Chapter Text
Monday, August 3rd, 1987
Michael Wheeler is really fucking stupid.
He had the urge to play with the controls on the toaster today, and somehow ended up burning his toast. Not only that, it had jumped out and landed flat on the counter as if it was telling him how little his brain was. And then, when he reached for the butter? Well… he didn’t. No, he grabbed the obviously NOT butter shaped bottle of Aunt Jemima’s maple syrup, and as he poured it onto his sad, burnt toast, she smiled at him as if she knew something he didn’t.
He sat alone at the breakfast table, took a bite, and only then did he process that he wasn’t eating waffles, or buttered toast. It wasn’t terribly bad—Mike thought it was rather yummy, actually—but it finally cleared his early-morning brain fog, and that’s when he took a minute to look at the clock.
4:39 AM.
“Cool,” he sighed, to absolutely no one.
All he could hear was the crickets outside. He blinked repeatedly, before shoving the rest of the toast in his mouth. If his mother ever caught him doing that, she would have chastised him repeatedly. To Mike’s relief, like anyone else in this house, she was asleep.
His home felt a little too big at this hour. He missed when he could sneak down to the basement and check on El, or to stay up into the late hours of the night asking her about what it was like in Brenner’s lab. They were so little then, neither of them differentiated the kind of platonic love they actually had and the romantic love they thought they had. And then, they just… drifted. El got busy with training, and Mike got busy with fixing himself. He got his license, if only to feel a little useful. Still, he missed her. Both of them had realized that they needed each other’s advice and friendship, and being apart only hurt so much because Mike was missing his voice of reason. Only God knows the stupid shit he would have gotten himself into if she hadn’t appeared into his life four years ago.
Sometimes it felt like she was watching him, ever present, in how he asked himself “what would El do?” every time he felt stupid. The answer was usually one of two things: Eggos, or try harder.
Mike quickly flipped off the lights, shuffling through the dark. He didn’t know how he even managed to walk into the kitchen half awake like that. There’d been times where he was one thousand percent conscious and still tripped while walking up the stairs, in full daylight. Plus, there was that one time he accidentally took down his curtains while trying to grab the paper airplane that was lodged between the rod and the window, and the time he managed to spill pancake batter all over himself during the annual Wheeler family camping trip. He didn’t think it possible he could go a day without disaster. Statistically speaking, Mike Wheeler was a disaster on two obnoxiously long legs, and he was reminded of that ever so often.
When he was five years old, he’d scraped his knee only ten minutes before he had to leave for school. His mom had bandaged him up, tried to kiss it better, and told him he’d be fine. Still, little Mike thought any kid would take one look at his band-aided knee and think that he’s up to no good. He was a really sweet kid, the type that tried to make perfume for his mom from the wildflowers he picked at the playground, and somehow, little him was still worried that he’d seem like a bad boy to all the other kids. But he’d gone the entire day without an issue. In fact, his day was one of the best he’d had in those five years of life. He’d met his best friend.
Mike was still thinking about that when he ran headfirst into someone. They went down with a bit of a startled noise, and Mike felt the need to drop a toaster on his own head in solidarity.
“Oh my god,” he whispered, leaning over and extending a hand to where he thought they may be. Jesus, he couldn’t see a single thing. “Are you okay? Sorry, I didn’t see—”
“Mike?” Will murmured. God bless his soul. He took Mike’s hand and pulled himself up, and for a second, Mike’s brain chose to register the softness of his voice, and the way his bangs fell slightly into his eyes. He’d never tell him this, but the haircut Will had gotten this summer left Mike staring a little more often than he’d have liked to admit. Will smiled, though Mike could barely see it in the soft light. Mike tried not to think about their hands, still joined between them. If he had run into pretty much anyone else in the house, Mike would have melted into a puddle of embarrassment. He’d have immediately booked a one-way ticket to the next moon rocket testing. “I’m fine, don’t worry. Why are you awake?”
He’s pretty, Mike’s brain offered, and he mentally chucked that into the drawer labeled Do Not Examine While Conscious. That was something to file away for later. “Uh…” Mike stared dumbly. He wasn’t going to tell Will that he’d been preparing breakfast in the middle of the night, like some sort of deranged raccoon. “I thought it was time for breakfast.” Suddenly, he could hear Max Mayfield’s voice in his head. Great work, Michael. You truly possess the maximum amount of brain cells a human can have. “Why are you awake?” 10/10 diversion. You’re killing it, Michael.
“I was just gonna get water,” Will answered, and then paused for a second before padding into the kitchen to do just that. Will wore socks to sleep at night. Mike would have ignored him this time, since the basement was usually cold, but ever since they had their first ever sleepover, Will had always, always worn socks to sleep. They’d argued about this, the argument ending up something between the lines of practicality and comfort.
Mike thought for a moment (surprisingly, he’s capable of that). And then that second turned into several minutes of staring at the stairs. His chest felt a little tight, and Mike figured it was indigestion. Maybe it was because he hadn’t checked the expiry of the maple syrup, or maybe it was because of all the sugar.
A moment later, Will tapped his shoulder.
Mike shook himself out of his trance.
“Dude, are you good?” Even if Mike couldn’t see him, he knew exactly what face he was making. “Are you going to sleep?”
“Yeah, I mean—no. I mean—I think I was about to fall asleep,” Mike murmured, “I’m gonna, uh… I’m going to go. Sleep.”
“Probably a good idea,” Will grinned, because of course he did.
Before he could do anything else more egregiously stupid, or think any more catastrophic thoughts (like the one entering his mind just now about Will smiling at him) he tiptoed up the stairs, walked back into his room, tucked himself back into bed, and stared at the ceiling.
Pretty is only a word. And yeah, objectively, it was the correct word. Anyone with eyes could tell that Will Byers was beautiful.
But, really, Will was just Will.
And Mike was just tired.
…
“I’m gonna eat your waffles if you don’t wake up in ten seconds.”
“Uh… huh?” Mike was still half-asleep. It was too early to hear his sister’s voice that close to his head.
“It’s eight o’clock and Mom said you have to get to school in like fifteen minutes because she’s leaving soon for work. Mike. Get up. Mike. Mike Mike. Mike. Mi—”
Mike sat straight up, narrowly missing Holly’s head by a couple inches. “What time is it?”
“Eight.”
“Oh shit.” He leapt out of bed, grabbing the shirt nearest him and the jeans he wore last week that he saved for later. His backpack was neatly kept somewhere—oh, it’s by the foot of his bed—and he’d packed it yesterday, because he meant for junior year to start well.
“I’m telling mom you cursed.”
Mike gently pushed Holly out of his room and closed the door behind her. “No you’re not. Tell mom I’ll be down in five.”
“She’s gonna yell at you,” Holly sang from outside.
“Holly.”
Mike’s sure he’s set record speeds for getting ready. True to his word, he’s down in five minutes, and true to Holly’s, his mom immediately began chastising him.
“Did you sleep through your five alarms?” Mike didn’t know what was more embarrassing: the fact that he actually needed five alarms or the honest truth that he’d purposely not set any of them because he assumed he’d like, magically wake up on time. A week ago, he’d put his loudest alarm right by his bed, then a quieter one by his desk, one in his closet, one by the door to his room, and the last one directly under his bed. The entire idea was to annoy him into waking up. And each alarm was set to exactly five minutes apart, so instead of turning one alarm off, he’d have to turn all of them off, and who was gonna go back to bed after doing all of that?
That’s why Mike didn’t set any of them. “I think I forgot to turn them on…”
His mom raised her eyebrows at him incredulously, and lightly smacked his shoulder. “I’ve been reminding you for weeks, Michael!”
From the breakfast table, Holly smiled gleefully. It was like she found joy in Mike’s suffering.
He apologized profusely to his mom, took his waffles, and slid into the seat right across from Holly. He glared at her, and she giggled. Now, Mike would never strangle a ten year old child, but it was so very tempting.
Someone tapped on his shoulder, and Mike had forgotten that there were other people trying to get to school at the moment. Namely, Will.
“Can you pass the syrup?” he asked. Aunt Jemima once again stared at Mike, and he never thought such a sweet looking lady could have such a mocking smile.
Regardless, he handed the bottle over.
Will took the bottle from him, fingers brushing Mike’s for half a second longer than necessary. It was just the kind of accidental contact that happened all the time, but Mike still found himself staring down at his plate afterward, like the waffles might have something important to say to him.
“You look a little off,” Will noticed, like he hadn’t run into Mike in the kitchen less than four hours earlier. “Did you sleep after… you know?”
Mike was glad he didn’t actually mention the incident. “Yeah, I slept like a baby. Had the oddest dream, too.”
Will hummed. He always had a way of making simple tasks look elegant, while Mike was busy shoveling food into his mouth like an absolute neanderthal.
Nancy spun into the kitchen, then, grabbing her favorite tote bag off the chair she’d claimed as hers when she was seven. She kissed their mom on the cheek and made a beeline for the door, slipping her shoes on and taking the keys from their hook in one fell motion.
“I’ll get something to eat at the office, Mom,” she smiled back at them. “And Mike? That’s gross.”
He rolled his eyes at her, but she’d already turned her back and left.
…
Ten minutes later, Mike and Will took off on their bikes, with Holly tailing close behind.
“Nance told me chem is awesome with Mr. Wilson,” Mike said, just trying to stir some conversation. “I’ve got him third.”
“Oh, I think he’s my second period.” They turned left. Mike could see the edge of Hawkins Elementary rapidly approaching.
“Apparently, he doesn’t really care what you do in class as long as you score well enough on the tests,” Mike continued. “Like, Nancy used to spend the entire period working on calc, and he didn’t bat an eye.”
“That sounds fake,” Will said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, but, she also said that about Mr. Clarke, and that turned out pretty well.”
Will smiled at that. “You always tend to like science teachers.”
“I like science,” Mike shrugged. “It’s easy to understand. No thinking needed.”
“Imagine having to learn chemistry,” Holly chimed.
“She makes a valid point. You can’t even argue with her,” Will sighed. “Her hardest subject is literally math. And it’s like, multiplication.”
Holly scowled. “School is hard enough for me. I get more homework than you do!”
“Your homework takes fifteen minutes maximum,” Mike shot back.
Holly stuck her tongue out at him, and turned into the bike rack in front of her school. He was pretty sure he heard her kick the rack. Mike silently hoped she’d calmed her vengeance by the end of the day, lest he wake up tomorrow to his shampoo being replaced with bleach.
They rode in silence for a few seconds after that, the quiet stretching in a way Mike wasn’t used to. With the whole party, someone was always there to fill the gap between conversations. But just Mike and Will? That always felt different.
“This place feels weird, doesn’t it?” Will said, breaking the quiet. His voice was uneven, like he wasn’t sure if he should have shared that thought. “I can’t believe nothing has tried to kill or kidnap any of us since last March.”
It had been quiet in Hawkins. Maybe a little too much so, since this radio silence from the Upside Down left them with nothing to do. Mike told Will just that.
Will snorted. “That’s a little messed up, don’t you think?” Mike felt his thighs start to burn. Did that always happen when they rode bikes?
“Maybe,” Mike admitted. “It’s just… when there’s nothing to do, my brain gets all tangled up, and there’s too much going on up there. I feel like I’m going crazy.”
“Yeah?” Will slowed his bike a little, turning his head to look at Mike. “You don’t have to be on high alert all the time, you know.”
“I think I do,” Mike said before he could stop himself.
Will frowned slightly, like he wanted to argue, then seemed to think better of it. “It’s so peaceful. We gotta take advantage of all this. Like, read a book or something.”
Mike mock scoffed, bringing a hand to his chest like he was offended. If his bike wobbled a little, he ignored it. “Me? Read? Who do you think I am?”
“You’re unbelievable.” Will laughed, light and genuine.
“I think it’s part of my charm.” Mike waggled his eyebrows, and even though Will shook his head, Mike could tell he was smiling.
“Do you remember what you said a couple years ago, during Halloween night?” Will stared off into the distance, and Mike pulled the memory to the forefront of his mind. “You told me that ‘if we’re both going crazy, we’ll go crazy together.’ I think that still applies to now.”
Mike was more than a little surprised Will remembered that, to be honest. That felt like it was so long ago. They were so young back then, and yet they still carried the pressure of the world and the Mind Flayer on their little shoulders.
Hawkins High came into view then, brick familiar and completely ordinary. Mike stared straight ahead, Will’s words echoing in his head long after he pedaled ahead of Mike.
…
The first thing Mike noticed about the chemistry classroom was that it looked like a rainbow threw up on it. Every poster either had neon colors or a stupid chemistry pun, and sometimes both. That was when Mike decided to make a beeline for the desks in the back row.
He’d just run here from AP Lang. It was supposed to be his favorite class. The teacher, this middle-aged blonde lady that looked eerily like his mom, and for the most part, she seemed relatively decent. Well, except for the part when she went on and on about something nonsensical for an hour straight. Mike’s brain was spinning like he’d been on the Gravitron at the fair.
He shuffled into the seat—a hard stool, and it kind of hurt to sit there uncushioned—and stared out the door, hoping he’d have at least one friend walk in. Silently, he watched as the front rows filled out. No one really wanted to sit next to him unless they absolutely had to, besides the Party.
Mike glanced at the clock. There were three minutes until the bell rang. He put his head down on the table, losing hope by the minute. Briefly, he regretted not gathering with the party to compare schedules. He shifted his head so that his chin rested on the cold of the black countertop. Please, Lucas, or Dustin, or someone. He’d even take Max. just one person, at least.
The bell rang, and Mike exhaled, losing all hope for his sanity in this class. Still he picked his head up and pulled his notebook out of his bag. If he wasn’t gonna have any friends here, might as well do well in the class.
Mr. Wilson began to introduce himself, and Mike’s gaze wandered over to the glassware cabinet that had a large, radioactive green poster that read Lithium Sulfur Tellurium Nitrogen Uranium Phosphorus (LiSTeN UP)! It had a little picture of Albert Einstein, as most science posters did.
The future is bleak, Mike thought. I can’t believe I’m alo—
Lucas barged in, shoes skidding on the floor and chest heaving like he’d been running. “Sorry Mr. Wilson! I’m so sorry—here’s a pass I got from”—one deep inhale—“from my last period, I stayed overtime, I’m sorry!” Lucas turned his head around the classroom. There were really only empty seats at Mike’s table, unless Lucas wanted to sit with Stacey Albright.
Mike waved.
“Mike!” Lucas exclaimed, like he’d just saved his life or something. Honestly, it was the other way around. Mike heard some snorts from around the room, but honestly couldn’t care less. Lucas ran back and sat right next to him.
Mr. Wilson raised his eyebrows, but continued talking anyway.
“Dude, sick drawing,” Lucas whispered, pointing at the table in front of Mike. “I didn’t know you could draw like that!”
“Draw like what?” Mike followed Lucas’s finger. Somehow, he hadn’t noticed it. There on the table, drawn in silvery pencil marks, was a bouquet of flowers. Up close, it caught the fluorescent lights, soft and metallic, like the flowers might move if he blinked wrong. The desk bore the usual scars—initials carved into the corner, a half-erased phone number, a faded swear word someone had tried to sand away. And yet the drawing avoided all of it, winding carefully around the damage instead of over it. The artist that had drawn it knew how to work with what they were given.
From Nancy’s brief flower phase in middle school, Mike recognized them as forget-me-nots and irises, mixed in with daffodils and daisies. Whichever girl sat here before him clearly had a vision.
“I didn’t draw that.” The drawing was so gorgeous, Mike didn’t even want to touch it. “Should I leave a note?”
“Go for it,” Lucas whispered. Lucas leaned back in his chair, already half-forgetting the conversation, attention drifting toward Mr. Wilson’s increasingly enthusiastic explanation of lab safety. Mike envied that—how easily Lucas could move on, how little it took for him to feel settled somewhere. “Just don’t smudge it.”
Mike hesitated. Writing near someone else’s drawing felt like a violation, like scribbling over a museum painting. Whoever had drawn this hadn’t meant for anyone to answer it. Probably.
Soon after, Mike pulled a pencil from his bag and hovered it over the desk. He wrote nothing. He erased the nothing anyway.
First, he wrote: This is really good. But that sounded stupid. Mike thought back to Will, and how he’d probably heard wow and this is so good a million times over in his life.
Your drawing is beautiful. Too much? He adjusted the angle of his wrist, tried again. The pencil left faint grooves even where he erased, ghost letters lingering like they wanted to be remembered. His handwriting looked strange on the desk, like it didn’t belong there. In all fairness, basically everyone in his life told him that a chicken could write better.
Will would have laughed at him for overthinking this and then he would have made fun of Mike’s shitty handwriting. Or maybe he wouldn’t have. Will was careful with his art, too. He knew what it was like to put something fragile into the world and pretend it didn’t matter who saw.
So finally, he settled on It’s really pretty, just like you.
He stared at the sentence, heart beating stupidly fast, and erased just like you so hard the desk squeaked.
Still, that wasn’t enough. Mike scribbled reason for the flowers—no question mark. For some reason, he thought that any punctuation would give away the way his heart was beating in his ears.
There. That would be perfect.
He slid his notebook back over the words like they could hide beneath it, even though he knew they couldn’t.
Mike imagined the artist coming back tomorrow, seeing his handwriting there like a fingerprint, and feeling… what? Annoyed? Flattered? Exposed? He didn’t know which possibility scared him more.
The classroom noise faded away, distant and indistinct. Mr. Wilson’s voice blended with the hum of the lights, and Mike became acutely aware of his own breathing and the way his knee bounced under the desk like it was trying to escape.
He didn’t look at the drawing again. If he did, he might undo everything, erasing until his eraser was nothing but a pink nub.
For the first time all morning, Mike stopped thinking about how quiet everything felt. In fact, he thought the cacophony of his heart beating and his thoughts running at a mile a minute would surely deafen him. He didn’t know who the drawing belonged to, or why it was there, but suddenly, the empty space in front of him didn’t feel quite so empty.
Friday, August 7th, 1987
As usual, Maxine Mayfield was always on time. Actually, she was half an hour early, because she enjoyed pissing Mike off. They purposely only referred to each other by their full first names only to irritate each other.
They’d always been like that, though—back two summers ago, Max didn’t like Mike very much, and that was readily reciprocated. After he and El broke up, no one was happier about it than Max. She’d told him just that, jabbing him in his arm and telling him he was way more okay of a dude by himself, and El liked being her own person. And weird enough as it is, their animosity settled into a funny, teasing sort of not-hate friendship.
Weirdly enough, Max was the only one he could truly tell anything to. If he did something stupid, she’d tell him that. If he was behaving terribly, she’d tell him that. It would probably kill him to tell her this, but Mike really appreciated how honest she was.
“Did you even comb your hair?” she asked, walking into the house like she owned the place. The party pretty much lived here, though, so he couldn’t even say anything. She made her way into the pantry, Mike only a few steps behind.
“I,” Mike started, “I tried to—it’s supposed to be styled.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You look like you rolled out of bed forty seconds ago.”
“Really?”
Max turned around, tilted her head, and studied his face. The way she stared straight at his eyebrows made him more than a little unnerved. “It’s not the worst it’s been. I guess it’s not terrible.”
“I’ll take that,” he conceded. “Are you still in your pajamas?” She had little Spider-Man masks printed all over the pants, and her shirt said Peter Parkour. The set was so stupid-looking that Mike knew the only reason she was wearing it was because Lucas probably bought it for her.
Of course, she’d never admit that. God forbid Max Mayfield ever had feelings. “It’s movie night, Michael.” She looked him over in the way mothers do when they’re about to tell you to change your outfit. “I wasn’t gonna wear jeans.” Mike was wearing jeans.
“Well… okay.”
She settled on the box of pop tarts, walking over to the toaster that had thrown his toast out so violently just the other day. “What are we watching tonight?”
“I don’t know,” Mike shrugged. “I was thinking we’d vote on it later. I don’t really care.”
“Uh huh.” She grabbed a plate from the cabinet. “Very diplomatic of you.”
Mike stared incredulously as the toaster dinged and politely raised her warm pop tart. He frowned. It was never that nice to him.
“I hope you picked good movies, at least. We never finished Back to the Future the summer before freshman year.”
“That’s one of the options.” Mike considered getting a pop tart for himself, before putting the box back. “We could probably watch that one. But maybe we should let the whole party decide.”
“Have you considered a career in international affairs?”
Mike sighed. Max hit his arm, giggling as she walked past him to the cabinet full of cups, and poured herself a glass of water. “You’d be shit at that, anyways. You’re always too lost in your own brain.”
“What? I’m not…no!” Mike mumbled incoherently. “Why would you—”
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you staring at Will like a dejected puppy.” She lumbered over to the top of the basement’s stairs, now. “Make up your mind, Mikey.”
“There’s nothing to make my mind up about!”
Max turned, only to roll her eyes at him. She had the most threatening eye roll of anyone Mike ever knew. “Sure.”
The bell rang. “You’re getting that,” she said. He flipped the light switch on for the basement, then fumbled with his hands a little before sticking them into his pockets. Mike noticed that Max’s eyebrows practically blended into her hairline with how high they were raised. All of a sudden, Mike felt the need to double check if his shirt was on backwards, and Max decided this was the time to rearrange the table Mike had moved just that morning.
Mike had the urge to stick his tongue out at her, but made his way up the stairs anyway.
…
“Michael, it’s fucking freezing down here.” Max rolled her eyes yet again, for probably the millionth time that day. “Ever heard of a thermostat?”
Mike computed what she said and shrugged. “I think it’s perfectly fine. Plus, it’s too hot outside.”
She sent him a look that very easily read are you fucking serious as Mike fiddled with the VHS. El and Will sat on the couch, watching them struggle, while offering none of the help. Will giggled at something El said, and their gazes drifted over to where Lucas looked at Max as if she were glowing. Mike always felt mildly betrayed that one of his best friends just had to fall in love with the one girl that seemed hell-bent on personally tormenting his everyday life.
Anyway, El’s hair had grown back nice and long, curling in bouncy waves that just reached her shoulders. It was the same color as Will’s. She brought back her Joyce Byers signature bangs, too, from their time in Lenora. From the angle Mike was sitting at, they really did look like twins. Honestly, it would have been a little unnerving if they weren’t such fundamentally different people. Mike was glad he had both of them in his life.
“Dude,” Dustin said, snapping his fingers right in front of Mike’s nose. “We’ve got work at hand. Stop staring.”
Mike swatted Dustin’s hand away. “Shut up… I’m not. I’m not staring.”
“Not what I’m seeing. You’ve been zoned out for all of the past two minutes.” Dustin hummed.
Mike shot him a look that he’d like to think was intimidating and shoved Back to the Future into the VCR a bit harder than necessary. He opened his mouth to argue, trying to form something cohesive and defensive, but Dustin smirked like he had a comeback to any possible thing Mike could have said. Mike sighed, choosing peace. He’d gone through a little too much verbal harassment, today (thanks, Maxine). He gave up and made his way over to the couch that Will and El were sitting on.
Mike analyzed them without really meaning to. They took up the middle cushion, heads close together as if discussing confidential information. Will was whispering intently, the way he did when there was too much to say and not enough time to say it, and El smiled brightly at him. It made something twist low in Mike’s stomach, sharp and brief, and he ignored it just as quickly. There were open seats on either side of them. Plenty of room. Maybe it was his slight spite (god forbid he was jealous) but instead of taking a moment to consider his seating options, he immediately dropped himself onto the spot beside Will.
It was his usual spot, anyway. Right next to Will. It always felt right—familiar like a song was when you listened to it until you memorized every last lyric. He tried not to look back at Max when he did so, knowing she’d mouth I told you so right back at him.
Speak of the devil and she shall appear, of course, because just then Max brought each of them their own thing of popcorn. Mike took his without really noticing, too aware of the warmth beside him, the quiet presence that made the room feel smaller and steadier all at once.
Dustin hit the lights, clapping twice to gather everyone’s attention. “And now, our annual First Weekend of School Movie Night begins!”
Will glanced over at Mike, offered that small, easy smile he saved for moments like this, and Mike felt his shoulders loosen before he could stop himself. Will had a smattering of moles across his entire body, but Mike’s favorite was the one on the apple of his left cheek. He didn’t think about why he had a favorite. He told himself it didn’t mean anything. He never chose to sit here. It just kinda… happened. Mike smiled back anyway.
About ten minutes in, Will shuffled in his seat, to the point where their shoulders brushed. Mike registered it the way he registered that it was raining outside. It made him happy, but it was relatively normal. Thirty minutes after that, Mike felt the warmth of Will’s entire arm pressed fully against his, through the fabric of his favorite blue sweater. Mike’s brain registered it as usual. This is fine. People touched sometimes. Completely fine. This was a regular best friend activity.
His heart did something weird anyway.
He shifted, and his knee bumped against Will’s. Will glanced at him, quickly, almost like checking if Mike was falling off the couch or some other equally likely stupid thing. Mike nodded in reassurance, but whether that was for Will or himself, he didn’t really know. The movie droned on, and Mike’s heart rate only climbed higher.
Time blurred, and Mike tried to fight off the heavy feeling behind his eyelids. Marty was saying something that he could barely follow, and whatever was spreading that warmth beside him was oh, so comfortable. The TV was humming gently. The cushion next to him was warm and soft and so nice—the kind of nice that makes you forget where you are, the kind that tells you to forget why he’s supposed to move away. It was like a campfire on a chilly night. Mike’s eyes burned, and his head pounded with the beginnings of a headache. He was awake since four in the morning… he deserved a little ten minute nap, right? Just ten minutes.
Mike exhaled, slow and deep, and before he could stop himself, his head tipped sideways, coming to rest against Will’s shoulder. That shoulder stiffened for half a second, but it’s not like Mike noticed. Mike shifted his head around, trying to find a good position. His makeshift pillow relaxed beneath him.
The room felt softer somehow, like the edges had blurred. Mike’s body sank deeper into the couch, muscles going slack as exhaustion finally caught up to him. Somewhere in his sleep-drunk haze, he felt a little pressure against his head. Then, after some more shuffling, there was an arm around his back that settled on his waist like it belonged there. He found himself wanting to move the arm so that it gripped him tighter.
That’s nice. Will was always nice. Will was always beautiful.
Mike’s right hand drifted on its own, venturing further towards the warmth. It settled on Will’s thigh. This isn’t real, anyway, he thought. This is only a dream. It fit there too easily, like he’d done that before. He had, in a matter of the sense. In all his best dreams, of course. Mike didn’t think about that. Thinking was too hard, and he was so sleepy…
“Look, Max,” he heard Lucas whisper, not quietly enough that Mike tuned him out. “You’re never that nice to me.” Mike heard something like a jabbing noise, and Lucas hissed in pain.
Mike jolted. He couldn’t hear the static of the TV anymore, and Marty wasn’t saying whatever it was he was saying anymore. The room was silent. Dark, and silent, and so Mike sat up fast, pulling his hand away from its place on Will’s thigh, like he was yanking it back from a hot stove instead of his best friend.
“Oh, shit,” Mike said, loudly. “I, uh—I was just—my neck was hurting.”
Smooth.
Will blinked. “Oh.” He pulled his arm back from around Mike, tucking his hands into his sleeves. “You sleep well, at least?”
Mike nodded too hard. “Yeah. Totally. Thanks.” Will looked away, murmuring a quiet “you’re welcome” under his breath.
Mike sat stiffly on his side of the couch, painfully awake, hyperaware of the three inches of space between their thighs, where there used to be none. Will didn’t lean back in. Didn’t look at him much, either. Mike was all too observant of everything he’d just lost.
And as he fell asleep (in his bed, this time), it wasn’t his friends’ comments that plagued the inner workings of his mind.
No, it was the realization that Mike Wheeler really wanted to kiss Will Byers.
Monday, August 10th, 1987 edit here
On his way into chemistry, Mike once again ran straight into Will.
Mike found himself yelping an apology before he realized who it was. And Will laughed, half-breathless, like he was running out of the classroom. Mike felt it settle in his chest, heavy in a way he wasn’t used to. It was like his heart was beating in his stomach, and his brain was short-circuiting repeatedly. He adjusted the strap of his backpack even though it didn’t need adjusting.
See, Mike was planning on avoiding class. He didn’t want to get his hopes up if his seat partner hadn’t left another message, and he didn’t want to accidentally find out who it was. It was then that he had the terrible idea to delay entering the classroom by talking to the one person he couldn’t string together a proper sentence around, now.
“You have—what’s your next class?” He said it like it was all one word, like what’syournextclass. Mentally, he was hitting himself repeatedly.
“Uh, Astronomy,” Will said. “I’m doubling up on sciences.”
“I’ll walk you!” Mike offered, a little too quickly. “It’s only down the hall.”
They fell into step beside each other, shoulders almost brushing, and Mike became painfully aware of the fact that he knew exactly how long Will’s strides were, exactly when he’d glance sideways before speaking, exactly how he pushed his hair back when he was thinking. He’d known these things for years.
Just… knowing why he noticed them was new. It had Mike spiraling about every conversation he’d ever had with Will, every hang out where he’d stay the longest because he wanted to spend more time with Will. A boy.
That landed like a blow to the head, and Mike stumbled a little. He swallowed and pointedly stared at the ground, as if it would swallow him whole if he didn’t. He’d liked girls before, and he knew how that felt. But this? This was so similar in a way that made him ill. No, scratch that. This was way more intense. With girls, he knew where this was going to go, and where it was going to end.
This wasn’t going to end, Mike thought. This is far, far worse.
The hallway smelled like floor cleaner and something burnt from the cafeteria. None of it felt real. Mike was too busy trying not to think about the way Will’s sleeve kept grazing his wrist.
“So,” Will said, after a moment, fidgeting with his sweater the way he always did. “You, uh. You like chem so far?”
“It’s… colorful.”
Will smiled at that, and Mike had to look away before it showed on his face how much that smile meant to him now.
They reached the door, and Will stopped just short of it.
“Have fun,” he said, like it was the easiest thing in the world. Then he shot Mike a smile, before turning his back and walking into the room. Mike leaned on the doorway, dazedly waving a goodbye as some person shoved past him.
There was a minute on the clock before the bell rang, and Mike wasn’t ready to go to chemistry.
Seriously, he had considered skipping school today. He thought his seat partner would have responded by now, for sure. It had been a week since he’d written his sentence, and yet there was not a single word in response. All week, he’d stared at the stupidly beautiful flowers on his desk and wondered if his note was too much. Mike just wanted to dig his own grave and lay in it. Maybe then he’d receive a bouquet just like the one on his table…
Here Mike was anyway, entering the room only thirty seconds before the bell rang, which was completely unintentional, of course. He dropped his backpack onto the floor by his stool and slid into his seat like it was any other morning, like the desk in front of him hadn’t been living in the back of his mind since yesterday. He pulled his notebook out like it was muscle memory, flipped to a blank page, and uncapped his pen. It was a regular school day. That’s it. He didn’t have feelings for his best friend who lived in his house, and he wasn’t completely obsessed with the artist who drew flowers on his desk.
Only then did he let his eyes drift down.
The bouquet was still there, slightly smudged but still intact. The pencil lines looked softer in the morning light, like the flowers had wilted a little overnight. His question sat just to the side of it, exactly where he’d left it.
There was something new beneath it.
Mike leaned closer before he realized he was doing it.
The writing was faint, lighter than his own, like a true artist. Whoever had written it hadn’t wanted to press too hard, and they looped their y’s. They’d written two short lines, tucked in neatly, almost shyly, beside the curve of a vine.
thanks
my favorite colors are blue and yellow
Mike read it once, and then again.
“Oh,” he said. Lucas—oh, hi, Mike completely forgot he was here—shot him a look that read mystery artist replied?
Mike nodded at him, maybe a little too enthusiastically.
Blue and yellow. He rolled the words around in his head, trying not to attach meaning to them, trying not to picture anything specific. They were just colors, popular ones at that. Everyone loves blue. And yellow’s the color of the sun in the sky, the little yellow crayon sun in the midst of a bright blue crayon sky.
But his brain was evil, and lately, everything came back to Will Byers. Mike thought of summer skies, when Mike and Will would ride their bikes across the city in search of a place to play tag with their friends. He thought of sunlight spilling through windows as Will painted his pictures and Mike spread across the room of their floors, spinning stories and ideas for their next campaign.
Mike let himself think of the way blue and yellow always seemed to look better together than they had any right to. He shook his head, a quiet huff escaping him. He was being stupid. Anyone could like those colors. Anyone could have been sitting at this desk before him.
Mike knew that.
And yet… Mike just wanted to let himself wonder.
Imagine if it was Will. What if the pretty flowers were drawn by him? What if Mike’s mildly warm seat was only that way because Will had sat here before him?
If Will had drawn the bouquet, though, it didn’t just mean Mike was being weird for no reason. No, it meant Mike liked his best friend. He liked a boy.
Mike’s jaw tightened. He shook his head once, like he could dislodge the thought entirely. People didn’t just wake up one day and feel like this. Not him. Not after everything. Not when his life had started to meld into the peace and quiet.
He glanced toward the door, just for a second, like he might accidentally catch the artist walking in. His heart gave an embarrassing little kick, and his stomach was no better with the constant butterflies flitting about. Mike’s heart pounded like he’d already done something wrong.
He slid his notebook over the note, and ignored the way Lucas raised an eyebrow at him. This drawing was a secret he wasn’t ready to look at for too long.
As Mr. Wilson started talking, Mike found it impossible to focus. For the rest of the period, every time his thoughts drifted, they circled back to the same impossible, fragile hope.
Quickly, he scribbled down a little smiley face. And with this new surge of bravery, he even let himself add a tiny heart.
Thursday, August 13th, 1987
A question appeared beside the flowers.
do you have a favorite?
Mike stared at it for a minute, before trying to draw his best dandelion. They grew like weeds in his backyard, and his mom did her best to pull them out when they started growing. But if she waited, and the flowers turned into little puffs, Mike would have picked all of them himself and carefully brought them to Will’s house so they could make a wish together.
these ones
And, because he didn’t trust his artistic talent:
they’re dandelions
Tuesday, August 18th, 1987
The flowers were erased. Instead, there was a drawing of a little deer, big eyes so innocent and recognizable. If it wasn’t obvious already, the artist had captioned it.
Bambi
my sister loves this movie
Mike could sympathize. Holly had been hogging the television lately, rewatching Bambi and Cinderella repeatedly.
my sister, too. Disney always wins
Friday, August 21st, 1987
Today, there weren't any drawings. No, it was all chemistry equations, hastily scribbled onto the desk. Still, there was a note in the corner.
sorry. forgot paper today
Mike tried his best attempt at a thumbs-up. It looked a little misshapen, like a bee had stung his thumb.
happens to the best of us
Wednesday, August 26th, 1987
The artist had drawn a stick figure falling off a building. There was a little arrow next to it, leading to Mike’s favorite part of every day.
this is going to be me if chem doesn’t get easier soon
Mike stifled a giggle, and Lucas rolled his eyes beside him.
“You’re obsessed with whoever that is, man.” He shook his head a little. “I can’t believe this.”
“I’m not obsessed,” Mike clarified. “It’s just fun.”
you’re so right
…
Mike can’t remember the last time he hung out with Will, just by themselves. Mike and Will, Will and Mike. Like the old times. Their schoolwork lay forgotten on Mike’s desk, and they promised Mike’s mom that they’d start it in fifteen minutes, but that was nearly two hours ago and neither of them particularly cared much.
“That’s stupid,” Mike muttered, tilting his comic like it would change what was written and drawn. He wasn’t particularly into it—he had a rough time with actually committing to finishing books or comics or even writing recently, and he was only reading for the hell of it. That, and he wanted to spend some time with Will. Mike really only half-read the pages. “He wouldn’t do that?”
Will nodded like he was listening. Mike knew he wasn’t, but he appreciated the input anyways. Since they were little, Mike had always been the one who talked, and Will listened. Even if it was incredibly stupid, like the week when Richard from math class only chewed on the most ridiculous flavors of gum and did so extremely noisily. Back then, Will had shrugged, telling him to buy a pack of the most absurd flavor of gum he could find, and in class, to chew it louder than Richard out of spite. Who was Mike to deny such a perfect request?
Will had to be a mastermind of some sort, because it had worked. And Richard hadn’t chewed gum since the sixth grade because of that—not even now, in high school. Mike had to do his best not to laugh every time he passed the guys on the baseball team, all with some variant of spearmint gum in their mouths, and Richard, almost mopingly hanging around them.
Mike missed talking to Will like that. More than anything, he wished he didn’t feel like he had to pick and choose every word he said. Conversation used to come easy. Mike wondered, briefly and unwillingly, if this was why none of it had ever felt quite right before.
With Will, Mike found comfort in the same way he fell into bed after a long day. Will was his rock, his best friend. He was… he was everything, to Mike. But therein laid the issue: Will was a boy.
Mike was navigating unstable ground here. He was climbing a rock wall without a safety harness. This could ruin everything. Mike wasn’t supposed to want things like this. Not from Will… not like this.
Now, Will lounged on Mike’s bed, and Mike laid so his back was flat on the ground with his legs creeping up over the side, somehow long enough to lay right on top of Will’s. He held a comic just inches from his face, while Will scratched away in his sketchbook. They’d been like this for roughly an hour, with nothing but the sound of silence to accompany them.
Mike really wanted to kiss Will, and it was hard to focus on anything else. The thought was fully formed, and painfully stubborn in its certainty. This was Will, his best friend, partner in crime, road trip buddy, the cleric to his paladin, and most importantly, a boy he’d known since they were kids. This would have been so much easier if Will was a girl. But Will wasn’t, and Mike liked a boy. The word “like” didn’t even sound right. Mike didn’t know what exactly he felt for Will, but it was way more than just like.
But the word boy echoed in his mind, which betrayed him by filling in the details anyway.
Mike was using his comic-reading excuse to stare at Will from this position on the floor. And if his eyes drifted lower on his face and settled on his lips, well, that was the crux of Mike’s problem.
It was all of Mike’s problem, because sometimes it felt like he couldn’t even breathe around Will anymore. His heart was constantly in his throat and oftentimes it felt like it was going to spill out of his ribcage and onto the cold hardwood floors of this house. A house that he currently shared with someone he was in lo—someone he liked a great deal.
Mike’s socked feet rested on Will’s shins, where heat radiated from him into Mike. Will was always warm like that, in the sense that Mike always had the urge to, y’know, give him a hug or something in order to secretly absorb all the heat from him. But now the hug had transformed more into Mike wanting to constantly touch Will, and every time he couldn’t feel Will’s presence, he felt a little dejected. It was kind of ironic, actually, the way every time Will drew away, Mike felt like a dejected puppy.
Mike knew that if he was given the opportunity, he’d probably do something really stupid. Or he’d say something even stupider, and then Will would probably not come near him ever again.
Being around Will Byers was always dangerous. Everyone knew that for Mike, keeping Will safe—close—was the most important thing in the world. But now? Now, it was something entirely different. Mike thought of Will awkwardly shuffling at the Snow Ball with some random girl nearly four years ago, and the pit in his stomach only grew deeper.
This was so stupid. He shouldn’t be jealous over some girl Will had talked to maybe once since that day. He was Will’s best friend, for god’s sake.
(Was he really? What if there were more friends in Lenora—cooler friends that took him in when the Party was so far. Is that why he was so awkward with them, now?)
No, that’s stupid. He’d been best friends with Will for over a decade now. Of course they were still best friends, even if there was a little blip in their friendship.
Is that all Mike wanted? Just friends?
Mike wanted to kiss him. He knew that much. And he imagined Will would weave his hands through Mike’s hair, and Mike would cup Will’s soft cheeks and kiss every mole on his face. And if Mike’s hands weren’t still on Will’s face, then they’d be on his waist, drawing him ever so slightly closer, and—
“Are you okay?” Will tilted his head. God, he was so adorable. “You look a little red.”
“I… I’m fine.”
“Really?” Will shuffled so that he was stomach down, leaning just over the edge of the bed, leaving Mike to mourn the touch between them. Not for too long, though, because Will stretched to hold the back of his hand to Mike’s forehead. “You could be a little feverish.”
Mike could have been delirious with a fever right now, because Will was so close, yet so achingly far away. When Will took his hand away, Mike could swear his body temperature only climbed higher.
“I’m not sick, Will,” he mumbled. Will didn’t look convinced.
“I don’t know, maybe you should take a nap or something, you're more than a little warm and… sweating?”
“I’m not sweating!” Mike probably was beet-red at this point. But it’s in his lowest moments that he somehow had the most confidence, so Mike ended up adding, “Would you take care of me, though? If I was sick?”
Something unreadable crossed Will’s face. “Of course I would. You’re my best friend, Mike.”
Best friend. The words should’ve been comforting. They used to be. Instead, they hit like a freight truck, like a line drawn clearly in ink. Best friends didn’t think about each other the way Mike thought about Will. They didn’t want to kiss each other. They didn’t feel this tight, aching pull in their heart just from being close. Still, Mike smiled back at Will. That’s what best friends do, right? “You’re the best.”
“I’m really not,” Will sighed. “That’s gotta go to like, ABBA or something. Or El.”
Mike rolled over, and then climbed onto his bed, bouncing once just for fun. Will didn’t move. In fact, he just stared up at Mike with his big, beautiful eyes. Mike thought briefly that he was going to implode if Will looked at him like that for any longer.
Before he realized it, Mike was tucking Will’s hair behind his ears. He didn’t even have that much hair. Mike was just acting on his urges.
“I think you’re one of the bravest people I know,” he said fondly. “You’ve been through so much, and yet you’re still so gentle and kind.”
Will looked away. “I feel like being a good person is just human decency, though.”
“Well—yeah, but—I’ve been a bad person sometimes. Like in California, when I didn’t even notice El was uncomfortable.”
“It’s not your fault.” Will shook his head.
“No, it is.” Mike grimaced. “I was a shitty boyfriend throughout, like, all of our relationship. I didn’t even tell her I loved her until she was dying.”
Will winced. Mike thought he was trying to compute a way to put Mike’s actions in a semi-mediocrely good light, but nothing seemed to work. “That was… rough.”
Mike laughed, flopping all the way back onto his bed, staring straight at the ceiling. Will followed suit, rolling back over. “You put it so nicely.”
There were chips in the ceiling from when he and Will helped his parents put up glow in the dark stars. They were still stuck there, most of them. Mike liked to think they’d never fall.
“I meant what I said, though,” Mike reiterated. “You are really brave. I wish I had even an ounce of your courage.”
“I just do what I feel like I need to do.” Will shifted uncomfortably.
Mike propped himself up on his elbows. “Yeah, but you’re so awesome about it. Like, when you were twelve you survived the horrors of the upside down, man! I wouldn’t have lasted a day. And then there was the freaky Mind Flayer shit, and—”
“Mike,” Will groaned, burying his face in his hands. “You make me sound like some sort of superhero.”
Mike shook his head. “Not a superhero. A sorcerer.”
“I thought I was a cleric?”
A stupidly lopsided grin spread across Mike’s face. “Will, you’re like, magical. You do everything, despite the odds. Dude, you drove across the goddamn country with me in the back of a pizza delivery van while I was actively being a jackass. I’m convinced you can do anything after that.”
“What, my braving the Upside Down wasn’t convincing enough?”
Will’s smirk could single handedly power Mike’s thoughts for the next decade. If Mike’s control slipped only just a little bit, he’d lean down and kiss that look right off his face.
Mike swallowed hard. There were a hundred things he wanted to say, words that pressed against his teeth like they were desperate to get out. It wasn’t worth the risk. He took the safest option.
“You’re always enough,” is what Mike ended up saying.