Chapter Text
Every morning the maple leaves.
Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts
from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big
and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out
You will be alone always and then you will die.
── .✦
Tiny blue boxes swim in front of Mike’s eyes. Half reclined in bed, he squints tiredly at his screen, head pounding. The whirr of his laptop fan heats the patch of stomach where it rests. Click. Click. He scrolls further down the page, mind struggling to untangle the string of letters before him.
I prefer quiet over loud noise: Strongly Agree, Somewhat Agree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Somewhat Disagree, Strongly Disagree.
Who the fuck likes loud noise? Mike thinks as he firmly clicks Strongly Agree.
It’s a stupid quiz. A stupid, boring quiz that is apparently going to pair him with his perfect college roommate. Never mind the fact that the only people taking this quiz will be losers or loners, because all of the actual cool people chose their roommates ahead of time. Never mind the fact that Mike could be one of those people, because, hello? Will Byers is going to the same college as him. This quiz nonsense could have been avoided entirely if Will had just agreed that it was a great idea for them to room together.
But nothing ever goes Mike’s way. When Mike had proposed the very sane, logical idea that the two of them room together, Will had spouted this speech about how they need to ‘branch out’ and ‘meet new people’. Mike can’t imagine anything worse.
They’d been sprawled out on the floor of Mike’s basement, surrounded by crumpled pages of Will’s old drawings, Mike’s old stories. Deciding what comes with them to college, what gets put in storage. Will kept holding up his old drawings, suggesting he just throw them out. Mike shot him down every single time. They get tucked back into the binder they came from, safe, pressed between the pages.
“I’m just saying,” Will had said when Mike proposed the idea of rooming together, “that this is a huge part of the college experience, right? Meeting people?”
“I don’t want to meet people,” Mike huffs. “I already know people.”
“And that means you can’t meet anyone new?” Will raises an eyebrow.
“Exactly.”
“Mike,” Will sighs, exasperated. Mike loves it when Will says his name. Even when he’s annoyed at him. Sometimes, especially then.
“Will.”
“We can’t just live in a little bubble of the two of us and never branch out,” Will says.
“Why not?” Mike asks, definitely not whining. “That sounds great. Let’s do that.”
“We can’t,” Will repeats. Something has changed in his expression now. There is a furrow between his eyebrows.
“Okay,” Mike concedes, because he can’t stand seeing Will upset. He’ll cave for him, every single time. “Fine, I’ll take your stupid roommate quiz. We’ll let the fates decide.”
“Good,” Will says, although he doesn’t sound too happy about it. Mike wonders why Will never seems to be happy lately. Wishes he could fix it, somehow. But doing whatever Will asks of him seems like a good place to start.
And so, Mike fills out the roommate quiz.
It’s not that he doesn’t want to meet new people in college, more that he doesn’t want to room with a complete stranger for an entire year. He’d pleaded with Will, but it was no use. Once Will Byers makes up his mind, there's no getting through to him.
And really, everything hinges on Will.
It’s not as though Mike doesn’t have other friends. The entire party had chosen to go big with their government hush money, and all enroll into NYU, aside from Dustin, who had chosen the nearby institute of technology.
It had been a long shot, really. They all just wanted to get as far away from Hawkins as possible, and New York seemed like the biggest change of scenery they could imagine. Mike didn’t really expect them all to get accepted—Max was a particular concern, with almost two years of her life spent in a coma. So, when an offer was made from the higher-ups to make some slight edits to their academic records… well, none of them could complain. Call it a little treat for saving the world.
So, NYU it was.
But with Lucas and Max sharing an apartment off-campus, Dustin not in the NYU dorms, and El rooming in a girls-only building, Will is Mike’s only hope for getting a roommate that he actually knows. Well. It’s not like that even matters anymore.
I am an early riser: Strongly Agree, Somewhat Agree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Somewhat Disagree, Strongly Disagree.
Click. Mike screws his eyes shut, pressing the heel of his palms against his closed eyelids until he sees stars. He pushes out a breath, feels his laptop fan kick up a notch. Whirring. Mike opens his eyes. Click.
Maybe it’s for the best. But the thought of not knowing where Will is at night makes something tight and electric curl under Mike’s ribs. He tries to picture navigating this weird, new part of his life without Will in close quarters. It’s awful. He just wants Will to be near him.
But, is that really such a bad thing? Can’t a guy spend time with his best friend after the world almost ended? Forgive him for wanting a little company. Still. There will be plenty of company at college. New people to meet. Awkward small talk to make. Finding ways to avoid discussing anything that happened to him from ages twelve to sixteen. Whatever.
Click.
Will is going to thrive at college. Mike is sure of it. Since the almost-end-of-the-world, Will has been… different. Completely the same, but completely different. He’s still Will, still relentlessly gentle and kind. Still always sketching, drawing, painting. But he’s also… well, Mike doesn’t know what he is. More confident, maybe? Free? Whatever it is, it suits him.
And Mike is still just Mike. A bit older and a lot taller. With a new pair of stupid glasses. But aside from that, he feels like he’s barely changed at all. Maybe he never will.
I consider myself a social person: Strongly Agree, Somewhat Agree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Somewhat Disagree, Strongly Disagree.
Mike snorts. Click. His friend group consists of five people. One of them is his ex-girlfriend. Not particularly social. He swipes his fingers against the trackpad of his laptop and, finally, reaches the final question of the roommate quiz.
I consider myself an open-minded person: Strongly Agree, Somewhat Agree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Somewhat Disagree, Strongly Disagree.
Sure, why not? Mike can’t imagine much phasing him at this point. Click. The whirring of his laptop fan reaches a crescendo as he clicks the submit button and slams the lid closed. His mouth feels dry. It’s an overreaction, obviously. The sick feeling in his stomach. Just because he and Will won’t be roommates doesn’t mean they won’t talk anymore. Mike wouldn’t let that happen. Not again.
Outside, the sun is sinking below the horizon. A golden glow filters through the blinds. Mike shuffles up in bed, pushing his closed laptop away. The fan has gone silent. Everything has gone silent. Mike breathes out a sigh and swallows down the feeling that he’s losing Will.
That he’s doomed to keep losing Will, over and over again, for the rest of his life.
── .✦
So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog
of non-definitive acts,
something other than the desperation.
Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party.
Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party
and seduced you
and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.
── .✦
It is bright and cold, the morning they get their roommate assignments. Mike is up before the sun, nursing a mug of too-sweet coffee at the little wooden desk in his room. Squints against the blue glow of his laptop screen. 6:59am. His ancient laptop whirrs loudly as it loads up his college housing portal.
There is a sick feeling in Mike’s chest as he waits for the ‘Assigned Roommate’ tab to load. It’s not as though he’s going to be able to tell a whole lot about this person from just a name and a college ID photo, and he’s sure as hell not going to email them. He doesn’t want to live with a stranger. Doesn’t want to meet new people. Or maybe it’s not about what he does want, more so about what he does want.
He wants Will.
Mike wants to wake up to the sound of Will’s breathing. To see him soft and sleepy-eyed in the mornings. Watching him steal Mike’s cereal with hands covered in dried paint. Wants to be there for him when the nightmares inevitably come. Wants to slip under the blankets and hold him until the shaking stops. Mike wants to, for once in his life, have Will constant and stable. The way he likes him best: safe, where Mike can see him. Maybe then it’ll stop feeling like he’s constantly just out of reach.
Not that it matters anymore. For his entire life, Will has been slipping away to places that Mike cannot follow. Now more than ever. Sure, a lot of it was Mike’s fault. He’s not sure why he kept pushing Will away. He’d done it when he dated El, because he’d needed to. How could he explain to his girlfriend that, sure, he thinks about her, but he thinks about Will more? Wonders what he’s doing at any given point of the day. Thinks about him when he hears a certain song, sees a certain color.
It wasn’t normal, Mike knew that. He should think about his girlfriend more than he thinks about his best friend. But it’s like they can’t both co-exist in his brain. When he’d tried to measure it, tried to weigh them evenly in his mind, the scale tipped without his permission. He couldn’t figure out why his brain was acting that way. It didn’t make any sense. So, he blocked Will out. He had to.
Ever since he and El broke up, that guilt had lessened, but Mike hadn’t stopped thinking about Will. All the time. It must be some lingering effect of when Will was taken into the Upside-Down, or when he moved to California. Mike lost Will, so his brain became fixated on him. Or something like that. Mike tries not to think about it too much.
7:01am. The housing portal finally loads, the spinning circle fading out to reveal a simple page of tabs. Finance. Move-in Information. Roommate assignment. Mike clicks, then triple clicks, staring at the loading circle until his eyes burn. For one irrational second, he considers closing the laptop. Leaving it unopened forever. As long as he doesn’t look, nothing has changed.
Our algorithm has paired you with a roommate based on calculated compatibility.
He blinks rapidly. A few rays of the rising sun creep through the window, warming the back of his neck. It’s been getting colder, as of late. They’ve all been trying to capture the last few weeks of summer in Hawkins, spending as much time outside as possible. Soaking up the last of their small town before it’s time to leave it behind. Though they spend less time doing typical summer activities, like eating ice cream and playing at the arcade. They have a few more responsibilities now.
A month or so ago, Mike and Will had gone together to get their college ID pictures taken. They’d biked together to the Hawkins post office, standing awkwardly in front of the white backdrop at the back of the store as a bored employee snapped the pictures. Shoulders up, face unobscured.
Mike’s picture comes out just fine. He’s never liked his face a whole lot, so he’d only given his photo a brief glance before tucking the physical copy away in his wallet. Barely glanced at the digital when he uploaded it to his college portal.
He looks at Will’s photo for longer. In the picture, Will’s eyes are wide, caught off guard by the camera flash. His lips curl up slightly in an awkward smile. Soft brown hair curls around his ears and the base of his neck. The mole above his lip is barely visible in the stark lighting.
He stares at Will’s picture now on his laptop screen, next to the words in bold black text:
Michael Wheeler — Roommate Assignment: William Byers.