Work Text:
Excited and nervous.
Nervous and excited.
He should be excited, he’s seeing his girlfriend for the first time in months.
He shouldn’t be nervous to see her.
He shouldn’t be nervous to see Will either.
But he is. He’s so nervous he feels like he’s gonna throw up in the paper bag tucked into the pocket on the back of the seat in front of him.
What if it’s awkward? He and Will hadn’t talked - really talked - since the Byers and El had packed up and moved west.
And the fact that he was more worried about seeing Will than seeing El added another layer to the nervous soup that was brewing in his stomach.
So Mike does what he does best and pushes all of those thoughts out of his mind the moment the plane touches down at LAX.
El was running at him, kissing him, hugging him before Mike had a chance to properly react.
The breakfast burritos are good. Really good. Mike had never had hashbrowns, eggs, salsa, and a vegetable that El informs him is called an avocado all wrapped in a tortilla before, but it might be his new favorite food.
Unfortunately, the burrito doesn’t help calm his stomach. The bizarre combination of foods seems to make it even worse.
But it’s easy to feel like no time has passed with El. To fall back into their old patterns, the way their relationship had been before. And maybe they’re both pretending.
But pretending is lying. And friends don’t lie.
But apparently, boyfriends do.
Not Will though. Will isn’t pretending. He’s not even pretending to have an okay time.
Will was never the moody one. Of the two of them, Mike had always been the one to stalk off grumbling. And Will was always the one to chase after him. To cheer him up, drag him back to the group, to be there for him.
Not anymore.
Nothing is the same anymore between Mike and Will.
“You’ve been moping all day! It’s like you don’t even want to be here!” Mike shouts at him, between those mean kids and their horrible prank on El and the way that Will’s been acting all day, the tension had been building all day and Mike can’t stop himself from exploding at Will.
He feels like Will doesn't want to be with him.
Mike doesn’t know where he went wrong. Where it all got so twisted and messed up. How he’d ruined it.
Will had been the most important person in his life.
And now they can’t even talk without fighting.
And he can’t believe that El had been lying to him all year about fitting in, about making new friends.
But he’s not mad at El. Not really. Deep down he understands where she was coming from. He’s been bullied his entire life, he knows how embarrassing it is to admit. But no one should have to go through it alone.
Mike had never had to go through it alone, Dustin, Lucas, And Will had been right there with him. They’d always been losers together. Helping each other carry the load, deal with the cruel words their classmates would throw at them.
Together.
No. He’s mad at Will. Will knew what El was going through. And he didn’t do anything about it. Will didn’t even tell him about it.
They’d always told each other everything. That’s what best friends do.
Why wouldn’t Will tell him this? Why couldn’t Will just be his friend again?
“I’ve been a total third wheel all day and it’s been miserable!” Will shoots back. Surprising Mike. Will didn’t have a mean bone in his body and had never been good at sticking up for himself. It had been Mike’s job to do that for him. “Sorry, sorry I wasn’t smiling,” He scoffs.
“Whatever, man,” Mike scoffs as he turns to talk away.
“What about us?” Will questions as he follows Mike, refusing to let it go.
Mike turns around.
“What?” Mike hisses.
“You’re mad that I didn’t want to talk to you? You’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t care what I have to say,” Will says, his voice cracking.
“What are you talking about?” Mike replies, shaking his head.
“You’ve called maybe a couple of times, it’s been a year, Mike,” Will replies. “Meanwhile El has a book full of letters from you.”
“That’s because she’s my girlfriend, Will,” Mike tells him. He doesn’t understand why he has to spell it out for Will, what's so hard for him to understand. He had to write to El. I mean, a boyfriend should want to write to his girlfriend. It’s the way these things are supposed to work.
Nancy had been getting call after call from Jonathan after the move, and he sent her all these mixtapes in the mail.
That’s what a boyfriend was supposed to do.
And so Mike had done it. He’d written El those letters, he called to talk to her. He did everything that he knew was expected of him, just like he always did.
“And us?” Will asks.
“We’re friends,” Mike says. “We’re friends!”
Will shakes his head in disbelief.
“We used to be best friends.”
And God help him, Mike wished it didn’t hurt so much when Will said that. And he wished he could find the words to make Will feel better too.
But he knew he couldn’t.
He probably should have asked El to pass the phone to Will once they were done talking. But he didn’t know how to talk to Will anymore. He never knew what to say.
And Will had never called him. And the idea of calling Will, asking to talk to him, and Will not wanting to, of him brushing Mike off? The thought alone was terrifying. And Mike couldn’t bear that happening. He wouldn’t be able to handle that.
So he just continues to pretend.