Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

There’s some kind of light that shines around Will Byers.

Mike notices it for the first time before they’ve even met, when he is five years old and standing alone in the playground, surrounded by kids who all seem to have all the friends they could ever need. In the midst of everything, Mike’s eyes are drawn to the swings, where one boy stands out from all the rest. He’s alone, just like Mike is, an empty swing next to him that feels almost cruel, like every other kid around suddenly feels colder for not taking the opportunity to use it.

Mike has nothing to lose, so he takes the seat for himself. The other boy doesn’t look up, not right away, not until Mike speaks. “Seems like you don’t have any friends,” Mike says, blunt but well-meaning. “Do you wanna be friends?”

The boy looks up with a wrinkled brow, clearly defensive at first, but Mike grins smugly in response, and he watches the quizzical look quickly fade. In place of a verbal answer, the boy nods, and Mike notices that light again, only this time it’s in the boy’s eyes when he smiles back, warm and genuine.

Only moments before, Mike had felt like the only kid in the world, but somehow the light brought him a friend, and it didn't take long for them to find a comfortable level of chatter. His name is Will, and they’re in the same grade, but Mike is even more delighted to discover they both like comic books and science fiction, especially the scary movies they sneak views of despite their parents’ protests. Mike manages to do this despite his older sibling, but Will gets these chances thanks to him, and even without meeting him, Mike can only imagine that Jonathan is way cooler than Nancy ever could be.

Mike had been desperate for a friend, any friend, but finding will alone feels almost too perfect, like Mike had hit the jackpot finding a friend so similar to him, but Mike wasn’t questioning it, instead choosing to revel in his own impulses, mentally noting it as one of the best things he’d ever done in his few years of living.

On his way home, Mike brags about it, and Nancy makes a point of telling him that he hasn’t lived long enough to be saying something like that, but Mike rolls his eyes, swearing up and down that if she had a friend as cool as Will she’d understand. Their mother has to intervene to prevent an otherwise inevitable slap exchange, but on this day in particular, Mike’s willing to accept it without a fight, grinning to himself as he watches Will take his mom’s hand and wave to him with the other.

The term ‘playdate’ is embarrassing, but Mike is willing to let it slide in this case; his and Will’s moms get along well enough and they keep arranging opportunities for the two of them to hang out with that label slapped on it. Will’s mom always seems to make excuses for why they can’t hang out at the Byers’, but Mike doesn’t mind — they’ve got a big enough basement for them to play whatever games they want, and Will’s eyes are shining the first time he comes over, taking in the shelves of board games and Mike’s collection of comic books and toys, wonder in his eyes longing enough to make it seem as if he’d never seen half of them before.

“It’s just a basement,” Mike shrugs, but he’s soft about it, Will’s sense of wonder almost contagious.

Will shakes his head. “You have everything,” he beams. “I could stay here forever and never get bored.”

It never seemed like a big deal before, but Will makes it feel like one, and Mike beams back. “You can!” he jokes, knowing very well his mother would never allow that but still feeling compelled to offer it anyway.

There aren’t a lot of games they can play with only two people, but they make do, exhausting every card game including the ones they make up, sinking battleships until they’ve destroyed one of the boards and lost several pieces out of the boxes of various board games. They strike gold when they discover through their hangouts their shared love of storytelling, recounting the books they’ve read until they reach the point of making up their own. Mike is especially good at it, and he revels in the way Will is often mesmerized by the twists and turns in his tales. It becomes his favorite thing about Will, how invested he gets in Mike’s stories, the way his eyes light up and he holds his breath through the suspense. It makes Mike feel like a real writer, even when he hasn’t written them down.

The feeling is unmatched for a long while, until Will surprises Mike with a skill of his own, showing up after school with a folder full of drawings — doodles Will had done of characters Mike had made up in his stories, all using crayon. It’s the most excited Mike has seen him, as Will points out details and explains each and every drawing, some of which contain characters Mike doesn’t even remember, ones he’d made up on the spot just to keep Will interested, but Will remembers each and every one of them. It’s so cool of him, Mike is the one smiling from ear to ear, observing with curiosity that Will seems to be surrounded by that light again, though he isn’t any closer to understanding where it comes from.

“Can I keep this?” Mike requests without thinking, and though Will seems anxious from the suggestion, he nods, surrendering the first of many drawings into Mike’s hands under the gaze of his admiring eye. Will brushes it off, insisting the lack of quality, but Mike pays him no mind, and only does Will’s shyness the courtesy of waiting until he leaves to tape it up on the wall.

Mike has never been great at sports; his limbs are lanky, and he’s uncoordinated, uninspired by the concept. Will doesn’t seem to mind though — if he had any athletic abilities of his own, Mike would never know, because Will’s interest in sports seems to pale in comparison to even Mike’s. Mike’s father often complains about it, but never aims to do anything about it or pressure Mike to do any sports, and if nothing else Mike can appreciate the bare minimum of his parents allowing him to pursue his own interests uninterrupted. In an effort to make sure he at least gets some exercise though, his parents get him a bike and encourage him to ride it anywhere within a reasonable distance so they don’t have to drive him everywhere.

No complaints on Mike’s end — he’d prefer them stay out of his business as much as possible — but it’s a lonely activity at first. Will’s parents can’t afford a bike, and Will’s house is further away than he’s allowed to bike on his own, so Mike spends a lot of time riding around his own neighborhood on the days Will can’t hang out.

“Are you waiting for someone?” A voice asks him one day, and Mike brings his bike to a halt in front of what turns out to be the next door neighbor’s driveway, finding another boy about his age standing with an amused smirk and a bandana tied around his forehead.

“No,” Mike says with a shrug, shooting a glance over his shoulder to his front yard where his mother is playing with Holly. “I’m just…bored. My friend doesn’t have a bike.”

The other boy puts his hands on his hips and taps his fingers against his jeans. “I have a bike,” he says, nonchalant but inexplicably proud. After Mike doesn’t immediately respond, he sticks out his arm and readies himself for a handshake. “I’m Lucas. Sinclair.”

Mike blinks for a few seconds, but eventually finds himself grinning, stepping in to shake Lucas’ hand. “Mike. Uh, Wheeler.” Lucas’ handshake is firm, and Mike feels a satisfying warmth in his chest, that lonely sensation creeping even further away as they exchange a smile and feel the instant formation of a friendship that only kids can be so certain of. “Do you, uh…wanna ride around for a while?” Mike asks, glancing back behind Lucas towards their house, and Lucas takes off without saying anything, yelling to his parents inside the front door before he grabs his own bike and starts pedaling, leaving Mike trailing behind.

“You’re losing already!” Lucas calls back over his shoulder, and Mike is smiling from ear to ear as he hops on his bike and takes off after him, only very briefly noting in the back of his mind that he can’t wait to introduce him to Will.

He can’t quite explain why, but despite his initial excitement, Mike puts off inviting Will and Lucas over at the same time. He spends every free day with one or the other, but he’s been coy about making sure they never overlap. It’s not entirely logical; Mike finds out quickly that despite his cool demeanor, Lucas is just as into science fiction and games as the both of them are, and it would be easy for Mike to bring them together, a perfect vision of a theoretical three musketeers forming in his mind every time he considers it, but a gnawing in his stomach is never far behind.

He still feels like he’s working on convincing Lucas that he’s not a total nerd, and it’s only slightly negated by the fact that Lucas’ sister Erica reminds Mike at every visit that Lucas is a total nerd too, and not trying very hard to hide it. It feels even nerdier, somehow, to be so concerned about it, but Mike wonders if he’s capable of keeping up appearances in front of two people at once.

When Mike is with Will, Mike feels at peace in a way he doesn’t with anyone else, each exchange of theirs precious but not fragile, like arms wrapped around a pillow, always soft but enduring. Whether they’re secretly raiding the kitchen behind Nancy’s back or laughing their stomachs sore in Mike’s basement, whether they’re yelling at the screen during a horror movie or whispering past their bedtimes at a sleepover, there’s a tonal difference to every one of their interactions that separates them. The thought of sharing it unsettles Mike more than he can explain, and makes him wonder if by inviting someone else into their friendship he might lose it.

He manages to balance them for a while, until Will and Lucas end up in the same class, separately from Mike. He’d begged his teacher to let him switch, but without a good reason, they swore they couldn’t make any exceptions just to stick every kid with their friends, and Mike spent the first few weeks of school that year moping alone in his classroom, dealing with spitballs hurled at his head by the bullies and wondering to himself how long it would be before Will and Lucas eventually became best friends and left him behind entirely.

The empty seat next to him near the window is a constant reminder of it, of his two best friends and the inevitability of them becoming best friends, without him, and each hangout Mike spends with each of them separately begins to feel like a gamble, like he’s stretching his luck the longer it goes on, and one day Lucas is in his room, and Mike hears words he’s been dreading.

“You know Will?” Lucas asks, and when Mike follows his gaze, he catches Lucas eyeing a polaroid Mike has on his dresser of him and Will in his basement, huddled under a fort they’d built during a sleepover. Jonathan had taken the photo when Joyce came to pick him up, but Mike had asked to keep the photo as a keepsake, forcing Jonathan to take a second one for Will to take home too. He prefers to think Will kept it just as fondly.

“Huh?” Mike asks dumbly, momentarily distracted by the question and how the suddenness of it had thrown him off.

Lucas raises an eyebrow. “Will Byers,” he clarifies, pointing at the photo. “He’s in my class. I feel bad for him.”

Mike matches the eyebrow raise. “What do you mean?”

Lucas looks away, guilt painting his face like he’s sharing a secret that isn’t his. “He gets bullied a lot,” he explains with a wince. “I didn’t think he had any friends.”

“I’m his friend,” Mike says defensively, the words darting from his tongue so quickly he doesn’t realize how angry he must look until he feels his wrinkled forehead hurting and he has to consciously will it away. “Anyway, who’s bullying him? What did Will even do?”

“He didn’t do anything,” Lucas says, holding up his hands. “You know how it is. The things they call him don’t even make sense.”

It doesn’t feel like he’s getting the whole story, but Mike is more uneasy at the thought of Will being bullied when Mike isn’t there to say anything about it than he is about his friendship dichotomy slowly imploding, so he files it away in the back of his mind, trying to hide his aggravation as he reaches for the photo of him and Will and puts it in his pocket.

Lucas gives him a strange look, surprised but otherwise unreadable from Mike’s perspective, and Mike briefly wonders if that was something he shouldn’t have done. Secondarily, he wonders if he doomed both of his best friend positions by giving Lucas an in with Will now that they’ve established having a mutual friend — the champion of his own demise.

Lucas is more or less unfazed and shrugs again, flopping down onto Mike’s bed and reaching underneath it to pull out the stack of comic books he knows is hiding there, and Mike lets him, mind wandering for a full minute before he snaps himself back to the present and focuses in on Lucas’ chattering, following him onto the bed and laying on his stomach, launching himself into a thoroughly researched spiel about the believability of Clark Kent’s disguise.

The next time Will is over, Mike notes with amusement that Will similarly dives for Mike’s pile of comics, but Will is more careful, gently placing them beside him as he sits on the bed with legs folded in towards him and a few X-Men issues in his lap. “Your collection is so much bigger than mine,” Will says, almost longingly, but he’s still smiling. “My dad doesn’t let me keep this kind of stuff.”

“It’s not that big,” Mike says defensively, pursing his lips. He’s pretty sure Lucas has even more comics than he does, and he’d be willing to bet there are other kids in Hawkins with more than all of them combined. Will is good at reminding him of what he’s taking for granted though, and Mike sighs as he climbs to seat himself across from Will on the bed, expression softening. “You can always hide yours here if you want. And you can read mine whenever you want too. Just like they’re yours, you know?”

Will looks up with curious eyes. “Really? You mean it?” It’s so earnest, Mike can’t help but grin to one side, nodding. Will beams. “Thanks, Mike.”

Inexplicably smug, Mike considers why he’d been so hesitant to tell Lucas about Will. It’s not as if Will would suddenly drop Mike and prefer Lucas’ company just because they became friends too. Even if they are in the same class, even though Lucas is cooler, even though Lucas has a better comic book collection and a more substantial allowance to spend at the arcade…

Alright, so maybe he has reason to worry. But Will isn’t so disloyal that he’d quit on him so easily — Will is too good for that, especially after they’d bonded over that loneliness they’d felt before they met each other. That isn’t something friends just throw away. It isn’t something Will would ever throw away, and the way Mike’s heart rate slows to a comfortable, steady beat around him, makes Mike believe in it whole-heartedly.

If nothing else, Mike is certain that the Byers must like him most of all, because he’s never heard Jonathan or Will’s mom mention any of their other classmates, and Mike keeps Lucas’ gossip tucked away in his back pocket, hoping the day never comes when the bullying gets bad enough for their assistance to seem like the only way out. If he could trust anyone with such precious information, it would surely be the two of them, but he won’t embarrass Will like that without a good reason.

Luckily, Will usually seems too happy with them for those negative experiences to make their way into his family time, and it’s something Mike can only envy. Stuck between a baby sister and one who is far too uptight to hang out with him the way Jonathan does for Will, Mike is most envious of their connection as siblings. Mike may be a nerd, but he’d consider Nancy a dweeb - almost offensively boring thanks to her studious nature that seems to suck all the fun out of school. Nancy claims he’ll “get it” once he’s old enough for school to “mean something,” but Mike can’t imagine ever finding the inspiration to bury himself in textbooks the way she does. For Mike, school is most fun when he is given the opportunity to experience new knowledge first-hand, not through text.

Jonathan, on the other hand, fits cleanly into Mike’s idea of “cool” — he teaches Mike new vocabulary like ‘juxtaposition’ and clues him in to which new movies are over-rated, allowing Mike to feel superior when he overhears the popular kids praising them.

Before each sleepover at Will’s, Mrs. Byers often takes the boys to Family Video to let them pick out a movie to rent as a group, and though sci-fi may not be his favorite genre, Jonathan will side with Will’s choice of movie more often than not, helping to convince Will’s mom to let them all watch it together even when she thinks they may not be old enough. Nancy would never do that for him, Mike is certain.

Mrs. Byers doesn’t have as strong of a stomach for their ventures into the world of creature features, and Mike can’t help but grin to himself a little, when she has to leave the room during their viewing of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Mike is more fascinated than anything, eyes glued to the screen at every frame, and though Will is no chicken, Mike can’t help but notice when he has his blanket fully wrapped around him, draped over his head and body and pulled up just below his eyes — the only part of him not covered by anything — ready to cover them the second the effects get too gross. Mike shifts closer to Will on the couch and creeps his arms around him, slowly covering Will’s eyes with his hands instead of the blanket.

“What are you doing!?” Will asks, his whisper strained so his mother doesn’t hear him from the next room.

A little smug, Mike smirks. “Helping - you missed a spot,” he says, teasingly but gentle.

“Miiike,” Will whines, just a little, loosely grabbing Mike’s hands and pulling them down, away from his eyes so he can see the TV uninterrupted.

Mike allows his arms to drop, but holds their position, letting them come to rest around Will’s shoulders instead, and then rests his head against Will’s shoulder too, perfectly content to stay that way for the rest of the movie.

He stays there for a while, unbothered by his own lack of blanket thanks to Will’s, but the cozy feeling is broken shortly before bedtime, when the front door opens and Lonnie Byers steps through it. Close enough to feel the difference, Mike frowns as Will’s shoulders tense, his heart rate quickens, and he takes in a deep, anticipatory breath. Below their feet, Chester whines, and skitters behind the couch before Lonnie gets a chance to see him.

“Joyce?” Lonnie calls through the house, barely noticing any of them until he passes the TV and catches sight of the screen. “What the hell are you doing watching this crap?” he asks Jonathan. “Your mom brought this into my house?”

Mike looks over and watches as Jonathan’s jaw tightens. “Not your house,” he says under his breath.

“Excuse me?” Lonnie presses, and even Mike can sense this mistake right away, but Jonathan’s eyes are serious as he looks up at him.

“You don’t get to call it that anymore,” Jonathan’s voice shakes, but he still stands to face him head-on, and Mike can only passively wonder if his own father is even capable of the anger Lonnie Byers exudes without having to try. Jonathan sneaks a glance towards their mom’s bedroom, but he doesn’t hide it well enough. “Mom doesn’t want to see you.”

“We’ll see about that, won’t we?” Lonnie huffs, pulling up on the hem of his jeans as he saunters across the living room, throwing Jonathan one last condescending grin before he approaches her door.

The instant Lonnie’s back is turned, Jonathan faces Will on the couch, making pointed eye contact with him but keeping his voice low. “Castle Byers. Go,” he whispers, firmly.

Will doesn’t waste a second, grabbing Mike’s hand and sneaking towards the back door, silently putting his shoes on and directing Mike to do the same. Chester seems to instinctively follow Will out the door, and Mike follows too, saying nothing at all even as Will sneaks through the trees behind their house until they arrive at a fort made of sticks and filled with personal items Mike recognizes as having previously been in Will’s room. Castle Byers, reads the sign atop the structure.

Will pulls Mike inside and sits down, and Chester instantly rests his head on Will’s lap as he lays down next to him. Mike takes a seat next to him, taking in the sight of his hiding place, including a comfortable cushion and blankets, a few of Will’s drawings, and some comic books that Mike recalls Will hiding from Lonnie.

Thanks to the clear weather, the light from the TV in the living room is visible in the distance, never fully out-of-sight from the Byers home, but that blessing also proves to be a curse, as Lonnie’s and Joyce’s voices are soon loud enough for them to hear too. Their conversation isn’t clear enough to make out in detail, but the message is quickly received that Lonnie’s presence is an unpleasant surprise, and Mike has never heard adults argue like this before.

Words still unintelligible from this far away, Jonathan’s voice joins the fray, but only for a moment, until —

Thwack.

A sharp noise cuts through the air, and all of the yelling stops in an instant. The night feels so still, it sends an uneasy chill up Mike’s spine.Joyce’s voice suddenly booms into their ears again, this time loud and pointed enough for them to hear her demanding Lonnie get the hell out.

Mike sneaks a glance at Will, who continues to stare at his back door in the distance, as if waiting for it to suddenly swing open, and Will’s hands begin to shakily slide over his ears to block out the sound. It feels like the longest time Mike has gone without speaking, and he can’t take it anymore.

“Hey Will,” he says gently, warmly — whatever it takes to be the opposite of what he’s trying to block out. “Don’t look at the door, just look at me, okay?” Mike pleads, placing a hand on Will’s shoulder when he senses his hesitation, turning Will’s body towards him ever so slightly. “Okay?”

Will finally nods and lets his hands fall, looking at Mike expectantly, seemingly prepared to look away again at the first sign of trouble. “I-I…” Will tries to speak, but it becomes quickly clear he doesn’t know what to say. His face is bright red — humiliated — but Mike can’t bring himself to be anything but sad. Will’s light is dimmer, and Mike mentally chases away his own frown to turn it into a smile for him.

“If something happens, my parents can take care of you,” he promises, fully prepared to hide Will in their basement if he ever needed to, unwilling to even consider the possibility of them turning Will away. “You’ll be safe with me.”

Will nods, eyes still locked on Mike, but it’s clear he’s still tense, holding in the feelings he really wants to let out, but Mike doesn’t have time to come up with another suggestion of comfort before both the front and back doors of the Byers house swing open at once, and they can faintly hear Lonnie’s car start up and speed away, out of the front yard.

Out of the trees, Jonathan comes running, waving a flashlight, and when he reaches Castle Byers, he doesn’t hesitate for even a fraction of a second, kneeling down and reaching out for Will, dropping the flashlight in the process as he places his hands on Will’s shoulders. “Are you okay?” Jonathan takes a breath. “He’s gone, he’s gone, I promise.”

Mike picks up the flashlight, and when the light shines on Jonathan’s face, he and Will both catch sight of his bright red cheek, already beginning to bruise where Lonnie struck him.

The floodgates open. Will falls apart in Jonathan’s arms, crying into his shoulder and clinging tightly to his torso as he sobs while Jonathan holds the back of Will’s head.

Mike feels himself shivering, knowing he’d cry too if he allowed himself, but it doesn’t feel right. Nothing happened to him. Unsure of what else to do, Mike tightens his grip on the flashlight in one hand and pets Chester with the other, and Jonathan nods knowingly at him, wise beyond his years and far beyond Mike’s, reaching out to gently pat Mike on the head with a gentle ruffle of his hair.

Despite everything else, Mike lets slip a tiny smile, tight across his lips, making sure he’s the first one out of Castle Byers so he can light the way as he guides them back home.

Will doesn’t come to school for a few days after that, something Mike has to find out at the risk of annoying a teacher that isn’t even his, by walking into Lucas and Will’s class every morning and pretending he has something “important” to tell Lucas. In truth, he only intends to look around and see if Will is there, and when he doesn’t find him, Mike accepts defeat and wanders back to his own classroom.

By the end of the week, he decides it might as well be time to bite the bullet, and invites Lucas over after school to finally bridge the gap in his friendships, believing the obvious ulterior motives to be for the greater good.

Lucas isn’t suspicious, having gotten used to visiting Mike often enough that he doesn’t always knock anymore, but he does give Mike a funny look when he enters the basement to find Mike putting another of Will’s drawings on the wall, in addition to the ones that were already there.

“Since when are you an artist?” Lucas grins incredulously, hands on his hips.

“I’m not,” Mike says with a shake of the head, jumping off the couch and onto the floor with a shaky landing. “Will drew them. He drew all of them.”

“Will Byers?” Lucas asks, for clarification, and at Mike’s nod, Lucas surveys the wall, taking in the sight of them. “That makes sense,” he shrugs, as if it was nothing. As if Mike hadn’t spent so long trying to keep their hang-outs from intersecting.

“It…makes sense?” Mike repeats, wrinkling his face in confusion.

“How stupid do you think I am?” Lucas groans, mirroring a similarly scrunched face right back at him. “It’s not like I thought you were looking for me in Byers’ seat.”

Suddenly Mike feels embarrassed again. Lucas is too good at putting these things together, even when Mike thinks he’s being so sneaky. Mike sighs and waves Lucas over as he plops onto the couch, and carefully considers his words and how much information he’s able or willing to share. It takes only a few seconds of consideration before Mike decides the answer is very little. “Can you…keep an eye on him for me? If he gets bullied in your class, I wanna know.”

“Why can’t you ask him yourself?” Lucas asks as his gaze softens, but he raises his eyebrow at Mike quizzically, unconvinced. “I’m not going to spy on him for you.”

“It’sw not spying!” Mike interjects, but Lucas looks on, unfazed, until Mike sighs again. “If it happens, he won’t…he won’t tell me. He’ll just say it’s no big deal and try even harder to hide it.”

Lucas goes quiet for a moment, clearly considering Mike’s request, even though it’s obvious he doesn’t support it. “Why do you care so much anyway?”

That question becomes the most difficult for Mike. He can’t tell Lucas about Lonnie, about how normal it must feel for Will to brush off bullies at school knowing he has an even bigger one at home. “He just…” Mike hesitates once more. “He needs someone. He needs me.”

Lucas sighs. “Or I could just be normal and talk to him myself.”

“No!” Mike protests, before he has a chance to consider the implications, and Lucas wrinkles his eyebrows so hard that Mike feels his stomach twist into knots. It’s stupid. So stupid. Lucas is always good for making Mike realize when he’s out of line, but he sure wishes it didn’t have to come from them butting heads first, and Will is too kind to choose sides if he doesn’t have to. They desperately need another neighbor who’s more level headed, but Mike doesn’t know how he’d ever find one without venturing into social circles that aren’t welcoming to him.

“Why can’t we all be friends?” Lucas shrugs, like it’s the obvious answer. As if Mike is weird for not thinking so in the first place. “If you like him, maybe I will too.”

Mike can’t tell Lucas that this is exactly what he’s afraid of — he would seem like the weird one then. Maybe he is.

Mike weighs his options, and can’t find any good reason to tell his best friend to stay away from his other best friend, while also asking that best friend to keep tabs on the other, without telling him. Mike is out of options.

“Okay,” Mike nods, letting his shoulders slump loosely. “Just be nice to him, okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Lucas questions, hands on his hips.

“Not just regular nice,” Mike insists, his hands raised defensively. “Will is…” Mike hesitates, finding himself uncertain of the connotations of all of the words he’s heard used to describe Will already, but aware of far too many that sound like insults. “Well, his mom says he’s sensitive. So you can’t—”

“Mike. I get it,” Lucas interrupts, shaking his head and matching Mike’s hand movements. “Kids try to bully me too, remember?”

Mike feels immense guilt all of a sudden, having taken for granted the fact that Lucas is dealing with his own issues fitting in with kids in Hawkins, but he’d been too blinded by his intent to protect Will, to realize that Will could be good for Lucas too. “Okay,” Mike says, more affirmatively this time. “Maybe we can be like…a trio. They might not mess with us so much if we’re together.”

Lucas half-nods. “Yeah, maybe,” he shrugs, unconvinced. “At least we’ll have another friend.”

Mike can’t help how easily that makes him smile, hearing Lucas use ‘we’ and remembering that he does actually matter, not only to Lucas but to Will, and with all three of their feelings in mind, Mike finds himself far less nervous, wondering why he’d allowed himself to become so insecure about their friendship in the first place.

Mike’s confidence is tested one day, when Joyce Byers’ car pulls up outside the front of his house, and Mike watches out the window with a smile on his face, honored by the surprise visit and readying a wave. His hand and smile soon drop, when he continues watching, only to see their car pull just the slightest bit further up the street, and he can’t help the furrowed brow that follows as Will gets out of the car and runs up the sidewalk into Lucas’ house instead.

There’s a pit in his stomach he wants desperately to ignore, thinking back on how sick the idea of them choosing each other over him had made him feel, and he pulls the curtain closed, unable to bear the sight any longer.

For a moment, Mike has hope, considering that maybe they’ll be calling any minute to invite him over too, and he eyes the telephone in the kitchen with intensity. When it doesn’t ring immediately, Mike huffs and races down the stairs to his basement, grabbing his walkie-talking off the table and extending the antenna, just in case. Minutes go by with Mike tapping his fingers against the side of it, his patience wearing thin, and after he reaches his limit he turns off the walkie entirely, tossing it onto the couch with a dull thud.

In his head, echoes a memory of Troy telling him he’d always be a loser because of how weird-looking he is, and though he’d never been one to worry about his appearance before that moment, it suddenly feels like the only reasonable explanation. Maybe he is weird-looking after all, and Will and Lucas have realized they’re better off without him.

After pacing around for a while, and attempting to distract himself with toys and games he can’t play with alone, Mike gives up and wanders back to the kitchen, where Nancy is chatting away on the phone. From what he can overhear, it sounds like there’s a boy in the year above them that Nancy thinks is cute, but whoever is on the other end of the phone doesn’t agree, and Nancy is arguing her case.

Dad is in the living room, watching the news with the audio low, and Mike’s mom sits at the kitchen table, filling out paperwork while Holly struggles to sit up in her high chair. After weighing his options, Mike uses both his arms to wave to Nancy, until she sets the phone down and shrugs expectantly.

“Do you…want to play a game?” he questions, hesitant but desperate, and the apologetic look on Nancy’s face is enough to tell him her answer already.

“I’m on the phone,” she whispers, but when Mike’s shoulders sink and he pouts, her voice warms. “Maybe later, okay?”

Still pouting, Mike nods and slumps away, tuning out the rest of her conversation as well as the TV, thankfully so, because after a few more minutes of Mike moping around, he hears a faint knock at the front door, and he races to it before anyone else has a chance to notice it. As soon as the door opens, Mike brightens, seeing Will standing there all by himself.

“Can I come in?” Will asks, and it’s a silly question as far as Mike is concerned, but he excitedly grabs Will’s wrist, running towards the basement and yelling his announcement of Will’s presence into the kitchen as he passes without any intention to ask for permission. Once they’re in the basement, Mike readies himself to start coming up with activities, but this time, Will beats him to it, opening his backpack and pulling out a few sheets of paper with doodles scattered across them.

“Were you drawing with Lucas?” Mike asks, not the least bit subtle.

“Lucas doesn’t draw,” Will says, matter-of-factly. “We’re doing a class project and Lucas picked me to be his partner! He’s so nice!”

Inside, Mike’s jealousy battles his pride, but Will’s happiness tips the scales, and he makes a mental note to thank Lucas for keeping to his word and looking out for Will, even if it does mean they’re becoming friends outside of him. “That’s cool, Will,” Mike concedes, sincerely. “Are the drawings for your project?”

“No way,” Will laughs, but he’s smiling too much to hide his joy, and carefully displays one drawing in particular. “Do you remember that wizard I drew? I decided he should have a friend. Everyone in Lord of the Rings is stronger with friends.”

Mike examines Will’s drawing, and sure enough, in the same style as Will’s wizard, he’s drawn a knight-like character with a sword instead of a staff. It’s a basic drawing, without any frills yet, but the black hair on the knight has become familiar and recognizable as a staple of Will’s many drawings. “Is that me?” he asks, not wanting to look like he’s assuming.

Will nods proudly. “Do you like it?” he asks, hesitation evident. “I can draw you with a different costume if you want.”

“No!” Mike interrupts, picking the drawing up and moving to put it up on the wall next to one of Will’s wizard drawings from a previous visit. “I like it a lot,” he promises. “I’ll try to be even more like a knight, okay?”

The agreeable nod Will gives him is accompanied by a shy smile, and Mike no longer has any regrets. “I’ll draw them together next time,” he offers without prompting, unable to know that this is exactly what Mike was about to ask of him, and so many of Mike’s nerves calm.

“Did you…draw Lucas too?” Mike can’t help but ask, regretting it as soon as the words leave his mouth, as badly as he needs to know the answer.

Unable to know that Mike’s emotions hinge upon his response, Will shrugs like it’s nothing. “Not yet,” he shakes his head. “Maybe I should draw him to thank him.”

Mike wrinkles his brow, torn as he realizes he may have just given Will the idea to share their tradition with a third person, but the pride he feels knowing it had initially only been for him takes the reins for the time being, and he’s overcome by a sense that he’s won a competition he hadn’t even realized he’d been taking part in.

They easily settle into a comfortable trio, one that reduces loneliness in all three of them, but Mike can’t chase away the part of him that still feels the need to maintain distinct relationships with each of them, nor the even bigger part of him that finds himself insecure whenever he hears about Lucas and Will doing anything together that doesn’t include him.

Lucas’ family has access to a lot of the activities that feel normal for Mike, and they go on more outings together than he does with Will. Mike’s mother once explained to him that some families have more than others, and that he and his sisters should feel lucky to have everything they need and more. He’s never had to wonder what the alternative would look like, but he has taken note of how his and Will’s hang-outs are almost always at home, and it has become so standard for Mike to share all of his toys and games with Will that it never truly registered that Will might not have access to them otherwise.

One day, Mike tags along when the Byers are out running errands and shopping, something he has come to realize is a very rare occasion for them, unlike his own parents who seem to do so every week. Even more strangely for Mike, they do much of their shopping at a thrift store, a concept Mike only has experience with thanks to the Byers themselves.

Will laments when his mother reminds him that he needs to stock up on summer clothes for the upcoming warm weather, and Mike is about to join them, when Jonathan gently puts a hand on Mike’s shoulder and pulls him aside. “I’ll keep an eye on him,” he tells Joyce, and Mike wrinkles his eyebrows at Will, who shrugs back at him. “I need your help with something,” Jonathan whispers, for only the two of them to hear, and Mike beams.

“Me?” Mike says, eyebrows raised. “What can I do?”

Amused by his eagerness, Jonathan kneels down to his level and pulls an envelope out of his pocket, and Mike spies cash inside, though it’s impossible for him to guess how much. “I saved everything I got for my birthday and Christmas,” he explains, voice low. “Do you want to help me pick out Will’s birthday present?”

At this, Mike nods excitedly, and Jonathan grins with such pride that Mike suspects this might not be exclusively about Will. Eagerly, Mike tugs at Jonathan’s sleeve and immediately drags him along to the toys and games section of the store, perusing the many options, but disregarding anything that Will already has, as well as anything that he himself has, as he can share it with Will anytime anyway.

For a while, Mike doesn’t find anything, disappointed by the limited selection, but suddenly, as if illuminated by the mysterious force that brought them together in the first place, Mike spies something seemingly fated — a basic Dungeons and Dragons set with an absolutely massive dragon on the cover. Most significantly, Mike can’t help but be mystified by the characters fighting it: a knight and a wizard just like the two of them. Without hesitation, Mike picks it up and shoves it towards Jonathan as if he’s putting it on display.

“That looks just like Will’s drawings!” Mike says, pointing to the mysterious wizard, and even Jonathan’s eyes widen in surprise.

After taking it into his hands, Jonathan peruses the packaging, and narrows his eyes at Mike playfully. “You sure you two can handle a game like this? There’s a lot of rules.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“And it says you need at least three players.”

“You can play with us, right Jonathan?”

Jonathan smiles tightly, clearly not excited by the idea, and Mike pauses thoughtfully, remembering Lucas and making a note to drag him in against his will if he has to.

“...We’ll figure it out!”

Worn down by his insistence, Jonathan shakes his head with amusement, and all he can do is nod once he’s given in, and Mike’s feet are bouncing as he follows Jonathan towards the cashier’s counter to check out.

Mike hangs back at first, remembering that this is supposed to be a gift to Will from Jonathan and not him, but after a moment, he watches as Jonathan’s smile falls and his shoulders slump, his head hanging over the counter. He’s counting the bills in his hand over and over, rubbing at his temples as the numbers never seem to add up.

Mike’s never been through this before himself, but he’s already lost track of how many times Will has run out of coins at the arcade before he does, and the same impulse Mike has felt during those moments creeps up in his chest. Mike doesn’t stop to think about it any longer, digging in his pocket to pull out the entirety of his weekly allowance, and he places it onto the counter next to Jonathan’s money without a word.

He doesn’t want to seem nosy, but Mike watches carefully as Jonathan’s jaw tightens, and takes careful note of the way he closes his eyes and sighs, waging an internal war within himself that Mike isn’t privy to. The brief quiet moment hangs, until Jonathan pushes both of their contributions across the counter to pay, and Jonathan utters a quiet “thank you” that he strains his voice to whisper.

Mike is sure he meant it, but Jonathan’s smile doesn’t come back, and as soon as Mike spots Will and Joyce near the front, having finished their own shopping, he makes a beeline towards them as if nothing had happened.

Will’s present is a difficult secret for Mike to keep, but he does manage to keep it hidden all the way through to Will’s birthday. Other than Jonathan and Joyce, Mike is the only person invited to their little “party,” but to everyone’s surprise, Lonnie shows up halfway through, after they’ve finished Will’s movie of choice and eaten the cake.

Lonnie gifts Will a baseball and bat that he feigns interest in, an act everyone seems to be used to by now, but when Will opens the D&D set and immediately lights up, the stark difference is felt, and after Will runs to get his wizard costume out of the closet to dress up in celebration, his excitement is so obviously genuine that Lonnie grows angry, and before Mike can understand what’s happening, he and Joyce are fighting about what Will is and isn’t “supposed” to like, as if Will isn’t even in the room.

Something about their rhetoric sits like a rock in Mike’s stomach, but all it takes is Mike and Jonathan sharing a look once the yelling starts, and Mike puts on his strongest knight-like face and stands straight up as he drags Will to his room, carrying the D&D set with him as he shuts the door behind them.

Mike had requested and received a copy of the same set from his parents in preparation, and every word he read had left him begging for more. It reminded him of the games he and Will had already been playing, but with far more rules and an entire universe to discover beyond the instructional packet of a board game. Mike had mentally begun creating his own creatures and stories, ready for the day he’d be able to share the world with Will.

The fantasy world became Mike’s playground, the backdrop for which he develops his stories in a way he’d only imagined before. The ideas he’d spent so many nights conceptualizing with Will in his basement began to take shape, and the deeper Mike got, the more he found himself driven to tell Will all about it, to see if his face would light up again the way it used to, if maybe those reactions would grow along with Mike’s growth as a storyteller.

In a frenzy to drown out the voices of Will’s parents, and to let loose the world he’d been keeping for far too many days, Mike finds himself pacing around Will’s room with electricity in his heels.

“You always imagined being in Lord of the Rings, yeah?” Mike explains, unable to tolerate the not-technically-a-secret anymore as he spills the beans, bursting with a desire to share his new fixation with his artist before the inspiration explodes out of him. The thought of keeping anything hidden from Will feels like an impossibility he’d sooner betray his own family before considering. “It’s kinda like that, but we make the characters and story ourselves. All the species and stuff are different too. But you get what I mean.”

They’re seated side by side on Will’s bed, with their respective homework tossed to the side hours earlier, completely disregarded as soon as the cake had come out. In his own room, Jonathan is playing music just loud enough for it to be distracting, but on a day like today, the distraction might be a welcome one.

Will looks up from the doodling he’s already started, and Mike is just close enough to see the dragon Will is bringing to life on the page. It makes Mike grin to himself. So easy.

“So…it’s like a board game?” Will questions, eyebrow quirked curiously.

“Well, there is a board, but it’s so much more than that,” Mike starts, trying and failing to hold himself back from dumping all this newly-acquired information with his most captive audience. He explains the dice, and how interactive everything is, and all the different classes, and he starts to feel like a loser the longer he goes on and on, biting down on his own lip and shaking his head. “You probably don’t want to hear all this,” he shrugs. “It might be easier to read it yourself.”

“Nah, I like listening to you explain it.” Will says, smiling; his face is even doing that thing again, where Mike swears there’s more light on him than anywhere else in the room. It makes no god damn sense, but Mike is pretty sure it’s some kind of superpower, and if Will doesn’t end up choosing a magic class, he might have to start a fight about it.

Mike’s about to say exactly that, but they’re interrupted by muffled yelling through the walls, and even from across the room, Mike can feel the way Will immediately tenses up, back straighter and the hairs on his neck standing, shoulders tense as he glances towards his bedroom door, almost as if he’s expecting it to burst open.

“Hey Will, you okay?” Mike says softly; his voice is almost a whisper, but Mike makes a point of forcing it to be warmer too, wanting to avoid adding to his fear.

Will turns toward him suddenly, caught off guard by the attention, but once he looks at Mike’s face, his shoulders release and he quickly exhales. “It’s fine,” he says, and Mike takes notice of it not being ‘I’m fine’ but he doesn’t push it.

Instead, Mike purses his lips and places the manual in Will’s lap, on top of Will’s sketchbook where he’s already turned to a fresh, possibility-filled page. “You should start reading,” he says, as if it’s a tiny request.

Will’s face lights up though, and Mike’s joy feels appropriately matched. “What about you?” Will says with wonder, almost in disbelief. “Don’t you need all of this to start writing your story? We can share it.”

“I’ve already started!” Mike chirps. “My mom bought me one too. Besides, you need all the pictures for reference if you’re gonna start drawing anything.”

Will looks down at the rulebook and curls his fingers around it, hands gripping tightly. “Thanks, Mike,” he says, and then after a pause: “I think…I might be a wizard.”

Mike smirks. “Like Gandalf?”

“More like…Radagast?” Will’s voice hesitates, but he almost looks proud.

Mike wrinkles his forehead. “But Radagast is barely in the story,” he complains, offended on Will’s behalf, despite how little sense that should make. “Your wizard has to be more important than that.”

“Okay,” Will chuckles and rolls his eyes a little, but he nods in defeat. “What about you? I know you have a class picked out already.”

“You bet I do!” Mike exclaims, too loud under normal circumstances, but Jonathan’s music is helping to give them more privacy than they might have otherwise. He hops onto his feet, holding both of his hands in front of him, gripped tightly in fists at the handle of an invisible weapon, which he mimes swinging around. “Paladin, of course.”

Will sits up. “No way, paladins can use lightsabers?”

Mike drops his arms. “What? It’s supposed to be a sword!” His brow is wrinkled in offense, but Will is smirking, and Mike catches on immediately, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away. “Oh, you’re teasing me. Some best friend you are!”

Will laughs to himself, but Mike pauses, reflecting on the words that expelled themselves from him so suddenly. Mike’s never really thought about it until now, about what each of their friend ‘titles’ would be, but maybe it doesn’t matter after all. Maybe he’s over thinking it. Will doesn’t seem to flinch at the phrase, and it does soften Mike’s consideration to realize that regardless, Will considers Mike his best friend too.

The two of them lose themselves in their discussions, as their images of their characters take shape and develop full identities, both of which Will manages to draw without any difficulty, and this time, when Will mentions looping Lucas into the game, it causes Mike to smile.

When there’s a knock on the door, Mike realizes that things have been quiet for a while, and Jonathan enters with one arm behind his back and a sullen look on his face. “I’m sorry Will,” he frowns, kneeling beside the bed. “I’ll try to get you another cape as soon as I can, okay?”

Will goes quiet, his smile fading, but he just nods in silence, and with a raised eyebrow, Mike is the one to break it. “What happened to the cloak?”

“The piece of crap who calls himself our father,” Jonathan spits without thinking, and regrets his language when Mike frowns back. “I tried to get it back, but I…” Jonathan pulls his arm out of hiding, exposing a red forearm he’s holding stiffly, the pain obvious even to Mike’s young eyes. “I wasn’t strong enough. I’m sorry.”

Seeing how hard Jonathan works to protect Will, Mike would never think of him as anything but strong, especially having the courage to stand up to his own dad, something Mike would never do, and in a moment of impulse, when Will wraps his arms around Jonathan, Mike doesn’t hesitate to do the same, one arm around each of them like he’s part of the family.

“That costume didn’t fit me anymore, so it’s okay,” Will lies, hoping to make Jonathan feel better, but all three of them know better, and Mike understands implicitly how often Will tells these little lies to hide his hurt feelings. Mike’s hope is simply that Will won’t ever have to tell one to him.

Lucas joins the fray with ease, as Will designs his character without even having to consult him about the basics. The bow-and-arrow is such an obvious choice that Lucas dances with delight at the sight of it, and Will’s confidence grows with each drawing he does of the three of them.

As their world begins to grow, Mike realizes how much it helps him indulge his fantasies, and it begins to feel like their safe place from the rest of the world, especially all the classmates of theirs who will never understand them no matter what any of them does to appeal to them.

One day Mike walks into class to find that the usually-empty desk next to him is taken, seat filled by a floppy-haired kid with a cap that reads ‘PROBLEM CHILD’ plastered on his head.

“What’s up?” The kid waves when he notices Mike looking, and Mike sees for the first time that this kid still has his baby teeth.

“What’s with y—”

“It’s called cleidocranial dysplasia,” he sighs, like he’s saying it for the tenth time today. He probably is. “Also, I’m Dustin.”

Mike knows already — Dustin’s a new kid and he has a clearly visible trait to differentiate him? Oh, he’s so getting bullied. He should feel more sympathetic about it, more pity, but instead Mike finds himself ready to commiserate preemptively, and he belatedly waves back with a tight-lipped smile. “Mike.” A pause, and then, “Do you like comic books?”

Dustin pauses too, but a gum-exposing grin spreads across his face slowly, devouring his eyes. “Do I like comic books?” he repeats, eager, and then reaches into the backpack at his feet, carefully revealing a small bundle of comics, including a plastic-wrapped copy of X-Men #134. Mike’s eyebrows raise. Will would be so psyched if he were here.

“Why did you bring that to school?” Mike whispers harshly, pushing Dustin’s bag closed to hide it.

“I thought there might be show-and-tell or something!” Dustin shrugs, but zips up his backpack quickly anyway, kicking it under his chair and sitting up straight, pretending to be fully attentive and well-behaved when their teacher walks in.

Mike does the same next to him, and feels some of the tension in his shoulders release as he feels even more of his loneliness melt away.

Dustin is funny in a way that’s new to Mike. He’s always been able to laugh with Will and Lucas, but they each have their time and place; Dustin, however, lacks shame in a way that Mike envies, willingly making even their teachers laugh when he’s unabashedly silly in class. He’s got a foul mouth compared to his other friends, but even that has a certain charm to it when it’s Dustin.

Though it never fully disappears, Mike’s jealousy over Will and Lucas’ potential friendship dwindles as Mike finds a friend in Dustin Henderson. Together they become a bigger target than Mike would be alone, but it’s worth it, and Mike is most certain of it the day he and Dustin pair up for an assignment, and Dustin sneaks Mike a glimpse at the walkie-talkie he’d recently obtained from his “sources,” fully bragging as he explains the efficiency of using them over telephones, unaware that he’s preaching to the choir.

“I don’t think our houses are close enough for the signal to reach,” Mike says, skeptical, but Dustin waggles his eyebrows and extends the antenna to its full length with a satisfied and confident smirk. “Seriously?” A skeptical pause. “Seriously?”

Dustin hesitates. “Okay, it’s not reliable. But we can still probably reach each other sometimes! We just have to mess around with the frequency until we find one that works.”

Mike rolls his eyes, but he’s secretly impressed, and he feels such pride when Dustin hands him a walkie of his own that it warms his hands, and he vows to make sure Lucas and Will get their own even if he has to buy Will’s himself. “How do you know about all this stuff?” Mike asks, incredulous, but impressed — not so secretly anymore. Can one guy have three best friends? Mike isn’t certain, but he’d happily tear the concept apart to make it possible.

Dustin shrugs. “Library. Science camp. A mother who indulges my hobbies.”

Mike nods, still impressed. A little envious about the last part, but impressed nonetheless. He goes quiet, fiddling with the buttons on the walkie-talkie, until eventually it’s Dustin’s voice that pulls him from his thoughts.

“Can I ask you something?” Dustin interrupts, but Mike has a feeling that he’s going to ask either way, so he nods, and Dustin continues. “I haven’t seen you talk to anyone else since I got here. Do you not have any other friends?”

“What? No!” Mike retorts, too quickly, realizing too late that his answer sounds like an admission. “My friends are just in a different class,” he explains. “You’d like them.”

“Yeah?” Dustin raises both eyebrows. “Give me the scoop.”

Mike leans back in his chair and sighs. “It’s just me and two other guys,” he says. “All of us are into video games and comics and stuff. Lucas knows a ton about movies, and it’s pretty cool but he gets really into defending his favorite ones and he’ll definitely ask you what your top 5 are so I’d start thinking about it now. He likes these kung…kung-fu? Yeah, kung-fu movies. I don’t think he’s ever fought anyone before but he could act it out. Will…” Mike pauses, remembering Lucas’ stories and wondering if Dustin knows about the bullying too, but he checks Dustin’s face for permission and gets nothing back, accepting this exchange as an exercise in trust. “Will seems quiet but only to people who don’t know him. He’s always drawing and creating all these characters and stories. Some of them are mine but he always knows how to make them better. He likes superheroes so he’ll probably ask you what kind of powers you’d want...”

Mike looks over at Dustin again once he realizes he’s been rambling, but Dustin is invested, thoughtfully rubbing his chin with his hand. After a moment, Dustin smirks, “Have you ever heard of Dungeons and Dragons?”

The smile that grows across Mike’s face reaches his ears, and in an instant, he mentally slides Dustin into place in their party. He doesn’t know it yet, but Mike is already wondering if fate brought Dustin to them too.

Mike finally gets to run real campaigns, first based on the outlines already available to them, but after a few practice runs, he’s confident enough to write and plan his own. Mike’s mom is kind enough to supply the four of them with binders to collect their character sheets, info packets, and all of the drawings Will soon supplies of their characters. It starts to feel real.

One of the campaigns they enjoy the most ends up being Mike’s Elder Tree campaign. The story and setting are fun enough, and it provides ample opportunity for their characters to grow, but what makes it memorable is their special guest.

Nancy has never been invested in D&D, nor any of Mike’s nerdier interests, but on rare occasions, she doesn’t mind watching and indulging Mike’s creativity, especially on nights she is asked to babysit, and on one particular weekend while Barb and her family are out of town, Nancy lends her babysitting services and sisterly presence at the same time, agreeing to participate in the finale of the campaign by appearing as an elven character, dressed up to match their theme. She is merely an NPC, who pops in to assist them on their journey, but Mike is honored nonetheless.

Lucas is impressed by how thoughtful Nancy’s ideas are, Will is proud to contribute his design skills to bring her character to life, and Dustin has hearts in his eyes, absolutely beaming as the elf presents each of them with a tool to help them accomplish their goals, and he spends the rest of the campaign half-distracted and trying to impress her with riskier rolls.

Their game is delayed by the extra showmanship, and just before the ending, Jonathan knocks on the basement door and lets himself in, ready to pick up Will. Though Mike isn’t able to overhear their conversation, he quickly gathers from Will’s frown and pleading eyes that he’s begging Jonathan to let him finish, and neither is surprised when Jonathan gives in, taking a seat on the couch while they approach the climax of the story.

The Party finds themselves in a heated debate about their plans for the final boss, and Mike gets an opportunity to observe his audience, both of whom are surprisingly attentive, something Mike takes to heart, and he can’t help grinning from ear to ear. Nancy giggles at the argument, unbeknownst to the boys who are speaking over one another, but when Mike follows Jonathan’s eyes, he finds that Jonathan isn’t watching the game at all — he’s watching Nancy.

Mike looks between them, long enough that Nancy notices and turns toward Jonathan to investigate, at which point Jonathan averts his gaze and pretends he was watching over Will the whole time. Mike smirks, and he’s about to call Jonathan out, but a d20 rolls across the table, coming to rest on 19 — a critical hit, and a major earned victory for Dustin.

All three of them stand up and cheer, and Mike turns to his script, reading out the planned ending monologue he’d prepared, improvising the added detail of Dustin’s shining moment, and Nancy slides into character one last time, congratulating them all and earning a satisfied smile from each of them. Will and Lucas both accept their handshakes, while Dustin takes Nancy’s hand and kneels, bowing his head and honoring it.

The ridiculous move causes Nancy to laugh in earnest, and out of the corner of his eye, Mike spies Jonathan smiling too.

Will kicks his feet, legs swinging from the chair as they don’t quite reach the floor, as he catches Jonathan’s smile and nods. “Did you like the campaign?”

Attention caught, Jonathan clears his throat and straightens his back, pushing himself to his feet. “Yeah, all of you were pretty cool,” he mutters, crossing the room and resting a hand on Will’s shoulder, whispering to him too quietly for Mike to hear.

Mike does fully notice the way Will’s smile drops though, and his eyes follow Will around as his light dims, and he gathers his things, pulling his cloak over his head, ready to wear it out the door. Jonathan playfully grabs the hood of it, yanking it over Will’s head and fully covering his eyes so he bumps into him as they walk toward the stairs, and the sight of Will’s grin alone makes Mike smile too.

“You, uh, make a good elf,” Jonathan says from halfway up, looking at Nancy as he says so. “Maybe I’ll join you next time.”

Nancy’s eyes widen, just slightly, something Mike only notices due to his sudden curiosity about their odd interactions. “Are you being sarcastic?” Nancy asks, head tilted slightly downward to obscure a tiny smile of her own.

Jonathan’s lips straighten across his face and he shrugs, loose. “I don’t think so.”

“What does that mean?” Nancy chuckles, eyes narrowed suspiciously, but her smile continues. Jonathan smiles to himself, tight-lipped, as he heads up the stairs with Will, and though Mike can’t make out their words, he overhears Jonathan greeting his parents when he reaches the top.

Will waves and says goodbye to everyone, and Mike echoes the sentiment, waving back with both hands until Will disappears up the stairs too, and Dustin and Lucas both begin to laugh and chatter the second both the Byers are gone.

“He totally likes you,” Lucas says smugly, shaking his head with bright eyes. Mike raises an eyebrow, following Lucas’ gaze to Nancy, whose face turns slightly redder, but otherwise flattens.

“I highly doubt that,” Nancy says, straight-faced, head falling to the side into a half-shrug of the shoulder. “He barely talks to me.”

“Jonathan barely talks to anyone,” Dustin interrupts, adjusting the brim of his hat. “But your elven beauty is undeniable.”

“Ugh!” Mike interrupts, faking a vomiting sound as Dustin tips his hat towards her, and Nancy scoffs, shoving Mike’s binder so it closes, knocking over the rest of their display.

Lucas is quick to catch all the falling pieces before they reach the ground, and Dustin puts himself between Mike and Nancy before a fight can break out.

“Wait!” Dustin yells, holding out his hands in hopes of stopping Nancy before she can remove her costume. “It was seriously cool of you to dress up for us…right, Mike?”

Dustin looks directly at him, eyes open as wide as they can get, waiting expectantly and not letting up on his stare.

With heavy shoulders, Mike sighs, eyebrows forming a sympathetic arc around his eyes. “Yeah..” he breathes, giving in, but allowing himself to mean it. “It was really cool of you. Thanks for playing with us.”

Mike’s eyes go wide, his eyebrows raised high and his jaw pouting, and Nancy softens, letting out a stilted sigh of her own. “It was actually…kind of fun,” she admits, and Dustin smiles even wider than Mike does.

Outside, a car horn honks, and Dustin gasps, quickly collecting all of his belongings in his arms in a heap and apologizing loudly as he races out the basement door with a wave, running around the house toward where his mother’s car sits out front.

“I should probably get home too,” Lucas says, far more calmly, offering them both a salute against his headband as he heads out, carrying his own jacket and binder out the door and around the back to his own house.

Suddenly left alone in the quiet, Mike and Nancy share a look, and Mike smirks, unable to help himself. “You, uh, make a good elf,” he teases, mimicking Jonathan’s voice to the best of his ability and finding himself wishing Will were here to see it.

Pursing her lips together, Nancy finally does rip the elf costume off, throwing it at Mike roughly. “Jonathan does not like me,” she asserts, straightening her clothes as she stands and pulling her hair over her shoulder with a one-shoulder shrug. “Maybe he’s into elves,” she jokes, ascending the stairs with Mike following close behind.

“Is that why you’re still wearing the ears?” Mike grins, anticipating his punishment even before Nancy tears the fake rubber ears from her head and throws them down the stairs at him with a huff.

They both reach the dining room together, where Karen has set the table for dinner, with Holly in her high chair and Ted sat at the head of the table reading the TV Guide, but Mike is still in a playful mood.

“If you marry Jonathan,” he starts, and Nancy groans, her fork scraping against her plate. “Are you gonna move in with the Byers or is he moving in with us?”

“You’re too young to be thinking about marriage,” Karen says, only half-paying attention as she occupies herself with feeding Holly.

“I’m not!” Nancy groans. “Mike’s joking around because he wants to live with Will.” Mike leans back in his chair, sticking out his tongue at Nancy before she continues, “But if that’s what he wants, he should just marry Will instead.”

“Don’t put weird thoughts in the boy’s head, Nancy,” Ted sighs, eyeing her suspiciously, but immediately settling his eyes back in the TV Guide without ever putting it down.

“Gross,” Nancy retorts, rolling her eyes. “I was just joking.” Nancy looks back towards Mike with a shrug, and they exchange a confused look over their father’s adamant interruption, while Mike pokes at his dinner, wondering why he suddenly feels kind of gross too.

The Party’s group dynamic feels like it could be Mike’s missing puzzle piece.

He’s gotten used to standing up for his friends when the moment calls for it, but Dustin’s wit and sharp tongue makes him a force to be reckoned with, unafraid of the words that may leave his mouth at any given time, unlike Mike who second-guesses so many of them.

He’s not as stubborn as Mike, nor as headstrong as Lucas, so he’s often their mediator and moral compass, especially when Will tries to keep the peace and make everyone happy, while Dustin is all-too-willing to call him an idiot if he’s being one, and Mike takes Dustin’s words to heart instead of insult, feeling the love behind it in a way only Dustin can express.

One of the best aspects of Dustin’s addition, however, is that Mike quickly discovers how much better a group of 4 is, compared to their former trio. Many of their hang-outs are spent as a foursome, without any chance of leaving anyone out, but on the occasions when two of them pair off, Mike no longer has to worry about any third wheels, always knowing they can split into two even partnerships.

It’s perfection, and it’s the happiest Mike’s ever been.

Mike does eventually notice something weird one day, when Dustin’s mother’s car pulls up, and instead of Mike’s house, Dustin races up the sidewalk into Lucas’ without even knocking, apparently comfortable enough to walk right in without announcing himself.

Instead of jealousy, like Mike had once felt between Will and Lucas, Mike pouts but shrugs, alerting his father of his departure as he walks out the door and immediately bikes to Will’s house, also unannounced, but polite enough to knock on the door first when he arrives.

Jonathan answers the door instead of Mrs. Byers, and Mike takes it as a sign in his favor, grinning smugly as Jonathan sighs and ushers Mike through, stepping out of his way so Mike can meet Will at their kitchen table.

Jonathan locks the front door behind them, and his feet shuffle across the floor as he disappears into his room, less social with Mike than he normally is. Will is drawing, unperturbed by Jonathan’s mood, and Mike wonders for a moment if he’s imagined it, but as soon as he sits down, Will looks up at him curiously. “What’s wrong?”

“Me?” Mike raises both eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“You have that look on your face,” Will smiles, still drawing even in the moments he looks in Mike’s direction, as if he’s able to do it without looking. “You’re thinking really hard about something.”

“How do you always know that?” Mike sighs, and Will smiles even harder, putting down his crayons and sitting up to give Mike his full attention. He waits, expectantly, and Mike looks down the hallway. “Is Jonathan okay?”

“Oh,” Will’s smile falls, and before Mike can say anything else, a crayon returns to Will’s hand and he starts drawing again. “My dad forgot Jonathan’s birthday, so he’s been…”

“Moping?”

Will frowns, but nods. “Dad sent money for Jonathan, and mom went to go get pizza, but it’s…not the same.”

Mike wrinkles his brow even more thoughtfully, and carefully shifts his chair around to sit next to Will at the table instead of across from him. “You should draw something for Jonathan. Like a homemade card or something.” As soon as the words leave his lips, Mike realizes what a great idea it is, and his smile grows organically.

His shoulders raise with his lighter breath, and Mike watches expectantly, anticipating Will’s cheerful response, anticipating that bright light, but Will’s smile is faint, small enough that Mike might not even notice it if he weren’t waiting for it. “I already am,” Will says plainly, lifting the thick sheet of paper from his workspace and showing off the drawing of Will and Jonathan celebrating together. “It was Dustin’s idea. He’s smart, right?”

“Right…” Mike’s stomach sinks into his shoes at the mere mention of Dustin’s name, and Mike is thrown for a loop, his own smile sinking and dragging his shoulders and eyebrows downward with it. He’s never been so unhappy to hear a friend’s name before. “You talked to Dustin about it instead of me?”

“Not instead of you, just before,” Will corrects, already pleading as he flattens his drawing on the table again, arms stretching over it in Mike’s direction. “I promise.”

Mike can only guess that his furrowed brow of annoyance is to blame; still, he pouts, his already-flimsy self-esteem shaken by the sudden threat to his position, and Mike leans back in the chair with an audible thunk. Will’s energy visibly drains from him, dimming the light around him, and Mike regrets allowing his feelings to show even if he had been hurt by the revelation.

After a quiet moment of heavy contemplation between them, Will sits up straight in his chair and fiddles with the crayon in his hand. “Dustin’s dad…he doesn’t come home either.”

“Huh?”

Will’s shoulders tense. “He just knows what it’s like. I can talk to him about it.”

“You can talk to me about it,” Mike insists, before Will has a chance to say otherwise. “I mean it.”

“I thought you…wouldn’t want to,” Will shrugs, non-committal, and Mike struggles to understand what the issue could be, as if this is any more difficult to talk about than the rest of the issues Will has confided in him about, especially after Mike has been witness to so much of the evidence, with plenty of fodder for piling on to shit-talking Will’s dad if that’s what he wanted to do.

“Why not?” Mike whines, almost begging, and he can feel himself becoming annoying, forcing the issue when it isn’t his place, but the idea of Dustin being able to do something for Will that he can’t is a blow to Mike’s identity that he isn’t prepared to endure.

“Your dad is nice to me,” Will tells him, voice soft as he does so, and Mike briefly wonders if he’s incapable of yelling somehow, too kind for his own good even when Mike is being kind of a brat, and fully aware of it.

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Mike scoffs, feeling annoyed and pathetic all at once, as if he’d just entered himself into a Shitty Parents competition and lost because his complaints were too petty, but Will’s eyes are still gentle, still shining, and Mike wrinkles his entire face, wondering what the hell he’s doing wrong. “You can still talk to me. About anything. Okay?”

Will watches him carefully for a moment, and the attention has Mike softening his own expression on instinct as if it might help. Will uses his own arms to hold himself, fingers scratching at his upper arm absently. “I just miss him. Jonathan doesn’t want me to.”

“Isn't Jonathan right?” Mike answers, without any further thought. “He's mean to you.”

Will looks down, fidgeting with his clothes and then the papers across the table. “He's my dad.”

“I know, but…” Mike starts, as his shoulders slump. His own father has remained such a passive entity in his that Mike’s feelings are neither particularly hateful nor affectionate, and the desire he feels to keep his father close is driven by necessity and convenience, out of obligatory love and familiarity rather than warmth. Warmth, he’d understand. He simply doesn’t understand how Will could care so much about someone who has been so cruel to him, and denied him the fatherly comfort that both of them have gone without. “I guess I don’t get it.”

“That’s okay,” Will mutters, his voice quiet but earnest, and Mike believes him, but that trust almost makes it worse. Will shakes his head, brushing it off and returning to his drawing. “Dustin always gets it, so I didn’t need to bother you about it.”

Mike sinks further into his seat, feeling so heavy he could sink into the floor, the weight on his shoulders pushing him downward and dragging his mood with it. He spends the rest of their hang-out doing what he can to offer advice about cheering up Jonathan, but his energy never picks itself back up. Even when Will is smiling at him during their wave good-bye, as genuine as always, Mike feels sullen, a darkened mood overhead the entire bike ride home, as a guilt settles into Mike’s stomach that this is the first time he’s failed Will when he needed him.

When he walks in the door and kicks off his shoes, his father is the one who catches him as he’s walking from the kitchen to the TV room, sipping from the mug in his hand. “Rough day?” he teases, blankly.

Mike shrugs, frowning. “I think Will’s mad at me.”

Hand in his pocket, Ted nods absently and gestures his mug towards Mike as he lectures, “You gotta be careful with the sensitive ones.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Mike says, unintentionally scowling. He watches his father open his mouth, certain he’s about to be scolded for his language, but before that can happen—

“Ted,” Karen scolds from the doorway of the kitchen, and even Mike is surprised by the stern tone of her voice, and the apologetic look she gives Mike when he catches her eye. Ted shuffles to the living room to watch TV, and Mike’s face remains twisted in confusion as he drags his feet towards his room, feeling like his parents just had a silent conversation he’d been intentionally excluded from.

Everyone starts liking girls in sixth grade.

It’s so suspiciously consistent, Mike wonders if somewhere, some force in the universe flipped a switch, suddenly igniting his friends and everyone they know with feelings beyond their control.

Dustin and Lucas spend more time discussing the girls in their class than the boys, a shift Mike notices with dismay and confusion, as their Party has become Mike’s entire world, and no girl would ever dare join, so Mike has flippantly filed them all away as ‘irrelevant.’

Even Troy and James and the rest of the mouth-breathers that plague their otherwise comfortable lives have begun to care so much about how pretty or cute or interesting each of the girls suddenly are, and although their discussions often have a more vulgar slant, it all becomes white noise to Mike, every word sounding the same.

It’s annoying, how suddenly their world seems to change, and how this terrifyingly ubiquitous shift eats into their lives and their time spent together, creeping into unexpected places and invading their Party like a virus. Lucas can’t seem to help compare heroines when they’re watching movies together, and Mike has watched with dismay as Dustin’s crush on Nancy has grown into something he’s dared to mention and entertain, earning himself multiple instances of Mike groaning and threatening to kick him out of the Party if he keeps it up.

It’s an empty threat, and they both know it, but Mike wants it made clear that he does not want to hear about it. Especially now that Nancy has become far more annoying in her own right, constantly talking about how different high school is from middle school, and how much more intriguing the upperclassmen are. Eavesdropping on her phone calls becomes a burden, most of the fun ripped out of it.

If he ever finds out who “Steve” is, he might have to knock him down a peg for forcing him to endure many overheard phone calls mentioning his name.

Mike’s only saving grace, is the fact that Will is contrastingly reticent, so reluctant to participate in so many of these conversations, and though he hasn’t asked, Mike chooses to believe it’s because Will feels the same way he does, irritated by the sudden interruption in their routine and the comfort of their party as it once was, without this looming reminder of where growing up will take them.

A few times, Will has half-heartedly engaged with Dustin and Lucas’ comparisons of fictional women, which Mike finds slightly less annoying since it keeps them on topic at the very least, but Mike can’t help collect his opinions like research notes, taking stock of Will’s opinions and preferences and storing them, as if he’s going to need the information five years down the line when they’re helping each other find girlfriends.

Troy and the older boys’ more vulgar approach seems to make Will uncomfortable, something that comes as a relief to Mike, who is unsettled by the nature of the conversations, but Will’s responses to Lucas and Dustin’s conversations come across as disinterest instead, nowhere near as strong as Mike’s annoyance at their refusal to stay loyal to the Party, and Mike wonders sometimes if he’s the only one who believes in keeping them together above all else.

During the summer, the addition of a new girl in their grade, Jennifer Hayes, complicates the dynamic of their entire school, and alienates them even further. Several of the boys in their periphery have expressed interest, thanks to her long, blond hair and her striking eyes, but she quickly makes nice with the popular kids, and the entire Party finds themselves pushed out of making friends with her before school even begins, as soon as she finds her place within the hierarchy, shutting Dustin out of the potential new crush Mike is certain would have been brewing were it not for her early and strongly-held alignment with all the kids that have established themselves as being too good for the four of them.

Much to their surprise, Jennifer Hayes invites their entire grade to her 12th birthday party. Mike considers rejecting the invitation at first, knowing very well that large parties are a natural environment for bullying, and he’s not interested in having to endure such a thing just before the school year starts.

But Dustin and Lucas are far more eager for the chance to be social and make a good impression, and their outgoing nature has paired nicely with his and Will’s more introverted proclivities, but there are times when the contrast makes him feel more like a party-pooper than an introvert.

“I think it was a good idea to come,” Will whispers next to him, as the four of them wait outside her front door. “If we didn’t, everyone would make fun of us for missing out when school starts.”

Mike frowns, annoyed by the truth in Will’s words; they should be able to ditch every party and unnecessary activity they’re offered, in favor of hanging out just the four of them, especially knowing they’ll never go as far as to include all of them in the “cool” party games anyway. “We’re just gonna end up sitting on the couch the whole time,” Mike whines, voice low.

Beside him, Will smiles. “Isn’t that okay?” he says, still quiet. “At least we’ll all be together if that happens.”

Mike huffs, once again successfully countered, but he doesn’t have any time to think on it further, as Jennifer Hayes’ mother opens the door and ushers them down to the basement where the rest of their classmates are gathered.

There’s music playing throughout the basement, with a long table of snacks and drinks against the wall next to the stereo, and two couches facing each other with a pile of kids between them. Throughout the edges of the room, smaller groups of kids are clustered chatting and playing games, while Jennifer hovers near a table with a mountain of presents in the corner.

Dustin makes a beeline for the snack table, while Lucas investigates the various games at their disposal, and Will shows up all of them by greeting Jennifer and thanking her for the invite — something Mike would’ve never thought to do.

“My mom made me invite everyone,” she snaps at first, but even from where he’s standing, Mike eyes Will’s persistent, polite smile, and how Jennifer softens when he hands her a gift. “Thank you for coming anyway,” she says softly, and Mike can’t help but grin a little, watching Will’s powers win over another.

Unsure of what else to do, Mike plops onto the one of the couches near the middle of the room, and after Will excuses himself from Jennifer’s side, he follows suit, taking a seat next to Mike more gently and sitting upright, contrasting Mike’s ever-present slouch. “She’s kinda nice,” Will says, and Mike bites his tongue.

“I guess,” he shrugs, wanting to agree with Will and keep his spirits up like he deserves. But out of the corner of his eye, he notices Jennifer Hayes staring at them, at Will, and Mike scowls at her, shrugging aggressively when she catches his eye.

“Let’s just try to have fun, okay?” Will pleads, not acknowledging any of the others around them and sticking to Mike’s side, and Mike caves, nodding as his shoulders slump and he leans back into the couch.

The two of them quietly observe their surroundings, watching as Lucas wins Pin the Tail on the Donkey while blindfolded, and the few other participants lazily clap, rolling their eyes when the immaturity sets in, and the victory feels hollow. Across the room, Dustin gathers a larger group, bringing them all in to watch as he adjusts his arms and cracks his shoulders and collar bone out of place, grinning with satisfaction when he receives a few groans and cheers in response.

“That’s gross,” a familiar voice hollers, and Mike turns back towards the stairs to see Troy and James descending, throwing Dustin a look of disgust from across the room.

“It’s called—”

“Who cares?” Troy says, earning a chuckle from James. “Whatever you call it, it still makes you a freak.” Dustin’s face falls and an anger rises within Mike that he can’t seem to control.

“Nobody asked you Troy,” Lucas interrupts, stepping towards him and standing between him and Dustin the same way he’s always stood between Will and those who’d bullied him, and for a brief moment, Mike grins proudly, until Troy mutters an insult towards Lucas quietly, so no one else can hear, and the threat of it is serious enough that Lucas’ strong expression fades too. Mike’s jaw tightens, the voice that told him they should be at home now quieted by the one that really wishes someone would beat Troy up already and get it over with.

Knowing it won’t be him, Mike seethes in his seat, and when Dustin moves to take a seat near Will on the couch, Troy intentionally darts swiftly to beat him there, plopping down between Dustin and Will and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, looming over the gaggle of kids in the middle. “Enough of all these baby games,” he spits, scowling at Jennifer Hayes.

At first, she frowns, but the rest of the group is looking at her for entertainment, and Mike watches as she puts on a happy face and grabs an empty soda bottle from the table, wiping it off before she places it on the floor in the middle of the circle. “Everyone knows Spin-the-Bottle, right?”

Lucas and Dustin have disappeared into a side room where they’re arguing about which movie to play on the TV, while a few of the quiet kids lounge in the bean bags in the room with them, but Mike can only see them if he strains his neck, and he envies their choice to leave the situation while they had the chance. Beside him, Will sinks into the couch, attempting to hide himself and even closing his eyes, his nails digging into his jeans as his fingers nervously grip his knees.

“You don’t have to play,” Mike reminds him, offering what little comfort he can while the group still hasn’t directed any attention his way. “Even if they ask, you can just say no.”

“I’m not…good at that,” Will frowns, and Mike’s heart breaks a little. The wheels start turning in his head, trying to make a plan for Will to escape without incident, but they haven’t given him much of an opening, and Mike is acutely aware of how quickly Will’s nerves are growing, clock ticking on his escape route.

More kids gather around the circle when they notice the shift in atmosphere, but the more timid ones retreat entirely, crowding at the bottom of the stairs around the snack table or disappearing up the stairs entirely, and as the area around the couch clears out, Mike and Will share a look, taking mutual note of how exposed their escape route now is even without having to say so out loud.

For a few rounds, nothing of note occurs, and a few chaste first kisses happen without incident, and though he continues to keep an eye on Will’s reactions, Mike’s worry gradually dwindles, even as a few of the participants leave the circle after having kisses that embarrassed or thrilled them too significantly for them to carry on. After the bottle spins and lands between two girls, they share a confused, worried look, before one of them grabs the other’s wrist and kisses the back of her hand. The two of them giggle, along with the rest of the circle, but Troy scoffs and sneers, and Mike’s anxiety rises again as he watches gears turning in Troy’s head too.

“Byers should go next,” Troy smirks, head turned nearly all the way around to stare Will down. “Or are you too much of a queer like my dad says?”

Mike’s heard that word plenty of times by now, but it still slams into his chest with the impact of a dodgeball, and Mike’s teeth clench, sick to his stomach as he watches the color drain from Will’s face, unsure of how much his assistance would help or hurt him. “He doesn’t want to play, Troy,” he says without thinking, and Will’s head raises, eyes nervously glancing between Troy and James as if Mike isn’t even there.

“Aw, why not?” James mocks, hands on his hips with a forcibly pouted bottom lip. “Must be hard being the only one in our school who’s a huge fa—”

“Please,” Will interrupts, pleading desperately, his voice quiet and only audible to the group because everyone in the circle has gone quiet. “I don’t… I just don’t want to kiss in front of everyone.”

Troy and James share a glance, but Mike doesn’t suspect for a single second that they’re actually considering leaving him alone, and he tightly balls his hands into fists, readying himself emotionally to offer himself up to play the game in Will’s place if it would mean they left Will alone.

The bullies’ shared look becomes a shared grin, and Mike’s breathing quickens in time with his rising heart rate, unable to hold back the way his eyebrows angrily knit together as he stares them down. “Don’t worry,” Troy shrugs, forcing a fake-nice tone that Mike normally only hears from the high school kids. “That’s what 7 Minutes in Heaven was made for.”

Confused more than anything, but obviously scared, Will doesn’t fight hard when Troy and James each take Will by an arm, gently at first, ushering him to the other side of the circle and suddenly shoving him into a closet, closing the door once they’ve pushed him inside.

A few of their classmates look concerned, unsure of what to do and knowing that no one ever stands up to Troy, but what feels much worse for Mike is the few of them who are laughing, and it activates a rage within Mike that gets his blood pumping and pushes him to his feet. “Let him out. Now.”

Troy doesn’t flinch at the sight of Mike standing in front of him, leaning his back against the door as casually as if it were a wall while James holds the doorknob still, preventing Will from so much as turning it from the inside. “Don’t you nerds care about the rules?” he chuckles. “I can’t let him out until he plays the game.”

“I don’t care,” Mike spits firmly, trying his hardest not to let his voice waver and risk exposing his lack of confidence beneath the emotional shield he’s putting up in Will’s defense. “Open the door.”

Troy and James share another obnoxiously in-sync look, and Troy shrugs. “If you say so, Wheeler,” he jeers, opening the door just long enough for Mike to leap at the opportunity to reach in for Will, but the second he’s halfway through the doorway, James pushes against Mike’s back to shove him in too, and Mike stumbles to the carpeted floor of the closet as the bullies slam the door closed behind him, their laughter loud enough to be heard through the door even while the music from the party echoes faintly through the walls.

Scrambling onto his hands and knees, Mike fumbles around in the dark, only settling when his hand settles on Will’s shoulder, and Mike kneels in front of him, hands planted firmly on Will’s shoulders even though he can’t see him. “Are you okay?” he says, softly as ever, always trusting that Will can hear him despite the other intrusive noises. Will slowly nods, a gesture Mike just barely makes out as his eyes begin to adjust, and he heaves a heavy sigh, leaning back and resting on his bottom with his legs criss-cross and his hands flat on the carpet behind him, holding his weight. “Those guys are such mouth-breathers,” he groans.

Will almost smiles, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards, but whatever amusement he feels temporarily doesn’t last long enough to make that smile real, and Will wraps his arms around his knees, pulled up to his chest and his chin resting on top of them with a downtrodden gaze. “I didn’t even do anything this time,” he frowns, eyes refusing to meet Mike’s even in the dark.

“They’re troglodytes,” Mike says, perking up. “Total troglodytes.”

Will raises his head, at the very least. “You mean…all brawn and no brains?”

A smile slowly grows across Mike’s face, matching the one that Will shares once their eyes have fully adjusted to be able to see one another. “Exactly.”

“Hey Wheeler!” Troy yells through the door. “You know the rules — we can’t let you out without a kiss. Maybe if the fairy kisses your ugly frog face, you’ll turn into a prince!”

They continue to taunt them through the door, and their muffled yelling causes Will to sit straight up, even more alert than he had been when he could hear them clearly. Mike hates knowing why. Still, he feels an obligation to take care of that knowledge, and what it means for Will, and he carefully shifts closer, wrapping an arm around Will’s shoulders and leaning close to his ear so he can whisper only for the two of them. “It feels like everyone’s in a race to have their first kiss already,” he sighs.

Will nods solemnly. “I don’t get it. If it’s so important, why are they doing it in front of a bunch of people like this?”

“I don’t know,” Mike shrugs, equally as mystified by the public display, but unable to deny the peer pressure that comes with being one of the only guys left in the room who hasn’t done it yet. “Don’t you think it seems kinda fun?”

Will takes in a harsh breath, eyes widening curiously as he turns away from the door and towards Mike. “DId you want to play?”

“I don’t know,” Mike shrugs again, more casually this time, forcibly non-committal in an attempt to hide how left-out he was beginning to feel. “It just sucks not having anyone pick me. It’s like getting picked last when we play dodgeball.”

“Oh…” Will says curtly, hands dropping to his lap. “I gave up on being picked for either of those things.”

“Already?” Mike laughs quietly, not wanting anyone outside the door to hear them. “Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll both get girlfriends soon, okay? My dad keeps teasing me about it.”

“Right…” Will mutters, looking forward and down toward the floor again, and Mike wonders if his self-esteem is seriously so low that he doesn’t think he’ll have a girlfriend soon enough. Mike has always felt like Will would be the first of the party to get one, and their shitty classmates being so undeserving of his friendship is the only thing standing in the way of it.

“High school will be better, I promise,” Mike says warmly, a tiny smirk sneaking across one side of his face. “Until then…they’re just stupid kissing games anyway, right?” Mike uses as cheeky a voice he can muster, and when Will nods in agreement, Mike takes him by surprise, planting the tiniest, lightest kiss he can manage against Will’s cheek, chuckling when Will instantly snaps his head towards him with wide eyes. “See?” Mike shrugs. “It’s nothing!”

Mike doesn’t have any time to wait for Will’s response, as Troy and James both pound on the door at once, and Mike shoots up to his feet, suddenly energized.

“Trust me, okay?” he whispers, reaching down and holding out his hand for Will to take, and Will stares back at him, eyes still wide, but thankfully he nods his answer to the question and takes Mike’s hand, only jumping slightly when Mike bangs on the door from the inside. “Okay, we’ll do it!”

After a pause, one that Mike can only imagine is full of shocked faces, Troy opens the door, and with the rest of the game still fresh in his mind, he pulls Will’s hand up and presses a kiss to the back of it lazily, mimicking the way two girls had done earlier when they’d been chosen by the spinning bottle.

Still sitting in the middle of the floor amongst her friends, Jennifer Hayes manages a snorted laugh, shaking her head. “I think that counts, Troy,” she shrugged. “It’s not fair to make up new rules.”

Troy wrinkles his nose in disgust, faking nausea with dedication. “Gross, Wheeler,” he groans. “You’re gonna catch some gay disease from him if you’re not careful.”

Laughter echoes around them, even from the kids who’d been silent earlier, and Mike’s face hardens in anger and hurt as he looks around at them. Before he has a chance to stop him, Will races out of the basement and up the stairs, undoubtedly hiding if not leaving altogether. “What is wrong with you?” Mike says pointedly, feet planted firmly onto the floor as if they’re weighted down.

“At least I’m not friends with some queer loser,” Troy laughs again, as if the words mean nothing to him, and Mike can’t tell anymore whether or not he’s referring to Will, but the fear of another new insult and reason for bullying sits heavy in Mike’s stomach and weighs on his heart, and his chin shakes as he holds back from shoving Troy like he so badly wants to.

“I only did it so you would let us out!” Mike lies, so easily and so insistently that a part of him believes it, treating it as an objective truth he can convince his audience of with no one else to prove otherwise.

“Prove it then,” Troy dares, arm outstretched. “Kiss any girl here.”

Blood rushes to Mike’s cheeks as he looks around the room, and every single girl averts their eyes the second they meet his. On impulse, Mike kneels down in the circle and spins the bottle, prepared to kiss whoever it lands on, but when the bottle tip slows to a stop facing Jennifer Hayes, she glances up at Troy, who narrows his eyes at her judgementally, and then back at Mike, only for her to then frown apologetically and shake her head adamantly.

“See?” Troy grins smugly. “No girl wants to kiss a guy covered in your homo-cooties.”

Mike goes completely silent, spending what feels like a full minute quietly seething, breaths heaving, and he suddenly grabs the bottle, slamming it down into the trash can on his way out of the basement.

Curiosity piqued by the commotion, Lucas and Dustin emerge from the spare room to find both Mike and Will gone, and Mike can faintly hear Troy telling them to “join the other freaks outside where they belong.”

Genuinely nauseous, Mike charges towards the front door, but before opening it, he spies Will through the window, slumped over on the front step, his shoulders shaking. It’s difficult to tell from his position, but Mike is almost certain Will must be crying, and the sight of it brings a lump to Mike’s throat, and causes his hand to freeze, hovering over the doorknob as the thought of discussing this with Will any further makes him sick to his stomach.

The desire to comfort Will, to reach him before the others do and assure him everything is going to be okay, hasn’t gone anywhere, but just a few layers deeper, another part of Mike fears further association with their mockery, and with the reason for their mockery.

Shamefully, Mike does something he’s never done before: he waits for Dustin and Lucas to reach Will first, before he finally approaches to join them as a unit, adding onto the group hug as if he’s nothing more than a helpful observer.

If Will notices the difference, he doesn’t say anything, but Mike feels an intense guilt, when their parents come to pick them up and he only participates in the group hug goodbye, avoiding every individual one, hoping desperately that none of them call him out on it and preparing to pretend nothing ever happened.

‘Pretending nothing ever happened’ turns out to be easier than Mike had imagined, as Will continues his habit of leaving each and every one of his traumatic experiences back where they occurred, as if it’s so easy for him to dismiss them and leave them behind. Mike can’t imagine it’s actually true, or possible, but he admires the concept enough to try his damndest, and each time Will or any of the others is bullied at school, Mike treats it as if it’s the only time that matters, arguing back against Troy and any other bullies he drags along, but making a conscious effort not to dwell on any past experiences that lead up to these moments any more than he has to.

Racism persists as a looming threat above Lucas’ head, while Dustin’s disability keeps him in a near-universally unique position that no other students can truly understand or relate to, as much as Will in particular has tried. Mike has no reason to believe anything is wrong with Will the way their bullies and seemingly half the town seems to believe, but whenever any of them use Will’s behavior, or his art, or his friendship, or his sensitivity as fodder for their bullying, it causes Mike distress that hits so deeply, it feels as if he is somehow responsible for him.

Mike has never perceived anything about Will to be wrong, or gross, or dirty, or worthy of mockery, and any insistence otherwise feels like a direct attack on not only Will, and their friendship, but their Party as a unit. Each one of them comes together to make their group feel whole, especially with Will acting as the bright light that guides them and motivates them to stick together. No one, not even Lucas or Dustin could replace such a thing.

The Byers and Wheelers go see a movie together, sort of. Nancy stays home with Holly, while the rest of them head to the theater to see The Dead Zone, something they’re only allowed thanks to their parents joining them. Nancy had been invited, but horror movies aren’t her “thing” and she was adamant about preferring to stay home with Holly anyway.

Mike is certain, beyond any argument, that this really means she wants to stay home talking to Steve on the phone without interruption and without their parents overhearing, but the arrangement allows him the opportunity to see a movie he and Will might not have been allowed to otherwise, and sometimes sibling truces must be called in moments of desperation.

Mike agrees to keep her real intentions a secret, while Nancy agrees not to warn their parents about the movie’s subject matter ahead of time, and their shared silence guarantees mutually-assured destruction if either chooses betrayal.

In the theater, Karen and Joyce sit next to each other, with Ted on the other side of Karen, while Jonathan sits in front of them with Will and Mike next to him, in perfect eyeline of their parents, though that thought is far from either of their minds.

Throughout the movie, Karen gasps in shock, while Ted grumbles about how violent kids are these days, while Joyce fully locks in to the story, and Jonathan and Will seem to be having just as much fun as Mike is. Will has reached a point where horror excites him even despite the potential nightmares, and Mike is beginning to appreciate the value in every aspect of the movie-making process that happens before it ever reaches their screen.

A few times, Jonathan leans over to drop explanations and commentary, and Mike keeps his eyes on the screen but makes every effort to listen at the same time, Will listens too, as he always does when Jonathan attempts to share his wisdom, but a few jumpscares deep, Mike smiles with amusement as he wonders how much of that information is really sinking in.

At one point, Will leans over, peeking through his fingers, and whispers. “You don’t think anything like that could ever happen in real life, do you?”

Smiling, Mike shrugs. “Probably not. But if it happened to either of us, we’d definitely believe each other, right?”

“Right,” Will nods, though his eyes haven’t left the screen.

Mike’s smile grows fonder, watching Will’s intense gaze, fully engrossed in the movie, and there is a strange part of him that wants to reach out and hold his hand like he would when they were smaller. The urge is undeniably inspired by the contents of the movie, but Mike has difficulty working himself up to it, suddenly feeling the weight of his hand, compounded by the weight of the gesture. He’s never felt it before.

Pushing the strange thought from his mind, Mike focuses on his popcorn and returns his eyes to the movie, refusing to look towards anyone else for the rest of the run time, and it isn’t until the end that he notices his father sitting behind them, right between him and Will, and a foreign sense of worry worms its way into his stomach, as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

It’s mysterious, and Mike isn’t sure what the source of it is, especially since they’d been supervised and accompanied the entire time, and Mike is more than certain he’s seen far worse movies at home. But the feeling persists, and Mike finds himself wondering if Will feels it too.

Jonathan is the first out the door, with Will close at his side, and Mike trailing slightly behind them. Their parents hang back, but Mike has no interest in their conversation, especially watching as Will and Jonathan both grow more animated, discussing their favorite parts, and it becomes one of the rare moments Mike is able to catch Will being the talkative one. Jonathan brings it out of him in a way no one else can seem to, and Mike would be more jealous if he weren’t inspired by it.

Sometimes he wishes he’d been granted a brother instead.

Once they’re outside, Mike has fully caught up, nudging Will with his elbow to stop him before they part. “It wasn’t very scary, huh,” Mike teases, ignoring his tingling fingers.

“I guess not,” Will concedes, calmer than the last time they’d been in this position. “But what if it gives me nightmares about hands?”

“Hands?” Mike questions, his eyebrows narrowed. “Is that really what you’re worried about?”

“I don’t know!” Will laughs, though Mike can’t help but notice he’s doing so with worried eyes. “What if someone uses their hand to read my mind or my future? All of sudden holding someone’s hand seems like a much bigger deal.”

The nervousness rises in Mike’s stomach again, and he bites his lip from the inside as he debates comforting Will’s fears. After a contemplative moment, he drops his shoulders, reaching out to grab Will’s hand and hold it, locking eyes when Will instantly looks up at him with surprise, and Mike can see the fears the movie placed in his eyes. “See?” Mike says softly, as if his hand isn’t sweating. “No future visions, and I can’t read your mind, I promise.”

If anything, Mike kinda wishes he could.

“M-me neither,” Will stutters, and Mike worries for a second that he’s lying, but he narrows his eyes, searching Will’s face for any tells of a fib, unable to find one.

Satisfied, Mike stands straight up and releases their hands. “Told ya!”

Their parents call each of their names, and they part, waving good-bye as they race to join their respective families in their separate cars. Mike can already imagine the Byers’ car bustling with discussions, appreciating the movie in a way only their family can seem to. The Wheeler car, in contrast, is eerily quiet.

“Did you enjoy the movie?” Mike’s mother asks casually, though Mike doesn’t believe it’s out of any genuine interest, so all he does is nod, staring out the window as they drive the rest of the way back in silence.

At home, Karen gets out of the car first, while Mike and his father trail behind her, and—

“Michael.”

Mike holds back the second he hears his name, prepared to be shamed for choosing a scary movie without fully educating them beforehand, but his father’s expression is devoid of anger, and the casual nature of his stride is discomforting. “What?” Mike sighs.

“Keep your hands to yourself next time,” Ted shrugs, exasperated. “Imagine if someone had seen you.”

“What?” Mike says again, annoyed this time. “Will was scared.”

Ted nods, hands shoved in his pockets. “I’m sure.”

The uncomfortable sinking feeling he’d felt in the theater returns, and Mike doesn’t say anything, allowing his father to enter the house before him without any further discussion.

Rather than the movie, Mike has a nightmare about losing Will, and Mike blames his father.

Halloween passes without incident, and Mike puts their conversation out of his mind, convinced that his dad doesn’t know a damn thing, especially knowing Lonnie is so much worse, a point that Mike continues to remind himself every time his father gets under his skin. Each insult and slur thrown Will’s way at school feels closer than it ever has before, and Mike’s protective instincts strengthen, along with his refusal to let any of the kids at school make Will feel as small as Lonnie had.

On November 7th, 1983, Mike wakes up with a sinking feeling that the fabric of the universe as they know it has altered itself beyond repair. The sun isn’t bright enough, Lucas doesn’t wake him via walkie-talkie, and Will doesn’t offer to race him to school.

By lunchtime, Mike’s entire world has changed.