Archive of Our Own

The gray expanse of Lake Michigan stretches out far, blending into the heavy clouds on the horizon. Small waves crest, caps stark white like the frost that coats the shoreline. Mike’s breath clouds in front of him with each exhale, cold air stinging his nose with each inhale. The stone wall is like ice under him, the chill seeping through his jeans and into his bones. 

He’s been out here far too long, staring at the water. He can’t even claim it’s in an attempt to clear his head; being alone is never a good way to get him to stop thinking. His mind goes in circles with no distractions, the what-if’s and if-only’s tripping over each other in his obsessive reflections and ruminations. 

The park’s mostly empty, with only a few other masochists wandering in the frigid January evening. A couple huddles close together for warmth by the shore, sitting in the sand. They’re so intertwined, heads burrowed on shoulders and arms linked together, Mike can’t tell where one person ends and the other starts. His throat constricts at the sight, and he swallows down the bitter envy that rises like bile. 

The postcard in his hand is barely visible in the evening gloom, but Mike smooths his fingers over the creases in the photo of Smith College that he knows is there. Will’s careful handwriting covers the other side, cramped to fit as many words as possible about his road trip to visit Robin with Nancy and Dustin. The postscript includes a joke about a brokenhearted ghost who’s rumored to haunt the grounds.

He should have gone to the library, or the dining hall, or just stayed in his dorm. In the quiet, the thoughts creep in. 

Will had looked good over winter break. Of course he looked good, but he looked different, too. He got his ear pierced, a tiny gold stud that caught the light and gleamed with every turn of his head. He’d talked about changing it to a hoop once it was fully healed. Selfishly, Mike hopes he doesn’t, because there’s no way he’ll be able to speak in full sentences around him anymore if he does. 

But it wasn’t just that, he thinks, steering his mind away from the dangerous zone of Will’s potential jewelry choices. He had a confidence about him, like he was finally no longer apologizing for taking up space, no longer holding his tongue and hiding what he really thought. 

When they were kids, Will never had a problem telling Mike what was on his mind, what annoyed him and what he looked forward to. Something changed after he moved to Lenora, that horrible time when Mike felt so distant from Will but unable to make himself write, even if he knew it would have helped. So he called, and when he couldn’t get through that way, he told himself that he did all he could. 

Mike was good at lying to himself, and after Lenora, Will was suddenly good at lying to Mike, too. 

He brushes the toe of his Chucks against the gritty sand beneath him. He’ll have to replace them soon. Every time it snows, a hole in the heel allows slush through the worn rubber, reminding him of how old they are. The laces are frayed at the edges, aglets long gone. He’s had these sneakers since high school. There’s probably Nevadan dust wedged under the eyelets still. 

An onslaught of wind strikes into him off the lake, slicing through the scant gaps in his winter defense. His beanie is pulled down over his forehead as far as it can go, and he wound a scarf over his nose and mouth, but the wind still bites at the exposed skin around his eyes. 

He bunches up his shoulders in an attempt to escape the chill, burrowing further into the scratchy wool of his scarf. 

Twilight settles around him, the distinctive call of a screech owl echoing across the park as the crepuscular animals’ activities begin, distinctive in the otherwise hushed quiet of the park. 

Crepuscular, he thinks; that was the word he was looking for earlier. He pulls his pocket-sized notebook out of his jacket and jots the word down, squinting to see the page.

He really should go before it’s too late… Jay did see a coyote out here that one time—wait. Jay. Fuck. 

Mike’s heart jumps in realization. He was supposed to meet Jay for that annual season-kickoff house party.

The reminder startles him out of his brooding. Heart in his throat, Mike shoves his notebook and the postcard back in his coat pocket and checks his watch.

Shit. He’s late, he’s so late. 

He launches himself up and over the wall and jogs down the path out of the park. If he’s lucky, a bus will come soon and he’ll make it to the baseball team’s house in twenty minutes. That should be soon enough that Jay won’t think he’s totally ditched him. He checks his watch again and picks up the pace. Shit, shit, shit. 

* * *

Good words: Copacetic, voluble, bellicose

* * *

Traffic and the CTA are on his side for once, and Mike spots the baseball team’s house easily after getting off at his stop. It’s a two-flat that’s swarming with college students, pounding music audible from the street. 

After staring at the churning crowd for a long moment, he rolls his shoulders back and approaches the building, mentally planning for the evening ahead. Once he gets inside, he’ll find the exits first, tackle the corners next. He’ll make his way slowly along the walls, scope out who’s there, if he recognizes anyone. Then go zone by zone to find Jay. 

He scowls to himself. Go zone by zone? What’s next, he breaks out a grid map of Chicago?

He doesn’t know when he started to think of house parties like crawls, but it’s a habit that only makes the contrast between him and his classmates all the more stark. 

He doesn’t have to look far for his roommate, in the end; Jay’s waiting by the front porch, and Mike suppresses a relieved sigh when he catches sight of him. He has no clue what he would have said to get by the intimidatingly buff guy acting as a bouncer by the building’s front door. 

Jay raises a hand in greeting when he sees Mike, and Mike gives a stilted wave back. 

“What’s up, Wheeler?” Jay lifts his hand for a fist bump, which Mike awkwardly meets. He always feels wooden, like he’s playing a part, when he tries to match Jay’s laidback attitude. 

“Sorry I’m late, I was at the Lake and totally lost track of time,” Mike says, shoving his beanie into his coat pocket. The air stings his ears immediately. 

Jay shrugs, unbothered. “No big. I always expect you to be at least thirty minutes late anyway.” He grins, and Mike laughs in response. It comes out sounding forced. 

“So, my guy,” Jay continues, “his friend’s actually the main hookup here. He’s not on the team, but he lives on-site anyway.” He clears his throat and looks around. “But I gotta warn you—he’s, uh…” Jay shuffles a step closer, lowering his voice. “A homosexual.” 

Ice shoots through Mike’s veins. He can’t figure out Jay’s tone. “Oh?”

Jay shrugs and moves out of Mike’s space. “Apparently he’s chill, though, so don’t worry. He’s not in your face about it.”

Mike forces a nod and shrugs in turn. “Okay, cool.” Cool? Christ, Wheeler. Why not just say you’re— 

He shakes the thought away and follows Jay up the porch steps. Jay greets the pseudo-bouncer with a complicated handshake that reminds Mike of Dustin, and he misses his friend with a familiar pang. The doorman swings the door open with a quip about bringing more chicks next time, and the music hits Mike like a blow to the chest. Their sound system must be insane. He’ll have to investigate to check out their set-up. 

Jay directs him through the crowd, stepping through the throngs of people with ease. Mike feels his pulse pound in his temples in tempo with the reverberating bass. 

* * *

W—

I’m sorry I didn’t realize before, when it counted. 

I’m sorry I made you doubt me enough that you thought I’d ever abandon you. 

I’m sorry I did, when it mattered

* * *

Soon enough, Jay finds his friends in the mob. They’re stationed by a long table laden with liquor bottles and mixers, a precarious tower of Solo cups balanced on the edge of the table next to a punch bowl. 

They greet each other with bracing back-slaps, effortlessly masculine and casual. There’s no stiffness in the way Jay slings an arm over his friend’s shoulder, messing with his hat. Mike swallows, pushing his insecurity aside and smiling when Jay gestures between Mike and the one with a backwards baseball cap. 

“This is Michael, my roommate,” he says. “Michael, Chris.” 

“Mike,” he corrects, extending his hand for a handshake. Chris grabs it and pumps his arm up and down so enthusiastically that his elbow feels in danger of dislocating. 

“Aha! The mysterious roommate, in the flesh.” Chris flashes him a wide grin. 

“We had a bet going on if you were a figment of Jay’s imagination or not,” the other man says. He must be Logan, the forewarned connection to the house. Mike’s eyes snag on the dimple that creases his cheek.

Mike tears his eyes away and accepts the plastic cup of indeterminate liquor Chris hands him. 

“I had my money on ghost,” Chris says. 

Jay groans. “Don’t tell me you believe in that crap.” 

Chris laughs, unoffended, and shrugs. “Hey, who knows!” 

“What about you?” Logan taps his cup against Mike’s to get his attention. “You a believer?”

“I’m open to the idea,” Mike says mildly, keeping his face blank. Nothing would surprise him at this point. Ghosts? Sure. Aliens? Why not. Dustin would be pumped. 

Jay socks Mike’s shoulder, causing the mystery-drink to almost slosh over the sides of his cup. “Of course you’d say that, Mr. Gothic Literature.” 

Mike shrugs, affecting nonchalance. “I’ve seen some weird shit over the years, what can I say.” He lifts his cup to his lips to give himself something to do and immediately screws his face up at the taste. It’s strong, astringent, pure paint stripper. “Jesus fuck, what is this?”

“House secret,” Chris says, too-smug for how vile the drink is. He leans in conspiratorially anyway and whisper-shouts, “7-Up, vodka, peach schnapps, Tang, and a ton of that red shit they put in Shirley Temples.” 

“Grenadine,” Mike supplies automatically, looking into the cup. It sounds fine in theory, but something’s appallingly wrong with the proportions. “You sure there’s no battery acid?” He takes another sip and shudders as the sharp bite of alcohol hits his throat. 

“It’s just ’cause they use the cheapest shit possible,” Logan says. He smiles, and something sparks warm in Mike’s chest at the sight. He jerks his head away and back to Chris as the other man defends the vodka choice.

The crowd ebbs and flows around their little group, pouring themselves drinks and setting up games of flip cup and beer pong on opposite sides of the living room. In the middle of the room, a dance floor starts, girls twirling around each other and couples pressed close. 

Mike sips at his drink, face warming as he slips into tipsiness. A pleasant haze falls over him. His mind is blissfully blank, relieved of the spiraling thoughts that usually overtake him.

He can be Normal-College-Student Mike. House-Party Mike.

He engages with Jay and his friends, following the conversation that winds around him. He laughs on cue when Jay finishes a dramatically exaggerated rendition of his horrible macroeconomics group project and accepts a refill of the punch when Logan offers. He taps his foot to the beat of the music that blasts from the speakers, listening with half an ear as he tries to keep up with the story Chris tells about something that happened at last year’s baseball playoffs. He could be talking in code, for all Mike understands him. 

Logan taps his elbow to get his attention. “How d’you like the music?” he asks, pointing to the ceiling. “I’m testing out a new mix for my Saturday-night disc jockey sesh.”

Listening closer past the surrounding clamor of the party, Mike takes a second to try to form an opinion on the song playing. It sounds like the same shit that plays everywhere, maybe a little more synth-heavy than what’s currently on the radio. 

“Yeah, it’s good,” Mike replies, nodding in time with the song. He must not sell his enthusiasm well enough, because Logan raises his eyebrows skeptically. 

Jay claps his hand onto Mike’s shoulder. “Wheeler’s a tough one to impress. He’s into obscure stuff. What was that band you played the other day, Broonki whatever?”

Logan’s eyes snap to Mike’s face. His gaze is focused, like he’s really seeing Mike now. 

Mike’s ears burn. He hopes it’s dark enough that they can’t see his no-doubt obvious blush. “I don’t know, that was just a mixtape from forever ago,” he says, brushing it off with a shrug. The motion feels jerky, tense. His pulse thrums in his veins. 

He shouldn’t have even taken that tape with him to school. He was just so used to bringing it everywhere, a habit from the Vecna years when everyone carried a cache of cassette tapes on them at all times, full of songs laden with meaning, just in case. He doesn’t even listen to synth-pop, not usually. 

Jay shrugs, letting go of the issue easily. He turns away and nudges Chris over to the flip cup table that’s finally set up. Logan stays by Mike’s side against the wall, bobbing his head in tune to the music, seemingly content just looking over the crowd. 

Mike’s eyes keep finding their way back over at Logan, absently watching the long line of his throat as he downs his drink. He doesn’t look any different than the other guys at the party. He looks like Chris, athletic and brawny, all-American and deeply attractive with his rich brown skin and warm eyes. Mike never would have guessed, if Jay hadn’t mentioned it. 

What’s it like to be out like that, so that people know before they even meet you? What’s it like to not have to tell people? To not be able to decide if you want to tell someone? Is Will out, he wonders; do people know about him, talk about him? Is it easier out East, less prejudiced, less dangerous? 

Why the fuck is he thinking about this at a party? 

He chugs the rest of his drink, wincing as it hits his tongue. Still disgusting. When he glances back over at Logan, the other man’s already looking at him. 

“You’re staring,” Logan says quietly, a teasing lilt to his voice. 

Alarm spikes through him at being caught. Mike whips his head over to check where Jay is, but he’s not paying attention. He and Chris are closely following the game of flip cup, cheering both sides on. He turns back to Logan. 

He should deny it, but his tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth. And, maybe, he admits to himself, he doesn’t want to deny it. 

Logan steps closer and hooks a finger in Mike’s belt loop. Mike’s stomach drops at the proximity, not unpleasantly. Logan gives him a gentle tug, once, before he drags him down the hall. He leads Mike into a secluded corner closer to the back of the house. Once they’re away from the crowds, he releases his hold on Mike and slumps against the wall, relaxed and open.

A memory flashes in his mind of Will on New Year’s Eve; he had a similar languid posture, laid out on Mike’s couch, liquid and boneless after too many lagers and champagne.

Mike had been out of it the whole night, stuck in his head. He’d stare at Will, realize what he was doing and force himself to look away, only to inevitably end up staring again. It was a guilty cycle. He felt too conspicuous no matter what he did; he’d focus on Will for far too long, or he’d be too obviously avoiding him, an impossible feat considering they were squished together on the couch the whole night.

His chest had constricted tighter and tighter as the countdown to the New Year ticked down, mind spinning with possible ways to lean into Will when the clock hit midnight.

In the end, none of his imagined propositions panned out (Hey Will, buddy, pal, we should totally kiss at midnight, that’s a normal thing to want to do with your best friend, right?) because Dustin had come up behind them and smacked effusive kisses on both their cheeks, arms around their shoulders as he cheered in the New Year. 

In the present, Logan gives Mike a slow once-over and raises an eyebrow. “So, Bronski Beat, huh?”

“It was just something a friend gave me,” Mike lies, grasping for an out. 

“Oh?” Logan smirks, lazy and cocky. “What’s your friend’s name, Dorothy?” 

Fuck. Wrong type of out. 

He’s already dug himself into this hole. Why not just throw the last shovelful of dirt over his head?

He swallows past a lump in his throat. “Yeah.” 

It’s the closest he’s come to saying it aloud. He’s barely admitted it to himself, in the safety of his own head.

He could accept that he wasn’t normal; he was always a little too attuned to Will, growing up. But that was expected, with their childhood, and he’s Will. Even when there was distance between them, Mike kept him in his periphery. It’s good to be perceptive; can he really be blamed for keeping note of everything Will does? 

But it’s one thing to revere your best friend, another thing to catalogue the way his eyes sparkled in the sun, the way he bit his lip when he was concentrating on a drawing. 

It’s something else altogether to notice the strong shoulders of the guys playing frisbee on the quad; to notice the way a classmate runs his hands through his hair; to notice the barista’s smile at the coffeeshop. 

To notice the way Logan’s eyes track over his face, the same way he’s doing in turn. 

He should’ve stayed in Hawkins. No one looked at him like this there.

Except for—

The thought vanishes as Logan leans in, his breath ghosting over Mike’s face. His eyes bounce between Mike’s own and his mouth, and Mike finds himself drifting closer, helplessly drawn in. Logan closes the distance with a heavy hand on his hip. 

What strikes him first is the lack of height difference, the easy way Logan barely angles his head to reach Mike. What hits him next is an undeniable flash of white-hot desire, straight through his core. 

Oh, he thinks, and then he stops thinking at all. 

It’s indelicate, messy, so different to anything Mike has experienced before. Logan trails wet, open-mouthed kisses across his jaw and down his neck, lightly scraping his teeth down the sensitive expanse of his throat, and Mike tips his head back against the wall. He closes his eyes and lets the bass wash over him, lets his hands wander down the other man’s side, lets himself go. 

Mike tilts his head down to capture the other man’s mouth with his own again. He nips at Mike’s lower lip, and Mike digs his fingers into his hip in response, pleased.

He pulls back a touch, saying something Mike can’t quite catch. Mike opens his eyes to see a flash of hazel—no, dark brown, framed by dark lashes. His eyes dart down to a mouth, catching the lack of mole above his lip, and then takes in the other man’s bleach-blond hair. Something tilts askew in his chest, and he startles back a step. The hand on his waist releases. 

“Whoa,” Logan says; that’s right, Logan, he’s at a house party in Lincoln Park. “You good? You look really out of it.” 

“Yeah,” Mike says quickly. “Drunker than I thought. I gotta—” He doesn’t even try to finish the sentence, just shoots Logan a sloppy smile and books it down the hallway, tripping over his feet in his haste. 

Oh, this is bad, this is bad bad bad. This was supposed to stay buried, not—

Not—

He shoulders through the crowd, not even hearing the annoyed protests of those he pushes past. The floor is sticky underfoot, and he’s sure his sneakers will be covered in spilled beer by the time he escapes the building. 

Why did he come here? Why did he ever think this could be a good idea? He was supposed to have a normal night out with his roommate, not make out with a random guy in a corner. Not a random guy, Jay’s friend, he thinks. Fuck. 

He breaks through the crowd to the front door and pushes it open. The doorman yelps, startled, as he stumbles onto the front porch. The lawn is empty, only one or two stragglers turning their heads when he rushes down the steps and out onto the street. 

Not Jay’s friend, he reasons, starting down the sidewalk, directionless. A friend of a friend. If he’s really gay, then he must know not to say anything, anyway. Is there a gay secrecy pact? There should be a secrecy pact for this. He’ll have to ask Will. 

No, he scolds himself. You will not ask Will, because there is no way in hell you’re ever even thinking about this again, never mind telling Will! 

* * *

To do:

• O’Hare to T. F. Green— $$$? Call Nancy for logistics?
• Return Frankl to the library
• Jay’s bday 2/27: ???
• New Dan Simmons release in March— call Lucas!! 

* * *

The parking lot is full when he arrives back at the dorm, cars packed like sardines across the sprawling lot. It takes Mike five minutes to find an open spot, and he only finds one because he’s able to squeeze his coupe in beside a boxier station wagon that’s taking up nearly two spaces. 

It’s late, probably too late for him to have just made the two-hour drive, but there was no way he was staying at that house one more night. It’s Sunday, which was a good enough excuse to give his parents for his early departure.

They saw him on his birthday; that should satisfy them enough for now, until he inevitably gets dragged back for some inane family event. 

The overtaxed rattling of the heat quiets as Mike turns the key in the ignition, stilling the engine. He clicks the interior light on, wincing at the brightness, and grimaces at his reflection in the rearview mirror. El was right; he does look tired, dark circles stark against his wan face. She’d said it that blunt way of hers: not mean, just factual.  

At least his hair has finally grown out to a good length again, even if it did mean that his dad spent the whole weekend making unsubtle remarks about how he should ‘clean up’. Another benefit of being a few hours away: he can brush it off, say he’ll get to it soon, and his dad won’t know he hasn’t. 

He didn’t have that advantage over winter break. He’d driven home, put his duffle bag on his bed, and before he knew it his dad was steering him into a barbershop to get his hair cut way too short, saying, You don’t want your grandparents to see you looking like a degenerate, do you? 

He’d swallowed his protests, the same way he swallowed them when his mom pressed a neatly ironed stack of polo shirts into his hands with a tight smile. 

At least she had the grace to look a little sorry about it. 

He’d gotten used to fidgeting with the ends of his hair, with letting it fall over his face to hide his expression. He spent the three weeks at home over break ducking his head futilely, waiting for a curtain that never came. His mom had bemoaned the loss of his curls, but she didn’t come to his defense when his dad scornfully hinted that he should look just as neat and orderly when he came home for the summer. It was just one cutting remark of many over the course of the weekend. 

His dad only focused on his appearance so much because Mike gave him little other ammunition to use. He’s long used to obscuring his college courses, only talking about the general required curriculum instead the classes actually related to his major. He doesn’t have to tell his dad about his poetry seminar to know what his reaction would be. 

Going home was always a double-edged sword, contradictory in a way that he never expected before he moved out. It was familiar, nostalgic, comfortable; it was grating, tedious, oppressive. 

Next time, he’ll have to ask El to drive up to him, or maybe they can meet halfway somewhere. Part of him never wants to sit at that tense dinner table again, to visit the house that feels smaller and smaller every time he returns. 

Except—Holly. Alone in that big house in a way that he and Nancy never had to be. 

He’ll be back. 

At least when he’s in Hawkins he can spend time with Joyce and El, and it was even nice to see—he hates to admit—Hopper. Even if Hopper does still eye him too closely when he hangs out with just El, as if they didn’t break up ages ago. 

He can put up with Hopper’s Cop Look when he visits (the crossed arms, the frown, brow drawn low over intimidating and assessing eyes) if it means he can get the reprieve that visiting the Byers-Hopper house gives him. 

At this point Hopper’s distrust for him seems more habit than actual suspicion anyway, but Mike’s unfortunate track record does, he acknowledges, skew towards needing suspicion. A little bit, if not Hopper’s full-blown glare. It’s not like Mike hasn’t changed at all from when he was a kid, messing with Hopper just for the sake of messing with him. 

Hopper still nearly refuses to leave them alone together in a room. As if there’s even any danger of El being interested in him again, never mind his whole… thing.

If he and El met for the first time today, there’s no way in hell she’d even give him a second glance. She’s worldly in a way that has nothing to do with travel; she’s capable, driven, curious. 

She’s been knitting, and taking swim classes, and learning pottery—anything and everything to keep her busy between her night classes at Ivy Tech. She’s the very opposite of Mike, who only goes to class and his dorm room and stares at a blank piece of paper for hours, trying to write. 

When he visits, it’s easy enough to keep the conversation on her, to ask about this class and that project, and keep the attention off himself and the utter lack in his life. 

It’s silly and more than a little pathetic, trying to hide his unhappiness from El. It’s futile. She understands more than she says, her wide eyes boring into his in their quietly discerning way. 

El’s always been able to read him. There’s no way she believes the front he puts up, but he’s happy pretending she does until she calls him out on it. His loneliness isn’t her problem; there’s no reason she should be weighed down by it. 

It could be a holdover from growing up in such a small town, where he’d known everyone since preschool, but he’s terrible at meeting new people, at connecting with strangers, at starting over. It makes him hold all the tighter to his friendships from childhood, and since he and El are just a couple hours away from each other, they’ve been spending more time together this year. There’s a funny irony to it; he practically sees her more regularly now than he did when they were dating, what with California and El’s isolation during the military lockdown years. 

He’d tried explaining to his roommate how he and El were still friends, and Jay just couldn’t wrap his head around it. Mike’s aware that the whole ‘staying friends with an ex’ thing was usually at least somewhat of a lie, and he’s immensely grateful that he and El have truly stayed close. Sure, maybe it has something to do with the fact that they’ve fought extradimensional horrors together, but they still click nonetheless. 

Guilt worms through Mike’s chest. There’s another reason that their transition from ‘dating’ to ‘friends’ was so easy; there had been barely a change at all, besides the lack of pressure.

They work better now, as friends, than they ever did when they were together. Mike feels closer to her now more than ever. He’s able to connect with her in a way that he just couldn’t before, when he was drowning in the expectations of how he should act, how he should feel.

You’re not supposed to be a little glad that you can’t visit your girlfriend because she’s hiding from the government. He can admit that to himself now. 

His remorse over their slow car-crash of a relationship is lessened by knowing that El feels the same. When he’d first broached the subject of breaking up, El had agreed so quickly it would have been offensive if he hadn’t been overcome with such a wave of relief. 

They didn’t have the emotional vocabulary back when they were sixteen, but they’d both agreed that it felt more like they were in a play, acting out ‘dating’ rather than actually dating. 

For El, as she’d explained back then and again years later after reading what must have been the entirety of Hawkins Library’s psychology and gender studies section (read: two books from 1975), it had been a way for her to be a regular girl and not just an experiment, even if it wasn’t working. It was what they were supposed to do; it was what normal teenage girls did. 

Mike sympathized with the sentiment, but never explained how deep his pretending really went. He got away with telling her half-truths, and avoided saying much of anything to anyone else.

In an act of cowardice or self-preservation, he didn’t tell his friends about their breakup. He knew they’d have questions, and he didn’t want to answer them; he hardly had answers for himself. 

If he didn’t name it, maybe it would disappear.

Mike plays with his hair, messing it up from the careful styling his mom insisted on doing before he left their house to have dinner with the Byers-Hoppers. She probably thought he was trying to woo El, too. She had combed gel through it, taming the flyaways. He looks like his dad; did he really look like that throughout the whole dinner?

Mike clicks the cabin light off. That’s enough of that. 

Outside, the parking lot is silent, dark, still. He could be the only one awake on campus, with how quiet it is. 

How many weeks are there until the end of the year? Eight? He can survive eight weeks. 

One month into fall quarter was all it took for Mike to realize how unprepared he was at the whole ‘college’ thing. He’s terrible at starting over, terrible at change, always has been. He only made it through freshman year of high school because Dustin and Lucas were alongside him when Eddie first drafted them into Hellfire, and he barely held it together when Lucas deviated from their new normal to join the basketball team. 

He had been almost thankful for the apocalyptic circumstances that colored his high school experience; he didn’t have to worry about extracurriculars when the world was ending. 

It didn’t hurt that it also brought Will back to Hawkins.

Of course, that only lasted until their junior year, though the military’s drawback from town and repairing the fallout of the Upside Down’s implosion was distracting enough for the rest of high school. For him, at least. His friends were better at returning to normal. Hell, even Max, with her plethora of summer school classes and physical therapy appointments, had adjusted to post-apocalypse life better than he did. 

His friends’ ability to ease back into normalcy carried into college. 

It had been one thing to hear small updates in their occasional calls and letters, but winter break brought a deluge of proof down on Mike: his friends were moving on without him. They were on sports teams (intramural volleyball for Dustin, D1 basketball for Lucas), knew the ins and outs of local dive bars, told stories with webs of strangers involved. 

What did he expect, that they’d come back together during break and commiserate together? That they’d regroup and he’d realize that they all felt as out of depth as he does? 

It’s not that he wants his friends to struggle, but—what’s wrong with him? Why can’t he make friends like Will, ace his classes like Dustin, join a club like El? 

And Max and Lucas—the familiar way they communicate with half a sentence, always saving the other a seat, finding each other in a crowd with ease—it made bile rise in his throat with envy. 

Why can’t he—

Mike knocks his head back against the headrest, exhaling long and slow through his mouth. His eyes burn. 

He’s not going to cry, he’s eight—nineteen years old. 

He sits in his car for a long while, until the last of the heat fades and he’s left shivering. 

* * * 

Halcyon, solipsistic, ersatz 

* * *

The drone of the phone ringing stretches on and on in his ear, and he bounces on his toes impatiently. It’s five in Providence; he should be able to catch Will in his dorm before he goes to dinner. 

The common room is bustling around him, students lounging on couches and chatting around the bulletin board. The girl on the payphone next to him side-eyes his anxious fidgeting, and Mike forces himself to still.

If Will would just pick up—

Finally, the ringing stops, and a click sounds as someone answers the call. A chirpy, feminine voice greets, “Will Byers’ secretary, who is this?”

He doesn’t recognize the voice, and his brain stalls for a moment. “Uh—Mike,” he says, suppressing the urge to repeat the question back to her. 

“Mike,” the mystery girl muses, like she’s trying to place the name. “Are you that guy from Pavement? With the lip ring? Didn’t Will say he’d meet you at nine?”

“The—what?” Mike squeaks. He clears his throat. “No. No, I’m his friend, from home?” He sounds unsure even to his own ears. Eddie’s voice rings in his head: Ouch! Critical fail on that charisma check, Wheeler. 

There’s a heavy silence. He’d think she hung up the call, but he hears muffled voices through the line still, as if she has her hand over the receiver. 

Mike’s stomach sinks as the moment stretches on. It’s not surprising that Will has guys calling his dorm—who wouldn’t want to date Will?—and he’s not embarrassed to be mistaken for one, but… doesn’t Will ever mention him? His friends don’t even know his name? 

He hears a quiet, distressed Fuck muttered in the background of the call, and he realizes he misread her silence. 

“You can chill, I’m his best friend,” he says, hoping to assuage her guilt over possibly outing Will. Static crackles over the line as the girl removes her hand from the phone. 

“Oh, that Mike,” she says. “Got it. Can I take a message? Will’s got studio hours right now.” 

“Oh, no, uh, I just wanted to say hi.”

“Hi,” she says. It’s clearly a dismissal. Feeling strangely jilted, he goes to hang up the phone but stops when she yelps, “Wait! Adam and I were wondering, did Will really go missing when he was a kid?”

Indignant anger flares behind his breastbone. Were these really the people Will couldn’t shut up about over break? “I’m not telling you anything he hasn’t told you himself,” he says hotly. 

To his confusion, the girl barks a laugh and says, “Guess Dustin wasn’t lying about that!” and hangs up. 

Mike stares at the receiver in his hand for a long, dumbfounded moment before he puts the handset back in the cradle. Someone taps his shoulder, and he startles, muttering a quick apology before he shuffles out of the way of the payphone. He walks back to his dorm in a daze. 

Dustin? Okay. Of course they know Dustin, he’s, what, an hour train ride away? He must visit all the time. But what did she mean by that? Did Dustin and Will talk about him? Has he been too obvious? 

They have to talk about him sometimes, if only in the benign way everyone gossips about their friends. He’s definitely guilty of the inverse, of complaining about this or that about one of the other Party members with Will. 

The Party has been close for so long it’s hard to remember a time when they weren’t all together, and they all call themselves each other’s best friend. Despite that, part of him—a selfish, greedy part of him—still feels like Will is his best friend, though. Like a little kid on the playground who can’t share his toys. 

The image of Will laughing at him sticks in his head. He knows he can be too much, overprotective and clingy, but he’s been working on it. Did Will complain about him? Does he groan when Mike calls, rolling his eyes with his swanky art school friends while Mike rambles pathetically on the other side of the call? 

Stop it. He shakes the thought away. He knows Will doesn’t do that, and he needs to stop spiraling about the stupidest hypothetical shit.

Anxiety twists in his gut, undeterred by logic. 

It’s different, imagining Will talking about him like that, different than any of his other friends. It’s no secret to him why that is.

He used to have all these rules for his friendship with Will, and he realized too late why that could have been. So, okay. Maybe how he felt about Will was different than how he should feel, different than how he feels about Lucas or Dustin or Max or El—but he’s still his best friend, and he cares for him. 

And now Will has a whole cadre of interesting people, and Mike can’t compare. He’s a cardboard cutout of a man, and Will is a full, actualized person, with culture and dimension. 

He can admit it to himself, now. It was unavoidable, inevitable, woven into his DNA the moment he came across Will alone on those swings. He’s loved Will his whole life, whether he was conscious of the weight of it at the time or not. 

So, fine: he loves Will. Who wouldn’t? 

It’s not a question of loving Will—of being in love with him—it’s a question of how much he can bury it before it suffocates him. 

It will, one day. He feels it rising with each day closer to summer, coming up high in his throat. He tries to temper it, but it refuses to lessen. 

Mike’s lucky to have kept his place in Will’s life as long as he has, through Will’s vanishing and possession, through adolescent fights and reconciliations, through an apocalypse and their victory. Their friendship is sacred, and his maudlin pining can’t get in the way of it. He can accept what he has, what he has the fortune to have kept for all these years. 

He can accept it, really, he can. 

But there’s an air of potential, when he’s around Will. He feels it when he glances over only to catch Will already looking at him, when their knees brush because they ended up too close on the couch again, when Will cracks a joke under his breath so only Mike can hear. 

What if it’s not all in his head? What if there’s something there? 

What if there’s not? 

The scales tip in his head, the balance shifting as he reevaluates and corrects the weight of each shared look, each kindness Will paid him. 

What if he’s wrong?

What if he’s not?

* * * 

To do:

• Check the Reg for Howl and Other Poems, Ginsberg
• Call Dustin re: stop shit-talking me!!!

* * *

5/6/90

I had that dream again, where the bomb fails and El dies and I’m frozen in place. It reminded me of a line from Spring: ‘So I just stood there, inside the jaw of nothing.’ The jaw of nothing: the iron hold of my own incompetence. Even in my own head, I can’t do anything. Immobilized. Impotent. Inept. 

As far as stress dreams go, I’ve had better. Bring back the one about falling into the quarry, at least I know how that one ends. 

5/20/90

Read that Jon Anderson collection finally—‘a story so helpless, so starless, we all belonged.’ I want to mail a copy of In Sepia to Will but he’d get on the first plane out to make sure I wasn’t, like, dying. Hey, that’s not a bad idea: make your best friend think you’re dying, just so you can see his face! 

Dying would be better than feeling like this, anyway

He crosses out the final line, scribbling over it until it’s illegible. 

The door slams open, startling him upright from where he’s slouched over his desk. He hastily closes his journal and glances over his shoulder. 

“This Macro final is going to kill me,” Jay groans, slinging his backpack onto the ground by the door. He throws himself onto his bed with a heavy sigh. “I’m gonna explode Harrison with my mind.” 

Mike whips around in his chair. His mind is still fuzzy, coming out of his writing headspace, but he can’t have heard right. “You can do that?” 

Jay stares at him. “Dude, what? Are you high or just sleep deprived?” 

Oh. Right. Joking. 

Mike forces a laugh. “Yeah. I’ve been up studying for so long that I’m starting to hallucinate.”

Jay’s brow furrows with concern, and Mike realizes that that was also not a normal thing to say. He turns back around, ears burning.

If only he had the excuse of sleep deprivation to explain his weirdness; he hasn’t even studied that much, instead focusing on planning a summer campaign for the Party. It’s taken him forever to even get an outline together. He last played D&D ages ago, over winter break, and he feels rusty. It’s not that he doesn’t have any ideas, either; he has too many, and no time to sort through them. So he pushed off his other work, procrastinated his history readings and reworked a rejected campaign idea for his Creative Writing final paper, and put all his energy into the campaign. 

This campaign has to be perfect. The quest has to be compelling, the twists have to be satisfying, and everything has to be weighed correctly, the encounter ratings matching the Party’s current levels. Max even said she’d join at least once, and it’s Mike’s mission to get her so intrigued that she has to return for another session. 

(The biggest challenge has been flipping through the Monster Manual, trying to find enemies for them that are more creative than a group of bandits or a dragon, but aren’t too reminiscent of the real-life monsters they’ve faced. He almost added a shambling mound to their last campaign before he caught the word vines in the description and scrapped the idea.)

It’s Will’s last summer in Hawkins. He has to make sure this campaign is the best one yet. 

Across the room, Jay shuffles papers around, cracking open a textbook and settling down at his desk. Mike shoves his journal away into a drawer and busies himself with looking through a folder that lays on his desk. The papers inside are from last semester, and he feels abruptly ridiculous, pantomiming studying. He holds back a sigh and rolls his neck out before sorting through the mess on his desk more, searching for his syllabi. He’s sure he has one more paper to do, but he can’t remember what it was about for the life of him. 

Outside, the sun peeks out from behind the screen of clouds that stretch over the sky, and the room is briefly awash in sunlight. Warm weather finally broke in Chicago that week, and the promise of summer is just around the corner. The anticipation courses through Mike like electricity. 

“What finals d’you have left?” Jay asks through a yawn. He highlights a passage in his textbook and copies it into a notebook.

“I think I’m all done,” Mike says, though he still has that nagging feeling in the back of his mind. 

“Even the historiography paper? Damn, you’re quick. I thought you didn’t do the readings yet.” 

Mike blinks at him. “Oh. That.” 

Jay laughs. “Dude. You totally forgot, huh? Summer-itis get you already?”

Mike smiles sheepishly. “A bit, yeah.” 

“Can’t blame you there.” Jay twists in his chair to face Mike. “Excited to get back home?”

“Excited to see my friends from home again,” Mike corrects. He shoves the papers he was sorting through off to the side and grabs his Global Studies binder. 

The campaign isn’t the only thing he’s been planning. He has a lot to say, only three months to gather the courage to say it. 

* * *

To do:

• Pack
• Oil change
• Sell textbooks
• Just tell him.