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“Hi, my name is Will Byers, and you don’t know me, but— uh,” Will trails off, and his gaze flicks down to the paper in his hand. The writing feels all jumbled together as he looks at it, and as of right now, he can’t tell whether it’s nerves or his handwriting is genuinely just that bad.
He inhales softly, skimming over the page again before letting his hand drop, and starts again.
“Hi, my name is Will Byers, and you don’t know me, but I’m gonna tell you something that sounds crazy…”
The words fall off Will’s tongue as he finds himself in front of the very familiar coffee shop he’s found himself outside a few too many times these past few weeks. Well, technically, it’s an ice cream shop, but when snow hits New York, people tend not to buy ice cream much. So now they only sell coffee in the winter, and—
Will’s train of thought gets cut off as someone walks past him, squelches into the snow beside him, and splashes him with cold ice. His foot moves automatically, and he finds himself pressed up against the wall by the shop, presented with possibly the best vantage point to look into it.
He can already see the faint silhouette of Mike inside, the stupid uniform he’s been wearing since he got the job, along with the hat flattening his hair, making his waves stick out more wildly than usual. Will’s basically memorised the way he looks in his uniform, from where he’s been perched the last few weeks across the street. He has to keep telling himself it’s to keep Mike safe.
His hand brings the page back up again, and he looks at it one final time, murmuring quietly, “Hi, my name is Will Byers, and you don’t remember me— know me, but I’m gonna tell you something that sounds insane…”
It’s at that point that he always trails off, and Will can’t quite place why, but for a second, when he looks in, he feels a massive surge of courage, and it's the final thing he needs to stuff the page in his pocket and push the door open.
The rush of warm air from inside is massively different to the coolness of outside, but it’s not unwelcome. Will’s jacket didn’t really do much against the chill, and he’d never liked the cold much anyway. Not after being dropped in a lake by the Vulture. The ring of the bell does catch him off guard slightly, although it fades away when he can see Mike clearly for the first time.
An older man is perched on what looks like a repurposed barstool, looking up to see Mike just as he hands over a mug of something. Mike’s back is turned to Will as the older man starts to speak to him, but anything is good enough for Will right now.
He was right, about the hat flattening his hair. It’s not bad, though. It looks nice. Will can already imagine him complaining about it in the mornings, getting ready for work, trying to angle it so his hair looks alright, at least to his standards. But, as the day moves on, he knows Mike wouldn’t care as much anymore, determined to just finish the shift and get home; it would be exactly what he was like in school on a day where they had subjects he didn’t like. Albeit, there weren't many days like that for Mike back then.
The bell rings behind Will again, and that’s what finally makes Mike turn around, his expression widening in realisation as he does.
For a fleeting moment, Will thinks to himself that the mere presence of him is all Mike needs to remember, that he’s already got him back without the spiel of jumbled up pages.
But then a flash of red hair walks past Will, and snaps a sarcastic greeting at Mike that Will can’t decipher past the rushing of blood in his ears.
And it looks natural. They look the exact same as they used to, even when Will was there. Max snatches a pastry from the side, Mike looks like he’s about to throttle her, and Will’s transported back in time to any other one of their hangouts. They bicker, as Will keeps staring, and he just stays there.
After a few seconds, Mike’s gaze flicks over to Will for a beat, a passing glance, and he mumbles something to Max before walking over to Will, and grumbling, “Hi, how can I help you?”
It’s weird, being on the receiving end of Mike’s distaste for doing anything, especially his own job.
Will inhales deeply, one hand in his pocket clutching onto the paper like a lifeline, “Hi, my name is Will Byers, and I…”
His gaze flicks over to Max, sitting at the back, scrolling on her phone and eating the stolen pastry, before it goes back onto Mike’s confused expression. It’s just all so normal, something that—
That they can’t have with Will.
“And I would like a coffee,” Will diverts, coming out a lot breathier than it was supposed to, and under Mike’s furrowed brows, he tacks on a soft, “Please,” at the end.
“Okay, Will Byers,” Mike mumbles, shooting him a quick, still confused smile, but moving to the back, to the coffee machine by Max, and the rushing in Will’s ears comes back as he sees them speak. His gaze stays on Max even as Mike leaves, and it still just feels so natural. As if he wasn’t even meant to be there in the first place.
Someone clears their throat to the right of Will, and he whips around just in time to hear Mike call out, “Will Byers? Your coffee.”
“Oh yeah,” Will murmurs back, the hand brushing against the paper in his pocket rifling around for change as Mike ruffles a hand through his hair, the other taking his hat off. Just underneath his hairline, sits a small bandaid that Will’s eyes decide to fixate on, and before he can stop himself, he asks quietly, “you okay?”
Mike nods quickly, “Yeah, it doesn’t even hurt anymore. Just a small scratch, not even bad.”
“That’s— yeah, that’s good,” Will mumbles, but the sound of it is taken over by the rattling of change on the counter as he finally picks some coins from his pocket.
Mike starts to sort through them, and the rushing in Will’s ears comes back yet again. And, fuck, he can’t be in here anymore, because it’s mending and breaking his heart at the exact same time. His feet move before he can stop them, his mouth in tandem, saying quietly, “Keep the change,” as the bell rings above him and he leaves the shop, not looking back.