Work Text:
As was often the case when the original Party members had nothing to do on a Thursday afternoon, and Will (and his common sense) had abandoned them in order to pick up a shift at Melvald's with his mom, they were grouped around the table in Mike’s basement, coming up with senseless debates to pass the time until Will was done and they could continue their latest DnD campaign.
Somehow, the discussion today had moved to Dustin’s fashion sense.
“Oh please,” Lucas groaned, “you have to know you look like a total ass when you try to shape your hair like that!”
“You’re just jealous of my luscious curls,” Dustin said, pulling roughly at a piece of his hair as if he could shake it in Lucas’s face. “And the fact that I can actually do something with them!”
“The question isn’t whether you can do something,” Mike interjected, “but whether you should .”
“Thank you!” Lucas grinned, while Dustin scoffed.
“You’re one to talk, Mike. You wouldn’t know fashion if it tripped you in the hallway.”
“I don’t need to know fashion to know that it’s not an attractive look, Dustin!”
Dustin waved his hand at Mike as if he could rid the room of him. “Puh-lease. As if I’m going to take advice on what’s attractive from either of you!”
“Whatever, dude.” Mike was already bored with the conversation and wished Will would hurry up. Why couldn’t he be irresponsible like the rest of them?
Lucas, meanwhile, leaned across the table toward Dustin. “Who would you take advice from then?”
Dustin shrugged. “I mean, we all know who the most attractive member of the party is.”
Nodding their heads, they all spoke at once: Lucas said “Max,” Mike said “Will,” and Dustin grandly declared, “Me!”
There was a moment of silence where they all looked at each other with outrage before the table erupted into arguing.
“Listing your girlfriend is cheating!” Mike pointed his finger accusingly at Lucas, who’d turned on Dustin, yelping, “You can’t say yourself!”
But Dustin didn’t seem to notice, instead staring at Mike with wide eyes. “Did you say Will?!”
At that, Lucas’s look of betrayal turned to shock as he twisted towards Mike. “Wait, what?”
Mike blinked back at them, confused at their confusion. “What?”
“You said Will!” Dustin’s eyebrows raised as if Mike had named Vecna the most attractive member of their party.
Used to Dustin’s dramatics, however, Mike just shrugged. “Well, yeah, objectively he is.”
“Excuuuuse me?” Dustin sounded offended, but Lucas just waved him off in order to ask his own question: “Since when has Will been the most attractive?”
“Since always?” Mike wasn’t sure what about this was confusing to them. “He’s always been the most attractive of our friends.”
He was met with complete silence from the other two boys and didn’t like the way Dustin’s mouth falling open and Lucas’s inquisitive stare made him want to squirm. “Why are you guys being weird about this?”
“I just – ” Dustin spluttered, “I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”
“Oh, come on.” Mike rolled his eyes. “You don’t need to take this personally or anything, it’s just an objective fact!”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Lucas held his hands up in a timeout gesture, as if they all needed another reminder that he played a sport. It didn’t make him special. Just sweaty! “You’re saying that Will is more attractive than me and Dustin.”
“Yes,” Mike deadpanned because obviously .
“ And ,” Lucas continued, drowning out Dustin’s outraged mutters. “You think he’s more attractive than my girlfriend.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “Again, don’t take this personally, but yes.”
“Okay.” Lucas nodded, not sounding as pissed off as Mike had expected. It made him wary. Lucas leaning across the table towards him now didn’t help. “And you think he’s more attractive than your ex-girlfriend, El?”
At this, Dustin stopped muttering and focused his attention entirely on Mike.
Mike didn’t like the turn this conversation had taken or the way Lucas was staring at him as if he was maneuvering Mike into a corner or something. Because he wasn’t! Nothing about this conversation should have been weird, but suddenly it felt like there was a wrong answer here. “What does that – I mean, that’s different!”
“Answer the question, Mike.”
“Stop shaking your finger at me like I’m a child!” Mike swatted at Lucas’s hand, but Lucas snatched his arm back out of Mike’s range. Stupid athletic reflexes. “This is so dumb! I mean, you can’t even really compare them, and this has nothing to do with me having dated El!”
“Does that mean the answer is yes?” Dustin was leaning forward now, too, and the manic gleam in his eyes made Mike really regret letting their debate continue as long as it had.
“I – I mean, objectively…”
“Aha!” Dustin crowed, and he and Lucas exchanged glances that Mike couldn’t read but which still somehow left him wanting to pull his hair out.
“Why are you guys being so weird about this?!”
Instead of answering him, he watched as they silently communicated with each other through a series of eyebrow twitches and head shakes. At least Mike could somewhat console himself with the knowledge that Dustin looked seriously deranged due to some of the contortions he was making with his face muscles.
Finally, they turned back to him and, as one, folded their hands in front of themselves. It was disturbing. And he had faced a hell dimension, so he knew.
“Okay, so you keep using the word ‘ objectively ,’” Lucas said, putting air quotes around the word as if the heavy emphasis he placed on it wasn’t enough to convey his point. “So, let’s go about this scientifically.”
Mike was worried that if he rolled his eyes any harder, he’d break something. “Fine. Sure. Whatever,” he huffed. “If it will make this conversation end sooner.”
“Great!” Lucas exclaimed, diving off his chair towards the shelves where Mike kept his DnD supplies and quickly returning with three sheets of paper and some pens.
“We’re going to start by listing the five people we think are the most attractive,” Lucas said, distributing his supplies to each of them. “You can’t list fictional characters, but you can list the people who play them. Fair?”
Dustin and Mike nodded—Dustin, with eager sincerity and Mike with wary reluctance.
“Then, we’re going to list the things we find most attractive about Will. Then we’ll compare our lists.”
Mike picked up his pen slowly, watching where Dustin had already begun numbering his paper. This wasn’t as bad as he had expected. So why did he have the sinking feeling that he was falling into some sort of trap? “Oookay?”
“Cool,” Lucas said, unstrapping his watch and placing it beside him. “So, we’ll take like a minute for each list, and I’ll time us. In 3-2-1, go!”
Mike quickly numbered his own paper and sketched out the most attractive people he could think of off the top of his head. Listing them was easy, but ordering them? Mike suddenly felt like he was taking a test and he hated tests. Worst of all, this felt like the most horrible form of test question—a word problem. Where on the list could he put Will that wouldn’t have his friends acting like he was totally crazy? He couldn’t put him first, right? Right. So, he’d start with Carrie Fisher—they couldn’t argue with that! But after that… maybe he could put Will after Harrison Ford? Technically, Will was prettier than Harrison Ford, for sure. Is that what they meant? But then Dustin might look at him weird. Okay, third. Third seemed fine. Right?!
Mike let out a breath of relief when Lucas called time, annoyed at the way his heart was pounding and his palms were sweating. This was why he hated timed tests!
“Okay, so let’s compare lists.” Lucas said, straightening his shoulders and looking seriously around the table. “We’ll each start with our number one and then go down from there. Dustin?”
“Sigourney Weaver.” That made sense, she was on Mike’s list too.
At Lucas’ look, Mike read out his top pick: “Carrie Fisher.” He tried not to sigh in relief at his friends’ approving nods.
But he did groan when Lucas read off his: “Max.”
Dustin cursed. “Wait, are we doing girlfriends first? Let me change mine!”
“You can’t change your list,” Lucas said, reaching out to grab Dustin’s pen arm. “That ruins the integrity of the experiment!”
While Mike rolled his eyes over the idea of there being any integrity to whatever “experiment” Lucas was running, and Dustin grumbled over unclear rules, they finished reading off their lists with only minor interruptions:
Dustin:
- Sigourney Weaver
- Suzie
- Carrie Fisher
- Phoebe Cates
- Nancy Wheeler (“My sister, Dustin? Really?! Eww!”)
Lucas:
- Max
- Bowie
- Sigourney Weaver
- Karen Allen (“Oh dang, I didn’t think of her!”)
- Harrison Ford
Mike:
- Carrie Fisher
- Harrison Ford
- Will
- Sigourney Weaver
- Karen Allen
While still unclear about the goal of these lists, Mike was feeling pretty good about his own and Will’s placement on it. Besides a brief suspicious glance from Lucas, as if he knew the mental math Mike had been attempting in his head when he wrote it, Will’s place at #3 had garnered no response from the others.
“Okay.” Lucas clapped his hands. “On to list number two! We’ll have a minute again, this time to write down the things we find most attractive about Will. Ready? 3-2-1, go!”
Buoyed by his previous success and not bogged down by the need to order this list, Mike found this one much easier to write. In fact, he was almost shocked when the minute was up.
“Alright,” Lucas said, putting down his pencil and folding his list in half to keep it hidden. “Mike, why don’t you go first.”
Mike shrugged and picked up his own. “Okay, so first I put down his smile and then his eyes because, you know, obviously.”
Dustin looked skeptical, but Lucas nodded so he continued. “And his laugh ‘cause it’s, like, infectious or whatever. His hair is super soft and the mole above his lip is cute. And umm, he’s got those, like, artist hands?”
“Artist hands?” Dustin repeated, now also sounding skeptical, but Mike just nodded.
“Yeah, cause they’re, like, gentle but also calloused from his pencils?”
Dustin started to make some sort of noise in response, but Lucas cut him off with a sharp look before turning back to Mike. “Go on.”
“Okay, right, so his hands… and, oh, also the way his nose wrinkles when he’s confused or laughing and stuff. And the way he giggles when he’s sleepy. And also his neck.”
Mike felt a little breathless when he finished and looked up to find Dustin staring at him as if he had grown another head while Lucas just looked unimpressed.
“Is that it?” he asked.
Mike spluttered, “Well, yeah, you called time, so I had to stop!”
“Wait, you had more?!” Dustin sounded flabbergasted, which set Mike even more on edge.
“Umm…” Mike really wasn’t sure what the right answer was here. About now was when Will would historically jump in to save Mike from whatever the hell he had gotten himself into this time, but since he wasn’t here, he’d just have to go with his backup move: divert attention elsewhere. “Okay, well what did you guys put?”
Lucas shrugged and unfolded his own list before unceremoniously reading off: “His eyes, his attitude, his laugh, his sarcasm, his art.”
Mike found himself nodding along only to stop in surprise when Lucas set his list down. He waited for a moment, but Lucas just looked back at him, unfazed.
“Wait, wait, wait.” He held up his hands. “That’s it?!”
Lucas nodded and Mike turned incredulously to Dustin, expecting a partner in his outrage only to find Dustin squinting suspiciously at Lucas’ list. “I should have listed his sarcasm,” was all the commentary that Dustin made.
“Dustin, what did you write?” Mike tried to keep the panic out of his voice. This was not going how he thought it would.
“Umm, right.” Dustin cleared his throat. “He draws well. He’s nice. And he shares his snacks at lunch.”
Mike could only sit in shocked silence for a moment before bursting out, “Dustin, what – those things aren’t even about how he looks!”
“Yeah,” Dustin retorted, “because I don’t pay attention to how he looks! Because he’s my frieeeeend .”
“What does that have to do with anything? He’s my friend too!”
“Oh really?” Dustin leaned back in his chair and Mike kind of wanted to punch the smug look off his face. “Then what was it you were saying about his neck being attractive?”
Mike felt his face grow hot. “I don’t know, Dustin! It’s, like, elegant!”
“His neck is elegant ?!”
“Okay, okay!” Lucas jumped in before things could devolve further and Mike could actually punch Dustin out of his chair. “Look, the experiment was a success and now we have a result.”
“Really?” Mike scoffed, leaning back and crossing his arms. “And what is it?”
Lucas folded his hands in front of himself again and cleared his throat like the pompous asshole he was. “We have discovered that you, Michael Wheeler, are attracted to our friend, William Byers.”
Mike gaped at Lucas as Dustin gestured emphatically in agreement. “What? No, I’m not. I said Will is attractive , not that I’m attracted to him.”
“It’s the same fucking thing!” Dustin groaned.
“No, it’s not!”
“Look,” Lucas said, interrupting them again, “Mike. This is not the sort of list—” He picked up Mike’s paper and waved it around. “—that one makes about someone they aren’t attracted to.” When Mike tried to protest, Lucas cut him off again, “You listed the sort of stuff I think about Max!”
Mike shook his head, snatching his list back from Lucas and glaring at the two traitors he had once called friends. “That’s great for you, Lucas, but in case you haven’t noticed, I’m attracted to girls. Girls .”
For all that this response should have stopped their ridiculous conversation from proceeding further, Dustin merely rolled his eyes and Lucas did not look impressed. “You can be interested in both, you know.”
“Oh really?” Dustin said, looking exaggeratedly interested in what Lucas was saying, as if he was showing Mike how to react.
Lucas nodded. “It’s called being bisexual.”
“Ooooooh,” Dustin exclaimed, with false surprise, and Mike wondered how bad it would fuck up his hand if he tried to knock out some of the teeth Dustin was so proud of.
“ Or you could just be interested in women but also Will.”
“I don’t – what?” Mike, who had opened his mouth to protest again, found himself derailed. “But Will isn’t a woman.”
Lucas shrugged. “No, but he’s Will.”
At Mike’s blank stare, Lucas huffed and shook his head. “You know, he’s, like, the exception to all of your rules. Like how you won’t share your fries with anyone, except Will.”
Dustin nodded. “Yeah, and like how no one can call dibs on shotgun except Will.”
“Or how you hate when people show up to things late, unless it’s Will.”
“Or how you only let Will share your favorite blanket on movie nights.”
“Or how — ”
“Okay, okay!” Mike cut them off, fighting the blush on his face at how clear his preference for Will was to the others. He’d thought he’d hid it a bit better than that. “But that’s just because Will is my best friend.”
He could see the skepticism on his friends’ faces, but luckily before they could voice another attack on Mike’s sexuality (and his sanity), there was a thump at the basement door and Will’s voice filtered through the wood. “Helloooo! Someone let me in—my arms are full of pop and I can’t get the doorknob!”
“Thank god,” Mike muttered, jumping up from the table and bounding towards the door. He opened it to find a grinning Will Byers whose arms were, indeed, laden with liters of pop, which he quickly unburdened onto Mike so he could tug off his shoes.
“Sorry, they were having a sale and I figured we could store these here for movie night on Saturday.”
“Oh, hell yes,” Dustin whooped from behind him. “Is that Squirt?”
The arrival of Will quickly pushed the previous events out of Mike’s mind as they began setting up the board and the rest of their supplies. It was only as Mike grabbed his notebook off the shelf that he remembered the lists they had left out on the table. With his heart in his throat, he turned back to scour the surface but couldn’t see them amongst the rest of their supplies. It didn’t matter that much anyway, he told himself. It was just that, out of context, the lists—well, Mike’s list—might seem to imply something. Or, at least, that’s what Lucas and Dustin seemed to think.
But whatever. What did they know anyway? Watching Will’s eyes sparkle as Mike spun his tale, hearing Will’s laugh as Dustin fumbled the dice, and feeling the heat of his palm when Will grabbed his arm in celebration, Mike knew that his list was correct and that there was nothing wrong with it. If he sat up straighter when Will tilted his head to show he was listening, if he couldn’t stop his own laugh in response to Will’s, if he felt a soft swoop in the pit of his stomach when Will gripped him, then that was all completely normal. Besides, he’d always felt that way around Will. Because Will was his best friend.
After the other boys had left, he gave the room one more cursory sweep to find the errant lists but came up empty. Lucas or Dustin must have trashed them when Will came in, perhaps worried about his reaction. That was fine—Mike didn’t need his list. He could just keep adding to the one in his head.