Chapter Text
It's warm out, and the day is too nice. There's a waver in the leaves and disorganization in the house drawers that tells Mike something is coming. Something hungry for blood. Boredom that can only result in bad decisions and bad memories.
At least for Mike Wheeler, nothing kicks off quite like the summer.
Even in college, Mike has found that the summer always feels the same. His heart feels as humid as the June air, warm and sticky for home.
The nostalgia is uncomfortable, like skin catching on sheets, but after a hard day, nonetheless. Everything without Hawkins feels like that. He keeps catching glimpses of his family, his high school, and the party. He sees home in convenience stores, in run-down restaurants. He sees it in the insults thrown around by Lucas' new basketball friends. He sees it in paint-stained sleeves and brunette heads scattered across his art class. He sees it everywhere. In the trees, in the yellow skies over the evening, in the clouds.
He didn't know he could feel so close to home, and long for it so much at the same time. Now is the time to go home.
Hawkins is missing from his memory, in the same way that home—whatever that even is anymore—is missing from Chicago. It's there, lingering behind his eyes. He doesn't see it anymore, doesn't think about it, but he feels it. He knows it's not coming back to get him, because he's dragged it along beside him over the last year, and he can see, in the remnants of his fears, that it’s dead. He just still feels it.
As much as he loves Hawkins, he's not sure he has much of a reason to come back. He's nervous, and if he's being honest with himself, apprehensive. There's nothing to go back to. Nothing he wants there as much as he wants peace. That's not what Hawkins is, or ever has been.
Like it's already routine, Mike sits behind the wheel, driving home for the first time in a year.
-
As he walks in through the door, Mike is quickly greeted by a hurried hug from his mother. She has a stack of laundry hanging on her arm. Her hold is too tight for him to move, so he resorts to depositing his bags on the floor.
"Mike, honey!" Karen gasps, "Ugh, I just missed you so much!!" She clamps at his face with her free hand, and gives Mike the same sad, hopeful look she's been giving him for years.
Despite the swell of his heart, he shunned her efforts with an "Okay, mom," and wiggled out of her grasp to bring his luggage somewhere more polite and secluded.
The basement does just fine. Dustin is already wrapped up in a torn-apart box of comics, having packed away the majority of items they weren’t taking to college. He knows Lucas is following close behind.
See, Lucas and Mike had agreed to go to the same college. Or, more accurately, they had ended up in the same college. They also happened to get the same dorm (which may or may not have been a purposeful trick of the quizzing system they used to pair dorm mates at UC.)
In their time there, Lucas had acquired style. And with style came many clothes.
There were plenty of malls and thrift stores in Chicago, many of which accommodated his new wardrobe. Mike was sure he would buy up all the shelves if he could.
Needless to say, Lucas had packed plenty of outfits for the few weeks they'd be staying. Mike, on the other hand, was fine with anything he had in his own closet.
"Oh my god. No way," Dustin said, grabbing Mike's attention.
"What?" Dustin turned from where he was sitting, holding up an old, worn comic. The bold text on the front said "Uncanny X-Men #134.” It seemed to have plenty of mug stains and ripped pages.
Before Dustin could continue, the basement door clicked, and was slowly cracked open. Mike stepped over to the bottom of the stairwell and looked up. It was Lucas, surely. He couldn’t have been that long.
At further glance, it hadn’t been Lucas like he'd assumed. Instead, he saw the striped navy shirt and nervous green eyes he’d spent 10 months trying to forget.
After Will spent a moment gently scanning the room, he opened the door more confidently. He must not have seen Mike, because he stopped dead in his tracks.
They just stand there and stare for a moment. He doesn't look shocked, necessarily, just very nervous. Nervous and obsessive.
By obsessive, Mike doesn't mean controlling or invasive. Will has always been obsessed, whether with the details in his paintings or friendly faces in a crowd. Mike has seen him at his most obsessive, when he’d taped the rushed crayon sketches up to his walls in a frenzy.
Typically, though, Will was the quiet kind of obsessive. He watched as his eyes widened and searched Mike all over. It was a strange feeling to be seen head-on. To be analysed. He bathed in it until it left him.
“Who’s that, I can’t-” Dustin muttered curiously, “I can’t see.”
With one last burning look, Mike gave a few steps to the room behind him as he got up off his kneeling leg.
“Holy shit! Byers!” Dustin yelled up, swiftly jumping in front of Mike to hang off the white wooden panels barricading the stairwell. “Come on down, man, we got soda!”
-
The staring lasts the whole day. It breaks for convenience, but any time Will gets the chance, he’s looking back at Mike. Will’s eyes and lips elate him; it gives Mike a rush that hasn’t been so heavy in months.
Miserable desire sits in his gut, stirring wildly and making him foolish, just like how he was when Will came back from California. Except this time, he's not afraid. He has no girl to cling to; he has no distractions. He just has Will.
As the day goes on, Will loosens up. He starts telling more jokes, and he’s gotten much better at them since being at NYU. He’s not just out of his shell, he’s officially graduated to no-shell status. He’s loud, and a bit crude. It’s exhilarating.
He feels high, and he must be, because no sober person would feel this way. He has a good idea of what addiction looks like. He has half a mind to believe Will is some sort of drug he’s relapsed into. He considers that this version of Will isn’t the same drug as before. It isn’t the same kind of high. He feels like he’s gone straight from indica to cocaine.
Mike is fixated on his eyes for a different reason than usual. Directly on his waterline, dark black eyeliner has been carelessly drawn. He can’t imagine it’s not uncomfortable to apply, but he’s not really thinking about that right now.
Will smells like cigarettes and cinnamon. He looks rougher, worn in to his core. An artsy punk is who he’s always been, and New York must have brought it to the surface.
He’s also more confident. Just being in a room with him feels amplifying. It’s liberating, in a way. This feels nothing like the innocent adoration of their freshman year. Mike feels emboldened by Will’s newfound assertion of himself, like he’s been challenged to meet his level.
And Mike decides, then and there, that’s exactly what he’ll do. He’ll prove that Chicago is just as cool and tough, that he stands his ground, and wears enough spikes to be a damn-near hazard. He’s gonna prove to Will that he’s punk enough.