Chapter Text
Mike is so done with Dustin.
Ever since the spring musical was announced last week he's refused to stop nagging the rest of the party to audition, and Mike is getting a little fed up with it.
"Come on you guys! We would finally get to do something all together, and it would be fun, I promise."
"We do Hellfire together!" Mike shot back, shoving his spoon in his yogurt with more force than was strictly necessary.
"It's not the same!" Dustin protested.
They were all eating lunch together around their corner table in the cafeteria, the only time during the school day they could be guaranteed to have the whole party together.
Max, Will, and El were all ignoring the boys in favor of studying for the Chemistry test the three of them had next period, but Lucas was stuck in between Mike and Dustin, occasionally joining the argument but mostly just trying to finish his PB&J in peace.
Lucas rolled his eyes, "It literally is. Except Hellfire is actually fun and singing and dancing in front of the whole school isn't."
"Exactly." Mike agreed with an exaggerated 'I rest my case' gesture.
"You don't understand!" Dustin insisted, "It's not about the singing and dancing. It's about the community."
"Oh my gosh." Mike groaned, dropping his head to the table in defeat.
He did not need to hear Dustin's spiel about how much he would enjoy hanging out with theater kids. He thinks he could pretty confidently say that he would never willingly do anything with a theater kid.
"I dunno, it could be kinda cool to do together."
Mike's head shot up, and everyone at the table turned toward Will's voice.
Will had mostly stayed silent in the arguments over the last few days, letting Lucas and Mike be the ones to deal with Dustin's pestering, but up until now it was just assumed that he felt the same about not wanting to participate in the production.
He flushed at the sudden attention, looking down as he thumbed through pages of notes with no real intention, "I mean, I'm doing it so it would be nice to have you guys there too."
Lucas gawked.
"You're gonna be in the play?"
"Well, my mom's the choreographer." Will explained, and, now that he mentioned it, Mike did remember Joyce saying something about being excited to work on a play. He hadn't thought much of it at the time, but this must have been what she was talking about.
Joyce had put her Broadway career on hold to raise her boys at Lonnie's request, but it wasn't like she forgot all about it overnight.
She'd spent hours teaching her boys to dance when they were younger, and she'd even tried to show Mike some of the basics before his first middle school dance. He hadn't been very good at it, but he was grateful either way.
So it made sense that she would want to get back into theater, even if it just meant helping out a high school show.
What didn't make sense was how any of this affected Will.
Will seemed to follow his train of thought. "She said it wouldn't be worth it to her to choreograph a whole show if I didn't want to be in it, so I'm gonna audition. Besides," A smile flicked across his face as he turned to Dustin, "It'll be fun."
"Fuck yeah it is!" Dustin shouted loud enough to startle some freshmen at the next table over.
He immediately began grilling Will on who he was planning to audition for, what monologue he'd chosen, and if he'd started working on his song yet, and Will's smile widened into something excited and comfortable as he answered.
Distantly, Mike heard the conversation happening around him, but he didn't process most of it.
Instead, his attention was pulled to Lucas shooting him a look, eyebrows raised in a question of his own.
Mike didn't need any words to know what he was wondering.
They both knew that saying no to Dustin was easy and honestly kind of funny, but if Will was the one asking...
Well, that changes things a bit.
Mike had never been good at saying no to Will.
Something of his thought process must have shown on his face because Lucas' expression broke into an incredulous grin, shaking his head at Mike.
"You're down bad, man." He laughed, low enough for only Mike to hear but making him flush red anyway.
"Fuck you, dude."
That just made Lucas smile harder.
It's times like this where Mike almost regrets telling him about his crush on Will.
At the time, it had felt freeing to not have to carry the secret by himself. He'd literally cried on Lucas' shoulder after coming out and admitting to being in love with one of their best friends in one fell swoop, and somehow he'd convinced himself that Lucas would be chill about it.
He was wrong.
Lucas absolutely thrived on poking fun at him, and now Mike had to deal with relentless teasing on top of dealing with his stupid crush.
A very small part of him loved that Lucas was so normal about it, but mostly he was just annoyed.
Lucas sent him one last glance, his last chance to back out before he doomed them both.
Mike's eyes flicked to Will for just a moment, but it was permission enough for Lucas to open his mouth. "Okay, you guys win. We'll join."
Mike was not braced for how fast Dustin dropped his conversation with Will to launch himself across the table at them.
"Dude, finally!" Dustin was practically buzzing with excitement, as if Mike and Lucas had changed their minds just for him, which was absolutely not the case.
By the time Mike managed to untangle himself from the aggressive hug that almost sent all three of them sprawling across the floor Max and El were still laughing at them and Will was desperately trying to contain the rapidly growing puddle from Lucas' water bottle, an unfortunate casualty of the tackle-hug.
"It's not that surprising." Will mumbled as he built up a barricade of napkins to keep the water from spilling onto the floor.
He said it as if he'd known the whole time that the boys would fold as soon as he spoke up, which, honestly he probably did.
It's no secret that everyone in the party has a soft spot for Will and has a hard time denying him anything.
It makes Mike feel a little less lame for immediately following whatever Will suggests to know that he isn't the only one, even if his reasons for being a pushover are completely different from everyone else.
"Wait, wait, hold up!" Dustin is practically clinging to the edge of the table for dear life to pull himself up and off of Lucas, turning a full-body grin toward the girls, "What about you guys?"
Max's mouth fell open in a half-smirk that landed somewhere between impressed with his audacity and straight up condescending. "Yeah, no way. You idiots can do whatever you want, but I'm not gonna embarrass myself dancing in some shitty musical."
That should have been the end of it, but Dustin was a greedy, greedy man who didn't know how to take no for an answer.
"You don't have to act; you could just be on stage crew or something. Our stage manager literally graduated last year, so you could totally do that. You wouldn't have to be on stage at all."
Max looked unimpressed, but Dustin rounded on El before she could say anything, "And you would be great on stage! We all know you have the voice of an angel, you could finally show it off a little."
While Mike didn't necessarily support Dustin taking his own life in his hands by arguing with Max, he had to admit that he actually had a point.
The party discovered El's singing voice a few years ago when a late-night hangout turned into a karaoke competition and she laid them all out with her rendition of Let It Go. She may have never acted before, but Mike had full confidence she could kill it at whatever role she wanted.
El's eyes were darting back and forth between Max and Dustin, mouth silently hanging halfway open like she wanted to say something but wasn't quite sure herself what it would be.
"Come on, Janey-Jane." Dustin pleaded, and Mike nearly rolled his eyes at how obviously he was pulling out all the stops to convince her, "It won't be as fun if it isn't the whole party."
Mike actually did roll his eyes at the helplessly flushed smile creeping onto El's face, but he knew he couldn't really judge when he acted exactly the same toward Will.
"It really does sound fun," El's gaze shot back to Max one last time like she was asking permission before locking onto Dustin, "I would like to be in the play."
Dustin's victorious fistpump at this declaration was a little excessive in Mike's opinion, but El seemed to find it endearing if her widening grin was anything to go on.
At this point, Max didn't stand a chance.
The second El turned her patented puppy dog eyes on her, she was done for.
El didn't even say a word before Max resigned herself to her fate. "Fine. I'll do it but I'm not acting."
"Yay!" El beamed, wrapping her arms around Max in a very one-sided hug.
It was enough to pull a wry smile out of Max, and she reluctantly patted at El's arm before grabbing her study guide back from Will. "Anyway, I'm gonna go find somewhere else to study because you guys are annoying as fuck."
"Aww, you love us." Dustin cooed.
Max pointed her study guide at him like it was a much deadlier weapon than just three pieces of paper stapled together as she swung her backpack over her shoulder, "You are on thin fucking ice, Henderson."
Dustin grinned watching her walk off, "She loves us."
"I don't know who you think 'us' is, but it definitely does not include you." Lucas teased, earning himself an elbow to the ribs.
A round of laughter passed over the table at Dustin's expense, but Mike found his gaze drifting back to Will chuckling while quietly gathering his notes.
"Leaving already?" Mike asked.
"Yeah. This is great, but Max wasn't kidding about needing to study." Will zipped his bag up, warm expression turning a little embarrassed, "I have like 20 minutes to figure out how gas laws work or I'm basically screwed."
"Here, I'll come with you. I have to stop by my locker before English anyway."
It wasn't totally untrue, but Mike's locker was right next to his fifth period class, and Will knew his schedule well enough to recognize that Mike just wanted to keep him company.
Thankfully, he didn't call him out on it, and they said their goodbyes, although the rest of the party was already so wrapped up in their own conversation that the boys hardly got more than a wave and a quick "see you" as they stood to leave.
The silence between them was comfortable as they made their way across the school in the vague direction of Mike's locker, but something kept nagging at the back of Mike's mind.
He didn't know how to phrase his question in a way that didn't sound weird or accusatory, but he couldn't let it go.
"Why didn't you tell me you were gonna do drama?"
Will startled a little, clearly not expecting that to be what Mike wanted to talk about. "I don't know. I guess I just didn't think it was a big deal."
And, objectively, he should be right. It wasn't a big deal.
Lucas didn't tell the party before he signed up for basketball, and Dustin didn't say anything before joining the play last year.
But this was different.
This was Will.
Will was supposed to tell Mike everything.
Maybe Mike was stupid for thinking he would always get to hear whatever Will was thinking, but, given their track record, he didn't feel like it's unreasonable to think Will would tell him if he was planning to do a new activity.
"Yeah, you're right." Mike managed, "It was just that you sounded so, you know, decided earlier. Like you'd been thinking about it for a while, and I was just wondering if there was, like, a reason or something that you didn't want to let us know."
The "us" burned his mouth as he said it.
It was the safe choice. The choice that sounded least vulnerable and selfish. The choice that said that Mike was just thinking of the party.
Maybe it wasn't the truth, but it was at least halfway there.
Will didn't need to know that Mike was only thinking of himself.
"There's no reason, Mike." Will assured, "I just didn't think you guys would care at all. I mean, obviously Dustin cared. But I didn't really expect the rest of you to want to join or anything."
Mike's face did something complicated as he processed Will's words, hearing the self-deprecating undertone and trying to decide if it was worth calling out, "Even if we didn't want to join, it's still cool that you're doing it. I know Lucas and I were kind of being asses to Dustin about it, but it really is cool."
Will rolled his eyes at how earnestly Mike was trying to reassure him about something that honestly wasn't a huge deal, but he couldn't help the affectionate smile creeping onto his face.
Distantly, it reminded Mike of the time he tearfully apologized for dissing 80s music when he found out Will liked it at eight years old.
"Well, if it's so cool," Will teased, a smug lilt in his voice as he bumped their shoulders together, "then maybe you should pick out a monologue."