Chapter Text
June 1, 1989
The crossing guard gave confusing signals at the busy intersection of the community pool. At one point he put the stop sign under his arm and just pointed at cars. Mike waited in his blue hatchback, with Will riding shotgun. “If I go, he’ll yell at me, if I don’t go, the guy behind us will yell at me. Or maybe both of them simultaneously.”
Will squinted behind his Aviators. “Is he… waving us forward with the stop sign?”
“This feels so wrong.”
They pulled into the parking lot after Crossing Guy thankfully didn’t get them T-boned. Mike turned the key and leaned back on the headrest, looking over at Will. He had frosted a bit of his hair, and the only imagined response Mike had formulated was “gilding yourself is redundant, you know.” He had to work on that.
“What are we doing?” Mike sighed. “This is supposed to be like, a ‘last blast’ summer before college.”
“You tried to have one of those before middle school, and ended up rolling your ankle on a Jolly Rancher. It’s too much pressure.”
“But come on—pool attendants?”
“We’re definitely not cool enough to be lifeguards, and we get to mix chemicals and shit. Control the panels. I mean, what did you think, we were never gonna get jobs?”
Sometimes, their past words resurfaced in weird ways, behind fake mustaches. They were always there, just below the surface. “No. We do need something to pass the interminable wait for June 14th.*” (*Ghostbusters 2 opening*)
“We’re building it up too much. What if it’s just another demonstration of the bankruptcy of sequels?”
“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“Look, in case you don't recall, summers can be so much worse. At least you have a car, and by association I have a car. Have you named her yet?” Will asked, patting the dash.
“I dunno. She’s a Ford Fiesta. Probably should go with something Latin?”
“Oh my god: Gloria Estefan, cause when you start her up there’s sort of a—conga sound.”
“Shit,” he snickered. “Gloria it is. And we should call our new endeavor ‘Cabana Boys’. It sounds better. More Miami.”
“Mike, it’s a public pool, not a country club,” Will laughed. “I can assure you this will be absolutely glamourless."
Well, that was the understatement of the year. Their manager, Vince, had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth as they stood in front of his cluttered desk. Mike had been asking a lot of questions and Vince was rolling his eyes to radio tower heights. “There's no polo shirt. Your 'uniforms' are whatever non-crusty trunks you show up in.”
Mike swallowed, his throat working with its usual sharp curves. “Oh. Okay. Also, we prefer the term cabana boys, and is there refrigeration available for our lunches in the breakroom?”
Vince started to laugh, a terrible cartoon dog hiss. “Sure! Right next to the hot tub and massage table. The only thing you need to worry about is the shed with the chlorine, shock and algaecide. Let’s see, what else. No hanging around too long in the jets. No ‘accidentally’ skimming girls tops off.”
“Yes sir,” Mike saluted. “We won’t let you down.”
Vince turned to Will. “Do you talk, Peewit, or does Johan do all the talking for you?”
“Oh—oh of course. Not. I-I mean, I do!"
“Well, I didn’t take you for a Smurfs guy, Mr. Lipnicki,” Mike beamed. “Do you know what they’re called in French?”
“No, but you’re gonna tell me, aren’t you?”
Mike skimmed the water miserably, freckle-chested and slouchy. “Sue me for thinking Schtroumpfs is a fun word to say,” he mumbled. “This is degrading. No shirts? We’re not pieces of meat.”
Will frowned at the water testing kit. “The pH colors I got aren’t even on the key. Should I just write ‘other?’”
“It’s Hawkins water. It’s never gonna be normal.”
A blonde girl in a ruffled bathing suit walked by with a breezy “Hi, Will. Looking fly.”
“Uh—good day, milady!”
Mike folded his arms as she strutted on. “Was that Tammy Thompson?”
“Well I’ll be damned. I’m Tammy’s Tammy,” Will muttered under his breath.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
"Why the hell did I think this summer would be anything but the same shit?" Mike groaned. "People out here flakin', perpetratin' and scared to kick reality."
"Mike? No. We talked about this. This is exactly why Lucas took away the Straight Outta Compton tape."
“Hey, Liam!” a voice called out.
At first, Will didn’t react, then did a double take at the dude approaching. He was a college guy with long dark hair in a ponytail, and a 10,000 Maniacs shirt.
“Oh—Matt? I didn’t know you lived in Hawkins.”
Mike was hunched over like a flightless bird.
“Well, I make a lot of trips to the city,” Matt said. “They don’t exactly sell sable brushes at Melvald’s.”
“I know, right? Oh—Matt, this is Mike—Mike, Matt. We met at the Michael’s in Muncie.”
Mike made a…noise. You could call it a signal of acknowledgement, or alliteration fatigue, but really it sounded like he was trying not to swallow a bug.
“Hey, there’s a gallery opening tomorrow night, at the old muslin mill. You guys should come.”
“It’s lasagna night,” Mike said quickly.
Will stiffened. “What?”
“Lasagna night as in lasagna night."
If looks could kill, it was a good thing Will didn't have powers anymore. “--- Mike has—uh—-Maldonado’s Syndrome—he repeats things, it’s an uncontrollable tic.”
Matt nodded. “Oh. It’s cool that they, like, give people chances here, man.”
Mike’s eyebrows seized. Will had made up the wrong syndrome. “Lasagna night,” he blurted out periodically as they tried to keep chatting. “God, why can’t I control myself?” he groaned behind his hand.
“Just keep skimming,” Will said through his teeth.
“Well, my invitation stands,” Matt said. “See you around, Liam. Mike.”
“Bye...” Will sighed a little.
“Lasagna night,” Mike sniffed with a verklempt wave.
“I cannot believe you,” Will growled.
Mike snorted with laughter. “Me? All I did was remind you about a pre-existing commitment. You’re the one who called it a tic, so I ticked away. I was being authentic, Liam. Huh. Extracting a nickname from the end of one’s name, how European. You’re not even in the big city yet, and already taking on a new persona.”
“It’s technically my name, alright? It’s not like I told him Balki or something. I didn’t know he lived in fricking Hawkins.”
Mike suddenly looked down at his cramping toes. “Wait. Is that…like. Giving a fake name, is that a-a thing you have to do, to be safe?...To date?”
Will looked up at him with a pronounced blink. “Hey. Don’t worry about me. I’m sorry I was being snooty. To make up for it, you can pretend to have Maldonado’s Syndrome whenever you want.”
“I’ll definitely take you up on that. And look, if we’re gonna have the ultimate best friends last blast summer extravaganza, lasagna nights are not optional.”
“It’s not like we didn’t just have it at graduation.”
“Yes, but we all agreed that it didn’t taste the same through our collective congestion.”
Will squinted with a raised eyebrow. He gave him a nudge. “And whose fault was that, Storyteller?”
The sun suddenly felt more gentle, dusting them with a comfortable glow. Their shoulders met again, beauty marks mingling. A summer sheen covered Will's bowed lips. A bead of sweat dropped down Mike's neck.
Vince came over. “Hey Peewit, a kid threw up over by the locker room. Can you get the sawdust?”
Will sighed, “Yes, Mr. Lipnicki.”
The day wore on under the humid sun as they swabbed the deck.
“My lunch was soggy,” Will sighed.
“Mine too.”
“Why are you mopping like you’re on a Canadian curling team?”
“Getting it done faster,” he panted. “Hey, you wear that lock necklace a lot lately. It’s cool.”
“Oh, thanks. I really love it. Jon got it for me for graduation. It’s my birth rune.”
“Ah. Okay. Like at first--I mean this is crazy--I thought it was an ‘M,’ but duh. Clearly a runic Ehwaz,” he said, holding the pendant between his index finger and thumb.
Will sank into his own shoulders a little. “I mean, yeah, of course.”
When they were de-algaefying the diving board later, Mike looked up and Will had a blank space under his clavicle. “Will, venerated object down!”
Will grasped the front of his neck for once. “Shit, the clasp must’ve broken. Do you see it anywhere on the deck?”
“I definitely would’ve stepped on it with my bare feet if that were the case.”
“Probably. If it’s in the water, it’ll get sucked up into the filter pump basket. It’s alright, we’ll get it back later.”
“No, if it goes in there it’ll be covered in sludge a-and tampons or something. I can just dive for it. It’s probably right under here.”
“You’d have to lie on the pool floor to even see it.”
“Then call me Bottom Feeder Wheeler. I’m getting it back for you.”
“Mike—“ Will sighed as BFW hit the water in what kind of looked like a deliberate dive. “…just be careful.”
OK, so Mike couldn’t see shit ten feet down, until a tiny glimmer flickered on the floor. The chain had settled in a drain cover, tangled in the grates, and the pendant was beyond view. He stuck his long fingers into the grate and got suctioned in, all the way to his elbow.
Shit. They really should’ve turned off the pump. They had full access to the damn pump.
Stay fucking cool--don't do anything rash---you're just reaching in the back of the fridge. Soda, purple stuff, Sunny D, just take your hand out. He struggled in vain, feeling the tiny spark of a burn in his chest, his heartbeat feeding the flames. No, no, they’d had worse close calls than this.
But this time, it felt like Will was a thousand miles away, and Mike was the suspended, trembling demo in the middle of nowhere.