Chapter Text
It’s raining.
Mike and Will stand outside the Wheelers’ front lawn, throats stripped raw from yelling at each other, chests heaving as the two take in rapid, deep breaths, and it’s raining. In a twisted sort of way, the scene reminds Mike of one of those cheesy, emotional romance movies Nancy and his mom love to watch in the living room, wiping their eyes with tissues as the characters on the screen confess their undying love for each other. He could almost laugh.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he stares at the boy in front of him as shame begins to pool in his stomach. The rain cascades off Will’s frame, leaving nature’s tear tracks in its trace. They soak his hair, causing it to stick to the front of his face and obstruct his view of the boy in front of him and yet, through the gaps in his bangs, he stares at Mike with a fire burning through his retinas. The silence continues stretching between the two and judging by the way Will’s expression twists as if he were physically wounded, Mike knows he’s truly hurt him.
“You’re such a coward, Mike.”
—
When Mike comes to, he realizes he is not, in fact, standing in the pouring rain outside his house, but rather in the comfort of his room, tangled in the mess of blankets that make up his childhood bed. He breathes out a sigh, sitting up and running his fingers through his now-tangled hair. He feels as though his dreams lately have been doing everything in their power to torment him. From nightmares, recounting his most embarrassing memories, to memories of that day , Mike’s mornings are filled with waking up in a cold sweat and his heart beating out of his chest. Today is no exception.
Shaking off the feeling of dread, Mike climbs out of bed to begin preparing for the day. After all, senior year is no feat and despite his resentment toward all things school-related, Mike would, at the very least, like to obtain his high school diploma. He shrugs on whatever clean, moderate clothes he has lying around his room and goes through his typical morning routine (or lack thereof), before joining his family downstairs for breakfast.
He pours maple syrup over his eggs—a trick he learned from Will years ago—and smirks at his younger sister after seeing her grimace at the sight.
Mornings at the Wheeler household have always been on the quieter side. With Nancy away for college and his dad long gone since his parents’ divorce during his sophomore year, breakfast was usually a time for comfortable silence—save for the scraping of utensils against plates and the soft music emitting from his mom’s radio in the kitchen. Mike didn’t mind though, it was much better than the tense dinners he and his family were subjected to back when his dad was still around.
Nowadays, it was just him, his mom, and Holly. The three of them got by just fine, his mom picking up a job at some office nearby and although Mike loved messing with his sister, they got along as well as siblings tend to do. Life was good. Life was better .
“Mike,” his mom says, breaking the silence. “Is Will still coming over next week?”
His eyes flicker up from his plate to her, swallowing the food in his mouth. “Uh—yeah, probably.”
She smiles. “That’s good. You know, I’m always glad you two worked out whatever fight you had before. He’s a good kid.”
He drops his gaze again. Right. Their fight .
As far as anyone knew, there was a time in the summer in which Mike and Will suddenly stopped talking altogether. It came as a surprise to everyone, including the Party, who buggered and pried at both sides to try and get them to work it out—yet, neither budged. It didn’t matter how many times Lucas came to Mike, impatiently tapping his foot and waiting for him to spill the beans, or how much his mom attempted to get him to stop wallowing in self-pity in their basement.
No one could know about Mike and Will’s secret—it was what they agreed on.
It wasn’t like their usual secrets, like the ones they’d whisper to each other when they stayed up just a bit too late during their sleepovers. This secret was something they had kept between only them—not even the Party knew.
Mike and Will were exes.
Well, he isn’t too sure if Will would even consider them that, actually. To be fair, they had only dated a few months (2 months and 17 days. Not that Mike counted or anything.) and it felt just the same as it did when they were just friends, just with the added bonus of more physical intimacy. In the summer between their first and second year of high school, Will had come to Mike after one of the Party’s hangouts, face beet red and sweating nervously, and confessed his feelings to him. And Mike—obviously—had accepted. Of course he did, it was Will . Sweet, shy, caring, beautiful Will. Even now, Mike wonders what exactly he did to deserve having his own feelings reciprocated.
Mike reminisces about it now: The way Will’s cheeks would flush after Mike complimented any aspect of him, the way his hand felt intertwined with his, the way he would stare at Mike with eyes that said I can’t believe it! I have you!
It was good, so good.
Until it wasn’t.
A fight in the rain. A messy break up. A period of neither one of them talking to each other—all while the Party remained blissfully unaware to the reasoning behind the tension lingering between the two boys.
In the end, it was Will who came around. He appeared in front of Mike a few days before school started with the proposition they forget about the whole thing, that they go back to being normal best friends. And Mike agreed.
“Right,” he says to his mom, his stomach suddenly too heavy to hold food. He looks to the clock on the wall.
6:48
Shit .
His chair scrapes against the floor as he stands up a bit too quickly for it to handle. “I gotta run,” he says, taking the time to ruffle Holly’s hair messily before waving them a half-hearted goodbye.
—
When Mike approaches Will’s locker before first period, the first thing he notices is Will’s expression. Though he is viewing him from the side and his face is partially blocked by his locker door, Mike can make out his wide eyes, raised brows, and the faintest twinge of pink now dusting his cheeks. Mike knows this expression. He’s been the one to cause it all those years ago, after calling Will cute or complimenting his art. It means he’s flustered.
What the fuck is this.
“Will!” Lucas calls as he and Dustin pass Mike, the two now crowding around his locker.
Will’s Locker™ had become the perfect meeting spot for the Party during their senior year of high school. Whereas Mike and Will shared their first period of English together, Dustin and Lucas’ respective classes were just a short walk from their meetup spot. Not that it mattered much to Mike anyway, he’d always be willing to go out of his way to spend time with Will his friends, even if that meant getting to Chemistry fifteen minutes late and getting another disapproving look from his teacher all because Will’s math class was on the opposite side of school—and even though he said he didn’t mind the long walk to class alone, who was he to stop Mike from tagging along after lunch?
“Oh uh–” Will stammers. Mike, now standing in line with their other two friends, watches as he fumbles with something in his hand before quickly shoving it into his jacket pocket. “Hey guys.”
“Whatcha got there?” Dustin asks, peering over at Will’s hand now shoved into his pocket.
“Nothing, just–” Will’s cut off as Dustin reaches over to grab at his jacket, resulting in Will quickly pivoting on his foot to get away. “Dustin, what the hell–!”
It’s quite the scene. Two upperclassmen play-fighting in the middle of the crowded hallway—it’s no wonder why people in their grades found the Party to be on the stranger side. Mike and Lucas share a look, before returning to watch their friends’ battle. The two scuffle for a bit, with Dustin continuing to make grabby hands at Will’s frame as the other boy twists and turns his body to escape his reach, laughing as he does so. The final straw, however, seems to be when Dustin begins poking at Will’s side, and Will, being the type of person to feel ticklish when even the slightest thing brushes at him, can’t stop himself from laughing. He’s swatting Dustin away now, stepping back, back, back until–
In an instant, he watches Will stumble before tripping over his own foot, sending him backward into Mike’s chest. Instinctively, he loops his arms around Will’s forearms, catching him before he can fall any further.
It’s strange—for Mike at least. He and Will don’t really do hugs anymore. Of course the break up had a big role to play in that coming about, but also the fact that two boys hugging was a one-way ticket to sideways glances and allegations neither one of them wanted to deal with. Yet, holding Will in his arms with his back against his chest, Mike remembered just how much he missed it. He missed the close contact they once shared. He missed being able to breathe in Will’s scent, the way his hair always smelled a bit reminiscent of fresh linen and pine—
“Alright, that’s enough,” Mike tells them, more so Dustin, as he loosens his grip on Will, helping his friend gain stability back on his feet. He hears a soft mumble of thanks from the boy below him and if he notices the red twinge in Will’s ears, he chooses not to comment on it.
“Sorry, sorry,” Dustin says, hands up in surrender. He shoots Will an apologetic glance as a sign of truce, which he reciprocates. The first bell rings and the gang begins to say their goodbyes, getting ready to walk to their respective classes. “We’re gonna get to the bottom of this, Byers!” Dustin yells out as Mike and Will walk to English, earning him a playful shove from Lucas.
He hears Will laugh softly at Dustin’s exclamation. From the corner of his eye, he watches as Will once again places his hand into his jacket pocket as if checking to see if whatever he’s hiding was still in there. Mike rolls the thought of it around in his mind like one does with a hard candy on their tongue. He wants to ask about it, he does, but if Will had gone so far as to fight with Dustin to keep it a secret, Mike felt maybe now wasn’t the best time to pry.
“You good?” Mike asks.
“Yeah,” he breathes, looking down as he begins to straighten out his now-wrinkled jacket.
“You sure?”
This time, Will looks up to face Mike. He’s making that face again—the one where his pupils seem to grow just a bit wider and though his expression remains neutral, Mike feels as if Will is looking straight into the depths of his soul and uncovering all the secrets hidden beneath him. He knows, Mike’s mind whispers, thoughts dark and eerie. Tell him. Why do you keep lying? He wonders if Will can see right through him, call him out on all the things running through his mind.
“Of course,” he says instead.
—
It didn’t take long for Mike to figure out what exactly the papers were. They were love notes.
Small ones. Usually in the form of folded up sticky notes or pieces of paper ripped out of a composition notebook. From the few instances Mike had been around for Will to find one, they never seemed to hold more than a sentence or two. And even then, he was almost never able to read one in its entirety.
He had only been able to sneak a glance at the contents of one once.
It was a Tuesday after fourth period, when Mike had walked Will back to his locker after skipping class to hang out with him once again. He had been leaning against the locker beside Will’s, absentmindedly scrolling on his phone as they waited for the other Party members to show up, before he watched something flutter out of Will’s locker and land right by Mike’s feet.
He looked to Will, who was preoccupied in searching for his statistics textbook to notice the note now missing from his locker. Mike peered down at it. It was small, no bigger than his thumb, and the paper itself was a light shade of blue. The words were compact and albeit a bit messy—so much so that he had to squint his eyes a bit to make out exactly what was written. And when he did, he really wished he hadn’t.
you look cute today :-)
Mike stepped on it, brought it back under his foot, and pretended like nothing had ever happened.
—
Days pass and Will continues to receive these secret notes; in which he continues to hide them from the Party. Nowadays, however, they appear in places besides his locker. He’s seen Will smile down at his lap in class as he unfolded one he had found in his pencil box, open up his binder to see a paper flutter out and to the ground, quickly snatching it before anyone gets the chance to look too close—one time even appearing in his lunch box . Mike chooses not to think about how exactly one got in there.
“Seriously, what’s taking him so long?” Dustin exclaims one day. The Party, save for Will (who has weirdly been late to meet them for lunch these past few days), looks to Dustin. “It’s been like—three weeks and he still hasn’t come clean about the notes!”
Mike watches as the others nod solemnly. As much as he would’ve loved to preach on how they should respect Will’s privacy, he too believed it was time for some answers.
“It’s obviously a secret admirer,” Lucas chimes. “I mean—do you see the way he acts when he reads them?”
Dustin nods enthusiastically. “Definitely. I tried reading one over his shoulder last week and he almost knocked the lights out of me.”
“Well, whoever it is, I’m pretty sure they switched over to texting.” Max adds. “I haven’t seen him get a note in a while, now he’s always smiling down at his phone. There’s only so many times he can tell me he’s ‘just looking at something’ before I start getting suspicious.”
Mike is not a fan of this conversation. He doesn’t want to think about Will’s new secret-maybe-not-so-secret-anymore admirer. And he certainly does not want to think about what hijinks the two of them get up to.
“El, do you know anything?” Lucas’ voice breaks Mike’s thoughts.
Suddenly, the entire table turns to El, who Mike is now noticing has been suspiciously quiet this whole time. Her brows shoot off her head as her gaze flickers from one member to another. She looks away, taking a sip from her juice box before shrugging, “I cannot confirm or deny.”
The table erupts in chatter. “Oh my god, the answer’s been here the whole time!” Dustin groans, hands flying up to his hair. “El, c’mon you have to tell us.”
“Pleaseee—!”
“Think about the Party. Our friendship. Friends don’t lie.”
“Hey, wait a second,” Mike interrupts, holding up a hand to silence the table. “I wanna know just as bad as anyone else, but I think we should wait for Will to tell us.”
“Tell you guys what?”
Slowly, all five pairs of eyes glance up to see none other than Will Byers standing before them, bagged lunch in hand as he stares at the group quizzically.
“Will, buddy. Have a seat,” Dustin says sympathetically, patting the empty spot between him and Lucas.
Will gives the seat a weird look, before glancing at Mike with an eyebrow raised. His usual spot was always near the end of the table, right next to Mike, but as the other boy shrugs and gestures toward the place where Dustin is patting, Will reluctantly sits down in it.
“It’s gone on long enough now,” Dustin begins, voice eerie. Mike has to hold back a laugh seeing Will’s face grow mortified. “Just tell us… Do you have a girlfriend?”
Will gawks at the question.
“Do I—I’m sorry— what? Girlfriend?” he babbles, repeating the question as if he can’t believe his friend would ask such a thing. The other members of the Party nod fervently—save for Mike and El.
“Not a girlfriend,“ El whispers sing-songingly. Will shoots her a look and if the two weren’t sitting so far apart, Mike is sure he would’ve whacked her in the head.
“The notes,” Lucas tells him. “We’ve all seen them by now and we’ve seen how you react to them. We just wanna know who the lucky lady is,” he wiggles his eyebrows for emphasis.
He flushes. “No, no. I don’t have a girlfriend,” he says. They all continue to stare at him. He looks down at the table, biting nervously at the inside of his cheek. There is a flash of something on his face, as if something in him has shifted. He seems to continue his contemplation for a bit, and as Mike is about to speak up to once again tell his friends to lay off, Will breaks the silence:
“Do you guys know Chance?”