Chapter Text
At 11, Mike Wheeler learns how to hide.
He starts running campaigns in his parents’ basement - graph paper maps, write notebooks filled with meticulous lore, and construct plastic miniatures under Will’s artistic eyes. Thankfully, all of his best friends all burn with the same love for D&D. They march to his house every other night, if not to watch the latest episode from Unsolved Mysteries, then to start on their next campaign.
It’s an interesting year to say the least. He learns quickly that if you don’t let your players see how much the story mattered to you, they can’t break it. Hiding his feelings underneath a mask, acting like every twist was planned, even the painful ones, showing that everything is under his control - Mike believes that people would trust you more.
If the kingdom during their quest collapses, it was always meant to.
Mike guesses he ends up carrying that lesson everywhere.
Especially with El.
By senior year, Mike Wheeler was known for three things:
- Being insufferably smart.
- Being president of the AV club.
- Dating El.
The third one still surprises him.
They are sitting on the floor of his bedroom, textbooks spread out. El is cross-legged and focused, while Mike is leaning back against his bed. At some point, without asking, El has shifted closer. Then closer and closer and -
Then there she is between his legs, her back resting against his chest, slotted in a way that’s just perfect. She’s perfect. Mike hooks his chin over her shoulder and adjusts his textbook so he can see the text better on top of her legs.
Mike pretends not to notice. Like, pretends not to notice how his arms wrap around El’s almost automatically. Like how his breathing has even out the moment she had leaned into him.
“You’re doing that thing,” El says softly.
Mike clears his throat, “What thing?”
“Using me as a weighted blanket. Using my legs as a table.”
“Well, it’s efficient.”
Mike watches the corner of her lips lift, just the twinkle of a smile. It’s a surprise as she twists her head a bit to press a kiss into his jaw. Fuck.
He wonders if El is obsessed with him, just as how he's obsessed with her. He loves El Hopper, so much. Almost too much. And he’s not really sure about what to feel about it all. So he pretends that he doesn’t notice how his brain almost squeezes out of oxygen when she smiles at him, how his stomach hollows out at the touch of her skin.
El is magic, she makes him putty. He loves it. Hates it. Sometimes.
Because Mike likes to be in control and when he’s with El it never feels like he’s behind the steering wheel and she’s so pretty and she likes him and what if she gets tired of him one day and just dumps him just because she feels like it and he’s not going to be surprised because she’s amazing and he’s just loser nerdy frog face Mike, you know, and isn’t it crazy how his mind and heart and feelings just go haywire whenever she’s around –
So yes, it still surprises him that Mike can kiss her whenever he can and she can kiss him whenever she wants to. Mike has been El’s since they were like, twelve, and honestly the second she moved into this sleepy boring town, lighting up his whole life the second she made eye contact with him during a thunderstorm the night him, Lucas, Dustin, and Will were out searching for Will’s dog in Mirkwood. But it still surprises him that she is willing to be Mike’s. Like actual, legitimately, consenting to be with him.
Him. Mike Wheeler.
Because Mike is all sharp-edged, all sarcasm and rolled eyes, and he’s pretty sure he’s annoying because Nancy always says so, and El is just pretty and smart and kind and absolutely HIS opposite, so basically just the best.
El has these worn out oversized sweaters in pastel colors that she says comes from her Aunt Becky up north and tells him she hates wearing them during the fall and winter but has to anyway because she’s too lazy to buy other sweaters downtown, and Mike just loves it when she wears those because she looks so cute and cuddly (and it’s his first memory of her, you know, out there in Mirkwood, El holding an umbrella and fingering the edges of her pink sweater as she asks them why they were out there near her house screaming for someone called Frodo - aka the puppy), so sue him if he smiles every time he sees her and in her sweaters.
She’s quite shy and her lips are always pressed into an observing glint, but her fingers are always busy with something – paper scraps during her scrapbooking, cookie dough whenever she bakes, Mike’s own fingers whenever they are together. Which is like, always.
But Mike knows better than anyone that El is steel wrapped in lace. He’s seen her stand up to bullies twice her size. He’s seen her hands deep in engine grease helping Lucas fix his bike. He’s seen her scream lyrics to The Clash at Will’s house next to Jonathan, her hair whipping around while she laughed. He’s seen her genuinely smile at his dumb jokes about mitochondria. He’s seen her throw a book like a bullet at a guy’s ear - pink sweater and ribbons in her hair and all - when some stupid senior had called him “Frogface Freak!!!” in the hallway.
To be honest, he’s not sure why she likes him. And yet, she holds his hand and she lets him pick his nerdy films for movie night and she gives him the best kisses.
Still, Mike is waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He and Dustin have left the confinements of Hellfire Club after Eddie’s move to California back in sophomore year, and Mike’s shed every long-haired, dark clothed bit of what his mother had called “demonic spirit” at the start of his junior year. Still, it was pretty convenient to have the same shirt to wear at school back then, it was actually nice to have a uniform. He sniffs a pair of jeans that was next to his dresser. Huh. This will have to do.
“Michael!!! You’re going to be late!” Mom hollers.
“I’m coming down already!” He screeches, then says under his breath, “Fucking hell.”
Mike grabs a comb to somewhat tame the coils demanding to curl further towards his forehead. Shit. He just had a haircut.
(El always said he looked extra cute with his shorter hair, but she also missed his longer hair during sophomore year. He’s not too sure what to feel about that, but he remembered looking at the mirror shortly after and hoping it would grow instantly, in like, a week.)
“Mike! You need to leave or else, these flowers are going back into the garden –”
Ah shit, the flowers he told mom last night to be wrapped in wax paper. The purple and yellow mixed flowers he spent hours picking in her garden. He haaaas to march up to school in an instant because he has homeroom and El can’t be at homeroom since she’s taking a math test she wasn’t able to take ‘cause she had to go to Aunt Becky’s during the previous week and the flowers are just gonna wilt because they don’t have classes together in the morning and the next time he’s seeing her it’s going to be lunch and Max is freaking going to kill him if he’s giving El wilted flowers over mystery meat on a monday.
Fuck. If not for El, he would totally hate Valentines’ day.
“Eeeeeeel!!!”
Mike catches up to her thankfully. He skids to a stop near El’s locker. He slams his backpack down, sticks a finger down the collar of his faded blue jacket. He had sweated a downpour while running down the hall.
“Wheeler, you ran for, like, a minute - why are you dying?” Max huffs. El just smiles adorably, her eyes wide and happy to see him.
She gasps. “Oh - you brought me flowers?”
“These are from mom’s garden..” He takes a second to breathe. “I know you like purple, and I saw these yellow ones, and it’s pretty great ya know, so I made a 70/30 split. I guess–”
“- I love them!” El chirps, and she stands on her tippy toes to plant her cheek against his neck and to wrap her arms around his back for a snuggle, to which he gladly accepts.
Max pretends to vomit and rushes off, “Bye losers.”
Her cheek is on his chest now, warm and soft. “…Yeah,” Mike says, voice rough. “Glad you like them.”
El hums happily against him, arms tightening. She smells like vanilla and laundry detergent, like home and safety and everything Mike simultaneously wants and fears.
He presses the flowers between his side and hers, awkwardly adjusting them so they don't get squished. He feels her fingers brush against his jacket, and a weird tug in his chest makes him take a step closer.
“…You’re warm,” he mutters, because that is the only thing he can think of.
El’s eyes sparkles at him. Bright, hopeful. Like she shows. Like she is waiting. Waiting for him to say it - the words that have been stuck in his throat for… God, how long? Her little exclamation, her happiness - it makes his stomach flip in ways he refuses to analyze. He tries to focus on the flowers. The damn flowers.
El squeezes him again, presses into him, her voice soft and expectant.
“I love you, Mike. Thank you,” she murmurs.
And Mike’s brain… glitches.
“I… uh.. Did you, like… like the 70/30 ratio?”
El straightens up, blinking at him. “...Mike–”
He leans down, pressing his forehead gently to the side of hers, and holds her a little closer. Vanilla and safety.
Goddamnit, he thinks. Say it, Mike. Just say it.
But he doesn’t.
He kisses the top of her head instead. Soft. Long enough to communicate something. El sighs quietly and reaches up to tangle her fingers in his hair. Mike smiles nervously against her hair. His chest is aching and he’s quite irked about the humming, frenetic energy simmering under… whatever he’s feeling.
Words are hard. Harder than bending down and choosing flowers from his mother’s garden, harder than running down a hallway - heck a highway - and harder than leading any AV club meeting.
“You’re my favorite person,” words finally leave his mouth, his voice low and soft, chest aching a bit. “Yeah.”
Lunch is chaotic, as usual. His stomach growls, but he’s not really focused on that.
Mike slides into his seat beside El automatically, shoulder bumping into hers, their knees knocking together under the table. He’s expecting a smile from her but he’s sort of put out when she doesn’t really budge from the book she’s reading, a small, worn-out copy pressed down in front of milk. He swallows, sitting there for a bit. He’s about to ask if she’s okay when El leans into him without thinking, resting her head briefly against his shoulder before sitting upright again and smiling at him.
Phew. He sighs internally. So they’re okay then.
“God,” Dustin says, squinting at them. “You guys are like one of those gross old married couples who don’t even notice they’re touching anymore.”
Mike bites into his sandwich. “Jealousy is unbecoming, Henderson.”
Lucas snorts. “Says the guy who nearly short-circuited the AV system when El didn’t call him back for twenty minutes.”
“What?” El turns, surprised.
“That was a technical issue,” Mike says sharply. “Unrelated. Unrelated!”
“Sure!” Lucas chuckles.
“I think it was just something in the hardware,” says Will kindly, before his eyes darting at an irked Mike. “Oh, hi Max.”
Max swings her legs onto the bench across from them, eyes glittering with mischief. She slams her lunch tray down with a flourish. “Sure, Wheeler. You’re about as emotionally detached as a golden retriever. What’s up, losers?”
Mike shot her a glare. “Why the fuck are you here?”
“Because El invited me,” Max says smugly, throwing an arm around El’s shoulders. El just beams. “Unlike you, I’m actually fun.”
El laughs, soft but genuine, and Mike feels that familiar warmth bloom in his chest. He loves hearing her laugh. He nudges her with his knee, and she turns to give him his own El smile.
He says with a fake gasp. “You’re defecting now?”
She taps his knee. “You’ll survive.”
“Debatable,” Max cut in. “He’s one bad grade away from a full meltdown.”
“Hey,” El protests gently.
Mike leans closer to her, lowering his voice. “It’s okay. Don’t listen to the Pennhurst patient.”
Max snaps. “See? This is what I mean. He says things like that and expects people not to push him into lockers. Right Lucas?” Then Max’s eyes focus on something Lucas is working on, and then the redhead’s off to annoy her boyfriend.
El closes her book. She focuses on peeling the paper off a blueberry muffin. “Wow, I’m starving.”
Mike brings out a leaflet of papers he has to finish before the next period, something he wasn’t able to finish ‘cause he got too caught up with the flowers yesterday. Curse Valentines’ Day! Curse Mr. Bryant’s AP physics and his extensive homework! He’s quickly scanning over a worksheet when his eyes lift up towards El’s closed book. He clocks it immediately; something orange at the edge of the book - tucked slightly wrong, with a pale pink edge just peeking out. With the numbers from the worksheet swimming in his brain, he gives it zero care –
Until El brings it out ten minutes later, just a few minutes before lunch ends.
He’s just about to finish the last question when he notices her sit up straight, her hands fingering the same pale pink edged thing. It’s a card. In a split of a second, her eyes widen, then soften, then panics.
“Nice card.” Mike coughs.
Color has seemed to crawl up El’s neck.
“What is it?” Now Mike is curious. He puts down his worksheet and makes a grab for it. El lets him. He runs his thumb against the shitty card, with shitty handwriting about El’s pink sweater and how she looks so pretty in it when she was wearing it last Thursday and how this shitty person thinks she’s the most beautiful person in the world and he’s angry because it’s so true.
El whispers, embarrassed. “It’s… a love letter.”
Mike’s turning it around to see who wrote it, but it’s anonymous. He passes it back to El. He hopes she doesn’t notice how his fingers have gripped the card almost as if it would explode.
“Shitty handwriting,” he comments lamely. Internally, a thousand scenarios bloom and die all at once.
Who is it? How long have they liked El? Did they know she has a fucking boyfriend? Did El–
Stop.
“No idea who sent it. It was just–” She gestures to her book. “Here.”
Mike leans back a bit. He forces a shrug. “Coward.”
El stares at him, more overwhelmed than flattered.
Mike smiles. His hand finds hers under the table without him consciously deciding to do it. He threads their fingers together, thumb brushing over her knuckles.
“Well,” he says. “You’re kind of amazing, El. Statistically speaking. This was kinda inevitable.”
It’s fine. It’s totally fucking fine.
Mike sits in front of Mr. Bryant’s class and does his best to raise his hand to answer any extra credit questions. It helps his brain to NOT go into overdrive - about the card, and about El especially.
Shit. Of course someone would notice her. It’s El.
El is warmth that sneaks up on people.
She’s the kind of person any guy (or girl) would have a crush on, because she’s so nice and sweet and pretty. He’s so stupid. And he’s so…
Jealous.
Jealous that someone else has seen her in the same way he does, and that there’s a chance that she’d wake up and realize she’s been dating a snarky annoying nerd with control issues and a God complex about lighting rigs.
He’s brimming with that same simmering energy and Mr. Bryant gets tired of calling him up to answer yet again another question on the board. Mike thinks it’s probably because he had written on the chalkboard so angrily that he had messed up three chalks in the process.
“Good job today, Mike,” Mr. Bryant says while Mike does his best to keep the grouch off his face.
“Great enthusiasm about… physics,” the older man says this with a touch of bewilderment. Still, he claps a hand on Mike’s shoulder as he’s walking out, but Mike’s too lost in his thoughts to even acknowledge him.
He gets called by office staff during history – something about rewiring a faulty speaker outside the auditorium - and he’s there with a ladder, a toolkit, his AV club badge clipped to his belt - when he overhears two underclassmen whispering nearby.
“...how about El Hopper?”
“Isn’t she with Wheeler?”
“They’re just friends, idiot.”
“Really? Thought they were together.”
“I don’t think so. Think they’re just best friends or something.”
Mike’s screwdriver slips, clattering loudly against the metal frame.
He climbs down slowly, heart pounding - not because he’s angry, but because his brain is spiraling. They… don’t know? He replays it in his mind.
Well.
They don’t hold hands in the hallways that much. Nor kiss publicly. When they do, it’s usually at his house, his room, his basement, with El usually initiating affection.
To be fair, they didn’t even go to the Snow Ball together four years ago, which was practically like a marriage proposal in middle school terms. (He did ask her but she got sick and he ended up staying in her room to play cards with her.) And Mike isn’t all too big on PDA. He tends to hover, not, you know, claim.
A sickly feeling gets trapped in his throat. To an outside observer, it probably does look like they were just… close.
A horrible, nauseating thought follows:
If they don’t know she’s taken, someone might try again. No wonder she has a secret admirer! He’s so freaking stupid.
Mike swallows hard.
Okay. Fuck. Problem identified. He has to do something about this.