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The Wheeler house is still like a calm before the storm. Mike sits restlessly as the rest of the party tries not to notice his obvious anxiety; Well, most of the party. Max has never been one for subtlety.
“Will you quit it already?! You’d think she was coming here to kill all of us or something. You said she was cool, Wheeler,” The redhead huffs from her place next to Jane where they’re both braiding Will and Dustin’s hair respectively.
“She is cool! You are not. Maybe I’m nervous you’re going to try and steal her soul or something,” Mike says defensively, if there’s one thing that can get him to stop worrying it’s Max. Unfortunately, her method of distraction also happens to be the most obnoxious.
“Very classy, Micheal,” Max rolls her eyes and goes back to her task of making Will look like a pretty princess which he seems to be thoroughly enjoying.
“Yeah man, stop dogging on my girlfriend! She needs the souls to keep her lovely and youthful, it’s a ginger thing she can’t help that,” Lucas says, in an attempt to both avoid a MadWheeler brawl and cheer Mike up as he knows how nervous he truly is for this meeting.
The glare Max sends him is so scathing it actually makes him tremble a little. Lucas is saved by the doorbell as it rings in the arrival of Mike’s self proclaimed ‘angel’. Mike hops up so quick he knocks his knee on the coffee table. He howls in pain, hopping over to the staircase as quick as he can. Dustin actually points and laughs before Jane taps him on the head firmly as if to say he was messing up her work. He sends her a quiet apology and a toothy grin before refocusing to watch Mike hobble up the stairs so fast he almost face plants.
“I cannot believe he got someone to go out with him,” Will says incredulously and Max sends him a strange look knowing that up until about a year and a half ago Will was the one that wanted to go out with him. Will pointedly ignores her.
“I’LL GET IT MOM!” Mike yells over to Karen quickly as he sees her preparing to set down her spoon to move towards the door.
He nearly slams into said door in his haste to reach it, taking a quick second to compose himself before opening the door and immediately losing all cool.
You stand there in form fitting bellbottom jeans and the prettiest blood red, butterfly sleeved shirt. It was so simple and yet still made him consider taking you right there on the front porch. He’s broken from his thoughts by you clearing your throat, that same lazy smirk from before painted on the same deep red stained lips that left him whimpering like a dog in heat. He thinks he might be getting pavlov’d to get a hard on every time he sees the color red but that’s neither here nor there.
“You gonna let me in, pretty boy?” You ask cheekily, of course he’s gonna let you in, you’re pretty sure he’d let you step on him like a welcome mat if you asked nicely enough.
“Yeah! Yes, yeah of course. Sorry, here,” He steps to the side, waving you in like a bellhop. It was so adorably dorky you almost gave him a big fat kiss right there but you caught sight of his mom and thought better of it. You beelined towards her intending to give her one of the containers of cookies your mom made as she insisted there was no way you were showing up to their house empty handed.
Mike took this time to wipe his hands on his jeans not even having the brain capacity to be confused about why his new– girlfriend? Friend who sucked him off? – was handing his mom a box full of cookies and had another full container in her hands when she walked back over to him.
“Lead the way, Wheeler,” She grins, and his heart momentarily stops before he chastises himself for being soo corny.
He leads the way to the basement, his legs feeling more like jello with each step he takes. He’s always been the most judgemental when change comes in the party, Max can attest to that, and now he’s the one introducing a (potential) new member and he couldn’t be more terrified that they’re all going to hate you or judge him or that some kind of problem is going to arise. Before he can worry too much about that they’re already reaching the bottom of the staircase and everyone turns to stare at the new face in the room.
It’s silent for a good minute and Mike almost yells just to add some noise to the room. It feels suffocating for a moment before Dustin lets out an impressed whistle, “Wow. You are actually gorgeous, I thought he was lying,”
Mike has the sense to look offended but before he can even get a word out Jane chimes in with a cute little, “Pretty!” Nodding her head enthusiastically and her and Dustin share a giddy look before she abandons her work in his hair to join him on the floor, both of them looking up at you in something close to awe.
Max looks so gobsmacked you actually have to giggle a little, “You… are dating… him??” She says in pure confusion and again Mike is feeling more affronted by the second.
“Well we haven’t talked labels but you could say that, yeah,” You say with a wide grin, deeply amused by his friends reactions. Will and Lucas have yet to say anything but sit there almost like they’re trying to solve a particularly difficult math equation.
“Sorry, but how did you two even, like, interact?” Will says hesitantly, Mike is his best friend and he really doesn’t mean to offend him but looking at you and then looking at Mike feels like someone took two separate pictures and crudely pasted them together. You can almost see the vision it’s just really unclear on how we got here.
“We met at that writing workshop the library held a few months back. It was terrible but Mike made it entertaining,” You say almost wistfully before catching yourself, feeling your cheeks get hot when you hear Max let out a shrill laugh.
“Mike?!?! Entertaining??” She cackles, Lucas attempts to subdue her but you can see him holding back as well.
“You guys are so fucking obnoxious– you know this is MY house you’re in right?! I have full authority to kick your lame asses out of here,” Mike says indignantly and Dustin just gives him a slightly pitying look, “No… no you do not,” Mike just huffs at that and goes to plop on the couch; nerves gone, now just replaced with a familiar prickling annoyance and reluctant fondness. He looks towards you and sees that same amusement coloring your features,
“Would the anomaly of my presence be remedied by cookies?” You present the large tupperware container and everyone’s debating comes to a lull as they stare at you like you were heaven sent.
“A-are– are those homemade?” Dustin asks, slack jawed, Jane sitting next to him wide eyed in anticipation.
“Yup! My mom had me make them. She’s really big on the whole “Never show up empty handed” rule,” You say, making your way towards the coffee table and opening the container.
They all rush over to surround you and the baked goods. They were still slightly warm so it was safe to assume you had made them right before you came over.
“There’s M&M ones, double chocolate, and regular chocolate chip. I was gonna make sugar cookies too but I didn’t have time so maybe I can bribe y’all with the idea of a next time?” You say, raising both brows with a cheeky, hopeful look crossing your face.
“Maybe you really are an angel,” Lucas says. Max nudges him and motions to his mouth, “You’re gonna drool all over the cookies, freakazoid. We don’t need your cooties contaminating us,” Lucas looks at her in faux offense before attempting to grab her face and smother her in open mouthed kisses, “I’ll show you cooties-” They start play fighting on the ground while the others dig into the cookies.
Jane takes a bit of hers and her eyes light up like christmas lights, “‘s really good!” she says with a mouth full of M&M cookie.
“Why thank you!” You shrug with a slightly smug smirk. When in doubt, bring baked goods.
The others grab their cookies, Will stopping to ask if you’d be willing to share the recipe and you offer to bake with him someday soon and he looks like you just told him you would gift him the moon. Max chimes in to call dibs on joining, causing a chain reaction of them all trying to plan when they would come to your house to have a “baking day” as Jane called it.
You fit in so well no one would even guess that you hadn’t always been here. There was barely any conversation and they all took to you like moths to light. A well oiled machine that finally found it’s missing cog, Mike could see that too. He looks at you with stars in his eyes hardly believing how well this was going. Ever other time someone had joined the party it’d been under such stressful circumstances and this was so painfully… normal. It was mundane and calm, or what the party would constitute as calm.
The Ranger, the Speedster, and the Wizard.
The Bard and the Mage.
The Paladin and the Druid.
Maybe change wasn’t so detestable after all.