Chapter Text
“It’s too late now, Tayr! You’ve waited too long to profess.”
“It’s never the hour of dawn, if my feeling of dilection engorges me. Sorcerer, I am completely and utterly canged by you.” The Tayr declared loudly, to his only true love, the Sorcerer.”
Mike reads, then reads once more frowning slightly, then slowly erases his words, the paper underneath slightly crinkled. “Engorged? No way. Nobody uses engorged to profess their undying love.” He mutters, eyebrows nearly meeting , hints of frustration in his tone. He exhales out of his nose, audible enough to hear in a quiet room.
He rewrites his sentence trying a different word this time, “overtakes,” he sighs again slightly more frustrated with himself. The sound of eraser strokes and crinkling paper fill the room. He rewrites trying a different word this time, “consumes”. He reads his sentence once more, in hopes of finding the right word that reads smoothly, and feels right on the tongue.
“It’s never the hour of dawn, if my feeling of dilection consumes me. Sorcerer, I am completely and utterly canged by you.” The Tayr declared loudly, to his only true love, the Sorcerer.”
He reads again, sighing deeply, feeling utterly frustrated and a little moronic. “Nobody is gonna read this.” He thinks to himself. “Everything is happening too fast.” Staring at his work for at least thirty ticks on a clock, before feeling discouraged, and snapping his notebook shut and setting it back down on his desk. “Maybe I could get a second opinion. Someone who knows the characters just as much as I do.” The thought settles quickly.
He reaches for the phone beside his bed, and quickly dials Lucas’s phone number, pressing the receiver to his ear as the line begins to ring. It takes a second for Lucas to pick up. Mike almost thinks he won’t even answer at all, until he hears the receiver pick up, and hears his old friends voice on the other end.
“Hello.?”, he hears Lucas say slowly, almost skeptical.
“Lucas, hey!” He says almost a little too enthusiastic, like they haven’t spoken in years.
“Wheeler? Hey! It’s felt like forever, how are you man?” Lucas says, matching Mike’s tone.
”I’m doing good actually, sorry for not reaching out earlier. I’ve been so busy. You know, writing. Speaking of which.. “ He pauses for a moment to give himself ample time to back out of his next question. “Do you- Do you have uh.. Will’s phone number?” He says sheepishly, almost hoping Lucas didn’t hear him so he can back out, or ask a different question.
”Byers?” Lucas says.
Shit.
“Yeah I should, one second.” He hears, his voice fading as he steps away from the phone , then getting clearer when he gets closer again.
They talk for a couple minutes longer, then Lucas reads out the number. Mike writes the number down, double checking each number. When they say their goodbyes Mike takes a long, drawn out breath while staring at the number. It’s not one he recognizes. Just three years ago, it would've been ingrained into his brain. He must’ve gotten a new one when he moved to New York.
It takes quite a while for Mike to get the courage to even dial even the first number. It’s fine, you’re asking a question, just friendly advice. Somehow, this task feels scarier than facing Vecna ever did. Really, back then the worst part wasn’t the scary monsters, it was the thought that Will might not wake up when he used his powers the second time, and how terrified he was of it happening.
Sometimes he still thinks about it, and then he starts to think about how Will must be thriving in New York. Far away from Hawkins, fresh start, new people, hell, he might’ve even found himself a boyfriend. Someone who’s not his “Tammy”, whoever the hell that could be. Mike still has yet to figure out that mystery.
He dials the last digit of the number and takes a long shaky breath before letting the phone ring. Every ring feels longer than the last and it feels like hours, even though it’s only been a couple seconds and then he hears the phone pick up.
“Carlton speaking,” Mike stomach drops when hears a voice he doesn’t recognize talk from the other side of the phone.
He doesn’t say anything from a couple seconds, mostly because he’s so confused. Did Lucas accidentally give the wrong number? Did I mess up a number? Did Will get a new number?
“Hello?”, the voice asks drawing Mike back to reality, then Mike finally says something.
”Sorry, um, I thought this number belonged to a William Byers, I think I might’ve put-“, the voice cuts him off before he can finish.
“Oh yeah, he’s right here.” Mike hears still confused by the conversation, Who the hell is this? He thinks to himself before he hears the voice speak again, but it sounds more distant.
“Hey babe, it’s for you,” the words sound distant, but there was one word Mike heard clear as day: ”babe.”
Mike’s heart pings with an unknown jealousy, or sadness maybe? He’s not really sure, but the moment he heard babe, it felt like a weight had fallen on him. Did Mike really expect Will to stay lonely and single when he moved away from Hawkins? Honestly, no. He assumed that Will would find someone eventually, but for some reason, he just didn’t assume it would happen so soon. If you could even say that three years is recent.
For Mike, it’s felt like only maybe a year and a half. He started to lose track after everyone left for college.
He hears Will respond with “really?” vaguely in the background as if someone had put the phone underwater, he spaced out maybe thirty seconds after he heard the new voice call Will babe, and almost jumps when he hears a voice start to talk.
”Hello?” Will says, very obviously confused, like he definitely wasn’t expecting anyone to call, especially not on at 6:27 pm on a random Wednesday.
“Will? He-Hey. Its uh.. It’s Mike..” He says wavering, not at all hiding the fact that for some reason he’s very nervous.
Even though, only ten minutes ago he’s was perfectly fine speaking to Lucas. But, he can’t lie, it has been quite some time since he’s talked to Will. It’s not like he forgot to reach out or anything. In fact he thought about calling almost every day. Except when he had tried to call, Will had already gotten a new number, and he accidentally called someone random grumpy old man. He also had written a few letters the first year Will moved, but he had no address to send it to, and he certainly wasn’t going to call and ask.
“..Mike?” Will says, his tone very unclear of what he’s feeling or thinking. Just a few hints of confusion, but that was already obvious to Mike when Will first picked up the phone.