacked in the face with it every time Will chooses to remember. He blinks, snapping his slightly parted mouth shut when he realizes no words are coming out.

“What?” Will asks, brow furrowing as he drops his hands from his ears, standing up straighter “Do I look weird? I was thinking- y'know, Valentine’s, I should be on theme.”

“No, no- that’s- that’s good thinking,” Mike says, shaking his head, mouth impossibly dry. “Nothing’s wrong. You look- you look good.”

Twenty-four minutes later, they’re climbing the stairs, six-pack-minus-one hanging in Will’s left hand. They knock on the door, and Lucas answers with a wide grin, wearing a ridiculous pair of baby-pink corduroys that Mike is sure he bought just for the occasion.

“Gentlemen!” he exclaims, stepping back and opening the door wider. “Come in!”

There are already a few other people there when they come in, but the apartment only continues to fill up over the next hour. Mike loses Will a few times, but they always seem to drift back to each other in the crowd, never apart for too long.

He’s sitting on the couch, Will on one side and a girl from one of Lucas’s classes that they’ve met a few times on the other. All three of them are deep in conversation about Stephen King when Max appears in front of them, and they all look up, but she has her eyes fixed on Mike.

“He’s here,” she says, with a beckoning jerk of her head. Mike is expecting Will to turn to him with a Who is? or a questioning look at the very least, but instead finds him intently focused on the carpet. Mike stands, sparing him a passing frown, and follows Max into the kitchen.

“Hey, sunshine!” someone calls, as Max pulls Mike by the elbow into the kitchen. “There you are!”

He’s standing against the counter at the back of the room, posture relaxed but face open and smiling as he holds his arms out.

“Hey, Andrew,” Max says, with a warm smile as he pulls her into a hug, Mike hovering awkwardly behind her.

The guy is tall, at least three inches on Mike, maybe four. His hair is sandy blonde, in loose curls that fall around his chin. The hand on Max’s shoulder glints with a silver ring on nearly every finger, and the one holding his drink is the same. He looks up, and flashes Mike a pearly white smile.

“Andrew, this is Mike,” Max says, practically pushing him in front of her. Mike holds his hand up in an awkward sort of wave.

“Mike,” Andrew repeats, all charm as he looks Mike up and down in a way he can’t decide how to feel about.

“Hey,” Mike says. “Andrew right?”

“That’s me,” he says, with a smile, leaning back against the kitchen counter as he takes a long drink out of his shiny red solo cup. “How do you know Max?”

“Oh, man, we met right around the time the dinosaurs went extinct,” Mike says, and he laughs. He turns to Max, but finds her already gone, vanished into the crowd of the party. “She moved to mine and Lucas’s hometown around middle school.”

“Oh, shit, you’re from Hawkins, too?” He asks, and Mike raises his eyebrows.
“Yeah?”

“I grew up east on old Roane road,” he says. “We were juuuuuust barely on the other side of that whole- what was it? The quarantine?”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Mike says, dryly, extremely desperate to talk about absolutely anything else in the world. “That was pretty crazy stuff.”

Luckily, Andrew seems to get the hint, because he just nods, surveying the party for a moment before he turns back to Mike. “So, you go to school around here?”

“Yeah, I’m over at IU?”

The conversation with Andrew flows unexpectedly well. Mike has trouble, sometimes, meeting new people- words get stuck in his throat, and he trips and stumbles through sentences like his shoelaces are tied together. But their conversation is easy and comfortable, and Mike finds his guard slowly dropping as he smiles and laughs without having to force himself to act like he’s having a good time.

There’s a tall window at the edge of the kitchen that leads to a tiny balcony. It’s been open all night, smokers passing in and out, cold February air blowing through the kitchen and occasionally sending a chill down Mike’s spine. He glances over as a particularly strong chill blows through the room, wondering if it would really be such a pain in the ass to open and close it every time someone passes through, and notices Will, standing just beside it and gripping his beer with an iron force.

He’s watching Mike- and Andrew -intensely, but when Mike catches his eye, he turns away. He ducks through the window like a flash, and Mike frowns, realizing he’s completely lost the thread of what Andrew is saying to him.

“Sorry, um-” Mike starts, cringing internally at how he definitely just interrupted the middle of a sentence. “I gotta step out for a sec. I just saw… someone I need to talk to.”

“Oh,” says Andrew, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. He waves Mike off, calm & easygoing. “Yeah, sure. No worries. I’ll catch up with you later- it was nice meeting you.”

“Yeah, you too,” Mike says, already turning away.

He weaves through the crowd of people in the kitchen, and distantly laments his jacket, tossed into the heap on Max and Lucas’s bed a million miles away as the cold air hits his face. There are a few people crowding the balcony, laughing and talking, and he spots Will at the far end, fighting with his lighter against the wind.

“Hey,” Mike says, as he comes up next to him. He holds out both his hands, cupping them next to Will’s to create a proper shield for the flame. Will flicks the lighter once more, and the cigarette lights.

“Thanks,” he says, a little clipped.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Mike frowns. “Really? ‘cause you seem-”

“I’m fine, Mike,” he says, a little harsher, and Mike recoils slightly.

“Will, what’s wrong?” He asks, but Will says nothing, just stares out at the street below them and inhales deeply. “Look, I meant what I said the other night. We can just leave now, if you want, if you’re not feeling it, because I-”

“Really? Because it seems like you’re feeling it.”

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Will is silent for a lengthy moment, smoking his cigarette with a ferocity that would make Joyce proud, and Mike feels annoyance prickle in his chest.

“Hello? What does that mean?”

“You know what it means. Why don’t you go back inside, I'm sure Max’s friend is really missing the company.”

Mike frowns, annoyance flowing more into confusion. “Andrew?”

Will's spine straightens, and he turns to look at Mike. His forehead creases, and there are a million things passing over his face at once, none of them decipherable.

“That’s his name?” he asks, almost incredulous.

“Yeah?”

“Jesus,” Will mutters, shaking his head. “You have a type.”

“Wh-”

He snuffs out his half finished cigarette and throws it off the edge of the balcony, turning so abruptly that he bumps Mike with his shoulder. The rest of the balcony crowd is either shamelessly eavesdropping or just pretending not to, but part like the red sea as Will passes through toward the window.

“Will!” Mike calls, as he ducks back into the apartment, but he doesn’t turn around, and Mike hurries after him.

“Will!” He calls again, as he comes into the crowded kitchen, but he’s already gone. The lights are dim and the music in the living room is blaring, but Mike focuses, looking for his crop of brown hair or the red of his shirt. He finds Lucas instead, leaning against the wall next to the bathroom and talking to a guy Mike doesn’t recognize.

“Have you seen Will?” He asks, and Lucas quirks one eyebrow. Mike has never been anything but completely transparent to him.

“You guys okay?”

“Lucas,” Mike says, with a look of come on, man, and Lucas holds up his hands in surrender.

“That way?”

Mike follows the direction of Lucas’s pointer finger, and spots Will a moment later, pushing toward the crowd toward the front door. He sticks along the edge of the room, and almost manages to beat him there.

“Will!” He calls, catching the door as Will slams it shut behind him, and spilling out into the hallway. Will doesn’t turn around, stalking toward the stairs at the end of the hall. “Will!”

“Just leave me alone, Mike,” he calls, barely glancing over his shoulder. Mike huffs, and speeds up again, thundering down the steps behind him. He finally catches up at the base of the steps, grabbing Will by the wrist, forcing him to whip around with venom in his eyes.

“Will,” He says, for the thousandth time. “Holy shit, dude. What is your problem?”

“You are my problem, Mike! You’ve always been my problem. How do you not understand that?”

Mike’s head is swimming. “What?”

Will shakes free of his hand and continues down the hall to their apartment, shoving his key into the lock as Mike lingers at the base of the stairs, processing, trying to figure out the answer when he’s not even sure what the question is. He shakes his head and continues down the hall, anger and confusion and sadness all still warring in his head.

“Dude,” He says, coming into the apartment, calling out to wherever Will is. “Look, I don’t know- I know I can be an idiot, sometimes, okay. I know I say stupid things, and, like, usually I have some idea of what the problem is, but I’m really, really lost right now. So I’m sorry, okay, for whatever it was, but I really need-”

“I’m not working in a warehouse Mike!” Will yells, suddenly appearing in his bedroom doorway. His hair is sticking up from his head, like he’s been running his fingers through it, and his shirt is coming untucked from the waist of his jeans. Hurt and anger are painted across his face, but his stance is planted and firm in a way Mike hasn’t seen him in years.

If Mike was lost before, it has nothing on how he feels now.

“Huh?” he says, rather dumbly, because his brain has nothing else to offer.

“Jesus,” Will mutters, throwing a hand up. He stomps out of his own room and over to Mike’s, and Mike just hovers in the middle of the apartment, brain on overdrive and in no place to stop him or even ask questions. “I mean, honestly, it was the stupidest story ever,” He calls, and Mike can hear him rifling around in his room, but still, says nothing, mouth hanging slightly open like a fish. “What kind of filing clerk only works nights? And makes their own schedule? That’s not a job. I don’t know how you never figured it out.”

He emerges from the room with a tightly folded slip of yellow paper in his hand, and chucks it at Mike, hitting him square in the chest and flopping pathetically to the carpeted floor. Mike knows what it is, but bends down and picks it up anyways, unfolding it and staring at the messages scrawled two lines apart. 483, and below it, the number for El’s new host family.

“What is this?” he asks, because he can’t even begin to figure out how to phrase what he’s actually asking, but he knows Will will understand what he means.

Will looks at him, long and hard, their eyes meeting across the room. Will digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, sighing, like the weight of the world is crushing him.

“I’m Andrew,” He finally says, and the words hang in the air like thick smoke for several long seconds. Mike blinks, feeling his mind fold in on itself.

“What?”

“I didn’t even- I mean, I knew your voice as soon as I heard it,” Will says, running a hand over his face. His still composure is gone, pacing around with a rush of releasing this secret. “Not even your voice, I knew your cough, idiot. But I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t just be like, hey, this is Will, by the way. And you didn’t recognize me, so I was thinking hey, maybe I’m wrong, and I didn’t say anything, and then-”

“I told you my life story.”

“Yeah. And then mine and El’s names, just to seal the deal.”

“Fuck,” Mike mutters. He needs to sit down, badly, but his feet can’t move. He puts a hand on his head, and sighs. “Fuck. Okay. Look, can we just- cone of silence, okay? I won’t say anything about you, obviously, you don’t have to worry about that. But you have to understand, I mean, I never would have said a word about any of my stuff to you, in any normal world. I didn’t mean to freak you out. We can just- I mean, it’ll be awkward, for awhile, but we don’t have to bring it up again, and I can just-”

“Mike,” Will says, one word, with the weight of the entire world behind it. “No. That's not what I'm saying.”

“Then what are you saying?” Mike asks, sick with the weight of everything, with his desperation to hold he and Will’s friendship together, to stuff everything back into Pandora’s Box.

“I love you, too,” Will says, and the world stops spinning.

Mike crosses the living room, and kisses him with so much force that he knocks both of them backwards into his open bedroom, Will steadying them with one hand on the doorframe. He’s kissing back instantly, messy and rushed, and they’re gasping and breathing heavily through their noses but unwilling to separate from each other even microscopically so they can take a proper breath.

“How long?” Mike pants, finally separating, holding Will by both sides of his face. Their foreheads rest together, and Will’s arms are wrapped loosely around his waist. Mike watches as he closes his eyes, just for a moment, like the magnitude of the entire moment is too much to bear. His tongue darts out, licking his bottom lip, and Mike stares in a trance, before his eyes open again and he looks up at Mike through thick lashes.

“Forever,” he murmurs

“Forever,” Mike repeats, in disbelief, and Will nods softly against him.

“Kiss me again,” he says, smile playing on his lips, and Mike doesn’t need to be told twice.

Mike stirs the next morning, hearing a small groan from above him as he moves, and realizes that he’s wrapped tightly in a familiar pair of arms. He’s content to lay with Will until, really, the end of time, but he hears a knock at the door and realizes that’s what woke him in the first place. He rises, blinking in the winter sunlight that fills his room, and grimaces as he wipes a small wet spot off of Will’s bare chest where his mouth just was. Ew.

He throws on whatever clothes he can find strewn across the bedroom floor- he and Will’s laundry has been inextricably mixed since the first month that they started living together, and he suspects this new development is only going to make that worse -and moves quietly out of the room, shutting the door softly behind him. Whoever’s outside knocks again, and if they wake Will up, Mike’s going to be irritated.

He opens the door, to find Lucas in the hall, hand poised to knock a fourth time.

“Jesus, can you give a guy a second?” Mike asks, and Lucas gives him a sheepish sort of grin.

“Sorry. I didn’t know if you’d be up. Um-” He holds out two jackets, which Mike takes, and then two tapes- a mix with a hand-drawn cover of a dragon, and some album that Mike doesn’t recognize, but looks like something angsty and a little whiny that Max and Will really bond over. “These are Will’s. You guys left in… a hurry, last night.”

“Oh,” Mike says, still not awake enough for this conversation. “Yeah.”

He steps inside to set the jackets and tapes on the kitchen counter, and Lucas follows him, because they haven’t needed an invitation into each other’s homes since they were about nine years old.

“You guys okay?” he asks, and Mike turns, trying to keep his expression neutral as he nods.

“Yeah, we’re- we’re all good.”

Lucas is looking around, and while Mike is sure he takes note of Will’s open bedroom door and Mike’s shut one, he says nothing. “Cool. I came to see if you guys wanted to come grab breakfast with us, in like 20-”

He cuts himself off as Mike’s bedroom door creaks open, a very shirtless Will wandering out, rubbing his eyes.

“Mike?” he asks, and then nobody says a word.

Will stands wide-eyed in the doorway, looking like he wants to melt into the carpet, Mike focuses very intently on the tapes still in his hand, and Lucas is looking between the two of them wildly.

“Oh,” he says, finally. “So… definitely all good.”

Mike tips his head upward, praying to god or Bob Newby or whoever the hell else might be up there for an ounce of strength, and then takes a deep breath. He turns to Will, who is still silently trying to phase himself out of existence.

“Will?” Mike asks. “Breakfast in 20?”

“Sounds good,” Will says, in as few syllables as possible, eyes still focused unblinkingly ahead. Mike looks back to Lucas.

“We’ll meet you downstairs?”

Lucas clears his throat. “Cool.”

“Cool,” Mike echoes, and Lucas turns to let himself out.

He turns to Will, wincing. He’s expecting him to panic- hell, he’s expecting himself to panic -but Will just grins.

“Well, that’s over with,” he says, and Mike laughs. He crosses the room, and takes Will by the hand, pulling him into his chest and lazily looping both arms around his shoulders.

“I guess I should tell you, uh- ” Mike says. “Max and Lucas have known about me for a while.”

Will leans back in his embrace, quirking one eyebrow. “Known about you?”

“That I… liked you. Lucas kinda figured it out a little before we left Hawkins, and then I eventually just told Max once we were living out here, because it was easier. I mean, that’s assuming he hadn’t already told her, but I don’t-”

“Mike,” Will interrupts. “Max and Lucas have known about me for a while.”

Mike stands up straighter, head gawking forward. “What!?”

“Yeah. I mean, El figured it out years ago, and I told her she was allowed to tell Max if she wanted to, because I figured it was just a matter of time ‘til she did it anyway. And then I eventually just told Lucas once we were living out here-”

“-because it was easier,” Mike finishes. “Oh my god.”

“Mike, that was Max’s friend you were with last night, right? The guy.”

“Yes! She was trying to set me up with him, she told me about him before the party, and brought me into the kitchen to meet him. Told me I had to start getting over you.”

Will brings one hand to his forehead, eyes wide.
“She sent me into the kitchen! She asked me to go get her another drink, and I remember thinking it was weird, because you know how she gets about people doing stuff for her, but I was just like, she’s the host, obviously I’m gonna get her a drink,” Will drops his hand, shaking his head as he looks up at Mike. “Those shits set us up.”

“I think it was one shit more than the other one, but-” Mike sighs, head tipping forward with a laugh. “Yeah, they did. They got us.”

“They got the hell out of us,” Will says, grinning. Their eyes meet, and they both lean forward, closing the distance with a soft kiss.

“Well,” Mike says. “I guess we’re definitely going to breakfast.”