Chapter Text
Agonizing. That's how Mike would describe this whole situation.
His shirt was feeling too tight around his neck, his hands were probably carving a notch because of the fierce clutching of his fingers on his glass and his skin itched all over.
Mike should be cherishing this moment, like he always did every month. The party, after graduating and choosing their own paths, stayed in touch and would reunite once a month. Mike couldn't really put his finger on why it was the only day he would wake up with a slow breathing and a steady mind. He guessed it was just the whole party's dynamics that would bring him from his peaks of unmanageable anxiety.
At the end of the day, knowing that they were the people who stood up beside him after everything that happened that sixth of November, brought him a kind of safety feeling that no other connection he would have after could really bring to the table anymore.
But today it was different.
It wasn't the usual five individuals, and Mike wishes he could say it was because the girl who haunted the back of his mind was back. But that was not the case.
Will had a boyfriend.
He was there, with them, as a plus one of Will, sitting and chatting in the bar they would always meet.
Will had a boyfriend and Mike couldn't really wrap his mind around the fact that he was actually real. He had a name — Carlton —, a part-time job, a car he would let Will drive, a fragrance that was choking Mike's lungs and a pearly white smile. And somehow, he didn't feel real.
Mike had this knot in his stomach which he named “instinct” so he wouldn't throw up right there and then. There were times where you met someone and their first impression was terrible, and after that you can never see them the same. Mike never had that, if he was being honest, his mind never really cared about those things.
But right there and now, he believed. He had an instinct and it felt real and tangible.
He wanted to scream from the top of his lungs and point with his finger at Carlton — let everyone know. But he stayed silent. Observant.
“I’m actually so happy to meet you, guys. Will has talked about you a lot, and,” he looked to his left, locking eyes with Will, “I'm so glad he has such an amazing group of friends, he really deserves it.”
Mike felt violent.
This was the biggest problem about Carlton. He was perfect.
He was nice, kind and had a soft voice that matched Will's.
If Carlton was an asshole who treated Will badly, his reason to hate him would be normal. But there he was, stuck with his “instinct” and looking insane. He knew he looked insane, he felt insane.
Mike started to empathize with Joyce.
A shudder electrified his body while everyone in the party said “aw” in unison. Was he really the only one who wasn't under his spell? Did he die before entering the bar and hell was just a D&D game where he had to defeat the demon dressed up as a human who was lying to everyone?
“Oh, Michael, by the way,” there it was, that damn fucking smile. “I've heard that you are the best Dungeon Master ever,” he elbowed Will, who had a sheepish expression on his face.
“Ah, really?” Mike searched for Will's eye contact, failing. Will suddenly found a deep interest in the napkin he had been tearing apart for half an hour now. He used to do that to keep his focus on conversations, or when he was nervous but didn't want to fidget with his hands and give away his true state.
“Yeah, he actually plays too,” he sharply dropped the napkin, completely forgetting about it and holding his boyfriend's right hand. “He loves it,” a grin directed to Carlton.
“We should play a campaign together sometime!” He added, just like someone who adds another piece of wood to the bonfire.
“That sounds nice,” Dustin commented.
“Yeah! It's been a while since the last one,” Lucas echoed. “I kind of miss it.”
“You miss only rolling a one three times in a row and killing us all?” Max teased him.
“Yeah, kinda.” He shrugged while laughing.
Carlton stood up with an apologetic and angelical smile, and said “sorry, gotta go to the bathroom real quick.”
The party started talking between them while Mike zoned out.
So, he was objectively handsome, soft-spoken, kind, funny, treated Will how he deserved it, wasn't scared of holding hands in public, got along with the party and liked D&D.
Yeah, he despised him.
Mike knew he was being irrational, but his “instinct” excuse was shielding him for now. For now, until he arrived home and processed his thoughts. Well, there were no thoughts, to be fair, there were just feelings. And those feelings were all tinted in red.
He sighed. Sipped from his glass and concluded that he probably just needed to breathe. He would probably reach the conclusion that he is just worried about his best friend, getting a little bit overprotective and meaninglessly judging Carlton.
He looked at Will, chatting with their friends. He looked happy. He genuinely did. His face was glowing, more than it usually did.
Mike decided to take a step back. He was just hallucinating. Now, with Carlton gone and Will's grin from ear to ear, he felt at ease. Yeah, he could handle it. He freaked out over nothing. Will was ok, so he was ok.
“What’s his character?” Mike asked, unconsciously mirroring Will's smile. It was contagious.
The question came out of nowhere, cutting their friends’ current conversation, causing a shared look of confusion.
“He is a… Rogue,” Will answered, remembering it on the spot.
“Ooh! So he stole your heart!” Dustin said with a teasing tone, making everyone giggle at the stupid joke.
“Ha, ha, ha” Mike was really trying his best. He promises he didn't intend for the laugh to sound so fake, but it did.
No one commented on it, thankfully.
“So, do you guys like him?” Will asked, a blush accentuating his skin.
“He seems really nice, to be honest,” Lucas said.
“Yeah, he seems cool.” Dustin agreed.
“Do you like him?” Max asked.
Mike snapped his head in her direction. It sounded like something he would have said but wouldn't. Why could she say it? Maybe his instinct was right and he had some type of right to feel overprotective over Will.
“Yes,” Will nodded, not being able to stop his smile. “I really do like him,” he was too shy to continue, but everyone was attentively listening to him, so he did. “He makes me feel safe, I don't even know how I bagged him to be honest,” he let out an incredulous laughter.
Mike looked behind him, seeing how Carlton just exited the bathroom and was approaching them. Everyone noticed too and waited for him to sit again with them.
“Were you guys talking shit about me?”
Mike wishes.
Dustin laughed, “nah, not yet.”
“How did you guys meet?” Mike didn’t even know where he got the courage to ask that question. Make the Brave possessed him, he guessed. Or maybe it was the rational part of him left, finally putting his guard down and allowing himself to be happy for his best friend.
Will seemed surprised by the question, but quickly answered the question. “I was hanging out with some friends at a gay bar and he just approached me and started shamelessly flirting with me,” there was a mocking tone in his words.
“That's not what happened,” Carlton protested, playfully pushing Will.
They were flirting in front of him.
He would hang himself without hesitation if a rope descended from the ceiling right now.
He tried to unbutton one button from his shirt, as casual as possible.
“I mean, I wouldn't be surprised,” Lucas interrupted. “This guy was a magnet for all the girls back in our school.”
“Oh, is that so?” More flirting from Carlton.
“So, what's the real story?” Mike cut the moment, abruptly asking. Again.
“Well, we were looking at each other the whole night so I decided to take the first step myself since he is a coward,” he teased.
“Oh, wow.” Will faked indignation.
Mike looked at the other's faces, trying to find his own same expression on theirs, but miserably failed. Everyone was invested but him.
“It's true! If it was for you we would still be looking at each other in that club, babe.”
A pet name.
Mike chuckled to himself, making it seem he laughed at Carlton’s tasteless joke.
He remembered how once, when they were younger and didn't even know what a Demogorgon was, Will expressed his disgust for pet names.
That was years ago, though. People changed. But Mike still remembered.
He hated getting older, colder and out of tune with his younger version. His clever version.
Nowadays he just felt dumb and empty of all coherent thoughts.
“Yeah, ok. Gotta give you that one,” Will ended up giving in.
Carlton said something along the lines of feeling triumphant and then he put his arm around Will's shoulders, moving him closer to him.
Mike's eyes involuntarily rolled.
And when he looked away, Max's eyes were on him.
Oh.
Oh, she noticed. She noticed and she was looking at him as if she was trying to decipher on the spot.
And then she blinked, and her face changed. She knew.
She noticed and she knew.
Mike didn't even know what she knew that he didn't, but he felt brutally naked for a mere motion of his eyes.
It didn't mean anything, probably. He was just tired, and irritated and still dealing day by day with grief. Well, they all were. But still, he had more of a right to be more pissed off about everything. And even though he was actually dealing with El’s non-existence pretty well, that night he had the right to be pissed off.
At least he didn't ruin anyone's night, Mike thought. He could have been so much worse, but he didn't cross any lines, he just rolled his eyes for fucks sake. Couldn't a guy just roll his eyes because his best friend was dating the perfect guy? He was so obnoxious and he knew Max would agree with him.
Maybe what was on her face was agreement? Understanding?
Whatever it was, Max decided to throw it all through the window and ruin his night.
“We should all go party,” she blurted out. “Since we are all together and we have a new addition to the group.”
Oh Mike hated how that last phrase sounded. “New addition.”
He thanked the fact that boyfriends never lasted forever, he knew firsthand, and that later on in life Will would find a new one that would actually be not so annoying and easy to dislike.
Everyone agreed with Max except Dustin, who said he had to study all night. Mike tried to escape from the whole thing too, but he couldn't. He said that he couldn't really take alcohol, and that he didn't really want to carry a hangover the next day. Which wasn't a lie, but Max just never fucking gives up ever.
After he agreed, to rub salt in the wound, she said “cool! now it'll be a double date and… Mike.”
He just decided to ignore her.
Ignore her, ignore the lights blinding his eyes, the music blasting his ears, the eighth shot burning his throat, the overstimulating sweat all over his body, Carlton's disguised hand on Will's waist, Will's massive laugh every time his boyfriend would whisper something in his ear.
“Hey! You ok!?” Her voice impacted his skull, yelling at his ear because of the music.
“Suuuure,” he lied, breaking the first rule about drunk people. His back to Will and Carlton, he had seen enough that night. Felt enough hate that night.
“Why were you being so fucking weird earlier?” Max questioned, which was something he couldn't, for his dear life, answer properly at the moment.
He just wanted to go to sleep and dream about a certain Rogue getting eaten by a dragon.
“I don't know,” he said, not pronouncing any vowels properly. “I wasn't being weird,” he caught himself almost telling the truth, so he lied again. Getting defensive.
“What would you think if I rolled my eyes at Will and his boyfriend?”
“That you are homophobic…?”
“Are you homophobic!?”
“No! I'm not fucking homophobic!”
“Then what the fuck is your problem!?”
Mike, with all the shots getting to his brain, could only shrug and move his hands in the air, trying to express his behavior as just he not knowing either. He didn't know what was his problem, and being jailed in this club wasn't helping him.
“I…”
He shrugged again, but then his shoulders fell and he let out the deepest sigh of his life. He then turned around and looked at Will and his boyfriend.
They were dancing together, having fun. They were close but not enough to be called a slur in the middle of the dancing floor. Carlton was clever with the way he would interact with Will. Close enough to be having fun together, but not incriminated enough to attract weird looks around them.
He was also smart. Another fucking adjective added to the long list.
Was he really like that? Was he really all the words in that damn list? Or was he faking them all and in the privacy of his home would be absolutely the opposite? Would he collapse from exhaustion in his sheep costume and then sink his fangs into his best friend?
Were there always two Wills? Because, right now, there were. His vision was betraying him, but something was clear.
Will’s face hurt from smiling so much. He let himself be guided by Carlton, blindly. And maybe that was the problem, right? His best friend was always so trusting and believed always in the good of others.
That's why he was his best friend. Because even though Mike was useless and pathetic, somehow he saw something shining in him. He saw an armor and a sword. Shining bright. A heart. His heart.
“I think I'm gonna go,” Mike finally blurted out, his feet betraying him.
After that, everything went blurred. He knew Lucas and Max helped him walk, but after a while, he was in a car. He was laying down on the back seats, his whole world spinning. He then felt his bed against his cheek, but this time it was only one person who dragged him there.
It wasn't Lucas, this person didn't have enough biceps to be him, and it wasn't Max either, because she didn't care enough about him to help him like that. And this person smelled like wood and Autumn leaves, he knew because he vaguely remembers snuggling this person and sinking his nose in the crook of his neck.
He was drunk, that was a good excuse.
Drunk, instinct and overprotective.
Mike was a natural when it came to choosing what came second to his mind.
But, for that night, it didn't matter anymore.
He had a weak memory of holding someone's soft hand and asking them to stay. He felt like he won the lottery, so that person probably agreed on his petition.
He fell asleep immediately after.
His cheek felt damp against his sheets.
Mike Wheeler was pathetic.