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"MERRY CHRISTMAS, YOU BRUTES!" Mike shared his cordial congratulations with others to the sound of shootings and some crowd of screaming men in skirts.
"Mike".
"Or mid-December? Why December tho... Will, how do you think, is it November or already December for now??"
So, they were standing in the middle of a destruction in an entertainment room and, If we won't count a bunch of bloody bodies in pink dresses spread around, they were standing alone, Mike and Will. One is sorta happy, the other's not really. On the walls, there were half-torn posters hanging out, whose content corresponded with the content of their former consumers' mash. There also were a broken recorder, an overturned snack table, colorful balloon rubbers full of holes and peeling glitter, basically, the standart evidence of their humble visit to such a social event like this. And also a guitar case, where was no guitar initially, and classically a can of gasoline, but it says, it's not a gasoline, but a drum, so apparently famous musicians have come over here.
Vil and Mak said the same thing to the thug at the entrance, when he didn't want to let them in, arguing that they are not dressed according to the dress code and they're look like bylers. Then Mike asked, why did the security thug himself look like a security thug and not a cute orangutan in a dress. But in the next comic panel the security thug was in a dress, so the complaint on him became irrelevant.
As it turned out, to be musicians with the guitar case not fully fastened, from under which a rifle can be seen, and the whole can of "THizS a dRam 1о0%" was not enough. Then Mike had to go to extremes, which Will was not informed of in advance. He took out from behind a JPENG page with the most common example of a femboy dialect and put it right in front of Will's dialogue bubble, because of that instead of "What's extreme-!?!? Mike, won't you dare- MIKE!! MIKE, ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND YOU FUCKING PROMISED I WONT BE AN ENTRANCING BAIT AGAIN DO YOU REALIZE THAT IF WELL GET CAUGHT THEN MOST LIKELY THEYLL BEAT US UP WITH ROCKS PUBLICLY AND I PERSONALLY WILL HELP THEM WITH IT BECAUSE THE FUCK YOU-" the security guard beholded simple and local – albeit in a low quality because of pixelization on the Internet – "uwu <3". And now here they are.
"Mike", Will said anxiously and with an empty gaze, fell firstly at a calendar with someone's creepy selfie of their stocking legs and then at his dude, his eyes widened in sheer horror. "It's January fourteenth. Two weeks have passed."
Mike stopped shooting, leaving the rifle dangling on its belt. This is the having a bit fun before the eve of holidays, this is the "welp, will be guided by the fireworks", this is your "Pokemon: Fire Femboys", guys.
Actually, the idea to bring a weapon on the femboy fest originally belonged to Will. But not because your perverted subjects of fanarting have shattered already seizuring thirteen years old's state pretty bad, nah. And not only from the point that being abandoned by the only person you know at a party, where all others are strangers and you didn't even want to go: it's animals in underwear there, being beaten by these animals and further being completely alone huddled in a corner behind some boxes with open blood flow is in fact kind of not cool. Despite all this, when you go along grey and hollow paths, and nothing but dry grass is in your sight, and it's not even like Mike usually has, if you look up, you will see a large uncomfortable building with a bright inscription above: "FEMBOY FEST!!!11!1!!" and a small postscript below "furries can too", even lower a "bylers are NOT ALLOWED!123!2!!11" and you remind yourself why not allowed. And then you look at this building with your big charmed eyes and the flashing images of all-consuming gasoline and bear-trap-hearts, and some critter pleasantly tingles at the heart valves. So all that's left is for you to just smirk, raise your palm to your mouth as a mouthpiece for volume and fire off: "MIKE come here you just have to see this, we just HAVE to burn it".
Anyway, the plot twist has gotten either with or without the pokemon lore context, they have blown the date of exchange stolen and/or homemade junk for the poor, called gifts. And it, well, is quite shitty. Will felt shitty, like, wasn't it for finding out today's date that he got such a self-destructive idea like visiting a public place with Mike? A public place with Mike, and it's January fourteenth. Damn it.
"Oh, well alright", Mike said, "im hella cold, lets go home??"
Generally, they got the rather grey winter, with red-brownish picture elements, than the white one, you know background images with max contrast, min brightness. And at first, when it just snowed, that's not early in the last debris of Indiana, it took them a long time to get used to the cold. Mike had a shirt with a jacket available, that must be way better than some puked dark rag, made of puny, I couldn't google which one exactly, sorry, crappy fabric, but yet Mike tends to be cold and bold. But Will, who is not only got his rag, but his fridgestable hoity-toity in his head, capable of giving him a break with additional body heat emission, is shaking with Mike completely on equal terms, because why should mind gayer go for some breaks, let say thanks if there's no frostbite when the world is not taken over yet. All in all, gradually, when they walked together they shook snuggly, and for Will, Mike took off his jacket, – oh, no, don't even think, he didn't give it, that would be too much, Mike hates tomatoes in fact. He stretched his jacket, a poor little thing, to such an extent during their journeys, that both of them walked in it, slipped over them, hugging, only the rifle barrel was sticking out. But then Will asked, like, doesn't all this violate some of your extremely hecka bloody important moral principles, and Mike replied that um, well actually yeah, you're right, this does, and Mike took the jacket away, and they've been no longer warming themselves due to each other.
There was also a case when they got lost eight and a half out of eleven on the getting-lost scale, developed by Mike Wheeler the map specialist. And he, the specialist, seeing Will from dirty socks to crookedly cut crown, decided to make a fire. Using his jacket as firewood. Because it is still a more sensible and practical way to warm your dude up with your clothes, than to share it directly. Will decided then that Mike was stupid as hell, but remained grateful. And the money for Home Depot was there in the pocket, by the way. As a result, for the rest of the winter, Mike will have to wear a jacket with non-washable footprint stains and a singed sleeve elastic. Therefore, this time, now, when Mike twirled his arm in front of Will's ignoring-the-world face, his wrist froze.
Were walking silently, there was nothing to discuss, – well, Mike surely had something to discuss, let's say, for one, what an interesting infection popped up on his toe when he was nine and how his toenail rotted away or how often women do publicly demeaning of male gamers in Dota and how global this problem for our society is – but it seems like Will's thoughts were occupied with something really damn else. Now he moved his legs automatically, looking into space and not reacting to human speech. However, this is typical of him, yeah. In most situations. Screw him then.
Since it was a particularly terrible freezer outside, they'd like to get home as soon as possible, and by home it meant any abandoned place where the cold was not felt so intense-bitter-ohmygod. They came, and by the way, this beauty has an iron door, and they haven't been eaten here for whole several weeks! Imagine more exclamation marks here, I got writing style limitations!
When they entered, it was already late. Or it wasn't, It gets dark early in winter, and Mike's watch runs backwards and one and a half times faster, so he was the only one who can tell with it. But Will personally already wanted to sleep, he got really exhausted for today, and his dialogue bubble was abused. He immediately threw off the case with iron, because carrying it around every day is a huge strain on the back. And Mike rushed to rid his, Mike's, personal case of this useless in a loving family environment M16, because that's where he usually kept Will's vomit, because he collects it, because it's interesti-ng! Then, returning this crap which has already grown front legs into its apartment, he ogled it so enthusiastically that he didn't notice where his dude went and what a box he just threw in front of him.
"Im going to bed", Will said. "Nighty night to you and all uhhh probably." And he left.
Giving a reaction to the fact that Will is reporting to him going into a long-term defenseless state, Mike first flicked his eyes at Will's nape (wondering, did he do this haircut in tears in front of the sink in the bathroom), until he completely disappeared behind the ledge of the wall, and then bent over the box. It was not wrapped in anything, a little crumpled cardboard only, and with six holes on the side as if for shoes or some eBay souvenir. On the roof though, there was a small crumpled note on a string with hand-drawn, in dried marker, letters: "Mike Wheeler, sometimes just from the thought that we exist in the same time and place I want tearing my hair and skinning my bones, so I hope one day i will be able to put your ground up remains in this box." And a bunch of hearts further...
Mike's face twisted hilariously.
***
(Little star, little star, little star, it is, like, a timeskip, if anything. It was, you know, sort of already morning. Do you know that thing, right? You actually don't. It's a nuke.) Will woke up not really sure how long he had slept. Mind gayer, he, like a food poisoning at evening when you got only the bread drawing, the mayonnaise and the gnawed twenty-sided dice in the fridge, can wake you up at any hour in the middle of the night. So Will is neither owl nor lark, but a freaking shushuk, or a mitsukurina or a wild ass. When he wakes up from physical incapacity to getting more long sleep it may find out that he was asleep for twenty seven minutes and a half, and the body felt like it needs about thirty six hours. Though Mike doesn't usually care, since oh I remembered one spot now, takes a minute to get there bypassing, get up, get up, I say. His schedule, as it seems, is going just fine.
Presumably, that capability of Will still may be useful in places, at will of a curious case. One such time at night he got out of bed (torn couch) right in the moment when newly hatched demogorgon's ankle biters were finishing local dead rats. Next they could take on him and Mike, if Will hadn't discovered them. The next morning, when Mike also got out of bed (it was a really soft bed) without batting an eye mucosa from gunshots half night and his shaking dude reported him that he saved their lives, in response he provided a profit "ah, yeah, cool" which assumed a "you know, if you did your eyes closed sometimes, you might not be shunned so much at school". In short, if after all it is that situation where Will wakes up according to his own needs, sleepily rubs his eyes and sees in front of himself looming Mike with a grin all over face, then one can deduce: so this night Mike have stayed awake.
"Hey." Will greeted, "er, good morning??"
"Morning".
Will didn't really understand the current circumstances, but by his standards he wouldn't even put this in the top twenty most weird ones befalled to him in his life, so he had no solid reasons for concern. He was blinking with Mike alternately for a while longer, then got bored, spoke again:
"Have you... opened the box?"
"No."
"Why!?!?!" Will clasped his hands from indignation, and chagrin, and embitterment, and a fangy, zigzagging mouth appeared on his grimacing face.
"Because you haven't opened yours!"
Thereafter, he poked at a small recycled-paper rectangle, looking like a painted-over mini pizza box. It seemed even more crumpled, than Will's rectangle, but at least it feelt – from the stench of paint intended for walls — that it was downright painted. Will looked at the box, then at Mike smiling creepily and sitting too close against his slept body, and he exhaled with surprise as he said "huh". The moment Will took it in his hands, Mike reached for his own gift, which he had brought along with Will's, and sat down nearby to not loom anymore. Both, with undisguised curiosity, began examining the gifts and shaking in an attempt to guess the contents.
The box that Vil held gave away by its whole appearance that it had been prepared at the last minute. Mike didn't hide it, after all, be grateful when it's given from the bottom of the heart! Rather, it still looks like a dumpster, specifically sniffing, and must have been literally taken from there, patched up a little, and here there is some content put in it especially for him. Sounds like a pile of cereal toys or paper clips, as though some whatnot gewgaw is lying there in large quantities. And it really calls for a mini pizza indeed, all so greasy, Will was looking at the rectangle in his hands with big eyes. Not like he's gonna eat it.
The box, which Mak held, had a longer height, while the one he presented a longer length, and when shaken, the sound of something like plastic or cheap glass hitting each other can be heard, um. The cartons are wrinkled at the corners, with a pair of greasy stains likely related to dragging the box from place to place. The greasy stains clearly stood out from the color of the cardboard with their color of the greasy stains and also differed in size often exceeding the size of the fingertips. Not heavy, looks like a dumpster and just a little bit smells of the same sweat that Will's sark does, just exactly the same, ew.
Ironically, but in the last year they, on the contrary, exchanged gifts too early, probably just at the beginning of December or the end of November. Mike gifted Will dynamite and some kind of deadly fight in the ring and, simply put, publicly beat him up in honor of the holiday. And Will didn't gift anything, if you don't consider chopping Mike's hair in a blender the next night as a gift. And it's not weird, it's a routine, the most common holiday greeting they have. Should have seen what goes on March eighth. Mike was amused at these memories.
The boys opened their presents.
Unlike the sleepy kingdom, for your information, Mike had already been tempted by this gift stuff for a long time, sent away from his eyes and the room where his work took place to the room of the sleeping sick chihuahua. And now that's all, he can throw the top of the box against the wall with the sound of an explosion on a green background gif and stick his nose in. Holy shit. Basically, pondering overnight about all the possible variations of gizmos that could be there, this one was somehow even too relatively courteous in a creepy-weird way? Uh, and dumb, a pack of VHS cartridges with cheap plagiarisms of the great low-budget trash body horror classics is dumb.
There were nine of them, like the Glock 17 caliber, Mike wasn't to blame for his associations. In the same state of fitness as everything else in this freaking accommodation, so the guys are not in the red. And all of them has some lame cover art: this one got a guy over there yelling with a hole in his belly, which the fifth PlayStation climbs into; on the other it's something about Canada (Mike doesn't speak Canadian, excuse him); and also there's part two of "Jaws" with an anthropomorphic schoolgirl shark instead of normal. Their very appearance begged to throw them in the microwave and see what would happen, or to put "Will Byers" over the schoolgirl shark, or, as a last resort, to really check this out to the cheesy popcorn and coke. Ew.
"Am I look like someone who's into THIS shit?"
"Yes".
"Okay, that's fair", Mike's really into this shit.
Due to how much Will remembered the previous Christmas, or New Year's Eve, or Hanukkah, or World Ninja Day, what do you suddenly celebrate in early December or late November, he acted more slowly and cautiously. He was reassured by the fact that the gift was frankly shit outwardly, which in Mike's case was a sign of comparativel safety, Mike is trying to present danger to him with special trepidation. Will is more practical in this matter. Although the ribbon bow is pretty cute, yeah. But untying it is still disturbingly...
"Oh."
"Do you like it? Do you like it? Say that you like it!!"
"I will definitely use this."
If you squint, it looks like chalk... made of natural materials. Or a mud inscription made of three-dimensional letters in modern Masonic, because it is unclear whether these oblong substances are located haphazardly or are supposed to mean something. Like, try to visualize this crap, that there's multicoloured scraps of approximately the same size which look similar with clay coils, but lowkey a bit quakier, and pieces of somethings from the trash bin assortment in black friday are sticking out. And the color pallet is like in every flash games for girls where Barbie needed to remove purulent dermatitis and hairs between her eyebrows: vomity-swampy, the color of dried blood from a sore, bright pink with glistening, vomity-gastric with an admixture of undigested vodka, mold (this is not a color, many had mold) yellow, blue and gray. Sticking out objects are matching, here's a dead leaf, on the outermost one, which is stained with vodka, a fragment, also something white was there, resembling a tooth or bone, and the longest coil was probably not molded, but wrapped with dirt in chemicals on the wire, because its metal ends came out on both sides. Wow, whatever it is, just wow.
At the bottom of the box, the greasiest part of it from the inside, there were as well some curved lines of the same blue color. Will had to look closely and shake the box sideways a little so that the oblong substances rolled away, and the lines turned into the text: "From Mike yo." While he got busy with it, Mike was rambling enthusiastically about eh well those papers of a mentally ill on your walls, when you tear my head off with the same shade of red from there, and you could at least add shadows for decency, you know. What does his papers have to do with it, did Mike manage to steal them somewhen to use them for these things? And why the shadows, Mike absolutely wasn't interested in his connection with the shadows all this time until this moment, and... oh, so it's crayons. That a certain diligence for writing and drawing. It's an art supply. That's it.
Will's answer about i will use it was pronounced without a smile, the facial muscles remained relaxed, but with huge pupils fascinated by this filth, Mike was the opposite. Then the palms of the giver, folded into a lock out of habit, happily pressed against his chest from sincere satisfaction that his work was appreciated. The big eyes kept darting from one crayon to another, rereading the words at the bottom, outstaring on this whole view, and breathing remained even. This box was still in his hands, it was tangible, it was all so strange, Will finally smirked.
They looked at each other, not so much out of gratitude as out of eye fatigue from staring so long solely at the goddamn poorly packaged stolen and/or homemade junk for the poor. Called gifts, yup. These couple of seconds of exchanging happy glances were enough for them to be unable to look anywhere clearly due to a sudden rumble right next to their judicially not their home.
"Are we being bombed???" This is the first thing that every fan of the secret military Twitter will ask. Or of the damned bylers. "I mean, the last time we were bombed was LAST year!"
And there Mike started smiling with enjoy of the originality of his joke, maybe even stylized sparks glittered around him for greater self-satisfaction fluids. Will looked at the tweep trooper with extreme reproach. While Mike wrapped himself in his hood and thought about which else nuclear power he had ended up to bully that much, Will went over and looked out of the door portal (because it was no longer a portal door, it was literally a door portal) at the source of the noise.
"It's fireworks", Will said, while was looking at the not-worthy-loud lights in the sky.
Mike came up to him and stared too, it was beautiful.
"oh i know lets launch something at someone too?""
***
(Nuke, nuke, nuke, and you've got cliché roof scenes seemed, how long ago have Mike Wheeler the diplomaed therapist's pills been taken?) I'm asking you to notice one key point in the semblance of the friendly relationship of these two, which will be ignored by orange dogs, orangutans in dresses and cooler guys from school than Will: they've got a mutual teensy fuckin' up. Uill and Maik have been having a mutual teensy fuckin' up. Which means the mundane nature of fights to the death with the monotonous routine of stabbing the shit right through your dude with a piece of broken glass. Or kick him just in case, or compare his face to the muesli from the inside that comes out after another, definitely the last, attempt to eat monsters, or laugh at the loss of a liter of blood, or any kind of emotional and physical violence that destroys the chance of basic trust and a sense of safety! Basically, those friendly jokes, when now you list all the disadvantages of your bro's personality in the harshest form, with wishes for isolation from society, recommendations for psychiatric treatment or at least try to stop being gay, and the next second you calmly lift him onto your shoulders, helping him climb a mountainous ruin, and come closer yourself with a clear It's a given in your brain that he's going to grab you by the shoulder blades and help you climb up, too. Now, it's called a sub-joke, and maybe it's the only reason they're still alive. And they can also set off firecrackers on mountainous ruins!
"No, I won't try", Will said, and now they both up and standing.
Stepped onto a cross between a pile of debris made of homebuilding materials and edifice components that still held together by (Will's) spit, such as a roof with slate shinglies where they ended up. At a height of thirty three feet – and since the main audience of this instruction couldn't care less about the American measurement system (the joke is no longer relevant on AO3, but I don't care), it would be about the size of a three-story building – there is almost no radiation in the area. Only natural smells: sweat, Will's social insecurity, and Mike's swag.
Mike put a firecracker pile right in the middle, and then they both took one each and go lit. The lighter was just one, Bambi had been so generous this month, so they were taking turns to burn it and lamenting who would aim at which depot better, which dispensary. Haha, some used to sell merch for Guys and Disney at a booth, but now they won't, haha. And the sounds from the explosions muffled mind gayers, because the comic "wham", "bang" and "zamn" are drawn larger than the cries of this pathetic hysterical. This way soon it's gonna switch to the lobster with the red wavy underline. And colorful lights are tumbling from under the layer of smoke puffs, it even feels like they're about to fly into the eyes, peace out to cornea. But the main sound by Will's ear was downright Mike's nasty giggling, which almost makes those ears bleed externally and which he himself belatedly joins to. So they either run away from the explosions, or they resort to the next arson attacks, or they just stand still and, having finally decided on both the depot and the dispenser, find out whose sight is better. The fascinating houses and snowdrifts ended quickly, also the wicks stank damn bad, but the weather is kinda not hot. Could even say it's fun.
And then during thorough rummaging, some high-explosive pressure mines were found in Mike's pockets, like "New Year's surprises" from Warface, sorry, Bambi, I'm changing my shoes, you're still a cool guy, and the boys let's use them as stone skipping game grenades. As a result, they sat down and just looked at the small clusters of flames of a side fire here and there. That's probably why they have gray winters with red-brownish picture elements in the spaces.
"wow Jasper would like it so much that he could eat his chain."
"isn't his name Brian, the one with the chain?" Will inquired, to which Mike shrugged his shoulders.
"Boom! Fuckaboom!" What a beauty of sceneries is in the first rays of dawn. The smoke haze covers the sun a little, and the sonic boom (OMG, Sonic, hi!) lulled not only the singing of the birds, but also the birds themselves, and a couple of them even graciously fell past the two of them, which made Mike sigh with peaceful awe. And it's not just their holiday: if people are down with a wild-ass hangover, then here we go with "We wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year" to everyone, only in light alternative folk. With elements of rap, oh yeah, that's a proper fucked up Christmas.
In addition to feathered friends, pixel gold rings and bows of depressing coquette girls fell from the "boom-fuckaboom", but they no more deserve their attention. It's almost as delightfully as hacking into your friend's Steam account and putting the best photo of Panty on his profile picture, magically making all his videos, screenshots (especially with "No Russian") and accumulated hours disappear in the COD:MB2, and then patting a friend grieved by the loss on the shoulder and humming In support: "Hush, hush, shh, girls don't cry, you know? Females don't whine."
Will has a bad habit, like foaming at the mouth when excited or attempting murder in response to an insult, of falling on Mike's shoulder. A bad one for Mike, because Mike never drives away, just gets gloomy and doesn't look into the eyes.
So, sitting in front of the edge, one took out another explosive shell, the other lay down on the shoulder bones of the first one, as if to rot, with half-closed unfocused eyes and a crooked smile. The explosive itself, that clearly could no longer fit in his pocket, appeared in his hands somewhere outside the boundaries of the comic panels, but unlike the previous firecrackers and "surprises" was twice the size of Mike. Not that this is very significant with cartoon physics, because he calmly pulls it up, holding it in one hand. The firecracker, with a red conical tip like a rocket, had a large skull with two crossed bones under it in the middle in addition to the standard Christmas patterns.
"Remind me, where did you and your hallucinations get it?" Will asked.
"I ordered this one online through a sock puppet!!" Mike replied and narrowed his eyes maliciously. It is extremely difficult to understand what was meant by the "sock puppet", because the translation of dialogues with English slang into another language, as always, is performed amateurishly through a browser translator. He turned to Will, and with caustically defiant tone:
"So are we launching or what?"
A wave of a match in front of the gums, visible from a wide grin, bringing it to the wick, running to the opposite corner, and then waiting through giggles and nudges. And this mutt and this beanpole will relax under the soothing sounds of detonation into a random object. And the mutt feels a rumbling in his abdominal cavity, similar to a roar, but who will go figure: whether it's from the thrill of inflicting joint violence on the environment, from the development of a new cerebrum M.C. Napoleon's larva or from hunger. When they found the first shared kitchen sink in their lives while traveling on Fallout 4 maps, Mike planned to gaslight Will on dishwashing and cooking, but if the result of forced washing of clean dishes led to broken cups that he wouldn't clean anyway, then the demogorgon's breast burned to the very coals is a griefsy not to his self–esteem anymore, but his stomach. Therefore, from now on, Mike Wheeler the chef was responsible for the preparation of trinkets using glass shards in a delicate glaze or toothpaste instead of mayonnaise in a sandwich, which is still less poisonous than snacks from a femboy fest.
After colliding with a random object, the images of fireworks through "copy-paste" are just great, but... wait a minute! This random object is the abandoned apartment they've been living in for the last couple of days! In its place, there was now only the bombastic door portal, the torn couch, and the really soft bed. The rest became just another mountainous ruin.
"My rifle!" The democratic US party in the president election 2024 said.
"My Mike Junior!" The republican US party in the president election 2024 said.
***
Step four: congratulations, "mission passed, respect +"! Now you are a calendar saving master!
But why does it feel like a mixture of Thioridazine, Abaddon with an army of locusts, GMO-free strawberry bio yogurt, morphine and the diarrhea of the infamous "ru fandom"? Because these letters were typed by a teenage girl who published a story about a dubious relationship between two boys, when she could have gone to gym, played COD or CS or so like normal people with a mental breakdown do.