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It takes Mike almost a full day to realize that something is wrong. There are about a million different times when he should have noticed it, but if Mike is one thing, it’s oblivious as the day is long. So instead, it takes him upwards of twenty-two hours to pick up on the bad vibrations of it all (bad vibrations, as in the opposite of good vibrations, which just makes Mike think about the Beach Boys in a weird, roundabout sort of way).
Will used to love Good Vibrations–the song. In elementary school, he’d carefully pull his mom’s old 45 of the song out of its sleeve, place it onto the platter of the record player with gentle fingers, and set the needle down like the whole thing was a science. Mike would get entranced watching how Will made a routine out of the whole affair. God, Will used to treat his mom’s records like they were something holy, and it was beautiful in the kind of way only another kid could notice, like listening to jazz music for the first time and feeling it in your bones, which sounds corny, but there’s no other way of putting it.
Then Will’s dad trashed all the good records, took the bad ones for himself, and then took off altogether. Mike wasn’t particularly sad to see him go, though. Will’s dad was never anything more than a surefire way to ruin a good time with Will. As Mike got older, he started to actually understand what a world-class jackass Lonnie Byers was–and probably still is–but at the time, all he knew was that the guy stank of alcohol and made Will cry a lot. That was enough for Mike to hate him.
There wasn’t any more Beach Boys at the Byers’ house after that. It wasn’t like the house became void of music or anything, but the soundtrack changed. Instead of replacing their records, they stocked up on cassettes (a few years late to the trend). It was sort of profound in a way that Mike probably understood better than he should have. Will’s music taste became its own dynamic thing, and he would go through these phases that weren’t really cohesive with one another, but Will saw something special in all of them, so by extension, Mike gave them all fair chances. It was mostly mainstream stuff, the ABBA and Styx and the Jackson Five, but listening with Will always made it feel like they were the only ones on the planet with those songs, even though they were only, like, ten years old at the time.
God, Mike used to be so in tune with Will.
That’s half of the reason why he should have noticed sooner. He should have sensed it when he didn’t see Will in the morning. Or maybe something should have clicked when Will didn’t show up at lunch, either. Really, all of the times that Mike should have seen Will but didn’t would have been excellent indicators of the wrongness of the day, but because Mike can’t seem to notice anything anymore, he only realizes it when he gets home. It’s not like Will went missing again or anything because Mike saw him a few times in passing, like across the hallway or going downstairs as Mike was going up, but they haven’t spoken all day, and that’s the real problem. Mike and Will don’t just not talk. They’re Mike and Will.
So Mike guesses that he notices the absence of Will in his day, if only because interacting with Will is a little bit like standing under sunlight (which is to say, happy and warm and bright), but it’s not until evening that the real problem registers. The critical issue. The Gordian knot, if you will (which doesn’t actually have much to do with Will at all, at least not directly).
It happens while he’s in his room, sitting on his bed and fixing the tuning of his guitar. His thumb snags on the D string. The note rings out, and before Mike knows it, he’s playing chords. D, then A minor, then G, then F. He keeps playing the same chords, cycling through the progression and mulling over the feel of it, eyes closed. He starts humming along, a wordless tune that repeats itself whenever the chord progression repeats, too. And then the tune isn’t wordless anymore, and Mike puts his guitar down to grab his songwriting journal from his backpack.
He reaches into the big pocket, but it’s not there.
And it’s not in the front pocket.
And even though it wouldn’t logically fit into the side one, Mike checks anyway. Just as he expected (but also dreaded), it isn’t there.
“Shit,” he says, out loud, to his empty room. “Shit.”
He runs a hand through his hair, taking in big gulps of air before unzipping all of his backpack pockets at once and flipping the bag upside down. He holds it like that and shakes until everything is a mess on the floor. Some of his books fall with an especially loud thump, but Mike can’t be bothered right now.
“Michael?” his mom calls from the hallway, “what are you doing in there?”
“Cleaning,” Mike shouts back like he’s not doing the exact opposite. His voice sounds kind of strangled. Where is it? This isn’t like losing a regular notebook or a water bottle or anything else. These are his songs. His very much private and very much secret songs. There’s a reason that Mike takes his journal to school with him every day, even though he never writes music anywhere except for from the comfort of his room. It’s possibly the most incriminating thing he owns.
Because more than half of his songs are about another person. A very specific person. A person who isn’t his girlfriend. A person who’s Will. Which would be all fine and well (if not a bit strange) if not for the types of songs they are.
Mike is pretty sure it isn’t normal to write this many love songs about one person. Especially when it isn’t who he’s dating, and especially when that person is his best friend and a boy.
To be fair, Mike didn’t even realize that they were about Will until earlier this week. For months and months and months, they were just his songs. And then, a switch flipped on Tuesday, and what used to just be his songs became his songs about Will.
Which really makes this spectacular timing for him to lose his journal. Because if he had lost it a month ago, it wouldn’t have mattered quite this much. Before, it was his secret songwriting journal, and now it’s his secret, gay, songwriting journal.
God, Mike needs to find his journal fast because he doesn’t want to even think about anybody else seeing all his songs for Will.
He also probably needs to break up with El, who he genuinely hasn’t had alone time with since his whole realization about things (read: his realization that he didn’t know it for a while, but he’s been a queer this whole time, which he’s sorry about, and that he understands if she doesn’t even want to be friends anymore). It’s a speech that he needs to practice, and then practice some more, because he’s honestly more terrified of this than the Upside Down, which sounds stupid, but Mike has always been kind of a coward.
He gets down on his knees to sort through the mess on the floor, but he’s not seeing the familiar green leather cover that he’s looking for. It’s not there.
But something else is.
It’s a thin notepad that Mike doesn’t think he’s seen before. It has a black cover, and it’s bound like a book, with a spine instead of a spiral. Mike picks it up tentatively; it’s not heavy, and the cover feels plasticky, sort of cheap.
Mike has no idea what it’s doing in his bag. He flips it over in his hands, but there’s nothing identifying on it, no hints at who it might belong to. Just that same plasticky black. He sets it down on his desk and stares it down like he’s in a competition. To nobody’s surprise, nothing happens.
His mom calls for dinner, and Mike replies with a distracted, “be there in five.”
It’s wrong to open it, right?
Mike wouldn’t want anybody opening his journal.
But then again, the first page of his notebook is marked, very neatly, with “call to return” and his house phone number written underneath. Mike didn’t write his own name at the front, just in case someone saw the later pages. His phone number is much less dangerous than his name.
Unless whoever finds it decides to pick up a phone book. Hopefully, they’d just think the notebook belonged to Nancy considering how much more normal it is for a girl to be writing songs about a guy. Especially when the guy in question has a girlfriend.
Wow, he’s all kinds of fucked up. He needs to break up with El. This is so bad. This is so bad. His notebook isn’t here, which means that it’s somewhere out in the world, which means that it’s not here.
This is so bad, Mike thinks to himself one more time, for emphasis to himself or something equally stupid. He feels like a goddamn broken record.
He looks back at the mystery notebook on his desk.
Would opening it really be the worst thing? He’d only look at the first page, just to see if there’s a return name or address. His intent is good, right?
But it would still be looking at someone’s personal stuff.
Mike puts his head in his hands. Absent-mindedly, he wonders what Will is doing right now.
That’s enough for him to decide that he’s going to open the notebook, if only to distract himself from his own thoughts. Mike has to stop thinking about Will like this. Like they could be more than friends. Mike has a girlfriend. Sure, they’ve been the strangest sort of on-and-off for the past few months, but she’s still his girlfriend. This has to be some kind of cheating–emotional infidelity, maybe?
And here’s the thing, Mike doesn’t want to be a cheater. He doesn’t want to be as terrible as he is. He really wants nothing more than to be happily in love with his girlfriend. El is pretty. He knows that El is pretty. And she’s nice, and she cares about him, and he cares about her. Hell, he loves her. But he doesn’t think he loves her the right way. Romantically. God knows that Mike has tried not to be like this, but he is, and there isn’t really anything he can do about it (if there was, he would have tried it already). And as it turns out, his music is a decent enough trade-off. He can’t get rid of his gay feelings, but he can lock them away, make it so that his songwriting journal is the only physical evidence on this planet of the way he is.
Of course, all of that is horrifyingly contingent on nobody but him seeing said songwriting journal. If someone else has it, everything unravels. And if it’s not here (which it’s not), someone else could very well have it.
Mike opens the notebook, and his breath catches. Because the first page isn’t a “return to” message or even a diary-type warning page covered in scribbles of “keep out” and “top secret.”
It’s sketch after sketch of Mike. Mike looking into the distance, Mike in his Hellfire shirt, Mike with his hair tied up (which takes him a moment to recognize as himself because he’s never actually put his hair up in the fear of looking girly, but the picture makes him look almost beautiful, so he honestly might give it a try). One of the drawings is of him holding hands with a faceless figure. The other person in the sketch doesn’t have a face, but it’s definitely a boy.
Mike feels his cheeks burn hot. Is he that obvious? How? He only realized that he was gay like a week ago, and he’s still kind of trying to convince himself that he likes girls. It’s beyond fucked in its own right, but Mike just wants to be normal, which seems like it’s impossible, but it’s infinitely less impossible than Will liking him back. Sure, people call him queer sometimes and he doesn’t show much interest in girls, but he’s more normal than Mike will ever be. Because with Will, the problem is everyone else; it’s the bullies and all the girls who aren’t good enough for him. Mike, on the other hand? Mike is a real mess. He’s his own problem, through and through.
Guiltily, Mike looks back at the page. There’s a scribble of a signature in the lower right-hand corner, but he can’t make any words out. It’s just a glorified squiggle, but it looks so official. Like a professional drew all these sketches and signed them with a practiced flourish.
Mike can’t get over how good the art is, and he reaches out to brush his fingers against the paper as though that would let him feel the pencil strokes (it doesn’t).
All that he can think about is how whoever drew those pictures made him look like something worth looking at. Mike knows that he doesn’t look like that in real life, but for the sake of the moment, it feels nice to pretend. He wonders who this mystery artist is, who could possibly be close enough to Mike to draw him with this level of detail. Distantly, he thinks about all of Will’s art. Will is an artist. He’s easily this good. But Will has better things to draw than Mike, so the question lingers.
“Michael,” his mom yells from downstairs, “dinner is now.”
Mike slams the notebook shut, swears to himself that he won’t open it again, and runs out the door.
“I’m coming, Jeez,” he replies, and he knows that he sounds like the world’s most stereotypically shitty teenager, but he has too much on his mind right now to focus on manners.
He needs to get his journal back.
––
“So, Mike, are you free tonight?”
“Hm?”
“Oh my God, Mike, have you been paying attention at all?” Dustin throws his hands in the air.
“Of course, he hasn’t. He’s Mike,” Max replies with a wry smile. She pops a peanut-butter M&M into her mouth.
It’s been four days since Mike lost his songwriting journal, and he has to admit that he isn’t coping particularly well. He keeps zoning out and thinking about the other journal, the one with the plasticky black cover that’s currently burning a hole into the front pocket of his backpack. He’s taken to writing his song ideas upside-down and backward (like how he passed notes in elementary school) on loose-leaf that he’s keeping in a box under his bed. It’s the same box that holds all of the letters Mike never sent Will back when the Byers family still lived in Lenora which basically makes it a shrine to everything good about Will Byers (a topic that Mike can explore pretty endlessly). Thinking back to those letters, it’s really a wonder that Mike didn’t realize how he felt about Will until last week, because clearly, the feelings have been there for a while. The whole thing is madness.
It’s lunchtime, and the Party is sitting on the lawn outside school because the weather is surprisingly nice for late October. Mike is sitting next to El, who’s next to Max. Dustin, Lucas, and Will sit across from them. Will is inspecting his tuna salad sandwich like it’s the most important thing in the world, and Mike is doing his best to look inconspicuous about watching Will the same way. He looks like he hasn’t been sleeping, with bags under his eyes and hair that’s a little messier than usual. Mike wants to get up and ask him what’s wrong, but he feels frozen. And besides, how could he explain the fact that he’s been watching Will closely enough to notice the bags under his eyes? God, Mike feels like such a creep.
“Could you just say it again? I was, uh–” he trails off, “thinking.”
“Seriously,” Dustin groans, “making plans with you guys is like pulling teeth .”
“Sorry,” Will says, even though he’s literally done nothing wrong.
Lucas knocks shoulders with him. “Nah, Will, you’re probably the best out of all of us here. I aspire to your levels of communicating when you have a scheduling conflict.”
“Lucas, you kind of sound like an asshole,” Max says.
“This isn’t sarcasm. I’m being serious,” Lucas replies, “Will, you’re like the only one of us who can get your shit together.”
“Thanks,” Dustin says dryly, “I’m trying, too, you know. Anyway, Mike, Princess Bride tonight at seven. Can you come?”
“Who’s coming?”
“What kind of question is that? We’re all going to be there.”
“I think he just wanted to know if his girlfriend was going to be there,” Lucas interjects with the world’s least sly wink.
“I am coming,” El says to Mike, smiling at him, and Mike smiles back. He feels vaguely sick. Things between him and El weren’t great before he found the notebook, but somehow, they’ve gotten significantly worse in the past few days. Mike can’t bring himself to kiss her, not even on the goddamn cheek, and El has definitely noticed because she’s not even trying anymore. Soon enough, someone in the Party is bound to notice, and it’ll all be Mike’s fault because really, it is all his fault.
He wraps his arm around her shoulders in lieu of replying. This is still couple-y, right? She leans her head on his shoulder, and Mike relaxes into the familiarity of it.
He steals a glance at Will, who hasn’t looked up this whole time.
“Will, what about you?” he asks.
Will looks up suddenly, and it takes a moment before his eyes focus on Mike.
“What about me?”
“Are you going to the movie?”
“Mike, you don’t have to ask everyone individually. ‘We’re all going to be there’ means that we’re all going to be there. You’re the only one who hasn’t confirmed if you’re free,” Lucas says.
“Oh,” Mike replies, “uh, yeah I can be there.”
“Awesome.” Dustin smiles, and then the conversation devolves into a back-and-forth about rides and carpooling and if anybody wants to bike even though it’s very possibly going to rain tonight. To be honest, Mike has tuned the conversation out again.
“I’m going to get some water,” he says, getting up. The rest of the party looks at him for a moment before returning to their conversation. Mike doesn’t even know why he had to say anything. He could have just as easily gotten up without the announcement. Really, he’s a wreck.
“I’ll come,” El replies, and Mike can’t help but notice the unopened juice box on her lunch tray.
They walk inside the building together semi-awkwardly. Mike wouldn’t be surprised if this is the first time it’s been just the two of them in weeks.
“What’s up, El?” he asks when they reach a water fountain. They’re standing close to each other–close enough that Mike can see the flecks in her eyes–but they feel distant. El has her arms crossed over her chest in an action that looks more uncomfortable than it does angry. “Is everything okay?”
“Mike,” El replies, and then for a minute, she doesn’t say anything else.
“Yeah?”
“I love you,” she says, and Mike feels himself choke up.
He swallows hard. “Me too, El,” he responds weakly, “about you, I mean.”
“Mike,” El repeats, “I love you.”
“I…” Mike trails off. Is this some kind of trap? Girls are like that sometimes, and really, he doesn’t know what to say here. “Didn’t you just say that?”
El shoots him a half-glare, but continues, “I love you, but I don’t love-love you. Does that make sense?”
“Not really?” His voice goes up at the end like he’s asking a question, even though he didn’t mean for it to. He clears his throat. “Not really.”
“There are different kinds of love,” El says, “because I love my dad, and I love Joyce, but I don’t love-love them.”
“Like the difference between liking someone and like-liking someone?” Mike asks, and he hasn’t felt this much like a middle-schooler in years.
“Yes, exactly. Mike, I love you, but I don’t love -love you.”
“Oh,” Mike says hollowly, “why, um, why are you telling me this now?”
“Because.” El sighs. “We fight, and we drift apart, and we get back together, but nothing changes. I don’t love you, and you don’t love me.”
“I do, though,” Mike replies, “El, I care about you so much–”
“But not love,” El says resolutely, “you don’t love me anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” Mike says, but shit, he’s choking up, and he can’t believe that they’re having this conversation in the middle of lunch.
“I don’t know if you ever did.”
“I did,” Mike replies, and as soon as he says it, he knows it’s all over. He’s acknowledging that even if he did love her (which he isn’t even completely sure of), it’s in the past. It’s not a current state of being. “I did.”
“Don’t lie, Mike.” She’s gripping the side of the water fountain, and her voice breaks a little on his name.
“I’m sorry.”
“But, I don’t love you, either,” she says, “at least not anymore.”
“Oh. Should we, uh…”
“Break up?”
“Yeah, that.”
El looks off for a moment at something off in the distance before nodding. This feels final in a way that none of their breakups have before. Because Mike and El have broken up and gotten back together maybe four or five times, but it’s never been a calmly discussed thing, like this is now. They argue, and they break up in the heat of the moment, and they’re back together in a matter of days. That’s how they’ve operated for years. This is new.
Mike can’t help but think back to last week when he had his whole epiphany about liking Will and realized that they should break up, and then earlier this week when he lost his songwriting journal and found the mystery sketchbook. It’s almost funny that El was the one to initiate it, considering the fact that Mike has been thinking about it for the past few days. She really is a superhero.
“Do you want space?” Mike asks, after a pause, “like, from me?”
El looks at him strangely. “What?”
“You know, should I not go to the movie tonight to give you space?” There’s an unspoken question somewhere in there. Do you still want to be friends? Should I distance myself for a while so you don’t have to?
“No, no .” She’s shaking her head at him. “Mike, I want to be friends. I just don’t think we should date. I love you, but I don’t love-love you.”
“Oh, cool,” Mike replies dumbly, “cool. We never really got much of a chance to just be friends.”
“Exactly,” El replies eagerly. “We just… jumped in.”
“Friends sounds nice.”
“Nice,” she echoes, smiling at him, and Mike feels lighter than he’s felt in weeks.
The bell rings, and they both startle. Mike looks at where he is in the school to try and gauge where his next class is, but then it registers that he didn’t bring his backpack inside with him.
“Shit,” he says, “all my stuff is still outside.”
El grimaces back at the door to where they were sitting, all the way down the hallway. “Me, too.”
They stand in silence together for a moment before El looks at him. Her demeanor has changed; she’s biting her lip to keep from smiling too hard.
“What?” Mike asks, “is there something on my face or—“
“Do you want to race?” she asks. Mike looks around; the hallway is still just about empty, but the flood doors from the cafeteria are going to open any second.
Friends, his mind echoes at him, we never got a chance to just be friends.
“Yeah.” He grins back at her, then takes off toward the door without counting down.
“Hey, not fair!” El calls out after him, but she’s laughing. Mike realizes that he’s laughing, too. Of course, El doesn’t know his secret, that he’s gay and in love with his best friends and all that awful jazz, but for now, this is nice.
Mike wouldn’t have guessed it, but ‘just friends’ is really nice.
——
The first thing Mike notices when he and the Party walk into the movie theater is that it’s nearly empty. Sure, there’s the employees–bored-looking teenagers selling popcorn and candy–and a gaggle of middle school girls who are probably there for Dirty Dancing, but that’s just about it.
This is probably what they get for seeing The Princess Bride almost a month after its release in a theater as small as the one in Hawkins, but sometimes, it’s hard to find a time when everyone’s schedules line up. And to be honest, a mostly empty theater sounds cool.
“Everyone’s getting popcorn, right?” Lucas asks.
“Nah, I don’t like the way the kernels get in my teeth,” Max replies, “plus I brought candy from home.” She pats her bag, a smallish crossbody that’s definitely holding a deceptive amount of Skittles and other junk.
“I’ll get some popcorn,” Mike says, “how about we just get a few extra-large ones and then share them?”
“Yeah, but then we’ll be passing the bags back and forth the whole time.”
“Buying five small bags of popcorn is such a waste.”
“Whoever said I was getting a small?”
“Okay!” Dustin cuts in, clapping his hands together decisively, “how about Max and I buy popcorn and soda, and you guys just find seats?”
Max balks. “Why am I roped into this all of the sudden?”
“Because you don’t want popcorn anyway, so you aren’t going to care whether we get big or small bags.”
Lucas rolls his eyes, but everyone gives Dustin money for their share of snacks and disperses without any real complaint. Mike is still getting used to just being friends with El, and honestly, he’s not quite sure what he should do. Is he still supposed to sit next to her? Or should he not sit next to her on purpose? They haven’t told anybody that they broke up yet, which is also new, because usually, their breakups are pretty public. Mike doesn’t think there’s been a time when the Party hasn’t known Mike and El’s relationship status in the past few years.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter, because he ends up sitting right in the middle of the row, with El on one side of him and Will on the other. Mike leans over toward Will.
“Are you excited?”
“What?”
“Are you excited,” Mike repeats, “like, for the movie?”
“Oh. I guess,” Will answers stiffly. On the whole, he doesn’t look particularly excited about the movie. Mike doesn’t even really know why he brought it up. They’re literally in the theater, about to see the movie, so why should it matter if Will is excited? Maybe Mike just wanted an excuse to talk to Will. They haven’t really spoken in days, and it’s kind of driving him crazy.
There’s a pause, a moment where neither of them says anything. The previews fill the silence. Mike spares a glance over at El, who’s watching intently. Lucas looks like he’s dividing his attention equally between the screen and the door. Mike can’t tell if he’s waiting to see how they divided up the popcorn or if he’s just that excited for Max to come in.
“You okay?” Mike asks when it becomes clear that Will isn’t going to elaborate.
“Yeah,” Will replies, but it doesn’t sound particularly convincing. “For sure.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“I just feel like you’ve been kind of distracted lately.”
“What do you mean distracted?” Will seems even more tense now, which Mike didn’t think was possible. Why can’t he just say the right thing?
“I don’t know. Like you’ve been withdrawn. I just wanted to make sure it isn’t…” he trails off. “You know.”
Will nods, and he shoots a small smile Mike’s way. “It’s not that,” he says placatingly.
“So, then it’s something else?”
Will looks up at the ceiling, and Mike tries and fails to track the movement. Will sighs.
“I’m fine,” he says with a finality that Mike can’t argue with.
And Mike knows he shouldn’t push, but it really looks like Will isn’t fine, which puts Mike at somewhat of a crossroads because sure, he knows that he shouldn’t push, but he kind of wants to. Only, he can’t, because that’s intrusive, and Will would have said something by now if he wanted to. So Mike just sits there, feeling stuck, knowing that his best friend is unhappy or something.
He isn’t sure what emboldens him to clasp his hand around Will’s hand in what’s hopefully a reassuring gesture, but the contact is warm and grounding, and in the dark of the movie theater, Mike can’t bring himself to regret it. For a moment, he thinks that Will is going to pull away, but he seems to notice that nobody else can tell pretty quickly, and he relaxes.
A moment later, Dustin and Max come back with two bulging bags of popcorn (which Mike smiles at, because that means he was right), and a couple of sodas. They settle in their seats and pass the snacks around accordingly, and the whole time, Mike doesn’t let go of Will’s hand. Will doesn’t pull away, either. Maybe Will forgot that Mike was holding it. Maybe Will doesn’t care.
Or least likely of all, maybe Will is secretly enjoying it almost as much as Mike does.
The previews end, and the movie starts, and it’s good. It’s right up Mike’s alley, honestly. He really likes the fantasy and adventure of it, and the way that it subverts fairytales is super cool. He can’t stop watching the love interest, Westley, and it occurs to him that this is the first movie he’s seen since realizing that he’s gay (which is still a weird thing to think about).
There are a few moments that make Mike jump a little bit. It’s nothing extreme, but a couple of scenes here and there make his breath catch. On a scale from one to the first time he watched Poltergeist, this is a solid 5. Just a little bit unsettling at moments, but altogether pleasant to watch.
“Rodents of Unusual Size?” Westley is saying onscreen, “I don’t think they exist.”
Just then, this giant rat-like thing comes out of absolutely nowhere and tackles Westley to the ground (Mike supposes that it would be fair to call it a Rodent of Unusual Size). It isn’t a great jumpscare, technically speaking, but Mike startles all the same. He squeezes Will’s hand, and oh God, he’s been holding Will’s hand this entire time. And he just squeezed it . Like they’re dating or something. God.
“Sorry,” he whispers and disentangles his hand from Will’s. “I guess I’m just a total wuss.” He goes for a chuckle at the end, but it comes out more like a sharp exhale because he doesn’t want to be too loud.
“Don’t worry about it,” Will replies. He has to lean in close to Mike to say it, and his breath kind of smells like popcorn.
Neither of them mention the fact that they held hands for nearly an hour. Mike can’t decide whether or not he’s happy about that.
Even though the movie is still playing, Mike’s thoughts drift back toward the sketchbook he found earlier this week. To the drawing of him holding hands with some faceless boy. Mike conjures the image in his mind but superimposes Will into the picture. Somehow, that helps to immortalize the moment.
It also helps send Mike into a whole new spiral over his own missing songwriting journal. By this point, he’s just about certain that somebody has it, but no one has called, and Mike is honestly waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s like he’s in this weird liminal space. His journal is gone, but there haven’t been any real consequences of it yet. Nobody seems to know his secret yet, or maybe someone does know and is just waiting to tell everybody. Maybe Mike is going to walk into school on Monday and everybody will have learned over the weekend. Everyone will know that Mike is queer, and they’ll hate him for it.
Or maybe he’ll get blackmailed for it, or–
“Mike,” Will says, interrupting Mike’s inner spiral. He’s leaning close again.
“Yeah?”
“Do you want the popcorn?”
“Oh, uh, no thanks,” Mike croaks, “I’m not that hungry.”
The movie is still playing, but Mike feels like he can’t breathe, and shit, he’s hyperventilating a little bit. He can’t believe that he’s panicking during the goddamned Princess Bride, because if that isn’t embarrassing, then Mike doesn’t know what is.
He glances over to the door–because going outside for some air sounds pretty damn nice right now–but he’d have to step over, like, everyone to get there, and it isn’t really worth the effort. He’ll be fine. He just needs to breathe.
Everybody might hate him tomorrow, but nothing is going to happen tonight. Tonight is safe. If he repeats it to himself enough times, he might even believe himself, too. Tonight is safe.
Tonight is safe.
––
The movie ends, the credits roll, and the Party shuffles out of the theater to discuss how they’re getting home considering the fact that it started pouring sometime in the last hour and a half.
“You biked here?” Mike asks incredulously.
“I didn’t think it was that big of a deal,” Will replies.
“Well, you aren’t biking home.”
“I’ve biked in the rain before.”
“Yeah, but you don’t have to. Some of us had the good sense to drive.”
“I don’t have a car, Mike”
“But I do! And Dustin does.”
“So?”
“So, I can drive you,” Mike says, maybe a bit too loudly. “Or Dustin can,” he tacks on belatedly.
“Mike, your car only has two seats. Shouldn’t you be taking El home?”
“I’m going to have a sleepover with Max tonight. At her house,” El says, shooting Mike a look that he can’t really decipher. “You should drive Will, Mike.”
“Oh, uh, okay.” Mike clears his throat. “How are you two getting to Max’s?”
There’s a pause, and then–
“Dustin,” El says. Dustin perks up at this, and El nudges Max. Mike has no clue what’s going on right now.
“Wait, what?” Dustin looks just as confused as Mike, which is decently comforting.
“Oh… oh,” Max says, looking back and forth between everyone in the room. Her eyes light up with an understanding that Mike really wishes he had right now. “Yeah, Dustin, didn’t you say that you could drive me and El home? You had me get the popcorn with you, so it’s only fair. Plus, we totally talked about it at lunch.”
“We did?” Dustin asks.
“We did,” El replies, nodding sagely.
“El, weren’t you and Mike off doing God-knows-what for like all of lunch?” Lucas points out.
Mike feels himself flush at that. Why does Lucas make it sound so… so that?
“Not all of lunch,” Mike hears himself saying, and when did this conversation devolve into anything other than him wanting to drive Will home?
“That’s a pretty weak counter-argument.”
“But he’s right!” Max says, and when has Max ever sided with Mike? “We talked about it at the beginning of lunch, like right after fourth period, right Mike?”
Mike has no recollection of this conversation happening, but he’s confused enough that he nods along.
“So it’s settled,” Max says, “Dustin can drive me, El, and Lucas, and Mike drives Will.”
“I’m driving Lucas now, too?”
Lucas shrugs. “My mom drove me here, but I’m good to get a ride home.”
“ Great, ” Dustin replies, sounding like he pretty much means the opposite.
“What about my bike?” Will asks.
“Uh.” Mike doesn’t get very far before trailing off. Fitting Will’s bike in the trunk of his Celica will be difficult. “Maybe you can get it in the morning?”
“How am I supposed to get here in the morning without my bike ?”
“Um, I guess I could pick you up tomorrow and take you?” Mike offers. His hands feel clammy, and he’s starting to open and close his fists nervously.
“That’s so complicated, though. I can just bike home, really, it’s not a big deal.”
“It’s not a big deal for me to drive you in the morning, either.”
“I mean—”
“Really,” Mike insists, “it would suck if you had to bike home in this weather.”
Almost as if to back him up, there’s a crack of thunder somewhere off in the distance.
“Fine,” Will says. Mike breaks into a grin before schooling his features into normal levels of excitement over driving your best friend home.
“Great.”
Will smiles back at him, and it’s kind of perfect. It’s not an uber-wide grin for a camera, but it’s genuine. It’s just for Mike. And that makes it borderline ethereal. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Mike makes a note that he should write a song about it and then promptly chastises himself for thinking this way.
“So, everybody’s rides are figured out?” Lucas asks, breaking whatever weird trance Mike was in.
“Oh, uh, yeah.”
“Alright, I guess we’re going now. See you guys Monday,” Dustin says, and then it’s just Mike and Will in the almost empty movie theater.
“So–”
“Where–”
Mike breaks off, ready to let Will speak, but it looks like Will had the same idea. When was the last time I hung out with Will one-on-one? Mike wonders to himself. His mouth goes dry when he realizes that he doesn’t know.
“I parked right out front,” Mike says quickly, all in one breath.
“Cool,” Will replies.
They make their way to Mike’s car in a sort of awkward silence.
“Do you want to listen to music?” Mike asks once the car is turned on.
“Sure.”
Mike turns on the car radio, and fiddles with the station. Then, it’s just him, Will, and Top 40 for the next several minutes. Even though he’s driving, Mike can’t help but notice the way that Will is twiddling his thumbs in the passenger seat, barely saying anything. He wants to say something, but he doesn’t want to push, especially not twice in one night, so he forces himself to stare resolutely at the road in front of him.
As he pulls up to Will’s house, I Think We’re Alone Now by Tiffany starts up.
“Here you are,” Mike says, shifting the car into park.
“Here I am,” Will echoes, and then, after a moment, “I think this is the first time you’ve driven me somewhere.”
“Really?” Mike asks. That can’t be true. Sure, he’s only had his license for like two months and his car for one, but this can’t be the first time he’s driven Will. They’re Mike and Will.
“I mean, I think so.”
After a few seconds of not being able to conjure any other instance as proof, Mike gives in to the wrongness of the truth. Maybe this is the first time he’s driven Will anywhere.
“Huh,” Mike says, “well, how was my driving? Would I make a good chauffeur?”
Will laughs into his hand.
“You’re a fine driver, Mike. A chauffeur on the other hand…” He makes a so-so gesture.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t chauffeurs have to wear, like, suits all the time?”
“Oh, God, you’re right.” Mike fake-gags.
“And white gloves and those stupid hats?” Will adds, tone teasing.
“I get it, I get it.” Mike laughs. “I would make an awful chauffeur.”
“Well, I never said that,” Will replies with a playful glint in his eyes. It makes Mike’s heart clench uncomfortably. He clears his throat but doesn’t say anything else.
Over the radio, the song is still playing.
I think we’re alone now, there doesn’t seem to be anyone around, it choruses. Mike swallows hard and looks around at Will’s dark (and deserted) street.
“Do you want to come inside?” Will asks, and Mike startles.
“What?”
“Just until the rain lets up a little bit.”
“Uh,” Mike says intelligently.
I think we’re alone now, the beating of our hearts is the only sound.
“You don’t have to,” Will replies, “you can forget I said anyth–”
“Sure, I’ll come in. You know, just until the rain lets up.”
“Oh,” Will says, “awesome.” And maybe it’s the weird lighting in the car, but it looks like he’s kind of blushing. On second thought, it’s almost definitely the lighting. Why would Will be blushing right now? For Mike? Not likely.
Running just as fast as we can, holding on to one another's hand.
Mike turns off the car, and the music cuts off. It’s like he’s moving in slow motion until they get out of the car, and then it’s a mad dash for Will’s front door. Mike has his jacket pulled over his head, and Will’s hair is getting soaked, but he’s there first. There’s a moment of fiddling with the doorknob and fishing out the key from under the doormat before they’re inside, both panting a little bit from their short sprint.
Will’s wet hair hangs in his eyes, and Mike wants to brush it out of the way. He wants, but he keeps his hands firmly at his sides, because there are things that he’ll never have, and Will is at the top of the list. Not that Will is a thing to be had in any sense, but still.
“You should hang your jacket somewhere to dry,” Will says, and Mike looks down at himself.
“Shit, I’m basically dripping on your floor,” he replies with a chuckle, peeling off his wet jacket. It makes a squelching sort of noise as he folds it in half. “Uh, where should I–”
“Maybe the bathroom?”
“Right,” Mike replies, nodding. He carries his jacket deeper into the Byers home before finding the bathroom and draping it over the towel rack.
“You can go to my room if you want,” Will calls from the front of the house, “I’m just going to get some water.”
“Okay,” Mike shouts back. The door to Will’s room is already open, but he has to push it further open to walk in. Mike can’t remember the last time he was in Will’s room, which feels strange, but it’s still familiar enough. Mike does his best to look around without being invasive, taking in all of Will’s new posters and knick-knacks. It’s a little bit awkward, because Mike doesn’t feel comfortable sitting anywhere, but the experience is all-in-all fine.
At least until Mike notices a very familiar green leather notebook on Will’s desk.
––
The world stops. It’s a power outage, record scratch, gut-sinking kind of moment, and Mike wants to tear his gaze away, but he’s hopelessly stuck looking at the journal. Will knows.
Will knows, and he probably only invited Mike in to… to tell him that he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, or that he hates him now, or something.
Or worse, Mike thinks hopelessly.
All of the sudden, Mike can’t breathe. Forcing the air through his mouth and into his lungs is too much, and he can’t handle it. Everything is moving too fast (even though Mike isn’t moving at all), and his ears are kind of pounding. He’s choking on absolutely nothing at all, and it’s miserable.
And then, from one second to the next, he goes from not breathing at all to breathing too much, heaving inhales and shuddering exhales that slow the world down to a tense drizzle. It’s like he’s the sand inside of an hourglass, emptying out one grain of sand at a time. He’s coming apart, and it’s too slow and too fast and too much all at once.
Distantly, Mike is aware that he’s wrapping his arms around his body to make himself smaller, because he wants to squeeze himself out of this room. But he can’t go anywhere, because Will is in the kitchen, and Mike would have to pass him to leave. And no matter how hard Mike wants to disappear right now, he can’t just blink out of existence because of the laws of physics or whatever.
The walls kind of feel like they’re closing in on him now, and Mike hasn’t felt this stupid in ages. It’s a notebook. Pieces of paper bound in smooth leather have reduced him to this. He’s a mess. He’s the worst. He deserves Will hating him. He–
“Mike?” Will asks, and shit. Mike scrubs at his eyes, but he’s still gasping for each breath like he’s been drowning or something, and it’s pretty obvious that he’s been better.
“Uh, hey, Will,” Mike replies, but his voice cracks on Will’s name, and this is quite possibly the worst moment of Mike’s life.
“What happened?”
“Nothing, nothing, I just–” Mike cuts himself off to scrub a hand across his face, “I should go.”
“Mike.” Will puts his hands on Mike’s arms, and Mike is hyper-aware of every single millimeter where their skin is touching. “You can’t drive home like this.”
“I’ll be– I’ll be fine.” Mike shakes Will off of him and runs a hand through his hair. He attempts a reassuring smile, but it feels wobbly, which is a pretty awful sign.
“You’re not fine. This isn’t fine.” Will looks around his room like he’s trying to find whatever set Mike off. “What’s wrong?”
“Didn’t you see it?”
Will furrows his eyebrows. “See what? Mike, what are you talking about?” He’s reaching out for Mike again, and Mike doesn’t have it in him to push away again.
Mike nods his head in the direction of Will’s desk and gestures vaguely toward his journal. “You know.”
“No, I don’t know. I don’t–”
“The notebook, Will,” Mike says miserably, and his voice is so much louder than he wants it to be. He’s yelling, maybe, just a little bit, and crying, definitely, more than a little bit.
Will stiffens. “The… notebook?”
“It’s on your desk, man. You can stop pretending.”
Will swivels to look at his desk so quickly that Mike wouldn’t be surprised if he got whiplash from the sudden movement. He lets go of Mike and gets up, walks toward the journal. Mike watches the whole thing helplessly. Will picks up Mike’s songwriting journal and holds it up.
“Is this what you’re talking about?”
Mike flinches. “What else would I be talking about?”
“Mike, I–”
“Can you forget that you saw anything? I know that they’re all about you, and I know that it’s creepy and disgusting, and I’ve tried to stop, but I’ll try harder. I will.”
“What’s about me?”
“All the songs,” Mike whispers.
“Songs?” Will echoes.
“All the songs I wrote–you know, about you.”
“You wrote songs about me?” Will looks genuinely surprised by this admission, which Mike doesn’t understand.
“Yeah, that’s like, the whole freaking journal.”
“This is yours?” Will asks.
“What do you mean? Of course, it’s mine. What do you think we’ve been talking about?”
“Mike, I… I didn’t read this.”
Mike’s heart drops. His throat feels dry. He doesn’t think that he’s crying anymore, but the creeping numbness that’s lancing up his spine isn’t particularly better. He feels frozen.
“You… you’ve had it but you didn’t read it?”
“No? Why would I read something that isn’t mine?”
“Why do you even have it?” Mike asks desperately.
“I don’t know,” Will replies, and something in his tone sounds genuine. “I lost my sketchbook last week, and this just showed up, so–”
“Wait,” Mike says, and he knows it’s rude to cut people off, but his mind is racing. “You lost your sketchbook?”
Will looks kind of uncomfortable at that. “Uh, yeah. It’s not a big deal, though. I’m probably just going to get a new one.”
“Does it have a black cover?”
“Yeah,” Will replies, “why?”
Mike doesn’t know what to say. That he has Will’s sketchbook? That he saw the first page? God, Will just said that he’d never read something that wasn’t his. Is he going to hate Mike for looking at the beginning of his sketchbook? Mike should have known that it was a breach of privacy.
“Funny story,” Mike says dryly, “I, uh, I think I might have it–your sketchbook.”
Will blanches. “ What ?”
“Yeah,” Mike replies, “it was just in my backpack one day and–”
“Did you look inside?”
Mike pauses for a moment. The silence stretches between them. “I wanted to see if there was a name or number to return it to.”
“So you saw it,” Will says hollowly. Mike doesn’t think he can deal with both of them panicking at the same time, but this is out of his control now.
“Just the first page,” he says, as if that would make it better. Will doesn’t reply, and Mike is Mike, so he keeps talking. “It was really good. I didn’t know it was yours, obviously, but your art is, like, insane. You could be a professional or something.”
“Didn’t you see what I drew?”
“Yeah, you, uh, drew me. Obviously, you took some artistic liberties, because I don’t look that good.” Mike laughs, but it’s an awkward sound. “But it was awesome.”
“Mike…” Will says, but he doesn’t finish the sentence.
“It’s kind of funny, right?” Mike says, because he’s awful, and he can’t stop himself. “I’ve written like fifty songs about you, and you have a page of sketches about me.”
“What?”
“It’s sort of like we’re each other’s muses.”
“We’re what?”
“Or, God, that was the weirdest thing I’ve ever said. Like ever. Please ignore that. Like honestly. And I shouldn’t assume anything. You probably draw a different person on every page or something.”
“Mike, please slow down. I’m just… so confused right now.”
And even though it’s maybe the hardest thing he’s ever done, Mike forces himself to stop. To stop rambling and just listen.
“Confused about what?” he asks slowly.
“You’re saying that you wrote, what, fifty songs about me?”
Mike nods. Maybe Will is just slow on the uptake or something because Mike is pretty sure that has been clear for maybe five minutes or so. “Give or take.”
“Friend songs?”
“Um.” Mike scratches the back of his neck. “Not particularly.”
“Oh,” Will says, “ oh .”
“I’m sorry,” Mike breathes out, because he can’t help himself.
“No, it’s just… my art for you. It’s the same way.”
“Oh,” Mike says.
“But you’re dating El,” Will points out.
“No.”
“No?”
“We broke up at lunch today.”
“You broke up today ?”
“Yeah.”
“But you said you wrote fifty songs about me in a notebook that you haven’t had for a week.”
“Fifty isn’t an exact number or anything.” Mike wants to sit down, because this is awkward with them both standing, but he doesn’t want to mess up whatever’s happening. If he sits down, then maybe all of this will stop. Maybe all of this has been a dream, and if Mike moves, he’ll run the risk of waking up and ruining it.
“So you wrote songs about me while you were dating El?”
“It’s pretty fucked up, I know,” Mike says uncomfortably.
“But you aren’t dating anybody right now.”
“I’m not.”
Will runs a hand through his hair and looks away. “Sorry, this is, uh, a lot.”
“Yeah, it is.” Mike feels a bit like he’s been reduced to single-sentence answers. He can’t handle anything more than a few words for the life of him.
“I like you,” Will says abruptly, “like, a lot.”
“What?”
“I feel like it’s decently safe for me to say this to you right now because you’ve written all these… all these love songs for me, so I just thought I’d go out there and say it.” Will looks back at Mike. “I really like you. In the wrong way.”
“The wrong way?”
“The gay way,” Will says, voice low and rasping.
Mike gapes a little bit. “What?”
“Did I read this wrong?” Will asks, backing away.
“No! No, you, uh, you didn’t.”
“I didn’t?”
“Can I kiss you?” Mike asks, and then immediately regrets having said anything. He’s such a mess.
“Isn’t it a bit soon? Like, you broke up with El today.”
“It was a long time coming,” Mike whispers.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
They’re closer now, and Mike can see every subtle shift in Will’s expression. His eyes are wide and uncertain; his hair is still wet; his shirt is damp at the shoulders. He’s kind of smiling, though, in a subtle way.
“Mike?” Will asks.
“Yeah?”
“You kind of are my muse.” Then Will closes the distance between them.
Mike doesn’t react for a moment, shocked at the fact that Will is kissing him right now, before realizing that he could be kissing Will right now.
It takes a minute, but his brain finally catches up, and he kisses back.
Mike can’t wait to write a song about how perfect it is.
But he can do that later, because this, right now, is pretty damn nice.