Archive of Our Own

If Mike could choose anyone to be stuck in a movie theater bathroom with while high on drugs, his first pick would definitely not be Max Mayfield.

Don’t get him wrong, he likes Max. 

Despite him being relentlessly petty and borderline mean when she first joined the Party, she’d grown on him throughout the years. She’s fiercely loyal to no end. She’s outrageously hilarious when she wants to be. She’s the voice of reason to the boys’ stupid ideas, and sometimes even the spark to those aforementioned stupid ideas.

Max is all of those amazing things and more.

What she isn’t is helpful in this particular Russian drug-induced crisis.

While most people would probably be fighting the drugs long enough to figure out how to get out of the movie theater bathroom, Max Mayfield has decided to lean into the experience and is currently giggling to herself in the stall next to him.

“What are you laughing about?” Mike asks, exasperated.

He squints at the wall dividing their stalls. If he looks hard enough, the squiggly pattern in the cheap plastic door begins to twist and ripple, curling into spirals that make his stomach flip unpleasantly.

Max snorts another laugh and thumps her foot against the wall, the vibration rattling the stall divider and snapping Mike out of his trance.

“This is so stupid,” she manages to say through her laughter.

“What is?”

“This whole thing! This whole thing is stupid!”

She dissolves into another fit of giggles, and Mike can hear the squeak of her shoes as she slides farther down against the stall door.

Mike sighs and presses his Scoops Ahoy hat against his eye, wincing when it sends a sharp sting through his skull.

Right. This whole thing.

How exactly had they gotten here again?

Oh, right. The Russians.

It had all started with the damn Russians.

The day Dustin had come back from camp, he’d dragged the entire group out to the top of the hill behind Cerebro to set up his radio so he could talk to Suzie, his “perfect, Phoebe Cates–lookalike girlfriend.”

Personally, Mike thinks Dustin had spent way too much time around chemicals at camp.

They’d been out there for hours. Dustin kept fiddling with the radio, unscrewing panels and poking at wires while muttering angrily under his breath every time the signal crackled out.

Mike had mostly been lying in the grass next to Will, staring up at the sky and wondering how long it would take before Dustin admitted defeat.

Then the radio made a noise. Not static or interference, but a voice. A code.

Well, Dustin thought it was a code. Mike, El, Lucas, and Max believed it was just gibberish. Will was on the fence about it until Dustin had convinced him to help him in his quest to decode it. 

That night, he’d turned the whole thing into a full-blown investigation. Mike and Max had mostly played along for fun, fully convinced Dustin was exaggerating— until he’d shown up at Scoops Ahoy with Will, Lucas, and a Russian-to-English dictionary.

“Mike, you just OD in there?” Max calls from the next stall, almost mockingly.

Mike blinks, the memory dissolving as the bathroom swims back into focus. He mutters, “Shut up.”

He presses the hat to his bloody eye again and winces, stretching his legs out across the tile floor. “You know,” he calls, “we wouldn’t have been here if we didn’t translate the stupid code.”

Max groans loudly. “Oh my god, Mike.”

“What?”

“You didn’t translate shit!”

Mike scowls, hoping that Max could feel the force of it through the stall wall. “Excuse me, I was trying to—”

“You ate ice cream,” Max interrupts.

“That was me doing my job!”

“No, it wasn’t!”

Mike huffs and drags a hand through his tangled, blood-matted hair.

Now, Mike and Max haven’t exactly been employee of the month ever since they’d both landed a job here. They would slack on cleaning up and get yelled at by the openers. They’d even forget to lock up when they were on the closing shift. 

But as careless as they were, they did actually know how to run an ice cream parlor. While Max scooped, Mike usually handled the register, keeping it free of little kids who’d scam them for all the free samples they’re worth. It used to be Max's job, but Mike barred her from it because she couldn’t say no to any of the incessant kids. 

The point is— they’re good employees. But when the force that is Dustin Henderson showed up and demanded their time, they both called their break and sat down to listen. 

“The point is,” Mike says to the stall door, “I was working.”

“Debatable,” Max says.

“I was!”

“Mike, you and Will were busy emptying out every flavor we had in the store.”

Mike crosses his arms. Yes, technically speaking, he had forced Will to participate in the Great Scoops Ahoy Championship. 

The Great Scoops Ahoy Championship was a game coined by Max and Mike, created after a particularly long and boring shift in pursuit of sampling every flavor to determine the objectively superior one.

By flavor number eight, Will had been clutching his forehead from the brain freeze and laughing so hard he nearly fell off the counter. 

Mike would absolutely do it again, no doubt, just to hear that laugh.

Meanwhile, Dustin and Max had been sitting in the back room with the dictionary, arguing over Russian translations and scribbling notes all over Dustin’s notebook.

Thirty minutes later, Dustin’s wild theory had evolved into an entire plan. According to him, there were Russians running a secret operation somewhere in Hawkins— Russians who were trying to gain access to American military secrets. 

Mike thought the entire thing sounded ridiculous. He’d expected Max, with her no-nonsense attitude, to share that opinion.

Instead, she’d leaned over the notebook with Dustin and said, “Wait, explain that part again.”

Which had made Dustin’s face light up, further encouraging his plan.

“You could have shut it down,” Mike calls. 

Max scoffs from the next stall. “Oh yeah? If you were so against the idea, why didn’t you shut it down?”

Mike opens his mouth to respond, and then closes it. 

The truth is, by the time they’d actually figured out the code, shutting it down hadn’t really crossed his mind anymore. After hours of peering over the message over lots and lots of ice cream, they’d pieced together the translation.

The silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west. A trip to China sounds nice if you tread lightly.

Mike had stared at the page, utterly lost. Dustin and Max were both practically vibrating with excitement and pride at having cracked the code. 

And Will…

Will had looked completely absorbed. It was the most excited Mike had seen him all summer. Which, if Mike was being honest with himself, probably wasn’t saying much.

Mike had spent most of the summer tangled up in his own internal turmoil about ending his relationship with El. Somewhere along the way, he’d sort of started taking advantage of his friendship with Will— always expecting him to be there with his bright and eager smile, even after Mike had been a shit friend.

So when Will had realized that this code would lead to another adventure, his entire face had lit up. And Mike had found himself leaning closer to the notebook with him, caught up in Will’s excitement despite himself.

Desperate to change the topic, Mike speaks up, “Doesn’t matter. We need to focus on getting out of here.”

“Beats me.” Max lets out a content sigh. “I don’t know, maybe this whole experience was worth it.”

Mike squints at the ceiling, perplexed. “...How?”

“I mean, would you rather be at the mall slinging ice cream right now?”

“Yes,” Mike says flatly. To prove his point, he shoves his bloodstained hat under the stall divider.

A moment passes as she grabs it to observe. Then Max bursts out laughing.

“Oh shit. I forgot.”

Turns out, the code had actually meant something. Which was how they’d ended up sneaking into a secret Russian base hidden beneath Starcourt Mall. Which is how they’d gotten separated from Dustin while trying to get in.

Which was how a bunch of very large Russian guards had shoved them into chairs and injected them with something that definitely wasn’t FDA-approved. 

Thankfully, Lucas and Will had managed to get them out before things got worse, dragging them to the theater and telling them to stay put while they figured out a plan.

In hindsight, they probably should have kept a better watch on two drugged teenagers because now, Mike and Max are locked in a bathroom.

Mike leans his head back against the cold tile. 

Truly, he has no idea how he gets himself into these situations.

Mike shifts slightly against the cold tile floor and squints at the ceiling lights, which seem to be humming louder than they should. Or maybe that’s just the drugs.

He picks at the dried blood on his hand. After a moment, he says, “I wonder if Lucas and Will have even noticed that we’re gone.”

After all, Will had warned him in a low voice in the theater, “If you sneak off, I will find you.” Truthfully, it might just be the drugs talking, but Mike is a little wounded by the idea that Will hasn’t found him yet. 

They’ve been in here long enough for the fluorescent lights to start buzzing like angry bees and for the spinning feeling in Mike’s head to settle into something dull and floaty.

“They definitely have,” Max says smugly without missing a beat. “We’re the life of the party, Wheeler. Nothing can go on without us.”

Mike makes a face at the wall. “How come they haven’t broken us out yet?”

Max hums thoughtfully. “‘Cause they can’t.”

Mike frowns. “What do you mean they can’t?”

“They’ve obviously gone for backup.”

Mike sits up a little straighter, immediately regretting it when the movement makes the room tilt sideways. “What backup?” he asks. “Nobody even knows where we are.”

Max gasps dramatically. “We have a best friend with superpowers,” she says. “Superpowers, Mike!”

Mike snorts softly. “I’m aware, Max,” he drawls.

Max laughs again. “Oh right!” she says. “You’re dating her!”

She giggles for another few seconds before the words seem to catch up with her. Mike doesn’t say anything. He just waits for the realization to settle in. 

Sure enough, a few seconds later, Max speaks again. “Oh,” she says slowly. Another pause. “...Dated her.”

Mike hums in approval, a little appalled that it took her that long to remember— their breakup hadn’t been subtle. Maybe the drugs had hit her harder than it had him.

Their entire relationship had always felt a little like a small boat trying to survive in rough waters. 

Before they’d even started dating, the waves had already been crashing against the sides. Secrets, separations, circumstances that constantly pulled them in different directions.

Once they were actually together, the boat had started taking on the waters. Slowly, the little boat had begun filling up with water. 

Mike assumed it was the misunderstanding and arguments. By the time summer rolled around, the thing was barely staying afloat.

And Max had been the largest, gnarliest wave that eventually tipped them over into the sea. 

This whole summer, Max had been encouraging El to break up with Mike. They think he doesn’t know that, but it’s a hard thing to miss when they’re both constantly having hushed conversations after every interaction between El and Mike— analyzing him, criticizing him. 

And the thing is, Mike couldn’t bring himself to care. 

He knows Max had expected him to go running back to El the second she dumped him. It’s classic girl behavior— or at least, that’s what Lucas told him.

After El had broken up with him at the mall, Lucas had immediately launched into what he’d proudly called his “relationship expertise.”

“She’s just mad,” Lucas had assured him. “You apologize, she forgives you, you kiss, you make up. It’s what girls do. It’s what Max does!”

But Mike hadn’t done any of those things. Instead, he’d swam right back to shore and left the capsized boat to the mercy of the seas. 

Because the truth was, the boat hadn’t just been filled with water because of the external forces pushing them back and forth.

There had been leaks from the inside too. And Mike knows that this time, the leaks were caused by the cracks he’d put there himself.

“My point is,” Max continues suddenly, snapping Mike out of his thoughts, “El has powers. Meaning she could literally barge in here and break us out right now!”

She kicks the stall door for emphasis, and the plastic bends inward with a loud thunk.

Mike flinches, bracing his arms above his dizzying head. “Would you stop kicking the door?”

“Jeez,” Max says. “What crawled up your ass and died?”

Mike rolls his eyes and lifts the hem of his shirt, pressing it carefully against the swollen mess around his eye where the blood has started seeping again.

“I wish Lucas were here,” he mutters.

“Oh yeah?” Max says.

“So he could see the way you talk to me when he’s not around.”

“Puh-lease,” Max scoffs. Mike can practically hear the grin in her voice as she talks.

“Lucas knows exactly what I’m like,” she says. “And he loves me anyway.”

A beat of silence. Mike raises his eyebrows at her words. 

Max says, “Oh, god. Pretend you didn’t hear that. Please pretend you didn’t hear that.”

Mike slowly lowers his shirt from his eye. His eyebrows creep upward. “...Love?” he repeats.

There’s another thud as Max kicks the door again, harder this time. “Mike! I said please!”

“Okay, okay!” Mike says, raising his arms up even though she can’t see him. 

“Thank you.”

Unable to help himself, Mike tilts his head toward the stall divider after another moment. “Lucas loves you?”

Max doesn’t answer right away, and Mike braces himself for another kick— this time aimed at Mike.

For a long second, the only sounds in the bathroom are the buzzing fluorescent lights and the faint rumble of the playing movie leaking through the walls.

Then she says quietly, “...Yeah.”

Mike lets out an impressed huff.

He’s not exactly shocked. Max and Lucas have never been subtle about their feelings for each other. From the moment she’d joined the Party, the two of them had been orbiting each other like magnets. Bickering one minute, grinning the next, pushing and pulling in a way that somehow always snapped back together.

She was the spark to his match.

And Lucas was the fuel to her flame.

It hadn’t taken long before the teasing turned into flirting, and the flirting turned into actual dating.

Looking back, Mike wonders if maybe that’s part of why he’d been so against her joining the Party in the first place.

He’d told himself it was because she was new. Because she’d shaken up the dynamic. Because Lucas had immediately started acting like a complete idiot around her.

But maybe there had been something else there too. Watching the two of them had always been… strange.

Not in a bad way, just strange.

They were loud about their love. Obvious. Completely unbothered by the way everyone could see exactly what was going on between them. The way Lucas looked at her. The way Max rolled her eyes but never actually pulled away.

It had always seemed so easy for them.

Mike had never quite known what to do with that feeling sitting in his chest when he watched them.

He shifts against the tile. He’s not surprised Lucas was the first one to say it, though. He’d always been the romantic of the group.

“Do you?” Mike asks. “Love him, I mean.”

Max doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, she says flatly. “You’re gonna laugh at me.”

“I won’t,” Mike assures quickly. “Swear I won’t.”

Max sighs. He hears the faint scrape of her shifting positions in the stall. She leans back against the divider, stretching her legs out across the floor.

From where he’s sitting, Mike can see the tips of her white sneakers poking out under the stall wall, tiny specks of his own blood on them. 

“I do,” Max says finally. A pause. “I love Lucas.”

Mike stares at the stall door in front of him.

Growing up with an older sister, Mike has always had a very specific picture of what love looks like.

Love is the stuff from movies Nancy used to watch. Strong, confident guys sweeping soft-spoken girls off their feet.

Love is a guy being protective. Standing in front of a girl like a shield. Love is serious. Love is intense. Love is dramatic declarations and meaningful looks across crowded rooms.

But Lucas and Max have never looked like that.

Anyone with eyes can see Max is anything but soft-spoken. And Lucas is many things, but possessive definitely isn’t one of them.

If anything, Max is the one who charges headfirst into every situation like she’s daring the world to try and stop her. Lucas just runs after her, trying to keep up.

Max is strong and confident. Lucas is kind and soft-spoken. 

If they didn’t fit the picture-perfect definition of love, maybe Mike didn’t have to either.

Mike exhales slowly. “Wow.”

Max huffs a quiet laugh. “Yeah.”

Then, she quickly adds, “But don’t tell him.”

Mike blinks. “What?”

“I haven’t actually said it to him yet,” she says. “Not officially.”

Mike leans forward slightly. “Oh.”

“And I want to do it myself,” Max continues firmly. “Not because you ran your big mouth while you were high in a movie theater bathroom.”

Mike nods even though she can’t see him. “I won’t,” he promises.

Max lets out a small relieved breath. “Thank you.”

Another quiet moment passes between them. Then Mike says thoughtfully, “Sounds scary.”

Max scoffs. “What? Love?”

Mike can see the shadow of her head moving side to side as she shakes it.

“It’s not.”

Mike disagrees. He thinks it’s terrifying.

Every experience he’s had with love so far has felt like trying to force a puzzle piece into the wrong spot— shoving something into a place where it clearly doesn’t belong.

He presses his fingers against the cold floor tile and stares at the grout lines.

Nancy always tells Jonathan she loves him before hanging up the phone. Every time. It’s like clockwork.

“Love you,” she’ll say casually, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. And Jonathan would say it back.

So, Mike tried. But every time he formed the words while on the phone with El, his tongue would get twisted and his mind would go blank.  

I love you, El. was just too mind-boggling to say. 

I love you. It was slightly easier, but he still couldn’t bring himself to say the words to the sweet girl waiting on the other end of the line.

No matter how hard he tried, he just…couldn’t do it.

There was another phrase, though. A different one. One that had been sitting quietly in the back of his mind for a while now.

Mike had tried practicing it sometimes. Late at night, when the house was silent and nobody could hear him.

He’d whisper it under his breath like he was testing how the words felt on his tongue. It was easier to say the words with another name— a name that would never see the light of day.

He’d told himself that if he practiced enough with a different name, maybe it would eventually feel natural with what was supposed to be the right one.

But it never did.

Mike frowns slightly. Maybe he isn’t supposed to practice— maybe this isn’t how it works.

It had honestly never occurred to him before that love isn’t supposed to be scary.

If love isn’t what he thought it should be— if it isn’t the churning he feels in his stomach as he tries to claw out the word from his throat, if it isn’t just the simple adoration and friendship he feels with El— what is love?

Mike has a vague idea. He just doesn’t know if he’s right.

Mike furrows his brow, and chews on the inside of his lip for a moment. He hesitates, then asks tentatively, “What does it feel like?”

Max lets out a breath of air, like she was thinking over it for the first time. “I don’t know if I can…I mean, it’s weird to put into words.”

He tilts his head, trying to meet her eyes under the divider. “Try me.”

She shrugs, her hair brushing against the wall. “It’s…easy. You just—it feels right, you know? Like when you’re with them, nothing else matters and you can just…be.”

Mike thinks back to about thirty minutes ago, Will sitting next to him in the theater. He’d been whispering into Mike’s ear about the plan him and Lucas had come up with. Mike was barely listening, simply too entranced by the feeling of Will’s lips brushing against his earlobe. Will had pulled back and seen Mike’s dazed look— and smiled. It was a soft, gentle thing, Will’s smile.  

“Easy?” Mike asks softly. “Like…comfortable?”

Max nudges her foot against the stall. “Yeah. Comfortable. Not the boring kind, though. The good kind. The kind where you forget how hard everything else is, even if it’s just for a minute.”

Mike’s chest tightens. He remembers how he felt the second that Will had burst into the room where Max and Mike were being held. Even then, with his face all cut up and pure pain coursing through his veins, barely aware of anything because of the drugs— at the sight of Will, he knew he would be okay. 

“And you don’t have to pretend around them,” Max continues, getting more into the conversation now. “You don’t have to be cooler, or smarter, or even…funnier than you are. They see you, all of you, and it’s enough.”

Mike swallows. There’s only one person who’s known every part of him from beginning to end. 

Since the day he’d befriended him on the swing set, Will had been a constant in Mike’s life— through his D&D obsession, through his phase where he’d insist on bringing a sword everywhere, through the times his parents had argued so much Mike had found solace in Will’s room. 

Mike had never bothered putting on a front with Will, because he’d seen Mike.

He’d never realized how rare that feeling was until recently, because he had constantly been pushing that feeling down.

“Even the parts you think are…wrong?” he asks hesitantly.

“Especially the parts you think don’t fit,” Max says, a little more assured now. “You don’t hide yourself from the person you love, because chances are…they probably have the missing piece.”

“So you share everything?”

The thought of expressing his every feeling is daunting to Mike. He’s told that he’s too much sometimes. He talks too much, thinks too much— Mike is just too much. 

So he holds back. He bites his tongue around El whenever he wants to talk about D&D, because he knows she doesn’t care for it. He stays quiet whenever his mother asks him about his day, because he knows she doesn’t actually want to hear about it.

“Yeah. The stuff you’d usually keep to yourself…somehow, they make it feel like it matters. Like you matter.”

Mike swallows. He’d only ever let himself loose around Will. He could ramble about D&D for hours around Will, he could recount every detail of his day to Will— because Will would listen. He’d sit there in Mike’s basement, head tilted toward Mike with a genuine smile, and really listen.

Max taps the side of the stall with her fingers. “And I’m not a huge end-all, be-all kind of person. Lucas gets that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! It’s not intense or dramatic. Sometimes it’s just the quiet stuff. Just being around them is more than enough.”

Mike recalls the nights they’d spent together in Mike’s basement. Wordlessly, Mike would pass over the campaigns he’d come up with for Will to review. Will would peer over it and draw out sketches to make visuals for Mike’s campaigns.

Mike held those nights dear to his heart— nights with few words, just passing sketches and writing back and forth. His heart swells at the memory.

“It’s the little things, huh?” Mike says, an absent-minded smile on his face as he picks at his nails.

Max hums. “Matters more than you’d think.”

A beat of silence. Max says, “That’s not to say that it’s not hard. Things go wrong. You argue, you hurt— but you feel it all with them, you know?”

Things have gone wrong. Mike had definitely argued with and hurt everyone in his life at least once.

But feeling it? He’s only ever really felt anything with one person.

Guilt, sadness, regret. 

He’s felt guilty when Will had called him out for being a bad friend, and Mike had retorted with words that had made Will flinch. 

Mike doesn’t know why he said it. He’s never acknowledged the undertone of shame that came along with really enjoying himself around Will— and the one time he did, he’d unfairly directed it at the boy trying to salvage their friendship.

He’s felt sadness when Will’s eyes had filled up with tears and he’d distanced himself from Mike for the first time. Mike knows he was in the wrong. He knew it as soon as he said it, and he knew it when he watched Will ride away in the rain.

He’s felt regret when he’d knocked frantically on Will’s door in the pouring rain, apologizing and begging him to come out— but he didn’t. Will hadn’t come out, he hadn’t opened the door and shown Mike that beautiful smile of his— and Mike had never regretted anything more.

“What do you do when it goes wrong?” Mike asks softly, tracing his finger against the patterned tile.

Just as gently, Max tells him, “You choose them. Over everything else pulling you apart, you pick them, even when it doesn’t make sense.”

Relief, gratitude, happiness.

Mike had secretly been relieved when El dumped him. Mike knows that he hadn’t really been making an effort to keep their boat afloat. The internal cracks he’d caused with his infatuation with another had grown, larger and longer— until eventually, Mike had chosen to let go. When El had dumped him at the mall, Mike turned back slightly to catch the sight of Will’s face— a glimpse of what he’d chosen. 

Mike had been eternally grateful when Will had chosen to forgive Mike. That was one of the things he admired most about Will. He had the biggest heart of them all, big enough to accept Mike as a friend again. 

Mike had been beyond happy when Will started talking to Mike again. He’d spent the brief time they were arguing feeling as if a part of him was missing. With Will by his side again, Mike couldn’t be happier.

Mike had felt it all with Will. He’d felt it so deeply in his bones, his heart, his soul. 

“How do you know?” Mike asks, his voice barely above a whisper. He shuts his eyes as he waits for Max’s response

Max’s voice softens, and her voice sounds wistful, as if she’s not really here at this moment. “You just do. You notice, you feel, you try. You choose them every day. And it’s not perfect, and it’s not easy, but it’s right. It fits.”

Mike nods slowly, letting her words sink in. He thinks about Will. About how his presence has always stood out to Mike enough for him to notice him in a room full of people, about how much he feels with him, about how hard he’s tried to keep Will despite how much he messes up, over and over.

He thinks about how he’s always chosen Will— time and time again. 

For the first time, Mike realizes that the thing he’s been looking for, the answer to why he can’t say the word that seems so impossible— it wasn’t an answer hidden behind pieces of a puzzle, or an answer at the end of a particularly long journey across the ocean.

Mike breathes out a shaky breath, the sting of his eyes warning of tears he wasn’t ready to acknowledge. His chest feels tight, like someone had taken ahold of his heart and wouldn’t let go. 

It was the whole damn picture. It was the whole journey. 

It was Will. 

Beautiful, kind, loving, caring Will. His Will.

“Mike?”

“Yeah?” His voice comes out tight, almost strangled. He clears his throat in a weak attempt to steady it.

“Why are you asking me this?”

Mike tilts his head back against the wall to suppress the tears behind his shut eyes. “Just making sure.”

“Of?”

“What it feels like.”

Max huffs impatiently, and finally slides under the stall divider. Mike hears the squeaking and sliding of her shoes as she wiggles underneath.

She grunts as she props herself up and adjusts her feet, legs bent awkwardly. A harrumphed look on her face, she persists, “Of what feels like?”

“Love.”

She lets out a small, sardonic laugh. “Don’t tell me you love El. Not after the way you’ve been treating her.”

Mike doesn’t answer. He squeezes his eyes shut even further and turns his head away from Max. His hands were clenching the edge of the stall, nails digging into his palms. He felt like every beat of his heart was echoing in his chest, a drum he couldn’t quiet.

“Mike?” She nudges his foot, concern lacing her voice.

Max’s voice softens. “You don’t… you’re not serious, are you?”

Mike exhales slowly, trying to steady himself, but it did nothing to slow the storm of feelings raging inside him. He draws his knees up to his chest, his eyes still closed.

Every memory with Will — the late-night drawings, the quiet laughter, the shared secrets, the small touches — presses against his mind, each one insisting he finally admit it.

His chest tightens further. His stomach twists. He wants to cry, wants to laugh, wants to throw himself against the wall and just let the truth out. 

But he doesn’t move. He doesn’t open his eyes. He just breathes, slow and trembling, letting the weight of the moment sink in. Finally, his voice emerges, low and pained, almost afraid to be heard. 

“The person that I feel comfortable with, the person that sees me, the person that I choose…is Will.”

He exhales shakily, his head falling forward against his knees. His chest seems lighter, as if the words he’d been carrying in it for years had caused that release of pressure.

Max is quiet. Mike doesn’t want to know what she’s thinking. 

“But…Will’s a boy.”

“Max…” He pleads, almost begging her to just get it. He needs someone to get him.

“Yeah?” 

Mike finally lifts his head just enough to meet her gaze. The racing in his chest, the flutter in his stomach, the ache of relief and fear all mingle in a single, powerful feeling.

Realization dawns on Max’s face like a sunrise peeking over the horizon after a long, dark night. Her eyes widen, and she blinks slowly, as if she were double-checking her own comprehension. 

“Oh,” she finally says, her voice small and hesitant.

Mike forces a weak smile. “Oh.”

Max exhales, a sound somewhere between disbelief and awe. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Mike whispers, the word barely leaving his lips as he turns his head away from her piercing gaze. His chest still feels tight, but the tension is different now, more relief tinged with the sharpness of vulnerability. “Holy shit.”

For a moment, Max is silent, letting the weight of his confession settle. Mike’s heart thumps in his chest, a frantic drumbeat of hope and terror. 

He wants her to say something, anything, to validate that he wasn’t imagining her understanding, that he hadn’t just blurted the truth into empty air.

“Max…” His voice wavers slightly. “Did you OD over there?”

Max shakes her head slowly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “No, I just… uh. I’m just thinking.” 

She shifts on the tile, leaning back, knees drawn up, eyes distant for a heartbeat before flicking back to him. Mike inclines his head slightly at her answer, a tear rolling down his cheek. He feels his chest loosening slightly, even as his mind races.

He’s already imagining what life will be like from here. The thought makes him ache with both fear and anticipation. Max is gonna tell Lucas, and then it’ll spread. Everyone will know. He’s always been an outcast, a freak—but now, he might be even further removed, standing just a little further on the outside than everyone else.

“I mean…Wheeler, you’re cute and all, but he’s way too good for you.”

“What?”

Max nudges her foot against his, a playful jab. “Don’t get me wrong—you’ve got that whole broody, mysterious thing down. But Will? Will is literally the epitome of sunshine. You’re crazy if you think this—” she waves vaguely at his bloodied face and trembling hands, “is doing it for him. You need a desperate makeover.”

Mike blinks, the tension in his chest giving way to a slow, incredulous relief that washes over him like a warm tide. He lets out a shaky laugh, the sound catching in his throat before he can contain it. “Yeah?”

Max’s grin widens at his laughter. “Oh, hell yeah. But don’t worry! I’m amazing at makeovers. We’ll get you a new wardrobe, fix your hair, maybe even teach you a few new tricks. By the end of the summer, you’ll be a total babe. Total. Babe.”

Mike laughs again, louder this time, the sound echoing faintly off the tiles. The tightness in his throat dissolves slightly, replaced by a warmth that pulses through his limbs. 

After they’ve laughed hard enough they started coughing, they lapse into silence. Max leans back slightly on her elbows, eyes scanning Mike’s face, soft but searching. “So… is that why you’ve been an absolute dick to El all summer?”

Mike feels his heart tightening like someone just punched him there. “What? No!” His voice cracks before he can stop it. He quickly swallows and runs a hand through his hair, tugging slightly at the strands. “I—I didn’t mean to be a dick. I really didn’t.”

Max watches him, her gaze steady, but gentle. “Then what happened, Mike?”

He exhales shakily, the air catching in his throat. He looks away, at the sterile tile of the bathroom wall, trying to marshal his thoughts, trying to find the words that would make sense to El’s best friend. 

“I… I felt lost, Max. Like… I didn’t know who I was anymore.” He rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I thought… I thought El and I were supposed to be right for each other. I mean, we had history, we had… this connection. I wanted to believe that was enough.”

Max nods slightly, listening, not interrupting. Mike continues, voice barely above a whisper now. “I really tried. I tried to love her, to be… the guy she deserved. I thought if I kept pushing, if I tried hard enough, I could… I could make it feel right..” 

His hands tighten into fists at his sides, knuckles white against the cool tiles. “I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want to hurt me. I just… I didn’t know what else to do.”

Max shifts closer, her voice gentle. “Mike, that isn’t fair. She deserves more than someone who’s…lost.”

Mike swallows, his throat tightening again, a pang hitting the center of his chest.

“I know,” he murmurs, eyes cast downward. “I’m sorry. I really am. I thought I could change how I felt. I thought if I tried hard enough… if I gave it everything I had, I could love her just as much.”

Max’s tone softens, but her words cut sharper than any physical blow. “You didn’t try to love her more?”

For a moment he thinks he might answer—some excuse, some justification—but the words never come.

He just sits there, silent.

And his silence says everything.

Max’s expression shifts almost imperceptibly. Her brows draw together, not in confusion, but in realization. Something clicks behind her eyes, pieces sliding into place that she hadn’t even realized she’d been collecting.

“Oh,” she murmurs quietly, almost to herself.

Mike keeps staring down at the floor, his fingers twisting together in his lap. The tile is cold beneath him, but his face feels hot, his ears burning. He can feel her looking at him, really looking, and suddenly it feels like she’s seeing years of things he never meant to show.

“Mike…how long?”

Mike swallows.

“As long as I can remember.”

“What you feel for Lucas,” he says slowly, choosing each word like he’s stepping across stones in a river, “that thing you were talking about earlier. About how he makes you feel… how you just know when it’s him.”

He glances down at his hands again, rubbing his thumb along the side of his finger.

“That’s how it is with Will.”

“He’s just… safe,” he says. “When I’m around him it’s like I don’t have to think about who I’m supposed to be. I just am.”

Max watches him carefully, her chin resting on her knees now.

“He notices things,” Mike continues. “Stuff no one else ever does. If I’m upset, or if something’s bothering me, he knows before I even say anything. Half the time before I even realize it myself.”

A small, almost disbelieving smile tugs at the corner of Mike’s mouth. “And he remembers everything. Like… stupid stuff. The kind of stuff people forget five minutes later.”

His voice softens without him meaning it to. “He’s always been like that. Ever since we were kids.”

He pauses, the memories of years alongside Will stretching behind the pause. “I think…I think I’ve always loved him.”

Max studies his face, silently prompting him to continue. He sighs. “I just didn’t know if I was allowed to.”

“Mike…” Max’s voice sounds irreparably sad. 

God, this is hard.

“Everyone always talks about love like it’s supposed to look one way,” he says. “Like a guy and a girl and that’s it. That’s the whole picture.”

His gaze drifts toward the stall door.

“And I kept thinking… if that’s the picture, then I must be wrong. Like something in me just didn’t line up right.”

Max’s expression tightens slightly, but she stays quiet.

“So I tried to fix it,” Mike continues. “I thought if I just… followed the rules hard enough, it would work. That eventually it would feel the way it’s supposed to. But it never did.”

He laughs softly, but there’s no humor in it. “Because every time I tried to paint the picture, it was always Will.”

Max watches him intently, her expression focused. She shifts forward suddenly, her eyes narrowing like she’s just remembered something important.

“But why didn’t you do anything about it?”

Mike blinks at her. “About what?”

“About Will!”

Mike lets out a short, incredulous breath. “Max, don’t be stupid.” He runs a hand through his hair, frustration bubbling up in his chest again. “I can’t do anything! Everyone would—”

“Mike, fuck everyone!”

Her voice cuts through the tiny bathroom stall like a whip, and Mike shuts his mouth. She shakes her head frantically, red hair bouncing around her shoulders.

“You can’t love in silence just because you’re scared of what everyone else will think!”

Mike stares at her. The words land somewhere deep, somewhere uncomfortable.

“Then how, Max?” he asks quietly. His voice cracks a little around the edges. “How am I supposed to love when my love isn’t accepted?”

The question hangs there. Max doesn’t answer right away.

Instead she leans back, resting her head against the plastic wall of the stall and staring up at the ceiling like it might hold the answer written in the flickering fluorescent light above them.

She sighs.

“Look,” she finally says, rubbing the back of her neck. “Don’t laugh at me for what I’m about to say. I just… I don’t know how else to explain this kind of thing.”

Mike lifts an eyebrow, but he nods. “Okay.”

Max exhales slowly.

“Love is like vanilla ice cream.”

Mike lets out a laugh. “What?”

She shushes him, flashing him a warning look like that would physically shove his laugh back into his mouth. “You said you wouldn’t laugh, so shut up. Just— just let me finish.”

Mike presses his lips together, trying (and failing) to hide the confused smile creeping onto his face.

Max rolls her eyes.

“Okay, so listen. Everyone always hates on vanilla, right?” she says, gesturing vaguely as she talks. “Like, whenever you go to an ice cream shop, people act like it’s the worst thing on the menu. It’s boring, basic, like if you pick vanilla, you basically have no personality.”

Mike snorts quietly, but he stays silent.

Max continues.

“It’s the most cliché flavor there is,” she says. “You know, like love. Love is so painfully cliché, no matter who it’s with.”

“I’m telling Lucas.”

She waves her hands in his face, shushing him again with a small smile on her face. “Here’s the thing.”

Her gaze drops back down to Mike.

“The people who actually like vanilla don’t care about any of that.”

Mike frowns slightly, trying to follow where she’s going.

“They don’t sit there worrying about what the chocolate people think,” Max continues. “Or the strawberry people, or the mint chip weirdos. If vanilla’s their favorite, then that’s their favorite.”

Max leans forward a little, her tone more serious now.

“It doesn’t matter if everyone else doesn’t agree,” she says. “It doesn’t matter if they say it’s wrong or basic or not as good as something else. If it’s your favorite flavor… then it’s your favorite flavor.”

He looks down at his hands again, his fingers picking absently at the skin beside his nail.

Max watches him for a second before continuing, her voice softer now. “No one is ever going to understand what you love the way you do,” she says. “They can try. They can guess. But they’ll never feel it the same way you do.”

Mike’s mind drifts, uninvited, to Will again.

Will laughing across the basement table during a campaign. Will sitting beside him on the floor with a stack of comic books between them. Will looking at him like Mike is the most important person in the room.

Max nudges his shoe lightly with hers.

“So if vanilla’s your favorite,” she says, “who cares if the whole damn shop thinks chocolate is better?”

Mike lets out a quiet breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “I guess,” he murmurs. “The problem is that sometimes the people I care about hate vanilla.”

Max’s face twists slightly. “Yeah. That happens sometimes. But you know what?”

Mike glances up.

“The people who actually love vanilla?” she says. “They still eat it anyway. And I mean the real, crazy vanilla-lovers. You know, like you.”

Mike lets out a small laugh. A smile grows on Max’s face. 

“Maybe they eat it somewhere else. Maybe they eat it quietly for a while. Maybe they find other people who like vanilla too.”

She shrugs again.

“But they don’t suddenly start pretending chocolate is their favorite just because it’s what everyone else does.”

For a moment, neither of them says anything.

Then Max leans forward again, pointing at his chest.

“So if Will’s your vanilla,” she says, “you don’t get to spend your whole life pretending you like something else.”

Mike huffs out a weak laugh. “That might be the worst metaphor I’ve ever heard.”

Max grins. “Yeah, well, you understood it, so I did something right.”

“Still,” he says quietly. “It’s a lot.”

Max hums, turning her head to meet Mike’s eyes. “The best flavors usually are.”

Mike smiles at her. “Thanks, Max.”

“Anytime, Wheeler,” She smiles back at him, lighting up her face. 

Max really is a very pretty girl, Mike notes.

After a beat of silence, she speaks again, “Promise me something.”

“Hm?”

“Don’t love in silence. Promise me you’ll love like vanilla.”

Mike is silent for a moment, and Max leans forward to flick him on the nose. His hands immediately fly up to his nose, still sensitive from the absolute pummeling he’d gotten. “Ow! Okay, I promise, I promise!”

She laughs at his dramatics. She scoots closer to get a better look at his face.

The moment she does, her expression twists.

She winces. “Shit. I’m sorry, Wheeler.”

Mike waves a lazy hand in the air, brushing the apology aside. “S’fine. It’s not your fault.”

“No, I mean,” Max says quickly, shaking her head, “I’m sorry for making it out of there completely flawless.” She squints at him, leaning in a little closer. “I mean, are you still hurting? Because you look like shit.”

Mike bursts out laughing.

The bluntness of it catches him completely off guard, and once the laugh starts he can’t stop it. Max stares at him for half a second before she cracks too, doubling over as she starts laughing just as hard.

They’re still sitting on the bathroom stall floor, shoulders bumping, both of them laughing like idiots in the middle of a dingy bathroom.

They’re just starting to calm down when the bathroom doorknob suddenly rattles.

Both of them freeze.

Then the door bursts open.

Max and Mike scramble to their feet at the same time, shoes squeaking against the tile as they jump up from the stall floor.

Standing in the doorway are Lucas and Will. Both of them rush forward immediately.

“Jesus, where have you two been?” Lucas blurts out, looking between them. “We’ve been looking everywhere!”

“We thought you died in here,” Will adds, breathless as he hurries closer.

Mike throws his hands up defensively. “Hey, it was locked!”

Will stops short, blinking at him. “No it wasn’t.”

Mike frowns. “Yes it was!”

Will shakes his head. “No, it wasn’t! Did you two even try opening it?”

Mike turns slowly toward Max. Max turns slowly toward Mike.

They stare at each other for half a second—

—and then both of them burst into laughter again.

Lucas and Will exchange a confused look. Lucas mutters, “Okay… what the hell did we miss?”

Will, however, has already moved closer to Mike. The moment he gets a good look at him, his expression immediately drops.

“Mike,” he says, frowning deeply. “This is horrible. How did I not see this earlier?”

Mike shrugs, trying to play it off. “It’s not that bad.”

“Yes it is,” Will insists.

He gently grabs Mike by the sleeve and guides him toward the sink. Mike doesn’t resist, letting himself be steered over and leaned back against the wall beside it.

Will grabs a handful of paper towels and turns on the faucet, wetting them carefully.

Mike watches him.

Up close like this, Will’s face is only a few inches away. His brow is furrowed in concentration, lips pressed together as he wrings out the paper towel. Mike’s eyes flicker between Will’s hazel eyes and pink lips.

“Hold still,” he says quietly.

He lifts the damp paper towel and begins gently dabbing at the bruises on Mike’s cheek.

Mike sucks in a quiet breath through his teeth at the first touch.

“Sorry,” Will murmurs quickly, his face scrunching up with concern. “I know it probably stings.”

His hands are warm where they steady Mike’s jaw. Mike’s heart does a strange little flip in his chest.

Will tilts Mike’s face slightly with one hand, turning his head so he can reach another bruise near his temple.

Across the room, Lucas and Max are quietly bickering about whether or not they actually tried the door.

Mike barely hears them.

“You know,” he says suddenly.

Will hums distractedly. “Mm?”

“I may have found a winner for the Great Scoops Ahoy Championship.”

Will pauses for a second, though his eyes stay focused on Mike’s cheek as he dabs at another bruise.

“Oh yeah?” he says. “What’s that?”

“Vanilla.”

That makes Will stop. He lowers the paper towel slightly and looks up at Mike, eyebrows lifting as a small smile pulls at his lips.

“Vanilla?” he repeats. “Bit plain, don’t you think?”

Mike furrows his brows.

“No,” he says simply. “I love vanilla.”

Will chuckles softly, the sound warm and easy.

“Okay, okay,” Will says, shaking his head a little with a smile as he goes back to cleaning the cut on Mike’s lip. “You love vanilla. I do too.”

Mike takes a deep breath.

“I love you.”